Missing: The Body of Evidence (27 page)

The room in the motel smelled musty.
Nancy had not noticed it before, but there was clearly a problem, with water
trickling down the wallpaper on one wall. She was just pleased to be out of the
rain, showered and into a dry change of clothes. Lying on the bed, hands rested
behind her head on the pillow, she stared at the ceiling and wondered where to
begin her story for her attorney. Reaching out for her purse on the bedside
table, she took out her notebook and ballpoint. Nancy chewed at the pen cover,
searching for inspiration. Ideas formed and she started to take notes when her
pen ran out of ink. Searching her mind, she hit on an alternative. She rolled
off the bed and searched her jacket pockets for the Dictaphone Bill had given
her and sat back on the bed. Her finger clicked the ON button and she began
reciting.

‘There are three… no, two separate issues.
The first is the…. Damn.’ The light went out the Dictaphone. ‘Batteries?’

A battery popped out when she removed the
cover. Her jaw dropped.
What the
… In a cavity behind where the battery
had been, she saw a small object with a tail. It was smaller than the one her
dad had removed from under the hood of her car, but it was obviously a tracking
device.

A rush of thoughts sent her mind into a
dizzy spin.
Bill?
In her immediate recollection, she could not remember
anyone who could have had access to the Dictaphone since Bill gave it to her.
Fast-forwarding events, it struck her. She had taken off her jacket in Dad’s
living room before talking to him in the bedroom. Nancy threw the Dictaphone
against the wall.

‘God, what the hell is going on?’

Leaping from the bed, Nancy scurried to the
window and peeked through the curtains. A picture of the guy at reception came
to mind. Maybe, she thought, it hadn’t been a lecherous ogle, but recognition
of who she was. Nancy slapped her thigh and stamped a foot. Logan could have
guessed she wasn’t staying at the apartment and sent out teams showing her
photo to receptionists at hotels and motels in the area. Just what was so
serious for him to do that and to put out an APB, escaped her reasoning. Her
heart began to pound as a feeling of vulnerability descended. Whatever they
wanted to speak to her about, she wanted to walk in with her head held high and
not with a stoop and handcuffed, led like a common criminal. Going down to the
station of her own volition, rather than skulking around, seemed like a
preferable option.

She grabbed her coat, purse and clothing
bag and rushed out to her car using her coat to shelter her from the rain.
Nancy set off onto the open road, the wipers struggling hard to keep the view
ahead clear. Through the haze of rain hitting the windshield, a convoy of red
and blue distorted, flashing lights approached in the opposite direction.
Stepping on the gas pedal, she caught up with a truck in front of her and
tucked in behind it. Four police cars sped past in her periphery vision and she
saw them in her rear-view mirror turning into the motel parking lot.
Four
cars. Christ what do they think I’ve done?
It crossed her mind that whoever
was behind trying to frame her could possibly have concocted some other new
frame up.

The time on the dashboard clock read 12:
32. Any thoughts she had of going to the station after midnight, without an
attorney in tow were put on hold. If they had something with which they could
charge her, suffering the indignity of sleeping in a cell overnight wasn’t an
option in her mind.

It was slow going, driving towards her
attorney’s office. Nancy turned down a side street and into the attorney’s
parking lot. Parking up behind a garbage dumpster, she turned off the ignition
and lights and sank into the seat. The rain pounded hard on the roof leaving
her wondering if the hell she was about to endure was worth her pride. Being
locked up had to be preferable. Nancy wound down the seat and did her best to
curl into the foetal position.

Paranoia festered. Bill… Logan… Kyle…
internal affairs and the CIA. For all she knew, she reckoned they could all be
working together out of some sense of loyalty for the good of America in
protecting Astral and she was just collateral damage. Bill and Logan had been
in the army together on some kind of Special Operation team. But Kyle? ‘Grrrrrr.’

Growling and shaking her head did little to
dispel the paranoia. Bill just seemed unlikely as a candidate to destroy her.
But then, she didn’t really know him. Maybe she thought all the Kennedy
bullshit he’d filled her head with was just that… bullshit. The more she
thought about it, she wondered if he had planted it there for her to use in her
defence to make her look stupid. Even worse, a notion drifted through her mind
that maybe he had made the phone call from McDonald’s to tip off the gang,
realized his mistake and had the gang set her up. If he had been on the take
all along, it would make sense for him to need time to hide his misdemeanours.
Perhaps Bill had something over Logan and that’s why Logan was stalling on Bill
coming in to make a statement, for him to cover his tracks and not to give her
a chance to clear her name. ‘But Kyle, damn him.’ The deliberations became even
wilder, spinning ever faster until her mind, finally exhausted, shut down.

