“No. Listen. The caller said Warrington showed him the truck. The caller knew things about the truck. What kind of stereo. What was on the dash. He even knew the names of the tapes - some kind of country western garbage. This wasn’t a crank. This caller was definitely in that truck.”
Chapter 12
THE AROMA OF onions, tomatoes and garlic working their magic in a hot skillet greeted Lee at the top of the stairs to his flat. Max gave him a particularly enthusiastic welcome, throwing herself against his legs with a seductive meow before darting into the kitchen as if inviting him to see what was cooking.
Sarah was at the stove, stirring with a big wooden spoon. She wore an apron and her hair was pulled back in a short pony tail.
“What’s this?” he said. “If you’re any good at cleaning showers you’ve got a job.”
“Hello. Do you like chicken cacciatore?”
“Are you kidding? I love it. Didn’t I tell you about the Italian side of my family?”
They ate in the kitchen. First came a salad of sliced tomatoes, avocados, onions and mozzarella cheese with virgin olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. The chicken followed, cooked almost to the point of falling off the bone and smothered in a rich marinara sauce with parmesan cheese spooned on top. Sliced sour dough heated in the oven with butter, garlic and paprika completed the meal.
While they ate, Lee told Sarah the news about Warrington and Mike Santos’ pessimistic prediction about researchers ever identifying the cause of Miriam Gilbert’s death.
“So. Do you think they’ve got the right man?” Sarah asked.
“Warrington? I can’t believe it. I thought there might be some connection with the case. But, after meeting him …” Lee shook his head. “There may be a connection but I can’t see him doing it.”
“Why not?”
“Warrington may be a zealot. But, he’s not stupid. Why risk a murder wrap to avoid a burglary charge? Besides, why would he think that killing a judge or a prosecutor would change anything about his case?”
“Could something have happened during the trial that set him off?” asked Sarah. “Maybe some sensitive information that came out?”
“Maybe. I just can’t picture him doing it. Burglary, yes. Stealing, yes. Vandalism, yes. Running someone down with a truck? It doesn’t fit.”
Sarah used her last scrap of bread to mop up the last of the tomato sauce on her plate. Then she plopped it into her mouth.
“You know, I like a woman with an appetite,” said Lee while Sarah chewed. She ignored the comment.
“While you were out, I did a little sleuthing myself,” said Sarah after she finished swallowing.
“Yeah?”
“I called some of our group. The friends that Orson and I had in law school. I just wanted to see if he had told them anything interesting that might fit in.”
“How did you make out?” asked Lee.
“Well, the four who I spoke to are all alive and well. I found that encouraging. Larry Washington in Los Angeles broke his ankle roller skating at Venice Beach. And, Helen Jinks in Washington D.C. had her car stereo stolen. But, I chalk that up to random bad luck.”
“Right. Yuppie occupational hazards.”
“You cynic,” said Sarah. “But, Francine Nahm, who works for a personal injury law firm in Burlingame, talked to Orson a few days before he died. He called to refer a client to her.
“Orson told her about some new woman he was seeing,” Sarah went on. “Orson always had a new woman in his life. He was a real charmer, not to mention a romantic, and had a great sense of humor. Anyway, this was a white woman. Francine thought she was French. And, apparently her ex-boyfriend was harassing Orson, calling him at night, threatening him, using racial slurs…pretty nasty stuff.”
“Did she remember any names?” asked Lee.
“The girl’s name was Diana. Orson met her at his health club. That’s all Francine remembered.”
“Well, that sound like it’s worth checking out. Do you want to track her down?”
“Sure. Oh, Francine also invited me to stay with her for a couple of weeks until things settle down or we figure out what’s going on. I’ll head over tonight. I’m also taking a few days off work. I decided you’re right. I just won’t feel safe at my place.”
“Good,” said Lee. He stood, picked up both of their plates and walked them into the kitchen. “Why take any unnecessary risks?”
