Or She Dies Page 20

  The top email, sent from peepstracker8@hotmail.com to my work email address, read, Received your inquiry. This what your looking for? Let us know if theres other informations you require.

  The printed attachment showed a blueprint of what looked to be a mansion. I checked the time stamp — dated six months ago.

  Dread turned my voice hoarse. ‘What’s this, now?’

  ‘Keep reading,’ Gable said. ‘It gets worse.’

  A reply email, ostensibly from me: Can you follow people, get schedule information?

  I glanced back at the blueprint. The mansion looked familiar, all right. Clear down to the Olympic pool and eight-car garage.

  Flipping forward again: We dont do that. Documents only. Sorry buddy. Leave cash at drop point.

  The next several emails were thwarted attempts, apparently by me, to secure an unmarked handgun from various not-quite-unsavory-enough sources. The final page was an online booking for Hotel Angeleno that I’d evidently made under a fake name.

  Gable’s eyes watched me steadily from the rearview. I was frozen with disbelief. My mouth was open, wavering but not forming words. Sally and Valentine, the only ones who believed me, were off running down a dead lead. And now there was even more to deny, the evidence so overwhelming. The first thought to cut through the panic haze was that maybe I had lost it. Was this what it felt like inside a psychotic break?

  Cars zipped by on either side of us, people coming back from their lunch breaks. A petite brunette smoked and chatted on her cell phone, one pedicured foot up on the dash next to the wheel. Mexicans sold flowers at the off-ramp. Lou Reed’s colored girls doo-doo-doo-doo-dooed from someone’s radio.

  ‘You really think that deleting something off your computer gets rid of it for good?’ Gable’s partner snickered. ‘That shit’s never gone. Our guy had it pulled off there in minutes.’

  I said slowly, ‘But my computer at home was clean?’

  ‘So far.’ Gable’s eyebrows drew together. ‘What’s that get you? We have you dead on the Dell.’

  I shook my head, looked out the window again, the sun warming my face. I was cold and hungry and more scared than I thought it was possible to get. But they’d just shown me the first chink in the armor, giving me a new kind of resolve. If I were to have a prayer at staying out of jail, I had to retrace every minute of the past nine days and find any other chinks. As quickly as they stitched together the case against me, I had to unravel it. And I had to do it in the twenty minutes before we hit downtown and I vanished into Men’s Central.

  A tattooed giant in an orange jumpsuit, his cuffs cinched to a belly chain, all but blotted out the end of the corridor. He had a guard on either side of him, and I wondered if there was enough room for us to pass. Gable tightened his grip on my forearm and kept me moving forward. As we neared, the prisoner made a head lunge at me, and I stumbled back. I could hear the echo of his chuckles even after we’d turned the corner.

  We passed into the booking area — a few desks, the mug-shot camera and backdrop, metal benches bolted to the concrete floor. A bunch of bored deputies ate Taco Bell over paperwork. A tiny TV showed that picture of me in a blazer that my agent had insisted I take for the trade announcement after the script sale. I looked like any other asshole readying himself for a golden ascent.

  A jowly deputy looked up. ‘The Keith Conner guy. Can we get those fingerprints?’

  ‘Mine are in the system already,’ I said.

  ‘Good. Then they’ll match nicely. It’s procedure.’

  My heart still hadn’t slowed from the scare in the corridor. I nodded, and he printed me expertly while Gable and his partner bullshitted with the others about some of Keith’s cop movies and where they missed the mark. The deputy’s thick hands manipulated my fingers this way and that. He didn’t talk to me. He didn’t make eye contact. I might as well have been inanimate. My few possessions were in a plastic tub, but at least I was still in my own clothes. Right now, still having my own clothes seemed like the greatest comfort imaginable.

  When he was done, I said, ‘I’d like to make a phone call.’ Blank stares. ‘I get one call, right?’

  The deputy pointed to a pay phone mounted on the wall.

