I stuffed the rest of the donut in my mouth. I had really been starved. “Scookie’s bitterness is old stuff. You don’t kill for the past. You kill for the future. She wouldn’t kill him because she lost her business last year but because he knew something that would make her lose her home this year, or go to jail.”
“Hmmm.” Howard was tapping his fingers on my arm.
“Hmmm, indeed.” I thought about Howard and giving up his image, about the “cop” and the briefcase—and prison. “I’ve thought a lot about being imprisoned. It breaks your spirit, suffocates you emotionally, spiritually. But on a strict physical level, jail is a real nasty place. I’d do almost anything to avoid it. And if that thing was killing someone despicable …” I shrugged. “Stay out of jail and don’t lose the things that matter to you. It’d be real tempting. Too tempting for Drem’s killer.”
I reached over and turned on the light. Smiling, I said, “Howard, I believe I can tell you who that killer is. But you know what I need for proof?”
He grinned. It wasn’t quite the old Howard, but I’d deal with that later. He said, “You need a sting.”
I
T DIDN’T TAKE MUCH
to get Lamott to cooperate in the sting. He’d been anxious to deal before. And the idea of wearing a wire appealed to him almost as much as not being reported to the IRS. The problem I was going to have with Rick Lamott was not forcing him to confront the owners of the Inspiration Hotel but reining him in.
Lamott set up the meeting for 8:00
P.M.
Wednesday, April 15. Mason Moon squawked about the time—he hadn’t finished his taxes—but he was overruled.
I cleared the operation with Inspector Doyle. He wasn’t wild about it, but he admitted there was no other option, and since it didn’t take much manpower …
The rest of my day was devoted to rechecking backgrounds, vainly trying to goose the lab, and being informed that the residents of petri dishes can’t step up the tempo. And listening to Eggs bemoan his automotive misfortune. Finally the Mazda dealer had gotten his RX-7 in. Eggs had shifted the down-payment money to his checking account. He’d taken half a day of personal leave for the test drive. He’d gone to the dealership, opened the car door, climbed in, and found that his head scraped the roof. “Tilt the seat back,” the salesman said. Eggs tilted. Now his head was fine. He fitted into the sporty car of his dreams, the car he’d waited years to own. He fastened the seat belt, rested his hand on the gearstick, and looked through the windshield.
Or more accurately, didn’t look through the windshield. At this point in the telling Eggs glared at me. “I couldn’t sit at that angle and see through my bifocals!”
With Herculean restraint, I had neither laughed nor commented on midlife crisis. I went back to my own office with the sting ready to go and the hope that nothing happened during the day to screw it up.
By 8:00
P.M.
Howard, Pereira, and I were down the street in a van. Howard was fingering a manila envelope addressed to the IRS. I’d promised Howard we’d swing the van by the main post office so he could get his return in the mail before midnight. I couldn’t imagine how he’d created order out of the heap of papers that had covered his door-desk last night. He hadn’t mentioned the outcome of his calls to the restaurant suppliers. I didn’t want to ask.
Rick Lamott strolled into the Inspiration Hotel lobby. “Pretty empty lobby. No tax-night party?” Lamott asked. Soft crackles of static flickered on the line, but the sarcastic tone of his voice came through loud and clear.
“Damn,” I muttered to Howard. “I knew Lamott was too much of a grandstander. He’s going to blow it.”
“Too late to change,” Howard said. “Just keep yourself in a three-point stance.”
“Very funny,” a woman answered Lamott. I realized how much Lyn Takai’s sharp voice reflected her appearance: small, spare, sharp-boned. I found myself picturing her in a leotard and jeans.
“We can pull up chairs behind the desk. No one’s going to be coming in here at this hour on a Wednesday,” Mason Moon said petulantly.
“Parts of what I say may be private.” Lamott.
“Somebody’s got to stay by the phone.” Scookie Hogan.
“Guess it’s Scookie’s night to work the desk,” Howard whispered, laughing at her put-out tone.
“You said you had a proposition. Go on.” Ethan Simonov.
