Flight

“No, not unless it was someone in the lab. Dale was the one who checked it when they brought it in, and I don’t think anyone else worked on it.”

“Tory, sometimes files can be recovered even when it seems they’ve been erased. Would you mind if I had an expert take a look at the computer?”

“You really think they might be able to find something on it?”

“I don’t want to mislead you — they might not. And it has been a long time, so… I can’t promise anything. But I have so little to work with right now that I’ve got to try every possible means to recover evidence.”

She suddenly seemed uneasy. “There might be some private conversation on it.”

“There might be,” he agreed. “As well as enough information to prove once and for all who murdered your son.”

She didn’t jump at that, but sat quietly, watching him. Knowing she had long been convinced that Lefebvre had killed Seth, Frank was trying to come up with another way to persuade her when she said, “All right, I’ll bring Seth’s computer to you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

His surprise must have shown, though, because she smiled and said, “You’re wondering why I agreed.”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Because I had two children, Frank, not one. Seth talked to Lefebvre about that night several times — went over and over his description of Amanda’s killer and what had happened. If you can find files that have been erased, you might find those, too, right? I know it’s a long shot, but if you had that again, you might be able to do something about Dane, right?”

“I might,” he agreed, not thinking there was much hope in it.

“Good. What else can I do for you?”

“The other questions I have may be a little more difficult to answer, because you and Trent were divorced at the time of his murder,” he said. “I thought you might know if your ex-husband had any enemies other than Whitey Dane — does anyone come to mind?”

“Is someone else in on all of this, too? Hiding the evidence against Dane?”

“I’m just exploring every possibility.”

She frowned. “I guess everyone knew that one of the other commissioners had it in for him. Trent had embarrassed the guy. Let’s see, what was his name? Soury? No, that one was friendly to Trent. It was… Pickens! That was his name!”

“Michael Pickens?”

“Yes, he’s the one. I’ll ask Dale—”

“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”

She looked puzzled.

“I know you must want to confide in your husband, and that’s perfectly understandable. But you’ve told me that he has contacts in the department, and word from those contacts could reach Commissioner Pickens—”

“As if Bob Hi — as if his friends in the department are the type to hobnob with commissioners!”

So Bob Hitchcock had called Britton. Acting as if he hadn’t noticed the slip, Frank said, “Even so — there is a difference between helping an investigation and interfering in an investigation. I cannot stress how important it is that you allow me to do my job without being concerned that the person I need to talk to has had time to prepare answers or that a former member of my department is involving himself in the process. I’m sure your husband’s motives would be the best, as would yours, but it will cause problems. I don’t want anyone to be able to get away with murder because we failed to follow the rules the courts have set down for us.”

“You mean — someone could get off on a ‘technicality’ because I talked to Dale?”

“The case might not even go to court if a D.A. believes there is a rogue investigation going on, or that someone who benefited from the deaths of your husband and children influenced the investigation.”

“Benefited!”

“That’s the way the court may see it.”

She crossed her arms, a mulish expression on her face. When he didn’t back down, she relented. “Oh, all right.”

His pager went off. Mayumi Iwata at the NTSB.

18

Tuesday, July 11, 1:15 P.M.

The Riverside Freeway

Several times during the ninety-minute drive to San Bernardino, Frank had to force himself to ease his grip on the steering wheel. He told himself to relax, that he didn’t know anything for sure yet, that Mayumi had simply asked him to come out to the hangar where Lefebvre’s Cessna was being studied. But he knew she would have told him about a simple finding of pilot error or mechanical failure over the phone.

Don’t jump to conclusions. But that, he thought, was like asking a three-packs-a-day man not to worry about being asked to come in for a second chest X-ray.

He tried to distract himself. He thought of calling Irene and decided against it. He hadn’t told her where he was going when he canceled his lunch with her. Although he wished Mayumi’s call had come an hour later, he knew Irene wasn’t adding the canceled lunch to her list of grievances — given their occupations, sudden changes in plans for reasons unprovided were commonplace. They had long ago accepted the fact that they could not always talk to each other about their workdays. They had prided themselves on respecting certain boundaries around their jobs.