An Absence of Light

Chapter 39

The meeting with Charlie Hertig had lasted less than forty-five minutes and by ten-fifteen Graver was walking into his office. He tossed his briefcase onto his desk and was taking off his coat when Lara came in behind him with his Charlie Chan mug filled with coffee. She closed the door behind her and put the coffee on his desk with a paper napkin.

“Oh, God, fantastic,” he said, sitting down behind his desk and pulling the coffee over in front of him. “Hertig wasn’t in any mood to offer coffee this morning. I’ve been dying for a cup.”

“How did it go?” she asked, sitting down in one of the chairs. She was wearing a straight skirt of off-white linen with a pearl-white blouse, her fingernails freshly painted, her long hair tucked up in a loose Gibson girl. He had no idea how she found the time it must take to look so perfect.

He told her about the meeting.

“That was awkward,” she said.

Graver nodded, swallowing a sip of coffee. “Very. But for once, bureaucracy is in our favor.” He looked at her. “Has the word seeped out about Besom?”

“All the way out. Some of our people found out about it this morning, while you were in the chief’s office, when they received calls from newspaper reporters asking about it.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I’ve gotten together the forms and things for his family, and I’ve talked with personnel and put the paperwork into the mill over there. This is becoming depressingly familiar.” She studied him. “You all right?”

“What’s the matter, don’t I look all right?”

“You look pretty tired.”

“I am pretty tired.” He sipped some coffee. “I’m not putting out any statements to the press, so if they call don’t even bother with them. Refer everyone to Westrate’s office. That’s something I’m not even going to worry about.”

They talked for a few minutes about the previous night, and he told her about seeing Arnette’s surveillance photographs from Burtell’s meeting at the fountain. He told her about the man and woman who were acting as countersurveillance and how he thought surely they would be the pair from La Facezia.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the same couple?” She had leaned forward slightly in her chair, fascinated by his recounting of the surveillance operation against Burtell. “I mean, what about disguises?”

“I just don’t think so. I don’t think they were even the same ‘type’ of people. But then, maybe I didn’t pay as much attention to them at La Facezia as I should have.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“This is just so incredible about Dean. I’m sorry, but I’m still finding it hard to… buy.”

Graver looked at her. “Of course you do. That’s the whole point of it.”

“But you do too.”

He nodded and could feel the weight of the whole ordeal pulling down on the flesh of his face. “That’s the whole point of it,” he repeated.

“Okay.” She nodded, dropping her eyes. “I know.”

“Now, why don’t you have all the OC people come down here.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Within fifteen minutes the nine remaining investigators had crowded into Graver’s office, sitting in the few chairs, leaning against the walls, a couple on the floor. Neuman was on the far side of the room. Graver went around behind his desk and proceeded to tell them what had happened. He was straightforward, told them everything he knew-at least what Westrate had told him-and said that, as with Tisler, they would be informed as soon as they knew anything about funeral arrangements.

He appointed Ted Leuci to be the acting squad supervisor-in Graver’s opinion he should have had the job anyway, instead of Besom-and told them if they had any questions, problems, suggestions, requests… anything, to take it to Leuci first He said he knew this was a weird set of circumstances, but sometimes life dealt these kinds of hands and all they could do was play them out as they came. It was an inane statement, but he felt he had to say something to acknowledge the eerie coincidence. He asked Leuci to stay back a moment and dismissed the rest of them.

He gave Leuci the security code to Besom’s room and told him to go in there, gather Besom’s personal things and put them in a storage box. He told him to go ahead and go through Besom’s records, and start familiarizing himself with what he had to do to keep things rolling. If he had any questions, any at all about what he found among Besom’s records, he should bring them to Graver.

After Leuci left he picked up the telephone and buzzed Paula. In a few minutes she and Neuman were walking through Graver’s door.

“It’s all over about Besom,” Paula said, quickly sitting down in front of Graver’s desk. Her hair was pulled back at the temples and fastened behind with a clasp. As always, one wrist was draped with a collection of bracelets that clacked as she gestured. Her slightly puffy eyes belied the late hours of the night before.

“Yeah, I know,” Graver said. “What have you got?”

As Paula flipped open her ever-present legal pad, Neuman sat down in another chair and crossed his arms, ready to listen to Paula’s summary. At least with one ear. He seemed preoccupied.

