E Is for Evidence

by Sue Grafton

  I found a parking spot six doors away. Daniel's car was parked in front of my place. He was leaning against the fender. There was a paper bag with twine handles near his feet, a baguette of French bread sticking out of it like a baseball bat.

  "I thought you might be gone by today," I said.

  "I talked to my friend. It looks like I'll be here a couple days more."

  "You find a place to stay?"

  "I hope so. There's a little motel here in the neighborhood that will have a room free later. Some folks are checking out."

  "That's nice. You can reclaim your stuff."

  "I'll do that as soon as I know for sure."

  "What's that?" I said, pointing at the baguette.

  He looked down at the sack, his gaze following mine. "Picnic," he said. "I thought I'd play the piano some, too."

  "How long have you been here?"

  "Since six," he said. "You feel all right? You look beat."

  "I am. Come on in. I hope you have wine. I could use some."

  He pushed away from the car, toting the bag as he followed me through the gate. We ended up at Henry's, sitting on the floor in his living room. Daniel had bought twenty-five votive candles and he arranged those around the room until I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a birthday cake. We had wine, pate, cheeses, French bread, cold salads, fresh raspberries, and sugar cookies the size of Frisbees. I stretched out afterward in a food-induced reverie while Daniel played the piano. Daniel didn't play music so much as he discovered it, calling up melodies, pursuing them across the keys, embroidering, embellishing. His background was in classical piano, so he warmed up with Chopin, Liszt, the intricacies of Bach, drifting over into improvisation without effort.

  Daniel stopped abruptly.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him.

  His expression was pained. He touched at the keyboard carelessly, a sour chord. "It's gone. I don't have it anymore. I gave up drugs and the music went with "em."

  I sat up. "What are you talking about?"

  "Just what I said. It was the choice I had to make, but it's all bullshit. I can live without drugs, babe, but not without music. I'm not made that way."

  "It sounded fine. It was beautiful."

  "What do you know, Kinsey? You don't know anything. That was all technique. Mechanics. I got no soul. The only time music works is when I'm burning with smack, flying. This is nothing. Half-life. The other is better... when I'm on fire like that and give it all away. You can't hold back. It's all or nothin'."

  I could feel my body grow still. "What are you saying?" Dumb question. I knew.

  His eyes glowed and he pinched his thumb and index finger together near his lips, sucking in air. It was the gesture he always used when he was about to roll a joint. He looked down at the crook of his elbow and made a fist lovingly.

  "Don't do that," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "It'll kill you."

  He shrugged. "Why can't I live the way I want? I'm the devil. I'm bad. You should know that by now. There isn't anything I wouldn't do just for the hell of it... just to stay awake. Fuck. I'd like to fly again, you know? I'd like to feel good. I'll tell you something about being straight... it's a goddamn drag. I don't know how you put up with it. I don't know how you keep from hangin' yourself."

  I crumpled up paper napkins and stuffed them in the sack, gathered paper plates, plastic ware, the empty wine bottle, cardboard containers. He sat on the piano bench, his hands held loosely in his lap. I doubted he'd live to see forty-three.

  "Is that why you came back?" I asked. "To lay this on me. What do you want, permission? Approval?"

  "Yeah, I'd like that."

  I started blowing out candles, darkness gathering like smoke around the edges of the room. You can't argue with people who fall in love with death. "Get out of my life, Daniel. Would you just do that?"

  Chapter 20

  * * *

  I got up Monday morning at 6:00 and did a slow, agonizing five-mile jog. I was in bad shape and I had no business being out there at all, but I couldn't help myself. This had to be the worst Christmas I'd ever spent and the new year wasn't shaping up all that great as far as I could see. It was now January 3, and I wanted my life back the way it was. With luck, Rosie would reopen later in the day, and maybe Jonah would return from Idaho. Henry was flying home on Friday. I recited my blessings to myself as I ran, ignoring the fact that my body hurt, that I had no office at the moment, and a cloud of suspicion was still hanging over my head.

