Flight

“All the monitors working?” Flynn asked the women. When they said yes, he said, “Then you know how to find me if you need me.”

Frank wondered if this was Flynn’s way of reminding him that there were surveillance cameras throughout the area.

He followed Flynn past another set of clerks doing computer work. Most of them, he knew, were getting ready to leave for the day. As they went through the next room, he saw a worker engaged in disposing of some unclaimed personal effects. Although it was warm in the room, she wore coveralls, a mask, safety glasses, long gloves, and a scarf tied over her hair.

They walked down the concrete corridor, past a long row of cells with open doors.

“How many cells in here?” Frank asked.

“About fifty-five,” Flynn said. “We’ve rearranged it some, but not much. At least they gave me another place to put the bicycles. Twelve hundred stolen bicycles a year. You think the guy who designed these cells was thinking, ‘Gee, I better leave room for twelve hundred bicycles’?”

The former cells were converted to hold evidence and other property under police control. Where once women inmates were held, there were now bags, boxes, and bins of evidence, and bunks had been converted into wide shelves. Each bag or box was sealed with red tape; some were also sealed by the lab’s blue tape. Affixed to one corner of each of the containers was a computer-printed tag with an evidence number, case number, booking and citation numbers.

Wondering if the Randolph evidence had been tracked by computer, Frank asked, “When did they stop using a manual system to keep track of all of this?”

“Nineteen eighty-three,” Flynn said. “I don’t even like to think about what it was like back then.”

“You’ve been in charge for what, four years now?”

“Yes. I came in here, there were no video cameras, you could have a single individual working the desk, you had unescorted personnel wandering back through here, no motion detectors — a damned mess. You want to know something crazy?”

“What?”

“I made most of my improvements based on the suggestions of a dead man. Trent Randolph.”

Frank stopped walking.

“Come on, we’ve got to put on a nice show here. Our voices aren’t being recorded, thank the baby Jesus in his diapers, but they’ll be watching.”

“They don’t trust their boss?” Frank asked as they passed an area holding televisions, radios, and stereo equipment.

“You’re the hot topic of gossip in the department these days,” Flynn said, taking out another set of keys and unlocking a door to another hallway. They passed cells containing weapons. The cells were locked.

“Tell me about Randolph’s suggestions. Did you know him?”

“No, not really. But he wrote this set of papers for the commission about how screwed up things were around here when it came to evidence. Guess it caused a hell of an uproar among the brass at the time. You know, here he was a newcomer, and the first of these papers says, ‘Hey, fellas, your department is HUA when it comes to evidence control.’”

While Frank doubted that Randolph literally reported that the LPPD had its “head up its ass,” he could imagine how unwelcome any civilian newcomer’s criticism would be.

“You weren’t in charge here until long after Randolph was killed,” Frank said. “How did you see this report?”

Flynn smiled and said, “I had the good fortune of taking over from a guy who wasn’t organized and who never threw anything away.” He paused and opened another door. “Don’t slip here in front of the ding cells. The floor is wet. We had plumbing problems thanks to those assholes upstairs. Next week we’ll see an end to that.”

The “ding cells” — Flynn’s old-fashioned slang for a cell where an inmate was kept if she was “dingy” — were the former isolation lockups, solid-steel cells with tiny, thick-plate viewing ports, now used to hold low-value drugs. The plumbing leak had been caused when the inmates of the men’s jail on the floor above had pulled an equally old-fashioned prisoners’ trick — stuffing blankets down the jail’s toilets for the amusement of seeing the chaos it could cause when the plumbing backed up. The department was about to install what amounted to a gigantic garbage disposal to chew up the blankets before they clogged the lines.

“You were telling me about finding Randolph’s report,” Frank said as they continued on.

“Yeah — well, I vaguely remembered something about it from when Randolph was alive. Chief Hale was pissed as hell about it, but Randolph had been his ally on some other matters, so he was in a tough spot. Plus, Randolph was tight with this old geezer on the newspaper, and nobody wanted that kind of trouble.” He paused. “Sorry — forgot about your wife.”

They were walking near shelves filled with small boxes. Frank thought his pager went off, but when he checked it, there was no new message. He heard the sound again. He looked up to see Flynn smiling. “We keep all the beepers and cell phones in this section. Listen.”

Within seconds, another pager sounded and then another, first from one unseen but nearby location and then from another. Soon, it seemed as if they were surrounded by them. It was as if they had entered a forest full of strange crickets that chirped only one or two at a time.

Flynn laughed. “All the damned drug dealers’ customers, still trying to get ahold of them.”

