Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

The jury filed out. Juror Number Two was still smirking and winking at Madam Foreperson, who looked back once over her shoulder at Number Two, rolled her eyes, and then disappeared from view, radiating chill into the air.

Back in Syd’s basement interrogation-room office, Dar found Chief Investigator Olson hard at work. The secretary had stepped out. A portable fan and the open door alleviated the worst of the stuffiness, but fifty years of close encounters of the third kind between sweating felons and equally sweaty cop interrogators still left a hint of miasma in the little room.

“Thanks for waiting to see me,” she said. “The DA and Dickweed showed me the morning papers. I see they’ve quit calling you the Road Rage Killer.”

Dar poured himself a bit more cop coffee, and said, “Right. Now I’m the Mysterious Detective.”

“Let’s see how good a detective you are,” Syd said, and gestured toward her map with the red, blue, green, and yellow thumbtacks. “Can you tell me what the legend is for my little tactical command center map here?”

Dar pulled his reading glasses out of his sport coat pocket and then peered over the top of them. “Red and blue are on roads—mostly freeways, not surface streets. So I’d guess…swoop-and-squats?”

Syd nodded, impressed. “Mostly swoop-and-squats. Can you tell the difference between the reds and blues?”

“Nope,” he said. “There are a lot more reds than blues…Wait a minute, I remember this one on the I-5 here. It was a fatality accident. Ancient blue Volvo. Unemployed green-card immigrant driving. All the trappings of a swoop-and-squat, but the driver of the squat car died.”

“All the red pins are swoop-and-squats with fatalities,” said Syd.

Dar whistled softly. “So many? That doesn’t make much sense. Swoop-and-squats are usually staged on surface streets, not freeways. Too dangerous on freeways—someone has to be alive to collect the money.”

Syd nodded. “What about the green pins?” she said.

Dar studied the location of the more numerous greens. Two seemed to be out in San Diego Harbor. Another three were clustered together in an unlikely spot in the bare hills east of Del Mar. Others were scattered around the L.A. and San Diego metropolitan areas and much of the area in between. None were on roads.

“Construction-site accidents,” said Dar. “The two in the bay looked at first like possible fraud cases because of the high coverage, but in each case they were long falls from scaffolds—both fatal. Nasty.”

“Still fraudulent, though,” said Syd.

Dar gave her a doubtful look. “I investigated the one at the aircraft carrier,” he said. “The painter working for the civilian contractor had a history of fraudulent claims, but in this case he took a header sixty-five feet into a pile of steel pipes. His family didn’t need the money that bad. The whole family was making a good living with slip-and-falls and swoop-and-squats.”

Syd smiled and crossed her arms. “How about the yellow pins?”

“There’s only one on the map,” said Dar. “The others are all over here in the margins waiting their turn.”

“And?”

“And the one on the map is above Lake Elsinore, about where The Lookout Restaurant is perched, so I’d guess yellow has something to do with me.”

“Correct. Actually, the yellow pins will mark points where someone has tried to kill you.”

Dar raised an eyebrow and looked at the margin of the map. Another dozen yellow pins were waiting.

“I need to visit Lawrence and Trudy’s place,” Syd said briskly, gathering up her huge shoulder bag and setting her personal computer in a carrying case. “I know roughly where they live out by Escondido, but I’d rather ride with you.”

Dar shook his head. “I could get you out to Escondido, but I’m not coming back to the condo tonight. The media…”

“Oh, yes,” said Syd with a smile. “I watched some of their stakeout on the seven A.M. local TV news. They still don’t have a picture of you. It’s driving them bugfuck.”

“Bugfuck?” repeated Dar. He rubbed his chin.

“How did you get out of there this morning without being mobbed?”

“The police who were on duty outside the warehouse kept them on the main street below,” said Dar. “I just drove the Land Cruiser out the back way and through some alleys before coming down the hill.”

“They probably have the tag number for your Toyota as well,” said Syd.

It was Dar’s turn to nod. “But I parked way and hell in the rear of the secure Hall of Justice lot,” he said. “Right under the drunk-tank holding cell windows.”

Syd made a face.

“Yeah, I know,” said Dar. “I’ll wash the truck tomorrow. But I don’t think the media will see it there.”

“All right,” said Chief Investigator Olson, “but why can’t you give me a ride out to the Stewarts’ place?”

Dar sighed. “I can,” he said, “but you’ll have to get back on your own. I’m headed up to my cabin in the hills after work.”

“That’s perfect,” said Syd. “We’ll stop by the Hyatt to pick up my stuff.”

Dar frowned.

The chief investigator paused by the door to explain. “You still have San Diego cops tasked to protect you around the clock, but if you head for your cabin in the hills, we’re out of their jurisdiction. We can’t really ask some local county sheriff to use his manpower guarding you—”

“Look, I never said I wanted—” began Dar.

Syd held up her hand. “While I, on the other hand, will not only serve as a perfect bodyguard this long weekend, but will use the time properly going through your computerized and hard-copy case files to find the missing link here.”

Dar looked at her for a long moment, seeing the two of them reflected in the mirrored window. He wondered who might be watching from behind the one-way glass.

“Do I have a choice?” he said at last.

“Of course you do,” said the chief investigator, giving him the warmest smile he had seen so far. “You’re a free citizen.”

“Good—” began Dar.

“Of course, you’re a free citizen facing a possible arraignment on vehicular manslaughter, and the court has ordered twenty-four-hour protective surveillance on you. So I guess you’re free to decide whether you drive or let me drive,” said Syd.

Lawrence and Trudy worked out of their home in a development not far from Escondido. Stewart Investigations, Inc., was a sprawling, two-level ranch house on a steep, ice-plant-covered hill above a county road that ran down to the development golf course. Neither Lawrence nor Trudy played golf. In truth, Lawrence and Trudy did very little that did not relate to their insurance investigation work or their one source of relaxation—auto racing. The house itself held more than forty-five hundred square feet of space, but most of the usable space was a clutter of offices upstairs and down for the man-and-wife team. The Stewarts’ cathedral-ceilinged living room had been empty of furniture for the first three years Dar had known them.

He parked the Land Cruiser in front of a driveway filled with vehicles—Lawrence’s old Isuzu Trooper, Trudy’s leased Ford Contour, Lawrence’s Ford Econoline surveillance van with its tinted windows, two race cars—one on a trailer and the other in the three-car garage, sitting next to a tarp-covered ’67 Mustang covertible—and two Gold Wing motorcycles.

“These all theirs?” asked Syd as they walked up the drive through the pantheon of vehicles.

“Sure,” said Dar. “They used to have a couple of later-model Mustangs, but sold them when they got the race cars.”

“What kind of racing?”

“A special class using old Mazda RX-7s,” said Dar.