Conspiracy

131

it was all about patterns, Johnny Bib liked to say; the uni-verse had a certain order to it, and anything that violated that order did so for a reason. Anomalies were as informative as symmetry, many times more so.

Which made the unsuccessful attempt on Senator McSweeney’s life stand out.

“It’s the gas,” Gallo told Rubens. “Ball normally buys gas every two to three days when he’s in Pine Plains. It’s always twenty dollars. Clockwork. Habit. He never tanks up — except for the day before Gordon killed himself. Then there’s no activity on his card during the three days around the time Gordon dies.”

“He used cash,” interrupted Johnny Bib. “And probably someone else’s credit card.”

“Whose?” asked Rubens, looking at Gallo rather than Johnny Bib.

“Haven’t figured that out,” said Gallo. “But getting back to the pattern, there’s a gap around the time when Gordon dies, but no gap when someone shoots at McSweeney. And it’s not because his wife was using his card — she uses a Discover Card, and the charge pattern is consistent.”

“It is consistent with what the wife told the op,” added Johnny Bib. “He was only away that time.”

“He wasn’t the shooter,” said Gallo. “Maybe he killed Gordon, but he didn’t shoot at McSweeney.” Rubens looked at the billing information. It would have been much, much better to find positive evidence — a trail of receipts that would have put Ball in a specific place at a specific time. But real life was messier than that — or maybe Ball was simply very clever.

“Keep working on it, Mr. Gallo,” said Rubens. “Continue gathering as much information as you can about the police chief. There’s no such thing as too much information.” That wasn’t entirely correct, but neither man pointed that out as they left his office.