  The sky was clear, a torpid breeze picking up. The day seemed unseasonably warm even at that hour, and I wondered if we were experiencing Santa Ana conditions, winds gusting in from the desert, hot drafts like the blast from an oven. It was the wrong time of year for it, but the air had that dry, dusty feel to it. The sweat on my face evaporated almost at once and my T-shirt was clinging to my back like a hot, soggy rag. By the time I got back to my neighborhood, I felt I'd blown some of the tension away. Kinsey Millhone, perpetual optimist. I jogged all the way to Henry's gate and took a few minutes walking back and forth, catching my breath, cooling down. Daniel's car was gone. In its place was a vehicle I hadn't seen before – a compact, judging from the shape, anonymous under a pale-blue cotton car cover. Off-street parking in the area is restricted and garages are rare. If I ever got a new car, I'd have to invest in a cover myself. I leaned against the fence, stretching my hamstrings dutifully before I went in to shower.

  Lance Wood called me at 8:00. The background noise was that hollow combination of traffic and enclosure that suggests a phone booth.

  "Where are you?" I asked, as soon as he'd identified himself.

  "On a street corner in Colgate. I think my phone at work is tapped," he said.

  "Have you had it checked?"

  "Well, I'm not really sure how to go about it and I feel like a fool asking the phone company to come out."

  "I'll bet," I said. "That's like asking the fox to secure the henhouse. What makes you think you've got a tap?"

  "Odd stuff. I'll have a conversation and the next thing I know, something I've said is all over the place. I'm not talking about office gossip. It's something more insidious than that, like comments I've made to out-of-state customers that people here would have no way of knowing."

  "Could it be a simple case of someone listening in? A lot of employees have access to the phones out there."

  "Not my private line. It isn't like anything we do is top secret, but we all say things we'd rather not have spread around. Someone's making me look very bad. Is there some way you can check it out?"

  "I can try," I said. "What about the phone itself? Have you tried unscrewing the mouthpiece?"

  "Sure, but I don't know what the inside of a receiver's supposed to look like. I'm not picking up any odd noises or clicks, I will say that."

  "You wouldn't if the tap is set up properly. It'd be virtually undetectable. Of course, it might not be that at all," I said. "Maybe the office itself is bugged."

  "In which case, what? Is that something you can spot?"

  "Sometimes, with luck. It's also possible to buy an electronic device that will scan for bugs. I'll see if I can locate one before I come out. Give me a couple of hours and I'll meet you at the plant. I've got some other things I probably ought to take care of first."

  "Right. Thanks."

  I took the next hour to type up my notes, clipping the newspaper article about the explosion to include with my files. I tried Lyda Case's telephone number in Texas on the off chance that her roommate had heard from her. It would help if I knew how to find her here in Santa Teresa.

  At 9:10, my phone rang. It was Darcy calling from California Fidelity and talking as if she had a hand cupped over the mouthpiece. "Big trouble," she said.

  I could feel my heart sink. "Now what?"

  "If I change the subject abruptly, you'll know Mac walked in," she murmured. "I overheard a conversation between him and Jewel. He says someone tipped the cops about
the warehouse inventory. It looks like Lance Wood moved all the merchandise to another location before his warehouse burned down. The inventory he claimed reimbursement for was all worthless junk."

  "That's bullshit," I said. "I saw some of it myself. I must have gone through five or six boxes when I inspected the place."

  "Well, I guess he had a few real boxes seeded in among the fake. He's going to be charged, Kinsey. Arson and fraud, and you're being named as co-conspirator. Mac turned everything over to the D.A. this morning. I thought you'd like to know in case you need to talk to an attorney."

  "What's the timetable? Do you know?"

  "Mr. Motycka isn't in today, but I can leave a message on his desk," she said.

  "Is that Mac?"

  "He didn't say exactly, but we're expecting him some time today. Uh-hun. Yes, I'll do that. All right, thanks," she said and hung up.

  I put a call through to Lonnie Kingman and alerted him. He said he'd check with the D.A.'s office and find out if a warrant was being issued. His advice was to surrender voluntarily, thus avoiding the ignominy and uncertainty of a public arrest.

  "Jesus, I can't believe this is happening," I said.

  "Well, it hasn't yet. Don't worry about it until I tell you to," he said.

