All amusement vanished. “Is that where you are? Stay put. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“She’s heading east in a light green Chevy sedan.” He recited the license number from memory. “You’ll want to hurry.”
“We’re hurrying. Don’t go anywhere, Mr. Loogan. Stay right there.”
He reached his car, popped the trunk, and lifted the guitar case inside.
“I’m already gone,” he said.
Chapter 26
IN THE QUIET OF WEDNESDAY EVENING, ELIZABETH FOUND HERSELF alone in her living room. Sarah had gone to the library to work on a project for school. Elizabeth sat on the sofa, a glass of wine on the coffee table nearby, files and reports arranged on the cushions beside her. A Chopin étude played softly on the stereo.
The flight of Valerie Calnero had set the tone for Elizabeth’s day. Chief Owen McCaleb had taken the news stoically, standing for once perfectly still in the center of his office. He had offered no reproach to Elizabeth or Shan, saying only, “Let’s find her, and let’s find Loogan while we’re at it.”
The problem of finding David Loogan had occupied much of Elizabeth’s thought. Throughout the afternoon, she had experienced the growing realization that she knew very little about him. Where was he from? Where had he lived before coming to Ann Arbor? What work had he done before Tom Kristoll hired him as an editor?
The one link she had to his past was the history professor from whom he had rented his house. The professor was in Frankfurt, and Elizabeth had spoken with him on the phone. But the man didn’t know Loogan personally; Loogan had rented the house through an ad on the Internet. The only lead the professor could give her was Loogan’s previous address—an apartment in Cleveland—and the name of his landlord there.
She’d had no luck yet contacting the landlord, and had delegated the task to Alice Marrowicz. “If we know where Loogan’s been,” she said to her, “and if we can find someone who knew him there, it might help us convince him to come in.” It sounded weak to Elizabeth even as she said it, but Alice seemed eager to help.
Carter Shan had suggested tracking Loogan through his cell phone. Elizabeth knew it was possible in theory. Any cell phone that’s turned on sends out signals periodically, whether or not it’s being used to make a call. The signals are picked up by cell towers and allow phone companies to determine how to route incoming calls. But they can also be used to estimate a phone’s location. Any given signal is likely to reach two or more towers, and if it does, the relative signal strength at each tower can be used to triangulate the phone’s position—narrowing it down, in some cases, to an area of a few square blocks. If the phone is equipped with a global positioning chip, its location can be determined even more precisely.
That was the theory. In practice, things were more complicated. They had subpoenaed Loogan’s cell phone records, and his phone turned out to be an inexpensive prepaid model, without GPS. And he had been keeping it turned off when he wasn’t using it—he seemed to realize the danger that it posed.
As long as the phone was off, he was invisible. The only option was to wait and see if he would use it again. Shan had spoken with a technician at Loogan’s cell phone provider, and the technician had flagged Loogan’s number in the company’s computer system. If Loogan turned on his phone, the company would notify the department and attempt to triangulate his position. But it would take time, and then it would take more time to send patrol cars to look for him, and when they arrived at the search area he might already have moved on.
“I don’t think it’ll work,” Elizabeth had told Shan that afternoon. “He’s not going to linger long enough to be found.”
Shan had merely shrugged. “Maybe not. We’re just covering the bases. He could decide to ditch the phone altogether. Maybe he’s done making calls.”
But whatever doubts Elizabeth had about tracking Loogan’s phone, she didn’t believe he was done making calls. She expected to hear from him again. He would want to talk. She had dialed his number and left a message on his voice mail, encouraging him to call her.
Now, in the evening, she was home catching up on reports, going over the files on Kristoll and Tully and Beccanti. A draft of cool November air came through a partly open window. Chopin’s piano notes ambled along sadly on the stereo.
Her cell phone rang around eight o’clock, and even before she read his number on the display she knew it would be Loogan.
“Where are you?” she said to him.
“You ask that as if you expect me to answer.”
“I do.”
“Let’s say I’m at a rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike. I figured I’d be safe calling you from here. How fast can you organize a manhunt in Ohio?”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I’m not sure,” she said, “but I’ll get right on it.”
“Did you catch up with Valerie Calnero?”
She debated whether to answer him, decided it would do no harm. “Valerie slipped away from us. We had people watching for her on the inter-states, all the main routes out of the city. I think she may have stuck to the back roads.”
“What will you do now?”
“We’ve got a bulletin out on her, and we’ve contacted the police in Mil waukee. That’s where she grew up. She might go back there.”
“I doubt it. She’s smarter than that.”
“We’ll see.”
“Did you find the file box at her apartment?”
Elizabeth got up and turned down the volume on the stereo.
“We found it,” she said. “I’m not sure how much good it does us. There was nothing else of interest in the apartment. We talked to some witnesses on the scene though.”
“Witnesses?”
“People who saw her leave,” Elizabeth said. “They saw you with her. Saw you put something in her car.”
“That was her cat.”
“Then they saw you kiss her.”
“Technically, she kissed me.”
