The Last Detective

by Robert Crais

  “Joe?”

  “Clear.”

  We went back to the entry to shut the door, then turned on more lights. The living room had almost no furniture, just a leather couch, a card table, and an enormous Sony television in the corner opposite the couch. The apartment was so spare that its impermanence was obvious, as if Schilling was prepared to walk away at a moment's notice and leave nothing behind. It was more like a camp than a home. A small cordless phone sat on the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room, but there was no answering machine. It was the first thing I looked for, thinking we might find a message.

  I said, “His answering machine must be in back.”

  Pike moved back to the hall.

  “Saw it when I cleared the bedroom. I'll take the bedroom, you check out here.”

  So many Corona and Orangina bottles cluttered the kitchen counters that one man couldn't have drunk them all. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and take-out food containers spilled out of a wastebasket. The food had been there so long it smelled sour. I emptied the wastebasket onto the floor and looked for the take-out receipts. The most recent date on the receipts was six days ago. The orders were large, way too much for a man living alone and easily enough for three.

  I said, “They were here, Joe.”

  He called back.

  “I know. Come see this.”

  I moved back to the bedroom.

  Pike was kneeling by a rumpled futon, which was all that passed for furniture in the room. The closet door was open, revealing that the closet was virtually empty. A few shirts and some dirty underwear were piled on the floor. Like the rest of the apartment, Schilling's bedroom held a feeling of emptiness, as if it was more a hiding place than a home. A radio/alarm clock sat on the floor by the futon, along with a second cordless digital phone with a message machine built into its base.

  “Did you hear something on his machine?”

  “No messages. He has some mail here, but I called you for this.”

  Pike turned toward a row of snapshots that had been push-pinned to the wall above the futon. They were pictures of dead people. The dead were various races. Some wore the tattered remains of a uniform while others wore nothing at all. They had been shot or blown apart, mostly, though one was horribly burned. A red-haired man who grinned like an All-American boy gone mad posed with the bodies in several of the pictures. At his side in two of the pictures was a tall black man with marks on his face.

  Pike tapped a picture.

  “Ibo. The red hair would be Schilling. These pictures aren't just from Sierra Leone, either. Look at the vics. This could be Central America. This one could be in Bosnia.”

  One of the pictures showed the red-haired man holding a human arm by the pinkie as if it were a trophy bass. I felt sick to my stomach.

  “They lost their minds.”

  Pike nodded.

  “It's what Resnick said, they abandoned the rules. They became something else.”

  “I don't see anyone who looks like Fallon.”

  “Fallon was Delta. Even insane he would be too smart to let his picture be taken.”

  I turned away.

  “Let's see his mail.”

  Pike had found a stack of mail held together by a rubber band. They were all addressed to Eric Shear at the mail drop and contained bank statements showing a checking account balance of $6123.18, canceled checks, and his phone bills for the past two months. Almost all of his calls were to area codes around Los Angeles, but six calls stood out from the others like a beacon. Three weeks ago, Eric Schilling had phoned an international number in San Miguel, El Salvador, six times over a four-day period.

  I glanced at Pike.

  “You think it's Fallon? Resnick thought South America.”

  “Dial it and see.”

  I studied Schilling's phone, then pressed the Redial button. A number rang, but a perky young woman's voice answered with the name of a local pizza restaurant. I hung up, then studied the phone some more. Digital phones will sometimes store outgoing and incoming calls, but Schilling's did not. I dialed the El Salvador number from Schilling's bill. The international connection made a faraway hiss as it bounced off the satellite, then I got a ring. The El Salvador number rang twice, then was answered by a recording.

  “You know the drill. Talk to me.”

  I felt the same cold prickle I had felt that first day on the slope, but now anger boiled around it like mist. I hung up. It was the same man who had called me the night Ben was stolen and was recorded on Lucy's tape.

  “It has to be him. I recognize his voice.”

  Pike's mouth twitched.

  “Starkey's going to love this. She's going to bag a war criminal.”

  I studied the pictures again. I had never met Schilling or Fallon or anyone else shown in the pictures—these people had no history with me; they had no reason to be in Los Angeles or to know anything about me. Thousands of children came from families with more money than Richard, but they had kidnapped Ben. They had tried to make it seem as if their motive was vengeance against me, and now they were almost certainly holding up Richard for ransom money; yet he was denying it. All kidnappers tell their victims not to go to the police, and I could understand Richard was scared, but that was the only part that made sense. The pieces of the puzzle did not fit together, as if each piece was from a different puzzle and no matter how I tried to arrange them the picture they built made no sense.

  We overturned the futon and looked through the sheets, but found nothing more. I went into the bathroom. Magazines were stacked beside the toilet. The wastebasket overflowed with wads of tissue, Q-tips, and cardboard toilet paper tubes, but several white pages jutted up through the trash. I upended the basket. A photocopy of my 201 Form fell to the floor.

  I said, “Joe. Schilling has my file.”

