Stephen White - Warning Signs

"That's not much."

Lucy said, "I'm left with the phone book."

"Anything there?"

"I've called all the Denver metro Ramps. There aren't that many. I reached two of the listings and ruled them out. A couple more I just got answering machines. Outside Denver metro there are, I think, three more Ramps. I'm going to try them tonight over dinner. It's a good time to reach people."

"So that leaves us where?" I asked.

"We still have the car bomb in Denver. I think-my gut feeling is-that, failing to find Ramp directly, the car bomb in Denver is our best link to him. I have trouble believing that discovering two explosive devices in the metro area on the same day can be isolated events. Sam has a contact with the Denver bomb squad."

"Walter."

"What?"

"Sam's contact's name is Walter. Or at least he calls him Walter."

Lucy laughed. The sound was a refreshing trill. "That means Sam thinks he's reliable. When he doesn't trust sources or snitches, he gives them names that begin with L- stands for loser. When he thinks they're reliable, he gives them names that begin with W . Those are the winners. So Sam trusts this guy, whoever he is. But until Sam hears more from Walter or something breaks in the news, we're in the dark about the Denver situation."

"That leaves us with Paul or with the mythical Ramp."

"Yes. And the path to Paul leads directly back to your patient, right?"

"Right. But Paul also should eventually lead us to Ramp."

"I agree. That's why Paul is next on my agenda."

I considered the options. If Lucy was discovered following Paul, it would become clear to Naomi that I'd been sharing her information with someone else. That would certainly end the therapy.

"Lucy, I'll follow Paul. If I'm discovered doing it, I have a chance of explaining away my indiscretion. If you get discovered, I'm screwed. My patient would stop talking to me. And I can't risk that."

"You don't know how to do this. This is police work."

"Paul's in school during the day. I know where he works. I know where he lives. I should be able to figure out when he's hanging out with his friend. My patient says they usually get together in Boulder, not Denver."

"And what will you do then?"

"Get a photograph. Get Ramp's license plate number. That should be enough for you to go on, right?"

"Should be," she acknowledged. "Should be."

C ozy's office suite took up a good-sized chunkof the west side-that's the side with the view-of the eighth-that's the top-floor of the Colorado Building on Fourteenth Street near the Pearl Street Mall. After leaving my office, I found a parking place on Walnut, fed the meter, and entered the lobby, which was sized not to impress visitors but rather to maximize leasable square footage for the landlords. One of the building's two elevators was being used for a furniture delivery; the other one-the one I rode in-stopped at five of the eight floors on the way to the top.

I found Cozy and Lauren sitting at each end of a walnut conference table, the surface of which was carpeted with books and papers. Cozy was facing the door and saw me enter. He had a phone to his ear and a file in his other hand. His greeting was a nod.

I walked up behind Lauren and kissed her on her hair. She reached up and slid her warm fingers across the skin on the back of my neck. I almost asked, "How did you know it was me?" But I didn't. I said, "Hi, how you doing?"

"Tired, but okay."

"You at a place you can stop? We need to get home and rescue Viv. She's had a long day with the baby."

She smiled and said, "Sure."

While she packed up, I examined the overriding reason-hell, the only reason other than its central location-for leasing office space in the Colorado Building: the view.

The streets in downtown Boulder are numbered in ascending order beginning at the base of the foothills of the Rockies. That means that Fourteenth Street is roughly fourteen blocks away from the dramatic incline of the mountains, an almost perfect distance to maximize the view. From Cozy's eighth-floor perch, high above the treetops, Boulder in springtime appeared as a lush landscape of old redbrick and flagstone buildings flanked by gentle rises to the north-Mapleton Hill-to the south-Chautauqua, and barricaded to the west by the vaulting presence of the foothills of the Rockies.

As dusk approached, the vista was glorious.

Lauren and I had almost the same view from our home miles to the east, but ours was wide angle. This was zoom. Every time I saw the close-up perspective from this elevated perch, I was captivated by the difference. Our view from home was mostly sky-the monumental mountains ended up being dwarfed by the infinite western sky. This view was mostly mountains, their sheer mass and grandeur looming over a town that appeared to have been built to the wrong scale.

Lauren took my hand and pulled me away from the windows. We both said good-bye to Cozy. He tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear and waved good-bye.

I n the elevator,Lauren said, "It hasn't been a particularly good afternoon for Lucy, sweets."

I swallowed. "Tell me."

"Over the last hour or so, Cozy and I learned some new things. When Sam and Lucy worked up Royal's house after the murder, one of the pieces of evidence they recovered was unwashed laundry from on top of the washing machine. There was also some laundry in the dryer. Did you know about any of that? I don't remember whether I told you. It hadn't seemed important until today. Anyway, it turns out that a sheet had some stains on it. It now appears that the police suspect that they can link the DNA on the stains to Lucy."

"What kind of stains?"

She sighed. "They think they're vaginal secretions."

"Vaginal secretions?" I said. Lions and tigers and bears . "Oh my."

The elevator door opened at the fourth floor. A psychologist, someone I barely knew from some insipid meeting of local psychologists I'd once attended against my better judgment, entered the elevator. I smiled and said, "Hello." She struggled, without apparent success, to place my face before she turned around and stared at the doors. Lauren slid her hand into mine and squeezed. The three of us stood silently and watched the numbers.

It took me only two of the remaining three floors to decide that there weren't very many ways for Lucy Tanner to have left vaginal secretions on sheets in Royal Peterson's house.

In fact, I could only think of one. I wasted a moment considering whether I was being unimaginative.

Outside the building on the Fourteenth Street sidewalk, Lauren asked, "Are you parked nearby?"

"Not too far, over on Walnut. Is your car ready to be picked up?" Her car was in the shop.

She shook her head. "No, they're still waiting for that thing to be delivered. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not." She checked her watch and said, "Let's walk up the Mall for a block or two and circle back to your car. We have time."

The "thing" was a transmission gasket. I took her briefcase and hung it over my shoulder. We held hands. As we turned the corner onto Pearl Street, I said, "Vaginal secretions?"

"Yeah, sorry to say. Apparently the police think they found the whole damn wet spot."

"Semen?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Think condom," she said.

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "Did they find that?"

"No."

Wispy clouds hung like smoke above the foothills of the Front Range. The sun was already invisible from our near vantage, though the sky above our heads was still bright. The cloud pattern promised a great finale to sunset, but I knew we wouldn't be home in time to catch it.

Lauren said, "It's too soon to know for sure. But that's the general direction that this is heading. Damned by a wet spot."