by Dan Simmons
Dar would never know what Evelyn was hoping because he hung up, turned the ringer off on the phone, and walked over to the window. Along with the San Diego Police patrol car that had been parked inconspicuously across the street all night, there were now three very conspicuous TV trucks. A fourth truck with a satellite antenna on its roof pulled up as Dar watched.
He walked back to his phone, and recorded a new message on the answering machine: “Yo, dis is Vito. Dere’s nobody home but me an’ the Dobermans. You got sometin’ to say to me…say it! Otherwise, hang the fug up.”
Dar went into the bathroom to shower and shave. Ten minutes later, dressed and holding a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, he looked out the front window again. There were five TV trucks and four vans parked across the street. Well, he thought, it had taken them forty-eight hours to get his name from the DMV based on the tag number from his poor NSX; somebody at one of the news channels must have a contact in the department. Dar doubted if the reporter had been lucky enough to get a copy of his driver’s-license photograph, but he wasn’t going to stroll out front to find out. The phone light blinked on and off. Dar started packing his duffel bag, folding shirts and trousers and humming the theme to The Godfather as he did so.
Upon arriving at the Justice Center, Dar saw that Deputy DA Weid had been his usual generous self in setting up a temporary office for the visiting state’s attorney’s chief investigator. Sydney Olson’s “office” was in the basement of the old section of the Hall of Justice, not far from the holding cells, a former interrogation room with puke-green and white-faded-to-yellow walls randomly decorated with scuff marks and smashed-mosquito abstract art going back to the 1940s, some folding tables and metal chairs, and no windows except for the bit of reflective one-way glass. But the folding tables were covered with modern machines—a Gateway top-of-the-line laptop, Dar noted, connected to printers, scanners, and other peripherals. There were also two new phones, each with at least four lines. A map of Southern California had been tacked to the filthy rear wall and had already sprouted an array of red, blue, green, and yellow pins. A male secretary, busy at a second computer, informed Dar that Investigator Olson had been called to the district attorney’s office, but she had left word that she would be back in an hour and would like to talk to Dr. Minor before he left the building.
The secretary offered Dar some coffee from the inevitable pot scorching away on the table under the one-way mirror. Cop coffee was 180 percent caffeine and the texture of road tar on a hot summer day, and he had long since decided it was the secret weapon that kept America’s law enforcement agencies going despite the long hours, miserable working conditions, lowlife clients, and terrible pay. Dar took a healthy swig, feeling tired and grumpy.
“I’ll check back later,” said Dar.
Finding an empty bench in the basement corridor, Dar fired up his ThinkPad and finished typing his report on the Metallica concert accident. He attached the modem umbilical to his digital cell phone, dialed up Stewart Investigations’s dedicated line, and E-mailed the report straight to their fax machine/printer so that they would have a hard copy waiting.
Putting the laptop back in its case, Dar pondered how he could kill another half hour. Making up his mind, he walked to the end of the corridor past holding cells full of prisoners who were howling like mutts in a kennel, and then jogged up the polished steps into the handsome old Gothic courthouse itself. Unlike the efficient and butt-ugly new addition to the Hall of Justice where Dickweed and others had their offices, the old courthouse lacked air-conditioning but made up for it with a regal bearing.
Dar had told Syd Olson the day before that he enjoyed soap operas. While he almost never watched television, he did tune in to the criminal and civil cases being tried in the old courthouse between his own appearances as expert witness. As he slipped into courtroom 7A and took his place at the rear of the room, he nodded at several senior citizens whom he recognized as fellow courtroom addicts.
It took him only a few minutes to get up to speed. This was a sexual harassment trial…a female employee claiming that the owner of the small company for which she worked had been making sexual overtures. About half the jurors looked heavy-lidded and ready for a nap in the stultifying heat as witness after witness droned on about the employer’s sexist habits. A receptionist in her twenties testified that the boss had more than once stated in her presence that the plaintiff—a secretary in her midforties—“gave good phone.”
