It had been three days since Plante had been killed. Dooley was huddled over the computer trying to find somebody, anybody, connected with the case when Hoffman and Rush came in.
With a big grin, Hoffman planted his ass in a chair across from me. Rush sat behind him on the desk, looking somehow proper and embarrassed.
“I just visited with Ted down in computer forensics. On Rabbitt’s computer.”
Dooley pulled his chair from behind his desk and rolled it over. He sat down next to me. “Do tell.”
“Yeah. Have you ever heard of WheresKatelin.com?”
I stared at him. “A website?”
“Yeah.”
“About me?”
Hoffman laughed. “That’s right. Rabbitt had cleaned out his computer pretty well but he’d left a few cookies in the trash bin. Turns out he was one of your fans.”
“How many…” My voice faded out. I didn’t know what to call them. Fans? Observers? Stalkers?
“The word is subscribers,” Hoffman said carefully. “It’s a pay site. Expensive. And there aren’t many clients. Only a few people even know about you or care.”
“There are videos,” said Rush, staring at the ceiling.
“What kind of videos?” I asked faintly.
“Tasteful. That’s the right word, isn’t it, Ron?” Hoffman looked at Rush. Rush nodded.
“Christ.” I stared at my hands.
Hoffman’s voice became suddenly crisp. “Okay. Enough fun. The site is managed by a Cybertech Investigations. A PI services firm over on Winter Street. Rush called them up. They’re sending the site manager—who is also the associated PI—over to say hello. Some guy named Dobbs.”
Dooley nodded. “That might be a real lead.”
“Yeah. We found Rabbitt was a subscriber. Also Plante. Also Wallace.”
Dooley spoke up. “Wallace was a subscriber? How did he pay?”
Hoffman chuckled. “I have no idea how a homeless man manages to subscribe to an expensive service. That’s one of a whole string of questions I want to ask Dobbs. But Wallace was listed. Better yet, he was signed on the day after he was dead.”
Dooley whistled. “Neat trick.”
“Oh, it gets better.” Hoffman turned his glance on me. “Another local subscriber is David Sabado.”
Rush looked at me sympathetically. “You’re very popular.”
oOo
Dooley hustled me out of the office and down the street to the Dunkin’ Donuts.
“What do you want?” I said in a tight whisper as we walked down the street.
“Just shut up for a minute.”
We went inside. Dooley ordered me coffee and a doughnut I didn’t want and coffee and a cruller for himself. Then, he led me into the corner and sat me down. He planted his monumental hulking body across from me.
“Loquess, you have to listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
He sighed. “No, you’re not. You’re doing your Loquess thing where you say you’re going to listen and then whatever you hear gets all twisted up in the spider’s knot you call a mind. Instead, you hear echoes of something your father said or your brother or David, reflecting Sean reflecting your father or your mother, reflecting some flying teacher you knew. I need you to put all those people you like to have talking to you in another room. This needs to be just between you and me.”
“Say what you want to say.”
“Do I have your full and complete attention?”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. “You do.”
“Something stinks.”
“That’s what you wanted to say to me?”
“Something stinks and it’s attached to you. I can buy one old homeless guy that came from your home town. But that’s about seven coincidences back. Katelin?” He looked at me hard.
He’d never called me by my first name before. I stared back at him. “Yes?”
“This has something to do with you.”
“Can we move off of the obvious stuff now?”
“Did you hear me?”
I looked away and breathed for a minute. Then, I turned back. “Yes.”
“Okay.” He leaned back in his chair and took a bite out of the cruller.
“This is where we stop talking?”
He swallowed. “I’m pausing for effect. And I wanted some cruller.”
“Consider me affected.”
He nodded and wiped his lips. “Okay, then. What do we know?”
I ticked them off on my hands. “Wallace was from Columbia. Wallace, Rabbitt, Plante and Sean knew each other. Jesus.” I shook my head. “Do you think Sean is mixed up in this?”
Dooley shook his head. “He’s out in Colorado, isn’t he? Could he be running from something?”
I pulled out my cell phone. If he was mixed up in this I’d have it out right now.
Dooley reached over and closed it before I could dial. “Let’s just list things for now. Put Sean down in the ‘may be involved’ column. He’s not the murderer. He’s got too good an alibi. Besides, Hoffman had a phone interview with him this morning and decided he’s in the clear.”
I put my phone away. “Wallace, Plante and Rabbitt all had accounts at that website.”
“Plus David Sabado.”
“Yeah,” I said sourly.
Dooley leaned forward. “Hoffman and Rush are going to grill you before they bring in Sabado.”
“How come?”
“For fifty reasons. To get a handle on how to manage him. To make sure they have their ducks lined up in a row before they haul in a celebrity. To make sure there are no surprises.”
“Ah. That’s why you hustled me down here.” Light dawns on Marble Head.
“What’s interesting is Hoffman let me. That suggests you aren’t a suspect.”
I suddenly felt small. “Do you think I am?”
Dooley shook his head. “Motive would be too thin. Besides, Hoffman wouldn’t be playing with you if you were. He’d get all the evidence together while he was smiling and acting like he was a good old boy. Then, when he had enough, you’d find yourself in the little gray room facing the two of them across the table. But he let you come with me to let us know that he doesn’t think so.”
