Premeditated Murder (24 page)

     Although neither victim has been officially identified, authorities have stated that the car involved in the accident was registered to Robert McAllister, age 64, a native of Glasgow. The plane was registered to the Yellow Aviation Flight School, which is based in Moose Jaw, Canada. Corporate records indicate that it was last rented to an individual named Morris Humphries, of Regina, Canada, four days prior to the discovery of the accident. Authorities have not been able to locate either McAllister or Humphries since the discovery of the bodies.

     No official determination has been made as to the cause of the collision, but local law enforcement officers believe that it was little more than very bad luck and possibly bad weather which led to the freak collision. “There's no artificial light anywhere near the field,” Police Sergeant Ed Qualls said, “so the accident must have happened at night, or else they would have seen each other coming and probably would have avoided the crash.” Qualls did not speculate on why a plane and a car would have been in that field, although he did indicate that there was no evidence that either vehicle or operator was involved in any illegal activities.

     Authorities from the National Transportation and Safety Board have been sent to investigate the crash.

(
Los Angeles Times,
May 6, page 65)

May 7—Washington, D.C.

CARLOS OLIVEIRA SHOOK HIS HEAD. A CAR-AND-plane collision in some field in Montana. He'd save that one. He carefully cut the article out of the newspaper, mounted it on a three-hole-punched piece of cardstock, and placed the card into the daily news binder. As a part of the normal White House routine, the Chief of Staff gave the President a daily briefing on major news stories. But President Ferguson had told Carlos that he thought the best presidents were the ones who remembered that day-to-day life in America was very different from day-to-day life in the West Wing of the White House, so he asked Carlos to put together what he had started to call “The Oliveira Times.”

If this had been a normal week, Carlos wouldn't have had a chance to keep up with that particular chore, because he would have been traveling with the President and the First Lady these past few days. They were attending an educational conference in St. Louis, and then they were making a few stops in Texas to promote an education reform bill that the President was trying hard to get through the Congress.

But when President Ferguson heard that Carlos's sister's law school graduation was smack in the middle of the trip, he refused to allow Carlos to do anything but attend the graduation. It was too important an accomplishment to miss, he said, so Carlos went, and was now impatiently waiting for the President's return tomor-row.

He didn't like it when the President was away. For one thing it was too quiet, and for another, Carlos needed to ask for some help, because he still couldn't figure out what do to about the Charley Cullhane thing.

The President had asked him to contact Charley's family. He was supposed to try to ask them whether they could provide any details regarding the special project Charley had been handling for President Graham. It was a long shot, since it was obvious from the way that Charley had disappeared, and from the contents of the memos, that he didn't want any of this to become public.

But instead of learning anything about the memos, Carlos learned that both of Charley's parents were dead, that he had no brothers, and that his only sister never returned phone calls. If the number Carlos had called ten times over the past week was even hers.

Carlos took a break to check his e-mail and noticed a subject line that read simply “Charley.” He opened it and read:

Dear Mr. Oliveira,

     My name is Nancy Nissenbaum. I am Charley Cullhane's sister. I'm sorry that I haven't returned any of your calls and that I am contacting you this way, but ever since Charley's disappearance, I have been terribly afraid that something bad is going to happen to me or my family, so I have been in hiding.

     The reason I am writing is because the day after President Graham died, Charley came to see me. It was the last time I saw him. He told me that he had quit his job, and that he was going to go away for a while. Then he said something very strange. He said that he didn't want me to worry, but if anything should happen to him, it was extremely important that I should get in touch with you and to tell you to speak to a guy who works at the I.R.S. named Boris Staley …

Before he even finished the letter, Carlos was looking for the phone number of the I.R.S.

Northampton, Massachusetts

AS ZACK ENTERED THE MAIN OFFICE OF THE Stone Gate Apartments in Northampton, he was somewhat surprised at how neat it was. He and Terry had met for lunch and then come to investigate the apartment shared by the two female victims of Cal's rampage. The manager was on the phone when they arrived. While Zack stood at the counter, Terry grabbed a magazine and sat down to wait.

Earlier that day, Zack had spent a little time playing “Driving” with Justin. This consisted of pushing tiny toy cars around the floor of the playroom, occasionally moving close enough to the other player's car so that you could ask for directions to the swimming pool or the grocery store. Justin had chosen his own outfit today, and was dressed in a red-and-white horizonal-striped T-shirt and blue-and-white vertical-striped shorts. If the poor kid looked at himself in the mirror, he'd probably have an epileptic seizure. After Zack's third visit to the post office in about five minutes with a fire engine, he took a break, sat with his back leaning against the couch, and started the conversation he was dreading.

“So, Justin, when the trial comes up for Mr. Thompson, I'm going to be working for lots of days in a row.”

Justin, who was in the middle of a trip to the video store with his cherry red vintage Corvette, said without looking up, “Okay.”

Zack took a deep breath. “So I've been thinking that it would probably be good if, just during the week or two that the trial is happening, you stayed at Aunt Claire and Uncle Tyler's house with them, okay? I'd visit you on the weekends, and we could talk every day on the phone. Would you like to do that?” Zack and Justin hadn't spent a night apart since Justin had come home with him almost five years ago. It was anybody's guess how Justin would react.

Zack wasn't overjoyed about the idea himself. Not that Claire and Tyler were a problem—his sister and her husband were ideal babysitters, except that their stupid cell phone never seemed to work for more than two minutes at a stretch. It just felt a little irresponsible putting Justin into someone else's care for such a long time.

The Corvette had been replaced by a blue 1966 Mustang convertible for a spin to the dentist's office.

