Marcia Clark - The Competition

Graden came around the desk. “Now listen, any trouble at all, you call for backup immediately. No cowboy antics.” We nodded. “I’ll have them put you on the first available flight.”

We headed for the door, and then I remembered what I’d been meaning to ask him. “Any progress on finding out who planted the bug in my office?”

“Nothing yet, but we’re moving pretty fast. Your investigators are helping out.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“And text me when you land. There and here. Please.” I had a habit of forgetting to do that. I nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. Graden did not look reassured. “Be safe.”

Bailey picked up the murder book on our way out. “I’ll drop you at the Biltmore. Pack fast-they’ll probably get us an early evening flight.”

I was sitting on my suitcase, trying to get it zipped, when Bailey called to say she was downstairs. “We’ve got a six o’clock flight and the traffic’s going to be a bitch. Get the lead out.”

They say you should wear layers when traveling to a colder climate. I took the advice to heart: long underwear, jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, turtleneck sweater, down vest, wool scarf, and my long down coat. I waddled down to the lobby as fast as I could, and by the time I got there, I was starting to sweat.

Angel raised an eyebrow when he saw me. “I didn’t know you skied.”

“I don’t.” Actually, I used to. I liked the speed, loved carrying the schnapps-filled bota bag, but-big surprise-I couldn’t handle the cold.

“You flying up to Alaska or something?”

“No.”

Angel mouthed “okay” as he held the door open for a group of twenty-somethings who had that giddy “I got off work early and I’m ready to party” look. I rolled my suitcase over to Bailey’s trunk and motioned for her to pop it open.

“Here, let me help you with that,” Angel said. He reached down and hefted it up with a grunt, then swung it into the trunk.

The moment I got into the car, Bailey said, “What did you put in that thing? I can hear my back tires going flat.” Then she glanced at me. “Nice look, Nanook. Should only take you three hours to get through security.”

The traffic was the worst kind-barely moving, but people were still trying to dart and weave through it. I’d rolled down the window to cool off, but the heavy exhaust fumes made me feel like I was inhaling cancer. Better to sweat than die. I closed the window. “Think it’s too soon to call Harrellson?” We were praying that Mark Unger, the kid in San Diego, was our second shooter, but Harrellson had threatened to strangle us if we called and bugged him about his progress.

“Probably. Do it anyway.”

I called him at the station and got his voice mail. I called him on his cell…and got his voice mail. “Damn.”

“Yeah, it’s a pisser. We’ll try him again after we get checked in.”

But when we got to the airport there was no time to spare. Luckily, the security line moved fast. Even so, we had to run all the way to the gate and only just made it before they closed the door to the Jetway.

“What’ve you got on Amanda so far?” I asked, as we fastened our seat belts. Bailey had asked one of the unis to dig into her records.

“Nothing that stands out. Average student, never in trouble. Driver’s license shows no outstanding tickets. No juvenile history.”

Bailey pulled out a print of a photograph and passed it to me. A serious-looking young girl with long, straight brown hair parted down the middle stared back at me. She had the kind of features that could be prettied up with makeup and a little confidence, but even in this photo I could see the insecurity in her eyes. “Anybody in her family into guns?”

“Dad owns a hunting rifle and a handgun, but he doesn’t have a carry.”

Colorado was big hunting country, so that wasn’t unusual, but it did mean she had some connection to guns. “You find any gun shows near Boulder?”

Bailey gave me a little smile. “Funny you should mention it. I found a pretty big one in Colorado Springs.”

“When was it?”

“April.”

Six months before the shooting. “The timing works,” I said.

“And it’s only an hour and a half away from Boulder.”

The edges of the puzzle were starting to fall into place. I sighed. Now if we could just find the center piece.

By the timewe landed in Boulder it was almost nine thirty. Too late to drop in on Amanda. Bailey rented a car and we drove straight to our hotel, the St. Julien, a fairly nice place with a spa we’d never get to use. Bailey called Harrellson again. And got his voice mail. “Shit,” Bailey said. She threw her cell phone on the bed.

“On the bright side, this must mean Unger’s still in the running,” I said. If he’d been ruled out, Harrellson would’ve let us know by now.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The restaurant was closed, so we showered and ordered room service. I got the chef’s salad, Bailey ordered a hamburger, and we both decided we deserved a bottle of Pinot Noir. When our dinner came, I poured us each a glass and we toasted. “To a cooperative Amanda,” I said.

“And to finding a healthy and breathing Evan.” We clinked glasses.

“I’ve been trying to figure out why she’d do it,” Bailey said. She shook out some ketchup on her fries. They smelled so good-too good to resist. “Wouldn’t you be suspicious if someone told you to mail some letters? I sure as hell would be. And I’d tell him to go mail them himself.”

“You’re assuming she doesn’t know what she’s mailing-”

Bailey picked up her hamburger, and I snuck a couple of fries off her plate.

“Well…yeah.”

“If you’re right, then either she’s kind of dim or this guy has something on her-”

“Or he knows how to charm her,” Bailey said.

As she took another bite of her hamburger, I snaked my hand up to cadge another couple of fries. Bailey sighed, took a fistful of them, dropped them on my bread plate, and passed me the ketchup.

“If she’s shy, insecure, and not particularly streetwise, and he’s kind of a hottie, I can see it,” I said. “No one’s ever paid much attention to her, and then suddenly there’s this charming guy who’s telling her how great she is-”

Bailey sipped her wine. “It fits with what our shrinkers have been saying about psychopaths. How they can be charismatic and really good at manipulating people.”

It did. But if Bailey’s hunch was wrong, if Amanda knew what she was doing in sending those letters-assuming she was the letter sender-our chances of getting her to cooperate with us weren’t good. In fact, I could envision her being like the Manson girls: martyrs to the cause of protecting their “hero.”

“We should figure out what we can threaten her with, just in case she hitches up on us,” I said. “Maybe some federal charges for helping to send those letters across state lines or something.”

Bailey ate the last of her fries. “Let’s not go there yet. We have at least a fifty-fifty chance she’ll be cooperative.” She stood up and yawned. “I’m beat, and I’m warning you we’re getting an early start. I want to get to this girl’s house before she leaves for school.”

I was dead tired myself and it was already close to midnight. “But that means we’ll have to be at her house before seven thirty.” Bailey stared at me. “Fine.”

But as it turned out, I was so keyed up my eyes flew open at six a.m. Neither one of us wanted to bother with breakfast. We made coffee in the little two-cup machine in the room and drank it while we got ready. I piled on my thermal underwear, sweater, down vest, and coat, slipped on my gloves, and wrapped my wool scarf around my neck.