Johnson stood on the fringes, watching with the kind of look that said he knew I'd go for someone younger, hungrier, slicker.
I pointed his way. "You, please."
"Me?"
"Unless you're otherwise occupied...?"
"No, not at all." He walked to me. "Keith Johnson."
He smiled. It was a perfectly calm, sincere smile, and in his face, I saw no trace of the man who'd fled ahead of the hounds, who'd demanded to know what he'd done, who'd screamed for mercy.
I shook his hand. "Monica LaSalle." Which was also, coincidentally, the name of the biggest bitch in my debutante class. "Now, I presume you have an office...?"
He led me toward it. "That's a very nice car, Miss--Ms. LaSalle."
"Call me Moni, please. Yes, I know, it's a terrific car, and being perfectly honest, I feel dreadful about trading it in. Granddaddy gave it to me because I loved it so. But I'd never actually driven it, which is an entirely different thing."
He closed the door behind me. "Classic cars are beautiful, but the technology is outdated, both in driving experience and safety."
"Exactly." I tapped his arm and flounced into the chair. "Did you know it doesn't have Bluetooth?"
"I...I imagine it doesn't."
"I understand that they didn't have Bluetooth back then, but I can't even get it retrofitted. So I have to use one of those things that goes over your ear." I shuddered. "Please don't tell my parents, but sometimes, I just use the phone directly while I'm driving, which I know is awfully unsafe."
"It is."
"I've already been pulled over once for it because I was swerving just a tiny bit, but the officer was so sweet. He let me go with a warning."
"I'm sure he did," Johnson mumbled.
I settled into the chair. "Worse, though, I can't connect my playlists. I have to put my phone on the seat and turn the volume all the way up, and the sound quality is just atrocious. Plus, it completely kills my battery, and of course, the car doesn't come with a charging adapter."
"It sounds like you need a new vehicle," he said.
"I do. Daddy wants me to get a Mercedes, but I was driving by your dealership, and I saw that adorable little convertible out front, and I just had to pull in."
"You mean the Audi R8?"
"If that's the black convertible, that's the one. Although, I'd like it in red. Can it come in red?"
"It certainly can. It's an extremely safe vehicle. It has--"
"Is it fast?" I said.
"It's a V10."
I scrunched up my nose.
"That's fast," he said. "And it has Bluetooth with an integrated audio player and a premium sound system."
"Perfect."
"Would you like to take it for a spin?"
"Yes, please. First, though, I need to talk to Daddy. He was very set on a Mercedes, and I would hate to waste your time." I checked my watch. "I should still be able to reach him in Munich. Do you mind?" I waggled my phone.
"Not at all. Let me write down the safety specs for you. Those seem to be very important to your parents, understandably."
As he wrote, I went to turn on my phone.
"No," I breathed. "Oh, damn it. Sorry, I don't mean to curse, but my battery is dead. Again." I looked over at his phone. "May I? Don't worry--I'll pay you back for the call."
"No, that's fine. Please go ahead."
He unlocked his phone and pushed it and the specs toward me. I took them. Then I waited. After a moment, he rose.
"Let me give you some privacy," he said.
"Thank you. And please tell me that adorable car has a phone charger?"
He smiled. "It does."
"Perfect."
I took the phone and dialed in a local cell number, randomly. I watched Johnson walk away as the number rang.
"Daddy? It's Moni." I turned my back to the glass door, lowered the phone and set to work as an answering machine connected.
I did quickly check for an outgoing call to the police, but even the most amateur criminal would know better than to use his own phone. Still, there's a lot you can get from a cell once it's been unlocked. Particularly with a USB connector and a handy little black-market device for backing up the data.
"Daddy says no," I said a few minutes later as I walked out and Johnson hurried over. "Which just means I need to talk him into it. It's my car, after all. Things are just easier when Daddy agrees. Can I still get that test drive?"
