Flight

15

Tuesday, July 11, 12:01 A.M.

Las Piernas

He watched the taillights of the Jeep Cherokee as he followed Irene home. They had left Miriam in the care of her sister, who had arrived — remarkably energetic after her long drive — a little before eleven-thirty. Irene had followed him to the department, where he had taken a moment to examine the paper airplane. Wearing gloves, he had gently unfolded it, looking for writing or any other enclosed message. There was none. The plane had been made with over a dozen folds, and a section of the tail had been shaped by cutting curves into it. He had filled out paperwork describing when and where the plane had been found, then placed a copy of it with the plane in an evidence locker, where it would remain secure until the lab examined it.

Now, at last, he thought, they could call it a day.

They were stopped at a light when his cell phone rang.

“Hi — it’s Polly Logan. If you come by right now, I can show you the tape.”

“Now? It’s after—”

“I do know how to tell time, Frank. You said I could call anytime, and it’s now or never. I’m not sure how my station manager will feel about my showing this to you, so I’d rather not have a lot of folks around while you’re looking at it — all right? You know where the station is?”

“Yes.”

She gave him directions to a back entrance. “And don’t tell the doofus at the gate that you’re a cop. He’s a wannabe, and he’ll keep you there all night. Besides—”

“The station manager.”

“Right.”

He tried calling Irene’s cell phone number, but got her voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message. He sighed in frustration. She probably didn’t have it with her — she disliked it and had only recently agreed to carry one at all.

This was not the time to complain to her about it, he decided.

He pulled alongside the Jeep at the next intersection and motioned to Irene to roll down her window.

“I’ll make sure you get home safely, but then I’ll have to take off. I’ve got to meet with someone on the other side of town.”

“They’ve given you another case?”

“No, more of the same. This just worked out to be the only time I could get together with this person.”

“‘Person,’ huh? Must be a woman. If you’re going in the other direction, don’t worry about following me home. I’ll be okay.”

He found himself unable to resist saying, “I’d feel better if you had your cell phone with you.”

She shrugged. “I’ll be okay,” she repeated, a little impatiently. When she saw his reluctance to let it go, she added, “Besides, Big Brother, you can ask the comm center to track the Jeep’s LoJack signal if you’re worried that I’m heading out of state.”

“Before you decide that the LoJack in the Jeep is there just in case I want to abuse my mighty police powers, I’d remind you that Ben had it installed long before we bought the Jeep from him.”

“Don’t take everything I say so seriously, Frank. And you don’t need to watch over me every minute. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I get in, if it will make you feel better.”

Afraid she was feeling hemmed in, he said, “All right. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Listen — I’m sorry this meeting came up. I was hoping we could talk.”

She shook her head. “Not a good time to do that anyway. I’m beat.”

A car pulled up behind her and the driver tapped his horn — the light had changed. She moved off, waving to Frank as she drove through the intersection.

He watched until he could no longer see the Jeep’s taillights, then made a U-turn.

If someone had hauled away the satellite dishes and painted over the mural that adorned one side of the Channel 6 studios, the building would have looked no more exciting than a warehouse. The mural showed the “News Where You Live Team” in smiling, bright-eyed, larger-than-life scale. He noticed that Polly Logan’s portrait was also younger than life.

The gatekeeper was a cheerful, middle-aged man whose girth was wedged nearly miraculously into a tall armchair. Frank wondered how, if a pursuit were necessary, the fellow would ever get to his feet.

When he gave the man his name, the gatekeeper responded with a knowing smile and said, “That Polly is something, isn’t she?” He handed him a clipboard, then went back to reading a crumpled copy of Hustler. Frank wrote his name illegibly and handed it back. The guard didn’t look at it. He picked up a phone and dialed a number.

Frank’s cell phone rang while the guard was talking to someone inside the building.

“Hi,” Irene said. “I made it home, safe and sound.”

At that moment, the guard leaned out and handed him a visitor’s badge, saying in a loud voice, “Here you go, lover boy, a pass to see Polly Logan. But a word to the wise — with the stuff that’s going around these days, you’d better wear a rubber — that broad has laid more pipe than the local plumbers’ union.”

He heard Irene disconnect.

He drove through the gate, parked in the nearly empty lot, and tried calling home. He got the answering machine. “Irene, I know you’re there. Please pick up the phone.”

Nothing.

“You aren’t going to let one loudmouthed knucklehead cause us problems, are you?”

He heard her pick up the receiver — and set it right back down in the cradle.

He swore, turned the phone off, and headed for the building’s back entrance.

The cloying scent of Polly Logan’s perfume hit him before he saw her. She stood waiting for him, a blond beacon at the end of a dimly lit hallway — a narrow figure clad in a dark blue suit and high heels that would have made a stilt-maker proud. At six four, he was a tall man, but he thought he was only about half a foot above being eye-to-eye with her. In this semidarkness, she bore at least some resemblance to the woman on the mural. He knew better. In her efforts to stay in front of the camera, Polly Logan must have spent most of the money she had made there on cosmetic surgery. The results were now in the waxworks stage — her blue eyes had that wide-open, perpetually startled look that was a by-product of too many facelifts, her mouth and chin so stiff as to make a ventriloquist’s dummy’s seem more supple, and her satiny, wrinkle-free face was, alas, perched atop her original, aging neck, making her look as if her head had been transplanted to the wrong body.

“Frank,” she said, extending a hand, “good to see you.”

The hand was smooth but dry and bony, so that he felt as if he were grasping an albino bat’s wing. He let go before the bat did. “I appreciate your willingness to help me out.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to think of a way for you to return the favor,” she said with a smile.

He thought he might have grimaced in response.

She didn’t seem to notice and sauntered toward a door at the end of the hallway. “Come along, I’ve set this up in one of the conference rooms.”

She aimed a remote at a television set attached to a VCR. When the set came on, she immediately pressed a volume button, so that the sound was nearly muted. “I don’t want to attract a lot of attention to what we’re doing in here,” she said. “Not just because you’re a cop, but because — well, I’ve taken a lot of crap around here about keeping these.”

“These?” he asked, wondering how long he’d be trapped here with her, watching videotapes.

“The original footage, I mean. The clips I copied to make this one for you.” She smiled. “A labor of love.”

“How long is the final product?” he asked.

“Two hours,” she said, and pressed the play button on the remote.

The first few minutes were made up of footage from about a dozen years ago, she explained. “I shot most of this myself.”

Fleeting images of Lefebvre went by. There was an almost voyeuristic quality in them that Frank found unsettling. Most of the time Lefebvre clearly wasn’t aware he was on camera. The woman was all but stalking him.

“He had the most interesting eyes,” she said softly, after a close-up.

The rest of the tape had been shot by other camera operators. Frank glanced at Polly as she narrated in a low voice. “This was after he solved the Berton case.” Then “This is at the courthouse, after he testified against Hunter.” She gazed at the screen, caught up in memories, giving a running commentary that prevented him from hearing the soundtrack of the tape.

He half listened as Polly droned on. When the press conference in Seth Randolph’s room came on the screen, Frank found himself distracted to see Irene, ten years younger. Although younger, she had dark circles under her eyes. She seemed tired, he thought, a little down, and — what was that quality he saw in her face? Vulnerability. Yes, she seemed more vulnerable then.

The camera went back to Tory Randolph, but Frank was still thinking of Irene. He remembered her comments about getting to know Lefebvre during her father’s long, final illness. Rough days. But for all this, when the camera next was on her, he saw a familiar impishness in her eyes — she was calling out a question.

“Ex-husband, correct?” she asked on the tape.

He could see the amusement of some of the other journalists before the camera went back to Tory Randolph, who was saying something about not thinking of Trent Randolph as her ex-husband. Frank shook his head. From reading the files, he knew that within a few months of this press conference, Tory Randolph remarried. She married Dale Britton, a man who had worked in the crime lab. They had already met by the time of the press conference — Britton had been one of the criminalists on the case.

Polly had asked him a question, he realized. “Pardon?”

“Tory — have you ever seen such a stage hog?”

Nothing he saw on the tape made him think she was wrong, but he didn’t answer.

The camera went back to Seth Randolph for a moment. Knowing how little future Seth had — knowing the futures of many of the people he was now watching — Frank found the tape unsettling. Lefebvre and Seth Randolph would die violently the next evening. Lefebvre, obviously a hero at this point, would be in disgrace during the ensuing decade. Irene would bury her father and suffer other ordeals, including being held captive in a small room — an experience that would leave her far too claustrophobic to stay calm in a room as crowded as the one on the tape.

She would also marry Frank — although she might, at the moment, count that as another ordeal.

Polly Logan would fail miserably at recapturing her youth — a bird that was already well on the wing ten years ago. As he watched, he was surprised by how much footage she had kept of this press conference — it was much more extensive than what had gone before on the tape. When he commented about this to her, she said, “I kept all of it, because it was the last time I ever saw him.” Tears started rolling down her expensive cheeks. “And the things they said about him! Look at him! Does he look as if he wants to harm that boy? No! He’s more protective of Seth than Tory is!”

Frank had to agree. The brief shots he had seen in Bredloe’s office on the afternoon news were, he realized, misleading. And when Seth’s reactions were shown in context, rather than in the brief segment he had seen before, he could see that the boy trusted Lefebvre — had turned to him for protection, in fact.

Hearing Polly sniff, Frank offered a tissue to her. She thanked him, wiped delicately at her eyes, then murmured, “I loved him, you know.” She blew her sculpted nose. “Not requited, I’ll admit.”

“No? You didn’t ever go out together?”

She shook her head, looking more miserable than ever. “No, not even when I asked him. He turned me down flat. He was too busy panting after your wife.”

“I don’t blame him,” he said evenly. “She was single, after all.”

“Your loyalty is refreshing, and of course you’re right — she was very available in those days.”

She glanced up at him, saw the hard look that had come into his eyes, and said, “Don’t get bent out of shape — I didn’t mean anything by it.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “God knows, I can’t cast any stones.”

He thought of the boy he had seen at the condo and asked, “Do you know of anyone else Lefebvre might have dated?”

“Other than Irene? No. Except for trying to go after her, he was married to his work.”

The tape started hissing, and she removed it from the VCR and held it out to him. “This copy is yours, if you’d like it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “This is a real help. And thanks for your time this evening.” He said this politely, even though he was irritated with her. If she had simply given him the tape or sent it to him at the department, he could have gone home much earlier. Instead, she had forced him to attend this private screening with her, while she grew maudlin over a man who had not, apparently, returned her affection.

Her devotion to Lefebvre did not puzzle him — long ago he had realized that some people never really wanted what they could have. Some women would fall in love with priests, with gay men, with men who were in love with other women — precisely because they were unobtainable. This devotion at a distance seldom ended with the beloved’s death — after all, nobody was more unobtainable than a dead man.

“When I heard you were on the case,” Polly said, looping an arm through his as she led him out, “I knew Phil stood a chance.”

He halted. A vision of Lefebvre as he had found him — dried remains in the wreckage of a plane — flashed before him. “A chance?”

She urged him forward. “Yes, to be proven innocent. It would have been important to him.” When they were almost at the building’s exit, she said, “I always hoped he’d come back alive. I thought I might be able to get him to take a second look, you know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

At the door he gently extricated his arm, said good night, and made his way back to the car. As he shut the car door, he could smell her perfume on his suit.

Perhaps she didn’t get all that plastic surgery to keep her job, he thought. Maybe she was trying to bookmark a page in her life, trying to stay at a certain point in the story, so that Lefebvre would come back to her like a reader who had only temporarily set her aside and find his place.

He turned his phone on, and it beeped twice to indicate that he had a voice-mail message. He retrieved the call, which had been received about five minutes after Irene had hung up on him.

“Frank, I’m sorry. Call me as soon as you have the phone back on — wake me up, I won’t care. Call me. I keep thinking about Bredloe and — just call and let me know you’re safe, okay?”

He glanced at his watch. It was after three in the morning.

He drove home without calling.

She was awake. She met him at the door, drowsy but intent, and without saying a word took his face in her hands and kissed him long and hard. He made a small, low sound of surrender, and she pulled him closer. She stepped back a little, wrinkled her nose as she caught the scent of the perfume, but didn’t remark on it. He started to say something, but she stopped him with another kiss, this one softer, sweeter, coaxing.

“Enough talk,” she said.

16

Tuesday, July 11, 9:00 A.M.

Las Piernas Police Department Homicide Division

The story of the attack on Bredloe made the front page of the Express. A much smaller story about Lefebvre’s funeral appeared on one of the inside pages. Frank had just finished reading it when his phone rang.

“Harriman,” he answered.

“How dare you give that man a special police funeral!” a woman screeched.

“Excuse me?”

“This is Detective Frank Harriman — am I right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“This is Tory Randolph-Britton.”

He could see her in his mind, or at least her image as she appeared on the tape he had viewed the previous night. “Trent Randolph’s ex-wife?”

“I never thought of him that way!” she said, as if she had just watched the same tape and knew her lines. “But yes, I was married to Trent, and Amanda was my daughter, and Seth was my son. My son — do you understand? And you are about to give my son’s murderer a funeral with — with bagpipes and things!”

“No, we’re not. It’s a private funeral. No special treatment by the department.”

There was a brief silence. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Do you mind if I ask who told you otherwise?”

“Friends of my husband.”

“Trent Randolph’s friends?”

“No, I… I remarried. My current husband was a member of the police department for a time. He still has many friends there.”

“Dale Britton.”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Your husband had left by the time I was hired here. But I can assure you that his friends were mistaken about the funeral.”

“Oh. Well — I’m quite upset about all of this.”

Wondering if the Randolph cases could possibly become more of a nightmare than they already were, he said, “That’s understandable. Anyone in your situation would be upset.”

He heard her draw in a steadying breath. “Dale told me they’ll be reopening the investigation into the murders.”

“The cases have never been officially closed — but yes. In fact, I was hoping I could talk to you at some point—”

“Of course! I’ve been wondering, you know, if anyone was going to call me. Are you the detective assigned to my husband’s and children’s murders?”

“Yes, I am. I’ve only had the cases since late Saturday, though, so I’m just getting started.”

“We must definitely meet soon, then. Dale and I will take you to lunch today.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it for lunch,” he said, not because he already had plans, but because he didn’t like the way she was trying to take control. “Are you free at all this morning?”

“Oh… Dale has business meetings… but I’m the one you probably really want to talk to, right? I mean, I’m the one who has suffered the most in all this. No one has been hurt more than me.”

“I’d appreciate any time you can spare,” he said, working to keep his voice neutral, trying not to betray his disgust. “I can meet with your husband later.”

“I’m just leaving for downtown, but I’ll be free later this morning.”

He arranged to meet her at ten-thirty at a coffee shop not far from the newspaper, then called Irene. “Want to have lunch together?” he asked. “I’m going to be downtown.”

“Still not convinced we’ve patched things up?”

He hesitated, then said, “Have we?”

“No, but we’re making progress.”

“I’m all for progress. Meet me for lunch.”

“What brings you this way?”

“Just between us?”

“Of course.”

“Going to meet with Tory Randolph. Tory Randolph-Britton.”

“Oh, you poor thing. A front-row seat for the Me Show, starring Tory. God, she’s a bitch.”

“Tell me how you really feel about her.”

She laughed. “It’s awful, I know. I really wanted to feel sorry for her — I mean, what happened to her family was terrible. But she uses it to gain attention for herself in a truly repulsive way. No wonder Randolph dumped her — I think it’s a shame that she ended up with his money.”

He felt a mild shock — it suddenly dawned on him that in all the files and notes he had read on all of these cases, no real time had been spent on a question that had to be considered in any murder investigation: Who benefits by this death? In both the Amanda murders and Seth’s murder, obvious suspects had been pursued — even though a lot of money was at stake, and neither Dane nor Lefebvre would inherit.

“Tell me what you know about that, Irene. The money went to Tory?”

“Not immediately, and I’m sure her ex-husband never intended that she’d get any of it. But apparently his will was poorly worded. Trent Randolph knew how to make money, but he didn’t know how to bequeath it. Which was a pity for his company’s stockholders.”

“Why?”

“Randolph Chemicals was a bigger company ten years ago than it is now, and its future looked rosy. The first blow came when Trent was murdered, because he was the driving force behind the company. Everything was supposed to go to his children, but Amanda was dead, too. So Seth inherited everything, but of course, he was underage — so it stayed in trust, and he never took control. Unfortunately, because of some problem in the way the trust was set up, Seth’s estate ultimately went to Tory.”

“And now she shares it with a former member of the department.”

“Yes. Dale Britton — he quit the department before they officially dated, but she definitely met him through the investigation. Weird, huh? He went from Crime Lab Technician II to CEO when he said, ‘I do.’”

“Are you telling me Britton runs Randolph Chemicals?”

“Not now — but he did for a short time. He has a degree in chemistry, but no real background in business or manufacturing. That didn’t stop Tory from making him president of the company.”

“What happened to the company?”

“In the beginning, it looked as if it was going to be a total disaster — stock price fell and lots of their best employees abandoned ship. Some of that started when Trent Randolph was killed, of course. So just when the company was starting to recover from that setback, Tory insisted on making her new hubby the boss. Luckily, Britton was smart enough to see that if he stayed at the helm, the value of all that stock he married into was going to be a big zero. So he managed to keep some key people by ‘retiring’ and letting wiser heads rule. Things improved, and the two of them aren’t hurting for bucks, but Randolph Chemicals never regained all the ground it lost.”

“I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Tory Randolph,” Frank said. “To lose two children to murder — especially after Seth survived the first attack—”

“For almost any other mother, that would be true. I felt bad for her, too, until I saw how much she gloried in the attention she was getting. It was awful. You’ll be around her for more than ten seconds, so I know you’ll have a chance to see what I mean.”

He stopped by the lab, feeling a little awkward when he saw Alfred Larson and Paul Haycroft examining the paper airplane.

“Frank!” Haycroft said, smiling at him. “We were wondering if we should call in the NTSB on this one, too.”

“Don’t let him give you a hard time,” Larson said. “It’s a good piece of evidence. Thanks for taking the time to bring it by from the hospital. It should have been recovered by one of our people, of course, but I don’t think they could bring themselves to treat Captain Bredloe as if he were just any other victim of an assault. How is the captain? Any word?”

“Nothing new,” Frank said. “Call Pete if you’d like — Miriam said she’d call him today if there was any change.”

“And not you?” Haycroft asked in surprise.

“No — I’ve got a full day ahead of me today, and Pete’s working here in the office. Carlson has vowed to suspend him if he doesn’t clear his desk off.”

Haycroft laughed. “I’m afraid your lieutenant is fighting a losing battle.”

“So — you think you can learn anything from this?” Frank asked, indicating the plane.

“Possibly,” Haycroft said. “We’ve taken a look at the paper — it’s a better grade of twenty-pound bond, but unfortunately it isn’t all that special — it’s a type sold in many stationers and office supply stores. As you know, the more unique something is, the more helpful it is to us. I don’t know that this will lead you to the attacker, but it might help us nail him once you’ve found him. There are these cutout areas in the tail section, and if he hasn’t taken out his trash or gone to the recycling center, we might match the cutout places to the paper that has been removed. And, of course, the plane isn’t folded in an ordinary way.”

