Chasing the Dime

by Michael Connelly

  "You're talking about the thing up in Palo Alto?" he asked. "I was never officially charged. It was diverted. I was suspended from school for a semester. I did public service and probation. That was it."

  "Arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer."

  "It was almost fifteen years ago. I was in college."

  "But you see what I'm looking at here. Impersonating an officer then. Running around like some kind of detective now. Maybe you've got a hero complex, Mr. Pierce."

  "No, this is totally different. What that was back then was I was on the phone, trying to get some information. Social engineering —I was soshing out a number. I acted like I was a campus cop so I could get a phone number. That was it. I don't have a hero complex, whatever that is."

  "A phone number for who?"

  "A professor. I wanted his home number and it was unlisted. It was nothing."

  "The report says you and your friends used the number to persecute the professor. To pull an elaborate prank on him. Five other students were arrested."

  "It was harmless but they had to make an example of us. It was when hacking was just getting big. We were all suspended and got probation and community service but the punishment was more severe than the crime. What we did was harmless. It was minor."

  "I'm sorry but I don't consider impersonating a police officer to be either harmless or minor."

  Pierce was about to protest further but held his tongue. He knew he would not convince Renner. He waited for the next question and after a moment the detective continued.

  "Says in the records you did your community service in a DOJ lab in Sacramento. Were you thinking of becoming a cop then or something?"

  "It was after I changed my major to chemistry. I just worked in the blood lab. I did typing and matching, basic work. It was far from cop work."

  "But it must have been interesting, huh? Dealing with cops, putting together the evidence for important cases. Interesting enough for you to stay on after you did your hours."

  "I stayed because they offered me a job and Stanford is expensive. And they didn't give me the important cases. Mostly the cases came to me in FedEx boxes. I did the work and shipped it all back. No big deal. In fact, it was kind of boring."

  Renner moved on without transition.

  "Your arrest for impersonating an officer also came a year after your name came up on a crime report down here. It's on the computer."

  Pierce started to shake his head.

  "No. I've never been arrested for anything down here. Just that time up at Stanford."

  "I didn't say you were arrested. I said your name's on a crime report. Everything's on computer now. You're a hacker, you know that. You throw in a name and sometimes it's amazing what comes out."

  "I am not a hacker. I don't know the first thing about it anymore. And whatever crime report you are talking about, it must be a different Henry Pierce. I don't remem —"

  "I don't think so. Kester Avenue

  in Sherman Oaks? Did you have a sister named Isabelle Pierce?"

  Pierce froze. He was amazed that Renner had made the connection.

  "The victim of a homicide, May nineteen eighty-eight."

  All Pierce could do was nod. It was like a secret was being told, or a bandage ripped off an open wound.

  "Believed to have been the victim of a killer known as the Dollmaker, later identified as Norman Church. Case closed with the death of Church, September nine, nineteen ninety."

  Case closed, Pierce thought. As if Isabelle were simply a file that could be closed, put in a drawer and forgotten. As if a murder could ever really be solved.

  He came out of his thoughts and looked at Renner.

  "Yes, my sister. What about it? What's it got to do with this?"

  Renner hesitated and then slowly his weary face split into a small smile.

  "I suppose it has everything and nothing to do with it."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "Sure it does. She was older than you, wasn't she?"

  "A few years."

  "She was a runaway. You used to go look for her, didn't you? Says so on the computer, so it must be right, right? At night. With your dad. He'd —"

  "Stepfather."

  "Stepfather, then. He'd send you into the abandoned buildings to look because you were a kid and the kids in those squats didn't run from another kid. That's what the report says.

  Says you never found her. Nobody did, until it was too late."

  Pierce folded his arms and leaned across the table.

  "Look, is there a point to this? Because I would really like to get out of here, if you don't mind."

  "The point is, you went searching for a lost girl once before, Mr. Pierce. Makes me wonder if you're not trying to make up for something with this girl Lilly. You know what I mean?"

  "No," Pierce said in a voice that sounded very small, even to himself.

  Renner nodded.

  "Okay, Mr. Pierce, you can go. For now. But let me say for the record that I don't believe for a moment you've told me the whole truth here. It's my job to know when people are lying and I think you're lying or leaving things out, or both. But, you know, I don't feel too bad about it, because things like that catch up with a person. I may move slow, Mr.

  Pierce. Sure, I kept you waiting in here too long. A fine, upstanding citizen like you. But that's because I am thorough and I'm pretty good at what I do. I'll have the whole picture pretty soon. I guarantee it. And if I find out you crossed any lines in that picture, it's going to be my pleasure, if you know what I mean."