Frank smiled. “Just think — in the course of a day, you’re hearing thousands in lost sales.”

“They’ll find someone else to buy from, but I’m happy to know that the previous owners of these things are missing out. Anyway, I was telling you about this report. So, I didn’t remember all of this history at first, just that there had been some big brouhaha. But that was enough to make me decide not to mention to anybody about where I’m getting all these notions for improvements. And I know Trent Randolph is long dead, so he isn’t likely to speak up and tell everyone I stole his ideas. But then I guess my conscience starts to bother me, so I go to Hale, and that’s when he tells me that Randolph was his friend and it’s great that I have this report and did I find any others.”

“Others?”

“I guess Randolph had the fire of a reformer — you know, he had ideas about everything. All excited about applying scientific principles to the way we do business around here. But I only found the one report.”

They entered a room that held several large safes, including one for cash and others for the most valuable drugs. Two large walk-in freezers stood nearby, one with a rosary on it. The homicide freezer.

“You didn’t want to tell me about Randolph in front of your staff?” Frank asked.

“Oh, hell, no — I don’t care — they don’t even know who Randolph was. Seeing you made me think of him, because I’ve heard you caught the cases. And the Lefebvre case, too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s why we’re down here, my boy. ’Cause something damned strange is going on, and you should know about it.”

29

Wednesday, July 12, 5:01 P.M.

Las Piernas Police Department

“First we gotta put on a show. Let’s step into the new freezer for half a second.”

Flynn unlocked it and Frank followed him in. Blood samples and other biological materials were already neatly organized within. Just before Frank began to feel unbearably cold, Flynn led him back out again. Flynn gestured to a large metal desk, one that looked as if he had found it on one of his scavenger hunts for equipment. “Let’s sit over here. You can angle away from the camera, and for now I’d just as soon do that.”

“Okay.”

Flynn unrolled what looked like a blueprint for the freezer and put it near the top of the desk. He said, “Point at that damned thing once in a while. Anybody asks, I wanted your opinion about organizing the freezer.”

Next he pulled out some photocopies and slid one of them over to Frank. He kept a few others to himself, facedown. Indicating the one Frank had, he said, “What you have there is a copy of an evidence-control log sheet — a sign-out sheet for the most recent date on which the Randolph murder evidence — or I should say, the box that once contained the evidence — has been checked out of here.”

“Flynn — hold on. I just walked down here. How could you know—”

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you since Monday, but for reasons I’ll get to, I couldn’t let you know that. I didn’t know when you would finally be moseying along and finding your way here, but I know you. I knew you’d look at the evidence yourself sooner or later. When I checked on the surveillance cameras out near the front desk and saw your mug in the frame, I figured, ‘Yes, there is a God.’”

“Monday… because of Bredloe?”

“You always were a bright boy. Yes, because of Bredloe. Look at the log.”

“Jesus. Bredloe was looking at the evidence the day he was hurt. That afternoon.”

“Yes. He was agitated, you might say. People tell me you pissed him off.”

Frank smoothed his hand over the sheet. “Yes, I did.”

“Well, don’t feel bad. This whole thing about Lefebvre has been the equivalent of a departmental wedgie. The only people who can ignore it have no balls.”

Frank looked at the time on the log sheet. “He came down here after arguing with me about Lefebvre. I told him I thought Lefebvre might be innocent.”

“Is that a fact?” Flynn said, seeming amused.

“Don’t feel compelled to give me grief about that — I’m getting plenty already.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Flynn said.

“So you were saying — he wasn’t in a good mood when you saw him?”

“Oh, that’s an understatement. He was in a little better mood when he brought it back. But I think someone saw him with the box and that someone had something to say to him about it — ’cause he called me a little after he checked it back in to ask who else in the department knew what was in it.”

“What did you say?”

“‘Everybody and his grandmother, and probably a few great-grandmothers, too.’”

Frank sighed. “You need to tell Hale about this.”

“Already have. You mention the ‘L’ name to him yet?”

“Lefebvre? Yes, I see your point. But maybe that will change now… Anyway, let me know what you’re getting at.”

“Well, even though Bredloe brought it back in kind of a better mood, as if — you know, as if he had just reassured himself that we weren’t hatching some monster’s egg in this box all these years — I thought it was a little strange. Your case, and he’s not usually one to butt in like that. He’s not the kind to interfere.”

“No, but like you say, this case chaps everybody.”

