increasingly aware that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Not enough, anyway. But then, wasn’t that why she was here?
Michelle was staring at her, waiting.
Pearl pressed on. “If you could somehow recover those times, dates, and places on the Internet, the child porn sites, and compare them with when your brother was on duty, we might be able to prove he was somewhere else when at least some of those sites were visited.” Pearl gave her a level look, trying to appear intelligent. This Michelle was intimidating. “Is any of this even remotely possible? Might that information still be accessible?”
“It probably is.”
The woman’s face didn’t give away much, Pearl thought. Mount Rushmore with makeup. “So what would you have to do to get to it?”
“Risk my career.”
“Like I’m risking mine,” Pearl said. “And Quinn’s not even my brother.”
Michelle smiled. And in that instant Pearl knew her romantic relationship with Quinn was no secret. Maybe Michelle had talked to Quinn. Or Sergeant Rudd. Or maybe Michelle somehow had read her, simply figured it out. Maybe it had been on the damned radio.
“Good point,” Michelle said. She examined the disk drive more closely. “It’s an internal drive, so it doesn’t simply slide in a computer bay ready to go. Somebody must have used a screwdriver to remove it.”
“You’re the expert,” Pearl said.
“I can reinstall it in another computer and examine it. There are ways, software programs, that can retrieve almost anything supposedly deleted. And most people-probably the ones we’re dealing with-think once they’ve pressed the delete key, they’ve actually irretrievably deleted whatever it is they want to get rid of.”
“You have this software?”
“If I need it, I can obtain it. But I might be able to get to what we need using another computer’s system programs. It might take some time.”
“When can you start?”
Michelle removed her blazer and carefully folded it inside out and draped it over the back of a chair. “Now. This morning. It promises to be a quiet day in the markets. Money’s on the sidelines waiting to see what the Fed’s going to do.”
“Yeah,” Pearl said, “the feds.”
Michelle grinned. “I’ll make a few phone calls, then set to work on this. Don’t expect anything right away-like today. Where can I get in touch with you?”
Pearl leaned over the wide, polished desk and wrote her name and cell phone number on a tablet. “Here, or you can try Quinn’s number.”
“Uh-huh.” But while her tone was dubious, Michelle appeared secretly pleased. Pearl thought it was nice to be approved of.
“You have my word the source of any information you come up with will remain confidential if at all possible. But the truth is, that’s all I can promise.”
“I understand. Your word’s good enough.”
“Thanks,” Pearl said. “I mean, really thanks.”
She thought Michelle was going to say she was welcome, but instead she said simply, “He’s my brother.”
“One other thing,” Pearl said. “Unless you come up with something we can use, there’s no need to tell Quinn about any of this.”
“Unless for some reason he asks. I’m not going to lie to him. He’s had enough of that.”
“So he has,” Pearl said. “I’ll quit using up your morning and find my own way out.”
Michelle didn’t waste time on amenities. She was already sitting down at her desk as Pearl was leaving.
Back down on the sun-warmed sidewalk, Pearl thought about what she’d done: stolen police property from the evidence room and involved Quinn’s sister. And undoubtedly Quinn himself, if the theft came to light and there was nothing exculpatory on the hard drive.
Everyone involved might take a big hit, even Fedderman. None of them would be trusted again. The law had been broken. Loss of careers would be the least of their problems.
Computers, Pearl decided, were dangerous instruments.
Lars Svenson writhed around in his bed for several hours, but sleep never came. He considered using more of the stash he’d stolen from his latest conquest, but that was what had probably put him on edge in the first place.
He sat straight up in bed, sweating and trembling. This was pure shit. It felt like there were bugs crawling around just beneath his skin.
He was never going to get to sleep, and he’d be like he was dead when he started work this afternoon.
If he was going into work. The way the day was shaping up, he might call in sick. Or take a vacation day.
Right now he was going to climb out of bed and get dressed. Get out of the apartment and take a walk. Maybe have a drink or two somewhere and try to numb himself, relieve the pressure that was building and building in him.
Walk some more. Maybe for hours.
Sometimes, if he walked far enough, walking helped.
Sometimes it didn’t.
38
Lisa Ide realized she’d forgotten her glasses. She’d need them to read the tiny ornate print of the menu at Petit Poisson, where she was due in half an hour to meet two old friends from college. Over lunch and pastries they would have a grand time talking about long-ago allies and enemies. Maybe there’d be photographs to examine, old and recent. Lisa was looking forward to this lunch; it held the promise of being a real bitchfest.
She stopped walking and moved back against a building to avoid the flow of pedestrians. She was less than halfway to her subway stop. There was still time for her to return to the apartment, get her glasses, then take a cab to the restaurant.
Her mind made up, she began striding hurriedly back the way she’d come, breaking into a graceful half walk and half run to make the blinking walk signal at the intersection.
In the hall outside her apartment door, she fumbled with her keys and dropped them. Reminding herself she had plenty of time, she bent over and picked them up, then keyed the lock and opened the door. Within seconds she should be leaving with glasses in hand.
Where are they?
She’d read herself to sleep last night, a Michael Connelly thriller, and probably placed the glasses on top of the book on the nightstand before switching off the light on her side of the bed and dozing off.
But she’d taken only a few steps toward the bedroom when she recalled wearing the glasses in the kitchen this morning to read the calorie count on the cereal box. And later when she’d looked up a phone number in her address book.
She went to the phone on its table near the door.
No glasses.
The kitchen, then. I probably carried them back into the kitchen an hour ago when I got bottled water from the refrigerator. Of course! I must have set the glasses down when I used both hands to loosen the cap on the plastic bottle.
As she was moving toward the kitchen, she heard a slight sound from the bedroom, perhaps something falling.
She stopped. Leon must have taken ill and come home.
No, that wasn’t like Leon.
But if it’s anyone, it must be Leon.
