Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 03 - A Deadly Change of Heart (9 page)

While Craig finished up the dishes, Pamela and I sat down at the table and went over her guest list.  I gathered up all the names and
slipped the list in my purse, then
checked my watch.  “You know, I have to drop off a bunch of stuff at the Goodwill station in the morning.  I could take that stuff you’ve packed up and save you a trip,” I offered.

Pamela smiled.  “Would you?  I’d really like to get it out of here so I can have room to put my things.”

Craig helped me load the two large bags in the car.  Pamela waved as we backed out of the driveway and headed toward home.  Bradley never came out of his office to see us off.  He had no idea we’d left his house with Diane’s things.

Chapter
Nine

C
raig set himself to the task of repairing my VCR, which had gone on the blink more than a month ago.  I sat cross-legged on the sofa in the main salon of the
Plan C
and paged through the notebook I’d liberated from Bradley Parker’s dancehall-sized closet.  Diane’s notes were sketchy and cryptic.  She did manage to date the top of each page.  The first few pages seemed to refer to a school-board meeting she must have covered.  References to
PTA
and
irate teachers
were my biggest clue.

I gathered from the references to border collies, poodles, and basset hounds that the next few pages were about a dog show held at Dog Park last year. 

She had five pages of notes regarding the grand opening of the new skateboard park south of La Jolla.

She also dedicated quite a lot of space to notes about new cameras recently installed at certain intersections to catch red-light runners.  The cameras would photograph any cars running red lights and citations would be mailed to the registered owners of the vehicles in the photos.  San Diego had installed quite a few of these cameras, much to the dismay of many of the lesser-skilled drivers in the crowded community.

The last page with any entries was dated May seventh.  I rummaged through the stack of newspaper articles I’d printed regarding the discovery of Diane’s body.  May seventh was a Friday.  The coroner estimated the date of her death to be May eighth.  I studied her notebook again.  The words on the page read: “
Where did they get it?  Where could they get it?  SONGS?”

“You have a smaller screwdriver?” Craig asked. 

His question brought me out of a semi-trance.  “What?  Oh, yeah.  In the bathroom drawer, next to the toothpaste,” I replied.

“Bathroom?”

“When you live on a boat, you find new and innovative ways to store things.  I’ve tried several locations, and believe me, it’s the most efficient place for it.”

“I’m sure it is,” he said, heading for the bathroom.

“Does the word songs mean anything to you?” I asked as he returned with the small Phillips screwdriver. 

“Songs?  Let’s see.  Yeah,” he said, then began singing in a voice I’d never heard before.  “You are so beautiful, to me…,” he crooned as he continued working on the VCR.

I gazed at him.  I’d never heard him sing before.  His voice was magical.  How could I not know this about him?  Here I was only a few weeks away from marrying him, and didn’t even know he had the voice of an angel.  “Where’d you learn to sing like that?” I asked.

“My mom’s Aretha Franklin.”

I laughed at his matter-of-fact delivery and tossed a pillow at him.  “She is not.  Is that thing fixed yet?”

“Yep.  Just let me put the cover back on.”

“You missed your calling, you know,” I said.

“What, as a TV repair man?”

“No.  A singer.  You’ve got a great voice.”

“Gee, thanks, but I think I’ll stick to medicine.  I’m a little old to change careers now.”

“Okay, but promise me you’ll sing for me once in a while?”

“It’s a deal.”  He snapped the cover back on the VCR and set it back in its original position on top of my TV. “There you go.  Good as new, I hope.”

I put the notebook down and picke
d up the videotape, then
slipped i
t into the VCR and pressed the PLAY
button.

The video opened on a close-up of a blac
kboard with the chalked words:

Josh and Jeremy Lawerence

Science Project

Mr. Clayton

Applied Science

Lincoln High.

“Wow.  It really works,” Craig said.

“You seem surprised.  I never doubted your ability.”