  Renner stood up.

  "I'll be in touch about that polygraph. And if I were you, I might want to think about going back to that nice new apartment on Ocean Way

  and staying there and staying away from this, Mr. Pierce."

  Pierce stood up and walked awkwardly around the table and Renner to the door. He thought of something before leaving.

  "Where's my car?"

  "Your car? I guess it's wherever you left it. Go to the front desk. They'll call a cab for you."

  "Thanks a lot."

  "Good night, Mr. Pierce. I'll be in touch."

  As he walked through the deserted squad room to the hallway that led to the front desk and the exit, Pierce checked his watch. It was twelve-thirty. He knew he had to get to Robin before Renner did but her number was in the backpack in his car.

  And as he approached the front counter he realized he had no money for a cab. He had given every dollar he had on him to Robin. He hesitated for a moment.

  "Can I help you, sir?"

  It was the cop behind the counter. Pierce realized he was staring at him.

  "No, I'm fine."

  He turned and walked out of the police station. On Venice Boulevard

  he started jogging west toward the beach.

  16

  As Pierce went down the alley to his car he saw that Lilly Quinlan's apartment was still a nest of police activity. Several cars were clogging the alley and a mobile light had been set up to spray the front of the apartment with illumination.

  He noticed Renner standing out front, conversing with his partner, a detective whose name Pierce did not remember. It meant Renner had probably driven right by Pierce on his way back to the crime scene and had not noticed him or had intentionally decided not to offer him a ride. Pierce chose the second possibility. A cop on the street, even at night, would notice a man jogging in full dress. Renner had purposely gone by him.

  Standing —or maybe hiding —next to his car while he cooled down from the jog over, Pierce watched for a few minutes and soon Renner and his partner went back inside the apartment. Pierce finally used the keyless remote to unlock the door of the BMW.

  He slipped into the car and gently closed the door. He fumbled with the key, trying to find the ignition, and realized the ceiling light was off. He thought it must have burned out because it was set to go on when the door was open. He reached up and tapped the button anyway and no
thing happened. He tapped it again and the light came on.

  He sat there looking up at the light for a long moment and considering this. He knew the light had a three-setting cycle controlled by pushing the button on the ceiling next to it.

  The first position was the convenience setting, engaging the light when the door was open. Once the door was closed the light would fade out after about fifteen seconds or the ignition of the car, whichever came first. The second position turned on the light fulltime, even if the door was closed. The third position turned the light off with no automatic convenience response.

  Pierce knew he always kept the light set on the first position so the interior would be lit when he opened the door. That had not occurred when he had gotten into the car. The light had to have been in the third position of the cycle. He had then pushed the button once —to position one —and the light did not come on, because the door had already been closed. He had pushed it a second time and the light came on in position two.

  Opening and closing the door, he went through the cycle until he had confirmed his theory. His conclusion was that someone had been in his car and changed the light setting.

  Suddenly panicked by this realization, he reached between the two front seats to the backseat floor. His hand found his backpack. He pulled it forward and made a quick check of its contents. His notebooks were still there. Nothing seemed to be missing.

  He opened the glove box and that too seemed undisturbed. Yet he was sure someone had been inside the car.

  He knew the most expensive thing in the car was probably the leather backpack itself, yet it had not been taken. This led him to conclude that the car had been searched but not burglarized. That explained why it had been relocked. A car burglar probably wouldn't have bothered to disguise what had happened.

  Pierce looked up at the lit doorway of the apartment and knew what had happened.

  Renner. The police. They had searched his car. He was sure of it.

  He considered this and decided there were two possibilities as to how it had happened and how the mistake that led to his tip-off had occurred. The first was that the searcher opened the door —probably with a professional "slim jim" window channel device —and then hit the light button twice to extinguish the light so as not to be seen in the car.

  The second possibility was that the searcher entered the car and closed the door, the overhead light going out on its timer delay. The searcher would have then pushed the overhead button to turn the light back on. When the search was completed he would have then pushed the button again to turn the light off, leaving it in the cycle position Pierce had found it.

  His guess was that it was the latter possibility. Not that it mattered. He thought about Renner inside the apartment. He knew then why the detective had not given him a ride.

  He had wanted to search the car. He beat Pierce back to the scene and searched his car.