  I grabbed my handbag and car keys and headed out the door. I had disconnected my emotions again. There was no point in letting anxiety get in my way. I hopped in my car and drove over to an electrical-supply place on Granita. My knowledge of electronic surveillance was bound to be out-of-date, limited to information picked up in a crash course at the Police Academy nearly ten years before. The advances in miniaturization since then had probably revolutionized the field, but I suspected the basics were always going to be the same. Microphone, transmitter, recorder of some type, probably voice-activated these days. The planting can be done by a technician disguised as any commonly seen service person: telephone lineman, meter reader, cable-television installer. Electronic surveillance is expensive, illegal unless authorized by the court, and looks a lot easier on television than it is in real life. Bug detection is another matter altogether. It was always possible, of course, that Lance Wood was imagining the whole thing, but I doubted it.

  The small all-band receiver I bought was about the size of a portable radio. While not truly all-band, it was sufficient to cover most bugging frequencies-30-50 MHz and 88-108 MHz. If the bug in his office was wired, I was going to have to find the wire myself, but if the bug was wireless, the receiver would start emitting a high-pitched squeal when it was within range.

  I drove out to Colgate with my windows rolled down, parched air whipping through the interior of the VW like a convection oven. The weather forecaster on the car radio seemed as baffled as I was. It felt like August, asphalt shimmering in the heat. January in Santa Teresa is usually our best month. Everything is green, flowers in full bloom, the temperatures in the low seventies, mild and pleasant. The time-and-temp sign on the bank building was showing 89 degrees and it wasn't yet noon.

  I parked in front of Wood/Warren and went in. Lance came out of his office in a wilted shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  "Do we need to watch what we say once we go in there?" he asked, indicating the office door.

  "I don't think so. Let's let 'em know we're hot on the trail. Maybe it'll shake 'em up."

  Before we started work, I did a quick check of both interior and exterior office walls on the off-chance that someone had installed a spike mike, a small probe that can be inserted between the studs, or hidden in a hollow door, the door panel itself serving as a diaphragm to transmit sound. Lance's office was located in the right-front corner of the building. The construction on those two sides was block and fieldstone, which didn't lend itself to easy installation. Somebody would have had to drill through solid rock. Inside, one office wall was contiguous with the reception area, where the pickup unit would have been difficult to conceal. The fourth wall was clean.

  Company employees watched the two of us incuriously as we moved through the preliminary phases of the search. If anyone was worried about surveillance equipment coming to light, there was no indication of it.

  We went into the office. I examined the telephone first, taking the plate off the bottom, unscrewing the mouth and ear pieces. As far as I could tell, the instrument was clean.

  "I take it it's not the phone," Lance said, watching me.

  "Who knows? The bug might be downstream," I said. "I don't have any way to find out if somebody's tapped into the line at the pole. We'll have to operate on the premise that the bug's somewhere in the room. It's just a matter of coming up with it."

  "What exactly are" we looking for?" Lance asked.

  I shrugged. "Microphone, transmitter. If you're being spied on by the FBI or the CIA, we probably won't find anything. I'm assuming those guys are good. On the other hand, if your eavesdropper's an amateur, the device might be fairly crude."

  "What's that thing?"

  "My handy little all-band receiver," I said. "This should pick up any sound being transmitted by the bug in a feedback loop that'll result in a high-pitched squeal. We'll try this first, and if nothing comes to light, we'll take the office apart item by item."

  I flipped the receiver on and began to work my way through the popular bugging frequencies, moving around the office like someone dowsing for water. Nothing.

  I tucked the debugger in the outside pocket of my handbag and started searching in earnest, working my way around the periphery of the room, then toward the center in an imaginary grid pattern that covered every square foot.

  Nothing.

  I stood for a moment, perplexed, my eye traveling along the ceiling, down the walls, along the baseboard. Where was the sucker? I felt my attention tugged by the phone jack just to the right of the door. There was no telephone cord coming from it.

  "What's that?"

  "What? Oh. I had the jack moved when I changed the office around. The telephone used to be over there."

  I got down on my hands and knees and inspected the jack. It looked okay. I took out my screwdriver and popped off the cover. A small section of the baseboard had been cut away. Tucked into the space was a microcassette recorder about the size of a deck of playing cards.

  "Hello," I said. The tape gave a half-turn and stopped.