• • •
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON the following day by the time Lee finished the profiles of Orson Adams and Miriam Gilbert. They were good, strong stories, not anything that would win a prize but sympathetic accounts of their lives that spoke by implication of the tragedy of their deaths.
Then he called Bobbie Connors to find out what had happened to Warrington.
“He had an alibi and a lawyer, both good ones,” said Connors. “He was at some anarchists meeting in Berkeley when Adams was killed.”
“A what?”
“Anarchists. You know, like Sacco and Vanzetti. Back in the 1920s…”
“I know who Sacco and Vanzetti are,” said Lee.
“Good for you. I guess you paid attention in American History. Anyway, the meeting ran from six in the evening until after 10 o’clock. There were more than 20 people. Apparently, Warrington had a few things to say. We talked to several people who remember him.”
“So, if he was at the meeting when Adams was run down, I guess the anonymous call takes on new significance, huh?” said Lee.
“You got that right. We have a tape of it but that’s all. No name. No phone number. The guy had a slight accent, a little clipped. Maybe Indian or Middle Eastern. Someplace where they learn English English.”
“You mean proper English,” said Lee.
“Yassuh.” Connors chuckled.
Lee wasn’t surprised that Warrington had an alibi, just disappointed that there was not to be quick resolution of the case.
“And, what was this about his lawyer?” said Lee.
Connors said that Warrington had demanded the presence of his lawyer before making any statements and offering his alibi.
“A punk like him,” said Connors, “I figure he has a public defender or some low-budget dude. You know, someone down in the Mission District. Anyway, the guy shows up in nothing flat. Lo and behold, it’s Gerald Fulmer.”
“Who?” said Lee.
“Gerald Fulmer. You haven’t been around too long, huh?” said Connors. “He used to be with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was one of their big guns before he sold out like they all do eventually. He works for one of the downtown law firms now.”
Lee pondered the significance of what Connors had just told him. Then, a thought occurred to him. “That law firm wouldn’t be Sutro, Foerster and Bridges, would it?” he said, holding his breath.
Connors was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Don’t you know everything.”
Even before he hung up the telephone, Lee had pulled open his bottom drawer where he found the 12-page legal bill right where he had placed it before completely forgetting about it.
He went through it now, line by line. He saw that the entries all contained initials that he presumed were for the attorneys who had performed the work. On the last page, the bill contained a listing of the initials and the full names of the attorneys. He found Gerald Fulmer’s name with a billing rate of $325 an hour.
For someone like Warrington, Fulmer’s rate was absurdly high. Lee did some quick math. A four-day trial would have cost Warrington more than $10,000, and that didn’t count the cost of preparation. Based on what he knew about Warrington, there was no way Warrington could pay that much. Someone else must have footed the bill.
Looking over the bill yet again, Lee found only two entries with Fulmer’s initials. One was for 11 hours on the last day of the month. The other was for 8 hours, the previous day. The descriptions of services in both entries were short: “Miscellaneous legal services.” They were in sharp con
trast to all of the other entries that described the work performed in detail.
Lee tried to get a telephone number for Futura Products, Inc., the client whose name appeared on the bill. The operator found nothing listed in Palo Alto. He went into the News library to ask the head librarian where to look up information about corporations in California. She gave him a special number for the Secretary of State’s Office in Sacramento, one where a human being rather than a recorded message answered.
It took the clerk in Sacramento less than a minute to pull up Futura Products, Inc. on his computer. He read Lee the names of the directors and officers of the corporation.
Lee plugged his computer into the News computerized database that contained every story that had appeared in the newspaper since 1987. He tried “Futura Products.” Nothing. He then tried each of the five officers and directors. He came up empty until he tried the fourth name, a “Gary P. Jacobs.”
The computer came up with a single story. It was a one-paragraph brief, an announcement really, from 1991. It said that Gary P. Jacobs had been promoted to vice president of production at AgriGenics, Inc. Lee saw that the reporter’s name at the end of the brief was Lorraine Carr. He grinned and looked across the newsroom where he saw Lorraine sitting at her computer, biting a fingernail.
