Evidence

CHAPTER 26

Emanuel Forbush, Esq.’s, baritone boomed through the car speakers.

“I’ve been expecting your call. Guess you want the computers.”

“That would be helpful, sir.”

“No problem, Lieutenant, pick them up at your convenience. Of course, we will be keeping copies of every single word of data. Don’t imagine you’ll mind, without our coming forward you’d be in the dark.”

“Sitting on evidence in a criminal case could have caused problems, Mr. Forbush.”

“If you ever found out.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Forbush.”

“No, no, I’m not-I just want to make sure our civil case is preserved.”

“You really think a civil suit’s worth the effort, sir?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It just doesn’t sound as if the stakes are that high for all the trouble.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to be the judge of that.”

“I suppose you will, sir.”

“Lieutenant,” said Forbush, “I don’t want to get off on a bad foot with you. Sorry if I came on too strong.”

“No problem, Mr. Forbush. I’ll send a detective for those computers today.”

“Great. So how’s Marjie doing?”

“I just watched her down two stiff drinks and my guess is they weren’t her first this morning.”

Forbush tsk-tsked. “That’s always been an issue for Marjie, poor kid.”

“You’re friends?”

“Ned and I go way back, we used to play squash. Hell of an athlete, damn tragedy. Marjie’s had a lot to deal with, a victory would be good for her. That’s why I took on the case.”

“Friend in need,” said Milo.

“The only kind that counts,” said Forbush.

Milo hung up. Laughed. “One of Ned’s old squash buddies. Should’ve asked him about the current décor of Washington Boulevard no-tells. He took on the case to keep the sheets hot, Cohen’s along for the ride, they squeeze out a settlement, it’s found money for him. So now I’ve got dead ends in Sranil and in Zurich.”

I said, “Maybe you’re in luck and Helga’s still in L.A. Or was, this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s a good-looking, well-built woman in her thirties with Nordic features. Cover that bald dome with a platinum wig-something that flaps in the breeze-and all a witness would focus on would be blond, blond, blond.”

“Amy Thal’s jogger,” he said. “Yeah, she does have that Valkyrie thing going on.”

“Not Swedish,” I said. “Swiss. What if Reed’s source was almost there?”

“Seen one European, seen ’ em all. Including the girl Teddy supposedly offed.” He rubbed his face. “His vic was Helga’s sister, or a close friend. She comes to L.A. to get revenge, starts a shell firm for cover, looks for Teddy. Tries to find his local address by having Doreen-who she met through Backer, maybe on some anarchist chat line-comb through Masterson’s files.”

“Her primary goal was to kill Teddy, but she found out he was out of her reach in Sranil, either hiding in the palace or dead. So she settles for burning down his house. Pays Backer and Fredd fifty thousand to do the job.”

“Not much bang for all that buck, Alex.”

“If she banked on Teddy being dead, messing with his sutma would’ve been emotionally appealing. The sultan’s religious, so the thought of his brother dangling in perpetual purgatory would be unsettling.”

“You fuck with my family, I fuck with yours? With Backer and Fredd gone, Helga cases out the place herself, decides on a do-it-yourself?”

“Maybe she arrived this morning with her own bolt cutters, saw the gate open, and walked right through.”

“Meanwhile, Rutger’s snarfing bubbly and liver, making himself easier to ignite… so who killed Backer and Doreen? The sultan’s hit squad or Helga herself because she learned how to go kaboom from hanging with them, decided they were expendable?”

“If Helga is involved, I don’t see her acting alone. Overpowering two people by herself, even with two guns, would be tough for a woman, even a strong one. And using a gun to rape Doreen doesn’t fit.”

“Everyone says she hates people, Alex.”

“Even so,” I said. “That scene reeked of male.”

“Helga’s more social than she lets on, has a pal? Or this whole damn theory’s one big house-mansion of cards.”

He phoned Captain Don Boxmeister at the arson squad, left a message. Followed up with a call to Special Agent Gayle Lindstrom, connected, gave her a recap, asked her to research Helga Gemein.

