“Won’t they get suspicious if I don’t talk to them, like give them an alibi or something?”
“It doesn’t matter. They don’t talk to you unless I give my permission. And I’m not giving it.”
I gripped my free hand into a fist. I couldn’t stand the idea of giving legal advice to the man I was sure had killed my friend that very morning.
“Okay,” Roulet said. “I’ll send her on her way.”
“Where were you this morning?”
“Me? I was here at the office. Why?”
“Did anybody see you?”
“Well, Robin came in at ten. Not before that.”
I pictured the woman with the hair cut like a scythe. I didn’t know what to tell Roulet because I didn’t know what the time of death was. I didn’t want to mention anything about the tracking bracelet he supposedly had on his ankle.
“Call me after Detective Sobel leaves. And remember, no matter what she or her partner says to you, do not talk to them. They can lie to you as much as they want. And they all do. Consider anything they tell you to be a lie. They’re just trying to trick you into talking to them. If they tell you I said it was okay to talk, that is a lie. Pick up the phone and call me, I will tell them to get lost.”
“All right, Mick. That’s how I’ll play it. Thanks.”
He ended the call. I closed my phone and dropped it on the bar like it was something dirty and discarded.
“Yeah, don’t mention it,” I said.
I drained a good quarter of my pint, then picked up the phone again. Using speed dial I called Fernando Valenzuela’s cell number. He was at home, having just gotten in from the Dodgers game. That meant that he had left early to beat the traffic. Typical L.A. fan.
“Do you still have a tracking bracelet on Roulet?”
“Yeah, he’s got it.”
“How’s it work? Can you track where he’s been or only where he’s at?”
“It’s global positioning. It sends up a signal. You can track it backwards to tell where somebody’s been.”
“You got it there or is it at the office?”
“It’s on my laptop, man. What’s up?”
“I want to see where he’s been today.”
“Well, let me boot it up. Hold on.”
I held on, finished my Guinness and had the bartender start filling another before Valenzuela had his laptop fired up.
“Where’re you at, Mick?”
“Four Green Fields.”
“Anything wrong?”
“Yeah, something’s wrong. Do you have it up or what?”
“Yeah, I’m looking at it right here. How far back do you want to check?”
“Start at this morning.”
“Okay. He, uh… he hasn’t done much today. I track it from his home to his office at eight. Looks like he took a little trip nearby-a couple blocks, probably for lunch-and then back to the office. He’s still there.”
I thought about this for a few moments. The bartender delivered my next pint.
“Val, how do you get that thing off your ankle?”
“You mean if you were him? You don’t. You can’t. It bolts on and the little wrench you use is unique. It’s like a key. I got the only one.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m sure. I got it right here on my key chain, man.”
“No copies-like from the manufacturer?”
“Not supposed to be. Besides, it doesn’t matter. If the ring is broken-like even if he did open it-I get an alarm on the system. It also has what’s called a ‘mass detector.’ Once I put that baby around his ankle, I get an alarm on the computer the moment it reads that there is nothing there. That didn’t happen, Mick. So you are talking about a saw being the only way. Cut off the leg, leave the bracelet on the ankle. That’s the only way.”
I drank the top off my new beer. The bartender hadn’t bothered with any artwork this time.
“What about the battery? What if the battery’s dead, you lose the signal?”
“No, Mick. I got that covered, too. He’s got a charger and a receptacle on the bracelet. Every few days he’s got to plug it in for a couple hours to juice it. You know, while he’s at his desk or something or taking a nap. If the battery goes below twenty percent I get an alarm on my computer and I call him and say plug it in. If he doesn’t do it then, I get another alarm at fifteen percent, and then at ten percent
“Okay, okay.”
I was convinced by the science.
“What’s going on?”
I told him about Levin and told him that the police would likely have to check out Roulet, and the ankle bracelet and tracking system would likely be our client’s alibi. Valenzuela was stunned by the news. He might not have been as close to Levin as I had been, but he had known him just as long.
“What do you think happened, Mick?” he asked me.
I knew that he was asking if I thought Roulet was the killer or somehow behind the killing. Valenzuela was not privy to all that I knew or that Levin had found out.
“I don’t know what to think,” I said. “But you should watch yourself with this guy.”
“And you watch yourself.”
“I will.”
I closed the phone, wondering if there was something Valenzuela didn’t know. If Roulet had somehow found a way to take the ankle bracelet off or to subvert the tracking system. I was convinced by the science of it but not the human side of it. There are always human flaws.
The bartender sauntered over to my spot at the bar.
“Hey, buddy, did you lose your car keys?” he said.
I looked around to make sure he was talking to me and then shook my head.
“No,” I said.
“Are you sure? Somebody found keys in the parking lot. You better check.”
I reached into the pocket of my suit jacket, then brought my hand out and extended it, palm up. My key ring was displayed on my hand.
“See, I tol -”
In a quick and unexpected move, the bartender grabbed the keys off my hand and smiled.
“Falling for that should be a sobriety test in and of itself,” he said. “Anyway, pal, you’re not driving-not for a while. When you’re ready to go, I’ll call you a taxi.”
He stepped back from the bar in case I had a violent objection to the ruse. But I just nodded.
“You got me,” I said.
He tossed my keys onto the back counter, where the bottles were lined up. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even five o’clock. Embarrassment burned through the alcohol padding. I had taken the easy way out. The coward’s way, getting drunk in the face of a terrible occurrence.
“You can take it,” I said, pointing to my glass of Guinness.
I picked up the phone and punched in a speed-dial number. Maggie McPherson answered right away. The courts usually closed by four-thirty. The prosecutors were usually at their desks in that last hour or two before the end of the day.
“Hey, is it quitting time yet?”
“Haller?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on? Are you drinking? Your voice is different.”
“I think I might need you to drive