  Pike stepped into the door behind me. I flipped through the files with a slow sense of numbness, then handed the pages to Joe.

  “The only two people who had copies of this were Starkey and Myers. Myers had a judge in New Orleans get a copy of my file for Richard. No one else could have had it.”

  The pieces of the puzzle came together like leaves settling to the bottom of a pool. The picture they built was hazy, but began to take shape.

  Pike stared at the pages.

  “Myers had this?”

  “Yeah. Myers and Starkey.”

  Pike cocked his head. His face grew dark.

  “How would Myers know them?”

  “Myers handles security for Richard's company. Resnick said that Schilling called him for security work. Maybe Myers hired him. If he knew Schilling, then Schilling could have brought in the others.”

  Pike glanced at the pages again, then shook his head, still trying to see it.

  “But why would Myers give them your file?”

  “Maybe it was Myers's idea to steal Ben.”

  Pike said, “Jesus.”

  “Myers had an open window into Richard's life. He knew about me and Lucy, he knew that Lucy and Ben were out here, and he knew that Richard was worried about them. Fallon and Schilling couldn't have known anything about that, but Myers would have known all of it. Richard probably did nothing but bitch about how much danger they were in because of me, so maybe Myers started thinking he could use Richard's paranoia to get some of Richard's money.”

  “Set up a kidnapping, then control the play from inside for the payoff.”

  “Yeah.”

  Pike shook his head.

  “It's thin.”

  “How else could they get my file? Why target Ben as the victim and try to make me look like the reason it's happening?”

  “You going to call Starkey?”

  “What would I tell her and what could she do? Myers isn't going to admit it unless we have proof.”

  We went back to the bedroom and looked through Schilling's phone bills again to see if Schilling had phoned Louisiana, but his bills showed no calls outside the Los Angeles area
except for the calls to El Salvador. We went through the entire apartment again. We searched every place we could think of to find something that would connect Schilling to Myers or Myers to Schilling until we ran out of places to search, and still we had nothing. Then I thought of another place we could look.

  I said, “We have to get inside Myers's office. Come on.”

  I ran to the door, but Pike did not follow. He stared at me as if I had lost my mind.

  “What's wrong with you? Myers's office is in New Orleans.”

  “Lucy can do it. Lucy can search his office from here.”

  I explained as we ran to our cars.

  22

  time missing: 51 hours, 36 minutes

  Lucy stared at me past the edge of the door as if she were hiding. Her face was masked in a darkness that went beyond the absence of light; as soon as I saw her I knew they had told her about DeNice.

  She said, “One of Richard's detectives—”

  “I know. Joe's downstairs. Let me come in, Luce, I need to talk to you.”

  I eased the door open and stepped in without waiting for her to ask. She was holding her phone. I doubt that she had put it down since last night.

  She seemed dazed, like the weight of the nightmare had drained all her strength. She sleepwalked to the couch as if she were numb.

  “They decapitated him. A detective from downtown, he said they left Ben's shoe in the blood.”

  “We're going to get him, Luce. We're going to find him. Did you speak with Lucas or Starkey?”

  “They were here a little while ago. The two of them and a detective from downtown.”

  “Tims.”

  “They told me about the van. They said it was going to be on the news, and they didn't want me to see it like that. They asked me about Fallon again, and two other men, an African man and someone named Schilling. They had pictures.”

  “How about Richard? Did they mention Richard?”

  “Why would they mention Richard?”

  “Did you speak with him this evening?”

  “I've called him, but he hasn't returned my calls.”

  She frowned at me, and looked even more concerned.

  “Why would they mention Richard? Did something happen to Richard, too?”

  “We think that Fallon might have contacted Richard to ask for ransom money. That's probably why Fallon did what he did to DeNice, to scare Richard into paying.”

  “They didn't say that.”

  She frowned deeper and shook her head.

  “Richard didn't say anything about that.”

  “If Fallon scared him badly enough, he wouldn't, and I think that Fallon scared him plenty. Fallon scared all of us. Lucy, listen, I think that Myers is involved. That's why they took Ben, and that's how they knew about me. Through Myers.”

  “Why would—”

  I put the copy of my 201 in her hands. She looked at it without understanding.

  “This is my military record. It's private. You can't get it from the Army unless I request it or you have a court order. The Army sent out only two copies of this thing, Luce, one to Starkey because of this investigation, and one to a judge in New Orleans three months ago. That judge sent it to Leland Myers.”

  Lucy looked at the pages. I knew from the way she darkened that she was remembering Richard in the interview room.

  “Richard had you investigated.”

  “Myers is his head of security, so Myers would have handled that. Myers also handles security at Richard's overseas facilities. I talked to a man today who says that Schilling was looking for security work in Central America.”

  “Richard has holdings in El Salvador.”

  She glanced up again, and now she didn't seem so hazy. Her anger showed in the way she held her head.

  “The judge in New Orleans, who was he?”

  “Rulon Lester. Do you know him?”

  She thought about it, trying to place the name, then shook her head.

  “No, I don't think so.”