Ten minutes later it was the plaintiff’s turn to testify. The woman looked like Dar’s high-school Latin teacher—old-fashioned glasses on a bead chain, a conservatively tailored suit, a huge bow at the neck of her white blouse, sensible shoes, and dull blonde hair done up in a bun. She seemed to be a truly private and modest person, and her expression suggested that she regretted having ever started this proceeding.
Her attorney led her through a series of questions as the defendant, an oily little ferret in a triple-knit suit, sat slumping and smirking at his table. The plaintiff’s answers were so soft that twice the judge had to ask her to speak up to be heard over the creaking of the old fans turning overhead. Several jurors were close to succumbing to afternoon naps. Dar knew the judge—His Honor William Riley Williams—sixty-eight years old and with so many wrinkles and jowls melting into one another that he looked like a wax effigy of Walter Matthau that had been left too close to an open flame. But Dar also knew that Judge Williams had a keen mind behind that somnolent and bored visage.
The plaintiff’s attorney closed in for the kill. “And what, exactly, Ms. Maxwell, was the final incident in your employer’s established pattern of inappropriate behavior which served as the catalyst in your bringing this long-overdue request for legal relief?”
There was a pause while the plaintiff, the jury, and the silent onlookers worked to translate the legalese into English.
“You mean what did Mr. Strubbins do that finally made me bring this lawsuit?” said Ms. Maxwell at last, her voice so soft that everyone in the courtroom who was awake, including Dar, leaned forward slightly.
“Yes,” said her attorney, switching to English.
Ms. Maxwell reddened. The flush started at her neck above the white bow of her blouse and moved up into her cheeks until she was a bright red.
“Mr. Strubbins said…made an indecent proposal to me.”
Judge Williams, his chins and jowls propped on one mottled hand, asked her to repeat the answer a bit more loudly. She did so.
“Would you characterize this indecent proposal as obscene?” asked the plaintiff’s attorney.
“Oh, yes,” said Ms. Maxwell, her blush deepening. She looked down at her hands where they were clenched on her lap.
“Would you please tell the court precisely what this obscene proposal was?” asked her attorney, turning toward the jury in anticipatory triumph.
Ms. Maxwell looked down at her hands for a long moment and then said something inaudible. Dar and the few spectators leaned farther forward. Several of the regular geezers turned up the volume on their hearing aids.
“Could you repeat that a bit more loudly, Ms. Maxwell?” requested the judge. Even his voice sounded like Walter Matthau’s.
“I’m too embarrassed to say it out loud,” said the secretary, blinking rapidly behind her cat’s-eye glasses.
Her attorney wheeled around with a startled expression. This obviously had not been part of the game plan. At the defense table, Mr. Strubbins smirked and whispered something to his poker-faced attorney.
“May I approach the bench, Your Honor?” asked Ms. Maxwell’s attorney, trying to regain his courtroom equilibrium and not lose the moment. There was a brief sidebar during which the defense attorney spluttered, the plaintiff’s attorney gesticulated and ran on in an urgent whisper, and Judge Williams listened with drooping eyelids and a silent scowl.
After a moment, the attorneys were shooed back to their places and the judge turned to the blushing plaintiff. “Ms. Maxwell, the court
understands your reticence to repeat what you have characterized as an obscene proposal, but since your case demands that the court and jury know precisely what Mr. Strubbins is alleged to have said to you, would you write it out on a piece of paper?”
Ms. Maxwell paused, then nodded, still blushing wildly.
The spectators groaned and sat back in their hard pews. Dar watched as the bailiff brought a pen and a stenographer’s notebook. Ms. Maxwell wrote on a page for what seemed like many minutes. The bailiff tore that page out of the notebook and handed it to the judge. The judge looked at the page with no change in expression and then beckoned the two attorneys forward. Both lawyers read the page without comment. The bailiff took the piece of paper and carried it over to the jury box.
The juror in the first seat was a woman, also wearing glasses, very tall and thin but surprisingly buxom, dressed in a black business suit and white blouse, her hair also tied back in a bun.
“You may give the paper to the foreman of the jury,” said Judge Williams.
