Survival Clause, стр. 75

Mullinax blinked. Hard to say if it was because of guilty conscience or just surprise. “Of course on I-65. It’s the closest interstate to us.” He didn’t add, ‘you twit,’ but it was clearly implied.

“Indiana?” Grimaldi asked. “Kentucky?”

“We mostly take it down to the Florida Keys. We have a piece of land there, where we plug in for a few weeks and enjoy the water. Although we’ve taken it out west once, to see the Grand Canyon. And up to New England two years ago, for the fall colors. We drove up through Virginia and New York, though. Not Kentucky and Ohio.” He looked from one to the other of us, and if he had any idea what we were getting at, he showed no sign of it. “What’s any of this got to do with Kent?”

“Nothing,” Grimaldi said. “We’re missing a federal agent.”

Mullinax blinked again. “Excuse me?”

“An FBI agent named Leslie Yung,” Rafe told him. “Pretty. Long, black hair. Went into the woods with the other two this morning. And vanished.”

“In my woods?” Mullinax chuckled. “They’re not that big. She couldn’t have gotten lost. Either she’d have wound up here, or she’d have found a road or a field.”

“She found the road,” Grimaldi said. “Someone picked her up.”

Mullinax shook his head. “Wasn’t me. I’ve been here all morning.”

“Can you prove that?”

He looked at me, since I was the one who had asked. “My word isn’t good enough?”

I opened my mouth to explain that under the circumstances, it really wasn’t. But before I could, he’d continued. “I had breakfast with my wife. Then Jacob stopped by to work on the RV. It was making a sort of grinding noise on the way home from Key West last week. Then you showed up with the sheriff…” He glanced at Rafe.

My husband nodded. “You were in Key West last week?”

“Came home Thursday afternoon,” Mullinax said, and moved on to the next thing. Or maybe in his mind it was the same thing. “I understand about Kent. There are bones in my woods, and there’s the connection to Noah, and you gotta ask questions. But why’d I want to make an FBI agent disappear? That’d be stupid. And wouldn’t do much to help my case anyway. The bones are still there, right?”

Probably not anymore, but I got what he was saying. And what’s more, if he’d been in Key West last week, he couldn’t have been in Nashville picking up Ramona Mitchell.

But just for form’s sake I asked, “Which way do you travel to and from Key West?”

“I-65 to Montgomery,” Mullinax said promptly, “331 to I-10, and I-10 across to I-75.”

I nodded. Much the same way Rafe and I had traveled on our honeymoon, as it happened.

You’ll notice Nashville wasn’t mentioned. That’s because it’s in the opposite direction, north of Columbia. But just to make sure… “You didn’t go by Nashville?”

He gave me a look like I’d lost my mind. “No. What kind of fool would do that?”

Rafe’s lips curved, and he put his free hand on my shoulder. “The body of a prostitute was dumped at the truck stop out by the interstate Wednesday night.”

Mullinax nodded. “Heard about that. Saw the crime scene tape when we drove by.”

“We think the killer might be local,” Grimaldi said. “Someone who travels up and down I-65. Someone with access to a truck or a motor home.”

She avoided rather ostentatiously looking at it, but Mullinax got the point.

“Oh, no.” He took a step back and lifted his hands. “No, no. You’re not pinning that on me. Kent, that’s one thing. I get why you have to look at me for that. Noah was my nephew, and what Kent did to him was terrible. Ruined the boy’s life. But not this other thing. And not the FBI lady. I had nothing to do with that. You ask my wife. She was with me in Florida, and on the way home. She’ll tell you we didn’t go by Nashville, and that we didn’t pick up any hitchhikers.”

None of us pointed out that the dead woman hadn’t been hitchhiking.

“Where can we find your wife?” Grimaldi wanted to know, and Mullinax turned to her.

“She went to do her volunteer work at the homeless shelter. Every Monday and Thursday when we’re here, she and Bonnie go to the homeless shelter and cook and read to the kids.”

“Bonnie?” Grimaldi said.

“Drimmel. Jacob’s wife.”

Of course. She hadn’t mentioned her first name when we’d been there on… must have been Friday.

“So that was Jacob Drimmel,” Grimaldi said, “who was here, working on your RV?”

Mullinax nodded. “He left about an hour ago. Needed a part before he can finish the job, and it won’t be in for a couple of days.”

“His wife told us he’s a diesel mechanic. That’s a diesel engine, I assume?”

Mullinax nodded. “Much better mileage with diesel.”

“That’s what I hear.” She smiled at him. “You two go back a ways, don’t you? Was it Jacob who helped you carry Kent Jurgensson’s body into the woods back then?”

Mullinax took a step back, and she added, “You were golf buddies, right? You and Jacob, Kent Jurgensson and Sid. I don’t think Sid helped you dispose of the body—”

I shook my head.

“—and I don’t imagine your wife would have been able to, even then—”

Rafe shook his head.

“—but you must have had help. You were younger then, but he wasn’t a small man. And dead weight—pardon the expression—is heavy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mullinax said, but his voice was hoarse, like he had a hard time getting the words out.

“No?” Grimaldi tilted her head. “Maybe Jacob Drimmel can help us.”

Mullinax cleared his throat. “He isn’t here. I told you, he left. Needed a part.”

“Where would he have gone, do you think? Home?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Mullinax demanded. “Probably. He would have stopped somewhere to order the part, and then yes, he’d probably have gone home. He’s got this old car he’s working on fixing up…”

“Thank you,