Cold Shoulder (52 page)

Rosie didn’t know whether to believe her or not. She stood with her feet planted like a solid oak. ‘Well, you can’t do nothin’ about that now. They’ve gone.’

‘Shit.’ Lorraine picked up the ice pack and rested it against her head. ‘You saw them leave?’

‘Yeah.’

Rosie poured more coffee and a glass of water. ‘Start drinking this and as much water as you can take — go on, take it.’

Lorraine did as she was told but when she attempted to move off the bed she felt faint. ‘Rosie, start looking in the garbage. See if they left anything that might tell us where they’re heading.’

Rosie found nothing in the kitchen but in the bedroom she spotted a small trash can by the dressing table filled with cotton-wool balls and tissues smeared with make-up. She tipped them out onto an old newspaper and poked around. She found nothing and wrapped up the mess in the newspaper — then opened it again. There were marks around the air-flight ads. ‘There’s this. What do you think?’

Lorraine forced herself to look at the paper: two airlines had been underlined and there were crosses against them. ‘Call these airlines, see if any flights are leaving this afternoon with a Mr Lyall on board.’

‘They won’t tell me. They never tell you what passengers are boarding — that’s a law, isn’t it?’

Lorraine craved a drink — her whole body screamed for one — but she gulped the water. ‘Say it’s an emergency, something to do with kids… Anything, just find out which airline they’re with.’ Lorraine hung on to the bedhead as she stood up. She inched her way into the bathroom where she saw the vodka bottle and reached out for it. A single drop remained in the bottom and she drank it before she retched again, clinging to the wash-basin. She saw herself in the mirror: her face was pale green, her eyes red-rimmed and her lips swollen.

Rosie barged in. ‘Two seats booked by Mr Lyall for the four-fifteen flight to Las Vegas. Now what?’

Lorraine’s eyes were closed. ‘Did they go off in a cab?’

‘No, a car. So, now what do I do?’

She told Rosie to call Ed Bickerstaff. ‘This is what you say to him. Tell him you’re my partner — Jesus, just tell him anything — that it’s to do with the murders of David Burrows and Holly, you got that?’

Rosie reached for the phone as Lorraine crashed to the floor.

Ed Bickerstaff hung up. He wondered if he could trust the information. He would have been happier if it had been Lorraine herself who had called — she have never made any mention of a partner. He decided there was nothing to lose so he put in the call to send agents to Las Vegas to arrest Craig Lyall and his companion. He then arranged for a search warrant to look over Lyall’s studio. As he was leaving his office, he received the phone call he had been half expecting: Steven Janklow’s plea would stand as guilty on seven counts of murder, but his mental state had been scrutinized and eight doctors and four psychiatrists had declared him criminally insane and medically unfit to stand trial. He would be held in a secure mental institution for life, with no hope of release. Mrs Thorburn had still not made any contact with him. Brad Thorburn continued to monitor his brother’s welfare via the family lawyers but no more than that.

The subsequent arrest of Lyall and Nula would be welcome as a show of the FBI’s thoroughness but Bickerstaff was wondering if he had made a mistake. He called Rooney to double-check on Lorraine but he was away, and although he’d already ordered that Nula and Lyall be brought in he still had to run it by the Chief. Bickerstaff embroidered the facts a little, pointing out that Lyall’s arrest might further clarify Janklow’s guilt. It might also confirm that Art Mathews had instigated the murders of Angela Hollow and David Burrows. It sounded so good to him that he felt more confident.

Who’s the informant, Ed? And how come you haven’t discussed this with anyone else from my department?’

Bickerstaff flushed. ‘It’s Lorraine Page.’

The Chief gave a fish-eyed stare.

‘Lorraine Page? You’d better hope to Christ that it pans out as well as the Janklow tapes she did.’ He hesitated. ‘Has she got something else on Janklow?’

‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear anything.’

The Chief glared. ‘So you’ll be staying on?’

Bickerstaff seemed fazed. ‘Of course. This is tied in with the original investigation.’

‘You sure it’s not tied in with you trying to whitewash your fuck-up with Art Mathews?’

Bickerstaff stood square-jawed in front of the desk. He’d have liked to punch a hole right through it but he retained his composure. ‘I’m just trying to do my job. Nothing has been whitewashed and I’m not making any excuses for the Art Mathews fuck-up but I would like to check any new evidence that may come to light.’

