Flipping Out (22 page)

'She's
safe now.'

'I
know, but my mind is filled with images of couples who get ripped apart. I
haven't been this happy in a long time, so there's a little voice inside me
that says something terrible is going to come along and destroy it.'

'That's
not a girl thing. It's called fear. Even manly-man cops get it. Can I give you
three words of advice?'

'Carry
a gun?'

'Let
it go.'

'That's
easy for you to say. You have a gun.'

We
talked, drank two beers apiece, split a brownie for dessert, curled up on the
blanket, and fell asleep. When we woke up, the sky was dusky, and the air was
chilly.

'Want
to go home?' I said.

'Yes,'
she said. 'Our home. Grab the blanket. I have a key.'

We
went to the bedroom and spread the blanket on the floor under a section where
Hooper had not yet gotten around to finishing the roof. Moonlight spilt
gloriously through the beams.

'Our
very own moonroof,' I said. 'I guess there are times when it pays off to have a
bungling idiot for a contractor.'

Diana
stretched out and stared up at the sky. 'Wow, this is some fantastic view. I
can see a star.'

'Make
a wish,' I said, wrapping my arms around her. 'Don't have to,' she whispered.
'I've already got everything I need.'

Terry
and I got to the station at seven on Monday morning. Eileen Mulvey was sitting at
the front desk. Mulvey is one of the good guys. She knows everybody, hears
everything, and goes out of her way to protect the detectives' asses. She also
enjoys busting our balls.

'You're
late for church, boys,' she said. 'Father Kilcullen has been looking for you
since the crack of dawn.'

'Good
morning to you too, Officer Mulvey,' Terry said. 'My weekend was excellent. How
was yours?'

She
leant forward across the desk. 'Oh, I'm sorry, Detective Biggs. I didn't
realise you wanted foreplay with your messages.' She blew him a kiss. 'This is
the best I can do when I'm on duty. Maybe later we can hook up for pizza and a
Coke.'

'Thanks,'
Terry said. 'And for the record, we're not late. He's early.'

At
7:01 we were in Kilcullen's office, it's about time,' he said. 'How're you
doing on the mayor's paperwork?'

'Moving
right along,' Terry said. 'We interviewed Tony yesterday.'

'I'm
putting him up for a Medal of Valour.'

Neither
Terry nor I said a word.

'No
comment, Biggs?' Kilcullen said.

'No
sir. I'm just grateful my wife no longer has to wear Kevlar to the
supermarket.'

'How
about you, Lomax?'

'Lieutenant,
I think it's a smart move for the mayor to offset the murders of three cop
wives and a famous author by anointing a public hero.'

'Very
astute,' Kilcullen said. 'Mel Berger had the same thought.'

'We've
always thought of Mr Berger as an ass-toot kind of guy,' Terry said.

'Get
the hell out of here and finish the paperwork,' Kilcullen said.

Terry
and I grabbed some coffee and sat down at our desks. He yanked open a drawer,
rifled through some papers, and pulled one out. 'Listen to this. It's from last
year's medal ceremony. "The Medal of Valour is awarded to officers who
distinguish themselves by conspicuous bravery or heroism above and beyond the
normal demands of police service." Conspicuous bravery? Above and beyond?
The guy's wife was in the house, he heard a shot, he ran in.'

'You
sound jealous,' I said.

'There's
more. "To be awarded the Medal of Valour, an officer would have performed
an act displaying extreme courage while consciously facing imminent
peril." Am I missing something here, Mike? How extreme is it for a cop to
enter a house when he hears a gun go off? Do firemen get a medal every time
they run into a burning building?'

'You're
beyond jealous,' I said. 'Excuse me, but the message light on my phone is
blinking. Kilcullen probably left it just in case Mulvey didn't catch us at the
door.'

I
dialled the code to access my voice mail.

'You
have one new message,' the robotic phone-mail lady informed me.

I
tapped the play key. The next voice I heard made the hairs on the back of my
neck stand up.

'Good
morning, Detective Lomax. This is Martin Sorensen.'

For
a split second I thought it might just be a lame joke, but this was not the
kind of case the office pranksters would rag us about. I pressed the phone to
my ear, and Sorensen continued.

'You
told me to call you if I thought of anything else. It's almost midnight, but I
figured this is your office phone, so I won't wake anybody up. I hope you're
sitting down, because I found something that could crack this case wide open.'

And
then the phone went completely dead. There was no background noise, no hum, no
Martin. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. I whispered into
the silent phone.

'Talk
to me, dammit, talk to me.'

And
then he laughed. It was the evil cackle of a cartoon villain, except Martin's
laugh was laced with alcohol.

'I
guess I got your attention,' he said. 'I pushed the mute button, and gave you ten
seconds of silence to build the suspense. Works every time.'

Charlie
once told me that Martin had a reputation for drinking and dialling, so I knew
I wasn't his first victim, but I'd bet I was his last. He stopped talking
again, but this time I could hear ice clinking as he sipped his drink.

'Anyway,
I remembered that Nora left her laptop in the trunk of my car, so I decided to
do a little digging, and guess what? It looks like Charlie Knoll will be
getting a payday after all. And a pretty big one at that. That's all I'm going
to say over the phone. I figure you won't get this message till Monday morning,
so why don't you give me a buzz then? If I don't hear from you by around noon,
I'll call you. Cheers.'

This
time he really did hang up, and the automaton message taker droned out the day
and time of the call.
Friday, 11:49
p.m. About eight hours before he
killed Marisol Dominguez.

'You
won't believe the voice mail I just got,' I said to Terry.

