Unlucky 13

Chapter 69

Last night, thinking about the f-you e-mail she had gotten a couple of days ago from Morales, Cindy had lain awake in bed, trying to figure out if there was a way in the world she could locate that hateful woman.

Cindy didn’t remember falling asleep, but then daylight pried her eyes open. She picked up last night’s thoughts as though she had never dropped them.

But now she had an idea.

She cleaned up, made coffee, and then called her new pal in Wisconsin, Captain Patrick Lawrence of the Cleveland, Wisconsin, PD.

The captain answered on the first ring and said he was just getting in, to give him a second to take off his jacket. She heard the clunk of the phone on his desk and then he was back.

“I’ve got time to talk right now, Cindy.”

“I need some help, Pat, of the usually off-limits-to-reporters kind.”

The captain told Cindy he was happy to help her as long as she kept his name out of it. He couldn’t chase Morales himself when she was out of his county, but the fact that she was tied to Randy Fish gave the captain some personal interest in the outcome of the case.

Cindy paced around her small apartment as she told the captain about Morales’s e-mail.

“She pegged me when I was watching for her outside her mother’s house. I didn’t get a look at her car. She had her high beams on, but apparently she saw me. I’m thinking she has to be driving a stolen car.”

Lawrence said, “Makes sense she’d be boosting cars of opportunity. I would imagine she’d rotate them out pretty regularly, hoping it would take a while for local PDs to catch up with her ride.”

“Pat, here’s the favor: Could you access a stolen-car database and give me a list of recently stolen cars in San Francisco?”

“Check your e-mail after lunch,” he said.

At the end of the day, Cindy met with Henry Tyler in his office. He looked distracted and intense at the same time. He didn’t ask her to sit down. He just said, “Where are you on Morales?”

Cindy said, “She’s in town, Henry. She sent me an e-mail telling me that she saw me.”

“She wrote to you?” said the publisher. He was standing behind his desk and had been moving stacks of paper, looking for something. A pen. And he found it. Cindy had a hundred and ten percent of Tyler’s attention now.

He said again, “She wrote to you? What did she say?”

“She told me that she knows I’m looking for her and to get off her tail.”

“Cindy. What the hell? You were going to let the police know where she was, get her arrested. Isn’t that right?”

“Right. That’s still the plan. Get her arrested. Write the story. I’m working with a police captain, trading information, and I think I have an idea why she’s in town.”

“My instincts are telling me to pull you off this, Cindy. It feels like this could go very bad.”

“Henry, this e-mail is huge. I’m being careful—”

“Make sure you understand me. Don’t go near Morales unless you’re in a cop car, withcops. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Cindy left Tyler, went down the hall to her own office, and called Lindsay again. This was the third message she’d left for her friend, and now she was worried.

It was just a hunch, but she thought maybe Morales was in town not just to see her child but to go after Lindsay. It was no secret that Randy Fish had been fascinated with Lindsay. He had singled her out as the only cop he would talk to, and Mackie knew that. Did that work on her? Was she jealous of Lindsay? It had to have hurt her deeply that Lindsay had been alone with Fish when he died.

That must have almost killed Mackie.

Maybe she was getting this wrong, but psychologically it made sense. She had to let Lindsay know.

She texted Lindsay: Call me.

Then she opened her mail from Captain Lawrence.

He had listed six cars that had been stolen in San Francisco this week, most of them cars that could be profitably chop-shopped for parts or sold in Mexico. She printed out the list, which included a BMW and a Jaguar. The last car on the list was a 2004 Subaru Outback that had been parked two to three blocks down from Candlestick Park. She didn’t know if Morales had stolen that car, but it was the kind of car that went unnoticed, and she could see Morales feeling very safe in an ancient station wagon.

Cindy left her office and got her own car out of the lot. She had the Subaru in mind when she drove toward Lindsay’s neighborhood.

She called Lindsay again as night came on.