“Folded with real precision,” Larson said. “The attacker isn’t sloppy.”

“Which means we no longer suspect Pete Baird,” Haycroft said, and Larson laughed.

“Pete’s desk may be messy,” Frank said, regretting that he had told them about Pete’s run-in with Carlson, “but his work isn’t.”

“Of course not,” Larson said quickly. “Your partner’s track record proves that. But the person who folded this also gave it a unique design, or at least not one that just anyone would fold when making a paper airplane.” He handed Frank a sheet of paper. “If I asked you to make one, what would you do?”

Frank folded the classic design.

“Yes, in half, then the nose and a pair of wings. A few folds. But this is more elaborate. Perhaps not as fancy as the ones engineering students design for college competitions, but closer to those than the one you just made. Making a simple plane wasn’t good enough. It gives us an insight into his character.”

“It explains the fan, too,” Frank said.

“Exactly!” Haycroft said. “He wanted the plane to fly toward the captain, but since he didn’t want to be in the building, he couldn’t launch it himself, so he thought up this mechanism.”

“Ingenious, really,” Larson said. He explained that the cameras and lights had been set up by the attacker. “So it looks as if he knew what the captain might do to protect himself and created distractions.”

“And drew him out into the middle of the mosaic, where Bredloe made a better target.”

“Yes,” Larson said. “We’ve given this information to Vince Adams and Reed Collins. They’re handling the investigation of the attack. Apparently, there’s very little to go on.”

Haycroft said, “You didn’t come down here just to ask about the plane, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve wanted to talk to you about Trent Randolph, but I think that may have to wait until later. My more immediate interest is in Dale Britton.”

Larson and Haycroft exchanged a look. Haycroft shook his head. “Rather awkward, isn’t it?”

“You could put it that way.”

“His involvement with Mrs. Randolph was my fault, I’m afraid,” Larson said.

“You can’t blame yourself for it,” Haycroft protested.

“I introduced them,” Larson said. “She was always hounding me — waiting for me outside the building, cornering me every chance she could to nag me about the investigations. She was calling here constantly, and I seemed only to infuriate her. One day she stopped me as I was walking out to the crime scene unit van. Dale was with me and I introduced them. He was much more patient with her — I could see that he had a calming effect on her. So I began to let him deal with her, and before long, he was the one she asked for when she called.”

“Is he still in contact with you?”

“No, I haven’t spoken to him since he resigned,” Larson said. “He kept coming back late from lunch, and eventually someone told me that these long lunches were with Mrs. Randolph. I asked him to stop seeing her — concerned that if we ever managed to bring charges against Whitey Dane, his lawyers would claim she was influencing the investigation. Dale resigned instead.”

“So you haven’t talked to either of them lately?”

“No,” Haycroft said. “Why do you ask?”

“Someone in the department is contacting Dale Britton — at least his wife claims they’re getting updates about the Lefebvre case. Not very accurate ones, but he obviously has some connection here.”

Al Larson frowned. “I suppose that’s to be expected, but I can’t say it makes me happy.”

“I’ll see if I can learn more from her this morning,” Frank said, glancing at his watch. “I’d better get going. I’m supposed to meet her at ten-thirty.”

“Good luck, Frank,” Haycroft said. “Of all the questions you might have about Trent Randolph, you’ll have the answer to one of them by ten thirty-five — you’ll know why he got a divorce.”

17

Tuesday, July 11, 10:35 A.M.

Downtown Las Piernas

She was standing outside the small café, talking on a cellular phone. Her face was turned slightly away from him, so she did not see him yet and did not know that he had seen her stomp her foot in impatience with her caller.

She was in her late forties, he thought, although doing her best to look much younger than that. She had succeeded to a greater degree than Polly Logan. She was still a beautiful woman, and he wondered briefly if Amanda would have grown up to look like her. But Frank could not reconcile the file photos of smiling, carefree Amanda with Tory Randolph-Britton.

She was slender and dressed becomingly in a dark silk suit. As he approached, she watched him appraisingly and began to smile. If it hadn’t been so blatantly predatory, he decided, it would have been more attractive.

She put the phone away and extended a well-manicured hand. “Detective Harriman? I’m Tory.”

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice,” he said. Her clasp was cool and firm, and she held his hand a little longer than necessary.

“Anything I can do to be of help to you, Frank — it is Frank, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Let’s go inside.”

The owner greeted him by name and gestured toward a booth.

“You come here often?” Tory said, then giggled. “Sorry, that sounds like a bad pickup line.”

“My wife works not far from here,” he said. “So, yes, I’m here fairly often.”

“Oh.” She lowered her lashes and began tapping her nails on the gleaming wood of the tabletop.

A waiter came and Frank ordered a coffee. Tory ordered a double latte and a croissant. “I shouldn’t, but I feel like being bad,” she said, smiling.

“Tell me, how did you meet your husband?” he asked.

“We met in college — oh, do you mean Dale?”

“Let’s start with Trent.”

“Trent, I met in college — at San Diego State. He was crazy over me then. In those days, he couldn’t believe his luck. He was this nerdy science guy, and — well, let’s just say he wasn’t my only admirer.”

He smiled, hoping it didn’t look as phony as it felt.

“Yes indeed. You may not believe it to look at me now, but I was quite a beauty in my day. Won a pageant — just a little local contest in El Cajon, but still—”

What the hell, he thought. No use insulting her — chances were, she could provide information he couldn’t get from anyone else. “I have no trouble believing you could have won any contest you entered. I take it marrying Trent was the only reason you didn’t go on to state competition?”

“Oh, there were some who thought I could have taken it all.”

“And I would be sitting here having coffee with Miss America. Imagine that.”

She laughed, clearly delighted. “Well, who knows, right?”

Their orders arrived. It wasn’t hard to see the way to her heart, so as soon as the waiter walked away, Frank said, “Trent Randolph must have been the envy of every man on campus.”

“Oh, yes. But I didn’t do so badly, either. He was a handsome man, but he wore glasses — not real thick ones, but still, most girls didn’t notice him. To be honest, he was a big old clumsy geek when I met him. A chemistry major — and a computer freak!”

Let her keep talking, he told himself.

“My mother thought he’d never go anywhere, but I guess I showed her, didn’t I? He had a quality about him that I saw right away. He was smart, he was ambitious, and he was — oh, a leader. And after I had a chance to teach him not to wear such dumb-looking outfits and got him to start wearing contact lenses — let me tell you, there was a bona fide hunk underneath that geek.”

“He was lucky to have your help.”

“Damned straight he was! I was no small part of his success. And what does he do? Has himself some midlife crisis and runs off with the first bimbo to lean her tits over his mouse pad.”

Frank recalled the scant information in the files about Trent Randolph’s girlfriend. Another person who had been overlooked by the investigation — she had been dumped by the man not long before the murders. Trying to learn more while letting Tory believe he was sympathetic, he asked, “This home wrecker worked in your husband’s office?”

“No, but he met her there. Some blond bimbo from an import business. Tessa. As in she had him by the Tessa-ticles. He walks out after seventeen years of marriage to chase after a woman who wasn’t all that much older than Seth. It broke the kids’ hearts. When I think of what we did to them… not knowing…”

She fell silent and tears began rolling slowly down her face. He offered her a tissue, and she took it with a muttered thanks. For the first time since he sat down across from her, he thought she might be thinking of someone other than herself. An unconcealed, sudden sadness had taken hold of her, and he found himself feeling relieved that perhaps she was not as utterly self-involved as he had thought her to be. He did not admire her, or even like her, but sorrow softened her.

She drew a hiccuping breath and said, “Do you have children, Frank?”

“No, I don’t.”

“If I had known what was going to happen to them… I’m not sure I would have — no, that’s not true. I don’t regret bringing Seth and Amanda into this world. Not for one minute. That would be like — like making their deaths all that mattered. And that would mean I had let their killers win, do you see?”

“Yes, I think I do,” he said, beginning to see the fighter in her and wondering if Trent Randolph had perhaps once loved her for more than her beauty.

She wiped at her eyes, studying him. “I believe you do. So you see, that’s why I make such a damned nuisance of myself as far as the police in this town are concerned. I have hated two names for the past ten years: Philip Lefebvre and Whitey Dane. They robbed me in the worst way. I thought Tessa Satel had robbed me of my husband — but that was nothing — I think Trent and I would have patched things up, given a little more time. But Whitey Dane robbed me of all the time I ever could have had to do that, and took Trent away from me in a way that made Tessa look downright charitable. And he robbed me of my daughter, and ultimately arranged to rob me of my son. He took my future.”

“You got to know Phil Lefebvre?”

“Lefebvre,” she said with disgust. “I suppose I should feel relieved, knowing that Seth’s murderer crashed his plane while he was trying to run away — and that his ass has been rotting on some mountainside all this time — which is almost enough to make me think about getting religion, because if that isn’t divine justice, I don’t know what is. But… but… it didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. And I think that must be in part because he still got away with destroying evidence and letting Whitey Dane roam around free as a damned bird.”

“Did he ever mention—”

“But that’s not the worst thing he did,” she interrupted. “You know what he did? Lefebvre allowed Seth to think of him as his friend. His friend! My son loved that man. Loved him. He’d rather have Lefebvre there than me — Seth made that plain enough. I understood. After the terrible things Seth went through on that boat, my son was scared. Who would protect him? Lefebvre. The man who had saved his life. The man who was in there, day after day, gaining Seth’s trust. Comforting him, helping him, talking to him. Seth didn’t care what he went through in that hospital as long as his good friend Lefebvre was there at his side.”

She leaned over the table and said angrily, “I would have to have Detective Lefebvre come back to life and kill him again and again and again and again to feel any better. Because I trusted him, too. And no one — not even Trent and his bimbo — ever betrayed my trust more terribly.”

She sat back suddenly and gave a short laugh. “I haven’t let you ask me a damned thing, have I? Go ahead — what can I tell you?”

“That last time you saw Lefebvre, was he agitated?”

“To say the least. He talked about leaving — I heard later that he spread some story around the police department about seeing a friend, but the friend didn’t know anything about it. Seth panicked, begged him to stay.”

“He communicated with Seth using a computer?”

She nodded. “I still have it.”

“You have it?” he asked, startled. He was sure he had seen the computer listed as evidence. “I thought—”

She blushed. “Well, Dale got it for me. I mean, he asked for it for me, and they released it to me. There were no fingerprints on it — at least not ones that could have proven anything — and everything was erased from it. But it was — I don’t know, the only way I could communicate with Seth during that time when it was just the two of us. My link to him. I wanted to keep it.”

“Has anyone used it since the night Seth died?”

“No, not unless it was someone in the lab. Dale was the one who checked it when they brought it in, and I don’t think anyone else worked on it.”

“Tory, sometimes files can be recovered even when it seems they’ve been erased. Would you mind if I had an expert take a look at the computer?”

“You really think they might be able to find something on it?”

“I don’t want to mislead you — they might not. And it has been a long time, so… I can’t promise anything. But I have so little to work with right now that I’ve got to try every possible means to recover evidence.”

She suddenly seemed uneasy. “There might be some private conversation on it.”

“There might be,” he agreed. “As well as enough information to prove once and for all who murdered your son.”

She didn’t jump at that, but sat quietly, watching him. Knowing she had long been convinced that Lefebvre had killed Seth, Frank was trying to come up with another way to persuade her when she said, “All right, I’ll bring Seth’s computer to you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

His surprise must have shown, though, because she smiled and said, “You’re wondering why I agreed.”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Because I had two children, Frank, not one. Seth talked to Lefebvre about that night several times — went over and over his description of Amanda’s killer and what had happened. If you can find files that have been erased, you might find those, too, right? I know it’s a long shot, but if you had that again, you might be able to do something about Dane, right?”

“I might,” he agreed, not thinking there was much hope in it.

“Good. What else can I do for you?”

“The other questions I have may be a little more difficult to answer, because you and Trent were divorced at the time of his murder,” he said. “I thought you might know if your ex-husband had any enemies other than Whitey Dane — does anyone come to mind?”

“Is someone else in on all of this, too? Hiding the evidence against Dane?”

“I’m just exploring every possibility.”

She frowned. “I guess everyone knew that one of the other commissioners had it in for him. Trent had embarrassed the guy. Let’s see, what was his name? Soury? No, that one was friendly to Trent. It was… Pickens! That was his name!”

“Michael Pickens?”

“Yes, he’s the one. I’ll ask Dale—”

“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”

She looked puzzled.

“I know you must want to confide in your husband, and that’s perfectly understandable. But you’ve told me that he has contacts in the department, and word from those contacts could reach Commissioner Pickens—”

“As if Bob Hi — as if his friends in the department are the type to hobnob with commissioners!”

So Bob Hitchcock had called Britton. Acting as if he hadn’t noticed the slip, Frank said, “Even so — there is a difference between helping an investigation and interfering in an investigation. I cannot stress how important it is that you allow me to do my job without being concerned that the person I need to talk to has had time to prepare answers or that a former member of my department is involving himself in the process. I’m sure your husband’s motives would be the best, as would yours, but it will cause problems. I don’t want anyone to be able to get away with murder because we failed to follow the rules the courts have set down for us.”

“You mean — someone could get off on a ‘technicality’ because I talked to Dale?”

“The case might not even go to court if a D.A. believes there is a rogue investigation going on, or that someone who benefited from the deaths of your husband and children influenced the investigation.”

“Benefited!”

“That’s the way the court may see it.”

She crossed her arms, a mulish expression on her face. When he didn’t back down, she relented. “Oh, all right.”

His pager went off. Mayumi Iwata at the NTSB.

18

Tuesday, July 11, 1:15 P.M.

The Riverside Freeway

Several times during the ninety-minute drive to San Bernardino, Frank had to force himself to ease his grip on the steering wheel. He told himself to relax, that he didn’t know anything for sure yet, that Mayumi had simply asked him to come out to the hangar where Lefebvre’s Cessna was being studied. But he knew she would have told him about a simple finding of pilot error or mechanical failure over the phone.

Don’t jump to conclusions. But that, he thought, was like asking a three-packs-a-day man not to worry about being asked to come in for a second chest X-ray.

He tried to distract himself. He thought of calling Irene and decided against it. He hadn’t told her where he was going when he canceled his lunch with her. Although he wished Mayumi’s call had come an hour later, he knew Irene wasn’t adding the canceled lunch to her list of grievances — given their occupations, sudden changes in plans for reasons unprovided were commonplace. They had long ago accepted the fact that they could not always talk to each other about their workdays. They had prided themselves on respecting certain boundaries around their jobs. He knew she still hadn’t completely forgiven him for crossing the line.

On the seat next to him was the videotape Polly Logan had given him. He hadn’t managed to watch it again yet. He wanted to see it without Polly’s commentary, to study the people who had surrounded Seth Randolph at that time. He could have locked it in his desk drawer, but he felt strangely uneasy about doing so. He decided to keep it with him. He’d take it home tonight, watch it after going over to visit Bredloe.

Thinking of Bredloe make him think about the paper airplane, and he wondered if there were paper airplane experts. He knew there were paper airplane competitions, but was there some kind of national paper airplane association? It would be far from the most absurd organization he had ever heard of.

He remembered reading about an annual contest among local engineering students to make the best paper airplane. Maybe the man who attacked Bredloe had learned to make paper airplanes in college. It wasn’t hard to believe that a man with a background in engineering could have made the device that toppled the bricks.

Mayumi must have been watching for his car, because she was waiting for him just inside the hangar. She gave him a visitor’s badge, then led him to a large work area where the Cessna was being examined.

It was a sight that unexpectedly disturbed him. On the mountainside, he had seen the plane as little more than a vine-covered tomb and had been interested only in who and what had been buried within it. But now the plane itself was at center stage — Lefebvre’s means of escape held captive. Frank could not rid himself of the notion that he was viewing an autopsy. The Cessna stood gutted — stark, battered, lifeless — delayed from its final disposition for the sake of an examination. A lone corpse, its damage too demanding — distracting observers from the remaining traces of its former beauty.

What had failed? What had brought on the beginning of this end?

“It will be a while before we release any official report of our findings,” Mayumi said, “but I wanted you to know what we’ve learned right away.”

He heard the anxiety in her voice and gave her his full attention.

“We have many factors to consider in an accident investigation,” she said. “The pilot’s experience, his state of mind, his health. The plane itself, especially its maintenance.”

“The pilot is supposed to log all maintenance, right?”

“Yes. There are three required logbooks — the pilot’s log, the propeller log, and an engine and airframe log. If a pilot so much as replaces a screw on his plane, it should be logged. Some pilots are better than others at keeping records, of course. Lefebvre was meticulous. And, I should add, meticulous in the care of his aircraft. Routine maintenance was performed on or even ahead of schedule. He didn’t push a single component of this Cessna past its life expectancy. He took measures to ensure that this machine was in prime condition.”

“Irene — my wife — knew him. She told me he really loved flying, that it was what made him happiest. She also said he was cautious.”

“I can tell you that’s true without ever having met him. You could have guessed it from his logbooks. When we were first notified that he was missing, we looked up what records we could and talked to people who knew him — not just friends and family, but his mechanic, other pilots, and so on. So even before I read these logs, I already knew that he had many hours of both military and civilian flying experience — he knew what he was doing. The logbooks confirmed that, but they tell me more. They tell me that he wasn’t just a weekend flier. In fact, until the first week of June in the year of the crash, Lefebvre never let more than a few days go by without flying.”

“The first week of June?” Frank asked. “You’re sure of that?”

“Yes. There are no entries dated between June third and June twenty-first.”

“The attack on the Randolph family happened just before midnight on June third,” Frank said. “Lefebvre saved Seth Randolph’s life that night — in the early hours of June fourth, and he was with the boy almost constantly after that. Until Seth Randolph was killed — on the night of the twenty-second.”

“My God.”

“You’re saying he completely put aside flying during that period?”

“He completely put aside something he loved.” She gave a small shrug and said, “That’s not a term you’ll find in my report, of course, but — I’m trying to get a picture across to you. I want you to see the kind of care that went into this plane, the hours he spent in it — I’m telling you, it was a love affair. He put a lot more time into its upkeep than most men put into their marriages.” She smiled wryly. “Which may not be saying much. The man who taught me to fly told me that the reason pilots spend more time with their planes than their wives is that there are more women than P-51s.”

Frank laughed. “Oh, sorry. Being the female trainee of a man who valued vintage military aircraft more than women must have been a pain.”

“Nah,” she said. “I was used to it. He was my dad. Anyway, Irene was right — Lefebvre was a cautious flier. We know he checked the weather before he took off that night. We know he filled his tanks. He also had relatively sophisticated navigational equipment aboard this plane, and he clearly knew how to use it.”

“So you don’t believe it was pilot error.”

“That’s not why I told you all of that — but no, I don’t believe it was pilot error. I know why the plane crashed, but I wouldn’t have ruled out pilot error just because he loved to fly and did the maintenance. Pilots make mistakes — even experienced pilots. Or they become incapacitated — have heart attacks, strokes, you name it.”

“But you don’t think it was a health problem or you wouldn’t have paged me to come down here — so tell me, why did it crash?”

