Free Night Relics by James P. Blaylock Page A

alone?”
    “That’s the ticket. No crime’s been committed as far as I know. Nobody’s suspected of anything.”
    “What do I expect from them? Will they hold me on suspicion of something?”
    “Of what?” Detective Slater shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t expect anything except a few questions. Like I said, nobody’s
    under suspicion. If there’s no bodies and no evidence of anything, then there’s no investigation beyond the information taken
    from the hiker and the ranger a week ago. If bodies turn up, and if they’re identified as your wife and son, then you can
    bet the sheriff’s going tocome looking for you. Right now all you’ve got to do is drive out to Santa Ana and tell them what you told me. I’ll file two
    missing-persons reports and we’ll see what comes up. Meanwhile I’ll send them out copies of the photos and fingerprints you
    gave me. That’s about it. If you think of something, though, or find out anything, come straight back here.”
    “Right,” Peter said. “Thanks.”
    The detective stood up and put his pen into his pocket. It was over, this part was. He shook Peter’s hand and walked him out
    to the door, explaining where the sheriff’s department was again, where to park, who to ask for. Together they stepped outside,
    into a sheltered alcove between buildings. Even there, leaves and debris blew along the concrete and out toward the street.
    “Wind won’t quit this year,” Slater said.
    Peter nodded. He couldn’t think of anything to say. The small-talk center in his brain had been temporarily shut down. He
    wondered if that wasn’t one of the things you lost forever if you became insane.
    “You know, maybe there’s other explanations for this,” the detective said, making no move to go back in. “I don’t mean the
    bodies out in the canyon, I mean your wife disappearing.”
    “What’s that?” Peter asked.
    “How about custody kidnap? What was the deal there? You say you were separated but not divorced. Was she happy with the arrangements?
    She got to keep the kid? The house?”
    “She would keep David weekdays. He can go to the neighborhood schools that way. He stays with me weekends, holidays, summer
    vacations. My schedule’s good that way.”
    “That’s carved in stone?”
    “It will be in another couple of months.”
    “And she likes that? Lot of mothers wouldn’t give a child up that easily, you know. That’s a pretty modernidea—sharing custody. Sometimes that kind of thing looks good in theory, but actually doing it is a different thing. How do
    you know she didn’t just take the kid and go? Move to the east or something?”
    “She wouldn’t do that.” Peter said this with conviction. Almost at once, though, he wondered how sure he was about it. “Impossible,”
    he said, after a moment. “Why dump money into airplane tickets to Hawaii? Why leave a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks
    behind, along with your luggage and clothes?”
    “Why
not
do all that? If you’re putting one over on the world, you want to do a job of it. Convinced the hell out of
you,
didn’t it? She have any money? Enough to be independent of you?”
    “She has enough. More than me, really—better job. It’s me that’ll have to tighten the belt. And she owns the house that her
    parents lived in before they died.”
    “The house here in Orange. Is that hers?”
    “Technically it’s both of ours still,” Peter said. “It’ll be hers when the papers are final.”
    “What I’d do, maybe, if I were her, is take out a big second, or a home equity loan on her parents’ place. Lot of equity in
    that house, I’d guess, if she owns it outright? Then I’d throw a little of it away on airplane tickets and traveler’s checks,
    set up my husband, and walk away with the kid. She could move out of state and do pretty well. It would cost her, but I’ll
    guarantee you there’s people all over the country doing it right now. It’s a popular crime. Some states