"Absolutely. Let me go grab the--"
"Oh my God. It's almost five! I am so sorry, Mr. Johnson. This is what happens when my phone dies--I don't get my reminders. I'm supposed to meet my boyfriend for drinks at Eclipse."
When I said that name, he started.
"We don't have reservations," I said as I took out the Cobra's keys. "They are impossible to get, but Tucker says if we go for cocktails, we'll get a table--they always reserve a few. Have you ever been there?"
"Eclipse, you said? I haven't heard of it. Popular place, I take it?"
"Crazy popular. Although..." I lowered my voice conspiratorially. "It might not be as busy soon, after what happened to the guy who owns it."
Johnson nodded. He didn't ask what I was talking about. He just nodded.
"Did you hear about that?" I said.
"Uh, no, I didn't. What happened?"
"The owner's wife shot him," I said. "She mistook him for a burglar. Or that's what she told the police, but now I hear she's been arrested."
His head shot up. "Arrested? Do they think it was murder?"
"So they say. I'm not sure if it's in the news yet. I only heard it from my mother. We know the wife's family."
"Yes, of course. Well, that's quite a story."
"It's horrible. I don't believe it myself. I've met Heather, and she's lovely. There's something else going on. I'm sure of it." I reached for his hand. "But I really must go. Thank you again."
I took his hand and squeezed it, and I focused on him, his thoughts, his memories.
Give me a vision. I mentioned Nansen's death. Now show me what Johnson is think--
Darkness.
A car's windshield. Night beyond it. A dark road. Hands gripping a steering wheel. A woman's voice, but he was paying no attention to it. The radio, then.
Johnson gasped. His foot shot out for the brake. Lights. Squealing tires. The car spinning.
The vision stuttered. Johnson's hands again, almost concealed by darkness. One held a cell phone. He lifted the other hand to check his watch. I could see a deflated airbag in the background.
Another stutter.
Johnson was running. I was still inside him, feeling his heart pound, hearing his ragged breath. Behind us, the hounds bayed.
Another stutter.
A newspaper headline. Nansen's death. Johnson's hands gripping the paper as it shook slightly, his breath coming fast.
I snapped from the vision as Johnson dropped my hand. He backed away, blinking hard.
"Are you okay?" I said.
"I..."
"You don't look so good, Mr. Johnson. I think you should sit down."
I put my hand on his arm as I led him to a chair. I hoped for more of the vision, but it was gone. For me to catch a memory-vision, the other person needed to be actively recalling that memory when I made physical contact.
I sat him down. "Let me get you some water."
"No, no. I'm fine. Just a bit dizzy."
"Okay, I'll take off then, but I'm coming back for that test drive. Thank you so much, Mr. Johnson. You've been terrifically kind. I'm sure I'll see you again soon."
Sixteen
Olivia
I dropped off the Cobra at my parents' place, putting it in the garage with the rest of Dad's classic cars.
No, not Dad's. Mine. He left these to me, and the only one I'd taken out before now was the Maserati. I'd even been reluctant to use that until my old Jetta mysteriously developed serious engine problems...after Gabriel failed to convince me that if I loved the Maserati, I should d
rive it.
I don't know what to do with these cars. They deserve to be driven. They deserve to be seen. I supposed Dad envisioned me living the kind of adult life where I'd own an estate like this, with a massive garage like this, and I could do as he had, taking whichever vehicle caught my fancy. I loved these cars, so he bequeathed them to me, and now they sat, gathering dust.
A perfect metaphor for my old life. It sat here, too, the old Olivia, abandoned to rust and rot. Most of my clothes still hung in my closet. My new life held no place for a dozen cocktail dresses or a closet full of shoes. Almost all my belongings were still in my room. Treasures that I'd walked away from...and then realized I didn't need.
The house itself had sat empty for the past year, my mother paying for weekly dusting and airing. I didn't know whether she'd ever return or whether, like my former friends, she'd given up on me. The old Liv was gone, and they had no interest in the new one, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't hurt.