‘How much did Page hit you for?’

Bickerstaff smiled but it was without humour. ‘She doesn’t get a cent.’ He closed the door behind him silently. He had not added that Lorraine’s payout depended on her providing Bickerstaff with evidence that proved Mathews’s part in the hammer murders. If she could, it would help cover the FBI’s public humiliation at having erroneously named Mathews as the sole killer. If she did bring in the goods, five thousand dollars was not much to pay for the FBI coming out smelling like roses.

As Bickerstaff was about to enter his office, he was handed a fax informing him that Lyall and Nula had been arrested in Las Vegas. Lyall insisted they were there to get married and they had said they had nothing to do with Steven Janklow. Bickerstaff requested they be brought in for questioning in connection with a ‘homicide investigation’ and a possible ‘accessory to murder’ charge.

He grew impatient as he received no reply to his calls to Lorraine’s apartment. Nula and Lyall were on their way to Pasadena from Las Vegas and he hadn’t the slightest idea what he was going to question them about. What had they overlooked in previous interviews? Or was it possible that Lorraine Page had, yet again, withheld vital evidence? If she had she was now in dangerous waters and Bickerstaff would make sure she drowned.

Rosie and Lorraine hardly spoke throughout the long drive home. It took all Lorraine’s will-power not to beg Rosie to buy a bottle. The need to drink was stronger than her headache and sickness. She felt despairing and, worse, inadequate. It was the end of the agency, the partnership — she was back at square one again and it hurt. But nothing was stronger than the urge to drink. She had not beaten it. She felt it had beaten her.

The phone was ringing as they opened the front door. It was Bickerstaff. Rosie asked him to call back, and hung up before he could remonstrate. She then called Jake who said he’d be right over. When he arrived Rosie had cooked some spaghetti and laid the table. Jake put his arm round her shoulder. ‘How you doing?’

‘Fucked! I had a future and a job yesterday but today, well, I dunno. You got to talk to her — this guy Bickerstaff keeps calling.’

Jake nodded and went into the bedroom. Lorraine was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed. She had on a bathrobe and looked pale, sickly. She gave that look of hers, tilting her head, that slight squint. ‘It’s no good, Jake, I’m not going to make it. I blew it so badly. I got over-confident, arrogant. You know, I thought I was so damned clever, and if it wasn’t for Rosie I’d probably be dead.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘It’ll always be a part of your life. You can never have one drink. Even if you think you’re strong enough to deal with it you won’t be because it’s an illness, Lorraine.’

Lorraine was crying. ‘All I want is a drink, Jake.’

He stood up. ‘Lemme tell you something. I want one, Rosie wants one, we all want one, you’re no different. We all feel like you do so get your ass off that bed and come in and eat.’

He walked out and she got up slowly. When she joined them at the table, he drew out a chair.

‘Thanks for helping me out this afternoon, Rosie.’

‘Think nothing of it, partner, but next time you tell me to wait outside, I want to know how many minutes, who you’re going to see and why.’

Lorraine doubted if there would be another time. The phone rang. Rosie answered and handed it to Lorraine. ‘You better talk to him, it’s Bickerstaff.’

‘Hi, Ed. We just got back. It was a long drive… Yeah, yeah, no problem. I’ll be there… sure, thanks.’ She hung up. ‘They want me at the station. They’re sending a squad car. I can’t think straight — I can’t even see straight. They’re going to take one look at me and they’re gonna know. I’m still plastered.’

Jake took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

‘Let’s get that shower running.’

Lorraine looked at them dead-eyed. ‘Oh, God, not again…’

N
ULA HAD been separated from Lyall on the way to Pasadena but the flight to Las Vegas had been long enough for them to get their story straight. Lorraine had not arrived at the station when their lawyer angrily confronted Bickerstaff, insinuating that he was wrongfully holding them on the word of a known drunkard, a woman who had arrived at his clients’ apartment in San Francisco attempting to blackmail them. He doubted if Bickerstaff would be able to make any sense of what Mrs Page had levelled against his clients as she had been so drunk when they had last seen her that they had left her in the apartment. Time was against Bickerstaff because without strong evidence implicating them he could not hold Lyall and Nula longer than twenty-four hours. He was in a hot-seat of his own making and could ask for no help from the local police. This had been an FBI arrest and Bickerstaff was on his own.

