i 9fb2c9db4068b52a (12 page)

She slammed the door on it both literally and figuratively and poured herself a cup of strong coffee, the image of Detective Jovanic flitting through her head again. After their final heated exchange in the apartment, he’d said very little as he escorted her to her car in the pre-dawn.

Positioning her mug at a safe distance from the computer keyboard, Claudia finally turned her attention to the flash drive she’d picked up in the penthouse kitchen. She uncapped the plastic case and plugged the metal tip into an empty USB port on her computer. A few clicks of the mouse accessed the drive.

Only one file name appeared:
LACONABK.xls.
Its three-letter extension designated it as a spreadsheet. Double-clicking the file name launched the appropriate program, but a small warning box popped up: LACONABK.xls is password protected.

In other words, Claudia, butt out.

She wondered what Ivan might have chosen for a password. Or Lindsey, as it was more than likely her file. The “LA” could be her initials. Lindsey had been computer literate—her home office had been equipped with state-of-the-art computer hardware on Saturday when Claudia had first seen it.

Chewing on her lip, Claudia typed, “LindseyAlexander” and pressed Enter.

“The password you supplied is not correct.”

That would have been too easy. Okay, how about her birth date.

“The password you supplied is not correct.”

She tried experimenting with variations on Lindsey’s and Ivan’s names and what vital statistics she knew. The result was consistent:

“The password you supplied is not correct.”

She cursed at the screen and gulped more coffee, then tried a few more combinations of letters and words. No dice.

The password could be any of a million words or combinations of letters and numbers. Continuing to guess from now until a week from Tuesday would probably not produce the right one. How had she gotten herself into this predicament? She wished she had left the flash drive at the penthouse.

Launching her web browser, Claudia popped open Instant Messenger. Her brother, Pete, was a computer geek and always on line.

His screen name,
BlackCars,
popped up right away and Claudia keyed in an Instant Message:

          
GraphoPro:
Hey, you!

          
BlackCars:
What’s up, Sis?

          
GraphoPro:
How do you break a password on a spread sheet?

          
BlackCars:
You going into the hacking business?

          
GraphoPro:
LOL. I need to open a file. Any ideas?

          
BlackCars:
What file?

          
GraphoPro:
You don’t want to know.

          
BlackCars:
Okey dokey, call the software company and ask for a back door.

          
GraphoPro:
Huh?

          
BlackCars:
They might break the password with a back door. You’d have to be the registered owner, of course.

          
GraphoPro:
I knew I could count on you! How’s my favorite niece?

          
BlackCars:
She’s great.

          
GraphoPro:
Tell her to call me, ok? Thx for the help.

Obtaining the number for Tech Support from the software company’s web site was easy. The argument Claudia waged with herself about what she was doing was another matter. If the contents of the flash drive had nothing to do with her friend, she promised herself, she would immediately turn it over to the police. If there was something that further incriminated Zebediah, that was a murky pond she hoped she wouldn’t be required to wade into.

The tech support phone number accessed a recorded message advising her to log onto their web site for free support. Fifty bucks would get her to a live person. The web site wasn’t going to tell her how to hack into a file.

The image of Ivan’s blood pooled on the kitchen floor still haunted her. And there was a possibility that the flash drive might reveal something important about Lindsey’s death. The way Claudia saw it, she had no choice.

Before dialing, she rehearsed what she would say, so that when the tech came on the line and asked for her name,
“Lindsey Alexander,”
slipped out with ease. But a stress rash warmed her throat and she found herself fumbling over the tale she had fabricated. Maybe her father was right when he kidded her about being too honest for her own good.

“Uh, I have this file,” she blurted. “I uh, I need to get into this uh, this file. It’s really important. A disgruntled ex-employee password-protected it out of spite before he left. Can you help me get into it?”

The tech spoke with a Pakistani accent so thick it took her a minute to understand that he didn’t care
why
she wanted the password. She probably could have just told the truth. It wouldn’t have mattered to him, and she could have saved herself the kick in the butt from her conscience.