“You should have.  I’ve never seen the inside of a VCR before.  But I couldn’t have you thinking you’re marrying a man who’s totally useless around the house.  Luckily, there was a broken piece of videotape stuck in it.  Anyone could have figured it out.”

“Well, you’re my hero.  Shh.  Let’s watch.”   

The camera focused on two boys standing behind a table in a garage or workshop.  The boys looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years old.  One was thin and pale
—
a goth.  His face was ivory-white, his long, stringy hair dyed coal-black.  He wore tight black pants and a black turtleneck with some sort of silver symbol hanging from a chain around his neck.  The other boy was equally as thin, but more colorful.  His spiky hair stood straight up and was dyed a rainbow of colors.  He had pierced his eyebrow and a small gold ring hung just over the corner of his right eye.  He had a tattoo of a lizard wrapped around his upper left arm.  He wore a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and baggy pants that hung two inches lower than the top of his boxer shorts.

On the table in front of the boys was a strange cylindrical object.  It was about the size of a large fire extinguisher and sort of resembled one. 
When the gothic boy began speaking,
I turned up the volume on my television.  He proceeded to explain that the device was a bomb he and his brother had built.  I sat up straight and adjusted the volume again.  They were very proud of themselves.  They had gotten all the information they needed to build the bomb from the Internet.  It was easy, they boasted.  The rainbow-haired boy then began explaining the chain of events in a nuclear reaction.

“Nuclear?” I whispered, afraid of what I was witnessing.  Craig’s concerned eyes met mine.

The gothic boy continued by explaining that the twenty pounds of plutonium they’d used for the bomb could result in a thirty-five kiloton blast, equivalent to seventy million pounds of TNT.  I tried to fathom seventy million pounds of
anything
, let alone TNT.

The boys concluded their presentation with a request to their teacher: “Hope we get an ‘A’ Mr. Clayton.”

Craig made me promise I’d take the tape to Sam Wright.  I assured him I would.  He held me and looked straight into my eyes.  “I mean it.  This is getting a little too weird.  I’m worried about you.  Give the tape to Detective Wright and let him handle it.”

I smiled up at him and closed my eyes.  “I’ll give him the tape.  Don’t worry.  I’ll be fine.”

I stood in the office of Lincoln High School and waited for the woman to give me directions to Mr. Clayton’s classroom.  She explained that he had a first-period class, and I’d have to wait until the bell rang before I could interrupt him.

I stood outside the door marked “7” in the science building and waited for the bell to ring.  When it did, fifty teenagers blasted through the door, nearly knocking me down.  When it appeared safe to proceed, I entered the classroom.  Mr. Clayton was busy cleaning the chalkboard.

“Mr. Clayton?” I asked.

Surprised, he turned.  “Yes?  Can I help you?” he replied.

“I have a video made by a couple of your students.  I wonder if you could take a look at it and give me your thoughts?” I asked.

He checked his watch.  “I don’t have a class this period.  I guess I have time.  Is it long?”

“About twenty minutes,” I said.

Baxter Clayton was visibly disturbed by what he’d seen.  When the
tape concluded, he pressed the REWIND
button and shook his head.  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

“You mean you’ve never seen it?”

“Are you kidding?  Those boy
s would be expelled, or better yet, locked up, if I’d ever seen it.”

“It was in the personal items of a reporter for the
Union Tribune
,” I explained.

“Where’d he get it
?” Clayton asked.

“
She
isn’t around to tell.  She’s deceased.”

Clayton’s face grew pale.  He looked like he wanted to be sick.

“In your opinion, is this bomb for real?  Do you think these boys have really built a nuclear device?” I asked, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

“Josh and Jeremy Lawerence are extremely bright boys.  Everything they explained in the video was correct and complete.  If they really have the plutonium, then there’s no doubt they have a full-scale nuclear bomb,” he answered.

“But how realistic is it that they could get their hands on plutonium?  I mean, it’s not something you can get at your local hardware store.”

