Acid Bath

by Nancy Herndon

  “Well, I didn’t,” she said, straightening and replying firmly. “And we can certainly find out when it was done, maybe even by whom. In fact, if you want to go over to the university now, I can find that out for you, along with more information on this unslaked lime business.”

  “I’m afraid, ma’am,” said Leo, “that we couldn’t allow you to go into that computer system.”

  Sarah looked at him blankly for a moment. “I’m the chairman of Electrical Engineering, and you’re telling me that I can’t use the computers until you find out who killed Gus? That’s crazy.”

  “That’s the way it is,” said Leo. “We can’t allow a suspect to tamper with what might be evidence in our case.”

  “So I am a suspect.”

  “As I said, ma’am, there are lots of them.”

  Elena was thinking, with alarm, that it might be hard to keep Sarah out of the university computer. If she was guilty, she might be able to erase evidence, from her house, for instance. People accessed computers by telephone, didn’t they? Jesus, what were they supposed to do? Arrest her on the spot to keep her away from the computer system? Rip out her telephones?

  Sarah looked amused for the first time since the interrogation had begun, bitterly amused. “I can see what you’re thinking, Elena. Rather than allowing myself to be put in jail, perhaps it would be easier on all of us if you confiscated my modem and then called Charlie Venner, who is head of the computer center. He can cancel my access code.”

  Leo looked at her suspiciously. “I thought you were worried about not being able to conduct business.”

  “I’d rather retire for a week than go to jail,” said Sarah. “Charlie’s number is in the book. Call him. He’ll tell you it’s possible to freeze me out of the system.”

  Elena and Leo looked at each other. They didn’t know what the hell they were doing, not on security measures, and Charlie Venner seemed to be held in wide contempt. Was Sarah suggesting that they rely on Charlie because she knew he’d botch the job?

  “Daguerre,” Elena murmured, and Leo nodded. Elena left the room, called Charlie Venner’s number, and realized immediately that she’d caught him in bed with some female. She told him what they wanted and asked if it was possible, doubting all the time that he’d actually know. She then insisted that he meet Leo at the computer center and perform the operation in Leo’s presence. “We want her frozen out of the system within the next half hour,” said Elena, thinking. Before she can get home and use her telephone. Charlie didn’t want to leave his apartment and had to be threatened. Elena then called Maggie Daguerre and asked her to meet Leo and Charlie to see that it was done correctly.

  “I’ve got two days off starting tomorrow,” Maggie wailed. “At four in the morning I’m heading out to backpack in the Gila.”

  “Well, don’t get engaged to any Los Santos cops while you’re there,” Elena advised. Maggie laughed, grumbled some more, and finally agreed to meet Leo at the computer center.

  “If you don’t have any more questions, Leo, I’ll call for a squad car and take Sarah home,” said Elena after she’d returned to the interrogation room and whispered the computer arrangements to her partner.

  “I have some questions,” said Sarah. “I don’t understand any of this. You seem to suspect me because of that exploding snail, which you know yourself, Elena, is something that happens occasionally, and because of some unslaked lime, but I have no idea what that has to do with anything.”

  Leo and Elena stared at one another for a minute. “Everything but his bones was dissolved by unslaked lime and water,” said Elena expressionlessly.

  Sarah turned dead-white, and at that moment Elena was sure that Sarah was innocent.

  “Dissolved,” Sarah echoed weakly. “You mean he — “ She looked too sick to continue.

  “Nothing left but the bones,” said Leo.

  Sarah leaned her elbows on the desk and ran trembling fingers into her hair. Then she looked up. “Have you had an anthropologist look at the skull? They can reconstruct how the person looked in life. Otherwise, I don’t see how you know that the remains you found were Gus.”

  “We’d have to send it to the FBI,” said Elena. “It would take eight months or so before it came back.”

  “There’s an anthropologist at H.H.U.”

  “That would cost money,” said Sergeant Escobedo, entering from the hall. Elena hadn’t realized that he was in the other room with Beltran.

  “He’d probably do it for the fun of it,” said Sarah wearily. “He couldn’t stand my ex-husband, who evidently had an affair with his wife.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Elena.

  Escobedo shook his head and said, “He wouldn’t exactly make an unbiased expert witness.” He introduced himself to Sarah, then reminded Elena of her earlier plan to get a patrol car to escort Sarah home.

  “This is like a nightmare,” said Sarah as they climbed into the squad car.

  “I know it seems that way,” Elena replied, wondering whether the driver was listening, whether this conversation would, by tomorrow, have passed through the ranks at Five Points and then leapfrogged to substations on the Westside and over in the far Northeast and the East Valley. “But I’m a Crimes-Against-Persons detective, and Gus died a violent death. Investigating it is my responsibility.”

