Conspiracy (31 page)

“They keep a record of the transaction request,” Gallo told Johnny Bib, pointing to the screen where the program's scripts and data were displayed. “They set up an account, so you have a full history and everything else. But they don't keep track of where the request came from. We'd have to look at their server records. Take me about ten minutes to get in there. Maybe fifteen. Once I'm in, it's a snap.”

“Go through channels,” said Johnny Bib.

Gallo hung his head.

“Johnny, it'll take at least until morning for anybody at the credit-checking place to say, ‘Cool, go ahead,' ” he explained.

“Try the right way first,” said Johnny Bib, bouncing out of the room.

 

THE PROPERTY OWNER
was waiting with his two dogs by the gate of the impound lot when Lia and the trooper drove up. The German shepherds, while big and mangy, were friendly; they began licking and nuzzling Lia as soon as she got out of the car.

“Nice dogs,” said Lia. “Have they been drugged in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Drugged? My dogs? These are good dogs,” said the man, glancing over at the plainclothes trooper. “Who would drug them?”

“Nothing unusual?” the trooper asked.

The man shrugged. “What's unusual?”

Lia and the trooper walked over to the car. The lot was illuminated by a single floodlight back by the gate, and they needed the trooper's flashlight to see inside the car.

“Still locked,” said the state trooper, trying the doors.

“She could have relocked the door.” Lia glanced around the lot. “This isn't the most secure place in the world.”

“We've kept impound cars here for twenty years,” said the owner. “Never have a problem.”

“You keep all crime scene cars here?” asked Lia.

“Wasn't a crime scene,” said the trooper.

“Yeah, they keep crime scene cars here,” said the man. “That blue sedan over there—that was confiscated on a drug bust.”

“It's OK, Max,” said the trooper.

“She probably had a key,” said Lia.

“Maybe,” said the trooper. He ran his light across the door near the window.

“Can we look inside?”

“Sure. That's why I brought the key.”

Lia waited for the trooper to open the door. The car had been locked when it was found after Forester's death. The contents had been removed before the car was brought here.

“Did you do a full crime scene work-up on it?” Lia asked.

“It's not a crime scene,” said the trooper.

“She must have wanted something inside the car. Otherwise why come here?”

“I can't argue with you, but I don't know what it would be. We took the contents and gave them to the Secret Service. Service came and looked at the car themselves. Unless there's a hidden compartment somewhere.”

“Maybe there is.”

The trooper shrugged. “You can search it, too.”

Lia slipped into the driver's seat, and began looking around the interior of the car. As the trooper said, everything that had been inside had been removed, including the owner's manual in the glove compartment.

So what did Amanda want? A receipt or something tucked somewhere no one else might see?

Why would that be valuable?

Maybe it would show she and Forester were together . . . that she killed him.

Impossible.

“There's a notebook that seems to be missing,” said Lia.

“Everything we found in the car, we turned over. There's a list and photos.”

“Did you take apart the seats and the linings and things?” Lia asked.

The trooper frowned. “You know, not for nothing but, this case is pretty cut-and-dried. The guy killed himself.”

“So why did Amanda Rauci come here?” asked Lia. “Maybe she was looking for his notebook, too,” she added, answering her own question as they walked back toward the
gate. “Maybe she doesn't think it's a suicide and she wants to figure out who did it.”

Lia got down on her hands and knees, outside of the car. It wasn't easy to see up under the seat, and so she fished with her hand.

“Can we take the seats out to look inside?” she asked.

The trooper turned to the owner, who sighed, then went off for a set of tools. Two hours later, they were certain that nothing was hidden there.

“I have to tell you, it really, really looks like a suicide,” said the trooper as he and Lia walked toward the gate.

“So everybody says.”

“If it's not, then what is it?” asked the trooper.

Lia stopped to pet the dogs, unable to think of an answer.

 

“
IF THIS TURNS
out to be useful to you in any way, I would appreciate a mention to my mayor,” Chief Ball told Amanda Rauci when she got out of her car. He'd been careful to make sure he parked at the front, blocking the view of the vehicle at the back. Once he turned off the outside floodlight, her car would be invisible.

“Come on—that door there takes us direct to my office,” he said. “A letter from your director—that would be gold. You wouldn't believe the sort of small-town politics I have to deal with. They wanted to cut my part-time budget in half this year. Basically, that would eliminate coverage five nights a week. We hit on a compromise, but I still go without two nights a week. That's kind of classified, if you know what I mean. Don't want the bad guys finding out.”

“Sure.”

The sarcasm in her voice was impossible to miss. But that was fine, Ball thought—she was buying the act, completely off guard.

“You have no idea the kinds of things we put up with in a small town,” Ball told her. “It looks peaceful, but believe me. If we weren't here, watch out.”

The chief pulled his keys off his belt and unlocked the door. He kept talking, playing the local-yokel angle to the hilt.

“I get asked to fix traffic tickets all the time. I mean, well, in some cases what are you going to do, right? You can use your best judgment if it's something out of the ordinary. You look at the driving record and you figure, well, all right, just one mistake
and what the heck. Why screw up the guy's insurance rates, you know? Especially if he's just a working guy like you. But some of the things I've been asked to do—I have to draw the line. That's why I have trouble with the politics. A letter from your boss in my file, that's something that will count, though. They'll read it at the village board meeting, see; the local Jimmy Olsen cub reporter will mention it; people will know. It'll help the department. Not me. I've been here so long they can't touch me. It's the department this will help.”

He opened the door and flipped on the lights. The budget cuts he was complaining about were real, and in this case were a good thing—he didn't have to worry about a night man, because there wasn't one on tonight. But the town assessor occasionally came back to the village hall to work after he put his kids to sleep. That gave Ball about sixty minutes to get the job done.