“I would hope they couldn’t acquire it,” he said.

“Even if they did, where could they have gotten it,” I asked.

“Only place that comes to mind is San Onofre,” he replied.

“San Onofre?”

“Yeah.  San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.  You know.  SONGS,” he explained.

I snapped my fingers.  “Of course!  SONGS.  It’s an acronym.”

I explained to Baxter Clayton that I was going to turn the videotape over to the police but I wanted the boys’ parents to view the video first.  He was reluctant to give me the Lawrence family’s address and would only give it to the police.  I let Clayton use my cell phone to call the number for the San Diego police department.  When he got through, I took the phone from him and asked to speak to Sam Wright.  I explained to Sam that another clue had, in his own words, “miraculously landed in my lap,” and that Baxter Clayton, a teacher at Lincoln High, was going to give him the address where he could pick it up.

“What are you talking about?” Sam demanded.

I ignored his request.  “Here.  This is Mr. Clayton.  He’s a science teacher,” I said, then handed the phone to Baxter.  “Just give him the address,” I instructed. 

Baxter put the phone
to his ear.  He read the address from a paper he’d pulled from a file in his desk.  I wrote it down as he read.  He handed the phone back to me.

“Did you get that?” I asked.

“Yeah.  What’s this about?” he demanded again.

“I’ll
call you back in a little while with the details
.  Can you meet me there tonight?  Six-thirty?”

I visualized the color of his face in my mind.  By now, I’m sure it was deep red, with his jaw clenched so tight a crowbar couldn’t pry it open.  “You are on thin ice, you know,” he hissed into the phone.

“I know, but you’re gonna flip when you see what I’ve got,” I assured him.

“I’ll flip you
—
right on your rear,” he promised.

“Just meet me there.  Okay?”

“I’ll be there, but you better find yourself a body guard ‘cause I’m gonna snap every bone in your scrawny little neck when I get a hold of you.”

“Where’d you go to charm school?” I asked.

The line went dead.  He
’d
hung up on me.  Part of me wondered if I should take his threat seriously.  I took the video from the VCR and thanked Baxter Clayton for his help.

At five, I called Sam and gave him the details of what was on the tape.  He insisted that I bring it to him at the station, but I refused.  I would gladly hand it over to him, but only at the Lawrence household.  I knew if I gave it to him at the station, he’d take it and that would be the last I’d ever hear about it.  He’d never tell me anything.  Before he hung up he grumbled something about interfering with an investigation, withholding evidence and an arrest warrant.  I didn’t take him seriously.  Surely by now, I’d gotten on his good side.  

When I arrived at the address Clayton had given us, Sam’s car was already parked at the curb.  I pulled in behind him and could see he was still sitting inside.  A gold Mercedes pulled into the driveway of the home we were headed for, then into the garage.  The automatic door closed behind it.  I took a deep breath and opened my door.  I didn’t head for Sam’s car.  Instead, I went right for the front door of the house.  Sam jumped out of his car and called me.  I waved for him to follow me.

“Get over here!” he demanded.

I ignored his command and waved him over again.  Then I rang the doorbell.  Sam raced up the walk and reached me just as the door opened.

Mrs. Lawrence was confused and concerned about why this police officer and woman wanted to see her sons.  She was relieved when her husband entered from the garage.  She turned the whole matter over to him.  He set his briefcase down and walked into the living room.

“What’s this about?” he asked.

I handed the video to Sam.

Sam glared at me.  If looks could kill, I’d be on a slab in the morgue.  I’d put him in a very precarious position, but I didn’t want to be left out of the loop. 

Sam addressed Mr. Lawrence.  “This is a video your sons produced, apparently as a project for school.  I’d like to talk to them about it,” Sam said.

“And you’re from the police?” Mr. Lawrence asked.  He loosened his expensive tie and removed his jacket, throwing it across the back of a leather recliner.