“Because someone else wanted it to.”

He said nothing — his mind quickly retracing steps over a path of implications he had hoped he wouldn’t have to consider seriously.

“You aren’t especially surprised, are you?” Mayumi said quietly.

He shook his head. “No, I guess I’m not. I’ve had nothing more to go on than the sort of thing you just talked about — gut feeling, mostly. I haven’t been able to make the pieces fit the way everyone in the LPPD seems to insist they do. Killing a teenage witness, going for a bribe — nothing in Lefebvre’s background matched up with that.” He paused, remembering his conversation with Yvette Nereault, of her unwavering faith in her brother. “Tell me more about what happened to the plane.”

“Let me back up a little,” she said. “When the NTSB starts an investigation, we’re concerned with more than determining the cause of any one crash — we study crashes so that we can improve safety. If there’s some design flaw or manufacturing problem in an aircraft, we want to know. When any aircraft crashes for unknown reasons, we notify interested third parties to the investigation — the aircraft manufacturer, the maker of the engine and of the propeller and so on. They help us to investigate. We send parts to them, they send field investigators to us.”

“That’s why the propeller and engine are missing?” Frank said, looking toward the plane.

“Right. Here — come over this way.” She walked toward a series of photographs pinned to a corkboard display. The first group was of the crash site and the plane as it was found there. “I put these up here to help explain it to you.” She pointed to the next group of photos — close-ups of the propeller.

“We start by looking at the propeller. Experts study the scratches on it — are they chordwise, spanwise, and so on. The scratches tell us if the plane was developing power at the time of impact and if the pilot had feathered the propeller.”

“Feathered?”

“Turned the windmilling blade into the wind, to reduce drag. When we took a look at Lefebvre’s propeller, we learned that he used that procedure and that the engine was not developing power.”

Frank looked at the next set of photos. “The engine?”

“Yes. We sent it back to Mobile, Alabama. To Teledyne. They were able to start it.”

“To start it! After it had been through a crash?”

“Yes. Not at all uncommon to be able to do that when the problem isn’t the engine per se. This one isn’t badly damaged — only picked up a few dents. But look at these close-ups.”

“It looks as if there’s some charring,” he said. He glanced back at the photos taken of the wreckage in the mountains. “But no sign that any other part of the plane caught fire. Was this one just local to the engine?”

“Yes,” she said approvingly. “A small engine fire. That will be important later. It’s the only thing that saved your evidence.”

He looked at the next group. “The carburetor?”

“Yes. And that’s where we found our molasses.”

“Molasses?”

She moved to a table and picked up a glass vial. She held it up to the light so that he could see the small amount of crusty brown material in it. “Most of this went to the lab, but I saved a little to show to you. I thought it might be oil varnish at first, but I sent it in for identification. It’s sugar.”

“The fire caramelized it?”

“Right. Without that, we might not have found it. Over ten years, moisture might have washed it out.”

“So someone dumped sugar into his fuel tanks?”

“That seems to be the case. He flew for a while, and then the lines started to clog. It fouled the carburetor and the engine coughed to a halt. That bit of hardened sugar tells us what caused the crash, but we have another indication that someone tampered with his plane.”

“In case the sugar didn’t work?”

“The second has nothing to do with causing a crash, but may have a lot to do with the amount of time the aircraft was missing — the emergency locator transponder. It sends out a signal for a number of hours if certain g-forces are applied — which happens in a crash. If the ELT had been working, we might have been able to locate the plane shortly after it went down. I’m not saying that was guaranteed — especially since he was in rough terrain. But an ELT can certainly help. Lefebvre’s ELT was externally mounted. So someone could have tampered with it.”

He frowned. “Tampered with it… because if Lefebvre survived the crash but needed medical attention, a delay in locating the plane might lead to his death.”

“I can’t help but think that might have been the case.”

“Jesus, that’s cold.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not sure anything was wrong with the ELT?”

“Not absolutely. There is no sign of damage, and after ten years that battery would have been dead no matter what. But the curious thing was, the battery was long past its expiration date before the crash.”

“And Lefebvre wouldn’t have let it go.”

“His maintenance logs say he routinely checked the battery and had just replaced it that May. I can’t believe he replaced it with an old one.”

“No. Mayumi — is there any way to trace the purchase of the battery?”

“I’ve got someone working on it.”

She walked him to his car. He looked back toward the building and said, “What will happen to it?”

“The plane? Depends in part on what his heirs want us to do when we’re finished. Probably be sold for scrap. I try to think of it as organ donation.”

He smiled and thanked her for her help with the case. He started to get into the car, then said, “Mayumi, if anyone else from my department calls about this—”

“I’ll be away from my desk. Maybe even on vacation. Yes, I’ve thought about what all of this means, too, Frank. You’ve got more to worry about than I do.”

On the way back to Las Piernas, he thought of facing Yvette Nereault and telling her that her brother had been murdered, just as she had always believed. He thought of the men who had met him for breakfast that first morning back from the mountains — including his own partner — and their clumsy attempt to pressure him into forgetting about Lefebvre.

He grew angry thinking of their disparagement of a good cop — even the chief had made Lefebvre’s name taboo.

Suddenly he thought again of the paper airplane in Bredloe’s pocket and heard Nereault’s warning echoing through his mind:

“You should watch your back, Detective Harriman, especially if you are going around saying that Philippe might have been innocent.”

19

Tuesday, July 11, 5:30 P.M.

St. Anne’s Hospital

He called Pete to get an update on the captain’s condition. Pete told him that Bredloe had briefly regained consciousness several times during the afternoon. The captain hadn’t been awake long enough to really talk to anyone, but his doctors seemed pleased that he had managed a slurred version of Miriam’s name when he saw her at his bedside.

Frank decided to stop by the hospital before heading home. Bredloe probably wouldn’t even know he was there, but it seemed important to Frank to take the time to visit him. If nothing else, he could give Miriam a chance to eat dinner or offer to bring something to her if she wouldn’t leave the room. Irene wouldn’t be able to join him; on Tuesday nights, she covered city council meetings.

As he pulled into a parking space at St. Anne’s, his pager went off. Ben Sheridan’s cell phone number. Frank called the anthropologist.

“Frank? Glad you called back so quickly,” Ben said. “I’m just coming back from the mountains.”

“I thought you weren’t going up there until the weekend.”

“I wasn’t, but I didn’t have any classes today and I was curious. So Anna and I took the dogs up to the site.”

Anna was Ben’s girlfriend. She was also an experienced dog handler and often helped Ben on searches. “You found something or you wouldn’t have paged me.”

“Well, not much in the way of remains — a few small bones. But we found a wood rat’s nest and located something that might be sort of interesting in it. Lefebvre’s watch.”

“His watch? Are you sure it’s his?”

“Inscribed to him from his sister, Yvette, on the back. In French, by the way. Even better, I’ve got made-for-TV evidence for you here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how it works on TV,” Ben said. “A bullet passes through a victim and conveniently hits a clock or breaks his watch, so you learn the time of death — right? Only it wasn’t a bullet, just good old impact. Plenty of that in a crash. So it stopped Lefebvre’s watch. The watch is an old-fashioned but very nice Omega. An analog dial. With little windows on the face that show the day and date.”

“Are you telling me you can determine the time of the crash from it?”

“Not exactly. The watch was smashed up on impact, and the minute hand and crown are missing — probably in the debris the NTSB picked up on the cockpit floor. Your lab should be able to see the impression of the minute hand on the face even though it’s gone. The face is a little dirty, but you can still see ‘Fri’ for Friday and ‘Jun’ for June and the number twenty-two for the date. The hour hand is on nine.”

“Which means Lefebvre died the same night he took off. The NTSB learned that already, I think, but this helps to confirm that. It should probably go into their report, too.”

“So — I guess it wasn’t so exciting after all.”

“No — it is. I’ll tell you why the next time I see you. I’ve got to check out something in the property room before I know more. Are you hanging on to the watch?”

“I’ll be giving it to the county coroner. I’m working for him at this point. But I’ll call Mayumi Iwata and let her know about it.”

“Good. Thanks a lot. Oh — one other thing. Do you know the name of the engineering professor who’s in charge of the paper airplane competition at the university?”

“Ray Wilkes. Do you need to talk to him about something?”

“Yes, are you friends?”

“I haven’t known him for long, but I like him. The first time I came on campus openly wearing my prosthesis, he stared — but not in the way most people do. He named the make and model of everything in my rig and complimented me on my choice of prosthetist. Turns out he runs the campus program for students interested in going into prosthesis design. Want me to ask him to give you a call?”

“Thanks, Ben. Have him call the cell phone.”

As he hung up, he saw Chief Hale walking out of St. Anne’s. Frank locked his car, hesitated briefly, then called out to the chief. Hale’s aide had already opened the door to the chief’s car, but Hale waited, scowling as Frank hurried over to where he stood.

“If I could have a word alone with you, sir?”

“What is it?” the chief snapped.

“Alone, sir,” Frank said, glancing toward the aide.

Hale seemed about to refuse, but then said, “Wait here,” to the aide and began walking. Frank followed him as he took quick strides back toward the hospital. The chief moved on a determined course, not stopping until he reached a walled area near the emergency room. He went through a gate as if he owned the place, and Frank saw that they were in a small garden, an outdoor waiting area for families of patients. At one end of the garden was a fountain with a religious statue at its center — a serene woman Frank guessed to be St. Anne, although he wasn’t sure. There was a bench near the fountain. Hale moved to the bench but did not sit down. He frowned at the statue for a moment, then turned to Frank and said, “Well?”

Now that he had the chief’s attention, he wasn’t sure where to begin. Hale was obviously not in a receptive mood.

“Well?” the chief said again.

“The NTSB contacted me today. I drove out to where they are studying the wreckage of Lefebvre’s plane. They’ve made some preliminary findings that I thought you should know about, sir.”

“How odd,” the chief said.

“Sir?”

“How odd, Detective Harriman, that the chain of command in this department has been changed and no one saw fit to tell me about it. So now you report directly to me and not to Lieutenant Carlson?”

Frank considered saying nothing more. Carlson wasn’t up to handling a problem like this, and Bredloe — the man he would have gone to under other circumstances — was in no condition to help. Frank had decided to approach Hale because he trusted him. He knew Hale tried to run an honest department — that was part of why Frank liked working for the Las Piernas PD. But this was the second time in as many days that the chief had rebuffed him after a mention of Lefebvre’s name. Tired and frustrated, Frank felt his hold on his temper slipping and clenched his teeth to hold back a suggestion about where Hale could put his organization chart. If he couldn’t talk to Hale, to hell with it.

Hale watched his reaction, smiled, and said, “As long as you have me here, Detective, let’s hear it.”

“I need to know that I’m speaking to you with absolute confidentiality,” Frank said.

Hale looked surprised, but said, “All right. Now what’s the trouble?”

“There is definite evidence that Lefebvre’s plane was sabotaged, sir. Lefebvre was murdered.”

Hale sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. But those who do business with men like Whitey Dane shouldn’t expect to live forever.”

“But we can’t assume—”

“Lefebvre was cozying up to the wrong side!” he said angrily. “Obviously the man who hired him killed him.”

“With all due respect,” Frank said, again struggling to control his own temper, “there is another possibility. It’s possible that Lefebvre was not working with Dane, that someone else within our department stole that evidence and murdered Seth Randolph. And Lefebvre as well.”

“Ludicrous.”

“Lefebvre had an excellent record and no motive to kill Seth Randolph. If he was working for Dane, why did he call attention to the Amanda on the night Trent and Amanda Randolph were killed?”

“No one believes he was working for Dane then. He was obviously recruited later, when Dane saw that he had access to the boy. As for motive — Dane had enough money to make it worthwhile.”

“To make it worthwhile to someone, yes. But not necessarily Lefebvre.”

“Do you suppose we just drew his name out of a hat ten years ago? It was not simply that he fled, you know. He was the last person to handle the evidence against Dane and the last person to enter Seth Randolph’s room before the boy’s body was found. You know those are the facts, Detective Harriman.”

“I’m not saying I understand all of his actions on that night, sir — but to ignore the possibility that Lefebvre was framed is to endanger other members of the department now.”

“Such as you?” Hale asked sarcastically.

“Such as Captain Bredloe.”

“Harriman, really—”

“The paper airplane, sir. It has to be connected. A mistake on the part of—”

“Detective Harriman,” Hale said, leaning so that he was only a few inches from Frank’s face. “I’ll tell you who’s making a mistake. You are.” He straightened, then began pacing, muttering to himself. “Paper airplanes! For God’s sake—”

“Captain Bredloe and I had been talking — arguing, really — about Lefebvre not long before the captain left for the Sheffield Club. Many members of the department knew that — I think Lefebvre’s killer knew it. Not much later someone used that paper airplane to lure the captain out to where he’d be hit by the falling bricks.”

Hale rolled his eyes. “God grant me patience! You find a paper airplane in a suit pocket and you’re ready to call in the paratroopers. Bredloe could have picked up that paper airplane anywhere — anytime. He could have made it himself.”

Frank stayed silent. He thought of arguing that even the lab believed Bredloe’s attacker made the plane, but obviously Hale’s mind was made up.

“You asked to speak to me in confidence,” Hale said. “I will respect that request, in part because I know you have done good work for this department. We’ve had our ups and downs with you, but you’ve got the gift. No, don’t look surprised to hear me say that — and don’t expect I’ll ever admit I did. I don’t think of it as voodoo, you know. But I’ve been on the job too long not to know it when I see it. You’ve got it. I’ll tell you who else had it — Lefebvre. For all the good it did him.”

“I’m gratified by your comments, sir, but—”

“You should be. But don’t think that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about you, Harriman. You’re a damned pain in the ass. And if you think I enjoy working with a pain in the ass, maybe you don’t have such great instincts after all.”

“It’s not just my instinct that tells—” Frank began, but Hale interrupted again.

“If you are about to tell me that your instinct tells you that traitor was innocent, spare yourself the trouble. I have an assignment for you, Harriman. The assignment is for you to reread the case files so that you know what the hell was going on here ten years ago. Now, if that’s all…?”

“Sir, I have read them, and forgive me, but I can’t say the investigations were up to the department’s usual standards. I can’t help but wonder why we didn’t look at who benefited from Randolph’s death, why we didn’t ask—”

“Because, Detective Harriman,” Hale bit out, “as you’ll see from the files, we had evidence and witnesses and all those other dumb little elements of a murder investigation that bring criminals to justice. I’ll admit we only did our poor best before a creative thinker like you came along, showing us how paper airplanes are more important than all that, but somehow, by God, we closed cases!”

Accepting defeat — for the moment — Frank said, “I take it you have no objection to my telling the family what I’ve learned from the NTSB?”

The chief hesitated, then said, “Why not? Even if you don’t, the NTSB files will soon be a matter of public record in any case. But do you mean to tell me you would tell those French hotheads before you’d give this information to your own lieutenant?”

“They’re Quebecois, not French, sir. Given our — let’s say our lack of sympathy—”

“Sympathy! I’ll be damned before—”

“I’m just saying that under the circumstances, I haven’t found the family to be unreasonable.”

“You also haven’t answered my question.”

“I believe they can be discreet.”

“And Carlson can’t, eh? Well, he’s proven that, I suppose.” Hale studied him. “You don’t like Carlson much, do you?”

“No, sir.”

Hale laughed. “Honest to a fault. Good night, Detective Harriman. Read those files again.”

He began to walk away, then turned back toward Frank. “The files only tell part of the story, you know. They won’t tell you what this department suffered. Budget cuts, community mistrust — those were bad. You know what was worse? We couldn’t hold our heads up. That was the worst. The loss of morale, of pride. Not to mention the guilt — I felt it, Bredloe felt it, and so did Willis. You didn’t know Willis, but he was Lefebvre’s lieutenant. I don’t think he ever got over feeling that he was in some way responsible for Seth Randolph’s death and all that followed. He retired not long after that. Died the same year he retired. I can promise you this, Detective Harriman — I will not let this department be put through something like that again. Not by anyone.”

20

Tuesday, July 11, 6:00 P.M.

The Dane Mansion

Myles waited patiently while Mr. Dane finished feeding the swans. Dane would not sit down to his own dinner for another hour. The household was on its summer schedule now.

Dane scattered the last of the food pellets, then turned and held out his hands. One of the younger servants came forward immediately — Derrick, blond and blue-eyed, a little wasp tattooed just behind his right ear — and washed and dried Mr. Dane’s hands very carefully. Dane smiled at him and Myles felt a little jealousy. He did not betray this in any way.

Dane took his silver-handled walking cane from another young man, then dismissed him and the others. He beckoned to Myles to walk with him. This was a special privilege, and Myles already felt both comforted by the invitation and ashamed of his earlier stab of envy.

Mr. Dane began by talking of general business matters. Mr. Dane no longer involved himself in the drug trade — at least, not in any direct fashion. He made a certain amount of money from it, but only by controlling more direct participants. He had divided his territory and now amused himself by playing the bystander, watching his successors murder one another’s associates in a quest to reunite that territory. That would never happen. Mr. Dane would not allow it to happen.

And he had made it clear that the violence was not to spill over into areas where he had forbidden it. When one of the leaders of these two groups failed to abide by this rule, Mr. Dane had him brought to a meeting place and told him not to defecate where he dined. Mr. Dane had asked Myles to translate the phrase into language the young man would comprehend. Myles, misunderstanding, merely told the young man, “Don’t shit where you eat.”

But Dane said, “No, Myles, he doesn’t understand what is said to him, because I have already said that I did not want altercations to take place near any establishment in which I had an interest. I believe experience is the only language he’ll understand.”

And so, as Dane watched, they had fed the man a cathartic, and after the inevitable event occurred, forced him to swallow the results. He did not live long after that, though the cause of death had more to do with asphyxiation than with anything ingested. Dane promoted the man’s second-in-command — a witness to the lesson — and there had been no difficulties of a similar nature since.

Mr. Dane had grown tired of such people, he told Myles. Their stupidity wearied him. He now focused his attention on various business enterprises, mostly real estate and import-export concerns. He was a silent partner in a great many small establishments in the city. He told Myles that over the past ten years, he had learned that there were opportunities everywhere — and plenty of stupidity as well. “But the latter — on the part of another — often creates the former for me, so I must not complain.”

Myles was pleased that, so far, he was able to answer all of Mr. Dane’s questions this evening.

“And were you able to learn anything more about the incident at the Sheffield Club?”

“Yes, sir. The story being given to the media is inaccurate. The police are claiming that they are unsure of Captain Bredloe’s reasons for being there, even hinting that he was there because his wife is on the Historical Preservation Commission. But Captain Bredloe clearly expected some attack — there were SWAT team members on hand and a bomb squad checked the building before he entered.”

“How curious.”

“Yes, sir. We are trying to learn more. I should also mention that there is a rumor within the department that this has something to do with the investigation of Detective Lefebvre’s death.”

Dane brooded over this, then said, “What about the NTSB report?”

“We have had difficulty there, sir, but one of our associates is saying that they have found evidence of sabotage.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Dane said, yawning delicately. “By whom?”

“Person or persons unknown. They do not, of course, pursue criminal investigations. That is left to law enforcement. In this instance, to Las Piernas.”

