Read Online The Blue Hour by T. Jefferson Parker - Free Book Online
Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
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things. On a job like this. I remember thinking I'd
watch that walkway at 8:42 every night from then on out. I started dreaming up
ways to find out if she was married, maybe ask her out, but I couldn't come up
with anything good. No point in that now, right?"
No suspicious men.
Nothing unusual.
Except for Janet
Kane, just another boring night.
• • •
Robbie Jillson answered
the door in shorts and a T-shirt and acknowledged Hess with a tired nod. He was
a handsome young man with a surfer's bowlish haircut and the first touches of
gray appearing just above his sideburns. Hess noted the big knots built up on
the tops of his feet by years of lying on a surfboard. Part owner of a
beachwear company, Hess remembered, "Pure Risk" or "Risk
All" or something like that. Had the brains to leave his wife's car
undisturbed because he knew she'd been taken.
"The kids are at
camp until six," he said.
Hess was pleased but not
surprised that Robbie Jillson had gotten together the things he'd asked him to.
Robbie showed him into the library. It had a view of the hillsides to the east.
There were high bookshelves with ladders to get to them and a very large
burnished desk. On the desk were pictures of Robbie and Lael Jillson and their
children. It was the prettiest family Hess had ever seen. He thought they were
just the kind of people you'd expect to find in this house. It was a good
family until the mother got careless and thought she could go shopping alone.
Robbie brought Hess a
fruit drink and closed the door behind him. Hess could feel the waft of the air
conditioner on his scalp, and the drink made his teeth feel like they were
being squeezed. He ran through the cleared checks and listed the same kinds of
parties he'd listed in Janet Kane's house. He'd hoped for some connection
between the two cars, but there was none he could find. Nothing popped. There
was an overlap in bottled water service—Mountain High Springs— but a call to
the company confirmed that the delivery routes were different. Yes, Hess
elicited from the district delivery manager, it was possible that a fill-in
driver could have delivered at both residences. Yes, all new drivers started
as fillins, to get experience. But the manager said it was impossible to check
back for a year, even six months, because every quarter the weekly route
schedules went back to corporate. Hess would have to take it up with them and
she gave him the number. He thanked her because patience was the linchpin of
any investigation and of Hess's soul.
He was surprised to find
Lael Jillson's diary included in the box full of personal, medical and
financial information that he had requested. There was a gummed yellow tag on
it that said, "I've never looked at this, but you can if it will
help—RJ."
He opened to the last
entry and read in Lael's graceful hand:
June 2—A rare afternoon alone in the
house here. Robbie and the kids gone surfing at Old Man's but I didn't want to
go this time. Too much sun these days, feel like I'm drying up. Sometimes I
like it just like this: me and the mansion and the air conditioner off and the
windows open and a giant G&T or two, and just me. No talk, no noise, no
nothing. For about an hour, maybe, then I start missing them. Sometimes I think
there's not quite enough of me to entertain me for long. It's a problem, I
know, but I've chosen to raise children rather than develop myself. Robbie says
children shouldn't be an excuse. But then Robbie has never complained about my
lack of a me, either. Sometimes I don't know why he loves me. Sometimes, like
today, when I look around me I see all this bounty I don't deserve and I wonder
if it's Ike they say—what goes around comes around and karma and all that
stuff—and someday everything you don't deserve in the first place will be taken
away and then some. Because if you have so much more than you deserve to have
what's to keep you from losing more than you deserve to lose1 Oh well, too much
G&T and
watch that walkway at 8:42 every night from then on out. I started dreaming up
ways to find out if she was married, maybe ask her out, but I couldn't come up
with anything good. No point in that now, right?"
No suspicious men.
Nothing unusual.
Except for Janet
Kane, just another boring night.
• • •
Robbie Jillson answered
the door in shorts and a T-shirt and acknowledged Hess with a tired nod. He was
a handsome young man with a surfer's bowlish haircut and the first touches of
gray appearing just above his sideburns. Hess noted the big knots built up on
the tops of his feet by years of lying on a surfboard. Part owner of a
beachwear company, Hess remembered, "Pure Risk" or "Risk
All" or something like that. Had the brains to leave his wife's car
undisturbed because he knew she'd been taken.
"The kids are at
camp until six," he said.
Hess was pleased but not
surprised that Robbie Jillson had gotten together the things he'd asked him to.
Robbie showed him into the library. It had a view of the hillsides to the east.
There were high bookshelves with ladders to get to them and a very large
burnished desk. On the desk were pictures of Robbie and Lael Jillson and their
children. It was the prettiest family Hess had ever seen. He thought they were
just the kind of people you'd expect to find in this house. It was a good
family until the mother got careless and thought she could go shopping alone.
Robbie brought Hess a
fruit drink and closed the door behind him. Hess could feel the waft of the air
conditioner on his scalp, and the drink made his teeth feel like they were
being squeezed. He ran through the cleared checks and listed the same kinds of
parties he'd listed in Janet Kane's house. He'd hoped for some connection
between the two cars, but there was none he could find. Nothing popped. There
was an overlap in bottled water service—Mountain High Springs— but a call to
the company confirmed that the delivery routes were different. Yes, Hess
elicited from the district delivery manager, it was possible that a fill-in
driver could have delivered at both residences. Yes, all new drivers started
as fillins, to get experience. But the manager said it was impossible to check
back for a year, even six months, because every quarter the weekly route
schedules went back to corporate. Hess would have to take it up with them and
she gave him the number. He thanked her because patience was the linchpin of
any investigation and of Hess's soul.
He was surprised to find
Lael Jillson's diary included in the box full of personal, medical and
financial information that he had requested. There was a gummed yellow tag on
it that said, "I've never looked at this, but you can if it will
help—RJ."
He opened to the last
entry and read in Lael's graceful hand:
June 2—A rare afternoon alone in the
house here. Robbie and the kids gone surfing at Old Man's but I didn't want to
go this time. Too much sun these days, feel like I'm drying up. Sometimes I
like it just like this: me and the mansion and the air conditioner off and the
windows open and a giant G&T or two, and just me. No talk, no noise, no
nothing. For about an hour, maybe, then I start missing them. Sometimes I think
there's not quite enough of me to entertain me for long. It's a problem, I
know, but I've chosen to raise children rather than develop myself. Robbie says
children shouldn't be an excuse. But then Robbie has never complained about my
lack of a me, either. Sometimes I don't know why he loves me. Sometimes, like
today, when I look around me I see all this bounty I don't deserve and I wonder
if it's Ike they say—what goes around comes around and karma and all that
stuff—and someday everything you don't deserve in the first place will be taken
away and then some. Because if you have so much more than you deserve to have
what's to keep you from losing more than you deserve to lose1 Oh well, too much
G&T and
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