Burn (23 page)

“Nothing lamer than a hit and run, ” the detective said. Munoz. “Hope you got the slug's tag number.”

“I wasn't much good by the time the smoke cleared.” Todd shrugged. “It was the other guy's lucky day I guess.”

“Well, what comes around goes around, ” Munoz said. “At least some of the time.”

Todd tried to make his wince look like a grin. “Here's hoping. Sorry to make you wait, Detectives. It's already been quite a morning.”

Timms propped a boot on his knee. “Not at all.”

“Yeah, don't worry about it, ” Munoz said. “Couple of things, won't take long. You've obviously got a lot going on.”

“Nothing more important than whatever you need, ” Todd said. “How can I help?”

“We're hoping you can verify a few points on our timeline, ” Timms said. He took his boot down again and opened the file folder he held on his lap.

“I'll certainly do my best.”

“Then I'll get right to it. We've got that Mr. Tavlin decided to leave the company last….” Timms ran his finger down a page. “November. November?”

“November, that's correct.”

“Right. So I'm wondering if we've been reading too much into some of our initial interviews, ” Timms said. “Going by what you and Mr. Lomax and others have stated so far, we've been operating under the impression that Mr. Tavlin's decision to buy out his contract came abruptly. Is that a fair way to characterize the circumstance as you remember it? Or do we have the wrong idea?”

“Well, there wasn't a great deal of warning, ” Todd said. “We knew that Gregor was unhappy with our decision to acquire LifeRite. But yes, given ten years with the family, I'd say ‘abrupt’ is a fair way to put it.”

“And that was in October, ” Munoz said. “The acquisition.”

Todd tried to breathe evenly. He was really starting to feel his pulse in his nose. “We announced in late October, as I recall. I'm sure Doren and David must have been speaking with the LifeRite people for some time before that, but I wasn't involved from the beginning.” Todd grinned and held up his hands. “They build it. I just slap a coat of paint on it and put it in the window.”

This rated a chuckle from the lady cop.

Timms merely studied his folder. “Do you know if Mr. Tavlin was involved in or aware of these discussions? Between your company and LifeRite? Previous to the October announcement, I mean.”

“Well, we would have announced internally—to our own employees, that is—a week or so before the official public announcement. So that would have been mid-October. I know that we brought Gregor in before that. He was always extremely involved in programming.” Todd squeezed out another grin. “I say ‘we.’ Actually, Gregor and I learned about the LifeRite buy at the same time. That was quite a memorable meeting. Unfortunate, but memorable.”

“Do you remember when that meeting took place?”

“Not off the top of my head, ” Todd said. “But I can have Sharla pull it up if you'd like. Late September, early October?” He reached toward his phone and punched the intercom button. “Sharla?”

“The exact date isn't necessarily important. But no earlier than September, you'd say?”

“Thanks, Sharla, I'm sorry. Never mind.” Todd leaned back. “Certainly no earlier than last September. Detective Timms, if you don't mind me asking … is there something off-kilter in anything somebody here has told you?”

“Not in anything anybody has told us, ” Munoz said. She gave Todd the first smile he'd found himself unable to read in a very long time.

He saw Timms throw her a glance.

“We don't believe we have any special reason to scrutinize anybody's statements per se, ” Timms said. “But like I said, sometimes we can read too much into what's been offered. This isn't a science. There's sort of what you might call an editorial process to it.”

Todd nodded. “Of course.”

“Which is what I'd like to ask you about. The editorial process.”

“Yes? Please.”

“Well, I had a thought yesterday. Way out of left field, but I didn't have anything better to do that particular minute so I poked it around a bit.” Timms shuffled through the folder and held up a saddle-stitched booklet. “This is the Lomax Enterprises company backgrounder, right?”

Todd leaned forward, looked closer, and nodded. “That's right. We send them out in press kits, with our prospectus, what have you.”

