Dead Ringer (24 page)

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

“There’s been a fire at the house …” He ran out of words, his mind simply shut down.

“I’ll be there soon as I can.” Josh hung up.

Lucas looked at his phone for a moment before pressing the button to disconnect his end. He realized something was completely wrong in his world but couldn’t wrap his mind around exactly what. Laura couldn’t be dead.

Lange said, “You didn’t answer me. We need your statement recorded properly. Will you come to the precinct to give one?”

Statement? What the hell for? He couldn’t seem to concentrate on what was being said to him.

Suddenly the nauseous foreboding from Hong Kong was back, only this time stronger. Much stronger. It started becoming clear … a car bomb. Laura was dead. What other
reason would there be for the cops to consider it a crime scene? He felt weak and dizzy.

“Well? What’s it going to be?”

Lucas tried to think but kept coming back to one thing: she’s dead.

“McRae, I’m talking to you.”

His brain started working again. He’d seen enough cop movies and TV shows to know he should ask, “Do I need a lawyer?”

Lange raised his eyebrows. “Why? You done something wrong?”

Lange’s tone sealed it. Damn right he needed one.

L
ANGE OPENED A SOLID-LOOKING
door, motioned Lucas into an interrogation room no different from the ones seen in countless TV shows and movies, except it didn’t have one-way glass. This was the same building where he’d filed the missing persons report. Was Wendy down the hall? If so, did she know about this? Could she help him?

“Want something to drink? Coffee, Coke?”

“A Coke.”

Soon as Lange left, he called his lawyer. The only lawyer Lucas knew was out of town, so his secretary transferred him to another attorney in the office.

Lucas was halfway through the story when she said, “You need a criminal defense lawyer. No one in our firm does that kind of work. I’ll see who I can find. You said West Precinct, that’s where they’re holding you?”

Lucas waited in the room for Lange to return with a Coke. He desperately needed something to settle his stomach with the crab still clawing the hell out of him. He couldn’t bear the thought of Laura being dead.

No, it was all a huge mistake. Laura was still alive. One of her girlfriends had picked her up, and right now they were doing yoga or aerobics or getting a massage. That could be why her cell phone was off. Sure, that was it. A cell phone might break the mood from all that new age music and incense.

But then why would he be here in a goddamn interrogation room?

Jesus, where was that lawyer?

Lange finally returned but without coffee or a Coke or the previously friendly smile. In fact, he looked serious as shit. “Mind if I record this?” he asked in an offhanded way.

Alarms rang in Lucas’s head. He glanced around for a microphone or camera but didn’t see one so figured it must be hidden in the vents to put people more at ease. “What about the garage? You find anything?”

“I’ll repeat the question. May I record this conversation?”

A flash of anger ignited in Lucas’s chest. “Yes! Now goddamn it, what about the garage?”

Lange pointed to a straight-back metal chair behind a small table. Both the table and chair were bolted to the floor. “When I have definitive news, I’ll tell you. Now have a seat so we can record your statement.”

He went through the business of stating the date, time, his own name and then asked Lucas to say his name and residence. This sudden formality did nothing but spike his anxiety. Then again, he saw no problem in answering such benign questions. What harm would it be to admit his name and address?

Lange asked, “What cars do you own?”

A voice inside warned to wait until the lawyer arrived, that this was now edging into problem areas. But Lange probably had his DMV files and his VIN numbers, so the question might be aimed at evaluating his truthfulness. He said, “An Audi and the Volvo.”

“Is the Volvo your wife’s?”

“Yes.”

“Then why were you driving her car this morning?”

Lange’s tone triggered a queasy feeling in Lucas’s gut. Where was this headed and why? He saw problems with a truthful answer. The cheating husband kills his wife so he can be with his lover. He decided to stick close to the truth, but not every detail. “I cleaned out the garage yesterday and piled a load of junk in the driveway. It blocked half of the garage, so when Laura came home yesterday, she parked in the driveway directly behind my car. When I needed a car this morning, I used hers.” Which, if taken at face value, was true. Just not quite the whole story.

Lange kept looking at him. “For?”

Careful now
. The queasiness grew. He was treading into the lie quagmire and knew that once entered, it could suck him down, forcing lie upon lie until he’d lost all sight of his starting point. What was he going to say? “I was out last night sleeping with a detective from this precinct”?

“I went out for a cup of coffee.” Technically speaking, this was the truth. Wendy had given him one.

Lange nodded as if appreciating the response.

What if Lange knew he’d been with Wendy? Had they talked? Was he trapped already?

“Mind telling me,” Lange said, “where you were between the time you last saw your wife and when you returned to the house?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Thought I made that obvious earlier. There was an explosion in the garage while you were out in your wife’s car. Your wife isn’t accounted for and there’s a body in the wreckage of what’s probably your Audi. There’s every reason to believe your wife was killed in the garage in the explosion. Can I make myself any clearer?”

