'Where are you right now?'
'Home. Just finished with some visitors.' I began to tell him about Donovan and Bratz.
'Stop,' he said. 'I'm coming over-no, better if we meet somewhere, just in case they're still watching you. I just got on the 110-let's make it somewhere central… Pico-Robertson, the parking lot behind the Miller's Outpost, southeast corner. If I'm late, buy yourself some jeans. And try to figure out if the feebies are tailing you. If they are, I doubt they'll be using more than one car, which will make it damn near impossible for them to pull it off if you're looking out for them. Did you happen to notice what kind of car they were driving?'
'Blue sedan.'
'Check for it three, four car lengths behind you. If you see it, drive back home and wait.'
'High intrigue.'
'Low intrigue,' he said. 'Bureaucracy's big toes getting stepped on. Zoghbie and Haiselden-did you notice any overt putrefaction?'
'Green tinge, no maggots, lots of flies.'
'Probably a day or two at most… and you're saying the positioning was similar to the stuff in Fusco's file?'
'Identical. Geometrical wounds, as well.'
'Oh my,' he said. 'Every day brings new thrills.'
I wrote a note to Robin and left, drove more slowly than usual, looked out for the blue sedan or anything else that spelled government-issue. No sign of a tail, as far as I could tell. I reached the Miller's Outpost lot before Milo, parked where he'd instructed, got out of the car and stood against the driver's door. Still, no blue car. The lot was half full. Shoppers streamed in and out of the store, business at a nearby newsstand was brisk, cars roared by on Robertson. I waited and thought about putrefaction.
Milo showed up ten minutes later, surprisingly well-put-together in a gray suit, white shirt, maroon tie. Warrant-begging duds. No string tie for Judge Maclntyre.
He motioned me into the unmarked, lit up the cold stub of a Panatela as I eased into the passenger seat.
He scanned the lot, fondled his cell phone, let his eyes drift to the jeans store. 'Time to get myself some easy- fit… Glendale's at the scene-they've pegged it to an anonymous caller. How does it feel to be an archetype?'
'Glorious. But I won't be anonymous long. The gate.'
'Yeah, terrific. I'm waiting to hear back from their detectives. News jackals picked it up, too, it's only a matter of time before they tie Zoghbie and Haiselden to Mate and we're back on page one.'
'That's exactly what Burke wants,' I said. 'But maybe he had another motive for killing Zoghbie and Haiselden: to get hold of any records that incriminated him. He might very well have been planning it for a while, but Richard's arrest might have sped things up: he wouldn't like someone else getting credit for his handiwork. Like Mate, he's after the attention, is eliminating the old guard, telling the world he's the new Dr. Death.'
He chewed the cigar's wooden tip, blew out acrid smoke. 'You buy the whole Burke thing even though Fusco misrepresented himself?'
'When will you be going over to the Zoghbie crime scene?'
'Soon.'
'Wait till you see it. Everything fits. And Donovan and Bratz never dismissed Fusco's findings, they're just worried he'll do something that makes the Bureau look bad. Fusco's convinced Sharveneau and/or Burke murdered his daughter. Personal motivation can get in the way, but sometimes it's potent fuel.'
He sucked in smoke, held it in his lungs for a long time, drew a lazy circle on the windshield fog. 'So I've been spinning my wheels on Doss… who, from what I've been told by business associates, has very complicated financial records-maybe I'll send my files to the Fraud boys.'
He faced me. 'Alex, you know damn well he solicited Goad to kill Mate, we're not talking Mother Teresa. Just because Goad didn't go all the way doesn't put Doss in the clear.'
'I realize that. But it doesn't change what I saw in Glendale.'
'Right,' he said. 'Back to square goddamn one… Burke, or whatever the hell he's calling himself… you're saying he craves center stage. But he can't go public the way Mate did… so what does that mean? More nasties against trees?' His laugh was thick with affliction and anger. 'Gee, that's a terrific lead. Let's go check out every bit of bark in the goddamn county-where the hell do I go with this, Alex?'
'Back to Fusco's files?' I said.
'You've already been through them. Okay, I'll accept the fact that Burke is evil personified. Now, where the hell do I find him?'
'I'll go over them again. You never know-'
'You're right about that,' he said. 'I never do know. Spend half my damn life in blissless ignorance… Okay, let's handle some short-term matters. Like keeping you out of jail once those prints cross-reference to the Medical Board. Did you touch anything but the gate?'
'The front door knocker. I also knocked on the side door, but just with my knuckles.'
'The old goat's head,' he said. 'When I first saw it I wondered if Alice was into witchcraft or something. That, combined with all her talk of Mate being a sacrifice. So she ends up tied up- All right, look, I'm going to run interference for you with Glendale PD, but at some point you'll have to talk to them. It'll take days for the prints to be analyzed, maybe a good week for the cross-reference, even longer if the med files aren't on Printrak. But I need to work with them, so I'm telling them about you sooner-figure on tomorrow. I'll try to have them interview you on friendly territory.'
'Thanks.'
'Yeah. Thanks, too.' He inhaled, made the cigar tip glow, created another quarter inch of ash.
'For what?'
'Being such a persistent bastard.'
'What's next? 'I said.
'For you? Keeping out of trouble. For me, anguish.'
'Want Fusco's file?'
'Later,' he said. 'There's still Doss's paper to deal with. I can't let warrants lapse on an attempted murder case. I do that and Judge Maclntyre puts me on his naughty list. I'll sic Korn and Demetri on Doss's office, have them shlep the financial records to the station so I can get moving at Glendale. Maybe the scene will tell me something. Maybe Burke/whatever missed something in Alice's house and we can get a lead on him.' He crushed the cigar in the ashtray. 'Fat chance of that, right?'
'Anything's possible.'
'Everything's possible,' he said. 'That's the problem.'
By the time I got back, Robin was home. We had a takeout Chinese dinner and I fed slivers of Peking duck to Spike, acting like a regular, domestic guy with nothing heavier on my mind than taxes and prostate problems. This time I went to sleep when Robin did and drifted off easily. At 4:43 A.M., I woke up with a stiff neck and a stubborn brain. Cold air had settled in during the night and my hands felt like freezer-burned steaks. I put on sweats, athletic socks and slippers, shuffled to my office, removed Fusco's file from the drawer where I'd concealed it from Donovan and Bratz.
Starting again, with Marissa Bonpaine, finding nothing out of the ordinary but the plastic hypodermic. An hour in, I got drowsy. The smart decision would have been to crawl back in bed. Instead, I lurched to the kitchen. Spike was curled up on his mattress in the adjacent laundry room, flat little bulldog face compressed against the foam. Movement beneath his eyelids said he was dreaming. His expression said they were sweet dreams-a beautiful woman drives you around in her truck and feeds you kibble, why not?
I headed for the pantry. Generally, that's a stimulus for him to hurry over, assume the squat, wait for food. This time, he raised an eyelid, shot me a 'you've got to be kidding' look, and resumed snoring.
I chewed on some dry cereal, made a tall mug of strong instant coffee, drank half trying to dispel the chill. The kitchen windows were blue with night. The suggestion of foliage was a distant black haze. I checked the clock. Forty minutes before daybreak. I carried the mug back to my office.
Time for more tilting, Mr. Quixote.
I returned to my desk. Ten minutes later I saw it, wondered why I hadn't seen it before.
A notation made by the first Seattle officer on the Bonpaine murder scene-a detective named Robert Elias, called in by the forest rangers who'd actually found the body.
Very small print, bottom of the page, cross-referenced to a footnote.
