Killer Karma

Obviously Razor remained unconvinced that Luther Thomas Kijurian existed only on paper. “Flaxx knows the building owner is always the prime suspect in arson. He’s created Kijurian to draw suspicion away from himself. Kijurian is like the Man Who Never Was that the Brits used-”

“Used in World War II to feed misinformation to the Nazis. Yes, yes, I know. You’ve told me.” Razor sighed. “Okay…let’s go through this one more time.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “You’ve told me Flaxx has a personnel file for the man. Their maintenance log and work orders say he unplugged toilets, worked on locks, and changed light bulbs. There’s the payroll record with his salary on it.”

“Flaxx went to a lot of trouble to set this up. But Kijurian’s name is on the payroll for just three months before being fired, allegedly for giving them a false Social Security number.” Cole ticked off points of his own. “Where did all those records come from? The computer. Who’s Flaxx’s IT guru? Faithful henchman and cooker of books Earl Lamper. It’s a snap for him to fake a personnel file. The work orders? Who pays much attention to who comes and changes the light bulbs? Someone went to those stores and did it, but the staff there can’t remember who.” He raised his brows at Razor. “I’ve asked them.”

“Even though investigating arson isn’t your job.” Razor shook his head. “Damn it, the personnel file has a photo, a copy of which you’ve shown me, you remember. He’s been described by witnesses who saw him throw the Molotov cocktails, as well as photographed in the crowd at a couple of the fires. People saw him at the residence hotel where he lived.”

“Where he was never seen in good light or for very long and he left the night of the first fire. Except for the fire photos, he hasn’t been seen since. And doesn’t he look just like someone who’d be throwing Molotov cocktails.” When Razor grunted in exasperation, Cole punched his shoulder. “Come on…think about it. Stocky, jowly, thick eyebrows and a mustache. An anarchist type straight out of Central Casting. Kijurian is a costume. That’s why no one can find a trace of him now.”

Razor set his glasses back on the end table and pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Cole…”

What did it take to convince him? “Damn it, Razor…it’s too big a coincidence for Flaxx to be burglarizing his own stores then someone else come along and start torching them. You’ve read the reports. Breaking the front window to throw in the Molotov cocktail set off the security alarms so the fire department arrived before more than contents burned. The buildings themselves sustained very little damage. Except at Woodworks. Notice there were no more fires after that. If Kijurian were real, do you suppose a firefighter’s death would have scared him off?”

Razor looked up. “Okay, I can agree with that, but- ”

“It’s Kijurian’s name that’s the final giveaway.”

Razor blinked. “His name?”

Cole nodded. “Remember how I told you it sounded familiar but couldn’t place it? The night after Woodworks burned I was doing the crossword puzzle in the paper and Kyle, who was hanging over my shoulder kibitzing, asked if Burglary was getting a new lieutenant. I said no, why, and he pointed to the margin of the paper. I saw I’d doodled Kijurian’s name over and over — L.T. Kijurian. The initials did look like the abbreviation for lieutenant. That made something click. Music started running in my head.”

“Music.” Razor shook his head. “Where am I getting this stuff?”

Cole swore silently. He kept forgetting Razor thought this was a dream. “It’s been cooking down in your subconscious, like it did in mine. When I hummed the tune for Renee, she identified it as Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije Suite. She showed me the CD. Then I remembered hearing her play it.”

Razor grunted. “So of course you don’t believe the similarity in names is a coincidence.”

Cole shook his head. “Not after reading the liner notes. The music is from a Russian movie about another man who never was…a fictional army officer created by a clerical error.”

Razor sat silent for a minute, staring at him. “I wonder if the real you came up with this, too. It sounds like something Cole would. But there hasn’t been any change in the Alert for Kijurian. So if Cole did think that, and mentioned the idea to anyone, I guess they weren’t convinced.”

Cole grimaced. “Willner and Galentree weren’t, no.” If they had been, would he be alive today? Would Sara be just grumbling about missing the cruise to Baja? Not that Willner or Galentree were to blame for his current mess. Launching Operation Hello Dollies out of frustration with them had been his own doing. So were the consequences. “Razor, I need- there’s something you need to do.” He thinks this is a dream, remember.

Razor frowned. “What?”

“After you’ve taken Holly to school, you need to go to Homicide- ”

“I’m already planning to drop in and see what’s happening.”

Cole nodded. “I’d expect that. But…you need to tell whoever has my case about Sara, especially about her working for Flaxx and what she might have seen. I never met her on Wednesday. She didn’t kill me. But she needs to be found for her own safety. See that they read my case files on Flaxx so they have a real motive for my murder instead of Leach’s lovers quarrel shit.”

Razor’s expression went wry. “Tell them how to run their case? They’ll certainly appreciate that.”

“They have to be told about Sara.” Cole stared hard into Razor’s eyes. “Her life could depend on it.” Except he saw a thought forming in Razor’s head that set him swearing silently: importance in the dream did not make it important in reality.

Razor said, “Just how do I explain having knowledge of Wednesday night, and why I’ve said nothing before? I sure as hell can’t tell them it came to me in a dream.”

Cole clapped his shoulder. “Sure you can. We’ve all waked up with answers to problems that were bothering us when we went to sleep. This is more of that.” But he could not leave Sara’s safety solely to Razor and his fellow officers. He caused the problem; he had to do what he could to resolve it. “Now…before I let you go on to another dream, will you do me one more favor? Look up phone listings for Joy Quon and Kenisha Hayes. I’ll give them a chance to dream about me and tell me if they have any thoughts on where Sara is.”

Razor blinked. “You want me to look them up in a dream phone book?”

“Please.” He stood and stepped back from the futon.

Razor peered dubiously at him, then sighed and threw off the covers. He pulled the phone book from under the end table and opened it on his knees. “How do you spell Joy’s last name… K-W-A-N or Q-U-O-N?”

10

Cole left Razor falling back into bed and headed across town again, reciting addresses in his head. Luckily he had a good memory. He had started to reach for his notebook before remembering he had none. The addresses were all for K. Hayes. The Quon listings did not included a Joy Quon. Being single, she might still live at home. Now he just had to hope Kenisha was really Hayes’s first name. With luck, she would also be at the closest address, in the Western Addition. The address lay outside the familiar Northern District streets, but, in reviewing a mental map, he estimated it was no more than six or eight blocks from the Northern Station. If a ziptrip would take him-

The street blurred, solidified…and Cole blinked in astonishment. He stood in the middle of the intersection outside the station. Damn it, how did this work! He had to concentrate like hell to reach Razor’s place, but zipped here in mid-

His train of thought derailed as a car barreled out the front of his body. He stared after it, startled. That was amazing. The rapid staccato of jolts from the engine felt…wonderful. A hundred times better than Danny the Prick’s body heat. Invigorating. Something he wanted to try again. As he jogged for the Hayes address, he stayed in the street and let himself be run through by other vehicles, savoring the energy jolt of each pass. He almost regretted arriving at the Hayes address. Before going in, maybe he would let a few more cars run through him.

That thought brought him up short. Cole hurriedly moved to the sidewalk. He had enough problems without becoming addicted to internal combustion.

The seedy Victorian in front of him had been divided into flats, with the mailboxes indicating that K. G. Hayes