“Is that right?” Elizabeth stood by the window and rested her palm against the cool glass. “Are you really such a passive man? Blackmailers kiss you. Publishers’ wives seduce you. Maybe you need to take some initiative.” She drew her fingertips down along the glass. “The witnesses said you were carrying a guitar case. That’s a nice touch.”
He laughed. “The thing is, I needed some way to threaten Valerie. I told her if she didn’t talk, I’d beat her with my guitar. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“No wonder she kissed you. Mr. Loogan, I should advise you that carrying a concealed weapon is a crime. I should also advise you that there are now two warrants out for your arrest—one as a material witness to the death of Michael Beccanti, one for obstructing a police investigation. I recommend you find a lawyer and turn yourself in.”
“You said that before.”
“I’m going to keep on saying it.”
He went quiet for a few seconds. Then: “Have you worked out the connection yet between Valerie Calnero and Sean Wrentmore?”
“More or less,” Elizabeth said. “We know Wrentmore left a key to his storage unit with Delia Ross, in case something happened to him. He must have done the same with Valerie. She copyedited one of his stories when she was an intern at Gray Streets. I’m not sure why he wanted two people to have access to his storage unit. Maybe he thought one of them was unreliable.”
“Delia Ross is close to finishing her degree and plans to leave Ann Arbor,” Loogan said. “If Wrentmore knew that, he might’ve chosen Valerie as a replacement.”
“That’s possible.”
“Also, Sean Wrentmore was a solitary man, and Valerie Calnero is a beautiful woman. He might have seen it as a way of getting close to her.”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
“I’ve had time on my hands,” he said drily. “That reminds me. I’ve been thinking about Michael Beccanti. Whoever killed him was either waiting at my house, or followed him there. I think they must h
ave followed him.”
“Why would they follow him?”
“Because they knew he was looking into Tom Kristoll’s murder. I told you Beccanti searched Tom’s office on Saturday. I forgot to mention that someone caught him at it. The secretary, Sandy Vogel. She might have told someone else. That’s worth investigating, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’d talk to her myself, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t approve.”
“I wouldn’t. Don’t try to contact Sandy Vogel.”
“I won’t. How are you holding up?”
Elizabeth turned away from the window. “I’m fine,” she said.
“Four murders now,” he said. “It must be a lot of work.”
“I have colleagues, Mr. Loogan. I’m not expected to solve four murders on my own.”
“Still, you must be busy.”
“A lot of it is paperwork,” she said, returning to the sofa. “Forms, notes, reports. That’s what an investigation comes down to—papers in a file. I’ve got some of them here.” She picked up one of the folders beside her. “We’ve made a timeline of your actions, for instance. When you called me yesterday, you implied you were somewhere far away, but that was a bit of deception. You must have been in Ann Arbor, or at least nearby, because a short time later you went to Self-Storage USA. Then you may have left town for all I know, but you came back this morning for your tête-à-tête with Valerie Calnero. In the meantime, you acquired a guitar case. To anyone else, this might seem like trivia, but yesterday I happened to walk through every room of your rented house. There was a guitar case in the spare bedroom. I went back today, and there was a guitar but no case. Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means now I’ve made a note in the file about the guitar case. You’re making more work for me.”
“Sorry.”
“If you were sorry, you’d turn yourself in.” She reached for a different folder. “Here’s another report—on the knife that killed Michael Beccanti. Most of the fingerprints we found on the knife belonged to Beccanti himself. That’s not surprising. He was the last one to touch it—he pulled the knife out of his stomach. But we found a partial thumbprint that didn’t belong to him, and we compared it to yours. You gave us a set of prints after Tom died, as I’m sure you recall. We fingerprinted everyone who had access to Tom’s office, for purposes of elimination. The thumbprint on the knife was yours.”
“That can be explained,” Loogan said mildly. “I told you the knife came from my kitchen.”
“That’s true. You told me,” Elizabeth said. “But your prints also turned up in Adrian Tully’s car. What do you think of that?”
This was something she herself had learned earlier in the day. She could tell from the way he paused that it had caught him by surprise.
“If I didn’t know better,” he said softly, “I’d think you were trying to trick me.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.
“My prints have no business being in Adrian Tully’s car.”
“That’s what I would have thought. Yet there they are.”
“Where? Where exactly did you find them?”
She put the folder aside and stood. “There was a box of ammunition in Tully’s glove compartment. The box was wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. We found your prints on the bag.”
Another pause. She paced across the room, listening to the static on the line.
“Are you still with me, Mr. Loogan?”
“I’m here,” he said. “Let me ask you something. Did Tully drive a Honda Civic, sky blue, rust on the fenders?”
She stopped her pacing. “That’s a good description.”
“I’ve been in that car.”
“Some of the people I work with believe you were in that car the night Adrian Tully died.”
“No, it was before that,” he said. “It was the night Sean Wrentmore died. Look, it’s a little complicated.”
She felt herself smile. “Let’s see if I can follow along.”
