Mills takes the stack from her. He shuffles through it. They’re old photos from the doctor’s childhood, high school, and college years—in no particular order. The doctor was a good-looking guy, light hair, blue eyes, a trim athletic build. He’s on the tennis team. He’s dressed for the prom. He poses with the family. With a girl. There he is on skis. He’s on the chairlift. And there he is on the beach.
Powell puts a finger on the beach photo and stops Mills from sifting. “This is the money shot, so to speak.”
It sure is. Mills sees it immediately. Schultz, hair wet and tousled, is flanked by two grinning buddies. Subtract twenty or thirty years and the faces of Al Torento and Davis Klink are smiling, somewhat smugly, back at you. They’re posing with their backs to the ocean. Over their shoulders to the left, a mass of seaweed, like a washed-up lace dress, drapes a concrete jetty. Beyond that, in the very upper corner of the photo, a few buildings, presumably hotels, poke into frame, and a lonely pier farther up the shore sits against the horizon.
“That’s not a reunion shot,” Powell tells him.
“Clearly not. These guys are obviously still in college, here. You can just tell. They knew each other. They were friends,” Mills says, his adrenaline surging. “This puts all three of them together. They obviously traveled together. Too bad I can’t tell where this is.”
“Yeah we’ve been trying to figure that out for the past hour,” Preston says. “Could be Rocky Point.”
Still studying the photo, Mills says, “Could be. Rocky Point was a very popular road trip from Phoenix back in the day.” Then he laughs. “God knows I had quite a few weekends of debauchery down there, myself.”
Myers picks up one of the old passports. “Maybe this will help.”
“Only if these guys went out of the country,” Mills says. “I don’t think you needed a passport to cross the border into Rocky Point back then. I don’t even think you needed it to fly into Mexico.”
“For all we know it’s a beach in San Diego,” Preston interjects, “in which case a passport is irrelevant.”
“Someone has to know where this is,” Mills says. “Assuming the place still looks the same.”
“Why is it so important? You know, where they are?” Myers asks.
“I think the important thing,” Mills begins, “is that only a handful of photos were locked away in the trunk. You, yourself, said there was a ton of pictures. Am I right, Morty?”
“Yeah. We got easily a couple hundred.”
“But only these were locked away,” Mills says.
“And I stopped you about five photos from the bottom of the stack,” Powell tells him. “The last five also all show the three men together, most likely from the same vacation.”
Mills flips through them fast. They’re night shots, shot with a flash to illuminate their sunburned faces, on the beach again, behind them a ring of teenagers around a bonfire. Still, no definitive characteristics that reveal geography. Just a deep, dark, sea.
“So,” Mills says, “why were only these photos locked away?”
Preston clears his throat and says, “I think you’re suggesting the photos are incriminating in some way. But if they are, why wouldn’t have Schultz just destroyed them along with the negatives?”
“Proof of something,” Powell tells him. “Proof that mattered to him.”
“We just need to find out what that something was,” Mills says.
“An alibi?” Powell suggests.
Mills lets the word resonate. “Maybe. Which is why it’s important to establish where they were. It’s the only place where we can put the three of them together, except for the reunions,” he says.
The others nod back at him soberly. They all know this is equal parts fool’s errand and investigative due diligence.
“Myers, scan the photos in. And let’s blow ’em up to poster size,” Mills says. “Maybe we’ll see something we can’t see now. It’s a long shot, but I want it done.”
“No prob,” Myers assures him.
“What about the doctor’s computer?” Mills asks.
Preston tells him that the computer is still with forensics. “No alarm bells so far. Nothing relevant to the case, but they’re still working on the laptop and the other devices we seized.”
Mills says he’ll do the follow-up on his own. “In the meantime, everybody take a seat.”
The squad shuffles about, dodges a few boxes, and sits.
“I know we took Torento out of the killer column and put him back in the victim column,” Mills says to the team. “But I want, just for a moment, to put him back under ‘killer.’ I have my reasons.”
