Outside the window, the State Capitol building went by on the left.Diana signaled to turn right on Fifth.“And you didn’t think to call and tell me?”
“I called Mendoza,” I said.
“Mendoza isn’t married to Steven!”
Again, she had a point.“I’m sorry.After we’re done here, we can go up there and I’ll let you listen to it.It isn’t very long.Just a few sentences.He said he’d recognized me yesterday—two days ago now—and that you must be worried.And that he wanted me to tell you something.But before he could get it out, someone came in and caught him.The girl, I guess.He said ‘Nothing,’ and hung up.I assume she asked him what he was doing.”
Diana’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.“Did she hurt him?”
“Not that I could hear,” I said.“He didn’t sound scared of her.Just like he didn’t want her to know that he’d been trying to get a message to you.”
“Why didn’t he just call me?Instead of you?”
“I have no idea,” I said.“He didn’t want to deal with you directly?You’d ask questions he didn’t want to answer?Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk to anyone in person.I wondered why he’d called the office in the middle of the night—it was around one in the morning when the call came in.He had to know nobody would be there.And Mendoza said that maybe that was the point.He wanted to leave a message, not talk to a real person.If he’d called either of us on our cell phones, we would have picked up.Even if it was the middle of the night.Especially you.”
Diana nodded.Her hands had relaxed on the wheel again.Up ahead, we could see the plaza in front of the Arena, and the barricades blocking Fifth Avenue to vehicular traffic south of Broadway.
“Maybe we should have called a cab,” I said.“It’s going to be hard to find somewhere to park.”
“Jaime said to pull behind the barricade.”She drove across the intersection and straight up to it.
The uniformed cop on duty took a couple of steps toward the car, his mouth opening.He was getting ready to tell us to beat it, I’m sure.Diana rolled down her window.She didn’t even have to speak.The young man took one look at her and nodded.“Just a second, ma’am.”He hustled to pull the barricade out of the way so Diana could drive through and up to the curb.A car that tried to sneak in behind us was summarily waved off, and left with an irritated blast of the horn.
Diana cut the engine and sat for a second without speaking or moving.The dashboard clock showed that we still had some time to spare before eleven, so I didn’t push her to move more quickly.We’d still get inside by the deadline.As for what happened after that…
“Have you gotten any further instructions about this?”I asked.If she had, she hadn’t told me about them.And the note this morning had been vague.Just ‘bring the money to the Arena,’ but nothing about what to do with it once it got there.
She shook her head.“I guess we just walk in with the bag and see what happens.”
I guessed so.“Are you ready?”
“No,” Diana said.“But I don’t think I’ll be any more ready if we sit here for another five minutes.Let’s just get it over with.”
My feelings exactly.I opened my door and got out.Diana did the same, and reached into the back seat for the duffel bag.The young cop had stepped back to guard the barricade again, but he gave us a nod as we headed inside.
The guard on the door didn’t ask us if we had tickets, he just swung the door open and let us into the building.With my newfound PI skills, I deduced that he was probably another cop—this one undercover in a Bridgestone Arena uniform—and he was expecting us.Diana gave him a pleasant smile, and we headed across the lobby just as the doors to the interior opened.
It was like opening the flood gates on Percy Priest Lake and letting the water burst over the dam.They frothed out, a mass of people in team colors.Hundreds of them.Thousands.A surging mass of humanity aiming for the doors to the outside.
I moved a little closer to Diana and looped my arm through hers, keeping the duffel bag between us.In this kind of crush, it would be only too easy to snatch it out of her hand and melt into the crowd before she even realized the bag was gone.And I was damned if I’d let whoever was behind this get away without giving us a good look at his or her face.Even if there was nothing but newspaper in the bag.
Mendoza’s face floated out of the crowd.He was scanning, and for a second, he met my eyes straight on.I almost forgot that I wasn’t supposed to know him; it was only at the last second that I remembered that he didn’t want me to give any indication that I knew who he was.But he was close to us.Maybe he’d realized, as I had, that snatching the bag in the melee as everyone was fighting their way to the exits, had been the plan all along.
Another familiar face floated out of the crowd, just in front of me.It took a second of frowning concentration before I was able to put a name with it.“Ms.Tucker?What are you doing here?”
She looked up at me.Standing, she was even smaller than she’d appeared yesterday, sitting cross-legged on her couch.Hardly more than five feet, if that.Both Diana and I towered over her.
She must have had the same problem I had, in placing a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings, because she looked from me to Diana and back to me for a second before she said, “I like hockey.”
I knew that.Or I guess I’d known it.She’d been watching a hockey game on TV yesterday, when I’d knocked on her door.If I hadn’t been so distracted by all the people, and the noise, and the seriousness of the situation, I would have remembered that.
Araminta Tucker glanced over her shoulder.“I thought I saw that handsome Detective Mendoza earlier.”
She probably had.“Maybe he likes hockey too,” I said lightly.“Ms.Tucker, this is my friend Diana Morton.Diana, Araminta Tucker.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Diana said automatically, her eyes still scanning the crowd, and then the name seemed to register.“I’m sorry… Araminta Tucker?You own the house my husband rented in Crieve Hall?”
Araminta nodded.“Yes, dear.He called me off a notice I posted at the university.Said he was looking for a place for his daughter.”
