“Oh, hell, no — I don’t care — they don’t even know who Randolph was. Seeing you made me think of him, because I’ve heard you caught the cases. And the Lefebvre case, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s why we’re down here, my boy. ’Cause something damned strange is going on, and you should know about it.”
29
Wednesday, July 12, 5:01 P.M.
Las Piernas Police Department
“First we gotta put on a show. Let’s step into the new freezer for half a second.”
Flynn unlocked it and Frank followed him in. Blood samples and other biological materials were already neatly organized within. Just before Frank began to feel unbearably cold, Flynn led him back out again. Flynn gestured to a large metal desk, one that looked as if he had found it on one of his scavenger hunts for equipment. “Let’s sit over here. You can angle away from the camera, and for now I’d just as soon do that.”
“Okay.”
Flynn unrolled what looked like a blueprint for the freezer and put it near the top of the desk. He said, “Point at that damned thing once in a while. Anybody asks, I wanted your opinion about organizing the freezer.”
Next he pulled out some photocopies and slid one of them over to Frank. He kept a few others to himself, facedown. Indicating the one Frank had, he said, “What you have there is a copy of an evidence-control log sheet — a sign-out sheet for the most recent date on which the Randolph murder evidence — or I should say, the box that once contained the evidence — has been checked out of here.”
“Flynn — hold on. I just walked down here. How could you know—”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you since Monday, but for reasons I’ll get to, I couldn’t let you know that. I didn’t know when you would finally be moseying along and finding your way here, but I know you. I knew you’d look at the evidence yourself sooner or later. When I checked on the surveillance cameras out near the front desk and saw your mug in the frame, I figured, ‘Yes, there is a God.’”
“Monday… because of Bredloe?”
“You always were a bright boy. Yes, because of Bredloe. Look at the log.”
“Jesus. Bredloe was looking at the evidence the day he was hurt. That afternoon.”
“Yes. He was agitated, you might say. People tell me you pissed him off.”
Frank smoothed his hand over the sheet. “Yes, I did.”
“Well, don’t feel bad. This whole thing about Lefebvre has been the equivalent of a departmental wedgie. The only people who can ignore it have no balls.”
Frank looked at the time on the log sheet. “He came down here after arguing with me about Lefebvre. I told him I thought Lefebvre might be innocent.”
“Is that a fact?” Flynn said, seeming amused.
“Don’t feel compelled to give me grief about that — I’m getting plenty already.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Flynn said.
“So you were saying — he wasn’t in a good mood when you saw him?”
“Oh, that’s an understatement. He was in a little better mood when he brought it back. But I think someone saw him with the box and that someone had something to say to him about it — ’cause he called me a little after he checked it back in to ask who else in the department knew what was in it.”
“What did you say?”
“‘Everybody and his grandmother, and probably a few great-grandmothers, too.’”
Frank sighed. “You need to tell Hale about this.”
“Already have. You mention the ‘L’ name to him yet?”
“Lefebvre? Yes, I see your point. But maybe that will change now… Anyway, let me know what you’re getting at.”
“Well, even though Bredloe brought it back in kind of a better mood, as if — you know, as if he had just reassured himself that we weren’t hatching some monster’s egg in this box all these years — I thought it was a little strange. Your case, and he’s not usually one to butt in like that. He’s not the kind to interfere.”
“No, but like you say, this case chaps everybody.”
“Even on high-profile cases, he doesn’t try to second-guess his detectives. Something was nagging at him, you ask me. He checks out a box that only has a watch in it. And then he gets hurt. Almost killed. And that same day I’ve heard that over the weekend, you found Lefebvre’s body in the wreckage of his plane, and there wasn’t any stolen evidence with him. I start asking myself if this evidence box is like the pharaohs’ tombs or something — you know, Egyptian curse or something like that. People handle it, and” — he snapped his fingers — “so long. Your plane crashes or bricks fall on you.”
“Could be coincidence.”
“You don’t like that any more than I do.”
“No.” Frank nodded toward the other pages. “What are those?”
“Look at this one first,” Flynn said, giving another photocopy to him. “It’s a log sheet for the day Lefebvre looked at the evidence for the murders. June twenty-second.”
“June twenty-second?” Frank repeated, disbelieving. “I thought Lefebvre worked on the Randolph case. But he didn’t look at the evidence until that Friday?”