  “But surely you know I wouldn’t — “ Sarah stopped. “Oh, never mind,” she muttered, and that was the last thing she said to Elena until she had to point out her modem so Elena could confiscate it.

  “Maybe, if you don’t mind,” said Elena, “I’ll have the telephone company cut off your service for a few hours until we figure out what we’re doing.”

  “Oh, marvelous,” said Sarah. “You do that.”

  The telephone rang. Elena, knowing she didn’t really have the right to say what she was going to say, murmured, “Only if I’m listening on an extension.”

  Sarah, mouth in a straight, angry line, gestured toward the living room telephone and strode into the bedroom. Elena heard her saying hello, then a male voice replying cheerfully, “Colin Stuart here. You’re a hard lady to get hold of, Sarah. I’m afraid I’ve assumed that your offer to come down and take a look at Herbert Hobart is still open. When your secretary told me late this afternoon that you’d got back to Los Santos early, I went ahead and made reservations.”

  “Oh.” Sarah sounded disconcerted, and Elena wondered if Colin Stuart was a male friend, or even a lover. “For when?” Sarah asked.

  “Early tomorrow morning. I ought to be in before noon.”

  “I see. Well, I guess I could pick you up at the airport.” Elena scooted to the door and shook her bead. Sarah scowled and rescinded her offer. “Perhaps it would be better if you took a cab straight out to the department. I’ll arrange hotel accommodations for you.”

  “Fine,” said Stuart. There was a short silence. Then he added, “Or had you changed your mind?”

  “No. No, of course not. The offer’s still open.”

  “I think I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

  “Not at all,” said Sarah, frowning at Elena, who still stood in the doorway listening, the cordless telephone in her hand. “I’m just tired — from a long day flying,” Sarah added.

  “Of course. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Sarah hung up. “A departmental visitor,” she muttered. “So I’m not allowed near either computers or airports?”

  “Look Sarah, I’m sorry about this. I really am, but Gus is dead, and he did accuse you of trying to kill him.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I never wanted Gus dead.”

  Elena remembered the horrified expression on Sarah’s face when she heard what had been done to her ex-husband’s body. “I believe you,” she said, “but there are other people involved in the investigation now.” Elena watched as her friend’s mouth tightened. “Also there’s evidence pointing in your direction.”

  “So you say. No one’s explained anything to me.”


  “I’d better be going,” said Elena. She was supposed to be eliciting information from Sarah, not providing it. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” said Sarah grimly. “And if you’re going to cut off my telephone, you’ll have to stay until I’ve made reservations for him.”

  Elena monitored that call, then took the elevator to the ground floor, feeling depressed. On the basis of evidence, Sarah was the best suspect they had. She could have done it. All the things that had been done to conceal the identity of the killer were clever enough to have been Sarah’s doing. Yet Elena didn’t believe Sarah was guilty.

  And why? Gut feeling. The expression of horror on Sarah’s face when she heard about Gus’s remains. A belief in Sarah’s basic decency, but that was based on an acquaintance amounting to six or seven evenings spent together, one of them when Sarah was the suspect in an attempted murder investigation. Reluctance to lose a friend, although it might be too late to remedy that. Elena knew her reasons wouldn’t impress Leo or Manny Escobedo or Beltran. And against these weak arguments stood her reluctance to ruin her chances for advancement in the department, although she might already have done that too.

  This case was a no-win situation from which she couldn’t extricate herself. Days ago she had let that opportunity slip because she thought that admitting personal involvement with Sarah would call into question her judgment on the snail incident. No win, she thought glumly. It had been no win since she stepped into the apartment that held Gus, Bimmie, Sarah, and the snails in garlic butter.

  She climbed into the front seat of the squad car and slammed the door.

  Twenty-four

  * * *

  Wednesday, May 27, 10:39 P.M.

  Once she had the apartment to herself, Sarah huddled in a corner of her sofa. Elena had said a blow to the head. Detective Weizell had said the murderer dissolved everything but the bones. And they thought she might have done it. Sarah couldn’t recall ever hitting anyone, much less hard enough to kill him. As for dissolving someone, anyone, especially a man with whom she’d once been intimate — well, the very concept was outrageous. It was too bizarre, too macabre, for a sane person to contend with.

  Shivering, she decided to concentrate on practical, ordinary things, the visit tomorrow of Colin Stuart, for instance. Sarah tried to plan his itinerary at H.H.U. and couldn’t get beyond the impression of the university he’d receive if she were arrested in the middle of the job interview or during the mandatory tour of the department.

