With less than a mile to go, Stevie turned right and finally lost all the headlights.
Blood drumming in her ears from excitement, she licked her lips and spoke a few words to clear her throat.
She rechecked her note to be sure she wanted number seven, where lights burned. She climbed out. Conflicting television shows battled their laugh tracks across the asphalt, past the propane tanks and the mildewed laundry lines. A telephone rang down a ways and a woman’s voice cried out, ‘‘I’ll get it.’’
The aluminum screen door on number seven had been hung incorrectly. It was pocked and blackened with corrosion. She banged on the frame and called out hello. The trailer’s redwood steps were slick and treacherous. The air smelled loamy, wet and dark with rot. This was a place that did not know sunlight.
She caught a whiff of propane gas coming from the trailer itself. She pressed her nose closer and confirmed this. The blinds were pulled, but the smell leaked from the slatted windows as well. Her heart lodged in her throat.
Still on tiptoe, she leaned heavily to her right and pushed her eye to a crack between the interior blinds. Two legs. A woman sitting, perhaps. She knocked again, checked back: Those legs had not moved. The surge of adrenaline seemed to start in her toes and race up toward her face, which became hot with panic.
She tested the door. Locked. Pounded on the door in frustration.
She jumped off the steps and hurried around the trailer, leaping to steal looks inside. On the far side of the trailer another, smaller door. Also locked. She pushed against the door, creating a gap between the cheap molding and the door itself. She used a credit card to open the latch. The door swung into the trailer, unleashing a sickening stink of propane. Her stomach wretched as she leaned away and gulped for fresh air.
‘‘Hurry!’’ she pleaded with herself.
She charged inside, aware that the slightest spark would ignite the gas. The quarters were small and cramped. Her eyes stung, her lungs ached. Klein sat in a chair, head slumped, eyes shut, her swollen tongue a black-violet rage. Stevie wretched bile, coughed and staggered. Her head swooned. She took hold of the woman’s body and pulled her violently from the chair. The body thumped onto the floor. She weighed several tons. Stevie shoved the woman out the door, got caught up with her and somersaulted down the steps, buried under the dead weight. Stevie grunted, heaved and thrust the corpse off her, that bloated tongue aimed at her cheek as if asking for a kiss.
Stevie vomited again, frantically extracting herself from the mud, the cold, the ooze. She struggled for her cellphone and dialed 911.
CHAPTER 44
aMoia found it difficult to fit his tall frame into the front seat of her 325i. All that money and so little room! The car was running, its heater going, the windows fogged. LaMoia opened his window a crack.
‘‘You stuck around,’’ he said. ‘‘We appreciate that.’’
‘‘I. . . I’ve never touched one before. You know? All my reporting, you just look. You never touch them.’’
‘‘You said she had something to tell you.’’
‘‘She said she had something to tell me,’’ Stevie corrected.
‘‘She was claiming the reward?’’
‘‘Trying to. Yes.’’
‘‘You told her you’d protect her as a source,’’ he guessed.
‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘Who else did you tell about it?’’
‘‘No one!’’
‘‘An editor? A cameraman?’’
‘‘No one!’’
‘‘Coincidental timing?’’ he asked. ‘‘Boldt won’t like that.’’
‘‘No, I won’t,’’ Boldt said. He carried a hot tea, handed them each a coffee, apologizing if it wasn’t still hot, but it was. After a few needed sips, LaMoia switched places with his lieutenant. Boldt rolled up the window and LaMoia headed back to the crime scene.
‘‘She panicked and killed herself,’’ Boldt said.
‘‘You believe that?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘She knew they’d get her. Said as much. If I hadn’t gotten stuck in traffic. If I’d come right here instead . . .’’
‘‘Who else did you tell?’’
‘‘No one.’’ She paused and blurted out, ‘‘You don’t believe me?’’ Her lips found the edge of the Styrofoam cup.
‘‘Doesn’t matter.’’
‘‘It does to me.’’
‘‘It isn’t relevant,’’ he said.
‘‘It is to me.’’
‘‘You’ve been sharing information with Agent Coughlie.’’ He answered her dumbfounded expression, ‘‘We hear things.’’
‘‘I didn’t share this!’’
‘‘You sure?’’
‘‘You suspect Coughlie?’’ she blurted out.
‘‘I didn’t say that.’’
‘‘You didn’t have to.’’
‘‘When there’s a lot of money at stake, we suspect everyone.’’
‘‘The INS? My god . . .’’
‘‘Coast guard. Our own people. The list is pretty long, I’m afraid.’’
‘‘You’re wrong about Coughlie,’’ she warned.
‘‘I didn’t say anything about Coughlie. It’s just that his attorneys—the federal prosecutor’s office—tried to get hold of that video today. And since I’d heard you’d seen him . . . I thought maybe—’’
‘‘Well you thought wrong!’’
‘‘How can I help if I don’t know what’s going on?’’ Boldt asked.
‘‘You stole that tape from me.’’
‘‘I made a bad decision,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘Let’s say I’d be willing to reverse that decision?’’
‘‘In return for?’’
‘‘A look at the videos you took from her apartment.’’ He cautioned, ‘‘And don’t tell me you didn’t. Being a reporter doesn’t allow you to lie to a cop.’’
‘‘I’m cold,’’ she complained, knowing when to cut bait.
‘‘We’ll get you home,’’ he offered. ‘‘Our officers will see you home.’’
She said, ‘‘So if it wasn’t coincidence, someone knew I was coming here.’’
‘‘Is that so impossible? Do you use a walk-around phone by any chance?’’
‘‘Not at the office. She called me at the office.’’
‘‘Cellphone?’’
‘‘It was my office phone.’’
‘‘No one in the room? No other calls? Cancel a dinner, something like that?’’
‘‘Nothing!’’
‘‘So maybe it was coincidence,’’ Boldt said. He added, ‘‘But it wasn’t suicide. Wasn’t even a good try at it.’’ He informed her, ‘‘Broken blood vessels in the eyes—manual strangulation. We think he may have raped her. If he did, it was postmortem.’’
She sat paralyzed behind the wheel. ‘‘You’re trying to scare me into cooperating.’’
‘‘Not at all. I’m just reporting. Funny, isn’t it? I’m reporting. You’re here investigating.’’
‘‘It’s not funny at all.’’