by Kirk Russell
‘You’re setting conditions for revealing something he should have volunteered days ago.’
‘I’m representing my client’s point of view.’ He paused. ‘But there is another way we can do this.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He does everything he can to help you charge this Lindsley and the others behind these fires and you back off on the old case. You let it go. The house is sold. People have forgotten, and as you said, he’ll die sooner than not. You let it go. Close the file and work on something else. Professor Lash wrote a number of good books that have helped the American people better understand themselves. He was a popular professor and well respected. Let him depart with that intact.’
‘Put away the murder file?’
Meech turned slightly to face him and adjusted his glasses. ‘You looked at him closely once before and cleared him. Yes, put it away.’
‘Let it be and forget about her?’
‘I’m not saying that.’
‘She was young, brilliant, full of promise, emotionally unstable, but maybe that’s about genius. I don’t really know, and I’m not sure I’ve ever known a genius. I’ve known two people who belong to that organization, what’s it called, MENSA, and are very proud of their high IQs. I guess technically they’re geniuses, but I’ve never found them to be much different than the rest of us. I think the word is meant for something else and shouldn’t be used very often. She may have been that. Or maybe she was just one of us, but either way what you’re saying is close the file and forget about her because continuing to investigate could affect what Albert calls his legacy.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘I think you need to be very frank with the emperor about his clothes. He’s facing death and he’ll appreciate candor. He doesn’t have any legacy. Why don’t you go in there and tell him what everyone else already knows? It might come as a big relief to him to not have to worry about it anymore.’
‘Inspector, he has only weeks left. Don’t you have any compassion? You don’t seem to want to acknowledge that truth. Why is that?’
‘Ann Coryell’s life ended ten years ago when it was taken from her. She’d be thirty-nine now. Maybe she would have written the book of her ideas that Lash plagiarized and there’s a very good chance this little group of social engineers never would have formed.’ Raveneau paused. He was getting lost here and not getting anywhere, but he asked Meech, ‘Do you have a legacy?’
‘You bet I do. I have two divorced wives who hate me and will always remember and talk about me. I also have three adult children who would like me more if I died tomorrow and left them what I have in assets. I had a tumor removed five years ago so they always ask about my health. I know the younger one has studied every Internet article he could find trying to determine the odds of recurrence. I know that because I’ve read the same articles and he’s right to hope because the odds are it will come back. My ex-wives have taught my children to hate me.’
‘I don’t have a legacy either.’
‘Inspector, he would like to go quietly. If you determine he participated in something terrible, whether with her or others, is there really a need to charge him? He’s never going to stand for trial or go to prison.’ Now Meech’s pale blue eyes found the windshield.
‘Albert told you something. What did he tell you about the bomb shelter?’
‘I can’t answer that, as I’m sure you know.’
‘Did he confess to you?’
Meech was silent. He adjusted his glasses again and in the rear view mirror Raveneau saw vehicles approaching. One pulled in just in front of them and two behind.
Raveneau opened his door and said to Meech, ‘Tell me before they get here.’
Meech was silent.
‘You’ll love the FBI,’ Raveneau said. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you.’
FORTY-EIGHT
When Raveneau walked back in Coe was sitting close to Lash who despite the tubes and wheelchair was in control. He had something to trade and the full attention of the FBI. Coe went along. He read the signals and deferred to Lash, but Raveneau’s presence was distracting. It broke the happy cooperative mood and Raveneau soon left. Later that night he picked up a voicemail from Coe. He listened and then called him back.
‘Lash wants to trade six months for the rest of what he knows,’ Coe said. ‘It’s not at all clear what that is, but we’re rolling with it. He faded on us about eight o’clock and we’re back in the morning.’
‘You’re rolling with it, but you’re not sure what he’s talking about yet?’
Coe sighed and then apologized, ‘Sorry, long day, and yeah, the murder investigation is in the mix. He wants to be left out of your investigation for six months. Obviously, this is your decision not ours, but as his lawyer keeps saying, he’s never going to trial. Innocent or guilty, he won’t be here. He isn’t going to be around and I was knocking on wood when I walked out of that room hoping nothing like that ever happens to me. He got his lawyer to call one of his doctors and then put her on speakerphone and asked her to be frank about the progression of the disease. He asked her to make her best guess on life expectancy and to be detailed about the end. She balked a little and then did it.’
‘How long?’
‘On the outside four months max. He wants six. He wants a buffer and wants it in writing. He wants it in writing but he also wants your word. He believes you’ll keep your word.’
‘Translate that for me.’
‘If you solve the murder in the next six weeks and he’s the killer, you still wait the full six months. He doesn’t get charged.’
‘Why would he? He’s innocent.’
‘He’s ready to make that agreement now, but it takes you. He’ll do it tomorrow morning if you agree. He says he’s up before dawn every day and if you want to talk again that’s when he feels best. He says he has some things that he’ll say only to you.’
‘I’ll meet you there at five tomorrow morning.’
‘You’re on.’
Raveneau was up at four thirty the next morning and out the door with coffee fifteen minutes later. He arrived ahead of Coe but not before an ambulance. He parked and hurried inside and knew as he saw the face of one of the security guys that it was Lash.
