Joe shook his head. “No, you don’t. I know you’re more experienced with Hartwick, but that isn’t necessarily a helpful thing. If he sees you, he might be more guarded than he would be with just Lincoln and me. He probably assumes you know some of his background, and that might hurt us more than it would help us. As it is now, you’re the ace up our sleeve. Let’s not throw you on the table just yet.”

Kinkaid pursed his lips and exhaled heavily, his face forming an angry pout, like a child trying unsuccessfully to whistle.

“Joe’s right,” I said. “Right now Hartwick thinks we’re clueless. And, while we don’t know much, what we do know is thanks to you. The longer we can keep him off balance, keep him feeling smart and in control, the better chance we have of figuring out what he’s doing here.”

I almost believed what I was saying. In some aspects, it was true, but it wasn’t the real reason I wanted Kinkaid kept out of the meeting. He’d been honest with us so far, and I had to give him credit for that, but I wasn’t used to working with him. Joe and I had interviewed hundreds of people together, we knew how to work as a team, and I didn’t want Kinkaid’s presence disrupting that. And I had no idea how he’d perform under fire if something did go wrong. If Hartwick was setting us up, Kinkaid could be a liability.

“You mind if I smoke in your office?” Kinkaid asked about ten minutes later, breaking what had become a fairly long silence as we waited to hear from Hartwick again.

“Prefer you didn’t,” Joe said. “I can’t stand the stench of stale smoke, and it’s too cold to open the windows.”

“No sweat. I’ll step outside for a few minutes.”

He left, and I turned to Joe, thankful for the opportunity to discuss things without Kinkaid in the room. “What do you think of him?”

“Kinkaid?” He shrugged. “He lied to me once, and he tried to hit it with his partner’s wife. Makes him an asshole, right? But his desire to help us out now seems legitimate, and, love him or hate him, you have to admit he can be useful to us. He knows Weston, and he’s already been helpful with Hartwick. I say we let him string along with us for a while. This case is heavy already, and there’s no harm in having a little help with it.”

“That’s about how I feel,” I said. “His track record seems a little suspect, but if he can help us, I don’t give a damn who he wants to sleep with. If we can find Julie Weston, he can have her.”

“You’re sticking with the idea that she and the girl are alive.”

“Got to stick with it. The other option is too depressing.”

CHAPTER 11

AFTER PARTING ways with Wayne Weston, Aaron Kinkaid had moved to Sandusky to work as the chief investigator for an established security company. A few years later he’d become part owner, and now he ran business operations alone, with a silent partner. He told us this as we sat in the office, waiting impatiently for Hartwick to call.

“How’d you end up in the business to begin with?” Joe asked. “You weren’t a cop?”

“No, I was never a cop.” Kinkaid gave a sheepish grin. “I know how pathetic this sounds, but, to be honest, I liked the way it looked in the movies. You know, Bogart as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe? Or Nicholson in Chinatown? Man, I ate that stuff up when I was younger. I was in college, studying business marketing, anticipating a life of hyping paint thinner to hardware stores or some crap like that, but at night I’d go home and watch those old movies on TV and think about how much I’d like to have that job. The constant change intrigued me, the idea that a mysterious client could walk into your office any day and put you in the middle of something…” The words died off as Kinkaid stared at the wall, lost in his memories. He shook his head, bringing himself back into reality.

“Funny,” he said, “I went into the business for the intrigue, and now I’m running a security company, dealing more with marketing ploys and bottom-line figures than I am with investigation. I basically ended up doing the same thing I set out to avoid.”

“It works like that sometimes,” I said, and Joe looked at me with an understanding Kinkaid couldn’t share. After being forced to leave the department, I’d attempted to leave all the remains of my old life behind with the badge. I’d cut ties with almost everyone on the force, and I’d purchased the gym and plunged into work as a small business owner. It had been several months before Amy had convinced me to look into the murder of one of my gym patrons and pushed me back into the life I’d tried to abandon. Somewhere along the line, I’d realized what a mistake I’d made. I couldn’t be happy in the business world. I fed off the investigative process, off the questions and the answers, the unknowns and the facts. I fed off the pursuit of truth. It was what made me complete, what gave my life purpose. I wouldn’t try to leave it behind again.

“I remember Bogart as Spade,” Joe said, breaking in on my thoughts. “I was a kid when I saw it, and I’ve got plenty of years on either of you. Hell of an old movie. Who wrote the book?”

“Dashiell Hammett,” Kinkaid and I said in unison, and then all of us laughed.

“What was it about that story that grabbed people so much?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, yeah, the movie was well done, and Bogart was a phenomenal actor, but what about the story itself? How’d that one endure so well? Hell, the book’s still in print after seventy years.”

“It’s all in the ending,” Kinkaid said. “The idea that Spade’s loyalty to his partner means more to him than money or love. He didn’t like his partner much-he’s even sleeping with the guy’s wife-but he’s still got that loyalty…”

He stopped talking abruptly, his mouth still half open, as we all realized what he was saying. Joe and I looked away, and for the first time since he’d entered the office, Kinkaid seemed unsure of himself. I knew why. Kinkaid wasn’t in this case because of loyalty to his partner. He was in the case because he still loved Weston’s wife. If anything, he viewed Weston’s death as an opportunity.

“So,” he said awkwardly, then laughed at himself. He was spared further comment by the ring of the phone. Joe picked it up.

“Pritchard and Perry. Yeah, this is Joe Pritchard. You talked to Lincoln before, he’s my partner. You need to hear the comfort of his voice this time, or can we handle this? Uh-huh. Right.”

Unlike the clerk at the Golden Breakers, this caller spoke in a soft voice, so Kinkaid and I could only hear one side of the conversation, but it clearly was Hartwick. We waited. Joe said a few more words, but nothing that suggested what was being discussed, and then hung up.

“He’ll meet with us,” he said. “But it’s a hell of a place he picked out.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Just down the avenue. You know the little cluster of picnic tables behind the take-out Chinese place?”

I took a moment to place the scene in my mind and then nodded. “I can picture it.”

“That’s where he wants to meet. Seems like a strange choice.”

I shook my head. “Makes good sense, actually.”

“How do you figure?”

“Think about it, Joe. If you’re sitting at one of those picnic tables, you’ve got a clear view of everything in front of you and on either side, and the cemetery fence protects your back. There are three parking lots bordering that Chinese place. If he has his car up there, he could get out in a hurry, make a right turn onto the side street and head for Chatfield, pull out on the avenue and head in either direction, or even cut all the way through the Ford dealership parking lot.”

“I’ve already figured that out,” he said. “That’s why it’s a good choice for someone afraid of being set up. But I thought we were playing that role?”

It was a good point. I’d automatically considered the location from the perspective of someone looking to avoid danger. If I were looking to cause it, the location wasn’t so good after all. There was too much open space, and visibility was too good.