Tim Green: The Letter Of The Law

"If you're not there?" she asked with alarm.

"I'll be there," he told her. "But it won't look that way. The police staked out my cabin after I ran, but they should be gone by now. I don't think they'll do much more than stop by from time to time to see if I came back. So that's our place."

"But even if he's following me," Casey pointed out, "I don't think he'd follow me to your place, do you?"

Sales shrugged. "He might not, but he wants to get you, and way out there, if he sees you by yourself, well, he just might try it. It's the best place for me to trap him if he does follow you, so I think we should at least try it."

"What if you're wrong about the police and they're still watching your cabin? Lipton won't try anything if they're there, and they'll want to know what I'm doing."

"This is where that disk will come in perfectly," he said. "I was thinking about it. When Bolinger gets his hands on the disk, he's going to take every man he's got and start chasing down leads. I don't think he's going to waste a couple guys out in the hills watching my place. And if they are there, then we'll just have to find some other out-of-the-way places for you to go to that make sense until he makes his move."

"And where will you be? You can't follow me in your truck," Casey said. "He'll see that."

"Don't worry about me. He can't follow us both. When you leave here, I'll follow you to the police station. After that, I'll go out to the hills, park the truck on a back road, and get to the cabin before you do. You just go inside and wait. You can use the phone or whatever and I'll be right outside. If Lipton comes for you, I'll get him."

"When you say 'get him,' you mean you'll capture him?" Casey asked.

"That's my intent," he said. "I told you I would."

"But last night, you shot at him," she reminded him.

Sales flashed an angry look at Casey, but it quickly melted away. "Marcia liked to talk about what she was learning in law school. She used to talk all the time about mens rea…"

"A guilty mind," Casey said.

"Yeah, a guilty mind," Sales continued. "She used to say that to be guilty of a crime you have to have intent. I'm not planning on killing Lipton in cold blood. If I have to use this to stop him, I will. Last night, I simply reacted to the situation. I can't guarantee his safety. That's not what you want, is it?"

After a pause, she replied softly, "No. I appreciate what you did for me last night. Thank you. I'm glad you were there, and I certainly understand why you used your gun." She shrugged and said hesitantly, "It's different when you're in it. All the theories go out the window… I feel like I'm caught in a spider web or something. I can't see him, but I know that he's out there, hidden away, watching me struggle and just waiting to run out into the open and wrap me up like a fly."

"When you went into the building last night," Sales said, "I stayed in my car out on the street. After I saw your partner's car come out of the garage, I figured you'd be right behind him. When you didn't come out, I decided to go into the building through the garage. It was just chance that I stumbled onto Lipton. He almost had you. When he heard me coming, he didn't stick around. He took off like a flash, and I took some wild shots, hoping to get lucky. But what I'm saying is… this time I'll be ready, and he won't get away."

Casey found a meter half a block from the police station. When she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she was momentarily filled with apprehension. Lipton could be lurking anywhere in the busy throng of people. It seemed he was always one step ahead of her despite the fact that there was no way for him to know what moves she was planning to make. Casey searched the street, and when she saw Sales cruising slowly along, slumped down in the front seat of his uncle's blue pickup, she felt suddenly reassured.

With the large manila envelope clamped in both hands, Casey hurried up the steps of police headquarters. Inside, the shift change had left the lobby busy enough for her to simply set her thin package down on the floor and walk quickly away without exciting notice. When she got to the door, Casey paused long enough to see a uniformed patrolwoman stop, bend down, and pick up the envelope, which bore Bolinger's name in bold black letters. The female officer looked around, apparently for the detective who had dropped his package. Casey turned and left, again scanning the crowded sidewalk as well as the busy street for any sign of Lipton.

Bolinger was on the phone and into his fourth cup of coffee by the time the envelope found its way through the department up onto his desk. He waved his thanks to the detective who'd dropped it off and eyed it suspiciously while he finished the call. After hanging up, he examined it. He could feel the disk through the paper. Not knowing if it was a CD for a stereo or a computer or something else entirely, he opened it with caution. The silver disk still didn't tell him anything, so he took it to Farnhorst, who was more in tune with the digital age.

"Computer disk," Farnhorst stated authoritatively. "A blank you use to copy stuff onto. Whose is it?"

"I don't know," Bolinger said, squinting his eyes. "Izenberg dropped it off on my desk and said something about someone finding it on the floor in the lobby. It's got my name on it, but I have no idea where it came from."

"Maybe it's an anonymous tip," Farnhorst joked.

"Can you tell me what's on it?"

Farnhorst raised his eyebrows and said loudly, "You kidding me? You really don't know how to use one of these?"

Bolinger was suddenly aware of all the younger, computer-literate detectives who were sitting around the large room trying their best not to notice his predicament.

"Come on, man," Farnhorst said in a tone that only an old friend could use with the sergeant. "Give me that."

Farnhorst swiped the disk out of Bolinger's hand and rose from his chair with a grumble. Bolinger followed him penitently over to the computers, neither of which was being used at the moment. Bolinger pulled up a chair and watched over Farnhorst's shoulder as he inserted the disk into the D drive and it whirred to life. As Farnhorst accessed the disk, the Microsoft licensing box appeared and he emitted a low whistle.

Bolinger, who had no idea what his friend was seeing, said, "What?"

"Whatever's on here belongs to the professor," Farnhorst said as he began to analyze the directory.

"You mean Lipton?"

"The one and only," Farnhorst told him. "All kinds of shit on here, Bob. It's gonna take me some time to sift through it…"

"I don't give a shit if it takes us three months," Bolinger said, grabbing a chair and scooting it right up next to his friend's. "Neither of us is going anywhere until we turn this thing inside out."

"Who would-" Bolinger began the question out loud and then cut himself short. He was pretty sure he knew exactly who would leave something like this in the lobby, and he was better off not saying it out loud.

By lunchtime, they were into the good stuff. When Bolinger saw the bio on Casey Jordan, it made him more certain than ever where the disk had come from. Of course, he appreciated her discretion. As far as he knew, as far as a judge would know, the information had just appeared. If Lipton couldn't prove the violation of an attorney-client privilege, then a jury would see this information. Bolinger felt the excitement of a big case breaking wide open boiling up inside him. This disk would shortcut his efforts by months or even years. Who could say if he ever could have accumulated such information? Even with the FBI's subpoena power, he would have had to enlist the cooperation of random law enforcement people from all over the country to track down stale cases when they all had fresh ones to worry about.