Dane watched the swans for a time, then said, “Have you made any progress on the other matter?”

“The court cases and police files will be given to me tonight. I’ll study them in depth this evening. It will take another day to get the district attorney’s files.”

“And you have prepared information for me about Detective Harriman?”

“Yes, sir. When would you like that report?”

“Oh, tomorrow will be soon enough. Bring it to me after you return from your assignment. Now, tell me who you have for me this evening.”

“Tessa is here, sir, as you requested. She has already dined, also as you requested.”

“Yes, she’s lovely in bed, but I can’t stand to listen to her talk. Probably what drove Trent Randolph to leave her. You know, although Tessa would have been an invaluable asset to us if she had been married to the man, I’m really glad that she wasn’t able to snare him after all, aren’t you? I just don’t think Trent was the sort of fellow who’d share his wife with me.”

21

Tuesday, July 11, 9:25 P.M.

Las Piernas State University

Frank waited in the hall outside a faculty office in one of the engineering buildings. He idly studied posters and displays that were by and large beyond his comprehension, listening to the drone of a professor’s voice in a nearby classroom. He shifted the cardboard box he was carrying — a little wider and shallower than a shoebox — to the other arm.

Dr. Ray Wilkes had left a message on his voice mail, saying that he was leaving Wednesday afternoon for an out-of-state conference, but if Frank needed to talk to him before he returned next Monday, he could come by the university this evening. “I teach a summer session extension course tonight; we’ll finish up at about nine-thirty.”

Frank had heard the message after a depressing visit to Bredloe. The captain’s bruises were showing more vividly now, worsening his appearance. And Miriam, past the initial shock and reassured that he would survive, was more fearful about the long-term effects of his injuries.

When he had heard Wilkes’s message, he thought of the chief’s sarcastic remarks and briefly considered calling the professor to tell him that he appreciated the offer of help, but that things had changed and he was no longer pursuing that line of investigation. Instead, he stopped by the lab and talked a night-shift tech into letting him sign out the paper airplane.

He had also called Yvette Nereault. Unlike the day before this time, she had answered the phone. He told her what he had learned from the NTSB and asked her to please not discuss it with anyone outside the family.

“It’s a great injustice,” she said. “Not to me, but to Philippe. I am amazed that you worry that anyone would care about anything I might say. For ten years, we who loved him have been saying that Philippe was murdered. No one listened to us in all that time, so I don’t know why they should start listening now.”

“Because now there is proof. I won’t lie to you — my chief thinks your brother was killed by the people who supposedly paid him off.”

“But you don’t, do you?” she said. “You’ll forgive me if I sound astonished, Detective Harriman, but you see, this is something new to me — a member of that department who has not condemned Philippe out of hand. So — if you continue to work to clear Philippe’s name, I will keep quiet.”

He had gone home, fed the dogs, and taken them for a run. He watched part of Polly Logan’s tape before heading out to the university. Without her commentary, he got a better feel for Lefebvre.

Students began filing out of the classroom, and soon he heard other groups of them coming down the stairs at the far end of the hall. He saw an elderly gentleman in a three-piece suit and bow tie step out of the classroom. He carried a large valise. The man walked toward Frank, peering over a pair of half-glasses as he approached.

“Professor Wilkes?” Frank asked.

The man’s lips pursed and he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I’m Professor Frost. Can I help you?”

“Thanks, but no — I have an appointment with Dr. Wilkes.”

“Then I can only hope you believe that patience is a virtue, young man, because my esteemed colleague will undoubtedly be late for it.” He continued to stroll down the hall.

The building began to empty out. Soon it grew quiet again. Frank found a plastic chair that someone had left in the hallway and dragged it down to the professor’s door. He sat down and looked at his watch — nine forty-five. Folding his arms around the box, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

He awoke with a start when he heard another group of students coming down the stairs. He still had the box and opened it to see that the plane had not somehow been removed. He checked his watch again and saw that he had dozed off for only about ten minutes. He stood up and stretched, watching as the students — four men and two women — walked toward him. The young men were all dressed in a similar way, wearing sports coats over colorful shirts, and carrying backpacks. The clear leader of this group seemed to be a little older than the others, a grad student perhaps. He had the complete attention of his peers, although Frank couldn’t make out what he was saying. He apparently made a joke that was a hit, though, because they suddenly broke into laughter. As they came closer, the leader seemed to notice Frank for the first time. He suddenly looked chagrined and said, “Detective Harriman? I’m so sorry!” He hurried forward and extended a hand. “Ray Wilkes. Forgive me, I lost track of time.”

“He didn’t lose track of time,” one of the female students said. “He doesn’t recognize the fourth dimension.”

Wilkes sighed dramatically. “Wounded again, Jill. Now, you’ll all have to excuse me. Detective Harriman has been waiting for me for half an hour.”

“You’re with the police?” Jill asked Frank.

“He’s not in trouble, is he?” one of the young men asked at nearly the same time.

“Yes, he’s with the police,” Wilkes said, unlocking his office door. “No, I am not in trouble — and yes, we’d like some privacy.” He smiled. “Scram.”

They invited him to join them at the on-campus beer bar when he finished, invited Frank, too. Wilkes took a rain check, reminding them that he still needed to pack for the conference. Finally, after a prolonged chorus of “Bon voyage,” “Are you sure you don’t need a ride to the airport?” and “Good night, Dr. Wilkes,” they left.

“I apologize again,” Wilkes said to Frank, inviting him to take a seat in the tiny but neatly organized office. “Now, how can I help you?”

“I need your expertise on a matter concerning an open case, but I have to ask that this matter remain absolutely confidential.”

“Certainly, I understand — otherwise your investigation may suffer. I promise I won’t discuss this with anyone else.”

Frank hesitated, then said, “Ben said you’re the organizer of the paper airplane contest on campus — is that true?”

Wilkes was openly surprised. “Yes. It’s one of the School of Engineering’s contributions to the university’s Spring Festival. Mercury Aircraft gives cash prizes to the winners. It’s also an assignment in some courses.”

“So it isn’t just for fun?”

“Oh, no. I mean to say, it’s fun, but there is a lot more to it than that. A paper airplane contest is a great way to teach the students about aerodynamics — lift and drag, the effect of thermals, stabilizer and wing design — and much more. For many of them, it’s the first time they’ve designed something as part of a team. Coming up with an original design is always harder than they imagine it will be.”

“Are there specialists in this field? Expert paper airplane builders?”

“Yes, absolutely. May I ask why you need one?”

“You know of the attack on one of our captains?”

Wilkes nodded. “I read about it — horrible. A remote-controlled lift toppled bricks onto him, right? To be honest, when Ben called, I thought you might have wanted me to examine that device.”

“That might not be a bad idea, but I’m here tonight because of a paper airplane. The captain had this one in his pocket.” Frank extended the box to Wilkes. “We think it was used as a lure, so that he was positioned where the bricks would fall — but since the plane is so unusual, I wondered if it was also a signature of sorts. I’m hoping you might recognize the style.”

Wilkes opened the box and took the plane out, then shook his head. “Unfortunately, I do recognize it.”

“Unfortunately?”

“This is a textbook paper airplane, I’m afraid. Literally.” He set the box on his desk, then scanned his bookshelf. He pulled out an oversize paperback, a book called Winging It. “For the classes, we use this one by Bray and Killeen, one by Blackburn and Lammers, and a few others.” Without needing to use the index, he opened the book to page 98 and handed it to Frank. There was a large photograph of a paper airplane, a plane nearly identical to the one found in Bredloe’s pocket. Instructions for making it began on the next page.

“So it’s not unique,” Frank said, disappointed.

“Dinterman’s Stunt Flyer,” Wilkes said. “I would have given a failing grade to the student who turned this in — an F for plagiarism and for failing to make progress in the class. We show them how to make this one during the first week of the course. We even demonstrate it at the festival.”

“So dozens of people know how to make this?”

“More than dozens, I’m afraid,” Wilkes said ruefully. “A little over a hundred at the very least.”

Frank studied the folding instructions in the book for a moment, then said, “This looks like origami — aerodynamic origami. It can’t be that easy to learn.”

“Oh, no — most people won’t fold it as precisely as is necessary. I will say this much for your airplane maker — he or she is patient and loves precision. You can see that in the quality of the work.”

“Tell me more about this Stunt Flyer — what is it supposed to do?”

“Acrobatics. The plane is designed to slowly loop its way downward from the height at which it is launched. It’s not designed for distance, but you won’t have to run after it, and it stays in the air longer than most.”

“So it would be ideal for use in an enclosed space,” Frank said.

“Yes.”

“How many paper airplane contests are there each year — locally, in Las Piernas?”

“In Las Piernas? One. Ours. This year’s was our third event.”

“Only open to students?”

“No — anyone can enter. The event is actually several contests — prizes for distance, duration — that’s time aloft — aerial acrobatics, and so on. Within each, there are categories of competition. We have faculty, student, and public competitions. The same man takes the faculty competition every year, so we may start handicapping.”

“You?”

He laughed. “No. Professor Frost.” Seeing Frank’s smile, he asked, “Do you know him?”

“We met briefly this evening. But about the contest — do you have any lists of competitors? Entry forms perhaps?”

“Yes, both, if you need them.” He moved to a file cabinet, halted, and said, “I probably shouldn’t be giving this information to you, but — well, Ben speaks highly of you. Can I trust you not to sell the names and addresses to a mailing list or telephone solicitor?”

“I’m only looking for one name — I’m not sure whose name it is. But I suspect the attacker is someone who knows the captain, so maybe he learned how to fold this plane here. Maybe somewhere else, but I’d like to give this a shot.”

Wilkes pulled three thick folders out of a drawer. “I do wish I could stay around to help with this.”

Frank declined Wilkes’s offer of a ride to his car. The air had cooled considerably from the heat of the day, and a walk on this quiet, moonlit night would be pleasant, he decided. It would give him time to think.

He made his way across the campus alone, carrying the plane’s box and the three bulky file folders. During the spring or fall, even at this hour, groups of students would have been leaving classrooms, talking in the halls. But now, during summer session, the quad was nearly deserted. He saw a few students walking toward one of the libraries, but no one else. A little later, as he passed an open window near one of the art buildings, he saw lights and heard the sound of steel drums beating, caught a peculiar mix of scents of paint and brush cleaner and linseed oil — someone listening to music while working late in one of the studios.

He took the shortcut offered by a path through the campus sculpture garden. As he strolled past the abstract metal shapes, he wondered if he had jumped to conclusions about the paper airplane. Maybe Bredloe had some other enemy and the paper airplane was just a coincidence. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Lefebvre’s killer — maybe he had assumed a connection that wasn’t really there just because he had come from seeing the wreckage of Lefebvre’s plane not long before.

He had a sudden sensation of being watched, and halted. He was nearly in the center of the garden, surrounded now by an alien landscape of rising curves and sharp angles — a few of the large sculptures reflected moonlight off their highly polished surfaces, but most eclipsed it, darkening the pathway.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned quickly — and beheld nothing more than the garden’s odd patchwork of shadow and light. He waited. The faint pulse of the drum music reached him, and the distant, intermittent sound of cars on a campus road. He walked a little farther, then quickly stepped behind a tall, flat piece of metal with a single, four-inch hole in it. A placard at the base said the title of the piece was “Mother.”

He watched the pathway. Although he had seen nothing more, he now felt sure that someone had followed him. From where? He would have seen anyone who waited in the hall outside Wilkes’s office. Outside the engineering building? That was a possibility. There were many places — including inside other buildings — from which someone could have watched his progress until he reached the garden. At that point, the watcher would have been forced to follow him or give up pursuit.

He considered circling back to try to come up behind the follower, but just then he thought he heard a hesitant step. He stayed still, listening, watching.

Again he caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow cast where one had not been a moment ago. He shifted the folders, keeping his right hand — his gun hand — free. Suddenly he heard running footsteps on the path, moving away from him, back toward the art studios. He followed, cautiously at first, leaving the pathway to dart between sculptures, staying low.

He reached the edge of the garden, but did not step out into the open. His pursuer could have used any one of several bordering buildings as his means of escape. Again Frank waited. The steel drum music stopped. Its absence seemed to amplify the silence left in its wake, until a mockingbird began a noisy chant in a nearby ficus. Frank moved back among the sculptures.

He stayed on the grass planted between the works of art, off the concrete path. When he reached the other side of the garden, he studied his surroundings, but now he was as sure that the follower had given up as he had been sure of his presence earlier. Still, he stayed alert on the walk from the garden to the nearby stairs, from the stairs to the adjoining lot, where he was parked. He saw no one, and no other cars were parked near his own. He got into the Volvo’s front seat and started the engine.

He was about a block from the campus when he noticed that his left side mirror was out of adjustment.

22

Tuesday, July 11, 11:30 P.M.

The Kelly-Harriman Home

Frank set the files on the dining room table, where Irene had set up her notebook computer. “Mind if I work next to you?” he asked.

“Not at all — but I’m not going to be much of a conversationalist.”

“I’m not trying to force you to talk about our argument—”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that I have to do some work tonight if I’m going to take time off to go to Phil’s funeral in the morning.”

“I’ve got some papers to look through,” he said. “I’ll keep you company.”

She glanced up at him then, perhaps catching something in his tone of voice, and said, “Everything okay?”

He shrugged. “Case is spooking me, that’s all.”

When he didn’t say more, she said lightly, “Well, nothing like a little paperwork to reassure a person — the power of the mundane. Have a seat.”

So he sat across from her. Soon she was immersed in her writing, barely aware of his presence. He opened one of Wilkes’s folders, listening to the click and tap of the keyboard while she wrote. For a few minutes, he did not read — he simply watched her, by turns taken with her intensity, then amused by the faces she made as she concentrated on the story.

He glanced through the files Wilkes had given him, but did not see any familiar names. A few of the applications were nearly illegible. He thought of Joe Koza, the lab’s questioned-documents examiner, and wondered if he’d be able to decipher them. He was reminded that he needed to check in with Koza about the bloodstained business card he had found on Lefebvre’s body. By now Joe probably had found time to run laser and other tests that would allow him to read the printing on the card.

As he neared the end of the second folder, he found one application that wouldn’t need Koza’s expertise. The lettering was so neatly aligned, it seemed impossible that the form had been filled in by hand. The application was for a W. L. Wallace. He found others that had a draftsmanlike quality, but none quite so neat as Wallace’s.

He set the folders aside and took out a thick sheaf of photocopies he had made of the small notebook Lefebvre had carried on the plane.

The copies from the notebook made a good-size stack of papers because it had been almost full — Lefebvre had written on one side of each page, then turned the notebook over and started writing on the other side. Frank had been able to copy only two small notebook pages at a time, and the result made awkward reading. At least, he thought, all the blank space left room for his own notes. He knew there were ways to scan things like this into a computer and use a program to rearrange them on a page, but there never seemed to be money in the budget for things like computer scanners. The local high schools had better equipment than the police department did — which wasn’t saying much.

Looking through the pages once, then spinning them around to read the reverse side, he began to make a list of the cases covered in the notebook. He decided to ask for files on these. It might help him to learn how Lefebvre had worked. And the names of his enemies.

He couldn’t help but notice that the last few pages of writing seem to have been made under some stress. They were in connection with the Amanda case. He was especially interested in these. Seth’s name was often in them.

Irene finished her work, sent it in by modem, and gave him a quick kiss before going to bed. He was tempted to follow her, but he kept working, sure he was getting close to something now.

He was dismayed when he realized that Lefebvre had started making repeated lists in connection with the murders of Trent and Amanda Randolph — lists of names. Names of members of the department and police commission. What was Lefebvre on to?

He found one exception — one name that he couldn’t make sense of. It didn’t relate to any name he had seen in the files, and as far as he knew, it wasn’t the name of an officer, detective, or crime lab worker.

Doremi. He repeated the name in his head a few times until it began to sing a little song.

Do-re-mi.

But what the hell did it mean?

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud cry, a sound of pain and fear and distress. It was as familiar as it was unsettling — Irene was having a nightmare, crying out in her sleep. He listened, but although he could hear her stirring restlessly, she did not make any other sounds. Still, he put his work away and moved to the bedroom.

She had fallen asleep while reading in bed, and the lamp beside it was still on. The book had been knocked to the floor, as had most of the covers. The dogs had made the most of this latter situation, but a stern look from him was enough to get them to retreat. The cat, who usually slept next to Irene, had moved to the rocking chair — obviously not willing to put up with all the disquiet in the bed.

The room was chilly — a cool ocean breeze came through the open window. He would not close the window — Irene’s fear of enclosed spaces prohibited shutting it. He put the sheet and blanket over her again, but by the time he had finished quietly undressing, she had already kicked them down around her feet. As she dreamed, she was breathing as fast and hard as any runner after a sprint.

“Irene, you’re safe,” he said softly. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

She murmured something unintelligible, then grew quiet. He was starting to freeze his ass off, but still, he slowly and gently eased into bed. More than once he had been kicked when she took off “running” in her sleep. Recently, the nightmares had not come to her so frequently or as violently as in the past, but he knew the last few days had provided more than enough stress to bring one on. He pulled the covers up again and turned off the light.

She half awakened and said, “You’re cold,” then snuggled closer to him.

He held her, warming beneath her, stroking her back as he listened to the sound of the nearby sea and then to her soft and steady breathing.

But just before he fell asleep, three notes played in his head — do-re-mi.

23

Wednesday, July 12, 10:00 A.M.

St. Anthony ’s Catholic Church, Las Piernas

Frank had worried that there would be only four other mourners at Lefebvre’s funeral: Yvette Nereault, Marie, Polly Logan, and Irene. Now, sitting next to Irene in the last pew of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, he counted forty-seven people in attendance — not a bad turnout for a man no one had heard from for ten years. At first he thought the majority of the small crowd were curiosity seekers, but while he saw two or three people who might fit that description, there were many more who didn’t.

Pete wasn’t here at the church, but Frank had been able to talk him and Reed into helping with surveillance at the cemetery. Reed would videotape the graveside service, or more accurately, the faces of the mourners, while Pete noted license plates. Frank was hoping that the killer would feel compelled to attend, but he kept that hope to himself. He had learned a lesson from his conversation with the chief — he told Pete and Reed that he was hoping that Lefebvre’s connection to Dane might show up.

Here in the church, he seemed to be the only one from the department in attendance.

The closed casket near the altar was a plain and inexpensive one, but it was draped in flowers and there were many wreaths and other flowers surrounding it. He was puzzled — Lefebvre had been by all accounts a loner, and no one had seen him for ten years. Who were these mourners, and who had sent all the flowers? Most of the names in the guest book were not familiar to him, but he had written them down in his notebook. Did Yvette Nereault have a wide circle of friends in Las Piernas, people who were responding in sympathy for the loss of her brother? He wanted to get a look at the cards on the flowers, but he didn’t want to place any additional strain between himself and Yvette Nereault.