“We got fifteen separate pieces of paper from Valerie Heath’s garbage,” Paula began. “Three envelopes: one from Gulfstream National Bank and Trust with a window in it so we don’t know who it was addressed to. One from The Secure Maintenance Services with the name ‘Doris W.’ written on the outside; one from Excell Executive Secretarial Services with ‘Olivia M.’ written on the outside. We found seven receipts from various places, grocery, car wash, pharmacy, that kind of thing. Of these seven, five were for cash, the other two we couldn’t tell. We got three pieces of notepad paper with telephone numbers on them: one belongs to a male strippers’ club called Phallacy; another is a beauty salon called La Riviera, and the third is a bar called Maggie’s in Kemah, not too far from where she lives. We’ve also got a piece of notepaper with the name ‘Don C.’ doodled on it.”

Paula looked up and nervously wagged a yellow pencil in her fingers. “Now. Valerie was driving a new Corvette, not the vehicle listed on the vehicle and tag listed on her Contributor ID sheet in the file. Computer tells us the Corvette is in the name of Frances Rupp at some other address. Neuman got the dealer’s name off the trunk, and we talked to the guy who sold it to Rupp. The description fits Valerie Heath. While we were interviewing Heath, Neuman pointed out a magazine on the coffee table with a subscription label on it in the name of Irene Whaley. We ran a check on Whaley. No criminal history, but her Texas driver’s license gives another address, not Heath’s.”

“Did the magazine have Heath’s address on the label?”

“It did. We checked the bank. Valerie Heath does not have an account there. Neither does Irene Whaley or Frances Rupp.

“We checked with the Secure Maintenance Services and asked if anyone with a last name beginning with a W and having the first name Doris worked there. No. Did the same thing with Excell Executive Secretarial Services, asked about a last name beginning with an M, first name Olivia. No.”

“What about Gulfstream bank?”

“We checked. No.”

“Did you ask if Heath or Rupp or Whaley worked at either place?”

“We did. And we checked for Bruce Sheck too, and anybody with a last name that begins with a C, Don or Donald. They don’t.”

“I’m betting Heath has a bureau drawer full of false IDs,” Neuman interjected. “Since the ‘Doris’ and ‘Olivia’ envelopes were found in her trash I’m assuming she was the recipient.”

“Maybe someone living with her is using those names,” Graver said.

“Could be,” Neuman conceded, “but how likely is that considering we already have Heath assuming two other identities with false IDs? And since there were no last names on the envelopes, just initials, I’ll bet these are the only names the addressers know her by. Heath is using the names as contact names.”

“Spy stuff,” Paula said.

“Yeah, something like that,” Neuman said. “She has something to do with someone at those businesses who know her only by those names.’

“Those envelopes could have been picked up entirely at random,” Graver said.

Neuman nodded. “Could’ve been, but I’m guessing someone who works at those places, or who has access to stationery from those places, is giving something to Heath in those envelopes and writing her contact name on the outside.” Neuman unfolded his arms and leaned forward in his chair. “Probably the envelopes were not hand-delivered from these persons to Heath. Really wouldn’t be any need in writing the name on the envelopes if they were. They were dead-dropped.”

“What about ‘Don C’?” Paula asked.

“Let’s don’t forget how we got to this point,” Graver said, holding up a cautionary hand. “‘Colleen Synar,’ actually Heath, and Bruce Sheck were cited as sources in the Ray Probst investigation. Whoever placed them in that context-Tisler, Besom, Dean-put them on an equal footing. Let’s do the same. Doris W., Olivia M.: Valerie Heath. Don C: Bruce Sheck.”

“Partners?” Paula frowned.

“Ohhh, I don’t know.” Neuman craned his head skeptically at Graver. “I can’t imagine the woman Paula and I talked to being very high up in anybody’s scheme. More likely they’re just at the same level-low-of something bigger.”

“Ray Probst ran a temporary employment service,” Graver went on. “He was paying his people to steal information from the files of the banks and insurance companies where they worked. They would identify people who owned high-dollar consumer products that Probst knew he could quickly resell. And where were the envelopes from in Heath’s trash? A maintenance service and a secretarial service.”

“Then you think Probst was eliminated because he was competition?” Paula asked.

Graver didn’t respond. He was staring at his own notes on the desk in front of him, one hand slowly turning the cobblestone. He began to shake his head.

