Flight ik-8

by Jan Burke

  “Monday… because of Bredloe?”

  “You always were a bright boy. Yes, because of Bredloe. Look at the log.”

  “Jesus. Bredloe was looking at the evidence the day he was hurt. That afternoon.”

  “Yes. He was agitated, you might say. People tell me you pissed him off.”

  Frank smoothed his hand over the sheet. “Yes, I did.”

  “Well, don’t feel bad. This whole thing about Lefebvre has been the equivalent of a departmental wedgie. The only people who can ignore it have no balls.”

  Frank looked at the time on the log sheet. “He came down here after arguing with me about Lefebvre. I told him I thought Lefebvre might be innocent.”

  “Is that a fact?” Flynn said, seeming amused.

  “Don’t feel compelled to give me grief about that — I’m getting plenty already.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are,” Flynn said.

  “So you were saying — he wasn’t in a good mood when you saw him?”

  “Oh, that’s an understatement. He was in a little better mood when he brought it back. But I think someone saw him with the box and that someone had something to say to him about it — ’cause he called me a little after he checked it back in to ask who else in the department knew what was in it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “‘Everybody and his grandmother, and probably a few great-grandmothers, too.’”

  Frank sighed. “You need to tell Hale about this.”

  “Already have. You mention the ‘L’ name to him yet?”

  “Lefebvre? Yes, I see your point. But maybe that will change now… Anyway, let me know what you’re getting at.”

  “Well, even though Bredloe brought it back in kind of a better mood, as if — you know, as if he had just reassured himself that we weren’t hatching some monster’s egg in this box all these years — I thought it was a little strange. Your case, and he’s not usually one to butt in like that. He’s not the kind to interfere.”

  “No, but like you say, this case chaps everybody.”

  “Even on high-profile cases, he doesn’t try to second-guess his detectives. Something was nagging at him, you ask me. He checks out a box that only has a watch in it. And then he gets hurt. Almost killed. And that same day I’ve heard that over the weekend, you found Lefebvre’s body in the wreckage of his plane, and there wasn’t any stolen evidence with him. I start asking myself if this evidence box is like the pharaohs’ tombs or something — you know, Egyptian curse or something like that. People handle it, and” — he snapped his fingers — “so long. Your plane crashes or bricks fall on you.”

  “Could be coincidence.”

  “You don’t like that any more than I do.”

  “No.” Frank nodded toward the other pages. “What are those?”

  “Look at this one first,” Flynn said, giving another photocopy to him. “It’s a log sheet for the day Lefebvre looked at the evidence for the murders. June twenty-second.”

  “June twenty-second?” Frank repeated, disbelieving. “I thought Lefebvre worked on the Randolph case. But he didn’t look at the evidence until that Friday?”

  Flynn smiled. “We’re on the same wavelength. I love it when people make it easy for me. You’re right. He wasn’t really that actively involved in the case per se. I was working bunco — handling mostly forgery and fraud cases back then, so I wasn’t privy to everything that was going on in Homicide. But you know how things are — word gets around about cases that might be connected and so on. This was Whitey Dane we were about to nail, after all.”

  “And lots of cases were connected to Dane.”

  “Exactly. Dane had his fingers in a lot of pies, and we were interested in him in my section, too. So this case had us all hopping. Way I remember it is, we were all a little pissed off because Lefebvre was taking time off, hanging out with this kid. He was with Seth Randolph all the time. You’ve probably read the notes by now, so you know the role he played in saving the kid and all that. So here’s the department bright boy, baby-sitting when we need him in here.”

  Flynn paused, mentioned the need to look good for the cameras, and took the time to point to the blueprint. Frank obliged him by appearing to focus on it, but his mind was racing.

  “Funny,” Flynn said, “what questions occur to you when it’s too late. I started asking myself stuff I should have asked ten years ago. What I started wondering was, when the hell did the guy get a chance to get corrupted by Dane? In the hospital cafeteria? He’d only seen the stuff twice. Just after six that evening, and again, a couple of hours later. But then I notice something that really makes me crazy. Look at the signatures.”

  Frank started to study them, but Flynn already had the tip of his pen pointing at the two examples. “Let an old man who used to work the forgery detail show you. The first time the name is written smaller than the second.”

  “Not much, though,” Frank said.

  “Not much to your untrained eye. Let’s call these two by the date they were made — call them the ‘June twenty-second signatures.’ The earlier one, the smaller one, we’ll call ‘Twenty-two A,’ and the other, ‘Twenty-two B.’” He flipped over the remaining stack of papers, gave them to Frank, and said, “This is a collection of Phil’s signatures, ones I took from different parts of the log, on different days. Now compare them to the ones you’re looking at there.”

  Although the signatures were not identical, Frank knew that it was natural for slight variations to occur in a person’s signature. But even without closely examining them he could see that most of the examples Flynn showed him were generally formed in the same way, with characteristics that made them look more like the 22B than the 22A signature. The 22A was, indeed, slightly smaller than the others.