“Well, what I have me is a receipt for a job order and a set of page proofs, ” the detective said. He handed the stuff over. “This is from an outfit in town called Luna-Graphix.”

“Yes, ” Todd said. He pretended to examine the material before he handed it back to the detective.

He wondered what Heather was doing. Did she wake up at that beach house this morning? Did she wake
up
with that animal?

He said, “We contract with them for all our print production.”

“Yeah, that's what one of your staffers told me when I called in yesterday, ” Timms said. He held up the invoices in one hand, the bound backgrounder in the other. “Now, this job order is for this booklet here. Two thousand units.”

“So I see.”

“But according to these receipts, Luna Graphix completed the order on the tenth of last July. Drop-shipped it to your department on July twelve.”

“I'll take their word for it, ” Todd said.

“What I notice, ” Timms said, “is the Company Profile section. You've got little bios here for all the first-stringers. And I see one for Mr. Marvalis, who didn't join on until late October, early November. But not for Mr. Tavlin, who didn't leave until approximately the same time.”

Todd thought:
Shit.

“Right. Sure. Well, July, ” he said, for the first time bringing his full attention to bear. “There's always a bit of a lead when it comes to big print stuff. With something like this, we like to build in an extra cushion. I can tell you from experience. My first year in this department, we sent out an entire run of banquet invites from Lomaz Enterprises.”

This brought another chuckle from Munoz.

“But see, ” Timms said, “what I'm wondering is, why Mr. Tavlin—if he didn't even know about the buyout the company was planning until September—had already been written out of the company material as early as July?”

“That's some lead time, ” Munoz said.

Todd scrambled, buying time. He really wasn't on top of his game this morning.

“You're absolutely right, ” he said. He pretended to think about it, pretended to chuckle at his own thickheadedness. “I'm sorry. I see. I see. Yes. That'd be prognostication, wouldn't it?”

“Yeah, ” Munoz said, matching his laugh a little too closely. “Or, like, predicting the future.”

Todd noticed that she'd earned another glance from Timms.

Her cell phone rang. Detective Munoz answered, then excused herself and stepped out. When she was gone, the big detective nodded at Todd.

“Like I said, this isn't a science. But it would help if we could nail down as much as we can.”

“Absolutely. I must be misremembering when we….” He punched the intercom again. “Sharla?”

“It's probably not important, ” Timms said. “We'll need to speak with Mr. Lomax again anyway. He may be able to shed some light. Like I said, we're just trying to nail things down.”

“Maybe it was in the spring, ” Todd said, lifting his finger off the button and shrugging an apology. “I really am sorry about this. I feel silly. But we keep things a little busy around here. Sometimes one project sort of blends into another.”

“I imagine so.”

Detective Munoz stuck her head back in. Detective Timms looked over. They didn't speak, but something was up. Todd could feel the change in the energy of the room.

“We'll get out of your hair for now, ” Timms said, and extended a hand. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Tod-man. As always.”

“My pleasure, ” Todd said. He shook the detective's hand and nodded toward Munoz, who waved pleasantly as she ducked out of the room again. “Again, I apologize. I'm not quite a hundred percent this morning.”

“No apology necessary. Feel better, now.” At the door, Timms paused and looked back. “By the way, how did your car come out?”

“My car?”

“Your fender bender, ” Timms said.

“Oh. Right.” Todd smiled wearily, shook his head. “A little better than I did, but not by much.”

Timms seemed to think that was a shame. “You drive that white Acura, right?”

“Diamond Pearl, yes.”

Timms smiled back, nodding. “I've been looking at those myself. They seem nice. You've got, what, the TL?”

“The Type-S. Right.”

“Mind if I ask how you like it?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes, great. No complaints.”

Todd thought:
Heather.

Who
was
that guy? And what could she possibly see in him? Was it those ridiculous scars on his face? Did she think it made him mysterious?

