“Why would Whitey Dane choose him for an enemy?”
“Randolph donated all kinds of money and equipment to the lab so that they could do fingerprint comparisons by computer, and some other load of gadgets so that they could do something else to do with chemical analysis. Randolph enjoyed that, too — playing Santa.”
“And this upset Dane?”
“Sure. The chemical analysis goodie helped the department bust up one of his drug operations. And the fingerprint system allowed the department to find out the real names of some of his key people. Surprise, surprise — many of them had outstanding warrants. So that hurt. Whitey recovered from all of that, but he didn’t like what it cost him.”
“Do you have any of the reports Randolph made to the commission?”
“Reports by Randolph?” He looked away, then said, “Nope. Not a one. Now, if that’s all…?”
Frank tried asking him other questions — about Randolph’s plans for that Catalina weekend and who might have known about them. He received vague answers. “So long ago,” Pickens kept saying. Frank tried to get more specific information about possible enemies of Randolph’s, with the same result. He decided to try his luck with Soury.
As he walked out, he noticed that Betty, Pickens’s secretary, was away from her desk. Maybe she wised up and decided to resign, he thought. But then, as he walked out of the elevator into the lobby, he found her sitting on a bench nearby. She was holding a dusty box, but when she saw him, she stood and spilled its contents onto the marble floor in such a blatantly contrived manner, he hoped that if she did have plans to resign, she wasn’t aiming for a career on the stage.
“Oh, how clumsy of me!” she said.
Grateful that he was the only audience for this performance, Frank bent to help her pick up the folders and steno pads that had fallen out.
“Thank you!” she said, then extended a spiral-bound phone message log toward him. “Would you mind holding this for a moment? If you’ll do that, I can get the rest of these old files back into the box in order.”
The message log was open, and he immediately saw a name that caught his attention: Trent Randolph. The message was dated Thursday, May 31. No year was shown. At eleven-fifteen that morning, Randolph had called to ask Pickens to join him at a meeting in Chief Hale’s office at eight o’clock the next day. There was an additional note: “Soury, Larson, also to attend.”
Frank turned the page and saw another message from later in the day — Chief Hale canceling the meeting, rescheduling it for the following Monday — by which time Trent Randolph and his daughter were dead.
“I overheard you in his office,” Betty said. “I remembered that he was supposed to meet with Mr. Randolph that Monday, because he was extremely upset about it.”
“Upset in what way?”
“Oh, not exactly grief-stricken over Randolph’s death, although I think he was shocked — everyone was. But mainly he was convinced that someone might have it out for the members of the police commission. He was scared out of his wits. For weeks, we had guards around the place. Eventually, he calmed down.”
Frank thanked her for her help, and after a moment’s hesitation, handed back the message pad. If he managed to arrest someone in connection with these murders, he didn’t want any courtroom problems to arise out of how he had obtained the evidence. He’d get a warrant. “You have a safe place to keep this?” he asked.
“Yes, absolutely. You’ll have a warrant if you need it again?”
He smiled. “If you can think of anything else I’ll need to name on it, let me know.”
“Oh, I will. Not for nothing have I worked for a police commissioner — although some days, it feels that way.”
He waited on the deck near the north end of the indoor Olympic-size pool. Rapidly coming toward him, in the lane reserved for fastest swimmers, was the man he hoped to speak to, but Commissioner Dan Soury finished the lap, completed his turn, and headed for the other end without seeing or hearing Frank.
Although he had been trying to capture Soury’s attention for only a minute or two, it was too warm and humid to be standing around an indoor pool in a suit, breathing air saturated with the scent of pool chemicals. This meeting might turn out to be even less pleasant than the one he had just finished with Commissioner Pickens.
“Mr. Soury?” Frank called out. His voice was better today, but he still couldn’t shout as loud as usual. The acoustics in the room must have helped, though, because Soury nodded. He was a slender man of medium height. There was a goodly amount of silver in his short dark hair and in his mustache. The mustache made Frank remember something — in the Randolph file, he had seen a group photograph of the commission members. Soury had worn a beard. He didn’t fit the description of the man who attacked the Randolphs on the
This thought, in turn, reminded him to pick up Seth Randolph’s computer. There might be more information about the attacker on it.
Soury’s workout had left him slightly out of breath; he swam back at an easier pace to where Frank waited.
Frank introduced himself and told Soury that he wanted to talk to him about Trent Randolph. “Your secretary told me I might find you here. I hope you don’t mind—”
“Not at all, not at all. But you must be uncomfortable. If you’ll wait for me in the club’s lobby, I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”
Frank used the time while he waited to call Mayumi. She put him in touch with a friend at the FAA, who promised to check a list of names for him. Whoever had sabotaged Lefebvre’s plane knew something about aircraft. Frank wanted to know if any of the names on Lefebvre’s lists were licensed pilots.
He didn’t have time for any other calls — Soury had taken no longer than he said he would. Attired in a dark, elegantly tailored suit, he smiled as he approached Frank and apologized for keeping him waiting.
“Have you eaten?” he asked. “There’s a pasta place next door.”
They walked the short distance to the small restaurant.