  I said, ‘I’m calling my attorney. Can I have a private line, please?’

  Gable’s partner said, ‘Want us to send for a psychic, too, so you can commune with Johnnie Cochran?’

  Through scattered laughter Gable led me around the corner into an interview room split by a Plexiglas shield with a pass-through box for documents. No lawyer beyond the window, of course, just an old-fashioned black phone on my side of the pitted wooden ledge.

  ‘You have a criminal attorney lined up already?’ Gable said. ‘How ’bout that. You planned ahead.’

  ‘No, I’m calling my civil lawyer for a referral. But our conversation’s still privileged.’

  ‘You have five minutes.’ He left me alone.

  His footsteps ticked away, and then conversation resumed down the hall.

  I picked up the phone, punched ‘0.’ When the jail operator picked up, I asked to be transferred to the West LA station. After a few seconds, the station desk officer picked up.

  ‘Hello, this is Patrick Davis. I need to speak to Detective Sally Richards immediately. Any way you can put me through to her cell phone?’

  ‘I — Huh? Wait a minute, Patrick Davis Patrick Davis? Didn’t we just have you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Where you callin’ from, son?’

  ‘Men’s Central.’

  ‘I see. Hold yourself. I’ll see what I can do.’

  I waited through the static-cracked silence. Not all the ink had wiped off, navy blue filming the swirls of my fingertips. I touched the Plexi, leaving faint streaks.

  Sally answered, ‘Patrick?’

  ‘Yes, I—’

  ‘We’re off the case. I can’t talk to you, not like this. You know the pay phones there are monitored.’

  ‘I told them I was calling my lawyer so they’d put me on a line in the interview room. So we’re good.’

  ‘Oh.’ A note of surprise.

  ‘Are you at Beeman’s?’

  ‘No, we left. No one was home. We’ll go back in a few -’

  ‘Forget it. Listen — Elisabeta? She’s an actress. She’s in a Fiberestore commercial, the older woman sitting on a white couch. Find her. She was a hire, so you can bet Beeman was, too.’

  ‘Wait a minute. They hired actors—’

  ‘To manipulate me. Yes. I don’t have much time, so I’m gonna talk fast. Gable pulled some incriminating documents off my computer at work.’

  ‘I heard about them,’ Sally said.

  ‘I think they were installed like a virus when I opened the emails.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because I was careful not to open any of their emails at home, and according to Gable, the forensics guys didn’t get anything off my own computer.’

  ‘Which is where the guys framing you would most logically want to have the stuff found.’

  ‘Right. They knew when I logged in to retrieve emails, but I don’t think they knew where I was logging in from.’

  ‘Okay . . . so?’

  ‘I also opened emails at Kinko’s and an internet café’ — I gave her both locations — ‘will you check those and see if any documents about Conner were installed on the computers I used there?’

  ‘What would that give us?’

  ‘Some of those fabricated documents — the emails — are time-stamped and backdated. If any like them were installed on those computers, they’re gonna show times and dates when I wasn’t there renting computer time.’

  Sally sounded excited, or at least her version of it. ‘Kinko’s and internet joints keep time logs for usage. Even have sign-in codes to track users. You pay with a credit card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Better still.’

  I could hear her pen scribbling. She said, ‘Even i
f this does pan out, I’ll need anything else you got to reapproach the DA.’

  ‘I went through everything, inch by inch, like you said, and came up with another piece you can use. The night of February fifteenth. Nine P.M.?’

  ‘When Keith’s house was vandalized. Yes.’

  ‘I was driving out to Elisabeta’s. Indio. They sent me that far to make sure I was well out of the picture. But my gas gauge is broken.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It looks like I have a full tank, even when I don’t. They probably checked it to make sure I wouldn’t have to stop for gas, so no one could alibi me.’

  ‘But you did. Stop for gas.’

  ‘Yes. Check my credit-card records to find which gas station I used.’