Nancy entered the MRI scanning room. The
radiologist’s face looked elongated and distorted, as if she was viewing him in
a goldfish bowl. He grabbed her arm and with a push, launched her into the
opening of the MRI scanner. The space around her expanded and she stood in what
appeared to be a glass tube. The cylinder rumbled and she scrambled to her
feet, only to tumble as it began to slowly rotate and it stretched out in her
vision like a never ending tunnel. First Logan’s face appeared in front of her,
then Bill’s, then the janitor and then Kyle. It was like a vision from Queens
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ video as one by one they sang the word ‘guilty’ holding the
last note in a harmonious crescendo. Their faces faded, replaced by others. Her
dad, the CIA agents and Mary haunted her, repeating the torture of the word
guilty. All the while, the cylinder turned first one way, then the other,
tossing her around. The movement stopped, leaving her dizzy and disorientated
and she drew her knees to her chest. Total darkness and silence descended. A
faint light appeared at the end of the tunnel, glowing brighter, followed by a
rapping sound. Cracks appeared in the glass tube and disintegrated with shards
of glass showering her as she screamed.

More rapping sounds and she forced her
eyelids open.

Nancy’s body leaped in shock. Shards of
light stabbed through her eyelids, which were partially stuck together. The
sound of rapping knuckles on glass vibrated through her brain. A swipe of her
hand across her lids and a face glowered at her through the car window. Her
first instinct was to snicker at his appearance, but she managed to stifle her
emotions. His hair was dyed black and greased backward, Elvis style, with long
sideburns. The shirt collar sported a bootlace tie with a guitar toggle.

‘You’re in my space.’

The night sleeping rough in the car had
taken its toll. Awakening to the crick from hell in her neck and her toes
curled with cramps, Nancy fought to get the words out.

‘Sorry, I have an appointment at nine with
my attorney.’

‘Miss Roberts?’

‘That’s me.’

It was hard to work out which to rub first,
the pain in her neck or her toes. She pressed her toes on the pedals and rubbed
her neck.

‘Jeff Hayward, I guess I’m your attorney.’
Nancy pressed the auto-window button. To the sound of whirring, the window
opened. ‘I’ll block you in. We can shuffle the cars around after your
appointment.’

Nancy opened the car door and climbed out
of the driver’s seat. Rising to her full height, she shook his hand and looked
him up and down. His tight pants and snakeskin boots complemented his attempt
at Elvis impersonation and made her wonder if he would be the right choice to
represent her.

‘Do you have a bathroom where I can freshen
up?’

‘Sure, there’s one in reception.’

He scuttled off toward a back door to the
offices. Nancy strolled around the parking lot until she felt comfortable
walking. She returned to the car and took hold of her overnight bag before
heading to reception.

With a quick wash down in the bathroom, a
squirt of deodorant and some freshly applied lipstick; she stood outside her
attorney’s door. He must have seen her shadow through the frosted-glass door as
there was no need to knock.

‘Come in.’

The vision before her as she opened the
door, gave her less confidence than his appearance. Piled high on every surface
were files. Instead of the expected certificates on the walls, pictures of
Elvis adorned every space. Jeff stepped forward and removed a pile of files
from a chair.

‘Sit down and tell me what I can do for
you. Sorry about the mess, we had a break-in this weekend.’

‘Did they take anything?’

‘Well, they opened the safe, but it’s
always empty.’

An adrenalin rush started palpitations. Her
mind worked overtime.

‘What about the items I left with your
receptionist? I asked her to keep them safe.’

He opened his briefcase and took out an
envelope and a file.

‘What’s so important about these?’

Her body sighed.

‘You have them?’

‘Yeah, took them home.’

Nancy fished in her purse and handed him
the note from Bill.

‘You need to add this to the file. I don’t
know where to start.’

‘The beginning is usually a good place.’

Nancy had rehearsed this over a thousand
times last night, but it came out a jumbled mess.

‘Whoa, steady on there. Slow down. So,
let’s get this right, you’re a detective and someone is setting you up to say
you’re on the take. You’re suspended and need to supply internal affairs with a
copy of the trust deed from your mom’s estate and the provenance from the money
used to buy your apartment. We have all that here, so no problem there. Now
what are all these photos about?’

Nancy explained as best she could, when he
stopped her in mid-sentence.

‘Forget the conspiracy theories, why have
they put out an APB on you?’

‘That’s just it, I don’t know.’

He reached for the handset, picked it up
and dialled a number.

‘Well, let’s find out.’ He put his hand to
the mouthpiece. ‘Who is it again… Logan?’

Nancy nodded and listened to the one-sided
call as he introduced himself as her attorney and started asking questions. He
pulled a notepad toward him and poised a pencil, ready to make notes.

‘And how exactly can she help you?’

At that question, she wished he had put the
phone on speaker.

‘Why the search warrant and APB.’

He smiled toward her and winked.