“Do share,” Powell asks. “What’s your scenario?”
“It goes like this,” Mills begins. “Let’s say ‘Your Pal Al’ was blackmailing Klink and Schultz. For what I don’t know. But both men are dead. Klink tried to pay him half a million dollars, but Torento killed him anyway so Klink wouldn’t expose him. He probably needed the money for his reelection . . .”
“Or, Schultz, with all these photos locked away as some kind of insurance policy, was blackmailing the others for something,” Powell suggests. “And Torento killed him instead of paying him off.”
“But the congressman first killed Klink because Klink would be able to tie Torento to Schultz’s murder?” Mills asks.
“I don’t like the scenarios,” Preston tells them. “If the killer’s Torento, why would he choose such an outlandish MO? I mean, these ghoulish gravesites are not the MO of a person in the public eye who has everything to lose if he gets caught. If Torento killed, he wouldn’t do it so sensationally.”
“He’s right,” Mills says.
“Or not,” Powell argues. “Perhaps we’re dealing with an attempt at reverse psychology. You know, Torento kills this way precisely because we would never suspect him of doing something so public.”
“I think it’s a stretch,” Mills insists. “I might have to retract my earlier theory.”
“Plus, the guy has an alibi. He’s been in Washington,” Preston says.
“So we think. Who’s to say he doesn’t fly back here unannounced?” Powell asks. “He can insist he was in DC even if he wasn’t.”
“But he’d still need an alibi,” Preston argues, “and he wouldn’t have one.”
Mills scoffs. “Come on, alibis in Washington can be bought and sold like blowjobs on McDowell.”
Powell says, “Good one.”
Mills says, “No. Sorry. That was inappropriate whether or not he has an alibi.”
Myers says, “I don’t get it.”
Preston rolls his eyes.
“Wait a minute,” Powell says. “The Maserati was left at Sky Harbor. So, let’s just say Torento kills his old friend Barry. Then he drives the victim’s Maserati to the airport, ditches the car, and takes off on a midnight flight to DC.”
Mills shakes his head. “Nah, too conspicuous. Too easy to track his moves.”
“You put in the request for flight manifests for that night?” she asks him.
“I put in a request for flight departures first,” he says, pulling up an email from Sky Harbor Operations on his phone. “In the hours after Schultz’s murder, between eleven thirty p.m. and five a.m., there were twelve commercial flights and five private flights departing the airport.”
“He probably flew private,” Preston says. “On a corporate jet of one of his donors.”
“He’d have to disclose that,” Myers reminds the team.
Everybody laughs. Even Myers.
The laughter settles quickly as an infectious dismay seems to spread around the table. Their eyes wander, avoiding contact. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, amplifying the room’s anemia. “I was holding off on the manifests until we could confirm the Maserati was at the airport,” Mills tells the group. “The precinct over there is reviewing surveillance cameras from the West Economy lot to see if they captured images of anyone parking the Maserati, getting out, walking in that area.”
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“We don’t know if Schultz’s killer got on any flight,” Preston reminds them. “He could have taken a cab or an Uber from the airport and gone home.”
“Anything’s possible,” Mills says. “But I’ll be contacting the airlines for their manifests, and, who knows, maybe we’ll recognize a name.”
“You need help with that?” Powell asks.
“I’ll share the data when I get it back. Then each of us will read through each passenger list and we’ll compare what we find, if anything.”
The others nod back at him again, and then Mills turns his attention to a stack of papers on the table and sifts. The pile contains Schultz’s transcripts from college and medical school. If the subtraction in his head is correct, Mills figures the doctor graduated from U of A twenty-five years ago, medical school four years after that. If his grades are any indication, Schultz was a conscientious student, made the dean’s list albeit inconsistently. He would not go on to cure cancer, but he’d hone his surgical craft and find a seemingly lucrative career preying on the vanity of the masses.
