Conspiracy

89

The property owner was waiting with his two dogs by the gate of the impound lot when Lia and the trooper drove up.

The German shepherds, while big and mangy, were friendly; they began licking and nuzzling Lia as soon as she got out of the car.

“Nice dogs,” said Lia. “Have they been drugged in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Drugged? My dogs? These are good dogs,” said the man, glancing over at the plainclothes trooper. “Who would drug them?”

“Nothing unusual?” the trooper asked.

The man shrugged. “What’s unusual?” Lia and the trooper walked over to the car. The lot was illuminated by a single floodlight back by the gate, and they needed the trooper’s flashlight to see inside the car.

“Still locked,” said the state trooper, trying the doors.

“She could have relocked the door.” Lia glanced around the lot. “This isn’t the most secure place in the world.”

“We’ve kept impound cars here for twenty years,” said the own er. “Never have a problem.”

“You keep all crime scene cars here?” asked Lia.

“Wasn’t a crime scene,” said the trooper.

“Yeah, they keep crime scene cars here,” said the man.

“That blue sedan over there — that was confiscated on a drug bust.”

“It’s OK, Max,” said the trooper.

“She probably had a key,” said Lia.

“Maybe,” said the trooper. He ran his light across the door near the window.

“Can we look inside?”

“Sure. That’s why I brought the key.” Lia waited for the trooper to open the door. The car had been locked when it was found after Forester’s death. The contents had been removed before the car was brought here.

“Did you do a full crime scene work-up on it?” Lia asked.

“It’s not a crime scene,” said the trooper.

“She must have wanted something inside the car. Otherwise why come here?”

“I can’t argue with you, but I don’t know what it would be. We took the contents and gave them to the Secret Service. Ser vice came and looked at the car themselves. Unless there’s a hidden compartment somewhere.”

“Maybe there is.”

The trooper shrugged. “You can search it, too.” Lia slipped into the driver’s seat, and began looking around the interior of the car. As the trooper said, everything that had been inside had been removed, including the owner’s manual in the glove compartment.

So what did Amanda want? A receipt or something tucked somewhere no one else might see?

Why would that be valuable?

Maybe it would show she and Forester were together… hat she killed him.

Impossible.

“There’s a notebook that seems to be missing,” said Lia.

“Everything we found in the car, we turned over. There’s a list and photos.”

“Did you take apart the seats and the linings and things?” Lia asked.

The trooper frowned. “You know, not for nothing but, this case is pretty cut-and-dried. The guy killed himself.”

“So why did Amanda Rauci come ere?” asked Lia.

“Maybe she was looking for his notebook, too,” she added, answering her own question as they walked back toward the gate. “Maybe she doesn’t think it’s a suicide and she wants to figure out who did it.”

Lia got down on her hands and knees, outside of the car.

It wasn’t easy to see up under the seat, and so she fished with her hand.

“Can we take the seats out to look inside?” she asked.

The trooper turned to the own er, who sighed, then went off for a set of tools. Two hours later, they were certain that nothing was hidden there.

“I have to tell you, it really, really looks like a suicide,” said the trooper as he and Lia walked toward the gate.

“So everybody says.”

“If it’s not, then what is it?” asked the trooper.

Lia stopped to pet the dogs, unable to think of an answer.