The Letter Of The Law

CHAPTER 18

"I still think Lipton killed Marcia Sales, and the girl in Atlanta," Bolinger argued. The captain looked at him skeptically.

"There's not that much I can do with Sales anyway," Bolinger continued. "The sheriffs are out there looking. The Texas Rangers are on alert. I've got a stakeout on his cabin. No one's come up with anything. Unless Sales turns up on his own, I don't know what more I can do with that case. With the FBI I can still investigate Lipton across state lines."

"Traces of that boy's blood were found on the seat of his truck," the captain reminded him. "Bob, admit it. You were wrong."

"I may have been wrong about Sales," Bolinger conceded. "But just because he killed Frank Castle doesn't mean he killed those girls. His own daughter, for God's sake, John. A man doesn't do that."

"You don't do it. I don't do it," the captain countered, "but you or I don't butcher Frank Castle, either. He was killed the same way as the girl. How do you explain that?"

"I think maybe Sales was trying to make it look like Lipton," Bolinger said.

The captain considered that for a moment, then said, "By the way, have you contacted the lawyer?"

"No," Bolinger said sullenly. "I haven't."

"Well, you should," the captain said, removing his reading glasses. He leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. "That's all we need, to have her get bumped and we didn't warn her that Sales is out there killing people involved with that case."

"It was on the news. It's the big story," Bolinger grumbled.

"Bob, talk to her," the captain said. "That's an order. In the meantime, as long as you give me your word you're staying on top of the Sales situation, you can help out the FBI."

"Thanks, John," Bolinger said, standing to leave.

"Why you thanking me?" the captain asked.

"It's better when it's official," Bolinger said with a grin.

"You were gonna do it whether I said you could or not," the captain complained as Bolinger went out the door. "I know you, Bob. You're the most stubborn son of a bitch I've ever known."

Bolinger headed for the law school in an attempt to find out the seminar schedule that Lipton had kept over the past several years. On his way there, he indulged himself with a detour to Lipton's neighborhood. The professor's stately manor was lifeless. Bolinger parked across the street and wandered up the pretty stone drive. On the far side of the house was a landscaper's truck, and from the back, Bolinger could hear the sound of a weed eater.

The rich smell of freshly cut grass filled his nose. As he approached a young Mexican man in a green jumpsuit, he eyed the back of the house for any sign of Lipton. Although wrought-iron furniture adorned the patio surrounding the pool, the pool itself was covered. Bolinger tapped the landscaper's back amid the high-pitched drone of his tool. The man jumped in the air and spun around in alarm. Bolinger disarmed him with a smile. The man shut down the weed eater and in broken English asked how he could be of help.

"Anyone home?" Bolinger asked, casually showing the young man his badge.

The man's eyes widened. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his cap and looked from the cop to the house and back to the cop. "No. No one home for much times."

"Never home?" Bolinger asked.

"No," the man said, fervently shaking his head. "I go here two times every week. No person live here."

"Do you have a card?" Bolinger asked as he removed a cigarette from his pocket. The man looked at him as if he were from Mars.

"Business card," Bolinger said carefully as he lit the Winston. "El nombre de su company."

"Oh, si," he said and led Bolinger to the truck. On the other side was the name Conquest Landscapes along with the phone number. Bolinger wrote it down and thanked the man. He took a tour around the house before he left and saw nothing that indicated Lipton had been around.

No one had seen Lipton at the law school, either. Bolinger got in to see the dean, a stern-looking overweight woman with two last names.

"Obviously, he's not teaching this semester," she told him curtly. She also either didn't know or wouldn't say whether or not he'd be back in the fall.

There wasn't a question he asked that wasn't met with an abrupt answer full of mistrust. The dean apparently had no knowledge of the way in which Lipton scheduled his seminars.

"This is a university," she reminded him, "not a police force. Our professors have private lives outside of the university. Many of them are consultants to businesses or have their own independent undertakings."

In the eyes of such a place, Bolinger thought, he was obviously a bad guy, an overzealous cop, the kind of prying monster that innocent citizens had to be protected from. On his way out of the building, he saw a nerdy-looking kid with a crew cut who reminded Bolinger of his brother when he was a student until the kid opened his mouth.

"You go to school here?" Bolinger asked the kid, who was reading on the steps.

The kid marked his spot in his book with a finger and looked up through his glasses.

"Looks that way."

"You know Professor Lipton?"

"I know who he is, sure, the crim law guy in the murder trial."

Bolinger could tell from his tone that the kid hadn't taken a class with Lipton. There wasn't a hint of the recognition that a student would display for a teacher he'd studied under. Bolinger nodded and said, "If I was a guy who wanted to know about those seminars he teaches… you know what I'm talking about?"

"No."

"Professor Lipton went around the country," Bolinger explained patiently, "giving seminars on his specialty, on criminal law."

"Yeah," the kid said, obviously impatient now to get back to his work.

"How would I find out about something like that?"

"What are you, a cop?" the kid said derisively.

"That's me," Bolinger said.

The kid shrugged and, turning back to his book, he said sarcastically, "How about the Internet? You know… computers."

"I know," Bolinger said gruffly. "I'll let you get back to your studies so you can go out and sue somebody."

The kid might have been a smart-ass, but Bolinger wasn't above taking an idea from anyone. Back at the station, he looked up Rutlege, the department's version of a computer geek. Rutlege was a muscular guy who did triathlons in his spare time. He was the best the Austin police department had in the way of a hacker. Whenever a crook had a computer, chances were Rutlege saw it.