  Compulsively her mind returned to the interrogation. She went over the whole event, question by question, to assess her impression that she was indeed the prime suspect in Gus’s murder. What other conclusion could she come to? All their questions were designed to incriminate her. Sarah did what she now felt she should have done initially; she went downstairs, found a pay phone, and called her lawyer, who said, “You can’t be serious,” and went on to explain that he never handled criminal cases. “I could put you in touch with a good criminal lawyer, although I can’t believe you’re really going to need one, Sarah.”

  “Let’s hope,” she responded grimly, hung up, returned to her apartment, and went to bed. Sleep would be an escape; the evening that preceded it was the nightmare. How could they think she had killed Gus? Elena especially. How could Elena even entertain such a possibility? She’d said she didn’t believe Sarah guilty, but she had asked as many questions as Detective Weizell.

  Then that sergeant had come in. It suddenly occurred to Sarah that the long window on the far side of the interrogation room had been one of those with someone lurking behind it, invisible to the person on the other side. The sergeant, maybe others, must have been listening, watching her. That’s why Elena didn’t want her to sit on the sofa. The watchers couldn’t have seen her face that way. And Elena had said there was other evidence. What possible evidence could there be when she was innocent?

  Perhaps Elena had always suspected her, had stayed in touch in order to keep an eye on her, suggested that Sarah join the support group as a way of foiling another murder attempt. Sarah tried to remember what she’d said about Gus and the marriage in casual conversation or at the group. Had she said, in the meaningless way people do, that she felt like killing him when he totaled her car? How could she have been so naive about Elena?

  Sarah had thought she’d made a friend, someone different from her academic acquaintances, someone who didn’t want to talk campus politics or compare publication lists. Someone who talked about things that seemed both alien and fascinating. Instead, she’d exposed herself to sporadic surveillance.

  And all because she couldn’t resist the impulse to teach Gus a lesson. Why in God’s name had she ever indulged herself in that snail trick?

  Twenty-five

  * * *

  Wednesday, May 27, 10:42 P.M.

  “Lieutenant Beltran wants to see you at headquarters,” said the patrolman while Elena was fastening her seat belt.

  “Oh, shit,” Elena muttered. By the time they’d got toward the end of the interview with Sarah, Elena had forgotten about Beltran, concealed behind the one-way glass. Sarah’s hostility and defensiveness would have made a bad impression on him, an impression Elena would somehow have to counteract, preferably without getting herself fired.

  “We’re waiting for Leo and Daguerre,” said Beltran when Elena arrived at his office. “I don’t suppose you’ve met Daguerre.”

  Manny Escobedo nodded to her. He was eating peanuts from a snack machine.

  “Yes, I have,” said Elena, smiling at Manny, giving Beltran her best responsible-detective look. “She went with me on her own time to the university to look through their computer files.” Elena was glad that Manny, who didn’t seem so convinced of Sarah’s guilt, had stayed. Her sergeant was at least keeping an open mind.

  “Discovering what?” asked Beltran.

  “Discovering that a shipment of unslaked lime meant for Buildings and Grounds was rerouted by someone in Electrical Engineering, addressed to Sarah Tolland, then taken out of the storeroom when the storekeeper wasn’t there to get a signature.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. Tolland had the keys to the storeroom.”

  “Tolland, the assistant chairman, the storeroom keeper, probably others.”

  “Just how friendly are you with this woman?” Beltran demanded. “You didn’t push during the interrogation.”

  “You know Leo and I switch off — good guy, bad guy — and, depending on the suspect, I’m usually the good guy.”

  “Well, don’t good-guy us out of an arrest because you like her. You brought her into your support group; isn’t that what she said? You ought to know better, Elena. We’re not some do-good social-work organization. We arrest ’em. We don’t reform ’em. She should have been busted the first time she tried to kill him.”

  “Snails explode on their own, Lieutenant. You can be sure the defense would have pointed that out,” said Elena. “And can you imagine what the papers would have done with a charge of attempted murder by exploding snail? At trial we’d have had to depend on the testimony of Angus McGlenlevie, who was wearing a sweat shirt that said ‘Poets Do It In Iambic Pentameter.’ The man’s a total flake.”

  “The man’s dead,” Beltran retorted, “and if we’d arrested her the first time, he’d still be alive. Just because you didn’t like him doesn’t excuse allowing him to be killed.”

  “That wasn’t why I — “

  “Lieutenant,” interrupted Escobedo, “I read Jarvis’ report. The screening attorney in the D.A.’s office would have thrown the case out.” Manny crumpled his peanut bag and dropped it in the lieutenant’s wastebasket.