Killer Karma

desperate internal debate. Cole wanted to shake him. Come on, come on, Lamper. You’re such a faithful lapdog; don’t just stand there! How much do you want to save that bastard? You’re not a violent man, so haven’t I pushed you to the point there’s only one way to do it?

“I’ve got to save Donald,” Cole whispered at him. “I can’t let her kill him.”

The mental torture raged on for another five minutes, however, before Lamper pushed away from the basins with a despairing sigh.

He stumbled out of the room and back to Bookkeeping. There he went into his office long enough to dig a business card out of his desk. “I have to step out for a few minutes,” he told Gao.

Lamper stepped out as far as the elevators, where he pulled a cell phone from of his pocket and punched in a phone number on the card. “Inspector Hamada, this is Earl Lamper again. I need you to keep Donald Flaxx from being murdered this afternoon.”

Cole groaned. “No, damn it; that’s the wrong approach!”

Lamper frowned. “By arresting the killer, of course. … What!”

Cole had no trouble guessing that Hamada must be saying they could not arrest someone when no crime had been committed.

Lamper’s face twisted in angry desperation. “What if I tell you the killer has committed crimes…two murders, one of them Inspector Dunavan. Does that make you more interested?”

26

Lamper probably felt the question sucked him into a tornado. In minutes, following instructions from Hamada, he had met a black and white at the Sacramento Street entrance and been whisked to the Hall of Justice and Homicide’s interview room. Razor brought him coffee. Across the table, Hamada and Dennis gave him undivided attention.

Cole sidled up beside Razor. Glancing at him, Razor gave a thumbs up.

“Now Mr. Lamper…” Hamada’s drawl oozed. “…tell us what you know about Inspector Dunavan’s murder.”

Lamper licked his lips. “I don’t know the details, just that Irah Carrasco, Donald’s sister, killed Dunavan and Sara Benay on Wednesday night and she’s going to kill Donald this afternoon.”

“Irah isn’t,” Cole whispered to Razor. “I just told Lamper that.”

Razor winced.

“It got him in here, didn’t it?”

Lamper twisted his hands together. “One of the store managers in the meeting this afternoon will be a ringer, an actor who thinks he’s playing a part in a security demonstration, only the gun will have real bullets. I’ve tried to warn Donald but…I can’t make him listen. Why are we wasting time here? Go to Embarcadero Center and arrest Irah!”

Hamada gave him an apologetic smile. “How do you know Miss Carrasco killed Inspector Dunavan?”

“Because she told me so this morning.”

“She told you?” Dennis said.

“Well…” Lamper paused. “She said they were dead, but the person she claims killed them was at a concert Wednesday night, nowhere near our offices.”

Hamada and Dennis exchanged glances. Hamada sat back in his chair. “So you don’t know she killed Inspector Dunavan.”

“I don’t have proof, no, but I know the kind of person she is. She’s- ”

“Do you know of a motive for Miss Carrasco to kill Dunavan and Benay?” Hamada asked.

Lamper chewed his lower lip. “Well… Do you have to have a motive?””

Cole shook his head at Razor in disgust. “This is going nowhere. He can’t bring himself to say anything that’s going to implicate Flaxx in any crime.”

Hamada sighed. “We need some evidence indicating she committed murder. Otherwise…” He spread his hands. “…there’s nothing I can do.”

“You have to do something!” Lamper clenched his fists. “Irah’s crazy!”

Hamada shook his head. “I can tell that you genuinely believe Mr. Flaxx is in danger, but- ”

“She broke into my house last night. Arrest her for that.”

Hamada pushed to his feet. “That’s a burglary. Our Burglary unit will need to handle the investigation. Inspector Dennis can take you down to them to file a complaint.”

Cole frowned. Were they really kicking Lamper out…or playing him?

Lamper stared at Hamada in dismay. “Investigation! Complaint! You mean I’ll have to tell everything all over again to another set of detectives? By the time we go through that, Donald will be dead!”

“I’m sorry. Charlie, if you’ll take Mr. Lamper- ”

Cole slipped around behind Lamper and leaned down to his ear. “The firefighter’s death is murder. You know she started that fire. She can be arrested for that.”

Lamper’s fists clenched desperately. “Wait!”

Hamada sat back down.

Lamper pulled off his glasses, and buried his face in his hands.

Hamada waited. Lamper took several ragged breaths, as though about to speak, but just released them again. The silence stretched on.

Hamada let it last several minutes, then said, “What time is that meeting again when this murder is supposed to take place?”

Lamper lowered his hands and clasped them together tightly on the table in front of him. “I don’t want to do this to Donald, but I don’t know how else to stop her. It all needs to end anyway. It’s gone too far. The burglaries were one thing, but then she wanted to do fires in the stores with merchandise too big for burglaries and came up with this Kijurian masquerade.”

Hamada’s expression never changed, but Cole saw the name Kijurian register and knew that inside Hamada, every nerve in had come alert.

Lamper rushed on. “I never liked the idea of fires. I didn’t even like the burglaries. Donald and I were doing fine without them, and nothing was illegal. But Irah talked Donald into it. No one would get hurt, she said. She’d throw the Molotov cocktails at night when the stores were empty. Except her fire at Woodworks killed the firefighter. You can arrest her for that, can’t you?”

Hamada nodded. “Yes. If you have personal knowledge that she- ”

“Yes, yes, I have it.” Lamper grimaced. “I have personal knowledge she set fire to our stores. I have personal knowledge of it all…the fires, the burglaries, the insurance fraud. I’m a conspirator, accessory, or whatever. So arrest me. Read me my rights. But for God’s sake…go arrest Irah! I think she killed Sara and Dunavan because Sara had access to my files and found evidence in them and told Dunavan. She wanted to keep anyone else from learning what Sara found. Irah swore to me that she would never go to jail.”

Hamada glanced at his watch, scribbled Search warrants for home, office, car on a page of his notebook and handed it to Dennis, then stood. “Wait here.”

Cole whispered to Razor, “Bring up souvenirs. You have to be able to look in that puzzle box.”

“Do you know if Irah takes souvenirs from her crimes?” Razor asked.

Lamper chewed on his lower lip. “She took the rook off my trophy when she broke in.”

Outside the interview room, Hamada told Dennis, “Include personal effects of Benay and Dunavan in the warrant.”

He disappeared into Lieutenant Madrid’s office while Dennis rolled a form into a typewriter and began typing furiously.

Cole realized that while he still had feelings of guilt and unfinished business, that of foreboding had gone. They knew Sara was a victim, not a killer. And her killer was a warrant away from arrest. We’ve almost got her, Sara. But they still needed to find the bodies. Even when they did, he wondered