“Even on high-profile cases, he doesn’t try to second-guess his detectives. Something was nagging at him, you ask me. He checks out a box that only has a watch in it. And then he gets hurt. Almost killed. And that same day I’ve heard that over the weekend, you found Lefebvre’s body in the wreckage of his plane, and there wasn’t any stolen evidence with him. I start asking myself if this evidence box is like the pharaohs’ tombs or something — you know, Egyptian curse or something like that. People handle it, and” — he snapped his fingers — “so long. Your plane crashes or bricks fall on you.”

“Could be coincidence.”

“You don’t like that any more than I do.”

“No.” Frank nodded toward the other pages. “What are those?”

“Look at this one first,” Flynn said, giving another photocopy to him. “It’s a log sheet for the day Lefebvre looked at the evidence for the murders. June twenty-second.”

“June twenty-second?” Frank repeated, disbelieving. “I thought Lefebvre worked on the Randolph case. But he didn’t look at the evidence until that Friday?”

Flynn smiled. “We’re on the same wavelength. I love it when people make it easy for me. You’re right. He wasn’t really that actively involved in the case per se. I was working bunco — handling mostly forgery and fraud cases back then, so I wasn’t privy to everything that was going on in Homicide. But you know how things are — word gets around about cases that might be connected and so on. This was Whitey Dane we were about to nail, after all.”

“And lots of cases were connected to Dane.”

“Exactly. Dane had his fingers in a lot of pies, and we were interested in him in my section, too. So this case had us all hopping. Way I remember it is, we were all a little pissed off because Lefebvre was taking time off, hanging out with this kid. He was with Seth Randolph all the time. You’ve probably read the notes by now, so you know the role he played in saving the kid and all that. So here’s the department bright boy, baby-sitting when we need him in here.”

Flynn paused, mentioned the need to look good for the cameras, and took the time to point to the blueprint. Frank obliged him by appearing to focus on it, but his mind was racing.

“Funny,” Flynn said, “what questions occur to you when it’s too late. I started asking myself stuff I should have asked ten years ago. What I started wondering was, when the hell did the guy get a chance to get corrupted by Dane? In the hospital cafeteria? He’d only seen the stuff twice. Just after six that evening, and again, a couple of hours later. But then I notice something that really makes me crazy. Look at the signatures.”

Frank started to study them, but Flynn already had the tip of his pen pointing at the two examples. “Let an old man who used to work the forgery detail show you. The first time the name is written smaller than the second.”

“Not much, though,” Frank said.

“Not much to your untrained eye. Let’s call these two by the date they were made — call them the ‘June twenty-second signatures.’ The earlier one, the smaller one, we’ll call ‘Twenty-two A,’ and the other, ‘Twenty-two B.’” He flipped over the remaining stack of papers, gave them to Frank, and said, “This is a collection of Phil’s signatures, ones I took from different parts of the log, on different days. Now compare them to the ones you’re looking at there.”

Although the signatures were not identical, Frank knew that it was natural for slight variations to occur in a person’s signature. But even without closely examining them he could see that most of the examples Flynn showed him were generally formed in the same way, with characteristics that made them look more like the 22B than the 22A signature. The 22A was, indeed, slightly smaller than the others.

“That’s a sign of forgery, you know,” Flynn said. “I could show you half a dozen others in those examples — hesitations, the way the capital L in Lefebvre is formed, and so on.”

“So if someone forged his signature—”

“Someone else took the evidence.”

Frank was quiet.

Flynn said, “You’ve already come to that conclusion, though.”

“Yes. I think people in the department saw what they wanted to see, what they expected to see. So they didn’t look too closely. But this forgery of his signature might be the strongest proof of his innocence yet. Have you shown this to Joe Koza up in Questioned Documents?”

“No. He’s young and I don’t think he’s had a thing to do with any of this, but…”

Frank nodded. “I’m with you. Wait until we know more before word spreads.”

“Exactly.”

“I need to see that evidence box.”

“Just don’t forget about the pharaohs’ curse.”

“Believe me, I haven’t. But I still want to see this famous watch.”

“Not much to it. Maybe you can see something there that the last couple of fellows have missed. I hope your luck is better than Lefebvre’s or Bredloe’s. And I think I may just know the trick to help you avoid harm.”

“That rosary?” Frank asked, smiling.

“I don’t doubt it — but that’s not mine, believe it or not. One of our clerks is so spooked by what’s in that freezer, she won’t go in there unless she’s got that in her pocket. No, we’re going to change another little ritual for you.” He glanced at his watch and said, “We should be okay now. Let’s put the papers away — no one is going to believe we were that interested in a damned freezer.”

He gave all the photocopies to Frank, who folded them and tucked them inside his suit coat’s inner pocket as Flynn put the blueprint away.