Finally a voice. “One thing I don’t get,” Powell says. “If we’re talking blackmail, what’s the blackmail?”
“There aren’t a lot of varieties,” Preston replies. “Sex, drugs, murder.”
Mills drops the stack of papers on the table. “Where are we on the search warrant for Schultz’s office?”
“I should have had it this morning,” Preston says. “But I’m guessing tomorrow.”
“Good,” Mills says. “Because Schultz had access to all kinds of drugs. Doctors have closets full of samples. Not to mention an endless supply of prescription pads. For all we know Schultz was running a pill mill out of his practice.”
Powell shakes her head. “I can maybe see a congressman involved in something like that, but not Klink. Klink’s loaded. He doesn’t need one-third of a pill mill to pay his mortgage.”
“Doesn’t really fit the Fortune 500 profile,” Mills concedes, “unless Schultz somehow talked Klink into funding the operation.”
“We’ve gone through most of Klink’s financial records,” Preston says. “The only thing that’s really stood out were those big withdrawals on the day he died.”
Mills gets up, then snags one of the photos of the men posing on the beach. “Enough for now,” he says. “We all need to drill down, come up with some legit evidence that ties these guys together.”
“Speaking of which,” Powell interjects, “I’ve been waiting on forensic prelims from the Schultz scene to compare with Klink. I’ll have ’em tonight if you want to look.”
“I do,” Mills replies.
He heads to his office, where he scans his notes for Torento’s home phone number. He dials the landline, gets voice mail. He leaves another message with a cheery intern in the Washington office. Then he goes online and searches the website of Arizona State University. It’s a clusterfuck of a navigation, a click marathon, but there she is, the last professor listed on the Spanish faculty page. He dials her office number, but she doesn’t answer. He’s getting nowhere fucking fast. Until he notices that under Jennifer Torento’s short but impressive bio, her office hours are listed. She’s available, it seems, Mondays 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m., Wednesdays 10:00 a.m.–noon, and Thursdays 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
It’s 1:52 p.m. right now. Mills hasn’t had lunch. He usually brings leftovers on Mondays, but Trevor ate like a pig over the weekend, his appetite apparently as strong as his libido. He calls Kelly.
“Hey, babe, I’m grabbing lunch in Tempe if you want to join me,” he says when his wife answers.
“I had a salad at noon. Aren’t you a little late?”
“How about we meet at the house for dessert?” he says with a lascivious snicker.
“Goodbye, Alex. I have a client in fifteen minutes.”
“Your loss.”
“You know I love you.”
“I know you do.”
And so, Alex Mills finds himself eating alone at Magic Café in Tempe, about two blocks from the ASU campus. There’s nothing magic about the café, but they make the best Philly cheesesteak this side of Philly. He’s the only one eating. Most of the patrons are sitting at the bar, sipping one of the ten thousand variations of organic coffee the café offers. They’re all hipsters, the quiet, nerdy kind with their tablets and their laptops and their goatees and unkempt hair. They’re mostly men, rail-thin like addicts or vegetarians or anorexics; it’s hard to tell. Some of them sport minor tattoos. They’re all dressed in black. He’s surprised the place offers meat of any kind. These guys are so obviously vegan you can see the lentil beans coursing through their veins.
The cheesesteak is supposedly organic, too, whatever that means.
The waiter offers him dessert. “Fair Trade Certified and Ethically Sourced Cocoa soufflé on a quinoa and caramel puddle.”
Mills smiles and says, “I’ll pass.” Then he walks over to campus and consults a posted map for the location of the Durham Language and Literature Building, the home of the School of International Letters and Cultures. Like most campuses, ASU is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle where visitors get reliably lost, but within ten minutes he finds himself outside the drab, rectangular building.