“Hey, Lo!” said Lee, sitting down behind her. “Like, tell me everything you know about AgriGenics, Inc.”
Lorraine “Lo” Carr was a pixie of a woman whose jet black hair was cut short. She invariably wore black, usually tank-tops and jeans, except for her shoes which were Converse hightop sneakers that she owned in a rainbow of colors.
Carr looked like she was 16, but she had a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University. She covered technology and spent most of her time reporting on the rise and fall of companies and products in Silicon Valley, the cradle of high tech, located a half hour drive south of San Francisco.
Carr was one of Lee’s favorite people at the News. She was quick and funny, and seemed oblivious to office politics and what anyone else thought about her. Based on Lorraine’s accounts of her weekend activities, Lee imagined she existed on a diet of underground nightclubs, feminist poetry readings and street theatre performances. Lorraine was also a talented journalist.
“So. What are you doing on AgriGenics?” she demanded in a very non-mellow way.
“Look, Lo. I only heard of AgriGenics 10 seconds ago. I’m not doing a story about them. The name just popped up on this other story. There’s some connection between AgriGenics and a company called Futura Products. Ever hear of them?”
“I’ve never heard of Futura Products,” said Carr. “But, if you’d read any of my stories you’d know something about AgriGenics.”
Carr accepted with skepticism Lee’s assurances that he both respected her journalism and wasn’t invading her turf. With some prodding Lorraine revealed what she knew about AgriGenics. The company was on the cutting edge of applying genetic engineering techniques to agriculture. It had actually cloned cows, for example, producing a set of six animals that were genetically identical. But, its main work consisted of improving crops such as tomatoes that wouldn’t spoil for weeks, wheat that was amazingly resistant to troubling pests and fungi, and corn that yielded 30 percent more grain.
The growth of AgriGenics had been as phenomenal as the products it produced. AgriGenics was Wall Street’s darling and its stock, offered publicly for the first time in 1992, was now selling at twenty times the initial offering price two years later. The company was celebrating its lavish new headquarters in Palo Alto in three days and was using the occasion to throw what amounted to a huge celebratory bash. Carr showed Lee her engraved invitation to the event. The RSVP address on it matched the one that appeared in the Futura Products legal bill.
“Everyone will be there,” said Lorraine Carr. “All the CEOs from the Apples, the Hewlett Packards, the Genentechs. I’m thinking of covering it like a society event. You know. ‘Green floral tie from Macy’s.’ ‘Ill-fitting blue pinstripes from Nordstrom’s Rack.’ What do you think?”
“Wow, Lo. Sounds like a really, really great idea. If I spike my hair, can I be your date?”
Chapter 13
LLOYD WARRINGTON HAD just put his quarter into the Donkey Kong video game at the University of California at Berkeley student union. He stared serenely through his black-frame glasses into the center of the screen while his fingers seemed to operate the controls of their own accord. Jump! Hop forward to the barrel. Jump again! Go back to the ladder. Up to the next level. Jump!
He enjoyed the new machines like Killer Slaves and Robowarrior. But he liked to close out the arcade by returning to his old favorite. It was like warming down after a hard workout. No thinking. Just reacting to the machine as he had thousands of times before. Jump! Move up to the ladder. Up to the next rung. Jump! He could make the quarter last an hour if he wanted.
“Hey, Lloyd,” said Rafe, sidling up next to him. Rafe was always in a hurry to leave. He didn’t really like the machines or the young kids. Let Rafe sit in the sun in his serape and drink sweet wine and he was happy. Otherwise, he was a pain in the ass.
“C’mon,” said Rafe. “We got to go. Dude will be waiting.”
Warrington stayed with the machine for another minute until he had achieved the next level of play. Then, he spun on his heel and headed for the door leaving Rafe to hurry after him.