“Can’t you guys just say things? Out loud? With your mouth?”
Dooley grinned. “Where’s the fun in that? You need to use your mythical witch powers on us.”
“I’m just a simple flyer.”
“You’re not trying hard enough.” Dooley thought for a moment. “Did you check Sabado’s pre-test results?”
My cheeks burned. “Yes.”
“Don’t blush. It interferes with good police procedure. What was it?”
“Eight-ninety-five.”
Dooley whistled. “You’d think that was significant. What were the other scores?”
“Wallace, Plante and Rabbitt were all in the eight hundreds.”
“But not as high as Sabado?”
“No.”
“What were you?”
“Seven-eighty-two.”
“How the mighty have fallen.”
“Hey! You were a seven-sixty.”
“Which shows you how reliable the pre-test is.” Dooley swore under his breath. “I do not like to underestimate myself. I wish I had known the scores were manipulated.”
I sipped my coffee. It had grown cold. “You got the score they needed to give you. Since they didn’t know what you were good for.” I grinned at him. “Jury’s still out on that, too.”
Dooley ignored me. “What were the corrected scores?”
“Plante stayed in the seven hundreds, of course. But Wallace and Rabbitt were downgraded to the five hundreds.”
“Who would ever get much below that?”
I shook my head. “I think five hundred is a sort of zero. Below that you’d have some different kind of influence.”
“What? Some kind of spawn of Satan?”
“Of course not. I’m spawn of Satan. Remember?
”
“I stand corrected. How long were you and Sabado together?”
“Three years. Two years in Columbia while I finished my degree. Then, we moved out here. We were here a year and then broke up.”
“You haven’t been sleeping together since?”
“Dooley!”
“Hoffman’s going to be worse.”
“I haven’t seen David Sabado in two years.”
“No phone calls? Accidental meetings?”
“No.”
“Common friends?”
“Eli Boor. Carl Spotts. Martin Miegle. David’s family didn’t like me and I didn’t like them so we didn’t maintain contact.”
“I know Boor. Who’s Spotts?”
“Carlton Spotts is music director at the University of Missouri. He’s a friend of the family.”
“Still there?”
“Unless he’s moved in the last six months.”
“Martin Miegle is Boor’s physicist partner. Tell me about him.”
“He lives out in Western Mass somewhere. I’ve never met him.”
“You said he was a common friend.”
“Well, I’ve talked to him on the phone a few times. He’s a little creepy but not in a bad way.”
“How can you be creepy in a not bad way?”
“You talk to him. You’ll understand.”
“Any friends you made out here?”
I shook my head. “Not other than Eli and Martin.”
Dooley wrote that all down. “Why did you break up?”
“He was on tour a lot,” I said shortly. “I was working a lot. After a while we didn’t have anything to say to one another.”
Dooley gave me a look. “There’s more to it than that.”
“Nothing that’s relevant.”
“Hoffman is going to drill right into that. He wants to know everything about you.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Okay.” He sighed and wrote that down. “Was it an amicable separation?”
I snorted. “I was so mad I took off for home to cool off. If you know anything about my family, you’d know that was an act of last resort.”
Dooley tapped his pen on the book. “That was the leave of absence you took? I thought someone had died.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re still friends with Boor and Martin.” He glanced at his notes. “And Spotts.”
“Sure.”
Dooley watched me for a moment. “You do realize how completely dysfunctional that sounds, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
Dooley continued. “You spend three years with a man. You learn his life. He learns yours. The two of you get entangled. Normal separations are ugly. Ragged. Full of loose ends. But not you. You have a couple of friends in common. Everybody’s cordial except for you and David. You just don’t speak to each other. Very clean.”
I looked at him for a long time. “Martin said something like that. He said David and I were ‘entangled’. Now we’re not.”
“Any idea what he meant by that?”
“Something to do with physics. Everything Martin says has something to do with physics.”
Dooley nodded and wrote more in his notebook.
I watched him for a few minutes. Then, I got fidgety. “So: how’s the case, counselor?”
“Thin. All we have is a tangle of loose ends. Unless Hoffman and Rush come up with something pretty special, we got nothing.”
“Until he kills again.”
“Until he kills again.” Dooley finished what he was writing. He closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket. He pointed at my doughnut. “Are you going to finish that?”
oOo
Hoffman was every bit as rough as Dooley had said: snide, insinuating, accusational. But the questions were the same. At least he didn’t have Rush in with him—he gave me that much respect. The Hoffman/Rush Bad Cop/Good Cop routine was the stuff of legend around the office. By questioning me by himself he acknowledged that since I was a cop the routine wouldn’t be effective. Oddly, it made me feel good.
Like Dooley predicted, he zeroed in on it.
“Why did you and Sabado break up?
I gave him a nasty smile. “You know how it is, Albert. You’re at work all the time. Your spouse gets tired of it. You’ve been through that what? Twice now? Three times?”
