"What's going on?" Mason asked one of the cops.
"Guy OD'd," the cop answered.
Mason knew the answer to his next question but asked it anyway. "Robert Davenport?"
The cop looked past him. "No names released yet."
"Is Samantha Greer in charge of the investigation?"
"Yeah," the cop answered, paying more attention. "Who are you?"
"Lou Mason. Do me a favor, call Detective Greer. Tell her I'd like to talk to her."
The cop spoke into the radio clipped to his shirt, waving Mason through. Mason found Samantha waiting for him next to a sculpture planted on the lawn outside the studio. The sculpture was an irregular cone of bronze affixed nose-down to a polished black granite base. The police had set up bright lights around the studio to assist in the search for physical evidence. The beams collided with the sculpture, making it glow like an errant space probe just returned to earth.
"At least you can't blame this one on my client," Mason told her.
"It's hard for one person to kill everybody," she said.
Mason said, "One of the cops directing traffic said Davenport OD'd."
"Looks like it. What brings you here?" Samantha asked.
"Loose ends," Mason answered. "I'm getting ready for the preliminary hearing in the Trent Hackett murder. I had some questions for Robert."
"You accused Trent Hackett of killing Gina Davenport. Are you going to accuse Robert Davenport of killing Trent to avenge his wife's death?"
Mason shrugged. "It's a theory," he said, not wanting to thank Samantha for thinking of a red herring he'd overlooked.
"Don't bother," she told him. "Davenport was giving a lecture that night. He's got a hundred alibis. Tell your client to plead guilty and get this mess over with."
"She's not guilty, Sam," Mason said.
Samantha grimaced, grinding her heel in the grass. "It's me you're talking to Lou, not some fresh cop out of the academy, not some reporter who wants to make you the lead in her story. I'm a damn good cop. We both know the evidence against your client is enough to send her away forever. If you don't have something better by now than the smoke you've been blowing, call Ortiz and make a deal."
They were both right, Mason realized. He believed Jordan was innocent even though there was enough evidence to convict her. Samantha was also right that Mason's defense had so far been little more than a bluff. Mason saw no point in telling Samantha his newest theory, knowing that she would rightly dismiss it as the ravings of a lawyer whose latest scapegoat conveniently died of a drug overdose.
Mason got up early enough on Tuesday morning to take Tuffy on a grand tour of Loose Park, leaving her panting on her living room pillow, her bushy tail thumping against the floor in gratitude. Mason even thought the dog winked at him when he promised to be home in time to give her dinner.
The Cable Depot was his first stop. Jordan had told him that she had gone to Dr. Gina's office the Friday before Gina was murdered and that she had discovered her cell phone was missing after her therapy session with Gina. Arthur Hackett had told him that Gina had stopped at KWIN after her session with Jordan, making the radio station the likely place to start looking for Jordan's cell phone.
Mason still had the passkey Trent Hackett gave him, but he knew he couldn't simply walk into KWIN, flash his American Bar Association membership card, and start rifling through desk drawers. He'd have to make peace, or at least reach a truce, with Arthur Hackett.
Hackett was seated behind his desk gazing out the window to the north, his back to the door, watching private planes land at the downtown airport, when a secretary brought Mason into his office. He slowly swiveled his chair around to face Mason as the secretary closed the door, leaving them alone, shocking Mason with his deteriorated appearance. His face was gray, skin hanging loose from his cheeks, his eyes flat as if nothing he saw was worth the view. He'd lost enough weight that his clothes sagged, covering him like hand-me-downs. Hackett raised a limp hand from his lap, gesturing Mason to have a seat.
"Thank you for seeing me," Mason said. "I know this is a difficult time for you and your wife."
"Do you?" Arthur asked. "How would you know such a thing, Mr. Mason? Have you buried one of your children? Have you condemned another?" Each question was cut with a dull knife, the sharp edge worn from the many times he'd asked them of himself, trying to fathom how such horror fell to him.
"No, sir," Mason answered, caught in the quicksand of Hackett's grief. "I won't presume to know what you're going through, though I am sorry you have to go through it."
Arthur drew a deep breath. "That's more honesty than I'm accustomed to. My home is crawling with people trying to make my wife and me feel better. I'm in no mind to work, but at least I can be left alone here."
"Then why did you see me?" Mason asked.
"There's no understanding something like this, Mason. There's no way of reconciling to it. Carol and I weren't perfect parents. Hell, we weren't even good parents. Trent was our failure. Jordan was a mystery, bad genes, bad parents. Who knows? They were ours to take care of and we failed them. I was hoping that you found something that would make sense out all of this, maybe let my wife and me off the hook a little bit."
"I'm trying, Arthur," Mason said, steeling himself to Arthur's excruciating confession, knowing he couldn't give the absolution Arthur needed. "I was wondering if Jordan's cell phone ever turned up. Someone used it to make a call that could be important."
Arthur shook his head. "You asked me about that once before. I took a look around and didn't find it, though it should have been easy enough to find. Jordan bought a hot pink faceplate for the phone. It practically glowed in the dark."
"Did the bills come to you?" Mason asked. "I'd like to see the last one." Arthur pursed his lips, drumming his fingers on his desk.
"I can subpoena it from the cellular company, but that's a lot of trouble if you've got the bill," Mason said. He waited to ask Hackett why he was holding back.
"You don't have to do that," Hackett said. "It's too late to be embarrassed for Jordan anyway. I got the bill the other day," he said, removing it from a folder on his desk and handing it to Mason. "It was over a thousand dollars, most of it to one of those psychic hotlines. Why she bothered with that rubbish, I don't know. I canceled the account."
Mason studied the bill. He found the entry for the call made to Abby's phone and her return call to Jordan's phone. The other calls were made to the psychic hotline. "Did you ask the cell phone company if they could find out who placed the calls?"
"They said there was no way to know unless the calls were recorded. Does any of that help you?"
"I don't know," Mason said. "I heard that Max Coyle was involved with Gina. Do you know anything about that?"
"There are no secrets in a place like this, Mason. They were both grownups. A lot of people screw around if they get the chance. I heard that you and Max discussed his relationship with Gina at the golf tournament," he added with a pleased grunt.
"What about Paula Sutton?" Mason asked, ignoring Hackett's jab. "Who was she screwing around with?"
"Ask her. She'll tell you. She isn't the shy type."
"I thought there were no secrets in a place like this," Mason said.
"There aren't. I just don't have time for all of them. Is that all?"
"One last question. Have you heard anyone at the station ever mention someone named Abby Lieberman?"
"No," Arthur said without hesitation. "Should I have?"
"I hope not."
On his way out, Mason walked past the broadcast studio where Paula Sutton was doing her morning show. He stopped and watched through the glass wall dividing the studio from the interior corridor, listening to the broadcast piped over the intercom. Paula listened while her caller denounced public education as a government thought-control plot. She noticed Mason as her caller finished his tirade, answering Mason's pantomimed request that she call him with dead air, her caller hanging up in frustration as the program engineer cut to a commercial.