John Sandford - Mortal Prey

"She does," Sally said. "We already know that." She made a note, and said, "Makes me a little nervous to be talking here."

Lucas said to Dallaglio, "Think-anybody else. Think of every phone call you made. That Paul made."

She thought for a minute, then shook her head. "We were really running around, getting ready. We were gonna be gone for maybe a month, or even more… I… you know, Paul called the Wall Street Journal guy, I think, the delivery guy, and canceled the paper. I think he said something about it."

"We should get the call records and go over them," Sally said. "Just to make sure."

"Gotta talk to the Karens," Lucas said. "Gotta do that tonight."

They talked to the Karens separately, shaking them out of bed, giving them the news about Dallaglio. They both appeared to have been sleeping soundly. Lucas had worked enough homicides to believe that sound sleep came with an innocent mind. If either had killed Dallaglio, she would have been on pins and needles to know what happened-or would already know, and only masterful actresses could have played the shock on their faces when Sally gave them the news.

Both said that Dallaglio had warned them against telling anyone else about the trip. Both said that they had obeyed the order-hadn't even talked to each other about it.

When the interviews were done, Lucas said, "We need to look at Dallaglio's phone records. These two didn't have anything to do with it."

"A hasty conclusion," Sally said. They were standing under a lush, small-leaved oak tree in one of the Karens' front yard. "We don't know enough-"

"I know enough," Lucas said. "Neither one of them suspected the killing was coming. Or, if they did, they were good enough actresses that we'll never figure it out. Either way, it's time to move on."

"Derik should have the phone records by now," Sally said. She looked at her watch. "It's twoA. M. You want to keep running?"

"I'm just getting under way," Lucas said, grinning at her in the dark. "Love this kind of thing, tearing around in the middle of the night. Maybe we oughta find some caffeine."

When they got back to the FBI office, Derik was waiting with an unhappy surprise. "We got the phones for all the security guys. There were quite a few calls, but the numbers check out, unless Rinker's working at a Pizza Hut. There was another number we didn't expect."

He pushed a piece of paper at them. The paper was a list of numbers, and one of the numbers was circled in red. "That's an unlisted phone. It goes to John Ross. The call was made at 5:10P. M. from Dallaglio's home office."

"Somebody called Ross?"

"Yeah. Probably Dallaglio. There's a phone call from that home office number to Dallaglio's mother's home, and that lasted twelve minutes. Then, one minute later, another call to Executive Air, which we figure was arrangements on the plane. And one minute after that, the call to Ross's, which lasted for two minutes. We think it was Dallaglio, working down a list."

Lucas nodded: That seemed likely. He tapped the Executive Air call. "I wonder if Rinker used those guys-if that's how she got around. Has anybody looked at Executive Air?"

Sally shook her head. "No. We can. But that could be quite a few people…"

"So get one of your paper experts to do it-find out who works there, cross-reference them against Rinker's known work record. Check criminal backgrounds, see if there was any kind of link between Executive Air and the assholes. The Mafias, or whatever they are."

Sally nodded. "There's still the problem of Ross. That he might have set it up."

"We should talk to Mrs. Dallaglio again. See if there was any kind of competitive thing going on."

"Think she'd tell us?"

"Why not? She's not a hood-we can't hang her. She doesn't know nuthin' about nuthin'."

"Too late now," Sally said. Lucas turned to look at the wall clock. Ten after three.

"First thing tomorrow," he said.

They agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at eight o'clock. They'd had enough for the night. Derik said he had a few more things to do, that he'd be another fifteen minutes, and Lucas and Sally walked out to the stairs. On the way down, Lucas stopped, said, "Goddamnit."

"What?"

"I gotta go back. I need to talk to Derik. I'll catch a ride back with him."

"Something important? A coup?"

"Probably not. Another detail to check."

Back upstairs, he asked Derik how long it would take to get all of Ross's phone calls for the past two months, since the shooting in Mexico, both outgoing and incoming, with IDs on each phone. "We practically live in the phone company computer," he said. "I could call a guy, get them here in a half hour."

"Call the guy. And I'll need all of Patricia Hill's calls from the same time. I'm gonna get a Coke. Maybe spend a little time here…"

Lucas got a coke from the canteen, and when he got back, Derik said, "We know six phones that he uses personally. We're getting lists for all six. They'll come up here…" And he showed Lucas how to manipulate the mail feature on the group's main computer.

"How long?"

"He said he'd run them right away. The rumor is getting around that we're in trouble, so our guys back in Washington are doing everything they can."

"Good enough." Lucas sat down and stretched. "You can take off if you like."

"I might, if you can handle this. You could call me at the hotel if you have trouble."

"Should be okay. I get along with computers."

"You were Davenport Simulations, somebody told me."

"Used to be. Got bought out by the current management," Lucas said.

"Hope you made a shitload of money."

Lucas nodded. "I did, pretty much. Right there in the middle of the dot-com thing."

"But the company's still around, right? Doing all right?"

"Yup. I'm out of it, don't even own any stock-but from what I hear, they're doing okay."

Derik fussed a bit, then left, leaving Lucas in the quiet conference room. He checked the computer every few minutes, then found that he could sign onto his home ISP and get at his e-mail. That sucked up a half hour, deleting the fast money and pornography offers, checking a few of the Porsche aftermarket companies. Then it occurred to him to check boat companies, because the FBI computer was so quick, and he started downloading photos of shallow-water boats from Maverick, and then he got onto the Boston Whaler and Hurricane sites, went out to look at C-Dory and a few more. By the time he got back to the official mail, it was after four.

When he checked the mail, he found lists for the six phones that Ross was known to use. He took a while to figure out the formatting, then started with the longest list, which showed more than a thousand calls. On the fourth list, linked to the unlisted office phone, he got lucky. A phone call went into Ross's office at three o'clock from Los Angeles, from a BP station. There was another three o'clock call from Sacramento, then another from someplace in Wyoming, a longer one, another from Kansas, three more from St. Louis. All at three o'clock in the afternoon, all from gas stations.

Rinker was calling Ross. Lucas would bet on it. There was one good way to confirm it: He pulled the Hill list, to see if he could find a duplication, a call to Hill from the same time and place as a call to Ross.

But there were none.

He took a turn around the office. Was he on the wrong trail? The line of calls coming across the country was so good, and at exactly the right time. But then, Ross was in the trucking business, and was also in the organized-crime business. He would get calls from phone booths at interstate gas stations.

He walked around the room a couple of times, trying to figure a way to confirm the calls, and began to worry that he was "locking in," a problem he saw with other cops, all the time, the sure sense that something was just so, when it wasn't. Something that felt so good that it had to be. You could build a great logical case out of pure bullshit, and it happened too frequently.