  “I spoke with his assistant. He sent my file to Myers, so Myers had one of only two copies that the Army released. Joe and I found this copy in an apartment in San Gabriel that belongs to Eric Schilling. He made at least six phone calls to a number in San Miguel, El Salvador, that belongs to Michael Fallon. It's Fallon on your tape, Lucy. I called the number. I recognized his voice.”

  I opened Schilling's phone bills and pointed out the calls to El Salvador. She stared at the number, then dialed it into her phone. I watched her as it rang. I watched as she listened. Her face darkened as she listened to his voice, and then she jabbed hard at the phone to end the call. She smashed the phone down onto the arm of the couch. I didn't stop her. I waited.

  “The only way they could have gotten my 201 file is through Myers. Myers probably set up the entire thing and brought them in on it. They nabbed Ben with me as the smoke screen because Richard would buy into that. Myers probably even talked him into coming out here with people of his own to find Ben. That way, Myers could ride it from the inside and control how Richard reacted. He was Richard's point man in the investigation. He could feed Richard the ransom demand and encourage him to go along.”

  Lucy stood hard.

  “Richard's at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Let's go see him.”

  I didn't move.

  “And tell him what? We have the file, but we can't prove Myers knows them. If we don't have something definite, he'll deny everything and then we're stuck. He'll know that we know, and then the only thing left for him is to get rid of the evidence.”

  Get rid of Ben.

  Lucy lowered herself onto the couch and stared at me.

  “You said you need my help. You already know how you want me to help, and it's something you can't do or you would be doing it.”

  “If Myers hired these people before he started thinking about this, then he probably hired them straight up. Richard's company would have a record of it. We have Fallon's phone number in El Salvador and Schilling's number in San Gabriel. If Myers called either of them at any time and for any reason from a company phone, those records will exist.”

  “But we don't want to ask Richard because Richard might lose it with Myers.”

  “Myers can't know.”

  Lucy slumped back, thinking. She glanced at her watch.

  “It's almost ten in Louisiana. Everyone from the office should be home.”

  She went into her bedroom, then returned with a battered leather address book, and flipped through the pages.

  “I had friends at Richard's company before we were divorced. I was close to some of these people. Everyone knew he was an asshole, especially the people who knew him the best.”

  She settled back with her phone and pulled her legs up so that she was sitting cross-legged and dialed a number.

  “Hello, Sondra? It's Lucy. Yeah, here in L.A. How are you?”

  Sondra Burkhardt had been Richard's comptroller for sixteen years. She oversaw an accounting department which was responsible for paying the company's bills, collecting monies, and tracking cash flow. Most of her job was done by computer, but she told the computer what to do. Sondra had played tennis with Lucy at LSU, and Lucy had gotten her the job. Sondra also had three children, the youngest of whom was six, and Lucy was her godmother.

  “Sondra, I need a favor that's going to sound strange and I don't have time to—”

  Lucy paused, listening, then nodded.

  “Thanks, babe. Okay, I'm going to give you three names, and I need to know whether or not they were ever on the payroll. Can you do that from home?”

  I interrupted.

  “Central America. Any time in the past year.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “They would have been foreign hires, probably in Central America sometime in the past year. Myers would have been the one to hire them. No, I don't have Social Security numbers, just the names. I understand, that makes it harder. I know.”

  Lucy gave her the names, then asked if we cou
ld get a list of all the calls that Myers had made to Los Angeles and El Salvador. Lucy frowned as she listened to the answer, then asked Sondra to hang on and covered the phone. She looked at me.

  “If we can't tell her when he made the calls, she might have to check through thousands of calls. They make hundreds of international calls every day.”

  “See if she can check for the specific numbers.”

  Lucy asked her, then covered the phone again.

  “Yeah, she can do that, but she'll have to do it by billing period. I guess that's the way the database is set up.”

  I checked the phone bills for the dates of the four-day period when Schilling had called El Salvador. Myers would have been involved in the planning.

  “Have her check whatever billing period includes these four days. If we don't get anything, she can check the prior period.”

  Lucy gave her Schilling's phone number, Fallon's number in San Miguel, and the dates. After that, Lucy settled back with the phone to her ear and waited.

  “She's looking.”

  “Okay.”

  We stared at each other. Lucy made a very small smile, and I smiled back. It felt as if the awkwardness between us had somehow vanished in the mutual effort of searching for Ben, as if we were one again and not two, and in that moment my heart seemed to quiet. But then her brow knotted and Lucy tightened in a way that brought her forward.

  She said, “I'm sorry, Sondra, say that again.”

  I said, “What?”

  She held up her hand to silence me. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. Lucy shook her head as if she didn't understand what she was hearing, but then I realized that she was resisting what she was hearing.

  I said, “What is it?”

  “She found eleven calls to the San Miguel number, none to L.A., but eleven to San Miguel. Myers only made four of the calls. Richard made the other seven.”

  “That can't be right. It had to be Myers. Myers must have used his phone.”