“Foreperson,” said the woman in the first seat, sitting up even more rigidly than before.
“I beg your pardon?” said the judge, raising his chins and jowls from his cupped hand.
“Foreperson, Your Honor,” repeated the first juror, her thin lips almost disappearing as they became even thinner and primmer.
“Oh,” said Judge Williams. “Of course. Bailiff, please give the paper to the foreperson of the jury. Madam Foreperson, please pass it on to the other jurors, including the alternates, after you have read the message on it.”
All eyes in the courtroom were riveted on Ms. Foreperson as she read the note, the muscles around her pursed lips twitching as if she had suddenly tasted something very, very sour. She shook her head as she handed the paper to the juror on her left.
Dar had noted earlier that Juror Number Two—an overweight man wearing a madras sport jacket—had been on the verge of dozing off. Now the man sat with his arms folded above his ample belly, his eyes downcast. He was not quite snoring. Dar knew that dozing jurors was not an uncommon phenomenon in jury trials, especially on hot summer days. He had seen it many times himself, even while he was testifying in what amounted to murder trials.
Madam Foreperson elbowed Juror Number Two, whose head snapped up and eyes opened. Unaware that all eyes in the courtroom were on him, he turned to the buxom professional woman, took the piece of paper, and read it. Eyes widening, he read it again. Then he turned his head slowly back toward Madam Foreperson, gave the woman a wink and a nod, folded the piece of paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.
There was enough silence in the courtroom to carve into cubes and sell to schoolteachers by the pound. All heads swiveled back to the judge and the bailiff.
The bailiff started to walk back toward the jury box, paused, and looked to Judge Williams for direction. The judge started to speak, stopped, and rubbed his jowls. The plaintiff looked as if she were about to slide down out of sight in the witness box out of pure mortification.
Judge Williams said, “The court will take a ten-minute recess.” He banged his gavel and disappeared in a flurry of robes as all the spectators stood, the geezers elbowing one another and wheezing with quiet laughter.
The jury filed out. Juror Number Two was still smirking and winking at Madam Foreperson, who looked back once over her shoulder at Number Two, rolled her eyes, and then disappeared from view, radiating chill into the air.
Back in Syd’s basement interrogation-room office, Dar found Chief Investigator Olson hard at work. The secretary had stepped out. A portable fan and the open door alleviated the worst of the stuffiness, but fifty years of close encounters of the third kind between sweating felons and equally sweaty cop interrogators still left a hint of miasma in the little room.
“Thanks for waiting to see me,” she said. “The DA and Dickweed showed me the morning papers. I see they’ve quit calling you the Road Rage Killer.”
Dar poured himself a bit more cop coffee, and said, “Right. Now I’m the Mysterious Detective.”
“Let’s see how good a detective you are,” Syd said, and gestured toward her map with the red, blue, green, and yellow thumbtacks. “Can you tell me what the legend is for my little tactical command center map here?”
Dar pulled his reading glasses out of his sport coat pocket and then peered over the top of them. “Red and blue are on roads—mostly freeways, not surface streets. So I’d guess…swoop-and-squats?”
Syd nodded, impressed. “Mostly swoop-and-squats. Can you tell the difference between the reds and blues?”
“Nope,” he said. “There are a lot more reds than blues… Wait a minute, I remember this one on the I-5 here. It was a fatality accident. Ancient blue Volvo. Unemployed green-card immigrant driving. All the trappings of a swoop-and-squat, but the driver of the squat car died.”
“All the red pins are swoop-and-squats with fatalities,” said Syd.
Dar whistled softly. “So many? That doesn’t make much sense. Swoop-and-squats are usually staged on surface streets, not freeways. Too dangerous on freeways—someone has to be alive to collect the money.”
Syd nodded. “What about the green pins?” she said.
Dar studied the location of the more numerous greens. Two seemed to be out in San Diego Harbor. Another three were clustered together in an unlikely spot in the bare hills east of Del Mar. Others were scattered around the L.A. and San Diego metropolitan areas and much of the area in between. None were on roads.