‘What happened?’
‘They’re saying heart attack. They’re trying to figure out how to move him.’
Coe arrived and he and Coe followed the ambulance to UCSF Medical Center. They watched him wheeled in and waited around and talked eventually to a doctor. They asked about talking to Lash and didn’t get a verbal answer, just a shake of the head. They were like two ghouls, Raveneau thought, hanging around to make sure Lash wouldn’t die on them.
Raveneau turned to Coe as they walked out into the early cool. ‘Let’s get breakfast and talk. I’ll buy. You need some food.’
‘What I need is sleep and what I don’t understand is why we haven’t caught up to these assholes yet. We should have them by now. We’ve got over a hundred agents here and at headquarters working on this. We’ve got nine teams and round the clock surveillance on Brandon Lindsley. We’re considering every sabotage scenario we can think of, but if you think of anything you call me, OK?’
Raveneau was ready to head to his car when Coe asked, ‘What happened at Wounded Knee? I mean, from the perspective of a homicide inspector, was it genocide or a series of misunderstandings and mistakes on both sides that led to an overreaction? I want to know what you think as a career homicide investigator.’
Raveneau stopped. It was an off-the-wall question this morning but it was also something he had thought about. ‘On one side you’ve got people being herded on to reservations and fearful there’s a plan to exterminate them, and on the other side people so frightened of an Indian uprising they sent the Seventh Cavalry. One hundred twenty men and two hundred thirty women and children being led by Chief Bigfoot were apprehended by the Seventh Cavalry who then set up a camp for the night. Two Hotchkiss g
uns were placed on a ridge above and trained on the Sioux tents. Those guns could put out a shell a second. They got used the next morning when an attempt to collect all of the Sioux firearms turned into a firefight after a Sioux brave resisted giving up a rifle he’d paid a lot of money for.
‘In a homicide investigation we start with the dead. Almost three hundred Sioux died, one hundred fifty or more in the initial shooting and the rest from wounds. The Seventh Cavalry lost thirty-seven. Almost all of those thirty-seven were killed by friendly fire. I think when the Seventh started firing they didn’t stop until they had shot every Indian they could find. They quit when there was no one left to shoot at. They weren’t looking for prisoners and the evidence suggest they weren’t in danger. It all happened fast, but it wasn’t an accident. I’d charge the shooters with murder.’
‘Was it a significant enough event to reach down all these years?’
‘It’s not reaching down. It’s still here. That was her point. I’ll talk to you in a couple of hours.’
FORTY-NINE
Hugh Neilley grew up in a family of five boys who fought with each other for anything and everything, their violence an extension of a father whose frustration with life and marriage usually showed itself at or around the third or fourth drink. That was the story Hugh wove and one that Raveneau believed. Hugh had little contact with any of his brothers. He didn’t return their calls, and his sister, Matt Baylor’s mother, was the only one in his family who could talk to him. Raveneau’s friendship with Hugh had survived other hard times, but he didn’t think it would this one. No matter how this investigation turned out, Hugh was going to wall him off. He picked up the phone now and called him.
‘You’ve got about ten seconds to explain what you want.’
‘I can do it in less. We’ve recovered a bloodstained knife and a surgical saw and we’re on our way to DNA results. Lindsley led us to a site up above the Presidio graveyard. He said Lash took him there and told him where to dig.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘What do you know about Lash’s diaries or notebooks?’
‘What’s in the files about them?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then I don’t know anything. Is there anything else before I hang up?’
‘Lash’s sister called and left a message this morning. She mentioned your name, said I should talk to you because you contacted her recently. Is that true?’
‘She talks to people who aren’t there. I thought you knew that about her. She probably heard her brother’s name on TV and remembered mine.’
‘You didn’t call her?’
‘When did she tell you this?’
‘This morning.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Lying?’ Hugh was silent and Raveneau was ready for him to hang up. ‘Lash is talking to us. He knows Alan Siles and called to warn us. You played poker with Lindsley at Lash’s when he was working on the book about San Francisco officers. Lash says Siles was there too. You’ve seen his face. Are you sure you don’t remember him? Lash says he started research on that book well before Coryell disappeared and that Siles worked for him. He came up with the backyard barbecues and the poker games as a way to meet SFPD officers and get their stories in a casual way. You may have seen him at one of those get-togethers. If Lash is telling the truth both Siles and Lindsley were at those.’
‘Something is wrong with you. There were three homicide inspectors, three out of the sixteen we had at the Detail at the time, who were at those poker games. Don’t you think with these fires and the Feds manic to find these guys that someone would have come forward and said, hey, I remember that guy from Lash’s parties? No one has done that. Why wouldn’t they? I think you’re fishing again. You’re trying to get to me.’
‘I want to meet with you.’
‘We played cards once a week and not everybody made it every time but Professor Lash got what he needed. He wanted stories about what it felt like to be a career cop inside the department. There’s no secret in any of that, and I didn’t meet any of these firebugs. I knew Lindsley because he was like a butler to Lash. Are you implying I know this Siles and I’m not coming forward? If so, fuck you.’
