Marcia Muller - Locked In

Over the din, Adah said, “Okay, hold it! I want Rae, Craig, and Mick to share their notes and start putting a timeline together. Patrick, you create one of your flowcharts. Everybody else pitch in. This is big-way too big to delay on. And Hy, can you alert Glenn Solomon to what’s going on? We need a heavy-hitting attorney to bring this to the DA.”

“What about who shot Shar?” Rae said somewhat plaintively. “We’re losing sight of that.”

“Not for a moment we aren’t. It’s all going to come out now.”

Breakfast in the hospital: runny eggs, some kind of sausage she couldn’t identify, dry toast, weak coffee. She left most of it. Then the doc said she was okay, the X-rays had been negative, no concussion, and she could go. She got dressed and asked the nurse for Shar’s room number. But when she finally found the nurses’ station on that floor, they wouldn’t let Julia see her. Limited visitors, they said.

Disappointed, she went out into the watery sunlight-fog burning off-and stood wondering what to do next. Get some rest today, the doc had told her. Sure, she’d said. But she had things to do. She took out her phone and dialed Craig. He didn’t pick up. She called the agency. Ted was terse with her, told her they had a situation brewing and to get her ass over there.

Julia broke the connection. Her nose still throbbed from when she’d run into the grape stake, she’d been bashed on the head last night, and now she was being ordered around. Well, Ted probably didn’t know about the head bashing and her hospitalization; he’d left before that almeja had attacked her. So she’d get her ass over to the pier, but first she’d stop at Richman Labs; they’d promised her a report on the duffel bag by nine.

On the bus from the labs to the pier-where her car still sat-she read the report they’d given her. The bag had been manufactured in Taiwan; it was a brand that had been sold at quality luggage stores until it was discontinued three years ago. Smudged fingerprints on the leather outside. No markings to identify the owner. Two small patches of blood on the cloth lining-AB negative.

Rare. What was Haven Dietz’s blood type? Her attacker must’ve gotten some on himself, and then in the bag. Was there blood on the money? She’d have to call the Peepleses and ask.

So what was this “situation” at the pier? Shar? Dios mio! Had Shar died?

No. Ted had sounded excited, energized. If Shar had died, he would’ve been crying. Besides, Julia had just been to the nurses’ station on Shar’s floor; they’d said she was resting, not dead.

The bus pulled into its last stop on Harrison. Julia got out and walked the few blocks to the pier.

The case was coming together so fast it was almost scary. He sat at the keyboard at Shar’s desk-because hers was the biggest office-inputting the facts Craig read to him. On the floor, Patrick crawled over one of the big whiteboard flowcharts he used to keep track of cases in progress, adding details, wiping out others, creating a timeline. In their separate offices, the rest of the staff were fact-checking, establishing a rock-solid foundation. Hy had gone to consult with Shar’s friend Glenn Solomon. Glenn would love this case: he loathed corrupt politicians.

Of course, who didn’t?

Mick felt higher than he had since Shar was shot. Miles higher than he’d felt since he and Craig had walked into that grim scene at Big Sur. Then and later, riding his bike to Monterey, he’d felt hollow and afraid; at Jim Yatz’s house last night he’d been more in control, able to handle the situation right. And now-this made the other things worth it. This was the conclusion of the hunt.

And maybe the answer to who had attacked Shar.

Thelia came into the room, handed a sheaf of papers to Craig, and went away. Craig read them, handed them to Mick, and pointed out a couple of lines: on the day before he was killed, Paul Janssen had ordered his broker at Edward Jones to sell off a number of stocks from his considerable portfolio; they had yielded more than five hundred thousand dollars, and the funds had gone into his cash account, upon which Janssen could have written a check on Monday.

Paying Teller off, in addition to signing whatever document she’d brought him.

Mick glanced at Craig. Craig nodded and went to give the information to Patrick. Mick entered it into the computer.

Derek relayed more deep background on Teller. She’d been linked romantically with Janssen for a short time before his successful run for the state house of representatives. It was not common knowledge, but the source-a blogger with excellent contacts in state government-was reliable.

More information into the timeline.

Patrick said, “This is shaping up really well. Can somebody get me another whiteboard?”

Mick hit the intercom for Ted, and shortly afterward Ted’s assistant Kendra hurried in with one.

Julia was out, interviewing a domestic employee of Amanda Teller whose name had surfaced earlier. Rae was in Lafayette, talking again with Senta Summers. She’d attempted to contact Cheryl Fitzgerald, the remaining cofounder of the Pro Terra Party who had threatened Summers the night before, but her office said she had left unexpectedly for Italy. Fled with a fistful of blackmail money, Rae claimed. She’d ask Hy to put one of the people in RI’s Rome office onto locating Fitzgerald. Adah had hired an operative from another agency to keep tabs on Lee Summers; he was at party headquarters, where he often stayed for days on end.

Hy returned. Glenn Solomon was in full battle mode, he said. Ready to roll. How soon could they have the timeline and files ready?

Soon, Mick told him. Very soon.

But as he went back to his keyboard, he found himself thinking that even though everything fit something was wrong. There was a missing piece. Who had gone to the pier that night and put the bullet in Shar’s head?

L ooking at the ceiling again. God, I hate ceilings! I want to sit up. Get up. Walk out of here into the sunshine. Breathe fresh air. They’ve taken me off the ventilator again; I could do it, if I could just make my damn limbs work right.

My fingers tried to make a fist-

They moved!

Just a fraction of an inch, but they moved!

A wild elation coursed through me. I tried to call out for the nurse.

“ Ack.”

My throat was raw, the sound weak and pathetic.

But I’d made a sound!

“ Ack … ack… ack…”

I sounded like an asthmatic duck, but so what?

I moved my right index finger-tremulous, tiny motion, but all my own!

“ Ack … ack… ack…”

I’d get their attention yet.

The doctor, what was it he’d said? The remaining crap was out of my head-well, he’d spoken more eloquently and technically than that, but what it boiled down to was that the crap was gone, there was no more swelling, and I should start regaining bodily functions.

“ Ack !”

A nurse appeared around the curtains. She moved forward swiftly, took my pulse, looked into my eyes.

“ Ack !”

She nodded. “I’ll page Dr. Travers, Ms. McCone. I think he’ll be as happy as you seem to be right now.”

He, Hy, and Glenn Solomon left the DA’s office in the Hall of Justice at Sixth and Bryant Streets and rode the elevator down.

“It’s not an airtight case yet,” Glenn said, “but it’s good.”

Craig said, “It still doesn’t link the Pro Terra people with what happened to McCone.”