I wondered what my father would think of my new life. In my deepest funks, I worried that he would have abandoned me, too, but I knew that was a lie. He'd seen past the old Liv, known there was another one underneath. He'd been the one who'd encouraged me to get my master's. Who'd thought James was a fine young man...but not for me. I didn't think he would actually care about the cars. They were a gift, not an obligation, just like my shares in the department store that bears our family name. I served on the board now, mostly because I felt I should, but I doubted he'd expect that either. I would do it, though, in his memory.
Memory...
That was why I'd come here, besides dropping off the Cobra. Gabriel was busy, and I needed a quiet place to have a conversation with myself. A place to reflect on what I'd gotten from Johnson and untangle that collage of his memories.
I sat by the pool. The sun glistened on the water, and I recalled a recent e-mail from my mother, telling me she'd had the pool opened if I wanted to use it. I would, with Gabriel. It might make the house feel a little less abandoned.
Now I sat on the edge, my boots off, leggings rolled up, legs submerged to mid-calf as I peered into the water, as if it were a scrying glass.
What did I learn from Johnson?
He knew the Nansens. While the evidence was far from conclusive, it was enough for my gut to say, yes. He knew Alan Nansen ran Eclipse, and I suspected he knew Heather came from a wealthy family, given his reaction when I said my family knew hers. Yes, of course they did.
If Gabriel were here, he'd point out that I could be misinterpreting the data. Ioan had passed judgment on Johnson for the murder of Alan Nansen. If Johnson remembered the Hunt as a nightmare, might he have not looked up Nansen's name? Learned that Nansen owned Eclipse? Learned that Nansen's wife came from money? And then, in light of that nightmare accusation, deny he knew anything about the crime or the people involved?
Sure...except that I'd skimmed his phone data and found browser history of him reading articles on Nansen's murder before the Hunt. He'd been monitoring the case, and he'd known enough to delete that browser history, but not enough to hide his cyber-tracks altogether.
So Johnson was involved. But was that enough to say, yes, the Hunt should take him?
Not yet.
I peered into the water, and I cleared my mind, using some meditative techniques I'd been learning. Focus on the only source of irrefutable data: the vision I'd stolen from Johnson's memory.
Four scenes.
The first, as he was driving the other night, right before he hit Lloergan.
The second, checking his cell phone and watch after the accident set off his airbags. He must have been considering whom he should call, given the hour. A tow truck or a friend or someone from the dealership?
In the third segment, he was running from the Hunt.
The fourth was Johnson reading about Nansen's death in the paper.
The last one didn't add anything new. Nor would I get any fresh information from the Hunt, considering I'd been there. I'd also been present for the accident when Johnson saw Lloergan and--
No.
Well, yes. I'd been there, but this memory was different.
Driving along. A DJ on the radio.
Light.
I'd seen light.
There hadn't been any lights on that empty road, which was why Johnson didn't see Lloergan until the last moment, hitting his brakes just in time to spin out and avoid her.
That was right--he never hit her. But in the vision, his car struck something. A crunch. Then it spun.
The problem with seeing someone else's memories was that we constantly adjust our recollections. If Johnson thought he hit another car, could he have reworked his memories to fit? Imagined headlights? Recalled the crunch of metal on metal?
But he hadn't hit Lloergan. His airbags never activated.
So why would Johnson think he'd hit another car?
Something else about the vision wasn't right. I replayed the few seconds of mental video over and over until--
The steering wheel.
A tan steering wheel in a black Audi? Not an impossible color combination, but odd enough that it made me focus on that wheel. On the emblem in the center.
Not an Audi.
Johnson wasn't remembering the incident from the other night. This was a separate accident, somehow spurred by the memory of that Hunt, of Nansen's death.
I grabbed my laptop from my bag.
It didn't take a PI license to find what I needed. Search for "Keith Johnson" plus "car accident," and the result was...
The reason Johnson was a widower.
