“I know how that goes,” I said, and I did. He meant that somebody with a wad of brass on his uniform had decided sending the composite wasn’t going to happen. “That’s all right,” I added. “I was tied up all day yesterday on another case.”
“I can send it now,” Donner said. He sounded pissed. “Is that fax number you gave me still good?”
“Sure,” I said. “Send away.”
“While I was at it,” Donner continued, “I read through the case file, just for the hell of it. Did I tell you about the thread?”
“The black thread?” I asked. “Yes, you mentioned it.”
“The Utah State Police Crime Lab did some analysis of it. They sent word to all convents operated by the Catholic Church in the state of Utah, asking whether or not one of their members had gone missing and also asking for samples of fabric used in the sisters’ habits. Every single convent responded. None of them reported any of their members to be missing. There are only a few convents-eighteen, to be exact-where the nuns still wear habits. All eighteen sent fabric samples, but there wasn’t a single match. Not even close. So what I’m asking is this, Detective Beaumont. Are you looking for a Catholic nun who’s been reported missing? There’s nothing I’d like more than to clear this case and tell the guy who’s running the show here that he’s all wet.”
Working with other jurisdictions involves a lot of horse-trading. They give you something, you give them something in return. Donner deserved to get something back.
“We’re actually looking at the nun more as a possible doer than we are a missing person,” I said.
“No kidding,” Donner murmured.
“We’ve got a couple other cases here on our end where an unidentified nun has been seen in the vicinity of a homicide.”
“That would shed a whole new light on things, wouldn’t it,” Donner said. “So I’ll ship you that composite as soon as we’re off the phone. If you need anything else, just let me know.”
“What about the Escobar file?” I asked.
“I’ll copy what I can and ship that to you as well. What about Hammond?”
“Hammond?” I asked.
“Phyllis Elaine Hammond, the old lady Escobar killed. I’ve got some friends at Salt Lake PD. I might be able to get that file sent to you as well.”
“That would be great,” I said.
“On one condition. Promise me that if and when you resolve this thing, you’ll keep me in the loop.”
“Not only in the loop,” I said. “I’ll make sure you get credit where credit is due.”
I put down the phone and sat there waiting for the fax machine to come to life. “Did you call Ross yet?” Mel asked.
“I was stalling on that,” I admitted. “I’m not wild about telling him one of his favorite people, a criminalist he personally hired and mentored, is bent.”
“You’d better call him all the same,” Mel told me. “We may think confiscating those tampered rape kits is a bad idea, but Ross Connors may think differently about that.”
“Wouldn’t you like to make the call?” I offered.
“Do I look stupid or something?” Mel returned. “Not on your life. You do it.”
So I did. While the fax machine began clicking and clacking, I dialed Ross’s office and was thrilled to be told the attorney general was in a meeting.
“Any message?” his secretary asked.
“Naw,” I said. “I’ll get back to him later.”
“Coward,” Mel said when I hung up the phone.
I waited until the fax machine shot the piece of paper into the tray. Then I picked the composite up. Beneath it was a second fax, the ballistics information Ralph had managed to wheedle out of the authorities down in Cancun. I took both faxes along with me as I headed to the kitchen for a coffee refill. Mel must have emptied her mug at about the same time. I had put the composite down on the counter and was pouring my coffee when Mel joined me. She set her cup down and picked up the piece of paper. What I heard next was a sharp intake of breath.
“Damn!” Mel muttered.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I know her,” Mel said. “I’ve seen this woman before.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“On the trip to Mexico.”
“She was there?” I asked. “She’s one of the board members?”
“No,” Mel answered. “She’s one of the pilots-one of the two pilots on Anita Bowdin’s private jet.”
Life keeps reminding me that things have changed. “The pilot was a woman?” I asked, blurting out the question without even thinking.
“Both of the pilots were women,” Mel said pointedly.
My mistake! “What’s her name?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Mel said. “We may have been introduced. If we were, I don’t remember. A pilot is a pilot. There were two of them. They were both wearing uniforms.”
Yes, I thought, a pilot in a uniform is almost as invisible as a nun in her habit.
There were official ways to get the information I needed-grindingly slow bureaucratic ways. The situation required speed. Later on I could go back and cross the official t’s and dot the i’s. In the meantime I opened my cell phone and dialed Ralph Ames. “Any word on the ballistics stuff I sent you?” Ralph wanted to know when he answered.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d only just that moment seen it. “Not yet,” I said, “but remember the other day, when I asked you about that flight into Cancun?”
“Sure,” Ralph said. “What about it?”
“Can you get back to whoever gave you that information and ask for a little more?”
“That depends,” Ralph replied. “What kind of information?”
“I need the tail number on the plane,” I said. “I also need to know the names of the pilots-names and addresses, too, if you can get them.”
“That might be a little more difficult,” he allowed, “but I’ll see what I can do and get right back to you.”
I closed my phone. “I don’t remember asking Ralph about the flight to Cancun,” Mel said absently.
It was, as I mentioned earlier, the Ides of March. “It was when we were talking to him about everything else,” I said. “It must have slipped your mind.”
Before anything more was said, Ross called me back. Now the conversation with him, one I had dreaded, came as a welcome diversion. I spent the next ten minutes telling him what I could about what was going on in the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab under Destry Hennessey’s dubious leadership.
When I finished, he let out a long sigh. “Damn,” he said. “But you and Mel are right. Doing anything to try to secure those rape kits right now is going to set off alarms for whoever’s involved. We’re just going to have to leave them for the time being. And maybe when some of the dust settles, we’ll be able to talk Mrs. Kim into coming back and helping us sort it all out.”
“If it gets rid of whoever’s been responsible for moving her stapler, I’m sure she’ll be happy to.”
“Her stapler?” Ross asked.
But call-waiting was calling. “Sorry, Ross,” I said. “Gotta go.”
Ralph Ames was on the other line. “Here are the names of the pilots,” he said. “Diane Massingale and Trudy Rayburn. The plane’s a Hawker 800XP. Tail number is N861AB-that’s November eight six one Alpha Bravo.”
“Excellent, Ralph,” I told him. “What about addresses on the pilots?”
“Didn’t get those,” he said. “The FBO in Cancun might have some information on that.”
“FBO?” I repeated. “What’s that?” It sounded as though we had landed back in Analise Kim’s world of LIFO/FIFO.
“FBO stands for Fixed Base Operator,” Ralph explained. “They handle ground operations for general aviation-fuel, catering, landing facilities, ground transportation, car rentals, all those kinds of things. The FBO in Cancun is called ASUR. Again, that’s A-S-U-R. Got it? If the pilots purchased fuel there, they probably have a record of the credit card transaction. They would also know if there was a rental car involved and maybe even what hotel was used.”
“So FBOs are all over?”