Robert Crais - The Forgotten Man

I parked in the back lot and made my way inside. Diners lined the counter, and most of the red-leather booths were already filled with the typical Musso cross-section of businessmen, studio flacks, musicians, and bookies. Starkey was already seated in a narrow booth in the center aisle, set up with water and a couple of menus. I put Reinnike's file and the news clips between us as I took the bench across from her.

"Hey. Thanks for meeting me."

Starkey looked uncharacteristically pleased with herself.

"Don't try to feel me up or anything, Cole. I don't put out on the first date."

Starkey's comment left me feeling awkward, especially when three women in the next booth glanced over.

"Look, I'm sorry if we had a misunderstanding. I didn't mean for last night to be a date date. It was just dinner."

"I was teasing you, Cole. You're so fricking easy to tease."

Starkey popped two antacid tablets when the waiter took our orders. I went with a Denver omelet; Starkey ordered a tongue sandwich. When the waiter left, Starkey glanced at the reports and articles.

"I don't know what I can tell you about this."

"If Chen can't pull the registration, I'm out of ways to find George. Finding David might be as good as finding George."

I tapped David Reinnike's file.

"Did you read it or just pass it along?"

"I read it. That kid had problems."

"Yeah, he did, but there was only this one arrest in his record. The newspapers said the neighbors called the police three or four times on this kid."

Starkey shrugged.

"It's newspapers, Cole. Newspapers get everything wrong. But even if it's true, the police roll out, somebody agrees to pay for somebody else's broken window, everyone calms down, and that's the end of it. The cops could have rolled out a dozen times-two dozen-and we wouldn't know."

"I'm not looking at it that way, Starkey. I'm coming at it from the other direction. The detective who covered this case, Ferrier, recommended counseling. I'm thinking the counseling helped- that's how this kid was able to stay out of trouble. Can I find out who the counselor was?"

"Not from the police records. What's here is here."

"Would Ferrier know?"

Starkey glanced at the three women, then shook her head.

"Ferrier retired in eighty-two and died in eighty-nine. I checked. I figured you might want to talk to him."

I didn't know what else to say. I drank some water, then looked at the three women, too. George Reinnike wasn't in the database, only this single file existed about David, and there didn't seem any way to go forward with it.

Starkey fingered the pages one by one.

She said, "Let me tell you something I learned on the Bomb Squad-you have a bomb, that bomb is going to explode."

"What does that mean?"

"Just because this kid wasn't arrested again doesn't mean he was a model citizen. This boy was acting out violence and aggression over a significant period of time. I see kids like this all the time. Let me tell you, man, their arrests are just the tip of the iceberg-they get popped for one thing, there could be thirty or forty other incidents they get away with."

"You don't think someone can change? You must see kids change all the time."

"Yeah, I see change. I just don't expect it."

She suddenly pushed the pages aside, and seemed embarrassed.

"Cole, look, I don't know why anyone does anything. I chased bomb cranks four years after I left the squad. These freaks were the sickest, most mentally fucked-up degenerates you can imagine. You know the difference between them and everyone else? Real people get the urge to do something weird, they don't do it. Assholes get the urge, they just do it."

"No impulse control."

"This kid had no impulse control. I see kids with no impulse control every day. That's why they have to deal with me; they get in trouble. But this isn't just some unhappy kid acting out a bad home life-"

She fingered through the report and articles, looking for examples.

"Assaulting this kid with a bat, pissing in this woman's yard- this is showing a lack of impulse control. But here where he throws the hammer at this car-she says he stood there laughing?-and here where he's in the middle of the street talking to himself? This is getting into psychosis."

Starkey glanced up, and her eyes were serious.

"I've been thinking about this, Cole. Here you have a kid with this history, and he and his father up and disappear, leaving behind all this money? All right, no evidence was found linking their disappearance to a crime, but the Sheriffs were investigating check fraud and forgery-they thought the Reinnikes were victims. They weren't investigating a kid who would spear a collie with a garden stake. I'm thinking you should check out the unsolved violent crimes in their area just before they left."

I nodded. It was a slow nod, but Starkey made sense. I could see it happening that way; George was protective of David, and defensive about him. He had gone to bat for David again and again, but had also made excuses for his son's behavior that bordered on denial. George might well have left to protect his son. He might have abandoned the money and never looked back.

"That's a good idea, Starkey. That's a really good idea."

"Of course it is, Cole. It's also a long shot and totally unlikely, but it'll give you something to do in your spare time."

I thought about it. George probably wouldn't have abandoned his money unless David had done something so bad that George was afraid David would go to prison or be taken away from him. It would have to be something serious; arson, or a crime against persons, like rape, armed robbery, or homicide.

I said, "If I wanted a list of the open major crimes that occurred in Temecula between certain dates thirty-five years ago, could I get it?"

Starkey pouched out her lips, thinking, then opened her cell phone.

"Lemme make a couple of calls. I can find out."

Starkey's cell phone worked perfectly, which left me annoyed. You try to be big about these things, but still. I thought she was calling Gittamon, but she phoned her former boss at the Criminal Conspiracy Section, instead; a lieutenant named Barry Kelso. CCS detectives investigated bombs and bombings, which is what Starkey did after she left the Bomb Squad. She copied a number Kelso gave her, then called someone on the Sheriffs named Braun.

"Barry Kelso told me you could help. This is Detective Carol Starkey, LAPD Bomb Squad."

When I arched my eyebrows at her, Starkey covered the phone.

"You say Bomb Squad, it gets people's attention."

She asked Braun if he could provide a list of unsolved felony crimes that had occurred in and around the city of Temecula in the fourteen days prior to the Reinnikes' disappearance thirty-five years ago. Braun must have asked why she wanted the information. Starkey's voice grew frosty.

"All I can tell you is it involves bomb components and national security. Don't ask any more than that."

Braun must have been impressed. They spent another ten minutes on the phone, with Braun asking questions designed to narrow the search. When they finished, Starkey covered the phone again to ask my fax number, then passed it to Braun.

She said, "Okay, I'm going to give you my home fax number. You can fax the information to me here."

That was it. She closed her phone and looked at me.

"We'll see. He isn't sure what he can come up with. It might take a couple of days."

I said, "Thanks, Carol. Really."

She nodded, but pursed her mouth again as if she still had something to say. She stared at the women in the next booth again, then glanced back at me. She laid her hand on Reinnike's file. She placed her palm carefully, as if she were touching something delicate. She shook her head.