so I decided to do a little acting.
“Hi, this is Mrs. Phil Newly,” I said, and gave his address. “I just wondered what’s been happening to our newspaper.”
The service rep asked for my phone number. After two seconds of mad panic while I fumbled to find it, I gave them Phil’s. She looked up his records by using the phone number.
“Mrs. Newly, your husband canceled that subscription.”
“He did!” I said in mock outrage. “When did he do that?”
She named the date — it was the day after I visited Phil Newly.
“Do you want to reinstate the subscription, Mrs. Newly?” the rep asked.
“I’d love to,” I said, “but I’d better talk to Phil and see what he’s up to first.”
I called Frank. “Something fishy is going on with Phil Newly,” I said, and told him what I had found out. “Did he give you the number at his sister’s place?”
“I’m sure we have it here somewhere,” he said. “You worried about him or suspicious of him?”
“Both. I suppose — it’s a little difficult for the police to get a search warrant for a criminal defense attorney’s house, right?”
“A little.” He laughed. “I’ll see what I can find out from his sister, though.”
I received a surprise phone call at about three o’clock.
“Irene Kelly?” a male voice said. Familiar, but not someone I had heard recently. Then it struck me.
“Jim Houghton?”
“Listen, I’m a private citizen now, and I don’t have to talk to any reporters. So stay the hell off my tail, would you? You and your PI friend.”
“Rachel contacted you?”
“Yes. Now, she told me if I called you, you would probably leave me alone. So I’ve called you.”
“Wait — I didn’t call you because of the newspaper.”
There was a long pause, then he said, “Oh no? Why then?”
“I just need to talk to other people who survived being up there.”
“I didn’t. You don’t call it surviving when you aren’t there for the action, okay? I wasn’t anywhere near the place. I left with Newly, remember? So, I’m safe and sound, and you’re safe and sound. So’s Parrish. Good-bye, Ms. Kelly. And tell Harriman I said he ought to keep you at home if he wants you to live.”
He hung up.
Jack saw me shaking my head. “What is it?”
“That call. I don’t know what to make of it.” I told him what had been said.
He called Frank, and told him that I had been threatened by a former LPPD cop. I grabbed the phone away.
“Not exactly, Frank.” I thought a verbatim recitation of the call would calm him down, but Frank was as unhappy with Houghton as Jack was.
“I’m going to go over this guy’s background with a microscope,” he said. “And I want Rachel to tell me where she found him. I want him watched.”
“But the department would have checked him out when he signed up, right?”
“Very thoroughly,” he agreed. “But five years ago, when Houghton joined the LPPD, the name Nick Parrish didn’t mean anything to us, so there could be a connection nobody saw back then.”
Ben came by on his way home from work.
“Do you remember those videotapes of Bingle’s training sessions with the search group?” he asked.
“Yes, the ones I brought to you in the hospital. You left them here after you stayed with us. Do you want me to get them for you?”
“Yes, please. I’ve watched the ones I have at home so often I could narrate them for the blind.”
I got the box of tapes from the garage. “How is everything going?” I asked when I came back in.
“Fine — in fact, you should see the place now. I’ve made a few changes. Why don’t you and Jack come over this afternoon?”
Jack was agreeable. We followed him over to the house. I was amused to note that rather than going in through the front door, the first place he headed was to the backyard, to see Bingle.
We followed him through the back gate, where he came to a sudden halt. I nearly plowed into him.
“Bingle?” he said.
The dog wobbled up on all fours, then lurched forward. He fell flat, but got up again, standing unsteadily, looking woozy. He whined softly.
“Hey,” Jack said, “looks like somebody’s busted into your garage again.”
Ben ignored him. We ran to the dog run. Ben opened it and hurried inside.
“Oh God, Bingle!” Ben said, running his hands over the dog as Bingle collapsed in a heap. “Are you okay? Are you okay, Bingle? Shit! How do I say that in Spanish?”
By then, both Jack and I had crowded into the enclosure with him. I figured Bingle’s understanding of Spanish