Justin looked at him. “Aunt Claire and Uncle Tyler?” he said.

“Yeah. They were thinking that maybe you could help them when they took Spikey for his walks, and—”

“All
right
!” shouted Justin, breaking into a huge smile and then jumping up and running into Zack's arms. “I
love
Spikey! Can I feed him, too?”

Spikey was a little black terrier that urinated more than any living creature on earth. “I think you should probably ask Aunt Claire and Uncle Tyler about that.”

“Okay,” Justin agreed, jumping up. “Let's go.”

For the next few minutes, Zack and Justin worked a little bit on the concept of time, and agreed that Justin would continue to play “Driving” while Zack called Claire and Tyler and checked on the Spikey question.

So much for Justin's reaction.

The manager hung up now and walked over. He was about sixty years old and still wore a military-style flattop haircut. Justin had a theory that people who wore that style hair liked to carry trays on their heads. The man looked as if at one point in his life he had been very strong. Right now, he looked a little out of breath, a little mean, and a lot overweight. He slapped his meaty hands down on the top of the counter, displaying a tattoo on each forearm. The one on the left read
Back off,
and on the right,
Cuz I said so
. He looked first at Zack, then at Terry, and then said, much too loud for the room, “How can I help you gentlemen?” Great.
All those within the sound of my voice tremble with fear. Now drop and give me twenty.

Zack looked over at Terry, whose smile was far too broad. In about fifteen seconds, he was going to rent an apartment here just so he could sue this dumb-ass on a weekly basis.

“I'm Zack Wilson—” Zack began, but the manager cut him off.

“Right,” he said, with a look clearly meant to be intimidating. He was probably really something with the elementary school crowd. “The lawyers. Lemme get the file.” He lumbered back to his desk, pulled out a manila folder from the bottom drawer, and brought it over to the counter. “Let's see, you wanted to know about number forty, right?” he said, opening the file. Inside there was only a lease, a copy of a receipt, and a photocopy of a check. The manager spun the folder around so Zack and Terry could see it. “Only thing strange about this is that the apartment is rented right through the end of the summer.”

The term of the women's lease ran from September 1 through August 31. “But isn't that normal?” Zack asked. “A year's lease?”

“Yeah, the lease is normal, but they paid already,” he said. “For the whole year. When they signed this, they gave me a check for the whole thing, plus a month's security.” He pointed at the photocopy of the check. “See? Nobody ever does that.”

The check was for $13,000. It was signed by Leon Lamere. “Can we get a copy of these?” Zack asked, handing him the check and the lease.

The manager scowled. Did he practice that in the mirror? “Yeah, all right.” He walked over to a copy machine and turned it on.

Terry showed Zack the magazine he had been reading. On the cover was a picture of Calvin's horrendous mug shot, and the article inside was titled “Dealing with Demons—The Death Penalty—Whether Vengeance Is Cost-Effective.” Below that was a picture of the bodies of Calvin's victims being taken out of the building on stretchers. “Impartial jury of his peers?” Terry said. “Piece of cake.”

“You lookin' into Leon?” the manager asked from the copier. “Didn't give me any problem. Him and the two girls all signed the lease. That's the nonnegotiable policy around here.” While the manager's back was to them, Zack glanced at Terry, who had closed his eyes and was pressing his fingers to his head. Pompous wore him out. “They had no beef with that.”

“So the apartment is unoccupied, but technically, since it's rented to Leon, he's got it through the summer?” Zack asked.

“You got it,” the manager grunted, returning with the copies and slapping them down on the counter. “Even if I wanted to rerent it, which I don't, it's Leon Lamere's place until next September 1. I tried to call him after I heard them girls got killed by that black guy, you know, your client, but his number's been changed. Nobody got in touch with me for weeks after they died, so I went in there myself and, you know. Cleaned the food out of the refrigerator, took out the garbage. Stuff like that.” Because good apartment managers do stuff like that. And if there happened to be some cash lying around …

“When you were in there, did you notice anything unusual?” Zack asked.

Once again, out came the scowl.
I am the most terrifying apartment manager in all the land.
Zack suppressed the laughter that began to bubble up inside of him. “You wanna take a look yourselves?” the manager said. “I got no problem with that.”

“Absolutely,” Zack said, exchanging a glance with Terry as the manager went back to his desk, opened the top drawer, and grabbed a large ring of keys.

ZACK HADN'T REALLY EXPECTED MUCH TO come of a search of Apartment 40. So when he entered, he wasn't disappointed.

The place was predictably stuffy. As the manager opened some of the window blinds and Terry turned on some lights, Zack could see clouds of dust drifting in the air. A few flies buzzed around. It didn't smell or feel dirty. Just unlived in.

The front door to the apartment opened into a sparsely furnished living room. The most remarkable thing about it was the lack of any clutter. No magazines, no junk mail, no books, no pictures. Nothing. Talk about spartan.

At the far end of the living room a half wall separated it from the kitchen. As they entered, the manager said, “I took out some garbage that was in here, and emptied out the refrigerator, but that was it. They kept the place really clean.” He was right. The countertops were bare. Other than the fact that the cupboards and drawers contained very few plates, cookware, and utensils, there was nothing unusual about the place.

“Did Leon ever come by after the lease was signed?” Zack asked, as they turned into a hallway that led to the bathroom and a couple of bedrooms. “If you see him, I'd like him to know that we're trying to get hold of him.”

“Nah,” bellowed the manager. “The only time I seen him was when he came with the check. Tall, skinny guy. Didn't say much. Kinda weak-looking.”
I almost killed him with my powerful handshake.