by John Lutz
“Or the first guilty man to try to scrub away the stain of conviction and incarceration.”
“Right. But I happen to believe Sugar. I think he really is innocent and took the rap for the bomber’s first strike.” He stepped back so Harper could see what was on the monitor—Sam Sugar’s blog.
There was a brief, simply written description of the crime, a profession of innocence, and a plea for media coverage so information about the real bomber might surface. Also there was a photograph of Sugar, a thin man with receding hair and a tragic, wistful expression.
“There’s audio, too,” Addleman said, and worked the keyboard.
Sugar’s soft, bitter voice sounded from the computer speakers: “What’s written here’s all true, and I’m innocent, so help me God. It was my faith that got me through prison, and it’s my faith in the Lord that helps me know that someday nobody will think I did that terrible deed. I’m a sinner, like all of mankind, but attempted murder’s a sin I never committed. If anyone out there wants to tell me something, or to interview me, just write or call the phone number on the screen, or contact me with my e-mail address. Please help me right this wrong so at last there’s some true justice. Thanks, and God bless you.” The mailing address was in Solar City, Arizona.
“Isn’t there music to go with this?” Harper asked.
Addleman smiled thinly. “It’s possible Sugar lays it on a little thick. He needs a writer and a computer graphics expert. Then he might get a few more hits. I was only the sixth person to visit his blog.”
“Why do you think he’s innocent, Harold?”
“These.” Addleman switched on a lamp and handed Harper some eight-by-ten color photographs. “I talked one of my friends at the Bureau into sending them to me. He didn’t so much as ask why I wanted them, which shows you how interested the Bureau is in this case.”
Harper was looking at photos of an FBI lab reconstruction of the exploded bomb. It was a thorough reconstruction. Much of the timing mechanism had been recovered. It had been a pipe bomb, and most of the pipe and its caps—that on detonation had become shrapnel—had been found. In one photo the device was lying in pieces on a black background. In another it had all been fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. The last photo was of Sam Sugar. He looked much older than he had in his photo, a man well past middle age, with a thin face and sad, beaten eyes. He had his chin tucked in and was staring up at the camera as if it had just struck him.
“I scanned the reconstruction photos into the computer,” Addleman said, “then zoned in on a section of one of them and blew it up digitally.”
He worked the keyboard again. The photo of the bomb pieces spread out on black cloth appeared on the monitor. Addleman adroitly played the keys and in a series of quick takes, the lower right section of the photo was enlarged again and again. A tiny bit of shrapnel turned out to be a screw head.
“Look carefully,” Addleman instructed.
Harper did, leaning in close to the glowing monitor.
On one side of the slotted screw head was engraved the letter D.
He could hear himself breathing faster in the quiet room. “D,” he said. “The bomber’s assembly instructions again.”
Addleman looked over at him, amused and triumphant. “So now you’re a little more interested, aren’t you? Sure that’s a D?”
“Of course it’s a D.”
“That’s what I think too. But others might think it’s just a scratch that happens to be shaped like a D. We’ve been through this before, remember?”
“A lot has happened since then. They’d believe us now. We take this to Frances Wilson, Addleman, and she’ll order an examination of the original bomb fragments. That’ll convince—”
“The bomb fragments are gone.”
“Gone?”
“I checked. When the case was closed the fragments were disposed of.”
Harper squinted at the D. It looked unmistakable to him, but its edges were blurred by the magnification process. “Do any of the other photos show letters?”
“No, and believe me, I’ve looked.” Addleman tapped keys so that the image disappeared. “This one’s going to take legwork to check out, Will. One of us should look Sugar in the eye and judge whether he’s telling the truth. Either way, I’d also bet he knows where Blake is, which might make finding him easier for us. It’s not always easy to track down former comics.”
“I hate to bring it up, Harold, but who’s going to pay for all this legwork?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Addleman said. “My house was sold as part of the divorce settlement. I have some money put away, and this is how I want to spend it.”
Harper stared at the monitor and said nothing.
“We have to cover all the possibilities,” Addleman said.
“Frances wouldn’t buy our story before. She looked at us and saw a drunk and a corrupt cop. We go to her now, and she’ll think we’re just resentful because she took the case over from us.”
Harper nodded, knowing that she would.
He wondered how his wife would take the news that he was going to Arizona.
He called her from the Philadelphia airport, where he was planning to doze through what remained of the night in a chair. He didn’t want to spend any more of Addleman’s money than he had to.
Laura was settled in with her friend Anita, who lived a block away from New York University Hospital, where they both worked. Harper told her the story of Sam Sugar.
She listened in silence. When he was finished, she said, “Well, all right, I can see why you’d want to talk to him.”
Her matter-of-fact response was a relief to Harper. He’d been dreading an argument. He said, “I’ve got an early flight tomorrow. I should be back the day after.”
“But you don’t know what it could lead to.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then don’t make any promises. Just call me once in a while, let me know where you are and what’s going on. Okay?”
She was holding in a lot of tension, Harper realized. He said. “Of course.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come back home before you set out?”