He saw her now, sitting in the front pew. Although she was not weeping, her grief was evident. She seemed to be intent on bearing up for the person sitting next to her — the boy Frank had met outside Lefebvre’s condo. Another woman sat on the other side of the boy, bending to whisper something to him. The woman was heavily veiled, so Frank could not see her face or even the color of her hair. When she sat up again, he had an impression of both restraint and strength. Marie, the owner of the Prop Room, sat next to her, weeping. On the other side of Marie, an elderly man with close-cropped gray hair and military posture turned and surveyed the church, as if sensing Frank’s study of him. But in the next moment Frank realized that the man was making his own study of the mourners. His eyes met Frank’s, held for a moment, then continued to scan the crowd.

“Guy’s a cop,” he whispered, not realizing he had said it aloud until Irene spoke softly in reply.

“Matt Arden.”

Frank turned to her. Because she had to leave for work soon after the graveside ceremony, they had driven to the funeral separately. Until now, she had not said anything to him since he’d sat down beside her.

She was still watching Arden and added, “He was Phil’s mentor, you know. He’s not looking well.”

Frank thought the same — the ten years since Lefebvre’s death had not been kind to Matt Arden.

“This has got to be so hard on him,” she said, but something in her voice caught his attention and he saw how hard this was on her — and that she was trying to hide her grief from him. He put an arm around her shoulders, and understanding the gesture, she leaned against him and let the tears fall. When she started fumbling through her purse, he gave her his handkerchief.

He watched the other mourners and noticed that they did not seem to know one another. They sat a little apart from one another and did not converse.

The priest entered and began the funeral Mass. Frank had been to enough funerals to quickly recognize that this priest, a young man, had had no acquaintance with Lefebvre. He paused to consult notes whenever any mention of the deceased was called for, and never said Lefebvre’s name without carefully pronouncing it, like a child who has learned to read a new and difficult word. After a series of prayers, at the point of the Mass where Frank expected a routine sermon assuring the mourners that Lefebvre was in a better place, the priest said, “Let us take a few moments to celebrate Detective Lefebvre’s life by sharing our memories of him. While I did not have the honor of knowing him personally, Mrs. Nereault, Philippe’s sister, tells me that some of you would like to share your memories of him. I hope you’ll do so now. Would anyone like to begin?”

The result, after a moment’s hesitation, was a line at the microphone. One by one, the mourners spoke of family members — of their brothers, sons, daughters, wives — who had been murder victims, and of Philip Lefebvre’s dedication in finding the killers. Moreover, they spoke of his kindnesses to their families, of his support that continued through the killers’ trials, and well beyond.

Frank took out his notebook and started writing. When Irene saw what he was doing, he thought she might object. Instead, she pulled out her own notebook.

The stories were varied, but had certain elements in common. The speakers often told of Lefebvre persisting long after others had given up. They always spoke of Lefebvre’s concern for the families, of how kind and considerate he had been to them. They all stated their faith in his honesty. No one made a direct reference to the accusations made against him after his disappearance, but they clearly believed this man who had helped them could not have been a bad cop. To them, Lefebvre was unquestionably a hero.

No one from Lefebvre’s own family got up to speak. At one point, the boy turned around to stare intently at Frank, until the veiled woman noticed and apparently told him not to look back again. A few minutes went by while he looked straight ahead, and then he began stealing glances whenever the woman seemed distracted.

Toward the end of the Mass, Frank heard the church doors open, then a woman’s half-hushed voice. He turned to see Tory Randolph making an entrance. He found himself ready to block her way if she started to make a scene. She looked around, saw him, smiled, saw Irene, stopped smiling — saw Polly Logan, and frowned. She then pulled a harried-looking man into the pew across the aisle. The man stumbled over the kneeler as she dragged him behind her, nearly falling into her lap before he regained his balance. He righted himself, but his black-rimmed glasses had fallen halfway down his nose. He used his middle finger to push them up again, inadvertently flipping the bird to the assembled company.

“That’s the unfortunate Mr. Britton,” Irene murmured. “Pray for him.”

24

Wednesday, July 12, 10:00 A.M.

A Private Home in Las Piernas

The Looking Glass Man checked his watch. The church service would be starting now. He had a little more time. It would not do to arrive early. The police always watched for suspects among mourners and spectators.

Frank Harriman would certainly do so. His brows drew together as he considered Harriman. Bad sign that he had gone to the university. The Looking Glass Man did not worry that Harriman could trace him from there — he had never used real information when signing up. Still, he was annoyed that Harriman had even thought to go to the campus. Something must be done about Harriman.

Perhaps an accident in the home. He would bring a few supplies with him today — both Harriman and his wife would be away from the house. First they would attend the funeral and then they would go on to work. There might be a little time to set something up.

Today was a busy day, though. He felt compelled to watch them lower Lefebvre into the ground — he regretted that he had been unable to see the wreckage of the plane, but a burial was better than nothing. From there, he planned to visit St. Anne’s Hospital — not because he wished Captain Bredloe well, but because he knew Matt Arden would undoubtedly do so. Arden had been in Lefebvre’s confidence. Arden must be watched.

He forced himself to clear his mind of these immediate worries and began to review the blueprints for the targeted building, again confirming the wisdom of his choices in his placement of the devices. He was anxious about this aspect of the work. Placement was a key issue both for effectiveness and avoidance of premature discovery. And it was the one subject Wendell Leroy Wallace had not fully discussed in his notes.

The Looking Glass Man could have learned how to construct such devices from a number of sites on the Internet or from the how-to books that could be found anywhere from swap meets to public libraries. He chose instead to learn from Wallace — that late, local master of the explosive. Wallace had loved precision and neatness, and kept detailed records of his experiments, which made the Looking Glass Man embrace him as a secret soulmate. Wallace had sacrificed himself to his craft some years ago, before the Looking Glass Man had a chance to meet him, but his photocopies of the bomber’s notebooks were among his favorite reading materials.

He rolled up the blueprints and carefully stored them. He opened a binder that held a copy of one of Wallace’s later notebooks, turning to a section that described devices for use in automobiles. He read for a few moments, gratified that the necessary ingredients would not require a shopping expedition. Then his watch beeped three times, and he knew it was time to go to the cemetery. He looked at the watch with a sense of disappointment.

How he missed hearing do-re-mi!

25

Wednesday, July 12, 11:45 A.M.

Good Shepherd Cemetery, Las Piernas

The graveside service began under a hot July sun that made the black-veiled woman sway from the heat. No, Frank decided, it wasn’t the heat that made her sway. Although she held the boy’s hand firmly, she seemed distracted, more upset than at the church. The boy continued to watch Frank. It might have unnerved him to have anyone else regard him so fixedly, but there was nothing hostile or even overly curious in the boy’s stare. It was as if the grave between them formed a much deeper chasm, and the boy was willing him to find a place to cross. For what reason, Frank could not begin to guess.

He was wondering again if the boy could be Lefebvre’s son when movement several yards away caught his attention. A large, neatly dressed man sought the sparse shade of a jacaranda tree. There was deeper shade nearer to the grave, but the man seemed to want to keep his distance. He was wearing wraparound sunglasses and looked down in a slightly different direction often enough to make Frank briefly wonder if the man was there not for the funeral, but to visit a grave. Something about him made the hair on the back of Frank’s neck rise — the way he stood, the way he moved, the way he watched the mourners. Frank looked to see if Reed or Pete had noticed him and saw that they were as attuned to the man as he was. It was then that Frank noticed that the man was looking down and away not toward a gravestone, but to avert his face from the camera whenever Reed moved it toward him.

Reed’s presence was not obvious, but the man knew where he was. Matt Arden also knew. Now Frank saw that Arden was watching the man beneath the jacaranda, too.

The large stranger stood straighter and walked away. Pete followed him.

The priest was sprinkling the casket with holy water when a high-pitched, electronic ringing rent the air. As the rest of the group near the grave looked on in irritation and disbelief, Tory Randolph pulled a phone from her purse.

“Hi,” she said in a loud voice. “I’m so glad you called me back. I’ve been trying to reach you about the material for the draperies in the guest cottage. Have you—”

But before she could get any further in her drapery order, the woman in the black veil marched over to her, grabbed the phone from her hand, and pitched it onto the nearby pavement with a force and accuracy that could have won her a place in the Dodgers’ starting lineup.

“Hey!” Tory protested. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Today is not about you,” the woman said angrily.

“Do I know you?” Tory said.

Frank began moving toward them, wondering if they were going to start a shoving match right here in the cemetery.

“Get out of here,” the woman said. “Get out now.”

Tory put her hands on her hips. “Just a—”

“Apologize,” Dale Britton said to his wife with surprising firmness.

Tory eyed him angrily but said nothing.

“Very well, then, I will.” He turned to the veiled woman. “We apologize. It was incredibly rude to create a disturbance at a time like this. I’m sorry, Ms.—?”

“I’ll send money for the phone,” she said, not telling him her name.

“That won’t be necessary. Our condolences to your family.”

He took Tory by the arm and steered her toward their gold Lexus. She got into the driver’s seat and pulled away from the curb almost before he was able to get into the car. Frank noticed that Britton had slammed part of his suit coat in the door — several inches of dark blue fabric waved along the side of the car as Tory sped away.

The assembled guests murmured, but the ceremony ended without further disturbance. The family group stayed behind as most of the mourners left. Irene moved a little distance away to give the family some privacy.

He looked for Pete, but didn’t see him. Pete had apparently followed the jacaranda man. Reed signaled to Frank that he was going, too.

The woman in the veil and Matt Arden were talking with someone from the funeral home, choosing which flowers would be taken with them. Yvette Nereault walked over to Frank. “So — I am saying good-bye to you. I go back home today. You have my phone number there, I know. I’ll wait to hear what you learn.”

While she was talking, Frank became aware of someone coming closer, to stand next to him. When he looked down, he was not surprised to see the boy.

Yvette said something to the boy in French. He answered, looking stubborn. He moved even closer to Frank.

“Won’t you introduce me to your nephew?” Frank said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Yvette Nereault was unable to hide her surprise. The boy gave a small smile of triumph.

Behind them, a woman’s voice said, “Don’t say another word to him!”

Frank turned to see the veiled woman. Matt Arden stood next to her.

“It’s too late,” Arden said to her. He studied Frank, then said, “If we can count on your confidence — we can introduce him.”

“Confidence from the department?” Frank asked, feeling the ground shift beneath his feet as surely as if he had stepped backward and into the grave.

“Especially from the department,” the woman said.

He hesitated. Make a pledge like that to someone whose face he couldn’t see? He was fairly sure he knew who she was, and could guess at her reasons for wanting secrecy, but he wasn’t willing to offer that promise to a stranger. “I don’t know if I can guarantee that under every circumstance—”

“My name is Seth Lefebvre,” the boy announced clearly. “I’m not ashamed of it! My father was a hero. That’s what everyone said. I’m proud to be Seth Lefebvre.”

“Seth?” Frank said, startled.

“Seth,” Matt Arden said at the same moment, but in a pained voice. “Of course you’re proud, but what you just did is dangerous. You should have let your mother decide.”

“He knows,” Seth said, looking up at Frank. “You said ‘your nephew.’ I didn’t even tell you. You knew the day you helped me catch My Dog, didn’t you? You tried to call on the phone.”

“Yes,” Frank said. “I wasn’t certain, though. Mr. Arden is right, your mother is only trying to protect you from danger.” He turned to her. “Elena Rosario?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, but not lifting the veil.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“And I’ve been wanting to talk to you!” Seth said. “Just ask Tante Yvette.”

Yvette Nereault was the only one of the group besides Seth who was smiling. “You know, Seth, I would not need to use DNA testing to know you are my brother’s child.” To Elena, she said, “He will decide his own course, you know, just like his father. And God help anyone who tries to sway him from it. If you don’t mind, Elena, I think it would be best to invite Detective Harriman back to the condo. We should not allow Seth to have his important discussion here in the open.”

“It seems I don’t have any say in the matter.” Elena held out a hand to her son. “All right, let’s go, Seth.”

Seth didn’t budge. “You promise?” he asked his mother.

“Yes, I promise. Now please…”

Seth started to move away from Frank but looked up at him and said, “You can come to my house?”

“Yes, I’ll be there in a little while,” Frank said.

“You know where it is,” Elena said acidly.

Frank let that go by. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said. “Try to make sure you aren’t followed.”

“Elena,” Arden protested, “there’s no need to insult the man.”

She stiffened, then walked off. Seth called to her and ran after her. Yvette sighed, then followed.

Arden extended a hand. “Don’t have much time, and you seem to know who I am, so I won’t bother introducing myself. I hear good things about you, Harriman.”

“Likewise,” Frank said. “No one works Homicide without hearing of the legendary Matthew Arden.” He saw that it pleased Arden to hear him say so, and although he wanted Arden to feel at ease with him, he had told Arden nothing less than the truth. He had often heard Pete and the others in Homicide mention Arden’s name with near reverence. Most of the current veteran detectives had been trained to do homicide investigations by Arden. But then Frank’s last conversation with Bredloe came to mind. They had argued about Arden — argued over Arden’s lies about Lefebvre while agreeing that he had lied. “Will you be at the condo as well?” he asked Arden now.

“A little later on. I’m going to try to stop by the hospital, see your captain, if they’ll let me. They say he can’t talk or anything, but still — Jesus, I hope Bredloe’s going to be all right. I knew him when he was in uniform, for God’s sake.”

“When do you head home?” Frank asked, not wanting to talk to Arden about the captain. He wasn’t sure how many details of the attack had been leaked to Arden through his cronies in the department, but he wasn’t going to be a source of further information.

“I’m taking Yvette to LAX this afternoon, then driving on from there.” He glanced at the others, who were waiting for him. “I’d better get going. Tell that little shit Pete Baird that I said it was good to see him today, even if he is twice as bald as the last time I saw him.”

“Arden—” Frank said, as the old man began to step away.

Arden looked back at him.

“We need to talk before you leave Las Piernas.”

Arden scowled in disapproval. “You youngsters are too damned impatient. Christ on a cracker! We’re in the fucking cemetery, Phil’s casket’s not even in the ground, and you tell me we need to talk!”

Frank waited.

Arden stared fiercely for a long moment, then gradually his features softened and a small reluctant smile emerged. “Maybe not so damned impatient after all.” He sighed. “Yes, we’ll have our talk, Detective.”

“Thank you.”

Arden laughed and walked away.

Frank watched as they drove past the cemetery gates and onto the road beyond, but didn’t see any other cars pursuing theirs.

He took a moment to look at the cards on the remaining flowers, writing down names. There was one completely white spray without a card on it. His love of gardening helped him identify the flowers in it, which were mostly gladiolus interspersed with white roses and baby’s breath. He frowned; then, taking a small camera from his pocket, he used the last of a roll of film to take photographs of the arrangement. The cemetery workers watched him, their expressions a mixture of disapproval and impatience, as if he were a new brand of ghoul. No, he thought, an old brand. He watched as they lowered the coffin and began the actual work of burial.

“Good-bye, Lefebvre” he said as the coffin was lost from sight. The man deserved better than this, he thought. Then he remembered the gratitude the people in the church had expressed and Seth saying proudly that his father was a hero. “Not such a bad send-off, after all, was it? Something tells me you would have preferred that ceremony to bagpipes.” A slight breeze came up, making him shiver. He reminded himself that he wasn’t a superstitious man and walked away.

As he started his car, he saw a white Chevy van turn down the lane where the workers continued loading earth over the casket. The van slowed, then stopped. Frank could not see the plates from where he sat.

He waited, but the van didn’t move and the driver didn’t get out. He put the car in gear and drove closer to get a look at the plates. He saw the number — 2E98098. Commercial plates. He couldn’t see the driver; a set of curtains had been drawn behind the front seats of the van. He pulled ahead a short distance and parked again. He called the DMV and ran the plates.

A short time later the dispatcher’s voice crackled back at him. The van was registered to Garrity’s Flowers. Someone with a legitimate reason to be parked at a cemetery.

He pulled away from the curb and headed for the exit. He was out on the street bordering the cemetery when he saw the van behind him. He got held up by a large funeral procession making its way to the cemetery, and stopped to let them turn toward the entrance. The van would be pulling up behind him, and he would get a closer look at the driver. But the van didn’t slow. Just as he thought it would rear-end him, it swerved around him and cut across the procession, nearly causing a collision, then turned up a side street. Frank couldn’t lose the feeling that the driver didn’t want to stop near enough to be seen. He thought of pursuing him, but decided there would be little chance of catching up to him now. He stepped out of the car and walked up to the officer closest to him — the one who had stopped traffic from his direction — and showed him his identification. He was a weary-looking young officer. He had probably worked a regular shift then hired out to do the funeral work, which was contracted separately. “I know you’re working privately,” Frank said, writing the van’s plate number on the back of one of his cards and handing it to the officer, “but could you contact me if the van comes back? I’d like to know who was driving it.”

“So would I,” the officer said. “Asshole could have caused serious damage.” He turned the card over and suddenly seemed more awake. “This a homicide case?”

“Yes. I mean — there’s a slight possibility that the driver of the van is connected to a case I’m working. More likely that he’s just a jerk in a hurry, with no connection to it at all, but…”

“I understand, Detective Harriman. I hope to work Homicide myself someday.”

Frank figured this kid was only slightly less green than the reserve officer he had worked with a few days ago. He thought of Lefebvre and wanted to say, “Careful what you wish for.” Instead he smiled and said, “That’s great. Any help you can give me with this will be appreciated.”

“I should have followed him,” he said, as if he had failed Frank personally.

“You have a job here. It was probably nothing. Just let me know if he returns.”

Frank didn’t want to take too long to get over to Lefebvre’s condo. Despite her promises to Seth, Elena Rosario might change her mind about talking to him. On his way there, he called Pete on his cell phone. Before he could tell him that he wouldn’t be in for a while, Pete said, “Partner, you are brilliant. Damn, am I glad you let me in on this. So is Reed. That will teach Vince to be such an asshole.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy in the shades who was getting jacaranda sap all over his expensive suit? Myles Volmer. Whitey Dane’s number one man. I followed him right back to Dane’s lair. And the Organized Crime Unit took one look at that tape and knew exactly who showed up to mourn his old partner Lefebvre. Even Carlson is happy with you over this one. And I’m loving it, because he was giving me and Reed grief about being down there today. Hurry back while the lieutenant is in a good mood. If anyone can tie Whitey Dane to the Randolphs’ deaths, I know you can.”

Frank was silent. In spite of their disagreements over the last few days, Pete was his closest friend in the department. More than once they had risked their lives for each other. And he was going to lie to him.

“Something wrong?” Pete asked. “Aw, shit — you’re still sore about how things have been around here.”

“No. Honest to God, Pete, that didn’t get to me. But I’ve got a dozen other things I need follow-up on if we’re going to get further with this than a sighting at a cemetery. Not exactly illegal for Dane’s guy to show up there.”

“No, but it’s a start. First real connection we’ve had to Dane since the evidence disappeared.”

“It’s definitely worth pursuing,” Frank said.

“I knew you’d start to see it our way!” Pete said. “You need any more help, you let me know. No need for you to go it alone from here.”

“Sure, Pete,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

He hung up and forced himself to think of Seth Lefebvre.

26

Wednesday, July 12, 12:30 P.M.