Out on Telegraph Avenue, they saw the familiar black El Camino waiting at the curb under the street lights. The night was warm and the driver, a muscular Filipino man in his 30s, had his arm out the window and was slapping his hand against the door in time to the salsa music blaring out of the stereo. He kept up the beat, merely nodding a little harder when Rafe opened the passenger side and they climbed in.
They drove in silence down Telegraph across the Oakland border and turned left on Alcatraz. Then they turned right on Colby, kept on for another four blocks, and finally turned into the driveway of a modest bungalow with lime green aluminum siding.
The driver and Warrington got out of the El Camino and walked further down the driveway to the back of the house. The driver was wearing designer jeans, cowboy boots and a white Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. Rafe stayed in the car as lookout, since his grandmother owned the bungalow and was the most likely person to turn up unexpectedly.
On the grass at the back of the house, raised on concrete blocks, sat the rusting body of a 1968 Mustang. It had originally been red, but was mostly primer gray now. A dirty blue plastic sheet covered part of the open passenger compartment, but the upholstery was rotten and there was more yellow foam stuffing showing than red vinyl.
Warrington and the driver walked to the back of the Mustang. Warrington pulled out a set of keys. He inserted one into the trunk lock. Before he turned it, he looked behind him to see if anyone - a curious neighbor, perhaps - was watching. The lock made a hollow metallic click and Warrington lifted the trunk open. Inside, sitting on a brown wool blanket, were three Meiji TechnoAmerica stereo microscopes. Their shiny chrome sparkled even inside the shadowy trunk, picking up the light of the stars overhead.
Warrington turned to the driver and smiled. The driver picked up two of the microscopes. Warrington took the third. They shut the trunk and took the instruments back to the El Camino. They set them down by the front bumper, away from the street traffic. The driver went to the back of his car and lifted out a large Igloo chest that he carried to the front. He pulled several thick towels out of the chest and wrapped each microscope carefully before placing it in the chest. He used the remaining towels for extra padding to prevent shifting inside the chest.
They got back into the El Camino. Before backing out of the driveway, the driver handed Warrington a wad of bills. Warrington flipped through them quickly, counted eight $50 bills and handed four of them to Rafe. Rafe started whistling an unrecognizable tune as he stuck the bills into his pants pocket.
They left Warrington at his house on McArthu
r Boulevard before continuing to People’s Park where Rafe wanted to be dropped. As Warrington climbed the stairs to the covered porch, he was thinking about the $200 in his pocket. It was chump change compared to the fifty grand he expected to get very soon. He could hear a television laugh track through the door to the yellow stucco house.
He had his hand on the doorknob when the cold metal silencer was pressed against the base of Warrington’s skull and three .22 slugs were pumped into his brain in rapid succession. He toppled forward and lay nearly invisible in the shadows of the porch.
• • •
THE THREE MEN sitting on the bench at the Run N’ Racquet were staring straight ahead. Sarah detected small movements of the head, little jerks and twitches that seemed to affect all three in unison.
She looked up and saw the two blonds in the glass-walled racquetball court who had captured the trio’s undivided attention. They took turns assaulting the small blue ball and then bouncing back to center court to await their next shot. It was the bouncing that was causing the spectators’ heads to jerk as if they were all attached to the same puppet string.
Sarah decided to try the one on the left, a tall fellow with unruly brown hair, wearing a tank top and shorts, and with two elastic braces on his knees.
“Excuse me. Excuse me.”
His head bobbed over toward Sarah.
“Excuse me. I’m trying to find someone here named Diana. I don’t know her last name. Do you know anyone by that name?”
His head continued to bob, moving back toward the direction of the racquetball court. It took a minute for Sarah to realize that the man’s nods in the direction of the two blonds were in response to her question.
“One of them?”
He smiled dreamily.
“The taller one? The shorter one?”
Another smile.
Sarah waited until after the pair had finished their game and showered before approaching the smaller of the two in the women’s locker room. She was stuffing her clothes into a pink and purple Reebok duffle bag.
Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series) Page 8