love it that the creep who set this all up told Milton his name was DeFrosh.”
Dane said, “Maybe he thinks we’re slow-DeFrosh even rhymes with DeLoach. What is he trying to prove? Is it his goal to get up close and personal with us? Or maybe he just wants us to believe that Weldon DeLoach is the killer?” Dane stopped when he saw Nick leaning against a wall, actually against a gray file cabinet since there was no wall showing. “Hey, you okay, Nick?”
She said as she lightly touched her fingertips to the bandage on her forehead, “In this case, it really does look worse than it really is. I’m okay, just resting a bit.”
Delion said, “I don’t know, Nick. I think you look kind of cute. In a pathetic sort of way. If you want a safe house now, I’ll bet the lieutenant will spring for it.”
Dane said, “No, I’m keeping her with me. Are you in, Delion? We’re all going to LA tomorrow.”
“I’m ahead of you, boyo,” Delion said. “I already called Franken. He said there was still no sign of Weldon. He’s got everybody looking for him, but he doesn’t hold much hope of finding him. Since the police are looking, too, maybe someone will see him. Franken’s going to meet us at the studio at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. He’s got some video of Weldon DeLoach.”
“We’ll finally see what the man looks like,” Nick said.
“Yep,” Delion said. “And there’s lots of stuff to go over with Flynn. He’s got a small army of people working on the personnel lists, interviews, checking alibis, possible motives. We’ve got a lot to tell him as well.”
He looked over at Savich and Sherlock and rolled his eyes. “More Feds. It always starts with a single Fed-sort of like reconnaissance-then you look up and the Feds are converging, multiplying like rabbits until soon they’re everywhere and they’ve taken over. Hey, FBI Director Mueller will be out here before long. He comes from here, you know. Hey, you guys coming with us to LA?”
“Count us in,” Sherlock said, coming to stand by Nick.
Savich said, “What’s this about the gun that killed Dane’s brother being like the two possible guns in the Zodiac killer case? What was that-some thirty years ago?”
“Ain’t that a kick?” Delion said. “It’s got our ballistics guy, Zopp, nearly drooling he’s so excited, telling one blonde joke after another.” At Sherlock’s raised eyebrow, he grinned. “Yeah, Zopp says blonde jokes help his synapses fire. But you know, it has to be a coincidence, has to be.”
“Hmmm,” Sherlock said. “Yeah, it’s a coincidence, but it’s a strange one.”
Delion said, “Hey, Sherlock, you as tough as your daddy?”
“He likes to think so,” Sherlock said, and smiled real big. There were three other inspectors standing close by, grinning like loons at her.
“Local cops really like her,” Savich said, and just shook his head, and Delion thought,
Savich said, “So you don’t mind if we tag along to LA with you, Delion?”
“More the merrier,” Delion said. “Hey, Lieutenant, any word on Stuckey yet?”
“Not yet, but we’ll get him.” Lieutenant Linda Purcell looked around at all the assembled homicide inspectors and said, “Everyone saw how Savich worked the guy around? How he got Stuckey’s name out of him?”
There were boos and hisses from the cops. A couple of inspectors threw some peanuts.
Before Dane left, Delion motioned him aside to tell him that Nick’s fingerprints weren’t on file.
“Hey, at least we know she’s not a criminal.”
“I already came to that conclusion for myself,” Dane said.
SEVENTEEN
Jon Franken, assistant director of
“Freeze it,” Dane said and looked at Nick as the screen held the image. The fact was she already looked frozen. She had to be afraid, looking at the man who very possibly hired Milton McGuffey to murder her, the man who might have killed his brother. Dane lightly touched his fingers to her forearm. “Nick?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know.” She turned to look up at Dane. “Maybe the bone structure is similar.” She shrugged. “It’s pretty scary.”
“I know. Now, Nick, I want you to forget the hair, the tan, the eyes-it could all be cosmetic alterations. Study his face, the way he moves, how he talks using his hands.”
She said finally, “Maybe, I just don’t know. I just can’t be sure. He looks so different.”
Delion said, “Milton McGuffey-would you have spotted him if he hadn’t shot you?”
“You want brutal honesty here? The answer is I’m just not sure. Probably. Yes, I probably would have said something.”
Flynn said, “From everything you’ve told me, the reason our perp selected McGuffey is because of the way he looks-that is, he looks a lot like him. Now, Mr. Franken, you still don’t have a clue where Weldon DeLoach is.”
Franken shook his head. “Sorry, like I already told you, he’ll be here when he wants to be here. If he’s in LA, he’ll be coming around. Weldon is a man of very set habits.”
“Mr. Franken,” Nick said, “has Mr. DeLoach always looked like this? Darkly tanned, really light hair?”
“Why, yes,” Franken said. “As long as I’ve known him. And that’s about eight years now. Why do you ask?”
Dane said to Nick, “If our guy is DeLoach, then when you saw him, he was most certainly wearing a wig, contacts. As for losing the tan, I’m not sure how that would be done except with makeup.”
“But why would he bother?” Nick said. “He sure didn’t expect me to be sitting in the church.”
“Yeah, but he would have seen a lot of people while he was in San Francisco. Maybe the disguise was for any- and everyone.”
Franken said, rubbing his elegant long fingers over his chin, “I don’t think Weldon DeLoach is the murderer. He-he’s just not the type to kill anyone. As I told you before, it’s just not in him.”
Dane remembered Wolfinger had called DeLoach a weenie. “You mean you believe he’s a coward?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just-no, not Weldon.”
Nick said, “The killer wanted McGuffey to look like him, Dane, and that’s why he hired McGuffey to kill me. So he has to be dark and really pale-skinned.”
“You’re probably right, Nick.” Dane asked them to zoom in to get a close-up of Weldon DeLoach, which Franken did. Wolfinger had said DeLoach was around thirty. Well, he didn’t look thirty. He looked forty, maybe more. He looked like he’d lived hard, that, or certainly a lot of stress. According to other writers interviewed, he wasn’t a cocaine neophyte. “But those years are over,” one of the lighting guys had told them. “Weldon hasn’t done bad stuff in a long time. He’s been really straight.”
DeLoach’s dark tan really stood out against his white shirt and white pants. His eyes were a pale blue. He had thinning hair-nearly white it was so blond.
Dane said, “Do you have anything with Weldon DeLoach speaking?”
“Why?” Delion said. “Nick never heard him speak.”
“Maybe she’ll recognize some of the moves he makes when he’s animated and speaking. Besides, I want to hear his voice, too.”
When Franken ran some more footage, there was Weldon DeLoach at a birthday party being held on a set, giving a toast. He had the softest voice Nick had ever heard, soft and soothing, without much expression or accent. She studied him carefully-the way his arms moved, his hands clenched and unclenched around a cup of booze he held aloft as he spoke, the way he held his head.
When it was over, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t be sure. But you know, if the San Francisco police can catch Stuckey, maybe he’ll identify DeLoach’s voice.”