Hugh hung up and Raveneau called Lindsley. An hour later he picked him up at a bus stop and bought him lunch in the Presidio.
‘Lash’s lawyer contacted us and we’ve been talking to him about a deal for Lash. His version contradicts yours.’
‘Of course it does.’
Raveneau held up a hand. ‘I hear you but he says he’s only going to live another four months and he wants to leave with a clear conscience.’
‘Thanks for the sandwich, but get real, Inspector. Would I lead you to something that I hid that’s going to implicate me?’
‘Maybe it’s going to implicate Siles. Lash wanted to talk about Siles and you, and the three of you, and says you and Siles both did research for him and knew each other. He says you socialized together all the time.’
‘Not true.’
‘It’s his word against yours. He says you all sat around drinking bourbon and talked about a spiritual cleansing. This was after Coryell was dead. The conversation ran toward shocking society and changing the collective unconscious. A spiritual cleansing in San Francisco that meant sacrificing significant numbers of people was to start with fires and then continue with other acts of violence. Lash has written you right into a lead role dead center.’
‘Everything I told you about Siles was true.’
‘Your problem is Lash says you were at meetings where setting wildfires was discussed as a means to an end by Siles, you and him. He thought of it as a philosophical exercise and had forgotten about it until he saw Siles’ face on TV. He wants to trade testimony for immunity for all things for six months. He’s already got one foot out the back door and he’d like to go out a hero. Here’s my best advice to you: save yourself, and do it now while you still can. After our next interview with Lash, I don’t think the offer to you will stand anymore. Either you beat him to it or he takes you down.’
‘I didn’t have anything to do with the fires and it’s not illegal to talk about ideas, at least not yet. I get that it’s headed that way.’
‘We’re going to talk to Lash again this afternoon and this time we’ll be taping him.’
‘Go for it, and I’m done helping you. I’m lawyering up.’ He stared at Raveneau. ‘Did you ever see the movie where the guy is in the stone cell with the walls that keep closing in on him and just a little at a time? He goes to sleep at night and in the morning the walls are a little closer together. He starts marking the floor to make sure he’s not crazy, and he’s right – they’re moving a tiny bit every day. He figures out how many days it’s going to take before he gets crushed. That’s where I’m at and that’s after leading you to what may be the murder weapon. It’s as if there’s nothing I can do. The walls just keep closing in. I’m surrounded. I feel like the man in the movie.’
‘It’s not working,’ Raveneau said. ‘It’s not going to go down the way you want.’
Lindsley laughed. He held up his phone so Raveneau could read the screen. ‘Something is,’ he said, then explained. ‘If there’s any news with Albert Lash’s name in it I get an alert. Looks like the professor made the news.’ He laughed again, a giddy lightness in it. ‘Check this out. What’s this do to your investigation?’
He held his phone up so Raveneau could read the screen.
‘Author Lash Dead of Heart Attack.’
FIFTY
When Coe called Raveneau he was quietly upbeat, yet at the same time uncomfortable with misleading the media. It would come back to haunt him. But Lindsley did swallow the hook and that’s what mattered. Lindsley gloated over Lash’s death and Lash was now hidden away on an upper floor of the hospital cooperating with the FBI.
‘All things considered, he’s doing OK,’ Coe said. ‘I saw him an hour ago. He’s hooked up to everything they own but they say his heart has very little
damage and they’re questioning whether it really was a heart attack. May have been a reaction to the drugs he usually takes and whatever treatment he’s had for the radiation poisoning. He called his sister and she’s turned over those notebooks to us, and yeah I know you want copies. That’s being done. I’ll get them to you tomorrow.
‘There’s something else, Ben. We got a tip we’re acting on and you may want to be there. A hiker saw a man along the shoreline at Crystal Springs Reservoir that he thought might be Alan Siles. He was dressed in running clothes, a baseball cap and sunglasses. We have Siles sightings every five minutes now and I’m sure you’re getting them too, but this is credible enough to where we’re checking it out early tomorrow morning. We need daylight for this lead. The individual that called this in tried to follow the man and the man made it hard for him. He picked up his speed and jogged away. When our tipster first saw him he was down by the water, right down at the edge of the reservoir leaning over looking at something in the water. He was holding a small device in his right hand.’
‘Holding his cellphone?’
‘No, and it gets more interesting. Our hiker watched him get into a late model Toyota, possibly a Camry, with tinted windows, gray colored. They got a partial plate and then went back and located where he had been along the shoreline. They found the spot because they found some sort of transponder. He sent us photos he took and left the transponder or whatever it is in place. We didn’t talk with the individual who reported it until about an hour ago, but we’re going down very early to check it out. You’ve been talking city water supply—’
‘I’ll meet you there.’
At dawn Raveneau exited 280 forty-five minutes south of San Francisco. He wasn’t far from the Pulgas Water Temple and remembered his way to the intersection of Edgewood and the other road. He found a place to park, killed his lights, and got out. The Feds were here already and they hadn’t waited on him. He wouldn’t have waited either. He found the trail following the water district’s fence, avoiding poison oak as he worked his way along.