“I’d just as soon get the trip over with.”
“You won’t need any more clothes or anything?”
“I’ll be all right.”
“What about your identification?”
“You mean, as a retired sergeant, NYPD? I’ve got that, although I don’t think it’ll do me much good.”
Laura hesitated, then said, “What about your gun?”
The question brought Harper up short. His old service revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson, was kept at the back of the safe in their pantry. He hadn’t thought of it in a long time. He said, “I won’t need a gun, Laura. This fellow I’m interviewing may be a jailbird, but he sounds pretty harmless.”
“But you don’t know where it will lead, you said. Maybe you ought to come back for the gun. You’re still permitted to fly with one, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure. The truth is, I haven’t carried it since I was a patrolman. Once I got on the Bomb Squad—well, you have more pressing things to worry about than keeping up with your target practice. And of course I learned to shoot right-handed. I don’t know if I could handle a gun left-handed. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot.” He forced a dry chuckle.
Laura tried to laugh too. She said, “Then I guess you’re better off without the gun.”
“Definitely.”
She changed the subject then. They talked about the goings-on at the hospital. But Harper’s mind was not on what they were saying. He was thinking about the gun and why Laura would believe that he needed it.
Did she fear that he was going out to hunt the Celebrity Bomber—alone? Did she think that the bomber’s nasty little trick with the drill had shaken Harper up so much that he’d lost his objectivity and was turning the case into a personal matter? He wished he could ask her these questions outright. Wished he could promise her he
had no illusions about hunting down the killer by himself. If he found any solid evidence linking the Jake Blake case to the bomber, he’d take it to the Bureau. But Laura had told him she didn’t want any promises from him.
So Harper didn’t make any. He told her he loved her and hung up the phone.
22
Sugar’s address turned out to be several miles west of Phoenix, in the well-to-do retirement community of Solar City.
It struck Harper as he searched for Palm Drive that while the houses weren’t exactly alike, they were so similar that a drunk would have a hard time finding his way home. All of them were pastel, one-story houses with attached garages. Most had screened-in patios. Only a few had lawns instead of layers of colored rocks, usually laid in gentle patterns and partitioned by low black plastic dividers or rows of brick. Many of the houses’ front yards featured squat palm trees, some of which were cropped short and had the lower fronds chopped off so the trees resembled huge pineapples. Few cars were parked in the street or driveways because of the fierceness of the glaring sun. Several garage doors were open to reveal golf carts hooked up to chargers.
Neat was the word that kept coming to Harper’s mind as he drove along the pale concrete streets. There was little traffic in Solar City—usually expensive, fairly late-model cars. Or older-model, white-haired men or women driving golf carts. Even on the main streets leading into Solar City, Harper had seen people probably too old to be behind the steering wheels of cars driving golf carts; some seemed to be going to the retirement community’s golf course, but some obviously used the electric carts for other purposes and destinations.
Sugar’s address on Palm Drive belonged to a pale green house with a gray roof and white shutters. In the front yard was a large saguaro cactus, a straight, tall plant that had quilled limbs resembling bent arms. There were green and white canvas awnings over some of the windows, and the garage’s white overhead door was closed. As he parked his rental in the driveway, Harper saw a citrus tree in the backyard dotted with bright oranges among its green leaves. This could be a good place to retire to, he thought, if you longed for order and quiet. If your mind was finally at rest.
Maybe someday . . .
He climbed out of the car and felt the heat move in on him as he walked up onto the small concrete porch and rang the doorbell. Chimes sounded faintly from deep inside the house.
A small woman of about fifty, with a tan, seamed face and short gray hair opened the door. She looked as if she’d spent her entire life in the sun and was attractive in a way that overwhelmed wrinkles. Her hands were bedecked with half a dozen gaudy rings, most of them silver, and she was wearing a yellow blouse and dark brown shorts. She had very nice legs that were suntanned as dark as her face.
“I was told I could find Sam Sugar here.”
She smiled. It deepened the seams in her face, yet somehow made her seem younger. “You look like a cop.”
“I was, but I’m not now,” Harper said. “I’m surprised it’s still so obvious.”
“You must never look in the mirror.”
“Speaking of which,” Harper said, “I understood this is a retirement community. You look too young—”
“Such a smooth talker,” she interrupted, still with the smile. “Keep it up, keep it up.”
“I mean, isn’t there some kind of age requirement to live in a place like this?”
“You have to be fifty,” she said. “I’m fifty-eight.”
“You don’t look it. Really.”
“Sure I do. I’m just a good fifty-eight. I eat right and keep myself in condition. You look like you’ve taken care of yourself, too.”
“Not lately,” Harper said. “I’ve been busy.”
She dropped her gaze, noticing his bad hand, but showed little change of expression.
The man in the photos Addleman had shown Harper in Philadelphia suddenly appeared just behind her from the dimness of the house’s interior. As the exterior glare caught him, Harper saw that he looked even older and thinner than his digitized photo and had lost most of his light brown hair. He was much paler than the woman, but who wasn’t?
