Sam stared at the sheet. He looked on the back as though he was hoping for a glossary. The back was blank.
He said, “Here comes me trusting you back.”
I nodded once. I understood.
“The stuff on the left about Prado? Accurate. Bungee has to do with what Lucy and I learned last summer about Elliot and Prado. We recovered a bungee and a .38. It’s a long story, but the .38 is the link to Elliot. Below that? These abbreviations are about a fractured index finger. From the ME’s report. The part about Frederick? I/E? Don’t know. A4BCOP? The BCOP part could be Boulder cop. If she wrote it after she saw Tres’s drawing? Could be me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It could. If she saw it after she saw Elias Tres’s drawing, I/E could be Izza and Elias. A4? Our car is an A4, Sam. The Audi wagon. Lauren knew about you driving our car. A4-BCOP? That has to be it. What about on the right?”
ALIBI GOOD. 90801 —> HB&HBL BG —> Tog?? NoE IND. DEAD END??
Sam reread it. “Beyond ‘alibi good’ and ‘dead end’? Gibberish. I got nothing.”
“I might have a piece of this,” I said. “I think HB is Elliot. Lauren used to call him ‘Helliot.’ Around me. With Andrew, too. With an H. So HB, not EB.”
Sam smirked. “I like ‘Helliot.’ The rest? Whose good alibi?”
“Don’t know. I was thinking that was either about Frederick—she may have written it the morning she came to see me—or maybe it related to the Prado notes. Which? Don’t know how to tell. Is 90801 the address of the Prado house?”
“Not even close. It could be a zip code.” He pulled out his phone. He searched 90801. “Long Beach, California. Mean anything to you?”
“I’m not aware that Lauren knew anyone there.”
Sam started thinking out loud. “Okay, let’s try the obvious. If it’s a date—September eighth, 2001—it fits our 9/11 story. The guy on Prado died on September eleventh. His body was discovered on the fourteenth. September eighth was what, the Saturday before the attack, which means the Saturday before the death in Prado?” He shook his head.
“Hold on,” I said. “Lauren’s papers indicate that Elliot’s trip to Boston was on September—God—I think it was the seventh, not the eighth. Friday, not Saturday. It was the seventh. That’s not it.”
“You’re sure?” Sam asked.
“I am. I looked at the papers this morning. They said the seventh. That puts Elliot in Boston on the eighth. One of the 9/11 planes took off from Logan, right? Is it possible Elliot has a connection to that?”
Sam made a skeptical face. “Both Twin Towers planes left from Logan that morning, not one. But I don’t see how we get there from here. It’s way too big a leap. What’s HBL? What’s BG? If they’re initials they’re almost meaningless. Could be anybody. If they’re not initials? What? An acronym? Abbreviations? If they are initials—did she mean two individuals or a couple? It says HB—Helliot—and HBL. Or could it be two related things? Could the B be Boulder? Like in BCOP?”
“Boston gives us another B to consider. Since Elliot was in Boston on September eighth.”
“Okay, what if it’s Boston? BG could be Boston Gardens. September eighth is too early for the Celtics or the Bruins. Is Elliot a hockey fan?”
Sam would love to turn this into a hockey mystery. “I doubt it,” I said. “And I don’t know about t-o-g or n-o-e. Capital I-N-D? Individual? Independent? Or are they someone’s initials?”
“Or wait … HBL is three letters. It could be an airport code. What about the arrows she used. Are those just doodles? Did Lauren use those arrows to indicate a progression of some kind? Do you know her doodles?”
I said, “I would say progression. But I can’t make sense of it either way. Sorry.”
Sam was back on his smartphone. “HBL is an airport code.”
“There you go, that might—”
“For Babelegi, South Africa. I think we can rule that out. But this is interesting—the first Google link for HBL is Habib Bank Limited in Pakistan. Pakistan, Alan. What if Lauren tied Elliot to a bank in Pakistan three days before 9/11? That would be something that Elliot would not want broadcast. Hey, hey, wait—IND is an airport code, too. Indianapolis. Don’t see how that helps.”