“Can you not e-mail me the file?” he asked. “I shall see if I can find a back door. If indeed I can, I will e-mail back the password to you.” Just like that.
Pete’s a freaking genius!

In a matter of seconds, the tech told her that the file had arrived in his mailbox. Decoding the password would take longer and he promised to immediately begin work on it.

While she waited for the results, Claudia telephoned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and asked for ICU.

The duty nurse was less than cooperative when she asked for information about Ivan’s condition. “Are you a relative?” the nurse inquired.

“No, I’m a... a friend.”

“I’m sorry, this is a police matter. We can’t give out information except to family members.”

“I understand, but I’m the person who made the 911 call last night when he was attacked. My name is Claudia Rose. Couldn’t you...”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rose, you’ll have to check with the police.”

“Can you at least tell me if he’s conscious?”

“Like I said, Ms. Rose, if you’re not a family member, I can’t answer any questions. Oh, just a minute.” Her voice became muffled while she covered the mouthpiece and spoke to someone in the background.

Jovanic’s voice came on the line.

“He’s still unconscious,” he said without preliminaries. “The doctor says there’s brain swelling. They don’t know yet when, or if, he’ll come out of it.”

Claudia’s throat constricted in dismay. “He might not make it?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Have you been there all night?” As she said the words, she bit her tongue. The fact that he sounded worn out was none of her business.

“Yeah,” he said. There was a long pause while she tried to think of something to say. Jovanic broke the silence. “Can you meet me around five tonight? I’d like to talk to you some more about what happened last night.” A glance at her calendar showed nothing that couldn’t be easily cleared. Besides, the opportunity to make a better impression appealed to her.

The tech support guy cracked the password and e-mailed it to her inbox.

FQU6969

Typical Lindsey, to give it a sexual twist.

The spreadsheet opened instantly. Claudia’s eyes widened as she read the data that filled the rows and columns on her screen.

When the fax rang ten minutes later, she was still trying to work out how to hand over the spreadsheet to Jovanic without getting herself arrested. And there was no question—it had to be turned over immediately.

For a moment, she toyed with the idea of sending it to him anonymously, then ridiculed herself for being a coward. She would give it to him when they met that afternoon. Pages began dropping into the fax tray. God bless Dana, she’d come through with the autopsy report. Gathering up the handful of sheets, Claudia began to read.

Decedent: Alexander, Lindsey Elaine,” the report began. “Identification: Height 70 inches; weight 128 pounds; diffuse skin slippage; unembalmed; long blond hair; rigor present; blue eyes, free of conjunctival hemorrhages; mouth, own teeth.

Skipping the external examination, she went straight to the summary:

A 38-year-old white female was found in a hot tub at her residence. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The decedent is received in a white sheet.

General Description: Rigor Mortis is generalized and full. Lividity is developed on the anterior surfaces of the trunk and face. The corneas are markedly opaque and the body is cool to the touch. The body is well-developed and well-nourished. There is diffuse skin slippage with only a rare intact skin blister. The skin slippage is most pronounced in the same distribution as the pattern of lividity. Upper and lower extremities are normally developed and free from apparent antemortem injuries.

She’d read enough Patricia Cornwell to know what lividity meant—the pooling of blood where the body made contact with a surface. The dry description of Lindsey’s body, inside and out, continued. There was something obscene about the reduction of vibrant, high-spirited Lindsey, who had laughed and cried and raged for thirty-eight years, to a bald recitation of her stomach contents and the weight of her internal organs. So unavoidably, sadly cold. At last, Cause of Death:

“Drowning.”

The coroner had deduced that once the significant amount of alcohol and barbiturates present in Lindsey’s system had taken effect, she’d simply slipped under the water and drowned. The alleged suicide note made that conclusion seem plausible. Claudia still needed to review the police report and any handwriting examination that might have been conducted on the alleged suicide note. According to the comments Dana had written on the transmittal, it wouldn’t be available for a few more days.

