Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

Now, on his own, Bourque was standing by his desk, thinking about what he would pick up from the hot table on his way home, when the phone rang. He snatched up the receiver and put it to his ear.

“Detective Bourque,” he said.

“Is this Detective Bourque?” a woman asked.

It never mattered that you gave your name when you answered. People had to make sure.

“That’s right.”

“This is Misha Jackson? You were trying to reach me?”

“Yes,” he said, slipping back into his chair, reaching for a notepad and taking a pen in hand. “Thanks for returning my call.”

“I work in the casino and don’t get off work till about four in the morning, and I turn off all the phones so I can get a decent sleep. When I woke up” — and at this point she started to cry — “I had calls from my brother and Eileen. I can’t believe this. Who would do something like this to Otto?”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bourque said.

“I can’t get my head around it! Otto was... he was an okay guy. I don’t know why anyone would do this.”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Anatoly — my brother — said you’d already talked to him.”

“Yes. I’m wondering if your story is similar to his.”

Misha Jackson made sniffing noises at the other end of the line. “Yeah, I guess. It was weird. I mean, we didn’t hear much from Otto. He was always the odd one out of the three of us, you know?”

“Explain.”

“Well, he was always more of a loner, more to himself. Me and Anatoly had lots of friends, but Otto was the one who kept to himself. He was kind of a mechanical geek from the get-go. He’d have never gone outside the house if our mother hadn’t forced him.”

“Mechanical geek?”

“Even as a kid, he always took apart everything to see how it worked. Toaster, TV, you name it. Computers, too. He could just see the inside of a machine in his head, you know what I mean?”

“Sure. His boss said as much.”

“I’d get a Christmas card from him and Eileen every year. But even that, she wrote it and put the stamp on it and walked it down to the corner mailbox. Otto didn’t give us much mind. But we were still family, you know? Just because he didn’t pay much attention to us didn’t mean he didn’t give a shit. If something happened to either one of us, he’d be there. Four years ago, my husband had a heart attack, and it was looking bad there for a while, and when Otto heard about it, he was on the first plane out to see how I was doing.”

“Sounds like, on balance, a good brother.”

Another sniff. “Yeah.”

“Tell me about his recent calls.”

Bourque heard the woman take a breath. “It was strange, him calling for no obvious reason. Wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. He just calls and asks how we’re doing. But here’s the part that’s strange. He wanted to know what hours I work, and I told him, and next thing you know he’s calling me at the casino, and not from his home phone. A different phone.”

“Hmm,” said Bourque.

“And on this call, he’s all, hey Misha, you need to watch yourself. Make sure you lock your doors, make sure you put on the alarm at night. He even wanted to know if I carried a gun. Why the hell would I want to do that? He tells me it’s legal to carry a concealed gun in Nevada, that I should think about doing that, and I’m thinking, where is this coming from? And I ask him, and he says it’s nothing, but the world’s changing, you can’t be too careful.”

“That sounds like what he told your brother. He wanted him to carry a gun, too.”

“I asked him if he was in trouble and he said no. But I could tell he was lying. It was in his voice. He was definitely on edge about something.”

“Did he say whether he was being threatened in any way?”

“No.”

“Did he talk about the Flyovers?”

“The who?”

“An activist group.”

“I don’t remember any talk about that.”

“It sounds as though your brother was trying to put you on guard, that he believed there was some threat to you that he wasn’t willing to share.”

“Well, no one’s threatened me, except for a guy who lost a hundred grand the other night on blackjack. He wasn’t too happy, and security had to remove him. But that’s work stuff. Happens now and again. But outside the casino, going about my business, I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. No one waiting by my car when I finish work. No one watching the house, at least that I’ve been able to see.”

“Is that what Otto was suggesting? That there could be someone watching you?”

Misha Jackson paused. “That reminds me of something he said. I only just thought of it now.”

“What did he say?”

“I kind of forgot about it, because it seemed so crazy, I thought he had to be joking. He said, just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Kind of a variation of the line about being paranoid. It doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. That’s why I thought it was a joke, that he was referring to that. But now that I think about it, maybe he meant it. Why would anyone be watching me and my brother? That makes no sense.”

“And yet, someone did kill Otto. Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against your entire family?”

“Christ, you think we’re next?”

“I don’t know anything like that, Ms. Jackson. But Otto was murdered, and clearly he was trying to warn you.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line.

“Ms. Jackson?”

“I’m gonna get it.”

“Get what?”

“That gun.”

So how’d your first day go?”

Glover Headley raised an eyebrow as he asked Arla the question. He was nursing a Stella while Arla was waiting to take her first sip of a Kir Royale. They were seated at a table at Gran Morsi, an Italian place a short walk from City Hall.

“Yeah, right, wow,” she said. “It’s not every job where the first thing you see is some dead scientist in an elevator.”

“That’s why I wanted to check in on you. I hope this wasn’t too forward, asking you here for a drink. I wanted to get away from the building, see how you are. That was a pretty traumatic thing to have to deal with.”

“Yeah, sure, I get that. Look, aside from the decapitation, it was a pretty good start. You know, like, ‘Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?’”

Glover couldn’t help but chuckle. “God, that’s awful. But the way you put it, that made me laugh. When you got back, the rest of the department was there?”

Arla nodded. “Everyone was great. I think, tomorrow morning, I can really hit the ground running.”

“That’s terrific.”

“But listen, I’m glad we’ve got a second to talk, because I saw something kind of interesting today.”

Glover took a swig of his beer. “Oh, yeah? In the office?”

“No, at the building where it happened.” She described how his father had dealt with the boy who’d been in the elevator when the woman was killed. “He was great with that kid. That’s a side of the mayor we don’t see often enough.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Glover said, an edge to his voice.

Arla caught the tone. “What?”

Glover put his elbows on the table and leaned in. “My dad is a guy with... many sides. There was a time, from all accounts, when he was a complete jerk. Back when he worked for his own father, looking after the buildings he owned. There are stories, and they’re not pretty. But once he got out from under his dad’s thumb and started out on his own, I think he started to change, become more empathetic. To actually care about people, you know? At least to some degree, and with some people. But there’s always been this part of him, a side he tries to keep buried, where he’s still that young man who’s stuck doing Daddy’s dirty work. A cold son of a bitch. It comes out every once in a while.”