Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

“The same like every day. What’s going on?”

“Actually, things are going on.” Decker spoke with confidence. “We’re tracking down an interesting lead, but you know I can’t tell you what it is.”

“Why not? I can keep a secret.”

Decker smiled. “I know you can, Farley; it’s just not the way we operate. I’m just saying that we haven’t forgotten about Roseanne. How could we when you call us every day to remind us?”

Lodestone grumped. “And I’ll continue to call until we find out something.”

“I don’t blame you. As a father, I’d do the same thing. I think Shareen and you have exhibited enormous patience. I want to thank you for trusting my handling of the case.”

“Who said I trust you?”

Decker smiled. “Maybe I was flattering myself. You have every reason to be skeptical, Farley, but I’m out there doing what I can.”

There was a pause. “Shareen says I’m being a pain in the butt. I don’t care. I’m gonna call every day and keep calling every day. That’s just the person I am. It’s nothing personal. You understand me, right?”

“Completely.”

“To show you how serious I am, I put your cell number and the station’s number on my buddy-list phone program. So I can call you up anytime for six ninety-nine a month and talk as long as I want. If I’m gonna call you, might as well be economical about it.”

“We’re on it, Farley. Thanks for calling.”

“Right now, Lieutenant, I gotta say to you thanks for nothing. But don’t take that personal, either. One day, I hope to say thanks for everything.”

HOLLANDER WAS ELATED over the phone. “After much finagling, pleading, and cajoling, I managed to get hold of a prototype machine at Katumi Motors. No need for thanks. Money would do just fine.”

Decker’s smile was wide and genuine. “Mike, you’ve been a godsend.”

“There is a small snag. We can’t use it during working hours. I had originally set up the process for next Saturday. Then I remembered, you don’t work on Saturday, so I changed it to Sunday. It’ll be late morning or early afternoon.”

“Great. I’ll coordinate with the Crypt to make sure we have the CT-scan images.”

“No one likes to work on Sunday, Rabbi. You may need to pay for a round of beer.”

“That can be done.” Marge knocked on the frame of his open door. She and Oliver were waiting for his time. “Thanks for everything, Mike. I’ll be there. I gotta go.”

“No prob, Pete, and thanks for the business. Koby and Cindy are a great couple. You did good.”

Decker was all smiles when he hung up. “What’s up?”

“Those are the notarized statements from our visit with Ivan Dresden,” Marge told him. “We’ve got appointments in the afternoon with Arielle Toombs and David Rottiger. They know we want to talk to them about Roseanne, but they don’t know it’s specifically about her cell phone.”

Oliver said, “We thought that was the most unbiased way to handle it. Not to tell them anything without the notary being there.”

Decker spoke as he sorted through the official paperwork. “I agree.” He handed the papers to Marge. “Good work, people. Let me know what you find out.”

“What’s going on with the X-rays?” Oliver asked.

“That’s all done. The Crypt has hard copy of the images. I’ve also put in a money request for the captain to get a duplicate set for our records. Best of all, Hollander’s found a machine. The prototyping is set up for this Sunday.”

Oliver said, “The guy pulled it off. Good for him.”

“This has been his baby. He really came through.”

Marge said, “Yeah, he certainly caught the homicide flu big-time.”

“I’ll get the paperwork from Strapp to let it rip,” Decker said. “Then, once we have a facsimile of the skull, the PD’s all set to take it to a judge to make sure he or she gives the okay for us to use it forensically. Hollander told me that there is legal precedence for using a prototype. So maybe we’ll all get lucky and it won’t get bogged down in the court system.”

Oliver said, “Once we get all our material together, we’ll apply for a search warrant. I think you should be with us when we present the case, Loo. Our grounds are a little shaky and I think your title will help.”

“What judge were you thinking about, Oliver?”

“I set up something with Carla Puhl. I’ve always gotten along with her.”

Decker smiled. “I’m sure you have.”

Oliver winked and left.

“What are we going to do with him?”

Marge laughed. “Scott’s okay. Behind that facade of a pig is a pig, but more Vietnamese potbelly than wild boar. Oliver’s dirty and messy, but he’s also cute and potty trained.”

HER HONOR, JUDGE Carla Puhl, appeared more interested in her long red hook nails than in Decker’s defense of their petition for a search warrant. With her robe hanging on a coatrack, Judge Puhl was dressed in a red tank top and a denim miniskirt. She held up a finger, cutting him off midsentence, and pointed to a chair.

“Sit down, Lieutenant.”

Decker complied. Marge and Oliver were trying to fade into the background, standing near the back wall of the wood-paneled chambers, electing to let the boss handle a dicey affair.

Judge Puhl sorted through the notarized statements and shook her head. “You’re telling me that the only thing you have on this poor schmuck is a pink cell phone?”

“Your Honor, his wife has been missing for over two months. She was about to divorce her husband and clean him out. The condo was in her name, the credit was in her name, she paid most of the bills. Plus, her husband has girlfriends including a lap dancer. He had run up over fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of lap-dancing fees, which he conveniently paid off by selling off his car and Roseanne’s jewelry after she disappeared. Ivan is currently driving Roseanne’s BMW.”

“So what does this have to do with a pink cell phone?”

“Dresden admitted that he and Roseanne had a big fight a day before she vanished. As Sergeant Dunn was questioning him about the fight, she dropped her pen and happened to find a pink cell phone-”

Again the judge cut him off with a wave of her hand. “What do you want to do with this cell phone, Lieutenant?”

“Ivan Dresden first claimed it was his phone. When it was clear it wasn’t his current phone, he said it was a phone that he’d lost a long time ago.”

“He owned a pink phone with daisies?”

“We felt that was dubious as well.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What do you want to do with it?”

“For one thing, I’d like to see if it was Roseanne’s most recent phone. We can do that really easily. Just charge it up and see the dates of her last outgoing call. It’s a very simple thing to do…to check whether or not the man is lying. And if it was Roseanne’s most recent phone, it puts her in the apartment on the morning of the accident.”

“It puts her phone there. Not Roseanne.”

Decker was silent.

Puhl said, “Even if Roseanne was there, it doesn’t mean that she still didn’t die in the crash. She could have gone home, lost the phone, and returned to the airport.”

“We timed the round trip, Your Honor,” Decker said. “Rushing and driving at fifty miles an hour, she could have made it with about five minutes to spare if there wasn’t traffic and if she only spent five minutes at home. But she would have been traveling between the hours of seven and eight in the morning. We all know what morning freeway traffic is like.”

“Hmm…” Judge Puhl tapped her fingernails on her desk. “Okay, Lieutenant, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you a warrant to seize the phone that Sergeant Dunn and Detective Oliver describe in these notarized papers. That way you can test your hypothesis on the spot. If it wasn’t her most recent phone-if it was an old phone-then the search ends there. If it was her most recent phone, then I’ll allow you to continue on with a search.”