“We don’t have to worry about the cops anymore, Laverne,” he said to her. But he didn’t sound so sure.
Laverne almost imperceptibly moved back, so she was touching him. “He says he isn’t police,” she told him.
“I’m not,” Harper said. “My name’s Will Harper. I used to be with the Bomb Squad in New York, but I’m retired. I saw your blog on the ’net. I’d like to talk to you about it.”
Sugar studied him for a minute with emotionless eyes that hadn’t yet realized they weren’t still doing time. “Well, well. I was expecting to get my responses by e-mail. Lots of them. Reporters wanting to dig into the case. Public-spirited citizens wanting to express their outrage at the miscarriage of justice.”
There was no mistaking the bitter amusement in his tone. “And there hasn’t been much e-mail?”
“Not a single message. Instead I get an ex-cop on my doorstep.” He shrugged. “Come on in out of the heat.”
The interior of the house was quiet and cool. Cream-colored chairs and a sofa were arranged on a pale green carpet. A large, very bad oil painting of a waterfall hung on one wall, and a low, light oak coffee table with a clear glass jar of mints and a Reader’s Digest and Newsweek on it sat in front of the sofa.
Sugar waved a hand for Harper to sit down, which he did, in one of the cream-colored chairs. They had dark wood arms that didn’t match the coffee table.
Sugar sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs, which must have been thin inside his khaki pants. His white pullover shirt revealed slender but muscular arms. He was wearing tan loafers and white socks. As he crossed his arms, Harper saw what looked like a new gold wristwatch with a brown leather band.
Laverne had remained standing. “Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Harper?”
“Beer, if you have it,” Harper said.
“Sam?” she asked.
“Same for me.”
She hurried away to what Harper assumed was the kitchen.
Sugar’s eyes followed her until she was out of the room. He said quietly to Harper, “Laverne and I wrote to each other when I was in prison. We fell in love. This is her place, but I plan to carry my part of the load. She’s been great to me—for me. She kept my spirits up when I needed that real bad. And she even arranged a job for me, driving a van and picking up passengers going to and from the airport.”
Harper was thinking that Sugar wasn’t what he’d expected: a ranting nutcase. There was a sort of dignity about the man. It was possible to believe that he really was innocent, Harper thought. Possible to believe that Addleman’s theory might turn out to be correct. He said to Sugar, “Maybe you’re lucky, all in all.”
“He is,” Laverne said, returning with two tall glasses of beer on a tray. There was a third glass containing what looked like lemonade, with ice cubes and lemon wedges in it. It sure looked better than the beer. Harper wished now that he’d asked for lemonade.
She passed around the drinks, then sat down on the sofa next to Sugar. She seemed to want to be near him all the time, to protect him.
“I want to ask you some questions about the Blake bombing,” Harper said.
Sugar gave a bitter laugh, almost a bark. “The real police sure as hell aren’t interested in finding out who did it.”
“You have any ideas?”
“None that hold water.”
“I’m not the real police. I don’t need a leakproof bucket.”
“Jake Blake and I got to be friends when be moved into the apartment next to me in Los Angeles. He was a genuinely nice guy,” Sugar said. “In fact, I don’t know when I’ve met a nicer guy. He didn’t have any enemies.”
“You sure about that?” Harper asked neutrally.
Sugar gave a thin smile. “Yeah, obviously he had one. Guy who sent the bomb. But it couldn’t have been anybody in our group in L.A. Everybody who kne
w Jake liked him. In show business you have lots of temporary friends. People who are using you, I mean. But Jake was a true friend. Especially to me.”
“Didn’t the police say you two got in a fight?”
Sugar was silent for a moment. He looked stricken at the memory. “Yeah. We had a big argument the week before he got the bomb. It was over some money he thought I owed him, and it was the only argument we ever had. He took a swing at me and broke my nose. I didn’t even hit him back. I was too surprised. It was so unlike Jake. But he was starting to get really successful about then, and the assholes and hypocrites were all trying to get a piece of him.”
It surprised Harper that Sugar could find any excuses for Jake Blake. “Didn’t he testify against you at the trial?”
Again a memory made Sugar wince. He said, “Jake thought I was guilty. He wasn’t alone. The fight—such as it was—made me a natural suspect, and my alibi was a married woman who chose to protect her husband and kids instead of me. She lied in court, told them I wasn’t with her in San Francisco when the bomb was mailed from some little town in Arkansas, and that was the end of my defense.”
“You got a lousy break,” Harper said, suddenly feeling a pang of pity for the man.
“That’s what Jake Blake told me on the phone, but he was being sarcastic.”
“You’ve talked to Blake recently?”
“Tried to. ’Bout three months ago, right after I got out of the joint. He runs a coffee shop in the Valley. Encino. Been out of show business a long time. In fact, he never did get back into it after his injury. And he was good, too, he could’ve gone all the way. Guess I can’t blame him for not wanting to talk to me.”
Sugar was leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring intently at the wall behind Harper’s bead. His features were contorted with regret.