“Maybe it does. That’s where Elliot’s plane was forced down on 9/11. That’s where he rented the Ryder truck he drove back to Boulder.”
“Was Lauren saying she ran into a dead end after that? After Indianapolis? If so, what does that tell us?”
“Who knows? Come on, Sam, listen to us. We’ve gone from Boulder to Babelegi to Pakistan to Boston to Indianapolis and back to Boulder based on some scribbles. We’re making way too many assumptions. The simplest explanation is that the letters are initials. HB might be Elliot. But we don’t really even know that.”
“You’re right. We’re spinning our wheels. We need another piece.”
I stood. “I need to watch the time. If Elliot is planning to pick me up for questioning, or to arrest me, I don’t want to give the police any excuse to come in here. My patient files? Can’t risk it. I should go out front and look for them. Or wait for them. I definitely don’t want them to see us together. Clean hands and all that.”
Sam nodded when I said “clean hands.” “You’re being smart. If you see Sengupta out there with uniforms, greet them loudly, keep your hands where they can see them. Don’t come back inside. Don’t invite them in.” I was nodding nonstop. “Empty your pockets. Keys, phone, everything. I’ll take it all. And silence, Alan. Not a word.”
“I know how it goes.” I emptied my pockets. Except for my burner. “Call Kirsten, please? Fill her in. Give her that page with Lauren’s notes.”
“Yes. Go.”
“Take care of my kids, Sam.”
“It won’t come to that, Alan.”
“Take care of my kids, Sam.”
“I promise. Now go.”
I stepped into my office to confirm that my files, and Lauren’s papers, and my appointment book were locked up. Sam watched me from the hall. He asked, “What does Elliot have on you? What crime? What evidence? Do you know?”
“Not for sure. One of the murders, I guess. Lauren? Does it matter?” I moved back into the doorway. “Here,” I said. “A parting gift.” I was holding Tres’s drawing of espíritu, the one that Izza had given me earlier in the day.
He recognized its significance instantly. “Where did you—”
“Don’t ask. I am resigned to the fact that what happened in Frederick—what we did in Frederick—will never stop dogging us. That’s fair enough. We needed to do it. We did it. But having this in your possession should make you less vulnerable. Maybe make us less vulnerable.”
Before Sam could come up with a reply I closed the office door, confining him in the dark hall, out of sight. My lungs emptied involuntarily. I felt as though I might puke.
I stepped out the back door with a clear memory of a patient I’d had who’d left a session early out my back door after explaining to me that in the running-for-your-life business a fifteen-minute lead constituted a head start.
I was hoping I was getting a head start. After I hopped the fence at the back of the yard I called Carl Luppo on my burner. Sam had provided me with advice from the law enforcement perspective. I thought it would be helpful to get some counsel from a criminal who had spent some time on the lam.
A woman answered Carl’s mobile phone as I reached the corner of Canyon and Ninth. My radar said something was up. I introduced myself. She then identified herself as Franco’s daughter. She said she recognized my name as a friend of her father’s. She paused. She told me she was in LA.
I said, “Okay.” I knew things weren’t okay.
She then said she thought I was calling because I already knew.
My trepidation swelling, I asked, “Knew what?”
She said she was sitting with a homicide detective in California. He was going over the contents of her father’s personal possessions with her. His wallet. His phone. His l
uggage. She said I was on speaker.
I assumed she wasn’t supposed to tell me I was on speaker, and that she didn’t care. She was her father’s daughter.
I said, “What? Why?” I knew what. I knew why. All I lacked were the details.
She said her father had been shot to death two days before—her word was assassinated—while sitting in his car in Pacific Palisades.
Oh, Carl, I thought.
By the time I turned the corner onto Pearl Street I knew that Carl would have told me that he had earned this end. He had lived by assassination; he had died by assassination.
The wind was shifting. It was blowing into my face as I walked east. An upslope had started. The promised storm would ride in on the eastern wind’s heels.
