'Something like that.' Tim started down the hall. 'The safe-room steel caught you off guard. No time to go up through the floor?'
'I was thinking the roof down to get the drop, but yeah.'
'Solid entry downstairs. And I bet you got some good information from Percy. But I think you fucked up killing Chase. You could've gotten more answers out of him.'
'Are there more answers to get?'
'Why else you calling me?'
'What do you know about my sister? Or was that just bullshit for the news?'
'You might have to give to get.'
'Why should I tell you anything?'
'Because you need me. For your investigation.'
A long pause. Tim strained to hear anything in the background, but there was just the crackle of the line.
'She was raped at the kid's commercial shoot,' Walker said. 'Chase Kagan. Percy Keating and Dolan Kagan were witnesses.'
A scenario came into rapid focus-the rape, the pregnancy, the lawyer, Tess's execution. Tim halted, his momentum carrying him to the threshold of Dean's study. Amid a bustle of subordinates, Dean issued directives.
'Dean had Percy take out a hit on Tess,' Walker said.
Dean paused, homing in on Tim across the room. Their eyes met. Two men frozen in the midst of disorderly human movement.
'They were worried she'd press charges,' Walker said. 'Or she threatened them with blackmail-Tess was tough if she was anything. Percy ran the cash through Ted Sands, who set the drop at Game.'
Phone to his ear, Tim withdrew from the doorway and Dean's stare, moving back toward the foyer.
'You got a name for this hit man?'
The line hummed for maybe a second. 'Not yet,' Walker said, but his pause was a poker tell. He would've pressed the Piper's tag name out of Percy, and his not giving it up now confirmed Tim's suspicion that the hit man was high on his list. 'Now,' Walker said. 'Something you have that I'm missing?'
Tim hesitated, but not long. 'For one, Tess was pregnant.'
The silence stretched until Tim feared that Walker had hung up. Finally the rough voice came, so low Tim could barely hear it. 'Adds up. What else?'
The evidence wasn't sitting right with Tim. The facts he and Walker had pieced together formed too neat a tale. Lacking were the rough edges, the chance reversals, and the dead ends that violent cases, once fully reconstructed, inevitably prove to have.
Walker again, a touch impatiently: 'You think there's more to it?'
'Yup.'
'Why? It's a clear picture.'
'That's the problem. Plus, if you think Dean Kagan is going to risk going to San Quentin to avoid a he- said/she-said rape prosecution for his son, you're less intelligent than I've been trying to convince everyone you are.' Tim pictured the blank screen on Tess's computer monitor, the missing hard drive. 'Tess must have been coming at them with something different-and more threatening-than a rape and a pregnancy.'
'I'm not following.'
'You underestimate her.'
Walker's anger was palpable during the pause. 'I doubt that.'
'Then you're a shitty investigator. Because the one guy who really knows what we want has his brains all over the master bedroom.'
'For good reason. Now, what else can you tell me?'
Through the hole of the front window, Tim saw the marshal, now pacing in circles, talking into his Nextel, and gesturing apologetically. 'A lot. But you're not as useful to me as I thought you'd be. So you'll have to work with me.' In the silence on the line, Tim could hear Dray, his perennial voice of reason-What, Timothy, playing loose cannon didn't land you in deep enough shit last time around? He asked himself if he dared take a gamble this big, though he knew he'd already made up his mind that morning in the warehouse. Given Tess's rape, he needed the information more than ever. But was he willing to put his ass on the line to get it? And, maybe even more critically, was he willing to let his desire to nail Walker pull him out of bounds again? He strolled back outside.
He started cautiously. 'Here's a sample: Your sister met with a lawyer the week before she was killed. She dropped him four days later-maybe she was threatened. Between a rape and a pregnancy inconvenient for at least one party, we can both use our imaginations as to what that was about. But the lawyer refuses to break confidentiality. If we want to know what else they may have covered in their meetings…'
'We do.'
Tim pressed his lips together, a last-minute deliberation before the point of no return. 'The files are in boxes at Richco Long-Term Storage in Van Nuys, under Esteban Martinez. Just sitting there. The problem is, there's nothing I can do about it. They're beyond subpoena.'
'This is a problem.' Walker clicked his tongue. 'Only problem I have is I show up, maybe someone's waiting.'
'You were with First Force Recon. I'm assuming you're not gonna stroll up and knock on the door. Besides, it would be a criminal conspiracy for me to suggest that you do anything like what you seem to be inferring. Blow my whole case.'
'While I'm mulling that over, maybe you should check out the valet-drop security footage from The Ivy in Beverly Hills,' Walker said. 'Night of June first. It's archived off site, so call over and have them pull it.'
Tim sat on a bench by the koi pond. 'What is it?'
'Take a look. You'll recognize a couple people. The perpetrator refers to the rape in that conversation. Maybe we get a read on their body language. She makes a blackmail threat, he gets angry. Whatever. Maybe Chase's brother and father make a guest appearance.'
'Okay, I'll call now. If you're playing straight, I'll nail these guys.'
'Sure, rape prosecution with a deceased victim-and attacker-should be a breeze. Maybe you could get that broad from the Kobe Bryant trial to fly out, cinch things up.'
'We don't need the rape. The murder case is reopened.'
'Took what? A prison break to get that done? No one gave a shit to look into it until someone rich got killed. Tell me that ain't the truth.' Walker snickered, an ugly, one-note laugh. 'Don't fault me for not trusting the Establishment to handle it. Guys like this, you'll never hang 'em on the murder.'
'Then I'll hang them on something else.'
'Campaign promise. And besides, pardner, I'm gonna do it for you first.'
'Listen-'
'Now's when you tell me I can't take the law into my own hands, right, Troubleshooter?' Walker chuckled.
A click, and the line disconnected.
Chapter 52
Tim turned off the phone, sat on the garden bench, and watched the fat, mottled fish wobble through the algaed water. Next he got The Ivy and put in a request for the footage, combating a snotty manager to get the information passed on to the security company. He gave his name and the comm center's callback number so his ID could be confirmed.
Guerrera came around the bend and whistled Bear over. Setting a boot on the bench, Bear leaned across one knee as Tim brought them up to speed, keeping his voice low so the deputies gathered behind the garden's stone wall wouldn't overhear.
'Something doesn't add up on motive,' Bear said. 'As far as we know, there's no rape kit anywhere. No hard