‘Really? Two of them?’

The pencil point broke as he pressed on the
notepad; his smile replaced with a frown

‘So is she a suspect?’

He looked directly into her eyes.

‘Okay, she’ll come in voluntarily, but I
doubt she can be of help. We’re on our way.’

With the handset back on the cradle, he
chewed on the pencil and swivelled on his chair, all the while staring directly
at her.

‘Well?’ Nancy gripped the chair armrests.

‘Hmm.’ He removed the pencil from his mouth
and set it down on the desk. ‘They want to question you about not one, but two
homicides.’

Climbing the stairway to the office with
Jeff, her attorney, following her, Nancy had not fancied the claustrophobic
ride in the elevator, preferring the long walk to burn off some angst. Cold
sweats appeared on her forehead as she approached the entrance to reception.
She caught sight of Claire through the glass-swing doors and their eyes briefly
met. Claire picked up the handset and kept looking over at Nancy, who breezed
into reception, throwing both doors open and entered like a gust of wind.

‘Hi, Claire.’

‘Someone is on their way to meet you.’

What, no “hon”?

Claire averted her eyes and shuffled papers
on her desk. The swing doors to the main office parted and Kyle rushed through,
still sporting a band-aid on his forehead.

‘Thank goodness you arrived. Here, I bought
you this to make up for the one ruined in the lake.’

He thrust out his hand, holding a
wristwatch and cocked his head to one side with a faint hopeful smile on his
lips. Nancy posed akimbo, held her lips tight and tapped her foot before
considering her reply.

‘What, you want me to put my hands out so
you can cuff me?’

‘For Christ’s sake, grow up, it’s just a
freakin’ watch. And yes, I got the message with the condom… very funny.’ He
took hold of her wrist and forced the watch into her hand, turned and marched
away grumbling. ‘We need to talk when this is over.’

Claire snickered.

‘Lovers tiff?’

‘Oh, it’s more than that. Still, I’ll take
the watch to remind me what a jerk he is.’

Her temple throbbed and her heart pounded.
Nancy slipped the watch onto her wrist. Jeff pulled her to one side and
whispered.

‘Just remember, they’re not charging you
with anything, you’re just ‘a person of interest’ as Logan put it to me. And
look at me for the nod before answering their questions.’

‘‘Person of interest’ I think he meant
suspect
.’

Logan approached them through the office
door, ignoring Nancy, and held out his hand to Jeff. Curt name changes over, he
signalled for them to follow.

Logan maintained a brisk pace, but the walk
through the office was akin to slow motion. Every step pained Nancy as
colleagues ignored them, giving her the occasional glance as if looking
straight through her, without even a nod of the head in acknowledgement of her
presence. It came as a surprise that Logan had passed the interview rooms and
entered his office. She wondered if it was part of some ploy, the psychology of
which was lost on her. Kyle, over by the Xerox gave her the thumbs up, and she
sent him a stony stare before following Jeff into Logan’s office.

Nancy sat next to Jeff and faced Logan. She
had seen that look before. A twitch in Logan’s eyelid gave away the anger
welling inside him and behind his stone-faced exterior.

‘How can my client help you?’

‘Client?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘If you
want formal, we can use an interview room.’

Jeff showed him the palm of his hands.

‘You have the stage… your show.’

Nancy huffed and puffed at them jostling
for Alpha-male.

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Nancy glared at
Logan. ‘Why the need for the search? Did they find out who was bugging my
apartment?’

‘What made you think someone was
eavesdropping?’

Jeff took hold of her wrist.

‘First things first.’ He took a file from
his briefcase and passed it to Logan. ‘Copies of the provenance, for the
purchase of her apartment. I’ll be sending a copy to internal affairs.’

Logan ignored the file. Nancy leaned
forward.

‘They must have found the bugs. Did they
question the operators of the surveillance van?’

Jeff tapped her shoulder.

‘Miss Roberts, let Mr. Logan ask the
questions and then we can all go about our business.’

Nancy ignored Jeff and looked Logan
directly in the eyes. ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

‘Kyle said you mentioned them, but we found
nothing… no bugs… and no surveillance van.’

‘What! Jeff, the photos.’

Jeff took the photos from his case and
placed them on the desk.’

Logan gave them a casual glance and sighed.

‘And, your point is?’

‘My point is, my dad found a tracker device
under the hood of my car. Whoever is carrying out surveillance may be the ones
who are framing me for being on the take.’

Logan scoffed.

‘Your dad? Is he still into industrial
espionage?’

‘Excuse me, counter-industrial espionage.’

‘Whatever. Are you sure he didn’t put them
there as a red-herring?’

A red-mist descended at the inference. He
obviously knew of her dad.

‘Don’t be stupid, maybe
you
put them
there.’

‘Now you’re being stupid.’