  ‘You could’ve sent someone else to gas up there with your card. Not all stations have security cameras outside at the pumps.’

  ‘I went into the mart to buy a pack of gum. They always have surveillance inside. I bet you’ll be able to pull footage of me there at about the same time that someone else in a Red Sox hat was leaving a dead rat on Keith’s windshield. That gives you a second suspect and supports me on the frame argument. Might even be enough to keep me out of jail while they shore up probable cause.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not just a second-rate screenwriter.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m a second-rate suspect, too.’ A banging on the metal door. I lowered my voice. ‘He’s coming back in, so one more thing. They didn’t book me. I don’t think I’ve actually been arrested.’

  Gable shoved the door open. ‘Chat time’s over, Davis. Time to move.’

  Sally said, ‘What do you mean? They printed you and read you your rights?’

  I eyed Gable. ‘Just the former.’

  A brief silence. ‘So they probably asked if they could print you, making it consensual even though you thought you didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You can be held for questioning — for a reasonable time — without being arrested.’

  Gable said, ‘Did I just talk to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said to him, ‘I’m wrapping it up.’

  ‘If they haven’t booked you yet,’ Sally said, ‘then the DA’s skittish about charging you.’

  I asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a weird fucking case, to say the least, and she has — had — me and Valentine pressing an alternate scenario. Her office can’t afford another embarrassment, which means moving slow and right. You can be charged whenever — she’s not gonna want to jump in on day one unless she’s positive everything is lined out and she’s got the case together. They waited a year to charge Robert Blake, and look how that turned out.’

  ‘Get off the phone,’ Gable said.

  I fisted the receiver. ‘But the latest stuff—’

  ‘I know,’ Sally said. ‘I’m not gonna lie to you. The emails, fabricated or not, are damning. The DA’s deciding whether to charge you right now, and her moving the case to Robbery-Homicide is a pretty good indication of which way she’s leaning.’

  Gable blew out a sigh and started toward me.

  I said, ‘Listen, Frank, I gotta go. Can you—’

  ‘Call the DA with the new leads you gave me? If they yield, yes. Evidence like that could be the deciding factor — push her to play it conservatively and hold off on the arrest.’

  I thought of the hulking inmate in the hall, how he’d lunged at me. If things went badly, by tonight I’d be sharing a cage with men like him. ‘How long will it take you?’

  ‘Give us two hours, then force their hand.’

  I did my best to keep desperation from my voice. ‘How am I even supposed to know how to . . .?’

  Sally said, ‘They’ll have to formally charge you or let you go.’

  I said, ‘But I don’t want to push it if — ’ Gable was staring at me, so I stopped.

  ‘It’s your only play,’ she said. ‘Two hours. By then either we’ll have gotten something to the DA or your leads are a bust.’

  Gable reached for the phone impatiently, but I turned away. My hand was squeezing the receiver so hard that my fingers ached. ‘How will I know which?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  Gable put his thumb down on the telephone base, severing the connection.

  An hour and fifty-seven minutes in the hard wooden chair of the interrogation room left me sore, my lower back cramped. Working in shifts, Gable and his partner had hammered me on every aspect of my life, and I’d answered honestly and consistently, all the while tamping down my panic and racking my brain for how to play it when the time came. Up until now, Gable had been careful to phrase everything as a question — ‘Step into this room for me?’ As long as I complied, there was no need to arrest me, and I didn’t let on that I was aware of my options. Until now.

  Gable paced in front of me, his watch flashing again into view. I’d bought Sally and Valentine their two hours to look for conflicting evidence and talk to the DA. It was time to force the issue and see whether I wound up free or in a cell.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  Gable stopped. Grimaced. Then, carefully: ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Pretty heavily implied.’

  ‘At the crime scene, you said you were willing to go with Detectives Richards and Valentine to cooperate. You gave your full consent to go to the station with them. All we did was transfer you. We asked you to come with us. We asked if we could print you. We asked if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘I’m free to go?’