What have I earned? What end have I earned?
And what have I learned?
63
SAM AND JONAS
SAM MET KIRSTEN LORD’S car on the lane in front of Alan’s home. When she’d returned his urgent call he insisted she join him in Spanish Hills.
She had complied primarily because she didn’t think her apparently fugitive client completely trusted his old friend. She was hoping to get a clue from Sam about how to find Alan, and to get a sense of which side Sam was really on.
Kirsten started peppering Sam with questions the second she got out of her car.
Sam said, “Alan told me he was going outside to wait for Sengupta. I had no reason to think he was lying to me until I heard Sengupta pounding on the door ten minutes later.”
“I should believe this why?”
“Believe whatever you want. I was snookered, Counselor.”
Kirsten laughed. “Snookered?” Her next question was about whether Sam was on duty.
“I told my captain I needed some personal time to deal with my son. He knows I’m having issues with my kid.”
“Your captain’s not suspicious of the timing?”
“Of course he’s suspicious. He’s a detective. Hey, look northeast. I love how you can watch the weather coming from here. See those clouds? That’s what’s going to curl back at us. If the low sets up at the Four Corners, like they say? We’re going to get blasted. Classic upslope.”
Kirsten didn’t care. “You don’t know where Alan went? He’s not up here?”
“He’s on foot. His car is outside the office. I don’t think he’d come here, but I checked. No sign of him. My first thought was that he went to your house or your office.”
“I was home when you called. He hasn’t shown up at the office. Let’s get this done, whatever you have planned. Since he’s not answering his phone, I’m at a loss. I should be downtown looking for him.”
“Alan doesn’t have his usual phone with him. If you hear from him he’ll be on a burner. You won’t recognize the caller ID. It’s a 720 number.”
“That’s what that number is. He called me earlier. Alan has a burner?”
“Yes. You know Alan won’t say anything if he’s picked up. He was married to a deputy DA. He’s my friend. I assume he’ll call you when he’s ready to turn himself in. In the meantime, if you want live ammunition for your legal arsenal, we may find it here.”
Kirsten said, “I was thinking he could be at Diane and Raoul’s house. He knows it’s empty.”
Sam said, “That’s a good thought. I wouldn’t think to look there. I’ll drive by there when we’re done here.”
He opened the front door with Alan’s keys. Emily woofed a couple of alert barks before she reached some confidence that the intruders were friendlies. Fiji demanded attention.
Sam said, “Their office is off the master bedroom. We’re looking for a box with Lauren’s personal things from the DA’s office. I’m thinking a file box. Like that.”
Kirsten spotted a copy-paper carton near the doorway that led to a sitting alcove. The lid had Lauren’s name written on it with a marker. Sam said, “Wait.” He offered her latex gloves from his coat pocket. She pulled some on before she lifted the lid.
She said, “A couple of vases. A mug. Tea, three kinds of tea. Framed pictures. A bag of almonds.” She fished around a little more. “Some artsy-craftsy things from the kids. It’s all personal stuff. What am I looking for?”
“No papers or files? No personal notes? Let me look.”
Looking didn’t take long. At the same instant they reached an identical conclusion. They said, “The search warrant.”
“This explains why it was drawn so narrowly,” Kirsten said. “Damn.”
Sam said, “Finding that gun would have been a bonus for Elliot during the search. He got what he was looking for in this box. That may be why he thinks he’s in the clear and can move on Alan. Elliot thinks he has the high ground. Once he has Alan in custody, anything Alan alleges about Elliot will look like desperation. Or retaliation, or even vengeance. And Alan won’t have whatever was in this box to back him up.”
“Elliot’s in the clear for what?” Kirsten asked.
“Lauren had some suspicions about Elliot. Alan has some suspicions about Elliot.” Sam gave her the copy of the page from the yellow Field Notes book. “He wanted you to have this. I will let him tell you what he thinks it all means.”
Sam phoned the DA’s office from his burner. He asked for Andrew.
Kirsten whispered, “Who is Andrew?”
