“It has something to do with the Randolph cases,” she said. “And watches.”
“Watches?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise.
“Yes,” she said, smiling knowingly. “I passed by his desk before he went into his meeting with the chief, and he was asking someone when a watch with a particular serial number was made.”
“That might have been in connection with any of his cases,” the Looking Glass Man said, hoping she didn’t detect his uneasiness.
“No, he had the Randolph files open. He locked those away, then gathered his notes and took them in with him when he went to see the chief.”
He could not go near the chief’s office without attracting unwanted attention. Unlike the relatively open area surrounding the office of the captain of the Homicide Division, the chief’s office was in the center of a labyrinth filled with administrative creatures who jealously guarded his time and attention.
And Harriman was invited in. To talk about watches.
This was so much worse than he had suspected. Harriman must have seen the evidence. Harriman had handled the Randolph case evidence, but the Looking Glass Man had not received a message on his pager, as he had when Captain Bredloe had examined it. What had happened? Had his little property room computer hacking been discovered? Were they searching for him even now, as he sat here?
He remembered a moment from the day before, when he had looked in the mirror and thought himself invisible. Invisible! Far from it.
He gazed into the window next to him, not at the street beyond, but at the window itself. He could see his reflection. It was the reflection of a fearful man. He looked away.
He arranged the bottom of the folded paper napkin to the right of his coffee cup, moving one edge up a quarter of an inch or so, so that it was aligned parallel to the edge of the table. He then lifted the fork and placed it carefully on the napkin, so that the upper edges of the tines were parallel to the top of the napkin.
Pleased with the result, he felt calmer, and checking his reflection again, he saw that indeed, he appeared to be more himself now.
He began to think about this problem of Harriman.
Yesterday he had overreacted. He had laid himself open for premature discovery. He must approach this problem logically, or he would fail again.
He could not indulge in strange, frightening fantasies of Lefebvre being alive. Now — sitting in this clean booth, his hands on the hard, shiny table, fingers forming parallel lines — the panic that had come over him yesterday seemed alien, something that another man had experienced. Not him.
Today he could consider his position coolly.
The difficulty lay in not knowing how much Harriman knew or to whom he had spoken. That he did not know everything was certain. That his suspicions continued to lead him in dangerous directions was equally clear. So many people might now share these suspicions of Harriman’s — the chief, Pete Baird, Irene Kelly, Elena Rosario, Matt Arden. Then again, Harriman had so alienated his fellow homicide detectives, it was entirely possible that no one had spoken with him. How could Harriman convince them of any theory he might be developing if they refused to do so much as give him the time of day?
He returned to considering plans for Harriman’s demise. Any number of them could be set up within the next few hours. And in the meantime he would take steps to throw Harriman off his scent. He would then stay in Las Piernas only long enough to fulfill his most important obligations before making his escape.
Escape. Far from engendering visions of a carefree life, the word saddened him. Once the Looking Glass Man retired, who would see to it that justice was done? Who would be able to stop the next Judge Lewis Kerr?
The Looking Glass Man acknowledged to himself that it was all coming to an end. He had always known that it would have to, sooner or later. He was, of course, prepared for the possibility of discovery. As years of work for the Las Piernas Police Department had taught him, there was a vast difference between being discovered and being caught. He had no intention of being caught.
He had a great deal to do, then.
He would need to go to the several banks where he had stored cash and identification papers of one sort or another. Once he had gathered these, he would go to the airport and, staying below radar, fly his lovely Cessna to Mexico. He would not stay there, of course. Depending on the actions of law enforcement personnel, he had several alternatives available. At the moment, he was considering a cool climate.
He would have to part with the Cessna at some point, probably in Mexico. The loss would be painful to him. He had not owned a Cessna ten years ago. He had only rented planes. All the same, destroying Lefebvre’s Cessna had bothered him almost as much as it had bothered him to kill Lefebvre. Now he would have to leave his own plane behind. Harriman deserved everything that was coming to him.
The Looking Glass Man had only two other remaining objectives: Whitey Dane and Judge Lewis Kerr.
Kerr was hardly a worry now. Everything was already in place. He consulted his watch. In a little more than twenty-four hours from now, Judge Lewis Kerr would no longer be able to lead justice astray.
Whitey Dane was proving to be a bigger challenge than the judge — the Looking Glass Man feared that he would have to wait even longer for his revenge against Dane. Years, perhaps, when it was safe to return to Las Piernas.
Dane’s workers were a vigilant and suspicious lot, so one could not dress as a gardener or a florist or an alarm systems repairman and get past them. The Las Piernas Police Department’s relentless pursuit of Dane had resulted in making him a less vulnerable target — Bredloe, a captain of detectives, had been easier to harm.
The Looking Glass Man had tried to needle Dane into exposing himself to danger — teasing him in ways that might tempt him to come out into the open. He had hoped for a more personal response to the flowers. Instead, he had almost caused that poor florist to lose her life.
Harriman had done what was expected of him, though. The Looking Glass Man smiled, picturing what Frank Harriman’s face must have looked like when Mrs. Garrity called him the illegitimate brother of Lefebvre’s!
“I’m glad to see you perk up a bit,” a voice said beside him, causing him to jump.