  “That’s a sign of forgery, you know,” Flynn said. “I could show you half a dozen others in those examples — hesitations, the way the capital L in Lefebvre is formed, and so on.”

  “So if someone forged his signature—”

  “Someone else took the evidence.”

  Frank was quiet.

  Flynn said, “You’ve already come to that conclusion, though.”

  “Yes. I think people in the department saw what they wanted to see, what they expected to see. So they didn’t look too closely. But this forgery of his signature might be the strongest proof of his innocence yet. Have you shown this to Joe Koza up in Questioned Documents?”

  “No. He’s young and I don’t think he’s had a thing to do with any of this, but…”

  Frank nodded. “I’m with you. Wait until we know more before word spreads.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I need to see that evidence box.”

  “Just don’t forget about the pharaohs’ curse.”

  “Believe me, I haven’t. But I still want to see this famous watch.”

  “Not much to it. Maybe you can see something there that the last couple of fellows have missed. I hope your luck is better than Lefebvre’s or Bredloe’s. And I think I may just know the trick to help you avoid harm.”

  “That rosary?” Frank asked, smiling.

  “I don’t doubt it — but that’s not mine, believe it or not. One of our clerks is so spooked by what’s in that freezer, she won’t go in there unless she’s got that in her pocket. No, we’re going to change another little ritual for you.” He glanced at his watch and said, “We should be okay now. Let’s put the papers away — no one is going to believe we were that interested in a damned freezer.”

  He gave all the photocopies to Frank, who folded them and tucked them inside his suit coat’s inner pocket as Flynn put the blueprint away.

  “Let’s walk out,” Flynn said. “I’ll explain along the way.”

  When they reached the beeper forest, Flynn said, “Someone checks that box out of here and bad things happen to him, right?”

  “Yes, although I’m not quite as superstitious about it as you are.”

  “It’s not superstition.”<
br />
  “It might not be the watch. I think Lefebvre’s enemy was gunning for him before he saw the evidence.”

  “Okay, but play along with me here. Just in case it’s seeing this watch that makes someone crazy, I’m not going to let you check that box out of here.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “I’ll let you look at it, and now that everyone but my security officer has gone home for the day, we aren’t likely to be interrupted while you’re doing that. I think I’ll test a new, manual backup system this evening. And it just might take me a while to get my paperwork into the computer. That’s the only way I can figure it — someone has glanced at the signatures in the log-book or hacked into the computer, or one of my clerks is tipping somebody off. I’ll figure it out eventually. But in the meantime, your name isn’t going to send up any red flags if I can help it.”

  The property room clerks had, as Flynn predicted, left for the day. The security officer nodded to them from his position at a bank of video monitors.

  “Working late, Flynn?” he asked.

  “Oh, not for much longer.”

  They went into his office, and Flynn shut the door. There was a video monitor in here as well, showing changing views from the various surveillance cameras. There was also a computer, and several file drawers, as well as a storage cabinet. From the storage cabinet, he removed a box with blue and red tape on it. A quick glance at the tag told Frank that it was the one for the Randolph case.

  “Sign here,” Flynn said, handing him an outdated carbonless form.

  Frank did as he asked, unable to keep from smiling to himself. “He bends them, but they don’t break.”

  “What — the rules?” Flynn said, giving him a pair of gloves. “You expect me to completely abandon my rules? No way.”

  Frank put the gloves on, wondering if he should bother with them. Ignoring a little chill that raised the hair along the back of his neck, he cut the tape, then opened the box. He reached for the small, numbered envelope within it.

  Although he had known there would be nothing more than an electronic watch in the envelope, he still couldn’t help feeling a little let down at the sight of it. He had seen a photograph of it, and he found that the actual article looked even more anonymous. It was one of those complex watches with buttons for alarms and timers, other time zones, and a stopwatch. The battery in it had died long ago, of course, so that the numbers on its face were gone, the face now nothing more than a gray blank, the color of a shaken Etch-A-Sketch. All the same, it didn’t appear to be cheaply made.

  Tracking down the owner of the watch was more than a long shot, but this was the only thing he had to go on other than Flynn’s assurance that Lefebvre’s signature had been forged. The forged signature might prove that Lefebvre hadn’t signed for the box earlier in the day, but it would be remarkable if it could show who did the forging. Still, it was an unexpected break, so Frank decided he’d take a chance on finding the owner of the watch. Perhaps only a few of the watches had been made after all, and a serial number would lead to some record of purchase. He already had the name of the manufacturer — Time Masters — in his notes. Although he was fairly sure he had the words and numbers that were etched on the back in the files, he copied them down:

  WATER RESISTANT

  BASE METAL

  ST STEEL BACK

  TMSR3

  CHINA

  3458904894

  He thought of Ben’s discovery of Lefebvre’s watch in the woods and remembered a detail from the file. He looked at the band for a moment, then said, “I thought the lab report claimed they had Lefebvre’s wrist measurement off this thing. How the hell did they get it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this doesn’t look as if it has ever been worn.”