Did she even know she'd missed their date? Todd couldn't decide which would be worse: forgetting, or standing him up intentionally. She
had
been half asleep when he'd called. Of course she'd only forgotten.

But who was that
guy?

“I'll have to go give one a test drive, ” Timms said. “Thanks again for your time. I may give you another call later in the week.”

“Absolutely.”

Todd smiled.

Timms left.

Todd shut the door.

“What's up?”

“This ought to cheer you up.” Drea waited until they'd walked out of earshot of Todman's receptionist. “The old man's down at the shop.”

“Who?”

“Lomax.”

Timms looked at her. “Right now?”

“He wants to talk to us.”

“Guess he must have seen the papers.”

“That's what I figured. But Ruben said Lomax had no
idea about the story yet. Even asked about all the reporters.”

“No shit, ” he said.

“Graham briefed him, so he knows now.”

“Is the driver with him?”

“Ruben says he and Reese followed Corbin to the house in Beverly Hills this morning. Then they tailed the Lincoln from there to Parker Center, same as the news crews. But Lomax was driving himself. No Corbin.”

The elevator doors opened. Timms thought he heard the sound of chains rattling. He looked up just as a muscular, bald black man stepped out.

The man wore some kind of brace on his head. It looked like a … Timms didn't know what the hell it looked like. But he recognized the man right away.

“Hey there, ” he said.

“Mornin’.”

“Vines, right?” Timms nodded at him. “Luther Vines?”

“You got it.”

Timms glanced at Drea. She was staring at the security man with a wide grin. Vines didn't seem to notice.

“Say, ” Timms said. “That's quite a … what is that you've got on there, exactly?”

Luther Vines turned to face him. He swiveled his entire upper body at the waist, not moving his head.

“Little somethin’ I been workin’ on. You like it?”

“It's an attention grabber, ” Timms said.

“I'll check you later on, ” Vines told him. “Get you in on a discount while supplies last.”

With that, he walked on down the hall toward Tod-man's office, head high, spine ramrod straight, chains jingling faintly.

Timms looked at Drea again.

She just shook her head. “I wouldn't know where to start.”

They got on the elevator and took it all the way down.

In the parking lot, under the blazing sun, Timms walked all the way around the car, front bumper to back, before he looked at Drea.

“You know, ” he said, “this makes the second guy this week who fed me some bullshit story about being in a car accident. Is it just me?”

Drea looked bored. “I know what we could do. As long as it's so nice and cool out, and we're not in a hurry or anything, we could walk around the parking lot counting up white Acuras. Can't be more than thirty, forty of 'em.”

Timms took one last look at the vehicle's pristine front end. The paint was buffed to a high gleam, spotless chrome glinting in the sun.

“It isn't white, ” he told her. “It's Diamond Pearl. And the vanity tag says
TODMAN,
Detective.”

Drea shrugged. “Maybe his old lady beat him up. That's how he got the bruises.”

“No wedding band.”

“Oooh! You think that means he's on the market?”

“Smart-ass.”

They headed for her car.

“LUTHER,
” Todd said, “I can't do this today. I really can't.”

Vines didn't put up an argument. He merely shut Todd's office door in Sharla's worried face.

Todd sighed and pushed his chair back from the desk. He really needed to get his ankle elevated. While Vines waited silently in the middle of the room, Todd swung his leg up. He eased the ankle onto the cushion he'd had Sharla bring over from the couch. He was starting to think the ibuprofen alone wasn't going to cut it after all.

“Okay, Luther. Fine, I'll play.” He winced across the desk. “What in God's holy name
is
that thing on your head?”

“Ain't settled on a name for it yet, ” Luther said. His deep voice rumbled with something that almost sounded, Todd thought, like pride. “But check this shit out.”

Todd had little choice. Vines wore some type of homegrown harness on his shaven head. From the harness
hung lengths of chain that met several inches beneath Luther's chin in a tight descending Y. Pulling the chain taut: a ten-pound iron dumbbell plate.