Читать книгу Last Song Sung - David A. Poulsen - Страница 11

Cobb arrived just after nine and came, as he always did, bearing gifts: Starbucks coffee and bakery items that had definitely not come from Starbucks.

Before we sat down to coffee, I showed him around the place, augmenting the tour with commentary explaining Kennedy’s way of conducting the surveillance and recording of what he observed. Cobb was silent during the tour of the two rooms, nodding occasionally but offering no comment until we were sitting at the kitchen table, coffee poured and butterhorns warmed and buttered.

“He hasn’t spared any expense,” Cobb commented after a sip of the Pike Place.

I nodded. “State-of-the-art equipment, and up to date, meaning he must upgrade fairly regularly.”

Neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes, but I noticed Cobb shaking his head.

“What?”

“Damned sad,” he said in a soft voice. “You spend virtually every hour of your life staring at two places; you spend all your money making that possible, and the first break you take from it in over twenty years is to be with your ex-wife while she’s dying. I’d say that’s pretty damned sad.”

Kyla had expressed much the same sentiment.

“Can’t argue that.” I broke off a piece of the butterhorn, chewed, and swallowed. I looked at Cobb. “You ever tell anybody about …” I looked around the room. “About this? About finding Kennedy? Any of the guys you both worked with?”

Cobb shook his head. “Didn’t think that would be a good idea.”

I nodded, and that was the end of conversation until we’d finished eating. I topped up the coffee with some I’d brewed before Cobb had arrived. He snapped open an old-school briefcase and pulled out a long manila file folder thick with pages.

I looked at the folder as he removed a long elastic band from around it. He extracted an envelope, reached inside, and pulled out several photographs. He didn’t say anything until he had them spread out on the table between us.

I scooched my chair around a bit to get a better look at them. Cobb pointed. “There are more, but this is a pretty good representation. This one,” he said, laying a hand on one of the photos, “is Jerry Farkash. He played guitar and occasionally keyboards. And that’s Duke Prego, who played bass; he had joined the group only a couple of months before they came west.”