“Let’s walk out,” Flynn said. “I’ll explain along the way.”

When they reached the beeper forest, Flynn said, “Someone checks that box out of here and bad things happen to him, right?”

“Yes, although I’m not quite as superstitious about it as you are.”

“It’s not superstition.”

“It might not be the watch. I think Lefebvre’s enemy was gunning for him before he saw the evidence.”

“Okay, but play along with me here. Just in case it’s seeing this watch that makes someone crazy, I’m not going to let you check that box out of here.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I’ll let you look at it, and now that everyone but my security officer has gone home for the day, we aren’t likely to be interrupted while you’re doing that. I think I’ll test a new, manual backup system this evening. And it just might take me a while to get my paperwork into the computer. That’s the only way I can figure it — someone has glanced at the signatures in the log-book or hacked into the computer, or one of my clerks is tipping somebody off. I’ll figure it out eventually. But in the meantime, your name isn’t going to send up any red flags if I can help it.”

The property room clerks had, as Flynn predicted, left for the day. The security officer nodded to them from his position at a bank of video monitors.

“Working late, Flynn?” he asked.

“Oh, not for much longer.”

They went into his office, and Flynn shut the door. There was a video monitor in here as well, showing changing views from the various surveillance cameras. There was also a computer, and several file drawers, as well as a storage cabinet. From the storage cabinet, he removed a box with blue and red tape on it. A quick glance at the tag told Frank that it was the one for the Randolph case.

“Sign here,” Flynn said, handing him an outdated carbonless form.

Frank did as he asked, unable to keep from smiling to himself. “He bends them, but they don’t break.”

“What — the rules?” Flynn said, giving him a pair of gloves. “You expect me to completely abandon my rules? No way.”

Frank put the gloves on, wondering if he should bother with them. Ignoring a little chill that raised the hair along the back of his neck, he cut the tape, then opened the box. He reached for the small, numbered envelope within it.

Although he had known there would be nothing more than an electronic watch in the envelope, he still couldn’t help feeling a little let down at the sight of it. He had seen a photograph of it, and he found that the actual article looked even more anonymous. It was one of those complex watches with buttons for alarms and timers, other time zones, and a stopwatch. The battery in it had died long ago, of course, so that the numbers on its face were gone, the face now nothing more than a gray blank, the color of a shaken Etch-A-Sketch. All the same, it didn’t appear to be cheaply made.

Tracking down the owner of the watch was more than a long shot, but this was the only thing he had to go on other than Flynn’s assurance that Lefebvre’s signature had been forged. The forged signature might prove that Lefebvre hadn’t signed for the box earlier in the day, but it would be remarkable if it could show who did the forging. Still, it was an unexpected break, so Frank decided he’d take a chance on finding the owner of the watch. Perhaps only a few of the watches had been made after all, and a serial number would lead to some record of purchase. He already had the name of the manufacturer — Time Masters — in his notes. Although he was fairly sure he had the words and numbers that were etched on the back in the files, he copied them down:

WATER RESISTANT

BASE METAL

ST STEEL BACK

TMSR3

CHINA

3458904894

He thought of Ben’s discovery of Lefebvre’s watch in the woods and remembered a detail from the file. He looked at the band for a moment, then said, “I thought the lab report claimed they had Lefebvre’s wrist measurement off this thing. How the hell did they get it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this doesn’t look as if it has ever been worn.”

Flynn studied it. “By God, you’re right…”

Frank remembered reading the reports, the notations about indentations made by the buckle in the leather watchband, the one bucklehole that had been slightly larger than the others, worn places that indicated wrist size based on where the strap had been fastened again and again.

He explained this to Flynn and said, “The wrist strap on this one hasn’t ever been buckled. It isn’t the same watch.”

“Shit,” Flynn said. “Shit, shit, shit. Let me pull up the records.”

He moved over to the computer, logged on, and went into the evidence control program. He asked for a report on requests made for the Randolph case materials.

The report listed a long group of names. Flynn printed it out, then handed it to Frank. Most of the names were familiar. In addition to Captain Bredloe, there were three detectives — Vince Adams, Pete Baird, Elena Rosario. Three members of the lab — Dr. Alfred Larson, Paul Haycroft, and Dale Britton. He asked Flynn about two other names, ones he didn’t recognize.

“Those guys were with Internal Affairs. They’re retired now, but I can put you in touch with them if need be.”

Frank thought about the list of names in Lefebvre’s notebook. The IAD detectives weren’t on it. “Probably won’t be necessary,” he said. “Flynn — anybody else asks to see this—”

“I’ll let you know,” Flynn said.