Sooner was always better than later.

“So, do you think you can help me there?” Ball asked as Amanda stepped inside. “You don't have to reveal anything to me. I know you guys have to follow your own procedures and whatnot. I respect that.”

“If the notebook is helpful, I'll certainly ask my boss to say something about it,” offered Amanda.

“Thanks. It's right there on the desk. Excuse me a second—just going to hit the boys' room out front. Hey, want coffee or anything?”

“No thanks.”

 

AS SOON AS
she saw the notebook, Amanda was glad she'd come. It wasn't anything like the ones Forester used; true, it was a stenographer's notebook, but it had a slick cover, which he wouldn't have liked, because it couldn't be written on and was too flimsy.

She reached into her purse and took out the real notebook. She'd show it to Ball, explain why this one was wrong. There'd be no reason for him to call anyone else.

Amanda flipped the real notebook open, looking for a page of handwriting that would be easy to compare. As she did, she
noticed a page with some impressions on it in the middle of the book—writing maybe, from another page that had been so carefully removed that she hadn't noticed it before.

She held it to the light, trying to see what it said. When that didn't work, she reached over and took a pencil from the holder on Chief Ball's desk.

She could tell right away that this wasn't just a page of notes; there were too many words. It was a letter—a short, terrible letter that Gerald Forester had started to write to his sons.

Guys:

 

I can't explain how I feel, like rocks have covered me, rocks that follow me everywhere like live animals, pushing me down. I hate them. I hate everything. I can't stand it any more. I hate what I have to do.

And I'm sorry. So sorry.

Amanda Rauci felt a tear well at the side of her eye. She put the notebook down on the desk and took a tissue from her purse.

 

BALL WATCHED FROM
the corner of his eye as Amanda put down the notebook and picked up her bag.

Was she going to leave? Was she getting a gun?

He couldn't seem to get himself to act. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to. Or rather, he didn't want it to be necessary to do.

Do it now!

The paralysis that had held him still finally melted away. He reached into his pocket and took out the wire.

Quickly, quickly!

Chief Ball hadn't strangled anyone in more than thirty years. The key to success was surprise, especially in this case, since Amanda Rauci was presumably trained in self-defense tactics. She was sitting, though, and unsuspecting. He waited to strike until she put the tissue down and her hands were in her lap.

His wrists swept forward and then up and back in a graceful, easy, instant motion. From there, it was all strength and weight.

Rauci reached back, trying first to grab his arms. The chair slipped down; she lost her footing. Ball pulled his hands farther apart and kept his feet braced. He felt her weight, pulling against him. Something erupted inside him, a black energy that flooded his arms.

Killing someone with a wire was personal. Even if you had the advantage, the tables could be turned right up to the last instant; there was a huge amount of risk. At the same time, your victim was within inches of you, not dozens or hundreds of feet away. You were as close as if you were making love.

Amanda managed to get her foot up against the desk, but Ball realized what she was trying to do just in time. He pushed off to the right and pulled back, dragging her across the floor before she could throw herself back into him. The chair slid across the room. Ball threw his knee against her back, leveraging it against her as they twisted down to the floor. She was desperate now, her oxygen-deprived brain realizing that it didn't have long to live.

Ball was desperate as well. Adrenaline surged in his arms as he pulled against the wire. He pushed his knee hard against her back, harder and harder, pressing as she continued to struggle. His body began to swim with sweat. A metallic, musky scent rose to his nose. He slipped down to the floor with her but hung on.

Amanda Rauci dug her elbow into his gut. Ball clamped his teeth together and held on.

And then it was done.

Ball didn't realize it at first, and when he did realize it, he didn't trust it. He kept his arms taut, his knee braced. He lay on top of his victim, his clothes soaked in perspiration, his lungs venting like an overworked blow furnace.

 

THE LAST THING
she thought was how unjust it was. Not this, not the attack or her death, but for the boys. They'd be
haunted by something they had no control over for the rest of their lives.

 

BALL GOT TO
his knees, still holding the garrote. Amanda Rauci's lifeless body followed, her head bobbing to the side. The wire had gone deep into her neck, and in fact had cut into his own hands; their blood mixed together on her shirt.

Blood.

There wasn't much of it, but there was more than he wanted. The floor would be easy to clean, but he'd have to move quickly.

The chief's fingers trembled as he unwound the wire. Damn bitch. What'd she make him kill her for? Why the hell didn't she just mind her own business? Why didn't they all mind their own business?

It was Gordon's fault. He'd set Forester on Ball. The funny thing was, he had convinced Forester that evening when he stopped him on the road in the car. Ball knew he had. He could tell by the Secret Service agent's face.

“I wasn't even in that unit,” Ball had told him. “I knew who McSweeney was, but he wasn't my CO. Just dig up my military record. Come by tomorrow and I'll help if you want.”

And Forester had nodded. Then he'd gone off and killed himself.

Jerk.

Ball got to his feet. There was too much to be done now to waste time cursing his rotten luck.

 

IT DIDN'T TAKE
nearly as long as Gallo had feared for the information about Amanda Rauci's request to be forwarded to the NSA. It turned out that the credit-checking company staffed its computer center around the clock. Gallo talked directly to a tech there, explaining that they were trying to figure out whether a Secret Service guy had killed himself or not; the tech cut through the red tape and gave him the details he wanted.

In the meantime, he'd done a search and discovered that Christopher Ball was the police chief in Pine Plains—one town over from the library where Amanda Rauci had used the computer.

“Why would she be checking out the police chief?” Gallo asked Rubens when he found him in the Art Room a short while later.

“A very good question, Mr. Gallo. Let us see if Ms. DeFrancesca can supply an answer.”