Hoffman stared at me with disbelief for several seconds. Then, he burst out laughing. “Nice shooting, Loquess.” He drummed his fingers on the table. Bad cop was gone. Now it was just Hoffman. “Both victims and the possible murderer are in this ‘Where’s Katelin’ ring. Along with your ex-boyfriend. Why the hell are they stalking you?”
I leaned back in the chair. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I’m a flyer.”
Hoffman shook his head. “It’s more than that. There’s no ‘Where’s Sniezek’ site. No ‘Where’s Gifford’ site. Just you.”
“They don’t look good in tights.”
“Rush thought of that.” Hoffman shook his head. “There’s a mess of Conclave sites with profiles and pictures of all the athletes. Sniezek is there. Gifford has been blogging about his long walk. But they’re public figures. And the hits are low and it’s not private. Your stealth work kept a low profile so the public pictures are few, far between and unattributed. Where’s Katelin is a private site run by a PI firm. That’s different.”
“When’s Dobbs getting here?”
Hoffman checked his watch. “About twenty minutes ago. Rush is interviewing him now.”
“You wanted to talk to me by yourself? I’m touched.”
Hoffman chuckled. “Professional courtesy. Don’t worry. It’ll never happen again.”
“Look,” I said, seriously. “Can we get Cybertech on this? I mean, punish them for watching me?”
Hoffman smiled at me, suddenly feral. “Oh, don’t worry about them. We don’t like anybody stalking cops. Even a halfway cop like you. The mayor is already on the phone to the head of the company. This isn’t going to stand. When Rush gets through with Dobbs there won’t be enough left to pick your teeth with. I’m just a cop who likes his job. Rush is mean.”
oOo
Dooley was sitting in my spare chair when I got back to my desk. He was leaning back in his chair looking satisfied and thoughtful.
I sat across from him. “How was it?”
“How was what?”
“Didn’t you watch Rush grill Dobbs?”
“I did.” He still looked thoughtful.
“How was it?”
“I’m still digesting it.”
I sat down and waited.
He turned his chair to me slowly. “Have you ever seen a really good prosecutor in action?”
I shook my head. “I’ve seen prosecutors. But I can’t say they were really good.”
“Most of them aren’t,” Dooley said matter-of-factly. “Like lots of things, the profession doesn’t pay well enough to really attract top talent. You get good idealists, if you’re lucky. But you also get a lot of lawyers who aren’t good enough or imaginative enough or brave enough to go out on their own. Or worse: you get lawyers who consider prosecutorial duties as a stepping stone into public office.” He shuddered at the last.
“You’ve given this some thought.”
“It was in the mix of considerations when I graduated law school.”
I felt shocked to the core. “You went to law school?”
Dooley nodded. “You see? One learns something every day.”
“What are you doing here?”
He stared at me levelly. “Are you saying this is not an honorable profession?”
“No.”
“Then, are you saying this profession is beneath me?”
I shook my head.
“Good.” He waved his hand at me airily. “My reasons for being here are not your concern, but I understand your curiosity. Law school taught me some things about myself. I would not be a good defense lawyer. I
lack the character flaw that would enable me to defend someone I knew was guilty. Civil law is boring. Corporate law is Hell’s seventh level of boring. But I do like the idea of justice—or what passes for it in our system. I thought about becoming a prosecutor. One gets some choice about cases—presumably one would not pursue a felon one did not consider guilty.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t hired. Apparently, I was too good, imaginative or brave.”
“Ah,” I said as if I understood.
“But you asked about Rush.” He peaked his fingers together. “Rush has all the theatricality, drama and pointed intelligence of a good prosecutor. He led Dobbs by telling him what he already knew, managed to get a few self-incriminating tidbits under the guise of professional camaraderie.” Dooley glanced up at me. “Did you know your apartment was bugged?”
“No,” I squeaked.
“Apparently, it was. There are recordings. Rush ferreted out hints and then pointed out what Dobbs had revealed, neatly trapping him in a federal violation. Then, Rush reversed his hold and suggested that Dobbs go into full detail. Dobbs cracked open. I’ve never heard so much detail about something in which I was so little interested.”
“Bugged for how long?”
“Dobbs wasn’t sure. At least the last year.”
“A year?”
“Perhaps longer. Available video didn’t cover all that time, of course. Apparently, it was extensively edited.”
“A year?”
“Enshrined in a DVD that Rush now has in his possession. According to Dobbs, the bugs should be gone within the hour.”
Oh, god. Which was worse? The fact that the footage existed at all or the fact that Rush had it? “He didn’t destroy it?”
“He will deliver it to you by close of business today. Intact. Without copy. Rush is an honorable man. But this is the age of the internet, dear. Nothing can be destroyed. Do we have the complete material?” Dooley shrugged. “We’ll see.” Dooley pressed his lips thin and stared out the window.
I wanted a drink so bad I could taste it. Were the fights I had with Sean on the disk? Sex scenes? Did it go back to when David and I were living together? Did it capture when he packed up and moved out? And all of those little things people do when they don’t think they’re being watched. I shuddered. What did they see? What did David see?
“I’m curious, though,” said Dooley, oblivious to me at that moment. “It was such a wonderful performance I can’t help but wonder what Hoffman contributes.”
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