Lake Terrace Condominiums

She was waiting for him outside the building, leaning against the wall near the bottom of the staircase. The veil was gone, but he recognized her by her shape and the dress she was wearing. She was a good-looking woman, with long dark brown hair and beautiful sea green eyes — a winter sea, he thought. There was not the slightest bit of warmth in them at the moment. They bore the marks of her recent grief, but she regarded him coldly. She was lean and strong — the muscles of her calves and arms were so well defined, he wondered if she lifted weights. She wasn’t mannish, but there was physical power in her build. She looked as if she was sorely tempted to use some of that power to punch him, as if keeping her arms folded tightly across her chest was all that prevented her from doing so.

“You took advantage of my inability to deny my son’s request at his father’s funeral,” she said by way of greeting. “I don’t appreciate that. I know how the game works, and that children are certainly not off-limits, but still—”

He held up a hand. “Hold on — your son approached me, not the other way around.”

“After you played up to him the other day.”

“I didn’t set the guinea pig loose. I didn’t even know you were living here or that Lefebvre had a son. Meanwhile, your boy is up there waiting for me and you don’t dare disappoint him. Not today.”

Her mouth leveled into a thin, tight line.

He sighed. “Maybe you’ll feel a little less hostile toward me if I tell you that I have no plan to use your son as a pawn.”

“Don’t bother, because I won’t believe you. Any more than I believe the crap you’ve given Yvette about believing in Phil’s innocence.”

“I do believe in his innocence.”

She rolled her eyes. “Try that on someone who’s never been a cop. I’ve been there, remember? And I know you can lie like the devil — the laws are set up so that you’re free to tell anyone just about anything in order to learn what you want to know. So bullshit Yvette if you like, but it won’t work with me.”

“You’ve been a cop, so you know what it’s like to bust your ass for someone who is determined to give you nothing but grief.”

“Cry me a river. Listen, I know you don’t want to talk to my son. Not really. He wasn’t even around when the trouble started. He can’t help you. So — let’s leave him out of it, all right?”

“I’m here because he wanted to talk to me. I’m not out to hurt him. Whether you like it or not, he’s learned something about his father today and—”

“Exactly my point — can’t you just let him think of Phil as the hero he was? Do you have to take that away from him?”

“Who says I am trying to?”

“Don’t give me that act!” she said furiously. “The Las Piernas Police Department has not sent you here to be helpful — I know, I worked for them.”

“You should consider rejoining the force. You’d fit right in — not twenty-four hours after I got back from the mountains, the guys I work with had all the answers, too.”

“Don’t ever compare me with those assholes again!” she said.

This is going nowhere, he thought. Sooner or later, he’d need to talk to her about Lefebvre, and he wasn’t exactly doing a fine job of building rapport. He slowly let out a breath, tried to recover his temper. “All right, I won’t compare you to them,” he said, keeping his voice even. “I know the department hasn’t been great where the family’s concerned. But if I’m going to clear Phil Lefebvre’s name, I’ll need your help.”

She gave him a look that said she had no faith in him whatsoever, but said, “You have questions for me, ask away.”

“Look, we’re off to a bad start here—”

“We haven’t got any kind of start at all, because nothing is building from here — you understand?”

He didn’t say anything. After a moment, he saw the tension in her shoulders ease, saw them lower as she relaxed slightly — as if the effort of maintaining this level of anger with him had gradually become too much for her.

When he saw this change, he began. He asked a few easy questions — yes or no questions, ones to which he knew she would always answer yes: She had been promoted to detective faster than any other woman before, right? Commendations during her patrol work? Then worked in Narcotics? About two years as a detective?

It was an old technique, one she undoubtedly knew of — the person being questioned says “yes,” and each time he or she says it, becomes a little less resistant, a little more open to the questioner. Elena unfolded her arms, and he was beginning to think all the fight had gone out of her, when he said, “You were partners with Hitch?”

Her eyes flashed and the arms came back up across her chest. “Yes,” she said bitterly.

So much for the “yes” theory, he thought.

He heard a door open, then heard Yvette say, “You will wait in here, Seth.”

The door closed again, but he realized that he might not get a chance to talk to her alone again for some time, if ever, and that Seth was growing impatient. He took the plunge. “It seems no one in the department knew you had a relationship with Lefebvre…”

“Which is probably why I’m alive.” She glanced over at him and relented. “Look, no one knew I had a relationship with Phil because we hardly got a chance to know it ourselves. In one twenty-four-hour period, Phil became my lover, Seth Randolph was murdered, Phil disappeared, and everyone started saying that he killed Seth. One day.”

“You were only together—”

“Yes. One afternoon.” She swallowed hard. “You don’t know how much I wish I could say it was more, but…”

He thought for a moment that she might cry, but she held the tears back. She moved to the stairs and sat down.

He sat next to her and waited, taking his chances on Seth’s patience.

When she started talking again, her voice was steady, but she spoke in the distracted manner of those immersed in memories.

“That night I’m out on a routine surveillance job and the radio starts going wild. What I’m hearing — what I’m hearing on that radio is unbelievable. A call from the guard on Seth’s room about a one-eighty-seven, and then he keeps saying, ‘It’s not my fault — it was Lefebvre.’”

She closed her eyes. “At first, I thought he meant that Phil was dead — that someone had killed both Phil and Seth Randolph.” She opened her eyes again and said, “Well, I guess I was right. But I didn’t know that then. I just knew that every damned unit in the city was headed over to the hospital and that the hospital was cordoned off. I talked Hitch into going over there. It got worse and worse by the minute. The more I heard, the more I kept hoping I’d wake up from this nightmare.”

She paused and cradled her forehead in the palm of one hand. “I was so scared for Phil — I think some part of me knew that something horrible had happened to him. But I didn’t want to believe that, so I kept telling myself, ‘Phil will straighten all of this out. They’ll reach Phil at Matt’s house. He’ll be there by now.’ But he wasn’t. And Matt was lying to them, but I didn’t know why.”

“Why did he lie?”

“He didn’t know what to believe, but he knew something had gone wrong — terribly wrong — for Phil. Me, at first I kept my hopes up. Not Matt. Matt didn’t know who to trust inside the department, and he didn’t have enough to go on to take it to someone outside the department. Later he tried, but no one would take him up on it. Phil looked too guilty.”

“So that night Lefebvre’s gone, and you’re hearing that Matt has denied that Lefebvre planned to visit him?”

“Right. At first, I thought it was because Phil was there and Matt was keeping him safe until he could get an attorney or some proof that he was innocent. I didn’t dare call Matt, and he didn’t dare call me. That went on for a couple of days until Matt finally got a letter to me through the mailbox.”

“The mailbox?”

“Phil got his mail at a private mailbox — at one of those mailbox stores. It took our department sleuths a while to figure that out.”

“Okay, now I remember reading something about this in the case file. A place called Mail Call?”

“Right. Earlier in the day, Phil and I had figured out an arrangement so that we could keep in touch by mail if things really started going wrong — we just hadn’t imagined how wrong they could go. So he set things up at Mail Call that afternoon, and I stopped by there before I went into work that night and picked up two keys — a key to his box and a key to a second box that was in both our names, where he would send messages to me if phones became too risky. He told Matt we would be doing this.”

“I take it the owner of this Mail Call place didn’t tell all of this to the detectives who questioned him about Phil’s mailbox?”

“No. First, the detectives showed up with a very specific court order — naming only the box number Phil had on his own. Second, they came in with an attitude, so he wasn’t cooperative. But I don’t think he would have been cooperative no matter how sweet they were, because he had a good reason to be loyal to Phil. He was one of the people at the funeral today, although he didn’t speak. Phil met the guy while working on a case — the man’s daughter had been killed by her ex-husband. The only reason the ex didn’t walk was because Phil caught the case and just wouldn’t let go.”

“So how much of Phil’s mail got delivered to your mailbox?”

She smiled a little. “You know, I’m surprised you figured that out. Those dumb asses who worked this case before you never did. How much? A lot of it. There wasn’t a heck of a lot of mail for those guys to paw through. The owner of Mail Call was smart enough to give them the bills, figuring that was probably how they found out about the box in the first place — looking up his credit records. Everything else came my way before the LPPD saw it. Didn’t help me, though. The one letter I kept waiting for never came.”

“But you heard from Matt.”

“At first, I wasn’t sure if I was hearing from Phil, or Matt, or both. I got a postcard, addressed to me, but the message area was blank. On the other side was a photo of some chrysanthemums. You know—”

Frank groaned. “Mum’s the word.”

“I had the same reaction, but I had been so anxious, there wasn’t much humor in it for me. I was so angry and upset about Seth, too — Seth Randolph, I mean. I wasn’t as close to him as Phil was, but I had spent a lot of time with him, too. We had found him that night, and Phil saved his life, and Seth had struggled to live. So it was… it was painful to lose him. I liked Seth.”

Enough to name your son after him, Frank thought, but let her brood in silence.

After a while, she said, “So about three days into all of this, my nerves were shot. The first night I made the mistake of saying to Hitch, ‘I don’t believe Phil would kill that boy,’ and I got this rant from him that convinced me that I had better keep my mouth shut. And then… then I found that someone had gone through my desk. And I remembered that it had happened to Phil, that someone had gone through his desk.”

Seth chose that moment to open the apartment door again. “Mom!” he said, making it a complaint.

“Don’t blame your mom,” Frank said. “It’s my fault we’re still out here talking.”

Seth gestured to him to hurry in.

In Seth’s presence, Elena’s stiffness of manner returned. In a low voice, she said, “You do anything to bring him into harm’s way…”

Frank turned toward her and said, “What exactly do you take me for?”

“Mom!” Seth said again, more insistently.

Frank heard Yvette Nereault say something in French to her nephew, and Seth immediately apologized to his mother. “But I’ve been waiting forever!” he muttered, casting a glance back at his aunt. As if to make up for this small rebellion, he politely asked Frank if he could take his jacket and if he would like something to drink. Frank accepted an offer of coffee before Seth led him to the sofa, then sat beside him.

“It is past noon — you must be hungry, Detective Harriman,” Yvette said. “Seth would probably enjoy it if you stayed for lunch.”

Elena did not hide her look of consternation. Seth looked at him hopefully and said, “Can you?”

“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble—”

“Not at all!” Yvette said. “Elena and I will fix you something to eat.” She turned to Seth and said sternly, “Do not plague him with questions.” With that, she dragged a reluctant Elena off toward the kitchen.

As soon as they were out of sight, Seth asked, “Did you know my father?”

“No, I’m sorry to say I didn’t have a chance to meet him.”

He seemed momentarily disappointed, then shrugged. “Neither did I.” He thought for a moment, then said, “You’re a detective, right?”

“Yes.”

“So was my dad. Matt says my dad was a good detective.”

“Your dad was better than good. Is Mr. Arden back yet?”

“Matt? Not yet. He’s visiting a friend in the hospital. The policeman who got hurt in the building when the bricks fell on him. Do you know who I mean?”

“Yes. He’s my captain.”

“Did he know my dad?”

“Yes. He was made captain of the division just before…”

“Before my dad died?” he asked calmly.

“Yes.”

“Can you take me to see him?”

“No, I’m sorry. He isn’t able to talk much right now. He’s too badly hurt.”

“Oh. Do you know anyone else who knew my father?”

Frank hesitated. “I do, but I don’t think they really knew him. I think they’re mixed up about some things and wouldn’t be able to tell you the truth.”

“They’re liars?”

“No, they’re just mistaken.”

He grew thoughtful again. “What they said today in the church — those people — that was true, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so. I had never met them before today. But I’ve read about your father, and everything I’ve read makes me think they were telling the truth. And there would be no reason for them to lie, right?”

Seth solemnly considered this, then said, “No, because they were in church, and you know…” He pointed up.

“Exactly,” Frank said, struggling to match Seth’s gravity.

“They were sad,” Seth added. “Their stories were sad.”

“Yes. But even though they were sad, they wanted to tell about how your father had helped them and to say that they were grateful.”

The boy seemed lost in thought. Frank hoped that Elena and Yvette wouldn’t take his silence as a cue to enter the room. He was fairly sure they were within earshot.

As if he had decided that — for the moment — he had puzzled out all he could about his father, Seth suddenly changed the subject. “Do you have a picture of your dogs?”

“Yes.” Frank pulled out his wallet and removed a slightly worn photo.

“What are their names?”

“Deke and Dunk.”

He frowned. “Really? Like in hockey and basketball?”

“Yes.”

“Who is that with them?”

“My wife. Irene.”

He studied the photo, then said, “Do they bite?”

“Irene? No, she’s nice.”

This information won a slight smile. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“The dogs are friendly, too. They might bite someone who tried to hurt Irene, but I’m not sure. Now that I think about it, Irene would definitely bite someone who tried to hurt the dogs.”

The smile grew a little.

“Where do you go to school?” Frank asked.

“I don’t.” At Frank’s look of surprise, he said, “I used to, but now I’m home schooled.”

“Your mother teaches you?”

“Yes. And sometimes my aunt. She teaches me French and about the history of the Quebecois and Canada. My mom teaches me lots of stuff. Spelling, reading, math. Spanish — we learn that together. And self-defense. You should teach your wife that, you know.”

“Self-defense?”

“Yes, because the dogs are good, but they might not be with her all the time when bad guys are around.”

“You have a lot of trouble with bad guys?”

He shook his head, then smiled a little. “But once this kid at school? He was being mean to me all the time, and he tried to hit me, so I flipped him!”

“You mean, with a karate throw?”

“Yeah! All the other kids were going, ‘Whoa! I can’t believe it!’” He looked a little sheepish. “I didn’t break any of his bones or anything, but I got in big trouble. Mom said I can’t do that to other kids — I have to use it for my last dessert.”

“As a last resort, maybe?”

“Yes. That’s what I mean.”

“That’s not why you’re home schooled, is it?”

“You mean, did I get kicked out? No way!”

“Do you like being home schooled?”

He hesitated, glancing toward the kitchen. “Of course. I learn more this way. I’ll show you.”

He led Frank down a hallway toward the back of the condo, to a door with a hand-lettered sign taped to it: Private — Please Do Not Enter Without Permission. The second s in “permission” appeared to have been squeezed in after consultation with a dictionary.

“This is my room,” he said, opening the door.

At first glance, the room seemed to be in utter chaos. Hardly a surface was bare. A piece of clothesline stretched from two hooks in the wall above the bed, and over it a sheet formed a tent of sorts above the mattress. An elaborate Lego structure stood in the middle of the room — a fort, it seemed, judging from the number of green plastic army men on parade within its walls. They appeared to be under the command of a Batman figurine. In one corner, a large and intricate guinea pig abode held My Dog, who gave out a series of dovelike cooing sounds as they entered the room. While Seth greeted him, Frank continued to survey the room.

A Macintosh computer with a screensaver of constellations sat on a desk piled high with schoolbooks. There was a map of the world on one wall, a history timeline on another. “What are all the stickers on the map?”

“I come from those places. I mean, those are places where my grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers are from — and all the grandmothers, too. I’m from all over the world. Cool, huh?”

“Yes,” Frank said. “Very cool — so’s this poster.”

The closet door had an old hockey poster on it — Gordie Howe. Long before Seth’s time.

“Are you a hockey fan?” Frank asked.

“Yes. That poster was my father’s, when he was little.” Seth stared at it, frowning — although Frank thought he was concentrating on something other than Howe’s photo. The boy moved to a small telescope near the window, fidgeting with it for a moment before he said, “I saw a movie once where someone used a picture to make a ghost come into a house. Did you see that one?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Peering into the large end of the telescope, he asked with studied casualness, “Do you think there’s any such thing as ghosts?”

“You mean the scary kind, like the ones you see in movies?”

He looked up from the lens and nodded solemnly.

Frank thought of the times when, while working on especially disturbing cases, he had awakened with a start — and for a brief half-asleep, half-awake instant felt certain that he had seen a murder victim sitting at the end of his bed. “No,” he said. “Do you?”

“Not really,” Seth said.

“Are you afraid you might see your father’s ghost?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Your father was a good man who would have wanted to be with you if he could. He never, ever would have harmed you.”

“Even if he knew I had been bad?”

“Even then. He was smart, and he would understand that everybody does something wrong now and then. He’d know that you try to be good.”

Seth quietly considered this as he walked around the room, familiar with an unobstructed path of his own design. He straightened a Batman comic book that lay on a small table next to the bed, aligning it with a book about dinosaurs and another about ships. He picked up a portable CD player, flipped the cover open and shut a few times, and set it down. Then he gestured to Frank to come nearer a wall with a series of shelves on it. These shelves held an assortment of objects on them.

He showed Frank his rock collection, a seashell collection, a shed snake-skin that he had found while visiting Matt in the desert.

“Matt’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. He’s pretty fun, but he’s been sick lately, so I don’t get to visit him so often. He had to have an operation on his heart. He’s got a big scar. From here to here,” he said with a certain amount of relish as he traced a line from his neck to his belly button.

“Who are your other friends?”

He looked away and shrugged, then said, “You want to see my hockey cards?” Without waiting for an answer, he got down on all fours and pulled a shoebox from beneath the bed. He pulled the sheet from the clothesline, then invited Frank to sit next to him on the bed, where he had already displayed several of his favorite cards. He began an impressive recital of not only player stats but observations on the players’ performances in recent games.

“Do you play hockey?” Frank asked.

“No,” he said sadly, then added on a more hopeful note, “I might get to play next year.” His face fell again. “But I don’t know. That might be too late. All the other kids will have a head start on me.”

“No, you can always learn to play. I just started playing last year.”

“You did?”

“Yes. I’m not a great hockey player, but I have a lot of fun. Do you ice-skate?”

“Yes. I’m a good skater.”

“And you watch the game. I think you’ll do fine.”

“Can I watch you play?”

“We’ll ask your mom. The games are pretty late at night.”

Seth smiled. “That’s one good thing about home schooling. I can sleep in!” He fell back onto his pillow, eyes shut, making snoring noises.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. “Seth!” Elena called through it.

He sat upright and called back, “Yes?”

She opened the door. “Are you hungry? Lunch is ready.”

Frank saw a slightly mischievous look come into Seth’s eyes. “It can’t be!” the boy said. “I didn’t hear the smoke alarm!”

“Come on, Mr. Smartmouth.” She saw the hockey cards and said, “You must really rate, Detective Harriman.” She didn’t seem especially happy about it.

Mistaking the cause of her displeasure, Seth hurried over to her and said, “I was just teasing, Mom. You’re a great cook.”

Her face softened and she ruffled his hair. “Oh, yeah? I did burn dinner the other night, so I guess I deserve a little teasing.”

“You were upset—”

She glanced nervously at Frank, then quickly said to Seth, “Matt’s back, and you know he has to take Aunt Yvette to the airport right after lunch. So hurry and wash up, okay?”

Seth started to sit next to Frank, then moved to take a seat by his mother. Elena managed a smile and said, “Go on, sit next to your guest.”

Seth patted her shoulder and stayed where he was, which made Yvette smile and say something to him in French, which seemed to please him.

“Merci,” he said quietly.

As they ate ham sandwiches made on thick slices of bread, Matt, Seth, and Yvette kept the conversation rolling. Arden talked about his visit to Bredloe, which had shaken him. He began to reminisce about the captain and their days together on the force. Frank noticed that these war stories were strictly G-rated, with a careful concern for Seth, who was clearly drinking in every word.