“Not another word until my lawyer gets here.”

W
ENDY WAS AT THE
two burner hot plate pouring a cup of overcooked coffee when she got wind of an interrogation in progress down the hall. Out of curiosity she ambled to the observation room and glanced at the video screen.
Oh shit, now what?

I
N SPITE OF THE
irregular hours his work demanded, Ditto doggedly clung to daily routines. Up by seven, pack the coffee maker with Starbucks Kenya roast, listen to the local news while grunting out fifty push-ups, shave, spruce up the goatee, shower, dress for the day. Always in that order. Routines were what allowed a busy life to remain ordered and running smoothly while permitting you to concentrate on other things. Business, for example. Only the ditzy, fractionated people of the world allowed their lives to run haphazard.

Maybe when he retired he would allow himself the luxury of sleeping in occasionally. But he doubted it because, well, it just wouldn’t seem right. Besides, his internal clock woke him at seven regardless of what time he went to sleep.

Ditto sat in his office with the door closed and his black leather executive chair positioned to comfortably watch the local news. He was waiting for one particular story. He leaned forward as the words “This Just In” flashed on the screen.

The announcer said, “And now we take you to Mark Lee, reporting live at a developing story.”

The picture switched to a reporter in a yellow KING TV Windbreaker holding, a wind-screened microphone to his mouth. Behind him a chaotic array of emergency vehicles with flashing lights. Fire, police, a Medic One van.

“Thanks, Ed. What you see behind me is the residence in the Magnolia neighborhood where Seattle Police and Fire Departments are investigating an explosion earlier this morning that is thought to have taken the life of one person, apparently a woman.”

A woman? Fuck.

“Police are saying the source of the explosion was a car. Why the car exploded is under investigation, but sources close to the case have said that the woman’s husband has been taken to the West Precinct for questioning as a person of interest.”

Ditto watched in stunned silence as the anchor assured viewers the news team was monitoring the situation closely and would break to the story the moment more developments were available.

How could that have happened? Gerhard had assured him …

He wiped his mouth and smoothed his goatee. Clearly an unanticipated turn of events. That McRae’s wife became the victim was irrelevant. What was relevant was that McRae remained alive and quite possibly even more of a threat than before.

But McRae wasn’t a reasonable person.

Ditto picked up the phone and dialed Gerhard’s line. “I need to see you. Right now.”

“Y
OUR LAWYER
’
S HERE
,” Lange said.

Lucas looked up at the doorway where a trim, tall, middle-aged man squinted behind fashionably narrow glasses. With shoes buffed to a gloss and a charcoal pinstripe Armani,
he radiated a simple but emphatic don’t-fuck-with-me aura. Lange’s dour face told Lucas that this attorney probably wasn’t a likely candidate for honorary membership in the police guild, making him a great choice and exactly what he needed now. Lucas stored away a mental note to thank whomever was responsible for the referral.

The lawyer stepped into the room, hand extended. “Lucas McRae? Palmer Davidson.” After shaking hands, Davidson locked eyes with Lange. “What—if anything—has my client been charged with?”

Lange said, “Nothing. He’s here to answer some questions concerning the explosion.”

Davidson smiled knowingly. “You haven’t changed a bit in the last several years. I need some time to talk with my client in private.”

Lange moved to the door. “I’ll be outside.”

“No. We’ll talk in the hall.”

Lange gave him a bemused look. “You can talk in here.”

“I said private.” Davidson pointed toward the ceiling vent. “This is about as private as the Iraq embassy.”

Lange frowned. “He tries to leave, you’ll both have big problems.”

“Bite me.”

Out in the hall, Davidson sidled up close to Lucas. “All I know is what I heard on the news on the way over. What’s going on?”

Lange stood about twenty feet down the hall, arms crossed, legs spread, watching like a military guard.

Lucas explained the events of the past twenty-four hours, including spending the night with Wendy. He figured everything needed to be out on the table. Davidson listened to the entire story before having him repeat it.

When Lucas finished the second time, Davidson said, “That alibis you for last night, but if the cause of the explosion is proven to be a car bomb—which seems likely with what we presently know—there is nothing in your story that would remove you from being the prime suspect.”

Lucas’s gut knotted so tightly it ached.

W
ENDY STOOD OUTSIDE THE
interrogation room conferring with Davidson in hushed tones. Lucas had been One hundred percent truthful to his attorney in recounting his whereabouts last night and the reason for not being in his car this morning. She felt his cheeks blush with embarrassment but didn’t stop eye contact. That Lucas was with another woman the night before his wife is killed would not sit well with Jim Lange, the lead investigator on the case. The truth would have to come out, sooner than later. And it would cast more suspicion on Lucas than was warranted.