gone all too far.”
“What has?” Willner asked.
“The burglaries, the arson, the fraud. Irah. Her especially. It was all her idea to start with. She talked Donald into it.”
Flaxx froze.
“Now it’s out of control.
“When you say she ‘talked Mr. Flaxx into it’, what do you mean, exactly?”
Lamper hesitated and licked his lips, then sighed. “Irah talked him into burglarizing — that is, into letting
Flaxx stared. “I don’t believe this! It’s faked!” But as the tape rolled on and Lamper told about altering the books of faltering stores, ordered to do so by Flaxx, the color drained out of Flaxx’s face. Then his face hardened. “I’ve seen enough! Shut it off. I can’t believe it. After all I’ve done for him. That bastard. That lying, underhanded, sneaking son of a bitch!” He scowled up at Hamada in righteous indignation. “It’s all lies…from beginning to end.”
“Donald,” Kaslin said in a warning voice.
Flaxx seemed not to hear him. “Now I understand some things that didn’t make sense before, why more and more of my stores have been burglarized…despite Irah’s supposed security improvements. He and Irah were ripping me off!”
“Donald, be quiet.”
Cole almost wanted him to. After all the years of encouraging crooks to give each other up, and despite working the Flaxx crew to make this happen, Flaxx’s instant turn on his faithful dog disgusted him. Even though the dog had turned on Flaxx first.
“It must be terrible realizing you’ve lost control of your company like this,” Hamada said.
Flaxx stiffened. Red boiled up his neck.
“Donald,
This time Flaxx heard. His mouth snapped shut.
Kaslin stood up. “We’re done here. Book Mr. Flaxx and let’s see a judge about bail.”
“Let me show you one more thing first,” Hamada said. He ran the tape forward.
By this time the questions had turned to murder, and they watched Lamper repeat the conversation where Cole, as Irah, accused Flaxx of double murder.
Flaxx’s expression went incredulous, then furious. “That bitch!” He turned to Hamada. “I don’t know why she told him that story but she’s lying! I don’t know anything about it, and I couldn’t have killed them. I have an alibi for Wednesday evening.”
“Donald…” Kaslin’s hand flexed as if he wanted to slap it over Flaxx’s mouth. “For God’s sake shut
Flaxx’s jaw jutted. “I’m not going to let them pin a cop killing on me. I didn’t shoot Dunavan!”
Kaslin swore.
Flaxx frowned. “What.” Then glanced up and noticed the deadpan faces around him. “What!”
“
Flaxx stared at him, pupils dilating. He turned to Kaslin. “Conference.”
They walked to a far corner of the room.
Hamada eyed them. “Flaxx reminds me of some dogs. They charge the fence barking and snarling like they’ll tear you apart, but you walk on into the yard and they roll over on their backs peeing themselves in submission.”
Lima wiggled his brows. “And guess who he’s going to roll over on.”
Thinking of Irah…Cole said, “I’d love to stick around for Flaxx peeing himself, Razor, but Irah’s still running loose. I have to go find her.”
“Wait!” Razor said. He laid down the last strip of the confirmation receipt. “I’ve got it.”
After scribbling down the confirmation number on a message pad, he hurried to the computer. Everyone followed. Cole climbed a virtual ladder to peer down past them at the monitor while Razor brought up the Post Office internet site and typed the number into the tracking window.
Cole stared at the delivery results. Son of a bitch.
“Colma?” Dennis grinned. “Well, I’d wonder if she mailed the bodies, except they’d have to go parcel post instead of priority.”
Colma. Where everyone in San Francisco went to be buried. “Razor, when Flaxx fretted about cops digging around the company for clues to my death, Irah treated it like a joke. She said they wouldn’t know where to dig.”
Razor sucked air through his teeth. “What’s the area code there? The same as Daly City, right…650?”
He raced back to the desk where he had been working. Carefully, he set aside the report form with the assembled confirmation receipt on it and dumped the whole bag of shreds on the desk.
“What do you have?” Madrid asked.
“There was something handwritten, in a kind of purple ink…torn into pieces, not shredded.” Razor pawed through the shred strips. “I saw a piece with the numbers 650.”
Hamada, Dennis, and Lima joined him sorting the shreds. When they found a promising piece, however, no one touched it. Using the eraser ends of two pencils like chopsticks, Razor picked the piece up and transferred it to where he was assembling the note. Protecting any fingerprints on it. Slowly, pieces fit together, revealing the beginning of a phone number and the beginning and last letters of a name.
A throat cleared behind them. Kaslin said, “Although Mr. Flaxx had absolutely nothing to do with either murder, some time after the fact he came into possession of information about them. In return for that information, I want any charges relating to the murders dropped against Mr. Flaxx.”
“Dream on,” Hamada said.
Kaslin just smiled. “Get someone from the DA’s office in here and he and I will talk.”
Madrid picked up a phone. “Take your client into the interview room.”
Waiting for the Assistant DA, they continued hunting pieces of the note in purple ink. Shortly after the ADA’s arrival and her disappearance into the interview room with Hamada, Razor completed the note…giving them a phone number and single name:
While Razor checked Irah’s phone records, Dennis grabbed a phone book. “Bingo,” he said shortly. “There’s just one Tankersley in Colma…Gilbert Tankersley.” He headed for the computer. It gave him a hit. “Tankersley did a stretch for forgery.” He took the news in to Madrid, who had returned to his office.
Irah had mailed something to an ex-con living in the cemetery city. Payment for services rendered? A current of hope rippled through Cole. Could they be close to finding Sara and his bodies?
“There’s no record of a call from either Carrasco’s home or cell phone to that number,” Razor said.
She had to call it from somewhere. “Razor, if she didn’t want to risk a link to that number by using her own phone, maybe she went to a- ”
“Pay phone!” Razor finished. “Would you…”
“I’m on my way.”
From a ziptrip to Irah’s house, Cole hopped line-of-sight south to Golden Gate Park and north to Geary in search of pay phones. A few still existed. He brought Razor back numbers for two.
Razor pretended to learn them in a phone call and passed them on to Dennis, who rolled a form into his typewriter to start warrants for the pay phone records.
Razor lowered his voice. “Galentree called while you were gone. No gun in the purse. They did find where she bought the cape and the rest of her getup…with a credit card…but it was Benay’s.”
Cole gritted his teeth. “I’ve got to go find her.”
“Looking where? Even as a ghost you can only be one place at a time. We’ll get her eventually. Now that she’s identified as a cop killer, can’t you leave her to us?”
Cole explored himself for an answer. The leaden discomfort of guilt and unfinished business remained. “I think I have to see her locked up. And find Sara’s and my bodies…to give everyone closure.”