  The search would have been illegal without his permission but Pierce actually felt the opposite of angry about it. He knew there was nothing in the car that incriminated him in the Lilly Quinlan disappearance or any other crime. He thought about Renner and the disappointment he probably felt when the car turned up clean.

  "Fuck you, asshole," he said out loud.

  Just as he was about to finally key the engine he saw the mattress being removed from the apartment. Two people he assumed were crime scene specialists gingerly carried the bulky piece vertically through the door and down the stairs to a van marked LAPD

  SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION DIVISION.

  The mattress had been wrapped in thick plastic that was opaque like a shower curtain.

  The wide and dark blotch at its center clearly showed through. The sight of it being held up in the harsh light immediately depressed Pierce. It was as if they were holding up a billboard that advertised that he had been too late to do anything for Lilly Quinlan.

  The mattress was too big and wide to fit in the van. The people from the Scientific Investigation Division hoisted it up onto a rack on top of the vehicle and then secured it with rope. Pierce guessed that the plastic wrapping would secure the integrity of whatever evidence would come from it.

  When he looked away from the van he noticed that Renner was standing in the doorway of the apartment, looking at him. Pierce held his stare for a long moment and then started the car. Because of all the official cars clogging the alley, he had to back all the way down to Speedway before being able to turn around and head home.

  At his apartment ten minutes later he lifted the phone and immediately got the broken dial tone indicating he had messages. Before checking them he hit the redial button because he knew the last call he had made had been to Robin. The call went to voice mail without a ring, indicating she had turned off the phone or was on a call.

  "Listen, Robin, it's me, Henry Pierce. I know you were angry with me but please listen to what I have to say right now. After you left I found the door to Lilly's apartment open.

  The landlord was in there clearing the place out. We found what looked like blood on the bed and we had to call the cops. I pretty much kept you —"

  The beep sounded and he was cut off. He hit redial again, wondering why she had set such a short message window on her phone service. He got a busy signal.

  "Damn it!"

  He started over and got the busy signal again. Frustrated, he walked out through the bedroom to the balcony. The sea breeze was strong and biting. The Ferris wheel lights were still on, though the amusement park had closed at midnight. He pushed redial again and held the phone to his ear. This time it rang and after one ring was picked up by the real Robin. Her voice was sleepy.

  "Robin?"

  "Yeah, Henry?"

  "Yes, don't hang up. I was just leaving you a message. I —"

  "I know. I was just listening to it. Did you get mine?"

  "What, a message? No. I just got home. I've been with the cops all night. Listen, I know you're mad at me but, like I was trying to say on the message, the cops are going to be calling you. I kept you out of it. I didn't say you brought me there or anything else. But when they asked me how I knew Lilly was from Tampa and her mother was there, I told them you told me. It was the only way out. For me, I admit, but I didn't think it would be a problem for you. I mean, your pages are linked. They would have gotten around to talking to you anyway."

  "It's okay."

  He was silent for a moment, surprised by her reaction.

  "I told them I convinced you I wanted to find Lilly to make sure she was okay and that you believed me and that's why you told me things about her."

  "You know, you did convince me. That's why I called and left a message. Good thing I have caller ID and had your number. I wanted to tell you I was sorry about what I said in that alley. That was very uncool."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "Thanks."

  They were both silent for a moment.

  "Look," Pierce said. "The mattress in that place. . . There was a lot of blood. I don't know what happened to Lilly but if she was trying to get out of the business to go to school . . .

  I know you're afraid of Billy Wentz but you should be more than that, Robin. Whatever you do, be careful."

  She didn't say anything.

  "You have to get away from him and that business. But, listen to me, when you do, don't tell a soul about it. Just disappear without them knowing you're leaving. I think that might have been the mistake Lilly made. She might've told him or told somebody that took it back to him."

  "And you think he did this? She made him money. Why would he —"

  "I don't know. I don't know what to think. It could've been the person she was with before she was supposed to meet you. It could've been a lot of things. I saw things in that apartment, whips and masks and things. Who knows what happened to her. But it could have been Wentz sending out the message: Nobody leaves. All I'm saying is that it's a dangerous world you work in, Robin. You should get out of it and you should be damn care
ful about it when you do."

  She was silent and he knew he wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know. Then he thought he heard her crying but he wasn't sure.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes," she said. "It's just that it's not so easy, you know. Quitting. Getting out and going back to the square. I mean, what else do I do? I make a lot of money doing this. More than I'll ever make anywhere else. What should I do, work at a McDonald's? I probably couldn't even get a job there. What do I put on the application, that I've been whoring for the last two years?"