The Other Side Of Silence

me?”

“You could’ve tried to cut yourself in. Or to put the bite on him to keep quiet.”

Ulbrich thought that was funny. He laughed, nearly choked on the hunk of corned beef he’d stuffed into his mouth, coughed, swallowed the rest of his beer, coughed some more. “Man,” he said when the fit had passed, “you’ve got some imagination. Either that, or you’re so desperate you’re grabbing at any straw that blows by in the wind.”

“Seems plausible to me.”

“Not if you know Sam Ulbrich, it isn’t. I’ve been in one kind of law enforcement or another for nearly thirty years, Fallon. Spotless record. I’d never do anything to jeopardize it.”

“What about the time you were brought up before the state board of licenses?”

Ulbrich sobered. “You know about that? Yeah, well,” he said darkly, “that was a bogus charge made by a client who was pissed that I couldn’t get the kind of evidence he was looking for on a business partner. The judge cleared me, you understand? Completely cleared me.”

“Okay, so you didn’t know Spicer was a blackmailer. Didn’t find out anything along those lines when you were investigating him.”

“That’s right. And if I had, I wouldn’t tell you what it was.”

“But you’d have told Casey Dunbar.”

“Full disclosure to my clients, always. And nobody else without their permission.”

Fallon said, “Where were you Monday night?”

“Still not convinced, huh?”

“So convince me.”

“Why the hell should I? I ought to push your face in.”

“Welcome to try.”

Their eyes locked and held. During the staredown, the waiter returned with the fresh Guinness and that broke it up. A slow, sardonic grin turned up the corners of Ulbrich’s mouth. He shrugged, picked up his fork.

“Hell,” he said, eating, “I’m not trying to be a hard-ass here. Mrs. Dunbar is missing, you’re a friend of hers, you’ve got a right to be worried. I’d be worried, too, in your shoes.”

“You haven’t answered my question about Monday night.”

“I was right here in San Diego. Imperial Beach, actually.”

“You don’t live in Imperial Beach.”

“That’s right, I don’t. But my daughter does. With her husband and her two kids. One Monday a month I go out there, have dinner with them, and she tells me all about what her mother’s doing these days and I try not to puke while she’s doing it. That’s where I was last Monday night. You don’t believe it, I’ll give you my daughter’s phone number.”

Fallon slumped against the booth back. Wrong again. Sam Ulbrich wasn’t any guiltier than David Rossi or Sharon Rossi or Bobby J.

“Truth hurts sometimes,” Ulbrich said philosophically. “So where do you go from here, Fallon?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know where to go or what the hell to think. I just keep stumbling into dead ends.”

“Maybe you need some help.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Professional help. My kind.”

Fallon considered it, but only briefly. Even with better resources, what could Ulbrich do that he hadn’t already done or couldn’t do himself? Something in the long run, maybe, but he needed answers now. Besides, it would mean telling him the whole story. All confiding in Ulbrich would accomplish was to put himself into greater jeopardy.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“If it’s because you’re low on money, we can work something out.”

“Money’s not an issue. I’ve got to see this through on my own.”

Fallon slid out of the booth, started to turn away.

Ulbrich said, “Wait a minute.” And when Fallon leaned down, “I don’t know that this’ll help you much, but you can have it for what it’s worth. I had the feeling Casey Dunbar was holding something back when she hired me. Hiding something, maybe.”

“Such as what?”

“I don’t know. Just an impression I got when we were talking about Spicer and the kid. I can read people pretty well-one of the reasons I’m good at what I do.”

“Lying to you?”

“Not exactly. Just not giving me the whole story, leaving out details that I should’ve been told. You didn’t get the same feeling from her?”

“No,” Fallon admitted, “I didn’t.”

“Probably because you wanted to believe her. That’s the difference between the personal and professional perspective.” Ulbrich lifted his fresh Guinness. “Luck.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

THREE

NOW HE HAD SOMETHING else to think about. Had Casey kept something important from Ulbrich, something that might have a bearing on Spicer’s death and her and Kevin’s disappearance? If so, then it was likely she’d withheld the same information from him too. Her account of her life and troubles with Spicer had seemed straightforward enough, and nothing he’d found out so far had contradicted it. But he didn’t really know her. And as Ulbrich had said, he’d wanted to believe her.

Where do you go from here, Fallon?

Good question, and it kept echoing inside his head as he walked back to where he’d parked the Jeep. No theories left that fit the facts as he knew them. No clear-cut course of action. Options, sure, but Ulbrich had had a phrase that fit them, too, all of them: grabbing at straws blowing by in the wind.

All right. The only thing he could do was to keep grabbing.

Avila Court ran parallel to Adams Avenue, not far from San Diego State University-a ten-minute drive from Ulbrich’s office building. Number 716 was an old-fashioned, Spanish-style bungalow court, the kind that had proliferated in southern California in the ’30s and ’40s but that you didn’t see much of anymore. There were eight stucco units in this one, each facing a central courtyard and separated from their nearest neighbors by grass strips and wooden fences.

The courtyard was empty when Fallon walked in. Casey’s bungalow was the second in from the street on the left, its stucco front wall age-pocked and in need of a fresh coat of whitewash. Some kind of flowering shrub grew tall in a planter box next to the front door, giving off a cloyingly sweet scent.

A stuffed-full mailbox told him he wouldn’t get an answer when he rang the bell. He rang it anyway, three times. Then he reached down to test the knob-another futile gesture.

Salsa music, not too loud, filtered out of one of the bungalows across the way. Its facing window wore a set of closed Venetian blinds, as did the windows on all of the other units except for one at the far end. The angle of the sun let him see through the glass to the room inside that one. Furniture shapes, but nobody moving around.

Casually, as if he belonged there, he took the accumulation of mail out of the box and shuffled through it. Catalogues, two bills, a handful of junk mail. No letters or postcards.

Between Casey’s bungalow and the neighbor on the right were a pair of gated areaways separated by a fence, where garbage cans and odds and ends could be stored. Still carrying the mail, Fallon moved over there and lifted the latch. The gate opened inward; he stepped through, shut it again behind him. Two bicycles, one a small boy’s, and a pair of garbage cans all but filled the narrow space. The wooden fence was seven feet tall, weathered but in decent repair, built to provide privacy because the bungalows were set so close together.

One window, small and frosted, overlooked the areaway. Bathroom window. On the way to it, he dropped the