Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

“What’s going on?” says Harry.

“You asked me how I was going to get the photographs. Rhytag thinks he has the only copies. It’s possible that he doesn’t.”

“If you’re gonna tell me you got Pike’s laptop,” says Harry, “I’m going to start thinking the Dwarf may be onto something after all.”

“No, it’s not the laptop. But the day I met with Katia alone out at the jail, I think you were busy with something else. She told me something and I let it slide, because at the time I didn’t think it was important. She told me that her camera, the one her mother used to take the shots down in Colombia, is at her mother’s house in San José. She told me that as far as she knows, the original images that her mother took are still in the camera. Pike told her that he didn’t erase them from the media in the camera when he copied them to his laptop.”

“That’s assuming we believe him,” says Harry.

“If we’re going to get the photos, it’s the only shot we’ve got.”

If he ever got drunk and unruly in a bar, Herman Diggs would be the bouncer’s worst nightmare, though you wouldn’t know it from his smiling face and glistening bald head as it pops around the corner of my office door this morning.

“Understand you got something for me,” he says.

I have never actually put a tape measure on Herman, but as he comes through the door he fills it with only a few inches to spare at the top and nothing on the sides. Herman is our investigator. African American, in his thirties, he is a human brick. A blown knee in college crushed Herman’s dreams of a football career and left him with a slight limp, though if you ever saw him run someone down and bury him from behind, you might question this.

“Let’s go grab a cup of coffee,” I say.

Herman and I stroll out to Miguel’s Cocina, under the palm fronds over the patio. We sit at one of the small tables.

“I don’t think they’re open yet,” says Herman.

“Harry and I have decided that certain things shouldn’t be discussed in the office,” I tell him.

Herman gives me a sideways glance.

“The walls have ears,” I say.

“Who would do a thing like that?” he says.

“You don’t want to know. But be careful using your phone or talking in your office concerning the matter we’re about to discuss. Harry and I are using nothing but notepads and carrier pigeons for the moment,” I tell him. “Don’t send any e-mails or leave any voice mail on any of our office systems, or for that matter, our residential phones or e-mail. We’ll have to find other ways to keep in touch. And forget the cell phones because they’re now party lines.”

“Federal government,” says Herman.

I nod.

“What did you do, forget to pay your taxes?”

“How’s your calendar?” I ask.

“I’m booked tomorrow afternoon. I got a court appearance for another client. After that I’m open for a few days. How much time do you need?”

“It depends on how fast you can work and whether you can find what we’re looking for. It’s the Solaz case.”

I pull my wallet out of my hip pocket. I open it and fish out a tiny folded slip of paper. It’s the one I gave to Katia that day at the jail so she could write down her mother’s address. I folded it up and put it in my wallet. I kept forgetting to put it in the file. It is part of the reason the camera had slipped my mind.

“It’s not a street number. They don’t use street numbers the way we do. It’s in Spanish. It’s a written description of how to get to the house. She wrote it on this slip of paper.”

“ Costa Rica,” says Herman.

“How did you know that?”

“Only place in the western hemisphere doesn’t have mail service,” he says. “Been there, know it well. What city?”

“ San José.”

“No problem.”

It’s the thing about Herman. He knows the central and southern part of the western hemisphere like the back of his hand. He and I first met in Mexico on a case that turned violent. When we finally popped up our heads, we realized we were the only two people in sight who could trust each other.

“What is it you’re looking for?”

“A camera. I don’t know what it looks like or where it’s located in the house.”

“Still or video?”

“Still-point-and-shoot, probably something small.”

“Can you talk to your client and get a description?”

“I’ll see her tomorrow in the lockup at the courthouse. I’m sure I can get a description, the problem is how to do it without having the world listening in.”

“You think they’re gonna wire the lawyers’ conference cubicle in the courthouse?”

“Yes.”

Herman gives a long, slow whistle. “What’s this lady involved in? Besides murder, I mean.”

“That’s the problem. We don’t know. And I’m not sure she does.”

“Use notes,” says Herman.

“I doubt if she can read English all that well, and I haven’t written any Spanish since high school.”

“Get somebody to write the questions down ahead of time, this afternoon, in Spanish. Have her write the answers and you can have ’em translated when you’re done.”

“Good thought.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind taking a trip to Costa Rica, but why don’t you just have her call somebody down there to look for the camera?” says Herman.

“I thought about it. If I have her call from the jail, the feds are going to know about the camera immediately. The FBI always has a resident agent at the embassies. If they get there ahead of us, we lose the camera and the pictures. Second, if we’re correct in our assumptions, the camera contains some photographs we believe are central to our case. We don’t know if we can trust the family. If we ask them for the camera, the pictures may disappear. We think the pictures are the reason Emerson Pike was killed. So be aware that there may be some risk involved here.”

“You’re telling me I’m gonna get hazardous-duty pay?”

“Be careful. You may earn it. The house in San José belongs to the defendant’s mother. She’s the one who took the pictures. Other than that we don’t know anything about her. She may be a player. She may be an innocent bystander. She may not even be there. We don’t know. According to Katia, there are no other family members who hang out at the house, just her and her mother, though she has friends who apparently have access, enough to leave a note at the house. Harry called one of them, a girlfriend of Katia’s, and asked her to leave a message at the house for Katia’s mother in case she came home. The mother was supposed to call the law office, but so far we’ve received no word. So we have to assume she’s still gone. What I’m saying is that I’m not giving out any character references, so be on your guard.”

“Got it.”

“One other thing; when you’re down there, keep your ear to the ground. In addition to the camera, we’re looking for a lead on a man named Nitikin. He’s the defendant’s grandfather.”

“Do you have a first name?”

“No. I’ll put it on the list of Spanish questions. Given what we don’t know,” I tell him, “that’s going to turn out to be a very long list.”

Kim Howard entered the room, followed by Zeb Thorpe, head of the FBI’s National Security Branch. They were meeting in the conference room at the FBI field office in San Diego, out on Aero Drive and not far from the Marine Corp Air Station at Miramar.

“How was your flight?” Jim Rhytag was already set up at the table, going over reports from the FBI transcripts.

“Don’t ask,” said Thorpe.