“Tom called and asked me to come over, to help him with the body. But he didn’t tell me it was Wrentmore. He said it was a thief he had caught breaking into his house. He wanted to conceal Wrentmore’s identity. That car, the blue Civic, was in Tom’s garage. It was Tully’s car, Tully had been there that night, but Tom didn’t want me to know that either. He let me think it was the dead thief ’s car. When we got rid of the body, we got rid of the car too. Tom drove his Ford, and I drove the Civic, and we left it on the street in a bad neighborhood. It must have been a charade on Tom’s part, to keep me from knowing that Tully had been there.”
“And why would Tully leave his car behind?” she asked him.
“I can only assume he drove off in Wrentmore’s car, planning to get rid of it.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “But you haven’t accounted for the fingerprints on the bag of ammunition.”
The static seemed to clear from the line. “I stopped at a store on the way to Tom’s that night,” he said. “I bought a few things—a shovel, bottled water, leather gardening gloves. I transferred all this stuff from my car to Tully’s and then, later on, from Tully’s car to Tom’s. But I must have left a plastic bag behind in Tully’s car. It must still have been there on the night he was killed. Say it was on the floor of the backseat; Tully’s killer snatched it up, maybe he thought Tully’s prints would be on it; he put the box of ammo inside and stashed it in the glove compartment. That’s plausible, isn’t it?”
“It’s not bad,” Elizabeth said. “I’m inclined to believe you. But my opinion doesn’t matter. You’ve ticked a lot of people off. Fleeing the scene the night Beccanti died. Showing up at Valerie Calnero’s apartment, then just letting her drive away. My boss looks darkly on these things. He’s a genial man, mild-tempered, soft-spoken, but he believes it reflects poorly on us when an inordinate number of people die. You’re not helping. There are people I work with who suspect you stabbed Beccanti and then staged it to look like a break-in. There are others who are convinced you shot Tully. Some think you did both. The fact that you haven’t turned yourself in makes it worse. The longer you wait, the more they think you’re guilty. You need to come in.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I don’t want to be misunderstood, Mr. Loogan. I think you believe you’re doing the right thing—that there’s something you can accomplish by running around on your own—that somehow you’re going to discover who killed your friend. Maybe you think I’m urging you to come in because it’s my job, because it’s the official line I have to take—but secretly I’m on your side, I’m rooting for you. That’s not the case. I don’t approve of you. I don’t think you’re going to accomplish anything.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you do,” she said. “Look, I shouldn’t tell you this, but your picture will be in the paper tomorrow. Probably on the news too. It would have been in today, but we had trouble finding a photograph. There’s no photo of you on file at Gray Streets.”
“They never got around to taking one.”
“We wound up using your driver’s license photo. Those are stored electronically. We had to doctor it a little. You had a mustache and a beard when it was taken.”
“It was winter.”
“We had someone Photoshop it. You’ll see the result tomorrow. You should come in now, voluntarily. Things will go better for you.”
“I wish I could.” He seemed to waver for a moment, and she tried to read his silence. “But it’s not something I’m willing to do.”
“I’m having trouble understanding that,” she said.
“Is it really so hard to understand?”
She sensed him slipping away. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“I’d like to, but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You already don’t approve of me,” he said.
Then he was gone. He had broken off the call.
; She dialed his number, hoping to catch him before he turned off his phone. But after a single ring she got shuffled to his voice mail. She called in to the department next and learned that Shan had been in contact with Loogan’s cell phone provider—and was on the line now with the state police. Shan called her back a few minutes later.
“He’s in Livonia,” Shan told her.
Elizabeth had to suppress a laugh. “He said he was in Ohio.” Livonia was a suburb of Detroit.
“He’s somewhere around Newburgh Road and Six Mile. There’s a shopping mall there—Laurel Park Place. Lots of cars. He’d blend right in.”
“He knows what he’s doing.”
“The Livonia police have a cruiser there now, and they’re sending another. But he could be out of there already.”
“I’m sure he is,” Elizabeth said.
“He’s right next to I-275 and I-96,” said Shan. “From there he can go anywhere he wants. I talked to the state police and the Wayne County sheriff’s department. They’ve got his description and a description of his car. They’ll look for him.” He didn’t sound optimistic.
“They’re not going to find him,” she said.
Chapter 27
SARAH ARRIVED HOME FROM THE LIBRARY AROUND NINE O’CLOCK, AND Elizabeth put away her files. The two of them ate a late supper, then watched part of a documentary on PBS—people suffering injustice in foreign lands.
No word came in about David Loogan. Elizabeth tried to put him out of her mind, though there were echoes of him in her house. Once, as the night wore on, she looked in on Sarah and caught the girl standing in the middle of her bedroom, juggling three tennis balls with a look of fierce concentration.
Later, when Sarah was asleep, Elizabeth puttered around downstairs. She piled magazines, gathered stray dishes. She moved Sarah’s school books from the coffee table to the dining room. With a casual curiosity she opened a notebook and saw a drawing of Loogan’s face: rough-feather pencil strokes outlined his jaw; his gray eyes were clear and free of shadow. A good likeness, she thought—far better than the image they had released to the press.
Harry Dolan Page 20
