The stairs--all treads, no risers--seemed to ascend into darkness. The view up filled me with dread. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be home with my wife, the door locked behind us. But I made my way up, the structure rigid against the night wind. Air whistled past the railings, through the mesh-steel steps, but the tower itself didn't creak or groan. It was built in a time when they knew how to build things.
By the time I reached the top, I was slightly winded. Sally was standing near the edge, leaning on a sturdy pay telescope, looking out at the panoramic darkness. Her flat eyes took note of me. 'They say on a clear day you can see Catalina.'
Pacing tight circles, his dark face shiny with sweat, Valentine could have been on bomber lookout himself. 'I told you, Richards, I don't like this Deep Throat shit.'
I asked, 'Did Robbery-Homicide seize a CD from my house yesterday?'
'No,' Sally said. 'At least not officially.' She grew uneasy under Valentine's outraged glare. 'I've been keeping tabs on the case,' she told him. 'Word in the halls, that's it.'
'You're flirting with dismissal here, Richards.' He threw up his hands and started for the stairs. 'I'm not going down this path with you.'
'We're here,' she said. 'We see what he has. That's all.'
I said, 'I have a copied photograph of Keith Conner's corpse taken five minutes before I entered the room.'
Sally's mouth tensed, but Valentine continued as if I weren't there. 'This is way too hot a potato for us. The captain was clear as fuck what would happen to our asses if we went sniffing. I got four boys to take care of, so yes, thank you, keeping my job and pension would be a nice way to go into next week.'
I held out the picture of Keith's body, and Sally shoved herself skeptically off the telescope and walked over. After taking a defiant pause to eye my bruised face, she squinted down at the page. For a moment her expression was unchanged, but then she swallowed sharply and color crept into her cheeks. 'Even if the time stamp is doctored,' she said, 'you didn't have a camera.' She couldn't lift her eyes from the picture. Her hand reached for the railing, groping the air, and then she caught it and leaned a sturdy hip into the structure, as if grounding herself. 'What else?'
I fanned through a few surveillance shots of Keith. 'These were taken by a company named Ridgeline. Two of their men kidnapped me.'
Sally's eyebrows lifted a few centimeters.
I held up a hand. 'I know. I'll explain. But first let me lay out motive. Keith was making a documentary that condemned naval sonar for killing whales.'
'The Deep End,' Sally said. 'Dolphins, too, I've heard.'
'There's a vote coming up in the Senate to lower the decibel levels of naval sonar. Keith's documentary was timed to influence that decision. A company named Festman Gruber is a huge contractor specializing in sonar equipment. I'm guessing they've got a lot to lose if that Senate vote doesn't swing their way.'
Valentine pleaded with Sally, 'Can we please call this before we catch crazy?'
'So they knocked off Keith and framed you?' Sally's lips were pursed in a faint, worried smile. 'What do you have to back up that elaborate theory?'
'I have banking, wire, and phone records tying Ridgeline to Festman Gruber. I have the names of murder victims written next to specific payments.'
I flipped through the documents to show them off, Sally frowning down at them, biting her lip. Despite himself, Valentine crowded in, peering over her shoulder.
'And,' I said, 'I have these weird withdrawals they made.'
'Weird how?' Valentine said.
'There's some code attached to them. Right here.' I turned the page, pointed at the money orders with #1117 written across the top.
Valentine looked down and almost absentmindedly snapped open the thumb break on his holster. His hand jittered once above the pistol grip, a seesaw of indecision. Then, with a single fluid motion, he lifted the Glock from the leather and shot Sally in the chest.
Chapter 51
A plume of blood erupted from Sally's shirt. She took a thundering step back, her weight cocked above a bent leg, and then collapsed. Valentine and I stared on in horror as she shuddered and gasped, and then he lifted the barrel weakly and aimed it at me.
The muzzle sparked again, and I felt the air move by my head, but I was already leaping for the stairs, the documents crumpling around my fist. I landed halfway down the top flight, my shoulder ringing off a rail, my momentum carrying my body up over my head. I hit the landing on a roll and half scrambled, half fell down the switchback, putting all that metal between me and Valentine. Skidding to a painful halt, mesh steel digging into my back, I could hear Valentine up there.
'Oh, Jesus. You're hurt. Why'd you have to go and do this, Richards? You had to push it. I tried to talk you off it, but there you went. Wouldn't let it go. You're hurt, Christ, you're hurt. You left me no choice. You left me no choice.'
A moist gurgling. Liquid tapping metal.
A low moan, which I realized wasn't Sally but Valentine. It rose to an almost feminine scream, accompanied by a violent series of blows--him banging his fist against the deck?
He was sobbing. 'I couldn't go down for this. I go away, who's gonna take care of my boys?'
But she wasn't saying anything back.
'I'm sorry,' he wept. 'I'm sorry. C'mon, open your eyes, Richards. Open your eyes. Gimme a pulse now. Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry.'
I folded the documents and shoved them into my pocket, wincing at the crinkling. The wind kicked up a bit more, drowning out the shrill serenade of the crickets.
As I edged down another flight, Valentine seemed to perceive my movement and return to his senses. I heard the chirp of his radio, and then he bellowed, 'Officer down! I have an officer down on the observation tower of the Nike facility off dirt Mulholland. Send backup and medical now!' His voice wavered, and I realized that even my own mind-numbing shock didn't compare to his. He panted for a moment, catching his breath, then continued, 'The perpetrator, Patrick Davis, wrestled away my gun and shot her. I have my partner's weapon and am in pursuit. Over.'
Dispatch came back in a burst of concerned static, and the volume eased down, and then it was him and me, breathing in the silence.
Valentine's shoes moved slowly across the platform, then onto the stairs. Two flights below, enveloped in a kind of calm terror, I shadowed his steps, quiet and steady. The thought of that picture on Sally's desk, her holding her toddler, threw me into a moment of denial. It didn't seem possible for me to have witnessed what I'd just witnessed.
He was coming a little faster, the shadows from his legs flickering through the gaps between steps. I sped up. Another flight and I would run out of room. Then it would be a dash in the dark with a loaded gun behind me.
I reached the bottom, and he was still coming strong, shoes clanging. For a suspended moment, I looked ahead at the path that would leave me vulnerable to a bullet in the back.
The options were clear: run and get shot or turn and counterattack.
On heavy legs I ducked back under the stairs. The dirt sloped up hard beneath the first flight. I pressed myself into the darkness beneath the landing, my body starting to register the pain from my tumble. My breath was firing, and I fought to tamp it quietly back into my chest.
My sneaker lost purchase on the angle, and I nearly went down, broadcasting my position, but my hand flew up through the gap where a riser would be and hooked a stair tread, stabilizing me.
Valentine's footsteps quickened, then slowed as soon as his shoes drew into view on the next flight up. He was bracing for an ambush. The toe of his loafer gleamed with blood, so dark it looked black, and the cuff of his slacks was smeared. As he descended, I let go of the step, withdrawing my hand carefully. The treads carved him into horizontal slivers--shoe and ankle, thigh and waist, chest and neck--but when he eased his weight down onto the landing above me, I caught a clear view of the Glock he held firmly before him with both hands on the grip.
He slowed some more. The wind was up and would have covered the sound of my doubling back. But had he