She said, “Is she a Swiss citizen or Austrian? It makes a difference, tactically.”

“They both extradite, Gayle.”

“They do, but the Swiss make it a lot more difficult. Prying out a Swiss citizen is going to be hell.”

“I don’t know where her passport’s from.”

“Either way,” said Lindstrom, “she could be already gone.”

“Sitting in the International Terminal as we speak, Gayle. So how about dispensing some of your guys in dark glasses and walkie-talkies?”

“I’ll get an airport check going soon as I hang up. Including private charters, seeing as Daddy’s a money-mover. Give me the name of his bank.”

He flipped through his pad. “GGI-Alter Privatbank.”

Lindstrom said, “Sounds fancy. Soon as you snag those computers, make sure I get a full copy of the hard drives.”

“Done and you’re welcome, Gayle. Once you get hold of her passport info or anything else, get on the horn A-sap.”

“Done and you’re welcome. I’ll give your regards to Hal.”

“He takes your calls, does he?”

“Must be my feminine mystique.”

Sean Binchy was dispatched to pick up the computers.

Moe Reed answered his page, alert and focused. “I’m right across the street, my source came to work this morning but she was with a bunch of other girls and I couldn’t isolate her. She’s due out soon for lunch.”

Milo said, “Don’t waste time on subtle, Moses, just pull her aside. What I need to know is how sure she is about the Swedish thing. Even if she says she is, ask her could it be ‘Swiss.’”

He explained why.

Reed said, “Blond is blond, huh? I’ll nab her as soon as I see her, Loo.”

A search using ggi alter privatbank Zurich gemein helga, and family as keywords, paid off.

Embedded among German-, French-, and Italian-language business sites was a single photo, dated six years ago. One of many snapped at a fund-raiser for the Kraeker Gallery’s exhibit of outsider art, featuring well-fed, well-groomed people in black tie and gowns.

One thumbnail off to the right. Milo enlarged it two inches square: Banker George Gemein, his wife, Ilse, daughters Helga and Dahlia.

Both parents, bespectacled, ramrod-straight, unsmiling. Helga matched their stance, the obedient child. Even with a honey-colored schoolgirl bob and a baby-blue gown trimmed in lace, she came across grim, disapproving.

Dahlia Gemein appeared several years younger than her sister. Shorter and curvier than Helga, she sported a conspicuous tan, a headful of ash-blond waves, a saucy grin. Defying the family commitment to good posture, she cocked a hip and slouched forward, threatening to spill ample bosoms out of her blood-red, skintight sheath. Bejeweled fingers held the stem of a cobalt-blue cocktail.

The only Gemein caught drinking, she’d separated herself physically, standing half a foot apart.

The clan. The mutation.

Milo switched to NCIC, ran a search on dahlia gemein, pulled up nothing there or on the Doe Network, any MP or crime file. But the Web spat back another photo dated the same year as the Kraeker gala, snapped at the record launch party of a rapper named ReePel. Malibu party house, Broad Beach. I’d heard about the place. Closed down after a torrent of neighbor complaints.

In that one, Dahlia Gemein wore a pink string bikini and stood flanked by two men in flowered bathing shorts: the guest of honor, obese and cornrowed, and a baby-faced, muscular Asian man identified as Teddy K-M.

Milo shot a fist into the air. Flipped through his pad and shouted, punched the air harder. “Dig this, Alex: K-M as in Tariq Ku’amah Majur. Something real.”

He studied the shot. “Girl like this isn’t going to be a throwaway, someone’s bound to report her missing. So why isn’t she in the database?”

“Maybe someone forgot to enter it.”

“Human error? Oh, come now.”

A call to Missing Persons revealed that Dahlia Gemein’s disappearance had never been reported. Follow-ups everywhere else confirmed the same.

Milo slumped. “For all we know, she’s not missing. She and Teddy fell in love, she went back to Sranil with him, is living the life of a princess, and there goes Helga’s motive.”

He checked with Moe Reed. “Your source out yet?”

“Out and right here, Loo. See you in about twenty.”