He moved to Chicago five years ago, shortly before marrying his wife, Kathy. Three years later, she died. In an automobile accident.
In a hit and run.
An unsolved hit and run.
My mind leapt to a conclusion, but I had to slow down, figure out ways to prove my theory. I had an idea, one that required zooming along a back road of the internet. Trespassing on private cyber-property.
Vehicle licensing and registrations.
And there, I got my lucky break.
Johnson's wife died almost exactly two years ago. The week after that, the Nansens took ownership of a new Land Rover, bought from Alan's dealership-owning brother-in-law. Before that, they'd owned, yep, another Rover. They didn't transfer the license plate, though. They continued paying the license fees and insurance on the old one, which made it look as if they simply bought a second car. No harm in that. But the timing was too coincidental. Way too coincidental.
Before I jumped to any conclusions, I placed a call to Heather, who was out on bail.
"Hey, it's Liv Jones. I have a few questions. Can you spare a minute?"
"Of course."
I ran through some questions I'd been accumulating for the defense case. Then, I said, "Okay, now, some of the questions I ask will seem odd, but we're preparing for the prosecution's tactics. They're going to ask why you stayed home after you thought someone tried to break in those two other nights. They'll try to suggest you weren't too concerned, possibly because no one tried to break in. Gabriel will shut them down, but you'll need to answer their questions if you take the stand. Am I right that you only have one vehicle? That Alan had your car those nights?"
"Yes."
"So you don't own a second vehicle?"
"Right. We only have..." A slight pause, as if she just remembered the other Rover. "We had two, but we got rid of the second one a while ago."
"Before the break-ins?"
"Yes. Just before that, I think." Another pause. "I never had any reason to drive it, and Alan knew someone who needed a car and couldn't afford it. He gave it to them. He looked after all that, so I don't know the details, but it was definitely gone before the first break-in. I was stuck home alone."
"That's all I needed to know," I said. "Thank you."
Seventeen
Gabriel
Gabriel listened as the office door opened and then shut. Heels tapped across
it. Not Lydia's sensible pumps or the click of high heels, but the solid thunk that indicated Olivia's boots. He had been waiting nearly thirty minutes, and he was growing impatient, ready to phone and ask where she was.
Olivia would pause to speak to Lydia. On cue, he heard a contralto voice and then Lydia's higher one. Roughly thirty seconds of conversation would ensue, enough for Olivia to greet her and then say, "Is he in?" before crossing to rap at his door. He'd pretend to be busy on his laptop as he said, "I believe I have something on the Johnson case," casual, offhand, as if he had not been drumming his fingers for these thirty minutes, resisting the urge to phone, wanting instead to present it as a gift.
I know how much this case is bothering you, and I wish I could have joined your investigation today, but as soon as I had a free hour, I checked a few things. I have a possible answer, one I know you're looking for. Motive.
He was so caught up in his fantasy revelation that he missed the sound of her boots walking to his door. The next thing he heard was the tap. Except it didn't sound like Olivia's jaunty rap. It sounded...
The door opened, and Lydia peeked in. She held up an envelope, and behind her, he saw a boot-wearing delivery woman walk out.
"Have you heard from Olivia?" Gabriel asked as Lydia handed him the envelope--data for another case.
"If I had, I'd tell you. I know you're waiting."
"I am not--"
She gave him a look that stopped him mid-sentence.
"I have something for her case, so yes, I am waiting."
"You could..." She pointed to his cell phone.
He grumbled under his breath as she withdrew. Then he picked up his phone and sent a text.
Will you be much longer?
She replied in seconds. Do you need me there?
Not actually a response to what he asked, but it implied she wasn't exactly on her way, and while he wanted the personal satisfaction of presenting the gift, he shouldn't withhold valuable information.
He called. It connected, the tunnel acoustics telling him she had it on the external Bluetooth in her Maserati.
"We really need to see about getting a connection retrofitted for that," he said, by way of greeting.
"Or I could just get a new car."
Rough Justice Page 8