“I just don’t know… The thing is, I can’t see that this kind of operation would turn over enough money, the kind of money it seems to me it would take to buy off three intelligence officers. If they were going to risk a career, jail, everything… wouldn’t you think it would be for bigger money than this kind of operation would pull down? And if we’re going to stick with our theory that Tisler and Besom were professional hits…”

“Yeah”-Paula nodded, glancing at Neuman-”we talked about that That’s why we think we’ve just scratched the surface of this thing. And, uh, this is where our imaginations got carried away, and after a while we were bouncing off the wall. We thought we’d better run some of this by you, see what you thought.”

“Like I said,” Neuman added, “we don’t think Heath and Sheck are the heads behind all this. We see them as underlings, subordinates.”

Graver looked at them as he turned the cobblestone. He thought they were right on track. They didn’t know that Burtell had been photographed meeting with an unknown man the night before and that the meeting was overseen by a man and woman countersurveillance team, a pair who most certainly were not Bruce Sheck and Valerie Heath. And they didn’t know about Arnette Kepner whose judgment in such matters Graver trusted even more than his own. They didn’t know that she also suspected a larger, more important enterprise than the scam Probst had been operating. Yet they were right on target.

“What we need to do,” he said, “to give us a little more confirmation is to get a list of the companies each of those places have under contract Maybe what we find there will give us an idea of the direction they’re moving, even give us some sense of the dimensions, the size of their objectives.”

“Sooner or later,” Neuman said cautiously-he didn’t want to seem too eager-”we’re going to have to confront either Heath or Sheck. I mean, in the interest of time. We don’t have that much time, do we?”

“What are you suggesting?” Graver knew Neuman was right about the lack of time. It made their job seem nearly impossible.

Neuman was rolling back the cuffs on his plaid shirt His tie, though still knotted, was tucked into his shirt placket between the first and second buttons to keep it out of his way.

“We could interview Sheck, just as we talked to Heath,” he said. “But odds are she’s going to have talked to him already, and he’ll probably be expecting us. It’ll be a tougher interview no matter what he’s like, unless he’s completely spineless.” He glanced at Paula. “Heath though, she’s vulnerable. I think we can panic her without too much of a problem. We’ve got all this false ID stuff on her. I think we can make her believe we know more than we do, put her in a corner, press her, turn her around. I think it could pay off.”

“But that really commits us, Casey,” Paula hedged. “If we can’t get her to cooperate and she walks away, we’ve given ourselves away.”

“I think we have anyway,” Neuman admitted. “That insurance business isn’t going to hold up.” He looked at his watch. “By now she already knows there’s no such company.”

Graver stared at his notes, turned the cobblestone a few more times. It was a close call. If he thought nothing was going to be forthcoming from the tail and the tap on Burtell, if he thought the password puzzle on Tisler’s computer tape was not going to be broken within the next twenty-four hours, if the audio tape of Burtell’s meeting was not going to yield any information today, then he would be all for Neuman’s plan. But Paula was right too. To try to turn Heath and to fail in the effort would scatter the pigeons without a doubt. The investigation would be out in the open.

“Here’s what I want to do,” Graver said finally. “As incredible as this may seem, I’ve got an informant who save me something last night that may lead right into the middle of this.” Without telling them anything about Last, Graver told them of the conversation Last had over-heard at the party at Colin Faeber’s house.

Paula’s eyes widened in amazement as she turned to Neuman who simply shook his head at yet another weird wist Graver entertained the idea of bringing them into he picture even more, telling them about Last, about Arnette, giving them all the pieces. But something warned him to hold back. As usual he was being cautious, and in doing so he knew he might be hampering their investigation by not having the benefit of their analysis of the en-ire scope of what they were dealing with. Still, he held back.

“Casey, I want you to do a work-up on Faeber,” Graver said. “He may have nothing to do with the conversation these two guys had, I don’t have any idea, but we need to try to find out I’ll keep after my informant. There’s no way for me to corroborate this, obviously, but we can’t be picky at this point.”

Graver rubbed his face with his hands. His neck was getting stiff; he could feel the tendons drawing, growing taut and rigid. He shook his head.

“Jesus, we could use a dozen people on this. Paula, I want you to find out who’s involved in Gulfstream National Bank and Trust Officers, board members, that kind of thing. If it’s owned by a holding company get the corporate charter from the Secretary of State’s office, lave them fax you everything they have. We’ve got to find out if there are any threads coming out of there that we: an pull on.”

He looked at his watch. “Check in with me. Maybe I’ll have something from my end by the middle of the afternoon.”