'Fallon was Delta. Even insane he would be too smart
to let his picture be taken.' I turned away. 'Let's see his mail.'
Pike had found a stack of mail held together by a rubber band. They were all addressed to Eric Shear at the mail drop and contained bank statements showing a checking account balance of $6123.8, canceled checks, and his phone bills for the past two months. Almost all of his calls were to area codes around Los Angeles, but six calls stood out from the others like a beacon. Three weeks ago, Eric Schilling had phoned an international number in San Miguel, E1 Salvador, six times over a four-day period.
8o
I glanced at Pike.
'You think it's Fallon? Resnick thought South America.'
'Dial it and see.'
I studied Schilling's phone, then pressed the Redial button. A number rang, but a perky young woman's voice answered with the name of a local pizza restaurant. I hung up, then studied the phone some more. Digital phones will sometimes store outgoing and incoming calls, but Schilling's did not. I dialed the E1 Salvador number from Schilling's bill. The international connection made a faraway hiss as it bounced off the satellite, then I got a ring. The E1 Salvador number rang twice, then was answered by a recording.
'You know the drill. Talk to me.'
I felt the same cold prickle I had felt that first day on the slope, but now anger boiled around it like mist. I hung up. It was the same man who had called me the
night Ben was stolen and was recorded on Lucy's tape. 'It has to be him. I recognize his voice.' Pike's mouth twitched.
'Starkey's going to love this. She's going to bag a war criminal.'
I studied the pictures again. I had never met Schilling or Fallon or anyone else shown in the pictures--these people had no history with me; they had no reason to be in Los Angeles or to know anything about me. Thousands of children came from families with more money than Richard, but they had kidnapped Ben. They had tried to make it seem as if their motive was vengeance against me, and now they were almost certainly holding up Richard for ransom money; yet he was denying it. All kidnappers tell their victims not to go to the police, and I could understand Richard was scared, but that was the
only part that made sense. The pieces of the puzzle did not fit together, as if each piece was from a different puzzle and no matter how I tried to arrange them the picture they built made no sense.
We overturned the futon and looked through the sheets, but found nothing more. I went into the bathroom. Magazines were stacked beside the toilet. The wastebasket overflowed with wads of tissue, Q-tips, and cardboard toilet paper tubes, but several white pages jutted up through the trash. I upended the basket. A
photocopy of my oi Form fell to the floor.
I said, 'Joe. Schilling has my file.'
Pike stepped into the door behind me. I flipped through the files with a slow sense of numbness, then handed the pages to Joe.
'The only two people who had copies of this were Starkey and Myers. Myers had a judge in New Orleans get a copy of my file for Richard. No one else could have had it.'
The pieces of the puzzle came together like leaves settling to the bottom of a pool. The picture they built was
hazy, but began to take shape. Pike stared at the pages. 'Myers had this?'
'Yeah. Myers and Starkey.'
Pike cocked his head. His face grew dark.
'How would Myers know them?'
'Myers handles security for Richard's company. Resnick said that Schilling called him for security work. Maybe Myers hired him. If he knew Schilling, then Schilling could have brought in the others.'
Pike glanced at the pages again, then shook his head, still trying to see it.
'But why would Myers give them your file?'
'Maybe it was Myers's idea to steal Ben.'
Pike said, 'Jesus.'
'Myers had an open window into Richard's life. He knew about me and Lucy, he knew that Lucy and Ben were out here, and he knew that Richard was worried about them. Fallon and Schilling couldn't have known anything about that, but Myers would have known all of it. Richard probably did nothing but bitch about how much danger they were in because of me, so maybe Myers started thinking he could use Richard's paranoia to get some of Richard's money.'
'Set up a kidnapping, then control the play from
inside for the payoff.'
'Yeah.'
Pike shook his head.
'It's thin.'
'How else could they get my file? Why target Ben as the victim and try to make me look like the reason it's happening?'
