important Earl Lamper is to this operation? Where do you get off threatening and upsetting him?”
She set the sun glasses on top of her head. “What are you talking about?”
He folded his arms. “Don’t try playing innocent! Did you think he wouldn’t come straight and tell me!”
She zipped the purse closed, laid it down, and sat on the edge of the desk. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from Earl, but…what did he have to tell this time? You’ll have to enlighten me.”
Cool and controlled, Cole noted. Her pulse had not changed by a beat.
Flaxx enlightened in terse sentences.
Her eyes narrowed as she listened. Cole watched wheels turn behind them. When Flaxx finished, she shook her head. “That never happened. I haven’t left this office since our last chat.”
“Can you prove that?”
She glanced toward the door. “Is Katherine still here?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t prove it. But can Earl prove I was in the men’s room?”
Flaxx’s nostrils flared. “You think Earl would
Cole smiled.
Irah said, “Since I never did what he’s claiming, what else would you call it? Why he’s doing it, I don’t know, but it goes along with him being the one outside the washroom. He’s definitely up to something.”
“No.” Flaxx shook his head emphatically. “I could tell he doesn’t know anything about the washroom incident or Wednesday night. So lay off him! Have you put up any spy cameras yet?”
“I can’t with people in the office.”
“Then stick around until everyone’s gone. I want you set up
She caught the door to keep it from slamming again. “Nobody knows better than you, Donald, right?” She closed the door. “You want spy cameras, you got ‘em. And they’re going to prove you’re a fool.”
Cole grinned. The opening round had scored some hits.
Then he sobered. He needed to pass Irah’s admissions on to Razor. More, he had Round Two coming up… the first real test of his ability to pull off an impersonation. It would make or break of his game plan. If he screwed up, it went down the tubes, leaving him no way to prove Sara innocent of killing him. And Irah and Flaxx would walk.
20
Finding Razor was no problem. At six he came on duty at the Central Division Station. Cole just needed to intercept him.
Cole tried for a ziptrip…pinpointing the station on his mental map, concentrating on feeling the location as he pictured it, Vallejo Street outside, and Columbus and Broadway within sight east and south.
The mental image became reality. He stood in the middle of Vallejo. In celebration, he let several vehicles run through him before trotting around to the rear entrance. Minutes later Razor came toward the door, too. Unfortunately a uniformed officer followed him from the parking area and two more came out the rear entrance.
Razor flicked Cole an acknowledging glance and tipped his head toward the door. Cole followed him inside to the bullpen.
The fax from L.A. lay on Razor’s desk. Razor carried it to an interview room and spread it on the table. “It looks like Carrasco had a fair number of buddies.” He kept his voice low. “If we had probable cause for getting Irah’s phone records, I could cross-reference it with these. Have you come across anything interesting?”
“Oh, yeah…but nothing you can use yet.” Cole reported Irah’s confession.
Razor swore softly. “This is like standing in front of a candy store with the damn door locked.”
“I’m working on the lock.” He gave Razor a rundown on all of Round One.
Razor grinned. “This might just work. Now what?”
“I’m off to Round Two.”
Or Round One-B, Cole reflected a short time later, reaching Seacliff via the Dunavan Diagonal and line-of- sight zipping. Standing on the arc of Flaxx’s driveway, he stared up at the Mediterranean wedding cake…white stucco, red tile roof, arched windows with embellished casings, main floor windows opening onto mini-terrace balconies. He had no idea how freely Earl Lamper visited here. Presumably Flaxx invited him from time to time to maintain the appearance of a friendship, but was Lamper welcome to show up uninvited?
Cole climbed to the front door but before trying the bell — if a TV remote and computer worked for him, the bell should, too — he passed through the door to scope out the house. Without surprise, he found that in the entry hall, Flaxx had gone for the most ostentation he could afford…black and white marble floor, a grand sweep of staircase, an elaborate chandelier hanging from a soaring ceiling.
Cole turned toward the broad arched entrance of the nearest room, then heard voices farther back in the house. The sound led him to the dining room, where he found Flaxx — business suit traded for casual slacks and a turtleneck sweater — eating dinner with his wife and one daughter. The older one attended an exclusive women’s college in Virginia, Cole remembered Jessie telling him…the same one her mother graduated from. Always one to cut corners, Flaxx picked a trophy wife for his first marriage…Virginia aristocracy and a reputed descendant of General Robert E. Lee. Though Maitland Flaxx was not his type, Cole admired her classic beauty. She could counter any threat to her marriage from some twentysomething arm candy by making them look like mere glossy plastic. The question, he mused as he turned away, was what Maitland had seen in Flaxx worth marrying.
While Flaxx ate, Cole explored the house. If Lamper knew his way around, a counterfeit Lamper could not afford ignorance. He took time to absorb the feel of location, too…orienting himself for future ziptrips.
Back in the dining room, the meal wore on…nearly silent. What a difference from the mealtime circus at home, he reflected. They always had several conversations crossing each other amid wisecracks and occasional disputes. Tiger sat like a sphinx in the arch between livingroom and dining room, gaze zeroed on Sherrie and him, poised for a “hoover” command that would let him charge in to clean up bits of food Hannah dropped. Cole ached to be there tonight.
Maybe the mood of this dinner came from Flaxx. He wore the frown and inward-focused expression of someone lost in unpleasant thoughts, discouraging chit-chat. Thinking about the conversations with Irah and Lamper this afternoon? Cole hoped so.
A trip out to the kitchen found the cook cutting a cake. He hurried back to the front hall. If they were coming up on dessert, he needed to get ready. After one more glance around himself to be sure he had his coordinates here, he trotted outside where he had a line-of-sight to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Cole grinned. Feast time. Northbound lanes, already clogged with outbound traffic, slowed still more with reduced visibility from fog coming in across the middle of the bridge. Southbound lanes backed up at the toll booths.
Working both north lanes and toll booth traffic, he counted time in his head, trying to estimate when Flaxx would finish dinner. After sucking up heat for as long as he could, not sure how long he might have to maintain the materialization, he finally decided to head back. If Flaxx became involved in something for the evening, he might be impatient with a visitor.
Cole zipped to the front hall and walked on back to the dining room. Empty. So where might Flaxx have gone? He checked the library. Which actually deserved the name, though the tidy shelves and rows of matched bindings suggested some decorator had provided the books, buying them by the yard.
Pay dirt. Flaxx stood at a section of bookcase that had been turned into a liquor cabinet, pouring himself a glass of Jack Daniels. He carried his drink to one of the big leather chairs that faced each other in front of the fireplace, sat down, and took a cigar from a humidor on the side table.
Watching Flaxx clip off the cigar’s end in a miniature guillotine beside the humidor, Cole frowned. Even if Flaxx heard the doorbell, he would expect the maid to answer it. Was there a way to make Flaxx answer it? The