“Construction-site accidents,” said Dar. “The two in the bay looked at first like possible fraud cases because of the high coverage, but in each case they were long falls from scaffolds—both fatal. Nasty.”
“Still fraudulent, though,” said Syd.
Dar gave her a doubtful look. “I investigated the one at the aircraft carrier,” he said. “The painter working for the civilian contractor had a history of fraudulent claims, but in this case he took a header sixty-five feet into a pile of steel pipes. His family didn’t need the money that bad. The whole family was making a good living with slip-and-falls and swoop-and-squats.”
Syd smiled and crossed her arms. “How about the yellow pins?”
“There’s only one on the map,” said Dar. “The others are all over here in the margins waiting their turn.”
“And?”
“And the one on the map is above Lake Elsinore, about where The Lookout Restaurant is perched, so I’d guess yellow has something to do with me.”
“Correct. Actually, the yellow pins will mark points where someone has tried to kill you.”
Dar raised an eyebrow and looked at the margin of the map. Another dozen yellow pins were waiting.
“I need to visit Lawrence and Trudy’s place,” Syd said briskly, gathering up her huge shoulder bag and setting her personal computer in a carrying case. “I know roughly where they live out by Escondido, but I’d rather ride with you.”
Dar shook his head. “I could get you out to Escondido, but I’m not coming back to the condo tonight. The media…”
“Oh, yes,” said Syd with a smile. “I watched some of their stakeout on the seven A.M. local TV news. They still don’t have a picture of you. It’s driving them bugfuck.”
“Bugfuck?” repeated Dar. He rubbed his chin.
“How did you get out of there this morning without being mobbed?”
“The police who were on duty outside the warehouse kept them on the main street below,” said Dar. “I just drove the Land Cruiser out the back way and through some alleys before coming down the hill.”
“They probably have the tag number for your Toyota as well,” said Syd.
It was Dar’s turn to nod. “But I parked way and hell in the rear of the secure Hall of Justice lot,” he said. “Right under the drunk-tank holding cell windows.”
Syd made a face.
“Yeah, I know,” said Dar. “I’ll wash the truck tomorrow. But I don’t think the media will see it there.”
> “All right,” said Chief Investigator Olson, “but why can’t you give me a ride out to the Stewarts’ place?”
Dar sighed. “I can,” he said, “but you’ll have to get back on your own. I’m headed up to my cabin in the hills after work.”
“That’s perfect,” said Syd. “We’ll stop by the Hyatt to pick up my stuff.”
Dar frowned.
The chief investigator paused by the door to explain. “You still have San Diego cops tasked to protect you around the clock, but if you head for your cabin in the hills, we’re out of their jurisdiction. We can’t really ask some local county sheriff to use his manpower guarding you—”
“Look, I never said I wanted—” began Dar.
Syd held up her hand. “While I, on the other hand, will not only serve as a perfect bodyguard this long weekend, but will use the time properly going through your computerized and hard-copy case files to find the missing link here.”
Dar looked at her for a long moment, seeing the two of them reflected in the mirrored window. He wondered who might be watching from behind the one-way glass.
“Do I have a choice?” he said at last.
“Of course you do,” said the chief investigator, giving him the warmest smile he had seen so far. “You’re a free citizen.”
“Good—” began Dar.
“Of course, you’re a free citizen facing a possible arraignment on vehicular manslaughter, and the court has ordered twenty-four-hour protective surveillance on you. So I guess you’re free to decide whether you drive or let me drive,” said Syd.
Lawrence and Trudy worked out of their home in a development not far from Escondido. Stewart Investigations, Inc., was a sprawling, two-level ranch house on a steep, ice-plant-covered hill above a county road that ran down to the development golf course. Neither Lawrence nor Trudy played golf. In truth, Lawrence and Trudy did very little that did not relate to their insurance investigation work or their one source of relaxation—auto racing. The house itself held more than forty-five hundred square feet of space, but most of the usable space was a clutter of offices upstairs and down for the man-and-wife team. The Stewarts’ cathedral-ceilinged living room had been empty of furniture for the first three years Dar had known them.