Her office is on the third floor. The door is closed. Mills leans in, lets his ear brush against it. He expects to hear muffled pretense and hubris. He went to college, and he knows what it sounds like. But he hears nothing. The office is empty, so he takes a seat on a bench across the hallway and waits. It’s 3:06. Jennifer Torento is late. Three doors down, a woman sits behind a computer in a large, well-lit office. She’s clacking on her keyboard, and she’s wearing a pair of ogling, trendy eyeglasses. Mills can’t read the sign on her door, but she looks to be the department secretary, or whatever they call them these days. He’s about to get up and inquire with her when the sound of jangling keys stops him. He turns and sees Jennifer Torento walking briskly his way. Mills smiles and meets her eyes, but she disregards him and hurriedly opens her door. Mills can see her toss her keys on the desk. She stuffs a few things in a drawer and removes a stack of papers from her bag. He stands and lingers just outside her office. When she doesn’t notice, Mills raps at the doorframe.
“Can I help you?” she says, half turning. Then recognizing him, she adds, “Oh. Hello. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but come in.”
He enters.
“Close the door,” she says. “Have a seat.”
“I’m sorry to show up announced,” he tells her. “But I tried calling.”
“This is inappropriate, I would think,” she says, as if she’s chiding one of her students. “If a student comes by, you’re going to have to leave. Now, what can I do for you?”
“I never heard back from your husband.”
She provides a cold smile. “That’s between you and him.”
“I have another picture to show you,” he says, opening his bag.
He hands her the photo. She looks at it, then at him, her eyes begging for context.
“You recognize your husband, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Well, that’s him again with my murder victims.”
“You’re kidding me,” she says, her disgust palpable but not specific.
“It looks like they were all good friends back in college,” he tells her. “Like they knew each other well, obviously traveled together. Are you sure you’ve never heard of Davis Klink or Barry Schultz? Never ran into them at parties? Had them over to dinner?”
“I think I would remember that.”
“And your husband’s never mentioned them? Even since we last spoke to you?”
She winces. “A conversation with one’s spouse is privileged.”
“Don’t go lawyering up on me just yet, Mrs. Torento. I’m only trying to help.”
“Help?”
He softens his voice. “We think your husband knows something about our victims. But we don’t know because he won’t talk to us. And h
e won’t talk to us because either he’s involved somehow or he’s scared for his life.”
“Haven’t we been down this road?” she asks.
“Maybe. . . .”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to help you. If I knew Al back in his college days, I could certainly tell you something about these men, but I didn’t. And I don’t keep track of his social life now.”
Mills leans in. “Isn’t his social life your social life?”
“No,” she replies. But her answer carries the weight of more than one syllable.
“You had told us he’s coming back to town next week, I think, for an event.”
“Next Friday. For a fundraiser.”
“If you see anything suspicious, please call me. Could I ask you to do that?”
She laughs bitterly. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘suspicious.’”
He gets up. “I think you do, Professor,” he says. “You’re an educated woman.”
“Can I keep the photo?” she asks.
“Actually, that’s a great idea,” he replies. “But this one’s the original. You have a scanner?”
She says there’s one in the staff assistant’s office. “But I don’t intend to bring the photo in there.” She scribbles a few words on a piece of paper and hands it to Mills. “My email address. Send me a JPEG.”
“Will do. And just so you know, my idea of suspicious in this particular case could come in the form of a mysterious phone call.”
Jennifer Torento laughs again. “My husband is a US congressman. He gets mysterious phone calls all the time. They’re called lobbyists.”
“The deaths of Davis Klink and Barry Schultz were both preceded by a suspicious phone call,” he explains. “The call prompted Klink to leave his office immediately and Schultz to bolt abruptly from his house.”
Now the chill of her smile melts to a patronizing grin. “I’ll keep my ears to the ground,” she says. “Have a good afternoon.”
Walking back to his car, crossing a wide quadrangle of central-casting students and a generic campus distinguished only by the fanfare of sunshine, Mills realizes he’s lost his way. With a groan and quiet tirade of cursing, he’s off to find a map.
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