'You
look like you just heard from a Nigerian government official who will give you
thirty million dollars if you help him transfer the funds of a deposed African
leader out of the country. I get that all the time. Usually e-mail, but a phone
call would be a refreshing—'

'Turn
off the Comedy Channel and listen to this,' I said.

I
redialled my voice mail, put the phone to his ear, and watched his expressions.
Surprise, followed by anticipation, then a scowl during the ten seconds of
silence. When Martin started talking again, Terry mouthed the word asshole.
When it was over he hung up.

'Holy
shit,' he said. 'Dead man talking.'

Muller,
our resident computer genius, was at his desk tinkering with a Blackberry. He
gave us the usual greeting.

'What's
happening, dudes?'

'Rush
job,' I said. 'We need you to hack into a computer for us.'

'This
is a treat. You guys don't usually generate emergencies till five minutes
before I'm ready to go home.'

'Can
you drop what you're doing now?'

He
held up the Blackberry. 'Irv Ziffer in narcotics took this off a drug dealer.
I'm cataloguing everything in it. Names, numbers, e-mails, and some really
piss-poor video game scores. It's totally tedious, and if one of you guys would
call Ziff the Sniff and tell him that homicide trumps drug trafficking, yes,
I'll drop what I'm doing.'

'Deal,'
I said.

He
dropped the Blackberry on his desk.

We
filled him in on the details as we drove to Martin's apartment.

Nora's
laptop was on his desk. Muller booted it up. 'Sorensen said it was about a big
payday. I'll start with her Quicken file.'

He
double clicked on the application. A window popped up and asked for a password.

'How
long will it take you to figure that out?' Terry said.

'Normally,
I'd say let's take it back to the office, and I can hack it in a couple of
hours. But if you're in a hurry, I may have a faster way.'

'Fast
is good,' Terry said. 'Do it.'

'OK.
It's experimental. I haven't done this before, so bear with me and try not to
talk.'

Muller
closed his eyes and rested his fingers on the keyboard. And then he sat there.

He
didn't move for nearly a minute. Finally, Terry couldn't keep quiet any longer.
'What the hell are you doing?'

'Channelling,'
Muller said. 'I'm getting in touch with Nora.'

'Are
you on crack?'

'No.
I've been studying paranormal phenomena.'

'You're
yanking my chain.'

'Really,
I've been working with a medium. Don't knock it. If I can channel Nora, it's
the fastest way to get her password.'

'You're
gonna conjure up the dead? What kind of bandwidth do you need for that? Mike,
talk to him.'

'I'm
fascinated,' I said. 'Give him a minute. This is cool.'

'You're
both nuts,' Terry said.

'I
can tell you one thing,' Muller said. 'Nora is not happy about being a murder
victim. She definitely wants to help.'

'I
can't believe this,' Terry said.

Muller
opened his eyes. 'Dude, police departments all over the world hire clairvoyants
and people with ESP. Is it so hard to believe that maybe one already is a cop?
Trust me, it's gonna happen. Just give me some room.'

He
sat rubbing his fingers on the keyboard. Finally, he said, 'the password is
crime pays.
No space between the two words.'

'You
sure about that, Kreskin?'

'I'd
bet a dollar on it, Detective Biggs,' Muller said.

'How
about ten?' Terry said.

Muller
came right back at him. 'Make it twenty.'

Terry,
as smart as he is, is a lot less smart when he gets frustrated. And Muller had
really pissed him off. He bit.

'It's
a bet, geek boy,' Terry said. 'Move over. I'll type.'

I
tried not to smile, but I already knew the outcome. My grandfather once said to
me, 'Mike, if you're watching raindrops roll down a windowpane, and somebody
bets you that one drop will beat the other to the bottom, you've got a
fifty-fifty chance of winning. But if the same guy bets he can cut a deck of
cards, turn over the jack of spades, and that jack will jump up and spit in
your eye, don't get suckered, because, boy, that guy knows something you
don't.'

Terry
poked at the keys, then hit return. Quicken welcomed Nora in.

'Son
of a bitch. How the hell did you do that?'

'Ancient
geek boy secret,' Muller said. 'Pay up.'

Terry
handed him the money.

'Fun's
over, boys,' I said. 'Let's find something that looks like payday. Try starting
with the last stuff Martin looked at.'

'How
about this?' Muller said. 'On June thirtieth Nora Bannister gave her daughter
Julia a million dollars. And since Julia is now deceased, I think that
qualifies as a payday for Charlie.'

'Are
you sure?' Terry said.

'A
one with six zeroes? Yeah, I'd bet a dollar on it, dude.'

Terry
ignored the dig. 'Do you know what the rest of this crap means?'

The
words OTO
gift
and
file form 709
were typed in the memo field.

'OTO
is one time only,' Muller said. 'The IRS has a rule that says that once in your
lifetime you can give away a million dollars, and nobody pays taxes. Not the
recipient. Not you. All you have to do is file a gift tax return, which in case
you haven't figured it out yet, is a form 709.'

'I
can barely afford the twenty bucks I just lost,' Terry said. 'How do you know
about million-dollar gifts?'

'My
wife's uncle is an accountant. I do computer troubleshooting for him.'

'So
Nora gave Julia a million bucks, and it's tax free?'

'That's
what it looks like. Actually, you can give the entire million to one person, or
you can split it up, like give a hundred thousand apiece to ten people -
whatever you want.'

'Who
do I have to know to sign up to be on the receiving end?' Terry said.

'At
this point, I guess you could start sucking up to Charlie Knoll,' Muller said.