  ‘Not quite. We’re allowed to hold you for—’

  ‘A reasonable time to question me. Right. I’ve been in custody now for about sixteen hours. You detain me much longer without charges, that might piss off a jury if we get there.’

  ‘When we get there.’

  ‘You’re out of reasons to prolong my detention. I’ve answered all your questions. You’ve had time to search my house and my office, so it’s not like you need to hold me to prevent me from destroying evidence. You know where to find me if you decide to take me back into custody. I’m not a flight risk. My face is on every news channel, so even if I wasn’t in dire financial straits, I couldn’t exactly throw on a pair of Groucho glasses and hop a flight to Rio.’

  Gable had stopped pacing, his surprise giving way to irritation.

  I continued, ‘So please tell the DA I’m done cooperating. She needs to pull the trigger and arrest me now — or let me try to get back to my life.’

  Gable crouched so his head was lower than mine. He worked his lip. ‘You’ve known. You’ve been planning this. The whole time.’ He glared at me with equal parts hatred and amusement. ‘That was your lawyer on the phone, was it?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Good lawyer,’ he said.

  ‘The best.’

  ‘I need to make a phone call of my own. I’ll be back to you shortly with an answer. One way or another.’

  The door closed, leaving me with the throbbing in my back and my doleful reflection in the one-way mirror. To say I looked like hell would be an understatement. My face was pale and puffy, dark crescents holding up my eyes. My hair was thoroughly mussed; I’d been tugging at it anxiously. My joints ached. Leaning over, I ground the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.

  I might never go home again.

  Did California have lethal injection or the electric chair?

  How the hell did I wind up here?

  A creak to my right and Gable loomed in the doorway. Desperate, I tried to read his face. It was tight and filled with disdain.

  He turned, walking off, flinging the door open in a burst of temper. It smashed against the outside wall and wobbled back, giving off a tuning-fork vibration.

  I sat in my chair, watching that door wobble. I rose. I walked out. Gable was nowhere to be seen. The plastic tub holding my possessions had been placed on the floor outside the jamb, the throwaway cell phone right there on top, for anyone to see. I look
ed for my Sanyo before remembering that Sally had taken it to review the bits of recorded footage. My knees cracked as I crouched to pick up the tub. The elevators were in view at the end of the hall. My breath echoing in my skull, I walked toward them, braced for someone to seize me, condemn me — the inverse of a last-minute pardon.

  But I got there. Once the doors slid closed behind me, I leaned weakly against the elevator wall, plastic tub under my arm. The ride down to the main floor took an eternity. When the doors opened, no one was there waiting to grab me. I trudged across the lobby, through the solid front doors, and out into the dusk. A polluted breeze blew up from the street, but the air felt as fresh as spring in my lungs. I dumped the disposable cell in the trash.

  I had some trouble keeping my balance down the wide steps. I walked over to the street and sat heavily on the curb, my feet in the gutter, buses and cars blowing by. A brittle leaf fluttered against the asphalt like a dying bird. I watched it, then watched it some more.

  ‘Get up.’ There she was above me, backlit. I was surprised and also somehow not. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ Sally offered a hand and after a moment I took it. I got halfway to my feet when my knees went out, and I lowered myself back onto the curb.

  ‘I think I need a minute,’ I said.

  Chapter 36

  ‘Two things did it,’ Sally told me as we barreled along the 101. ‘The gas station had digital security footage of you at the counter, which the clerk emailed right over. That alibied you for the break-in at Conner’s and got a second suspect into the mix. Enough to give the DA pause.’

  Valentine was still off trying to run down Elisabeta, so I rode in the front of the sedan, which made me feel vaguely human again. I dialed Ariana for the fifth time, but all her numbers remained busy. Sally had given me my Sanyo cell phone back, after declaring the recorded clips on it useless. When I’d turned it on, it had been jammed with excited condolences from virtually everyone who had the number, too many to listen to right now, given my state of mind.