Jake and Rosie were still plying Lorraine with water and coffee. She had no hangover now but her confidence had gone. She was afraid to confront Bickerstaff, and Rosie knew it.

The doorbell rang, and Lorraine jumped. Bickerstaff stood on the step, his shirt sticking to him, his tie loosened.

‘I was just on my way,’ Lorraine said lamely.

‘Let’s move it. We’ve got them for twenty-four hours and time’s running out. You’d better have a fucking good reason for setting this scene up. I got my boss and their lawyer at me and I got the entire department wondering what the hell is goin’ on and they aren’t the only ones.’

Lorraine followed him down the stairs. She stepped into the back of the patrol car, he slammed the door, and got into the front.

‘They both said you were drunk.’

‘They poured a bottle of vodka down my throat, so I guess I was.’

‘You okay now?’

‘Just a bit shaky.’

‘You should have told me who you were going after, and more important why. You wanna fill me in before we get there?’

Lorraine took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t sure, I knew Nula was possibly involved. What I didn’t know was that Lyall was too.’

Ed started the engine. ‘I’ve given them both a tough grilling and they stuck to their story. They were in Vegas to get married, or were gonna try for some kind of ceremony — they got preachers there that’d marry them. They also maintain they don’t know nothin’ about Holly’s or David Burrows’s murder and they know that Janklow’s admitted to killing them. They also said you were drunk when you visited them and that they told you if you needed them they’d fly back after they got hitched.’

There was silence for a moment. Then Bickerstaff asked bluntly, ‘How do you want to work this?’

Lorraine was desperate for a drink. She didn’t dare take out a cigarette as her hands were shaking so much. ‘Maybe talk to Lyall first, break him. I don’t think he killed anybody. He’s dominated by Nula, maybe even scared of her, so go for him first.’

Bickerstaff was uneasy. His brain ticked like the small hand on his watch as he tried to assimilate what she had just said.

‘It’s something to do with Mrs Thorburn’s jewellery,’ she added. ‘I need to look at the lists Janklow made out and I want to see the morgue shot of Didi — David Burrows.’

Lorraine followed Bickerstaff through the corridors, stopping off at his office. He asked for Lyall to be brought up from the cells and taken to a small interview room with a one-way glass. Lyall was nervous and asked repeatedly for his lawyer. He sat with his hands splayed out on the small bare table, his face set, his mouth a rigid line. Watched by Lorraine and Bickerstaff, he stared around the small windowless room and then looked directly at the one-way glass.

‘You want to go in?’ Bickerstaff asked.

Lorraine could feel the tension disappearing. ‘Just let him sweat a few more minutes. I’ll need a glass of water, some kind of official-looking file, good photographs of the dead women, lot of documents, pens, notepad — and keep his lawyer out for as long as you can.’

Bickerstaff glanced at his watch, constantly monitoring the time as it ticked away. Lorraine was calmly checking down Janklow’s list of jewellery. She felt positive. She looked through the glass partition at Lyall, watching his every move, the way he clenched and unclenched his hands, ran a finger round the inside of his collar and cleared his throat. They could hear him crossing and uncrossing his legs, his shoes scuffing the floor.

Ten minutes later Bickerstaff handed Lorraine the articles she had requested. She patted her pockets to make sure she had the cigarettes and lighter; she was no longer shaking but was feeling a buzz inside her. She was almost ready.

‘Get someone to take water and glasses in, but not to say a word, even if he asks a question.’

She watched an officer enter the room. They heard Lyall asking how long he was to be kept waiting but the officer didn’t even look at him. Lorraine nodded to Bickerstaff. ‘I’m ready.’

As she left the room, he murmured, ‘Good luck,’ but she didn’t turn back.

When Lorraine walked in, Lyall covered his surprise fast, turning away as she sat in the chair opposite. She paid him no attention but opened the dummy file and her notebook, carefully laid out her pens, cigarettes and lighter. Then she reached over to the jug and poured herself a glass of water.

Lyall cleared his throat again and tapped his foot. Bickerstaff waited.

Lorraine slowly got out the photographs of Holly and placed them in front of Lyall. ‘Please look at the photographs, Craig.’