“I knew him when he was just a rookie,” Arden said. “He went up the ranks quickly — like you must have done, Frank.”

“I’ve only known him as a captain,” Frank said, skirting the issue of his own advancement. “I hope he’ll be able to come back.”

“They tell me he’s making progress,” Matt said. “If that’s progress…” He shuddered.

“Frank said the captain knew my father,” Seth said.

Elena shot Frank a look of displeasure, but Matt answered, “Yes, he did. Maybe if he gets better you can talk to him about your dad.”

Yvette looked at her watch. “We need to get going soon, I think, Matt.”

Matt asked if Frank could help him load Yvette’s bags into his car. “I’d do it myself, but my damn — er, I’m not supposed to lift anything heavy.”

“I’ll help you, Matt,” Elena said.

“Oh, hell no, Elena. You and Seth should spend time saying good-bye to Yvette — in fact, I’d enjoy spending a few minutes shooting the bull with Harriman about my old friends in the department.”

She eyed Arden skeptically, but allowed Frank to carry the suitcases.

“Yvette tells me you’re open-minded about Phil,” Arden said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “I can’t imagine you’ll stay at your present rank if that’s the case.”

“You want to say something, or am I just going to get the B side of the record Elena keeps playing?”

Arden smiled. “No, I’m not as cynical as she is — and I’m damned cynical. I’m just afraid that you may not realize what you’re getting yourself into.”

“So I should follow your example and keep my mouth shut for a decade or so?”

Arden’s mouth flattened and his face turned red. But after a moment he said, “I suppose I deserve that — at least it must look that way from where you’re standing.”

“I can’t help but wonder why a man with your skills, let alone your clout with the department, couldn’t have done more.”

“You think I haven’t wondered about that very same thing every day for the last ten years? But a man’s best choices have a nasty way of being easier to see in hindsight. I’m still not sure I would have done anything differently. Look at it from my perspective — Phil called me and told me a story I wouldn’t have believed at all if anyone else had been telling it to me. But I knew him, and I knew he wasn’t a fool who would be seeing bogeymen in every corner. But this son of a bitch he told me about is inside the department, has killed a god-damn police commissioner, has perfectly set up Whitey-fucking-Dane, and — worse yet — is now on to the fact that Phil doesn’t buy the story that Dane did the killing. That was enough to make me fear for Phil’s life. And this is all on my faith in him — you understand? Because Phil couldn’t get a handle on who the hell it was, didn’t have one single goddamned piss drop of tangible proof. So, yes, I was scared — I admit it. Scared for him. The only thing I could think of was to get him the hell out of here.”

They had reached the car by then. Arden opened the trunk and Frank loaded Yvette’s bags. “So when he didn’t show up at your place, what did you do?”

“Worried, that’s what. Worried my ass off. I had told Phil to try to take a look at the shoes in the evidence box — to see if they were new or worn. If they were worn, we could find a way to see if they matched wear patterns on Dane’s other shoes, and if they didn’t, that might be a way to pry a little doubt into the department’s certainty that Dane killed the Randolphs. Where we could go from there, I didn’t know.”

“Smart, though,” Frank admitted, deciding he would see what he could learn from the evidence photos of the deck shoes.

“You think so?” He slammed the trunk closed and turned back to Frank. “Me, I’ve always wondered if that got Phil murdered. That and my other smart idea — that he should come to see me. If he hadn’t scared someone by looking at the evidence or been in that fucking plane, on his way to see me, maybe…”

He broke off and quickly passed a gnarled hand across his eyes. After a moment, he said quietly, “That’s what I have on my conscience, Harriman — did I give Phil a suggestion that got him killed?”

“The killer knew Lefebvre loved to fly. The way the plane was sabotaged — it didn’t matter where Lefebvre was going.”

Arden didn’t seem convinced. “When his lieutenant — poor old Willis — called me at almost midnight that first night and asked if Phil was at my place, I knew something was wrong — really wrong. It could have been the middle of the day and I would have known — I could hear it in Willis’s voice. He was upset. If things had gone right, there wasn’t any reason for Willis to be upset. So I lied to him. I lied and he told me what had happened to Seth Randolph, and that the evidence was missing, and that it looked like Phil did it — Phil! And I felt the damned room spin, because until that moment I just thought it might be trouble, but when Willis told me that, I swear to you, I knew Phil was dead. I knew it in my gut. And I didn’t spend all those years in that line of work without knowing when I could trust my gut, you know?”

Frank nodded.

“Yeah, of course you do. Anyway, talking to Willis, for all I knew, I was on the phone with Phil’s killer. So I denied that Phil had said he was coming to see me and prayed to God that Elena would keep her mouth shut, because I had also figured out that we were both in danger. Maybe that was chickenshit of me, Harriman, but it wouldn’t have made Phil come back to life if I had told the truth, would it? And until we could figure out who was behind the murders, the only way for us to be safe was to make the killer feel safe. I figured I’d get a chance to look into things when all the noise died down.”

“So what happened?”

“I got nowhere. Phil looked damned guilty. So guilty, my so-called legendary rep — the one you’ve been throwing in my face all afternoon — wasn’t worth shit when it came to trying to learn the first thing about the case. They suspected me of hiding Phil or of knowing where he was. I was under surveillance. They didn’t want to hear anything I had to say about looking at anyone else.”

“Who were his enemies?” Frank asked.

“Phil’s? I don’t think he had any.” He smiled at Frank’s open look of disbelief. “No, I’m not kidding. He didn’t have any friends, either — at least not after I retired.”

“Elena—”

“Naw. I’m not saying he was just playing around with her — that wasn’t like him at all. He must have felt something for her. Who knows, maybe it was the real deal between them.”

“You seem to be close to her.”

“I’ve come to know her and understand why Phil liked her. And the boy — you know, if he hadn’t come along…” He shook his head. “You picture the most cynical, bitter bastard you’ve ever known in your life and multiply him about a thousand times, and you’ve got a slight notion of what I was like after Phil disappeared. I’d failed a man who might as well have been my son, and the department I’d given most of my life to was treating me like a foul little turd — a creep who was hiding a cop who killed a young witness. Yvette called and told me that Elena was going to have his kid. It was — well, the best news of a pregnancy since the archangel Gabriel made his big announcement, as far as I’m concerned. I love that child. Seth is Phil all over. When that boy was born, I cried like a baby myself.” He smiled. “He’s taken a liking to you, that’s for damned sure.”

“It’s mutual.”

“You would have liked his dad, too, I think. A shame you didn’t get a chance to meet him. Elena didn’t really get a chance to know Phil, either. He obviously trusted her, and if he had lived, I don’t doubt he would have stayed with her. He was a loyal person, and he was choosy about that loyalty of his — didn’t pass it down the row like a bag of peanuts at the ballpark the way some of these guys do. You know — the blue brotherhood and all that. He didn’t hang out with other cops.”

“You must have a guess or two about who killed him.”

He shook his head. “Not a one. Not for a lack of trying, but none that makes sense to me.”

“Meanwhile, the killer’s still out there. That has to stick in your craw.”

“For a time it did, but now I figure whoever it was is dead or long gone from Las Piernas.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He’s been quiet for too long. I’m alive, Elena’s alive, even Whitey Dane is alive.”

“And Seth isn’t allowed to go to school or use the name Lefebvre.”

“Okay, so we take precautions where the boy is concerned. But there haven’t been similar cases of detectives or commissioners and their families murdered. I think the guy cut his losses after Phil and ran.”

Frank thought of the attack on Bredloe, but said nothing.

“All right, so sometimes I think he might still be out there,” Arden admitted. “But there isn’t much I can offer you on it — can’t get near enough to learn a damned thing. You can get in where I couldn’t. Look at the records for that box of evidence from the Randolph case. The man who killed Phil took the contents of that box.” He sighed. “I couldn’t figure out who would want Randolph and his family dead. Tory Randolph had the most to gain, but you’ll never convince me that she would have sacrificed her kids to get her hands on that money.”

“I agree. Even if I could believe she killed her own children, she didn’t have access to… no, wait… Jesus, she did.”

“Did what? You look like you swallowed a damned lemon.”

“I was going to say she didn’t have access to the evidence. But if she got help from the man she later married — Dale Britton — she could have easily managed it.”

“That stumbling clod?” Arden scoffed.

“He worked in the lab. Could he have lasted at that job if he was dropping beakers all over the place? Maybe he’s not clumsy all the time.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s a lot to sort out about Dane and Randolph, too. One of Dane’s men watched the funeral today.”

“The gent under the jacaranda?”

“Yes.”

They heard the door to the condo open above them.

Arden lowered his voice. “I wish you luck. Trail is colder than a polar bear’s nuts and the department wants this whole business out of sight and out of mind. But if there’s anything I can do, you let me know.”

He held out his hand and Frank shook it, saying, “It’s been an honor.”

There was the slightest questioning look in Arden’s eyes.

“I mean it,” Frank said.

The old man smiled. “You call me if I can help,” he said again as the others arrived.

Frank stood apart from the group as Seth and Elena said good-bye to Arden and Yvette. As these two members of Seth’s extended family drove away, Frank noticed a white van parked in the guest parking lot which was at the far end of the alley, at the intersection of the nearest street. He started to walk toward it when Elena said, “I guess you’ll have to be going now.”

“My jacket’s upstairs,” he reminded her, reconsidering his plan to approach the van on foot. “Seth, would it be okay if I took a look through your telescope before I go?”

“Sure!”

Elena made a sound of exasperation, but led the way.

“I’m not allowed to spy on the neighbors,” Seth said, when Frank lowered the angle of the telescope to look toward the guest parking area. Elena, who was apparently not going to let Frank have another minute alone with her son, smiled from the other side of the room.

“That’s a good rule,” Frank said. “I just want to see if this would be a good kind of telescope to use at work.”

“What do you mean?” Seth asked.

Frank could see only part of the van’s plate, but enough to tell that it began with “2JST.” It was not the same plate number as the one he had seen at the cemetery.

“I mean that sometimes we have to see things that are happening too far away to see with the naked eye.” He looked out onto the parkway between the buildings. Other than a gardener carrying a bulging green trash bag and a rake, there was no one nearby.

“Do you want to borrow it?”

“No, I’ll make the police buy their own if they want one. But thanks for letting me try it.”

“Thanks for visiting us,” Elena said. “Here’s your jacket. Say good-bye, Seth.”

Seth looked disappointed, then asked, “Can I visit you at your house?”

“Seth!”

“Sure you can,” Frank said, putting on the jacket. He smiled at Elena and said, “Don’t worry, he’s more interested in my dogs than me.”

“No, I’m not!” Seth said, laughing, then quickly added, “But they don’t bite, Mom, so can I visit them?”

“Seth…”

“I won’t bother him. He likes me, Mom.”

Until that moment, Frank was certain she would refuse. But at these words, she seemed ready to relent.

“That’s true,” Frank said. “We’d be happy to have both of you over. My wife used to know Seth’s dad, and I think she’d be pleased to meet Seth.”

“Your wife?” Elena asked. “The woman who was with you at the funeral?”

“Yes. Irene Kelly.”

“Irene Kelly — now I remember where I’ve seen her before. You married a reporter?”

“Yes.”

“Man, you must already be on the outs with the department.”

“What do you mean, Mom?” Seth asked.

Before she could answer, the guinea pig began making squealing noises, sounds of distress.

“What’s wrong, My Dog?” Seth asked, then sniffed. “Do you smell smoke?”

The smoke alarm went off before anyone could answer.

“Are you cooking?” Seth asked his mother.

“No,” she said, “but let me check the oven.” She hurried out of the room, ignoring Frank as he called after her.

But the acrid scent indicated more than a kitchen mishap. As it rapidly grew stronger, he saw smoke billowing outside Seth’s window. Seth’s eyes widened in fright. Frank put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and kept his voice calm as he said, “Let’s all go outside. Why don’t I carry My Dog’s cage?”

Seth ducked out from under his hand and got down on the floor, scattering toy soldiers.

“Seth!” Elena called out frantically as the air in the condo itself began filling with smoke.

“My treasures!” Seth said, pulling a small wooden box from beneath the bed and tucking it inside his shirt.

Frank grabbed hold of him and lifted him into one arm, and took the guinea pig cage with his free hand just as Elena struggled back to them.

“I’ve got him!” Frank shouted. “Go!”

Eyes tearing, he felt Seth gripping tightly to him, the edges of the wooden box pressing into his side. They found their way to the front door, coughing. Elena started to reach for the doorknob, but Frank yelled, “No! Feel the door first.”

“It’s hot,” she said, backing away from it, a look of panic on her face.

“The fire ladders!” Seth shouted, squirming.

“Where are they?” Frank asked.

“In the bedroom closets.”

“You stay here with your mother. Get down on the floor — more air there!” Handing Seth over to her, he hurried back toward Seth’s bedroom, the nearest of the two. The smoke had thickened. He stumbled over toys but located the closet and yanked the door open. He bent close to the floor, but still the smoke made his nose and throat and lungs feel as if he were breathing hot needles. He found the ladder and made his way out to the living room in time to hear glass shatter. Elena had picked up a chair and used it to break out the large front window. It sent a rush of cooler, less smoky air into the room. He hooked the chain ladder on the sill and dropped it down. The distance from the bottom rung to the ground would not be difficult for an adult to manage, but he was afraid the boy would be hurt or might freeze halfway down the rungs, trapping them. “You first,” he rasped to Elena. “I’ll send Seth down after you.”

She didn’t argue. Seth held on to Frank as he watched her maneuver her way out. He put Seth on the ladder as soon as she was clear of the window. Seth seemed unafraid of the height, but balked at leaving the guinea pig behind. “My Dog!”

“I’ll bring him!” Frank said. “Now go!”

Seth obeyed the commanding tone. Frank reached in the cage, grasped the frightened animal by the scruff of the neck, and forced it into his inside jacket pocket, where it squirmed nervously. He was certain it was going to jump to its death when he was halfway down the ladder, but it seemed to realize the pocket was the lesser of two evils, and after that, was subdued. Elena had already moved Seth away from the building. She held him tightly, asking him again and again if he was all right. Frank handed the guinea pig over to Seth, then used his cell phone to report the fire.

Neighbors had already reported it, though, and no sooner had he hung up the phone than they heard a fire truck. It pulled into the alley and the firefighters immediately went to work. One of them hurried over to them and asked if any of them were injured and if anyone else was inside. Frank told him that everyone was safe and showed the firefighter his identification. “We’ll be right here,” Frank said. Reassured, the man joined the others. In a matter of minutes, the fire was out.

During those few minutes, Frank made a second call, to the department. He asked for the chief and was put through to Hale.

“Detective Harriman,” Hale said, “I hear things are going better today. Are you calling to tell me we’re about to arrest Dane?”

“No, sir. I’m at Lefebvre’s condo.”

“I thought I told you—”

“I know you think it’s useless for me to investigate Lefebvre’s death, sir, but apparently not everyone feels so sure about that.”

“Speak up! What the hell’s wrong with your voice?”

“Sorry, sir. It’s the smoke. Someone just tried to set fire to the condo while I was in it — there were two other people inside at the time as well — a woman and her son. I’d say more, but I’m not on a secure line.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Frank waited.

“Anyone hurt?” Hale asked.

“No, sir, but we had to escape through a window — a fire was set on the stairwell outside the door.”

Hale sighed. “No accident then.”

“No.” He looked toward Seth and Elena, huddled together. “I have a favor to ask, sir.”

“Then you’d better hope I’m more attentive to you than you are to me.”

“If it’s arson,” Frank said, “eventually they’ll call for a detective. If you won’t let me handle this myself—”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Then I need to ask that you’ll make sure that Carlson sends Pete Baird. And I need you to back me up when I ask for protection of the identities of the residents of the condo.”

“Who are they?”

“I’m not on a secure line, sir,” he said again. “I promise I’ll come in as soon as possible and explain everything to you in person.”

The chief hesitated.

“All right,” he said finally. “But I won’t be here much longer today. Let me give you a number where you can reach me later this evening — no, wait — better yet, come into my office tomorrow morning at ten. One of my meetings has just been canceled, so I have an opening in my schedule. I take it this can wait until then?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hale hesitated, then said, “If that changes, call this number.”

“Yes, sir.” Frank wrote the number down and thanked him.

“Thanks are premature, Harriman.” He hung up.

Frank walked back to Seth and Elena. As he drew nearer, she said anxiously, “If anyone asks, please don’t call Seth by his father’s name. And don’t call me Rosario. I don’t usually go by Rosario now — for obvious reasons. After what happened to Phil… actually, it was Yvette’s idea. Seth and I use the name Nereault. It just makes a lot of things easier.”

“You okay with that, Seth?” Frank asked.

He shrugged, but didn’t look up from his guinea pig.

“Seth?” Elena asked.

“Lefebvre is a good name,” he said.

“Yes,” Frank said. “And so is Nereault. Right now, Nereault is a safer name, so is it okay if we tell these firefighters that one?”

“Okay,” he said, turning the single word into a song of reluctance.

Any further discussion was halted by the approach of the firefighter who had spoken to them earlier. He took down some basic information from Elena, then said, “I’m afraid the car’s a total loss, but most of the contents of the house should be okay. You’ve got some structural damage though — so we won’t be able to let you stay here.”

She looked back at the condo, as if only now starting to fully absorb what had happened. Frank put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him, her face pale. “What caused it?” she asked the firefighter.

“Someone will be over to talk to you about that soon.” He left them to join the others.

“Where are we going to live, Mom?” Seth asked.

She looked back at the broken window, where the ladder they had used still hung, and bewilderedly shook her head.

“Maybe you and your mom could stay with me and Irene for a few days,” Frank said.

“We couldn’t impose—”

“With your dogs?” Seth asked excitedly.

“I don’t know—” she began.

“To protect your privacy,” Frank said, hoping she would catch his meaning, “we won’t tell anyone where you’re staying. Not even your former employer.”

His attention was drawn toward the firefighters, who were talking to a slender man in a suit. Frank noticed the man in the suit was armed. He turned toward them and Frank recognized Blake Halloran, an arson investigator he had worked with on previous cases. Halloran recognized him at about the same time and stroked his full, blond mustache in a considering way before motioning to Frank.

“Surprised to see you,” Halloran said. “Are you here on business or is Ms. Nereault a friend?”

Frank considered not answering, then said, “Both.”

“Hmm. Does your friend Ms. Nereault have any reason to light a couple of fires in her sister-in-law’s condo?”

“Two fires?” Frank asked, not correcting him about the relationship between Elena and Yvette.

“One on the stairway, one in the garage. She’s not a likely suspect, I admit, being inside the place at the time and all. But stranger things have happened.”

“No, she didn’t start the fires,” he said. “I’ve been with her all day.”

Halloran’s brows went up. “Some guys have all the luck.”

“We just returned from a family funeral,” Frank said.

“Jesus, I’m sorry—”

Frank found himself mildly pleased to see Halloran’s look of shame. “Yes, it’s been a tough day for them, so go easy. Besides, she never would have done anything to this place — especially not with her boy inside.”