Feet shuffled. The static was louder. I pictured the five of them moving behind the mahogany counter. Moon would prop himself against the back wall, cape hanging loose from his shoulders, his bushy Flemish-painter hair puffing out from his head just as the cotton double moon billowed on his T-shirt. Scookie would be in the desk clerk’s chair, her mouth drooping victimlike; she’d be dressed in swirls of blue and purple. Lyn Takai I envisioned nearest the exit, shifting from foot to foot. And Ethan Simonov would have planted himself directly across from Lamott, the other dealer here. Simonov, his dark ponytail hanging over his collar, would be tapping his fist with a hammer he’d pulled from his tool belt, like a judge calling for order.
Lamott said, “One of you has been audited. The trail has led to the hotel books, right?”
“Nobody’s asked for my books.” Moon, defensive.
“It’s just a matter of time. You all know that.” I could imagine Lamott in his expensive suit, waving an expensive arm in front of the sputtering Moon. “And, Mason, you were shit as an accountant. What you call books here is Swiss cheese.”
A babble of voices protested, but Lamott must have quieted them. “I can fix them.” Silence. “Look, I’ve seen books like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve had doctors arrive in my office without a single receipt and expect me to deduct thousands of dollars in entertainment. No verif whatsoever. But I handled it. Your problems are small potatoes. A little double-booking? We delete another guest. You ordered a chandelier for the lobby here, and it’s hanging in one of your dining rooms? We create a receipt for your payment to the hotel. No problem to create documentation—if you’re smart enough.”
“Cook the books, you mean,” Moon snorted.
“Semantics. Can it, Mason.” Takai.
“Are you saying you can do our books so that no matter who takes over Drem’s cases, they won’t find anything wrong?” Scookie sounded disbelieving.
“They’ll find an error here, a judgment call there. Flawless returns make them suspicious. But they won’t have red flags—nothing to make them search further.”
“Hey, wait!” Moon. “There won’t be any more audit anyway. When an investigator buys it, IRS has to start all over. The chain of evidence is broken, scattered in a million pieces.”
The line crackled. Otherwise, there was silence. Had I misjudged Lamott? But then he said, “You’re right, Moon. That’s what happens—normally. Not cost-effective for a new man to go over the same tracks. That’s if things are normal, Moon. If Drem had kicked the bucket from the big C, they’d have buried his cases with him. But IRS gets suspicious when one of their own is murdered. Could be they’ll figure it’s worth the time to have another look. Of course, the choice is yours. If you’re all willing to take your chances, okay.” It was a moment before he said, “I’ll leave you alone to discuss it.”
Howard groaned. I nodded, seconding that groan. Scenario A ended with the killer admitting his guilt now. I had hoped for that, but I really hadn’t expected it in front of a stranger like Lamott, much less the rest of the Inspiration crew.
The hotel door closed. Lamott was on the stoop. A car passed. I heard it first live, then over the wire—delayed stereo. The wind rattled the sides of the van, strong wind off the Bay like the ones we normally get in late summer afternoons. It smacks the smog back against the Berkeley hills. Now it rattled the palm fronds and plane-tree leaves and tossed discarded newspapers against our fenders.
Howard shoved his tax papers back into the manila envelope. I wished we could see outside. We could have doused the lights and crept into the cab for a peek. Odds of being spotted were slim, but any chance was too great a risk.
After what seemed an hour but couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, Lamott walked back into the hotel. “So?” he asked, the soft thump of his footsteps forming a sort of background music. He was still walking, so the owners must still have been behind the desk.
“We may deal.” It was Simonov. The swap king was the logical spokesman in this type of situation. “You do our books, in return for …?”
“The TCMP figures from Drem’s briefcase.”
A couple of them gasped. But it was Simonov who said, “TC—what figures?”
“One of you knows what I’m talking about.”
“How would we have anything of Drem’s? He didn’t give Maria anything.” Scookie sounded defensive.
“Drem’s briefcase.” Takai. “You’re saying one of us got these figures out of his briefcase.”
There was a slurring sound on the wire, as if cloth had swished or Lamott had shrugged.
“Hey, man, you saying one of us killed him?” Moon.
“I don’t care about killing. I’m just interested in the figures.”
“Killing, figures—they’re inseparable,” Takai insisted.
There was a pause. I could picture Lamott looking down his sleek nose with that same smug expression he’d had when he told me he’d parked in the red zone outside the station. It didn’t fill me with confidence.
“Lamott, any of us who admits to having Drem’s briefcase is giving you a hold over him that could be a lot worse than an IRS audit,” Takai insisted.