  I moved the microsensor button away from the voice-activated setting and placed the recorder on his desk. Lance sank heavily into his swivel chair. He and I exchanged a long look.

  "Why?" he said, baffled.

  "I don't know. You tell me."

  He shook his head. "I can't even think where to start. I don't have enemies as far as I know."

  "Apparently you do. And it isn't just you. Hugh Case is dead and Terry would have been if he'd picked up that package instead of Olive. What do the three of you have in common?"

  "Nothing, I swear. We're all connected to Wood/Warren, but none of us even do the same kind of work. We make hydrogen furnaces. That's all we do. And Hugh died two years ago. Why then? If somebody wants control of the company, why kill off the key personnel?"

  "Maybe that's not the motive. It could be something wholly unrelated to the work. Give it some thought. I'll talk to Terry and have him do the same. Maybe there's something you've overlooked."

  "There must be," he said, his face florid with heat and tension. He pushed at the tape recorder with one finger. "Thanks for this."

  "Be careful. There could be another one. Maybe this one was planted someplace obvious to distract us from the other." I picked up my handbag and started toward the door, pausing at the threshold. "Get in touch if you think of anything. And if you hear from Lyda Case, let me know."

  As I passed through the reception area, I did a detour to the right. This was the office where the engineers had their drafting tables. John Salkowitz glanced up at me from the rough diagram he was working on. "Can I help you?"

  "Is Ava Daugherty here someplace?"

  "She just left. She had some errands
to run, but she should be right back."

  I took out my business card and placed it on her desk. "Have her get in touch with me, if you would."

  "Will do."

  I was home again by 3:00, feeling hot and grimy from crawling the perimeter of Lance's office, peering under things. I let myself into my apartment and tossed my handbag on the couch. A piercing shriek started up and I jumped a foot, grabbing up my bag. I snatched the debugger out of the outside compartment and flipped the switch off. Jesus Christ, I'd scared myself to death! The silence was wonderful. I stood there, heart pounding, enjoying the air conditioning the sudden sweat had generated. I patted myself on the chest and blew out a big breath. I shook my head and moved into the kitchenette. I felt dry, longing for a beer. The apartment was as close and muggy as a sauna. I checked the refrigerator. I didn't even have a can of Diet Pepsi.

  And then I paused, my head swiveling slowly toward the room behind me. I closed the refrigerator door and moved back to the couch. I picked up the debugger and flipped it on again, sweeping the room. The high-pitched squeal cut through the silence like a burglar alarm.

  I crossed to the corner and stood there, looking down. I hunkered on my heels, running a hand carefully into the sound hole in Daniel's guitar. The tiny transmitter, no bigger than a matchbox, was affixed to the body of the instrument with tape. A chill started at the base of my spine and raced up my body. Daniel was somehow connected to the case.

  Chapter 21

  * * *

  It took me nearly two hours to find the voice-activated tape recorder which turned out to be hidden on the sun porch that formerly connected my converted garage apartment to the main house. I wasn't sure how Daniel had gotten in. Perhaps he'd picked the lock, as I would have in his place. The tape was new, which meant he must have been there fairly recently, pulling out the old tape, inserting this one. I couldn't even remember what was going on when he had first appeared. It was appalling now to think of all the telephone conversations he must have picked up in the last few days. Even messages coming in on my answering machine would have been recorded and passed on, not to mention the lengthy discussion I'd had with him about the case itself. He'd been so interested, so astute in the questions he asked. I'd felt so gratified by his attention. Looking back, I could see that in his own way he'd tried to warn me. All that talk about what a liar he was. Had every word he said to me been false? I sat on my back step, turning the situation over in my mind. Who had put Daniel up to it? Lyda Case perhaps, or maybe Ebony. One or the other of them might have run into Daniel, the amoral, the promiscuous, bored and at loose ends, restless and sick of life. What difference would it make to him who he betrayed? He'd done me in before. One more time couldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It was staggering to think of all the information that must have been passed down the line, just by listening in, just by assembling my end of telephone conversations. Maybe that's how Andy Motycka had figured out Darcy and I were onto him. Something had caused him to cut and run. Olive's death hadn't hit the papers until the day after he disappeared. Had he known what was going to happen? I had to find Daniel.