  Flynn studied it. “By God, you’re right…”

  Frank remembered reading the reports, the notations about indentations made by the buckle in the leather watchband, the one bucklehole that had been slightly larger than the others, worn places that indicated wrist size based on where the strap had been fastened again and again.

  He explained this to Flynn and said, “The wrist strap on this one hasn’t ever been buckled. It isn’t the same watch.”

  “Shit,” Flynn said. “Shit, shit, shit. Let me pull up the records.”

  He moved over to the computer, logged on, and went into the evidence control program. He asked for a report on requests made for the Randolph case materials.

  The report listed a long group of names. Flynn printed it out, then handed it to Frank. Most of the names were familiar. In addition to Captain Bredloe, there were three detectives — Vince Adams, Pete Baird, Elena Rosario. Three members of the lab — Dr. Alfred Larson, Paul Haycroft, and Dale Britton. He asked Flynn about two other names, ones he didn’t recognize.

  “Those guys were with Internal Affairs. They’re retired now, but I can put you in touch with them if need be.”

  Frank thought about the list of names in Lefebvre’s notebook. The IAD detectives weren’t on it. “Probably won’t be necessary,” he said. “Flynn — anybody else asks to see this—”

  “I’ll let you know,” Flynn said.

  30

  Wednesday, July 12, 5:15 P.M.

  The Dane Mansion

  “A child, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Myles kept his face impassive, but his knowledge of Mr. Dane made him proceed cautiously. Mr. Dane was not following his usual routine this evening. Departure from routine did not often bode well for his staff. Mr. Dane had refused to hear Myles’s report on Lefebvre’s funeral until a few moments ago. He sometimes did this — put off what he would consider a treat.

  A report on the funeral for Lefebvre was, Mr. Dane decided, a real treat.

  “The Las Piernas Police Department may not remember all he did for them,” Dane had said when told of the arrangements, “but I certainly do!” He considered and rejected the idea of gracing the services with his own presence, but he could not resist causing a stir.

  His instructions to Myles had been explicit. “I want you to hover there, Myles. Don’t get close enough to kiss the casket — in fact, stay well out of reach, but make sure your appearance is noted. They’ll go positively wild. And it will give us an idea where things stand. You must tell me who is in attendance.”

  Not long after Myles returned from the cemetery, he reported that he had been seen and videotaped by members of the LPPD. Dane had held up one pale hand and shouted, “Don’t! Not another word. You will tell me more this evening.”

  For the past few hours, Dane had been amusing himself by observing the police surveillance efforts, their virtual occupation of other houses in the neighborhood. “Oh, look! They’ve convinced the old busybody next door to quarter their troops!” he said gleefully.

  He had fed the swans a little earlier than usual, making a show of it, his gestures sweeping. He began conversing with the birds in a lunatic fashion. He had been delighted to think of his little play with the swans being immortalized by the video cameras of the LPPD. “They’ll believe I’ve gone gaga!”

  But when Dane finally heard Myles’s report, his mood changed.

  “Elena Rosario — you’re sure?”

  “No, sir. Not positive.”

  “But you heard her voice! It must have been chilling! I swear to you, I horripilate at the very idea — Detective Elena Rosario’s voice after all these years!”

  Myles now knew without a doubt that he was on dangerous ground. He said nothing.

  “Did her fellow law enforcement officers embrace her? Did they welcome — ah! — her resurrection?”

  “No, sir. Detectives Collins and Baird were intrigued by the veiled woman, but I believe they left the task of identifying her to Detective Harriman. Or perhaps they believed she was in some way connected to Mr. Arden. She stayed next to him throughout the time I saw her.”

  “Ah, yes, Arden.” Dane brooded for a time, then
said, “Tell me more.”

  Myles described the altercation between Tory Randolph and the veiled woman, which had taken place just as he was leaving. He kept hoping Mr. Dane would find some amusement in it. He did not. Suddenly, Myles remembered another detail he had planned to report.

  “Before anyone else arrived at the cemetery, I looked at the flowers brought there from the funeral home. They included an elaborate arrangement of white flowers. All white. No card.”

  Dane sat up straighter. “Really? Now you interest me…”

  Myles waited.

  “Yes, that is interesting. Did you discover where they came from?”

  “Not yet, sir, but we are working on it.”

  “It is very important to me, Myles.”

  “Yes, sir. I expect an answer by early this evening.”

  Dane tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. After a moment, he asked, “Detective Harriman was delayed in his return to his office?”

  “Yes, sir. By several hours.”

  “Curious…” Dane grew introspective. “He does not seem as interested in me as his friends are. Which can only mean that he is not as convinced as they that I killed their precious Trent Randolph. Why?” He looked up at Myles. “What does he know that they don’t?”

  This aspect of matters had escaped Myles’s notice. He was ashamed that he had not assigned someone to follow Detective Harriman from the cemetery. He had someone watching inside the department, of course, but that was not helpful to Mr. Dane now.

  “You and I were due to discuss him today, weren’t we?” Dane asked.

  “The report is ready whenever you’d like to go over it, sir.”

  “Excellent,” Dane said. “After dinner, you and I shall spend time together in the study, discussing Detective Harriman.”