‘Please, can we just stick to why we’re
here? The two homicides… remember,’ Jeff pleaded.

Logan sat back in his chair, clasped his
hands and twiddled his thumbs.

‘Where were you, between say, nine and
twelve in the evening of the twenty-fifth of this month?’

Nancy searched her memory.

‘I slept at my dad’s. I was there all
evening. Why?’

‘So your dad found the bugs and now he’s
your alibi?’

‘So what?’

Jeff interjected. ‘What happened between
those hours?’

‘That’s the estimated time of the murder of
Dean Gibson, the young thug who paid the money into your account. Your dad will
vouch for you I take it?’

‘Yes, you can telephone him at work if you
like.’

‘Okay, I will.’ Nancy scribbled his work
number on Logan’s note pad and pushed it to him. ‘Now, think back to when you
took the fingerprints from Kelly. Can you remember which hand he used to sign
the form?’

Nancy glanced at Jeff, searching her memory
for inspiration.

‘Only answer if you’re sure,’ Jeff said.

A vision of Kelly saluting her with his hip
flask came to mind. But try as she did, she could not remember which hand he
used to sign the form.

‘I can’t remember, but he held his hip
flask in his left hand, I’m sure of that.’

‘Is there some relevance?’ Jeff asked.

‘Forensics show powder burns on his right
hand. The gun was in his right hand, but we think he was left handed.’

‘But do you have any forensics leading you
to think my client was present at either of the deaths?’

‘No. In fact, we checked out Detective
Roberts movements on the night of Kelly’s death and confirmed her alibi.’

‘Then I think we’re done here.’

‘Not quite.’

Logan reached to open his drawer and pulled
out a plastic bag. Together with the contents, the bag landed on the desk with
a thud.

‘Recognize this?’

‘Yeah, it’s a .38.’

‘Well you should recognize it… we got the
results back today from a search of the serial number. It’s the gun that Kelly
was shot with and it’s registered to you. Can you explain that?’

‘Don’t answer that.’

Jeff reached into his case, pulled out the
copy of the report for the missing gun and handed it to Logan.

Logan studied the report and grinned.

‘How convenient, that you only reported it
missing after the event. Who did you use to carry out the hits?’

His last remark was almost too casual.
Nancy felt heat rising in her cheeks. Jeff shook his head as a signal not to
rise to the bait, but her rage was past that point.

‘Do you think I’d be so stupid as to have
them use my own gun?’

Nancy’s mind froze as she stared at her gun
and the inference of his words burned in her mind. It suddenly struck her that
Kyle had a spare key.

‘That’s enough. My client has nothing
further to say. You have no forensics. She has alibis for the times of the
deaths. And if you want a theory, then maybe Kelly was part of the team than
was bugging her apartment. Maybe he, or whomever, entered her apartment and
stole the gun. Someone is clearly setting up my client. Talking about
conspiracy theories, why is it that Bill hasn’t come forward with a statement
that could possibly clear my client of taking a bribe from the Piru Street
gang? You’re obviously aware Bill’s not gone fishing. Answer me that?’

Logan rose to his full height. His face
rouged and his eyes narrowed, but he remained tight-lipped.

‘We’re leaving.’

Dumbfounded, Nancy stood as if in a trance.
Jeff placed his hand lightly on her waist and ushered out of the office. Logan
followed and tapped her on the shoulder.

‘The officers who carried out the search
have impounded your car and taken away your computer hard drive.’ Logan handed
her a key. ‘You’ll need this, they’ve changed the locks.’

‘Come on, the show is over and we don’t
want an encore,’ Jeff said.

Nancy attempted a smile and grabbed the
key, but her mind wasn’t playing the connection game with her lips. She held
her head high and with tunnel vision, marched out of the office. Kyle blocked
her exit at reception. Nancy sent him a glare.

‘You could have given the search team your
spare key to my apartment.’

‘There wasn’t time.’

‘Well you can throw it in the wastebasket,
because you won’t need a key now.’

She brushed Kyle to one side and skipped
down the stairway. At the bottom step, Nancy felt sick and she bent over,
taking a few deep breaths, until the feeling passed. Jeff joined her.

‘Why didn’t you mention the tracker in the
Dictaphone?’ she asked.

‘We’ll save that for later if we need it.
Incidentally, I just phoned the Coroner’s office. Kelly’s body has been
released to his family. They have it signed off as a suicide.’

‘Then why have they put me through this?
What do I do now?’

‘Nothing, as far as I can see you are in
the clear on the two deaths. That’s it until we hear from internal affairs and
negotiate for you to get back to work.’

Do nothing… no way.

‘I’m not sure if I ever want to go back to
work.’

‘They may not want you back. We may have to
go for a lump-sum settlement.’

I wonder where Kelly’s service will be
held.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’