"You remember when we pulled in Professor Lipton?" Bolinger asked.

Rutlege leaned back in his chair and tilted his head back until Bolinger could see the Adam's apple bobbing in his neck.

"Yeah," he said, dropping his head back into place. "I don't remember everything on his machine, but I remember we looked at it."

"Any chance he had his business records on there?" Bolinger said. "He ran these seminars all over the country, and I want to find out where it was he was going. I wondered if you had anything or saw anything that could help me or if you could find some stuff about his seminars on the Internet."

"I could do a search on-line for you, Sarge," Rutlege said. "But as far as his computer, if anything turned up pertinent to the murder we would have told you back then. I don't remember any office files or anything. There could have been. I'll get you my report. It was just a little four- or five-sentence deal, I think, saying that I didn't find anything that would help in the case. I do remember one thing, though."

Rutlege snickered and said, "The guy had some porn files in there. It was funny. I remember the file name, Roman Empire Limited."

"What do you think that means?" Bolinger asked, searching his brain for some connection and coming up with none.

Rutlege shrugged. "I don't know. You could ask the guys in vice. It's nothing I ever heard of, just a file name, I guess. I thought it was kind of unusual, though, the name. So I opened it, and there was some kinky stuff, whips and leather and shit like that with the professor right in the middle of it all. Nothing too crazy, but I remembered it because I was talking to Delucca about it and he wanted me to copy them off for him. He likes that kind of crap. Well, I went back to the property section to get the machine and it was gone."

"Gone?"

"Yeah, seems Lipton's lawyer showed up and demanded if the DA wasn't going to use it as evidence that he get it back."

"Why would the lawyer want the computer?"

Rutlege shrugged. "I don't know. The porn stuff was kinky, but it's not like the DA could have used it. And it's not like Lipton could have used the computer in jail, either. They gave it back, of course. I didn't know about it until it was already gone. Made me think I must have missed something, you know?"

"Could you have?"

Rutlege shrugged. "I hope not, but you know, people have files they can hide and you can't get at them unless you know they're there or unless you look hard enough. I go through so many machines I pretty much just see what files turn up in the regular directories unless someone tells me there's a chance something could be hidden that's important to the case. Then I'll take the damn thing home with me and hack on it over the weekend."

"Could you hide a whole set of business records?"

"Sure," Rutlege said. "You could hide a dictionary if you knew what you were doing."

"Listen, I want you to go on the Internet and try to find out all the places he gave seminars in the last five years. Don't you think the records from this seminar business that he had have to be on a computer somewhere?"

"Sure they do," Rutlege said. "This guy's computer literate. He was carrying that notebook with him when he tried to get away. That tells you he can't do without it. Now it might not have been on that computer, but I guarantee a guy like that has his records on a computer somewhere. But like I said, they could have been right there and I wouldn't have written anything up on it because it didn't really fit into the case at the time. All we were looking for then was any letters or e-mail back and forth between him and the girl. You get your hands on his computer, you might just have everything you want."

"That's not too likely," Bolinger said. "I can't even get my hands on him."

"Well, meantime," Rutlege told him, "I'll get what I can off the Internet and I'll e-mail it to you."

"E-mail it?"

"You've got a computer, don't you?"

"No," Bolinger grumbled. "Just make me a good old-fashioned Xerox copy of whatever you find and put it on my desk."

Bolinger's next stop was the federal building. He wanted to get at Lipton's credit card records. Unless he used cash wherever he went, that information should give him a trail showing where the professor had traveled over the last five years. He knew getting a subpoena from a local judge for something like that would be a tough nut. They'd want him to show probable cause. But he also knew that the FBI could get a federal judge to do it without batting an eye.

On his way over, he dialed up Casey Jordan's office. Her assistant said she wasn't available and asked if he wanted her voice mail. Bolinger preferred her voice mail. He wasn't calling because he wanted to. He was calling because it had been a direct order.

At the federal building, Agent Unger wasn't in and hadn't been seen all day. The secretary gave Bolinger a vacant look when he asked if she knew where he might be. Bolinger looked out the window at the bright sun, the clear sky, and the dry, warm air, a perfect day to be out on the links.

"West Lake Hills Country Club," Bolinger said out loud in disgust. He wasn't the least opposed to grabbing a round on a beautiful day, but he figured Unger would at least go through the motions. Not to show up at all was totally negligent. He dialed up the agent's cell phone and got a machine. With a sigh, he went down the hall to Dean Wentworth's office.

Dean looked up from a pile of paperwork.

"What's up, Bob?"

"I need a subpoena."

"Have Unger get it," he said.

"Unger's out… golfing, I imagine."

"Bob, look, I meant what I said. I can't help you with this goddamn stuff. I got you a goddamn guy, you'll have to use him."

"What you got me is some sorry-ass guy who's waiting to get vested so he can get a government pension and retire."

"Bob, give me a goddamn break. Come on, I know we're friends, but you've got to leave me alone. I got people breathing down my goddamn neck."

"Good, go ahead," Bolinger said sullenly. "Go get your high-profile bank robber, but when I turn this guy over and we find two dozen dead women all across the country, don't even think about sticking your face in front of the cameras."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean said indignantly.

"It means you guys are all media whores," Bolinger said, jutting his chin out, "that's what it means. It means you're worried less about catching the bad guys than you are about having a camera there to see you do it."

"Hey, Bob…"

"What?"

"Kiss my goddamn ass."