“Maybe. Unless you’re going to jail. Tax avoidance is your right. Tax evasion is illegal. And jail is a dangerous place for innocents like you. Right, Simonov? You’ve been in the can.”
“Years ago. And that was only a few months in a ‘country club jail.’”
It was so quiet, I could hear their breathing. Then Scookie Hogan said what they all must have been thinking. “People go to jail for murder, too. Admitting you have Drem’s briefcase would be like calling the cops.”
There was a murmur of agreement, then silence—no shuffling of feet, not even the soft hiss of their breath. By his presence Lamott was forcing them to sit together in silence, so that each of them had to see his separateness and face the fact that the group couldn’t or wouldn’t support him. Or maybe he was just drawing a blank.
After a minute or so he said, “No one has to make a statement here now. You’ve all agreed you need my services. The one who has the briefcase needs them most. I don’t care which of you that is. I just want the figures in the briefcase. Let’s choose a drop point for them. I don’t need to know who has them. He or she just leaves them off. I pick them up, then I clean up your books. Simple as that.”
“Lamott,” Takai said acerbically, “don’t you think it’s a bit damning for one of us to announce we’ll make the drop?”
So much for scenario B—the killer reveals himself before Lamott leaves. That left C, the last and none too reliable resort.
“Okay, we’ll protect your anonymity,” Lamott said, easing into C. “I’ll ask each of you for a suggestion about the drop point, each suggestion built on the previous one. That way, no one will be giving him or herself away. Agreed?”
There was a general murmuring that I took for agreement if not enthusiasm.
“Scookie, you start.”
“Me? Why me?”
“A little nervous?” Howard observed.
“Someone has to be first.” Lamott’s tone was halfway between laughter and exasperation.
“Well, okay. What exactly do I have to deliver—just a slip of paper with the figures on it or the whole briefcase?”
“The briefcase.”
“What do you want that for?” Lyn Takai demanded.
I held my breath. The chances of getting the IRS to verify any numbers as local TCMP figures was slim. Without that verification, figures typed on a fresh sheet could refer to anything and be valueless as evidence.
Lamott laughed. “I want Drem’s briefcase to wipe my feet on.”
There was a shrill sound I took to be Scookie’s laugh. “Okay, if I were choosing a drop point, I’d need someplace nearby.”
“Ethan?” Lamott asked.
“Only a fool would chance his freedom on a game like this. Twenty questions chooses the spot? Or is it four suggestions?”
“We’ll narrow down till you’re all comfortable. As long as it takes.”
I could hear more grumbles. Then Simonov suggested someplace with a number of entries and exits. Lyn Takai wanted a spot where she could be at least as comfortable as Lamott. The narrowing went on another two rounds, and it was Mason Moon who finally came up with People’s Park. He named a spot at the near end behind the Med. Under the low wooden stage.
I slammed my fist into my thigh. “Damn!”
Howard whistled. “What you’ve got here is one of the worst spots in town, Jill. Maybe the worst.”
“With the connections this crew has,” Pereira said, “they could know a clerk or janitor or dishwasher in any of the businesses, or half the tenants in the motel that faces the park. They could come in from either side of the park, or from the far end. Or around the end of the motel. You’re talking major surveillance.”
I nodded. Ideally, uniforms in the closed shops, undercovers at either side of the park, by the far end, in the shadows of the shrubs, behind the apartment building, and on every street that led off. I could use up the department’s overtime budget for the season. To get half that many officers, I’d have to get Inspector Doyle to pressure Chief Larkin, maybe to make a deal with the head of one of the other details who owed him. Then it’d still be a question of how many bodies we could pull in on overtime. I didn’t know if we could do all that by tomorrow night.
“Okay,” said Lamott, “the spot’s set. You wanted the drop to be at night. So let’s say three
A.M.
tomorrow night.”
“No.” Lyn Takai laughed. “No, you don’t get to choose the time. Three in the morning’s too late. About ten thirty is right. And not tomorrow. We’ll do it tonight.”
Ten thirty tonight. Two hours from now.
A
CIVILIAN MIGHT HAVE
asked why the Inspiration group chose 10:30
P.M.
for the drop instead of 3:00
A.M.
The answer is they were smart. At 3:00
A.M.
the streets are deserted. The campus cops have swept and reswept People’s Park. It’s empty but for a street person who’s willing to take the chance of being rousted out within the hour. At 3:00
A.M.
People’s Park belongs to us.