The Book of Lies

35

First of all, his name’s not Ellis.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that from his ID saying Edward,” Naomi replied as her blue lights swirled and her car whipped across the bridge on Sunrise Boulevard. Glancing down at her GPS device, she eyed the small crimson triangle, which was almost at Griffin Road. Ellis was definitely going for the airport. Now it was making sense. That explained him spying at the building. He was working with Cal. “How’s he check out otherwise? He really a cop?”

“Was a cop. Stepped down about a year ago.”

“Like Cal.”

“No. Very much not like Cal. First of all—”

“You already did first of all.”

“Excuse me?” Scotty asked.

“You can’t say first of all more than once. You already said it.”

Scotty paused, stewing in silence. “Second of all . . . this guy Edward Belasco,” he said through her earpiece. “He’s bad news—and worst of all, he knows the system. Never been arrested, never been caught.”

“Just tell me what he did,” Naomi said with yet another glance at the GPS’s glowing crimson triangle. Still on target.

“See, that’s the problem, no one can prove he did anything,” Scotty explained. “It goes back to when he was seven years old and he and his mom got into this mess of a car wreck in some schmancy neighborhood in Michigan.”

“You’re joking, right? Another broken bird with parent issues? I thought you said he wasn’t like Cal.”

“Trust me, this is far from Cal. Anyway, Mom gets slammed in the car wreck, young Edward is untouched, and as a result, he gets sent to live with his recently divorced dad for two weeks while the mom recovers. Two weeks. Instead, a few days into the visit, his father tells him that his mom has suddenly died. Young Edward never went back home again.”

“Oh, boy. And Edward believed him?”

“Dad said it, didn’t he? Of course he believed him. Until one rainy day when now fully grown Officer Edward, who’s moved back to Michigan, opens up the morning newspaper and sees his mom’s obituary staring back at him. With a few phone calls, he tracks down the lawyer for his mom’s estate, who tells him his mom had spent decades, and most of her money, searching for him. And that’s the first time in twenty years that he hears his real name: Ellis.”

“Real candidate for Thorazine, huh?”

“Candidate? We’re talking spokesmodel,” Scotty said.

“How’d you even get all this info?”

“It’s in his file.”

“His personnel file has this?”

“Personnel? No, no, no. This is his case file. That’s what happens when there’s a murder investigation,” Scotty explained. “A few days later, the estate lawyer reports a break-in at his office, with Mom’s books and papers suddenly gone, including an old Missing Child flyer that was in the files. Two weeks after that, Edward’s dad is found floating facedown in a lake behind his house. With no one to blame, it gets labeled as a boating accident.”

“Until . . .”

“Until six months later, when Edward’s suspicious squad leader opens Edward’s locker at work and finds the old Missing Child poster from when Edward was young. But instead of the picture of him as a little boy, your man Officer Edward had taken photos of his father and glued the head shots onto the head of his own old childhood body. Now they revisit Dad’s so-called accidental death. Anything seem a little fishy to you?”

“Who knew that collage skills could be used for evil?” Naomi asked as she made another left and veered toward the entrance for the highway. No question, traffic was murder, but with her blue lights, it wouldn’t slow her down. “So they fired Ellis right there?” she asked, pulling around the pack and riding along the shoulder of the road.

“Fired? Please. First they put him on leave, then they tried to prove he committed the murder, and then they let him resign, pension and all. You know the game: If they fire him, he’ll slap back with a lawsuit, then all this homemade Missing Child stuff hits the cable shows, and then the Michigan cops will have one of those public headaches that even the public doesn’t want. Better to just—poof—wave your wand and make it disappear.”

“But the way he’s calling himself Ellis again . . . going all Mr. Ripley with himself . . .”

“No doubt. He clearly found something he loved in his old life,” Scotty said. “Anyway, where’s Officer Nutbag now?”

As Naomi plowed along the shoulder of the road, she again eyed the crimson triangle on the digital screen. “Approaching the rental car center. I’m betting he’s meeting Cal at the airport.”

“You think they’re in it together?”

But before Naomi could answer, her phone beeped and Seminole Police appeared on caller ID. “Scotty, I gotta take this.”

With a click, she flipped to the other line. “Agent Molina,” she answered.

“Benny Ocala,” replied a man with a creaky low voice.

Benny Ocala, Naomi nodded to herself. Chief of the Semi-nole Police. And the last person Cal called from his cell phone last night.

“Thanks for getting back to me, Benny,” she said, pumping the gas, nearly at the airport. “I think we have a good friend in common.”