Sam packed as much Iron Range as he could into his words as he said, “Recognize my voice? Good. This is about your old friends. The couple?” Sam noted a lack of objection. “I’m at their home looking in a box you prepared for one of them. You gave the box to the other one. Are we clear?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is fine. There is no paper in the box. Not a sticky note. Not a while-you-were-out slip. Is that how it should be?”
Andrew’s voice went low. “There was paper. Plenty. A manila envelope with nonwork things. Personal stuff, invitations, old birthday cards. Some personal mail delivered to the office that she hadn’t carried home. Copies of personal emails. And there were some little stapled notebooks she always had with her to jot stuff down. On the cover they say FIELD NOTES. All caps. Most were blank. One wasn’t. A yellow one. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes.” Sam had seen Lauren use the notebooks a dozen times.
“What was in that notebook was important.”
“Our friend told me one was missing. Was it that one?”
“No. There were two yellow ones. The one in the box was the first one. The missing one is the second one.”
“Well it’s not here, so both are missing. Anything else I should be seeing?”
Andrew said, “A small stack of other people’s business cards—about an inch’s worth—with a rubber band around them. A couple of those had writing on them.”
“Gone,” Sam said. “Should I be looking in her computer for anything?”
“Old emails maybe. I managed her work files. She didn’t put anything important in .doc files. She didn’t use the cloud for personal stuff. She said that other people were smarter about computers than she was. She didn’t trust them for that reason.”
“You have the password for her laptop?” Andrew didn’t reply. “Want to tell me?”
Andrew said, “No. Not at this time.” They both hung up.
To Kirsten, Sam said, “Lauren’s assistant. He put this box together. There were papers in it. Important stuff. An envelope of things. One of those little notebooks she carried.” Kirsten nodded. “Some business cards.”
Kirsten said, “We have to assume Elliot instructed someone to grab any paperwork from this box during the search.”
“I would also bet that you won’t find any of it listed on the inventory.”
“It appears we’re a few days late with this errand, Sam. I should get back downtown.”
“I am going to poke around a little more.”
Kirsten dug her car keys from her shoulder bag. Offhandedly she asked, “Who is that with Lauren in the photograph? On top? She looks so young.�
�
Sam glanced down at the framed picture. He said, “Not Alan.” The photo had been taken from the dock as the couple was standing on the stern of a sailboat in a slip on the San Francisco side of the Bay. The north tower of the Golden Gate was visible in the background. The sailboat was named The Cliché. He said, “Lauren used to live there. Could be her ex. I never met him.”
“Lauren had a framed photograph of her ex-husband on her desk at work?” Kirsten said. “That’s not right.”
Sam hit REDIAL on his phone. Andrew answered warily. Sam said, “The framed photo of your friend on a sailboat with a guy? Was it displayed on her desk?”
“God no. It was in the bottom drawer of her desk. On the side that locks. She showed it to me when she brought it here only weeks before she was shot. I never saw it displayed. I almost didn’t include it in the box. To spare feelings.” Sam thanked him.
Kirsten was inches from Sam, staring at him, eavesdropping. He stared back at her. He said, “She recently took it to the office. But never put it out.”
“Doesn’t smell right.”
Sam lifted the photo. He examined the back of the frame. “Lauren thought that Elliot was going through her things at work,” he said. “If she wanted to hide something in her office from Elliot, this would be a good choice. The photo wouldn’t mean anything to Elliot, but it would get Alan’s attention, right? A photo of the ex?”
Kirsten said, “If he ever opened the damn box. You and I need to slow down. If she was hiding something, was it about a case? Is it potential evidence?”
“Evidence? It’s a framed personal photograph. Don’t overthink this.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes fell on a brown shoe box with a scripted name on the lid: Christian Louboutin. Her eyes followed the perimeter of the room in a slow panorama as she recognized that the bedroom was arranged as an estate sale waiting to happen, with Lauren’s personal things on display. Her eyes filled with tears. “He doesn’t sleep here,” she said.
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