“She have any enemies?”

“That’s a real possibility, but I don’t have any names for you.” He handed over his business card. “Anything you come up with, Blake, I’d appreciate hearing about it.”

“Likewise,” he said, handing Frank his own card. “You see anyone around here this afternoon?”

“Just a gardener.”

“Let’s see if the lady of the house can help out here.”

They walked back to Elena and Seth.

“I’d like to talk to you,” Halloran said to her, “if you wouldn’t mind letting Detective Harriman keep an eye on your boy for a moment?”

Elena looked back at Frank.

“I’ll be right here,” he said, then added, “Do you know the name of the gardener who works in this part of the complex?”

“Gardener? It’s a whole team — a service that comes through once a week. They come here on Fridays.”

Frank looked toward where he had seen the white van parked. He was not surprised to find it gone.

27

Wednesday, July 12, 3:00 P.M.

A Private Home in Las Piernas

The Looking Glass Man stepped into the shower, feeling weak and sick to his stomach. Soon he would have to go up to his attic room and chronicle the unmitigated failures of this afternoon, but for now he must try to cleanse himself. For long minutes he stood beneath the spray, his head bent into the roaring rush of hot water. He closed his eyes to the glaring whiteness of the shower walls and allowed his other senses to become attuned solely to this enclosed world — the sting of the hot water pelting his scalp and shoulders, the wash of warmth and steam over his skin, the roaring of the water in his ears, the coolness of the tiles beneath his hands, the pressure of his own weight against his palms and the soles of his feet. He opened his mouth and let the water sluice across his lips and teeth and tongue and down his chin. But soon the water echoed the refrain inside his skull—

You fool! You fool! You fool!

Elena Rosario was in Las Piernas.

He had thought her long gone. A few months after Lefebvre’s death, she had left. But she must have returned, and now she had a child.

He did not understand it. He had never understood her. He had held various beliefs about her at various times, and always he ended up uncertain, unable to discard those beliefs and unable to cling to them.

He had put her out of his mind for years now, and here she was, back in Las Piernas. And living in Lefebvre’s home.

He had reacted to that out of fear. There had been so much to be afraid of.

When he had nearly been seen by Harriman at the cemetery, it was bad enough, but while eluding the motorcycle officer, his heart had almost given out. After changing the plates on the van, he had driven to the hospital just to see if there was some little thing he might be able to do for Bredloe. A little something to end the man’s suffering. But just as he entered the hallway near Bredloe’s room, he had caught a glimpse of Matt Arden going in to see the captain. The Looking Glass Man kept walking, hearing Arden’s voice say a dreaded name: Lefebvre.

Arden. Did Arden know? Had Lefebvre told Arden his secrets? He had always wondered about this, but when the years went by without a word from him or anyone else, he had decided that Lefebvre had not taken Arden into his confidence. Arden, he was certain, would have defended Lefebvre’s reputation — he had had an almost fatherly devotion to the man. Today, perhaps Arden had only mentioned Lefebvre’s name because of the funeral.

Or perhaps not.

In his present state, Bredloe would be of no use to Arden. But perhaps Arden was saying other things to other members of the department? Who was he staying with? Who was he seeing while he was here in town?

And so the Looking Glass Man had decided to follow Arden. And he did — right to Lefebvre’s former residence.

His shock had been profound.

For a few wild moments, he allowed himself to consider the possibility that Lefebvre was alive, that he had escaped from the wreckage of the plane, that his bones had never been found, that Harriman was involved in some elaborate scheme to trick the Looking Glass Man into revealing his secrets.

It was in this state of panic that he decided to set fire to the condominium. He quickly gathered the materials he had planned to use on Harriman’s home and changed into one of his most useful costumes — the green coveralls of a gardener, an outfit that would allow a person to come close to almost any residence without raising the least alarm from neighbors. A disguise that would let a man carry large green plastic bags full of materials without anyone suspecting him of anything untoward.

This time, the bag was full of gasoline-soaked rags.

He was out in the open, next to the building nearest the van, when he saw Harriman and Arden together. His level of panic skyrocketed. He quickly hid himself, cowering in a nearby stairwell, heart pounding, sure that in the next second Harriman would come running, would pull that gun from his shoulder holster and force him to surrender and confess, force him to fail to achieve his most important goals just as they were within his reach. The secrets would come out then. Everything would fall apart. Judge Lewis Kerr would undoubtedly preside over his case — and make an example of him.

Caught up in the horror of these visions, he had nearly missed seeing Arden drive off with a woman. The woman was a surprise. Was she his wife? Perhaps Arden had married. He disliked not knowing who Arden might have spoken to about Lefebvre.

Harriman was no longer in sight then. He was up in the condominium, perhaps reading some papers Arden had left with him or even talking to Lefebvre himself. Perhaps Lefebvre had built secret rooms in his condominium. He had not seen them when he went to Lefebvre’s home during the investigation into Seth Randolph’s murder. But he had been able to do only so much with half the department on hand at the same time. He disliked such crowds.

He had always approved of Lefebvre, and for many reasons. They had so much in common. They were intelligent and logical. They loved to fly. They both did their best work alone. That was why, for a time, he had done certain favors for Lefebvre — Lefebvre himself had never known the source of these favors. The Looking Glass Man would not be surprised to discover now that they had more than intelligence and a love of solitude in common. He could easily believe that Lefebvre had also created hidden places in his home. After Arden left the condominium, this possibility disturbed him greatly, until his skin itched from his nervousness. It would be best, he decided, to hurry up and destroy Harriman and any evidence he might be studying.

And so he had started the fires. Once he was sure they were going, he had hurriedly left, not so stupid as to stay and watch, as a true arsonist would have done. No, it was best to be far away in such situations. He had the means of learning the results of his work.

He had listened to the scanner and heard the call. But then had come the announcement that three persons had been in the condominium, including a female and a child. He had risked turning back then, unable to resist the temptation — as weak as any arsonist after all — and had caught a glimpse of Elena Rosario holding a child while Harriman spoke to firefighters.

He had driven away again, chastising himself for returning at all, while reeling from the implications. Elena Rosario, living in Lefebvre’s home.

He scrubbed himself until his skin was raw.

The water turned cold, and though he briefly considered punishing himself by remaining in the shower, he shut it off. The room seemed unusually quiet, which made him feel afraid, until he realized that he had forgotten to turn the fan on and the quiet was the absence of its noise. He dried himself and wiped down the shower stall and all the chrome before stepping out, carefully placing his feet on the perfectly aligned bathroom rug.

He looked up into the mirror and saw only the blur of steam and condensation.

As if he weren’t really there.

An omen, he decided, shivering where he stood.

But ultimately his faith in himself reasserted itself. Perhaps it was a sign of a different sort — a sign that he remained invisible to those who sought him.

He would need to be more careful, true, but the more he considered it, the fire was not such a foolish idea — after all, he had smoked Elena Rosario from her lair.

28

Wednesday, July 12, 4:43 P.M.

Las Piernas Police Department

In the end, Pete had helped him. He tried to keep that in mind now as he faced renewed sullenness in the office.

Frank had stopped Pete in the hallway before he came into the homicide room. Pete had assured him that none of the others knew the details of Frank’s afternoon. They knew that Pete had been sent on an arson call, but when he returned long before Frank, he pretended that there had been nothing to it — a questionable case of arson with no one hurt. He gave out no exact addresses and no names. A waste of time, he told them.

“No one asked why I hadn’t come back?”

“I told them I talked to you on the phone, that you’d be in later. Reed asked if you had had a chance to see if the face was as good as the figure for the babe in the black veil. I told him she was one of the cop-hating Nereaults.”

“Thanks, Pete.”

But Pete just shook his head and walked away without another word.

Even before he went to his desk, Frank knew he was in for more of the chill. The men in that room were expert observers. None of them would have missed the change in Pete’s mood regarding his partner. It would quickly become contagious.

When he arrived at the scene of the fire, Pete had been concerned for his partner’s safety, but that had quickly given way to anger over the fact that Frank had not told him where he was going that afternoon. He dismissed outright Frank’s theory that someone from the department had been the arsonist, and was infuriated that Frank could imagine such a thing to be true.

“It’s Whitey Dane’s bunch — you can bet on it,” Pete said.

Elena, who had been using Frank’s cell phone to call her insurance agent, said, “What about Dane?”

Pete remembered her, and Frank watched his manner change in the way it often did with women. Pete was short and balding, yet seldom failed to charm a woman. He was crazy about his wife — a gorgeous Amazon of a woman — and as far as Frank knew, Pete hadn’t ever strayed after marrying Rachel. But Baird enjoyed flirting with good-looking women, and he was all solicitude to Elena. Still, it wasn’t until Pete became aware of Seth, and became protective of him, that Frank was sure of Pete. By the time Elena and Seth moved off to beg the firefighters to allow them to retrieve a few essential items from the condo, Pete was saying, “You know, that kid is as sharp as his old man.”

Frank raised a brow.

“Oh, he’s Phil’s kid, all right. At the funeral, I thought maybe he was a nephew, speaking French with Lefebvre’s sister and all. Now I see him with Elena, I see a little of her, a little of him. Has Phil’s eyes. And no matter how I feel about Phil, it’s still a damn shame. I mean, a kid ought to know his dad.”

“Yes,” Frank said, thinking of the sugar in the fuel tanks of Lefebvre’s plane.

“Tell me what you want me to do for them,” Pete said.

So Frank had asked him to keep secrets. Knowing Pete, it was the most difficult of requests, simply because he would honor it, contrary though it was to his talkative nature. Being trustworthy meant something to Pete, and realizing that, Frank said, “I knew you wouldn’t want to hear any of this or be involved in it. I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re willing to do this for Seth and Elena.”

“I’m doing this because you’re my partner,” Pete said. “You know what pisses me off, Frank? How easily you forget that.” He walked away.

Frank thought of shouting after him that Pete’s own memory hadn’t been so great lately, but held back. For all the satisfaction that might give him, he had to consider Seth’s and Elena’s safety.

Frank spent two hectic hours helping Seth and Elena before they were settled at his house. Because of the damage to the stairs and the beams above the garage, the fire department had declared the condo out-of-bounds. Responding to Elena’s pleas and the careful description of where she had left it, one of the firefighters had brought her wallet out to her.

Frank drove Seth and Elena to a pet store, where they bought a cage and some food for the guinea pig. Next to a drugstore for basic toiletries. Frank dropped off the roll of film from the funeral, then came back for it when they finished shopping at a department store for a few articles of plain but essential clothing. Both Elena and Seth changed out of their clothes at the store — Frank, still reeking of smoke, envied them.

Neither Seth nor Elena had taken long to make their purchases. Soon they were on their way to the house — where the cage proved useful in saving the guinea pig from the attentions of Irene’s cat, Cody. Seth and the dogs formed an immediate mutual admiration society. The boy was given the guest room; Elena said she would opt for the couch. Frank showered and changed clothes, but he could still smell nothing but smoke.

The strain of the day was telling on all of them, but on Seth especially, who fell asleep sitting next to Elena on the couch. Frank carried him into the guest room and tucked him in.

“You sure your wife won’t mind our staying here?” Elena asked as he prepared to go back to the office.

“No,” Frank said. “She’ll be happy we’re able to do something for Phil Lefebvre’s son.”

He had tried several times to call Irene to warn her about their guests and had ended up leaving a message on her voice mail at work.

Back at his desk, he quickly sorted through the paperwork that had accumulated on it during the day. He was leaving to go down to the property room when Reed dared to speak to him.

“Going to play hockey tomorrow night?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Frank said, thinking of his houseguests and all the work that lay before him.

“You sick?” Reed asked. “You sound awful.”

“Mild laryngitis. I’m fine.”

“Our team doesn’t mean shit to him,” Vince said, and no one thought he was talking about hockey.

“Vince…” Reed said in a warning tone.

“I’ll be there if I can,” Frank said.

“No, do what you want to do on your own,” Vince said. “Besides, you’re a lousy fucking defenseman. We won’t miss you.”

It was true, Frank thought. He’d only been playing a year.

“Make up your mind, Vince,” Pete said. “Is he fucking up all your beautiful teamwork or can you manage defense all by yourself?”

“What’s with you?” Vince said, obviously feeling betrayed.

Pete glanced at Frank, then said, “Nothing. Lieutenant’s been chewing my ass out. But what’s new with that? I swear, if I’m ever killed by a bomb, just go looking through the rubble for an ass. If the bite marks on it match Carlson’s dental records, it’s mine!”

The others laughed, but Vince said, “Jesus, Baird, what the hell are you dreaming up? Who’d want to look for you, let alone hunt for your ass?”

“I see you eyeing it all the time, Vince. In fact, from now on, I’m putting my hockey gear on at home.”

Frank shook his head and made his way out of the room as Vince did his best to recover lost yardage. Frank figured that after fifteen years of this kind of exchange, Vince should have realized that he didn’t stand a chance. If they stayed true to form, they would ridicule each other unmercifully for another twenty minutes or so.

He revised this thought — not unmercifully, really. If the subject was sexual prowess, stature, physique, hair loss, or nationality, virtually no insult was forbidden. But there were certain taboos. While Pete’s first wife was fair game, Rachel was not. Neither was Vince’s current — and fifth — wife, Amie. Vince’s kids were never the subject of a joke Vince didn’t make himself. Three of Vince’s four ex-wives could be joked about, but not his second one, Lisa, the one who had spent the last twelve years in a psych ward. Lisa was totally off-limits.

Lisa was so seldom mentioned, Frank had almost forgotten her. If he remembered the story correctly, Vince had married her on the rebound, shortly after the breakup of his first marriage. This second marriage had lasted only a few weeks. Rumor said that she was a cop groupie and had bedded a couple of other members of the department — he’d heard varying stories as to whether this occurred before or after they split up. But she ultimately found life on the other side of the law more exciting — or so she told Vince on one of the many occasions when he had bailed her out. She began using drugs and soon was living on the streets. Among the uniforms, she earned the nickname “Old Faithful,” not because she was either, but because any time you saw her, you could be certain of being able to make an arrest — she never failed to have illicit drugs on her person.

Pete had told Frank that Vince — against his own better judgment and experience — had tried to save her from herself again and again. She only got into deeper trouble. She ended up involved with a man who took her along with him to a bank one day — five people, including four members of one family, were dead by the time they left. Witnesses said she didn’t seem to be an accomplice so much as a shocked onlooker. She had covered her ears and screamed “Stop!” when the shooting began.

Her partner escaped, leaving her behind, so Old Faithful was still good for an arrest. When she was taken into custody, she was questioned about her role, but she didn’t say a word. She wasn’t, as was first believed, exercising her right to remain silent — in the dozen or so years since the robbery, she hadn’t said a word to anyone. Vince put a second mortgage on his house to pay for a good attorney for her, and the court found her to be incompetent to stand trial.

Again Frank considered the financial burdens Vince had faced at the time of the Randolph murders. And reaching his destination, the property room, Frank wondered if Vince’s ex had spent time there. Ten years ago, the current property room had been the city’s women’s jail, and the property room had been in the basement.

Now women who were arrested were kept at the LPPD only very briefly, in holding cells downstairs, until they could be transported to a nearby county facility.

No attempt had been made to hide the signs of the current property room’s past. Although bigger and brighter than the underground area it used to occupy, this wasn’t exactly a cheerful setting. At the moment, on one side of the blue bars of case-hardened steel, a uniformed officer was arguing loudly with property room workers about a problem with his paperwork. On the other side of the counter, behind the network of bars, the two women who were working the desk almost appeared to be incarcerated — and seemed to be enjoying the experience about as much.

As he drew closer to the counter, passing under the watchful eye of several surveillance cameras, Frank saw that Flynn, the sergeant who was in charge of the area, had put a new sign over the front desk: Evidence Control. He remembered that Flynn was trying to get everybody to leave off calling it the property room and to start calling it by this new name. He wished Flynn luck. It would be easier to teach an elephant to figure-skate.

The sign looked as if it had been printed by a computer and laminated at a local copy shop. Probably at Flynn’s own expense.

Frank didn’t envy Flynn. The guy was under a lot of pressure and never got a hell of a lot of support. He had to ride almost everybody to get them to follow procedures, and that created a certain level of resentment. Controlling guns, drugs, money, and valuables such as jewelry — against thieves both inside and outside the department — presented constant challenges in security. Legal requirements for keeping and controlling evidence were complex and ever-changing. Less than five percent of the items held in evidence would ever be used in court. All the same, defense lawyers knew that evidence control was often where a police department was most vulnerable — one sloppy entry in chain-of-custody paperwork could blow a case apart.

Frank shook his head. Given its importance, you would have thought Flynn would get whatever he asked for. But only someone who didn’t understand the politics of law enforcement would have supposed such a thing. The chief knew that city hall and the voters were happiest when they saw lots of black-and-whites on the streets, so by the time patrol cars and rookies were paid for, there wasn’t a hell of a lot left for paying for detectives, electronic equipment, and crime labs — and there sure as hell wasn’t much allotted to Flynn’s area.

Which was why Flynn, a veteran of twenty years on the force, most of them on the city’s toughest streets, now spent his days in an abandoned women’s jail. Pete sometimes razzed Flynn by calling him a sailor dying of thirst, a reference both to Flynn’s naval career and to the fact that Flynn guarded all sorts of valuables while his own budget got cut again and again. Frank figured it was more like being a minimum-wage teller in a big bank. You could handle a million dollars, but none of it was yours — and let a dime of it go missing, you were the one who had to come up with the answers.

Frank looked in at the oddball assortment of desks and filing cabinets behind the front counter. Flynn, a former naval supply officer, was a master at obtaining equipment on the cheap. He watched the newspaper for notices of businesses closing facilities or going belly-up, and then contacted their owners begging for desks and office equipment.

The area still smelled like a lockup, a mix of disinfectant, insecticide, and all the ripened scents on possessions taken from the people who were in custody. Unlike the clean and healthy specimens of humanity who got hauled into jail on Dragnet, in real life a lot of the people who got arrested weren’t in such fine condition. A drunken man arrested for assault, for example, might piss in his own pants and follow that up by puking all over himself — if you were lucky, he did this after he was out of the patrol car. When such folks exchanged their garments for jailhouse garb, Flynn and his workers were required to keep their personal property safe for a certain period of time, or until it was claimed by them.

Flynn stepped out of his office now, his scowl enough to quiet the protesting officer.

“Tell you what,” Flynn said to the patrolman. “You know so damned much more than any of us, I’m going to ask your boss to transfer you down here so we can all benefit from your enlightenment.”

He received a hasty apology from the horrified officer, who quickly walked away.

“Harriman!” Flynn said, seeing Frank. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” he said. “How about for you, Flynn?”

“What the hell happened to your voice?”

“Mild laryngitis.”

Flynn studied him for a brief moment, then said, “Glad you decided to humor me and come down here to check out that new freezer. Big improvement over the old one.” He pushed a sign-in sheet on a clipboard toward Frank. “Save your voice, just sign in and I’ll take you back to see it.”

Frank managed not to show surprise. He smiled and nodded as if thanking Flynn for being so considerate, signed the sheet, and waited while Flynn unlocked the gate into the office area.