Leaving the autopsy report on her desk, Claudia went downstairs. She sliced an English muffin and dropped the halves into the toaster, then turned on the small portable television on the kitchen counter. With a fresh mug of coffee and the toasted muffin, she slid into the breakfast nook and flipped to one of the morning news shows. Within five minutes, the lead story was screaming at her:
Violent assault in Beverly Hills.

The story of the attack on Ivan featured a photo of Claudia herself in a corner insert, with an account of her connection to Lindsey Alexander. She recognized the photo from an interview she had given when a man named John Mark Karr had been questioned in the murder of child beauty queen, Jon Benet Ramsey. She had been asked to compare Karr’s handwriting to the ransom note left by the child’s killer. Someone in the newsroom must have connected her name from the 911 dispatch and pulled the file photo. Home invasion attacks were not uncommon in LA, but this was a tale to make a reporter salivate: The suicide of a hot Hollywood publicist, an attack on her associate, and the intervention of a well-known forensic handwriting analyst. The news anchors speculated among themselves about the reasons for the attack, and whether it was connected to Lindsey’s death.

If it bleeds, it leads.

All the makings of a mini-series. Deals were probably already in the works.

“You have ten new messages,”
the digital voice intoned when Claudia switched the telephone ringer back on and pressed the blinking message indicator.

Reporters from the two major LA newspapers and a couple of television stations wanted personal interviews. Three calls from Kelly, demanding to know what was going on. One from her brother, Pete, another from Zebediah. Apparently, they all watched the early morning news. Thank goodness her parents lived in Arizona. The last voicemail was from Lillian Grainger’s assistant, Yolande Palomino, asking when Claudia could meet with her boss about the handwriting sample she wanted analyzed. She did a quick search of her memory. Lillian Grainger was the woman whose clumsy husband had practically crushed her toes at Lindsey’s penthouse.

Kelly answered the phone halfway through the first ring. “Claudia!”

“Jeez, Kel, are you sitting on top of the phone?”

“My God, honey, what’s going on?”

“I only wish I knew.”

“Tell me everything, and don’t leave anything out!”

When Claudia had finished, Kelly was practically in tears. “Oh, poor Ivan, it’s so awful. I know he can be a pain in the ass, but why would anyone
do
that to him?”

“I don’t know, Kel, but I’ve got a hunch it’s tied to Lindsey’s death.”

When Detective Jovanic had suggested a connection between the two events she’d denied it out of fear for Zebediah.

Kelly’s voice rose with excitement. “Do you think this clears me? I mean, I sure as hell didn’t attack
Ivan
. I was doing the nasty all night with this
amazing
firefighter.”

“
Doing the nasty
? Kelly, where do you get this stuff?” The call-waiting beep sounded. Claudia put her friend on hold.

“I saw the news,” said Dana Jackson. “Girlfriend, what have you got yourself into now?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Can’t let you outta my sight for a second.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Hey, listen, I found out who’s taking over Vanderbosh’s cases. His name’s Joel Jovanic.” She made it sound like “Joevanick.”

Claudia’s heart gave a funny little bump. “It’s pronounced Yo
van
itch.”

“Oh. You know him?”

“We’ve met.”

Jovanic had suggested they meet at five at Cowboys, Playa Del Reina’s neighborhood bar and restaurant. But the twenty-year-old Jaguar stubbornly refused to start, as it did on a semi-regular basis.

Temperamental British electrical system,
grumbled Claudia, slamming the door shut on her house. Cowboys was walking distance, if you didn’t mind the mile-long downhill trek. She wouldn’t have minded the walk, but Marcia Collins, who was on her way to work the dinner shift, offered a ride. Like Kelly, she had seen the news and wanted to hear first-hand about the previous night’s misadventures.