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Authors: John D. MacDonald
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he looked like a mild man, I would not want to irritate him and not have a little card from Boggs to keep him in check. He exhaled and let his white knuckles relax.
"We got a lot of calls. After the whole thing went on the wire services, we got calls he was seen in Tacoma and on Maui and in Scranton, P A. People called up and said that if there was a reward they'd tell us where to come pick him up. Key West, Detroit, Montreal. Everybody knew right where Hub Lawless was hiding. When a man has money and you can't find the body, these calls always come in."
"But that-"
"Wait until I finish. We don't. have the budget to check out all that nonsense. But we check out what looks possible. Just ten days ago in the Tuesday mail we got a letter from Orlando. There was a slide in it, in a cardboard mount. There was a typed note in with the slide. I've got a copy here of what the note said, and a print made from the slide."
He read me the note. "The man in this picture I took looks like the man in the newspaper pictures. I took this picture on Friday April eighth in Guadalajara. I can't give you my name or address because my boyfriend thinks I was in San Diego visiting my sister.'"
The print was a four-by-five, sharp and clear. It showed a sidewalk cafe, a sunny street; traffic, buses, buildings in the distance, nearby shops with signs in Spanish. There were several tables occupied. A man sat alone at one of them, off to the left. He was almost facing the camera. He was carefully pouring what was evidently beer into his glass.
Hack Ames came around the desk, leaned over my shoulder, and tapped that beer-pouring fellow with his finger. "Hub. No doubt of it. We projected that slide as big as we could with the best projector we could locate. Hell, it even shows the detail of his ring, the little scar at the corner of his mouth. The experts say it was taken on Ektachrome X with a good-quality lens that was a medium-wide angle, like maybe thirty-five millimeters. It was developed at one of the Kodak regional labs, and the date stamp in the cardboard of the mount says April. You can see that she wasn't trying to take a picture of Hub. I think she didn't even know what she had until she got the slides and used a viewer or a projector."
Hubbard Lawless was wearing an open khaki jacket with short sleeves over a yellow T-shirt. He had a blunt cheerful face, snub nose, bland brow, thinning blond hair combed and sprayed to hide the paucity of it. His hands were big, his forearms thick and muscular. He wore a small frown of concentration as he poured his beer.
"So it places him in Guadalajara a month and a half ago. That's where your deputy and the insurance investigator went?"
"With copies of this picture. Wright Fletcher is a very hard worker. He'll show that picture to ten thousand people if he has to. But they're going to concentrate on the clinics."
"Clinics?"
"That's the world center for cosmetic surgery. l.ifts, nose jobs, hair plants. There are dozens of very qualified surgeons working down there."
"Makes sense."
"If he's been and gone, there'll be before-and-after pictures in the files. That and this picture and the date of the operation would prove he didn't drown when he allegedly fell off the Julie."
"What about Kristin Petersen?"
"You mean is she with Hub? It looks that way. Funny thing. A man gets to be forty and he gets itchy, and it's usually a woman sets him off, trying for a different kind of life. It happens every day. But most men, when they go off the deep end, they don't influence the lives of so many other people. They don't raise such hell with a community. This has upset a lot of applecarts."
"We're staying at the North Bay Resort. Maybe you could let me know if your deputy finds out anything."
Page 25
"I don't exactly see where you fit into this."
"We fit where Mr. Boggs said we fit."
"Sure," said the Sheriff. "Great."
"Can I keep the picture?"
"If you want it. We had a lot made."
"Are the city police
"We got a lot of calls. After the whole thing went on the wire services, we got calls he was seen in Tacoma and on Maui and in Scranton, P A. People called up and said that if there was a reward they'd tell us where to come pick him up. Key West, Detroit, Montreal. Everybody knew right where Hub Lawless was hiding. When a man has money and you can't find the body, these calls always come in."
"But that-"
"Wait until I finish. We don't. have the budget to check out all that nonsense. But we check out what looks possible. Just ten days ago in the Tuesday mail we got a letter from Orlando. There was a slide in it, in a cardboard mount. There was a typed note in with the slide. I've got a copy here of what the note said, and a print made from the slide."
He read me the note. "The man in this picture I took looks like the man in the newspaper pictures. I took this picture on Friday April eighth in Guadalajara. I can't give you my name or address because my boyfriend thinks I was in San Diego visiting my sister.'"
The print was a four-by-five, sharp and clear. It showed a sidewalk cafe, a sunny street; traffic, buses, buildings in the distance, nearby shops with signs in Spanish. There were several tables occupied. A man sat alone at one of them, off to the left. He was almost facing the camera. He was carefully pouring what was evidently beer into his glass.
Hack Ames came around the desk, leaned over my shoulder, and tapped that beer-pouring fellow with his finger. "Hub. No doubt of it. We projected that slide as big as we could with the best projector we could locate. Hell, it even shows the detail of his ring, the little scar at the corner of his mouth. The experts say it was taken on Ektachrome X with a good-quality lens that was a medium-wide angle, like maybe thirty-five millimeters. It was developed at one of the Kodak regional labs, and the date stamp in the cardboard of the mount says April. You can see that she wasn't trying to take a picture of Hub. I think she didn't even know what she had until she got the slides and used a viewer or a projector."
Hubbard Lawless was wearing an open khaki jacket with short sleeves over a yellow T-shirt. He had a blunt cheerful face, snub nose, bland brow, thinning blond hair combed and sprayed to hide the paucity of it. His hands were big, his forearms thick and muscular. He wore a small frown of concentration as he poured his beer.
"So it places him in Guadalajara a month and a half ago. That's where your deputy and the insurance investigator went?"
"With copies of this picture. Wright Fletcher is a very hard worker. He'll show that picture to ten thousand people if he has to. But they're going to concentrate on the clinics."
"Clinics?"
"That's the world center for cosmetic surgery. l.ifts, nose jobs, hair plants. There are dozens of very qualified surgeons working down there."
"Makes sense."
"If he's been and gone, there'll be before-and-after pictures in the files. That and this picture and the date of the operation would prove he didn't drown when he allegedly fell off the Julie."
"What about Kristin Petersen?"
"You mean is she with Hub? It looks that way. Funny thing. A man gets to be forty and he gets itchy, and it's usually a woman sets him off, trying for a different kind of life. It happens every day. But most men, when they go off the deep end, they don't influence the lives of so many other people. They don't raise such hell with a community. This has upset a lot of applecarts."
"We're staying at the North Bay Resort. Maybe you could let me know if your deputy finds out anything."
Page 25
"I don't exactly see where you fit into this."
"We fit where Mr. Boggs said we fit."
"Sure," said the Sheriff. "Great."
"Can I keep the picture?"
"If you want it. We had a lot made."
"Are the city police
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