“So what caused it?” says Herman.
“Could have been drugs,” I tell him.
“But they didn’t find any,” says Harry.
“Some of the more complex drugs take a while. Could be weeks before they have a final report. And then there are some they don’t even look for in the routine screenings unless there’s a reason.”
“You mean roofies?” says Herman. “The date rape drug?”
“There’s that one and there’s others. It is a possibility,” I say. “Police don’t usually order them up in the normal toxicology screening.”
These are known as predator drugs, used by some perpetrators either to engage in sexual assault on the unconscious victim or to rob them. Either way the victim usually remembers nothing when it’s over.
They work like conscious sedation and in some countries are used as an anesthetic. Those under their effect lose motor coordination. Their eyes may be open but nothing is being registered in the brain. They result in near total loss of memory during the period that the victim is under the influence.
“Fits the profile of what Ives described as his symptoms,” says Harry. “They’re absorbed into the system quickly. All trace gone within at most seventy-two hours. They show up in urine tests. Here they drew only blood.” Harry’s skimming through the report. “Here it is, ‘Benzodiazepine.’ They didn’t check the box, didn’t ask for it.”
“It’s too late now,” says Herman.
“I asked Alex about the possibility the last time we talked to him, you and I at the jail,” I tell them. “The question whether somebody might have slipped something to him. It wasn’t lost on him. The thought had crossed his mind before I mentioned it. He wondered about the girl, the one who invited him to the party, and whether it was a setup. The single glass of champagne. The fact she never showed at the party. It weighed on his mind.”
“I know what you’re saying,” says Herman. “There’s no way Ives coulda driven like hell and gone out into the desert if somebody slipped him a roofie. What that means, somebody delivered him out there. Accident was staged. Is that what you’re sayin’? That whoever did it, killed Serna? So there was no mishap involved.”
I nod.
“Here we go again,” says Harry. “Why can’t we just keep this simple? Straightforward DUI with the cops showing no evidence. We push hard enough and they’ll kick him loose. Case over. We can move on.”
“They nearly did that at the bail hearing,” I tell him. “The question is why? Think about it. What do we know?”
“Not much,” says Harry.
“On the contrary. We know that Ives was shadowing Serna, not in a physical way, but he had her in the journalistic cross hairs over something. According to Alex, it’s big, but for the moment off the record. Somebody drugs him and takes him out into the desert. They smash two cars together, one of them at high speed carrying Alex, the other one with Serna inside. Was she conscious at the time?” I ask.
“What, you think they drugged her too?” says Harry. “Why not just drown her and dump her on some beach somewhere?”
“Because then there would be evidence. Somebody would have to walk in the sand to dump the body. She might struggle. You’d get bruising, maybe something under her fingernails. This way there is nothing. Major collision and fire. The bodies are burned. If it had worked out the way they planned it, both of them would be dead and we wouldn’t be involved to ask any questions.”
“You think they were out to get the boy as well?” says Herman.
“Be my guess. Given the reckless nature of the collision. There was certainly no assurance Ives would survive the impact, let alone the fire. The only reason Alex is alive is because a passing motorist pulled him from the wreck. If I had to guess, I would say that our Good Samaritan wasn’t part of their opera. Something they failed to plan for.”
“You know you’re getting paranoid,” says Harry. “Soon you’ll be seeing black helicopters.”
“Give me another theory that explains the events,” I tell him.
“OK, tell me one thing,” he says. “Both cars were moving. If both Serna and Ives were unconscious, how did they do that?”
I think for a moment, shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“There you go,” says Harry. “Problem with your theory is it doesn’t work.”
Harry goes back to the accident report, looking for something. He finds the pages and starts to read, running his finger over the paper.
“Have you talked to the kid about this?” says Herman. “The fact that somebody may have tried to kill him?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Don’t you think you should? Assuming you’re right, if they tried once, what’s to stop ’em from trying again?”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
“He can’t run,” says Herman. “Can’t hide. Bail conditions see to that.”
“Yeah. It’s all pretty convenient, isn’t it?” I tell him.
Herman arches an eyebrow. “So what do we do? Where do we go from here?” He flips open his little notebook ready to jot down whatever little tidbits I can give him.
“Two unknowns,” I tell him. “First the mystery girl. We have only a partial name and a description. Asian, very good looking, long dark hair about the middle of her back, about five foot five or five six. First name or nickname, Ben. She has a tattoo on the inside of her left thigh, red and blue, probably a dragon or the tail of a dragon.”
Herman is still scribbling on the notepad.
“I would start with the local tattoo parlors.”
“Hell, there must be seven thousand of them,” says Herman, “and that’s only on one block downtown.”
“Got your work cut out,” I tell him. “Harry and I need to go to work on Alex, to loosen his tongue regarding this hot news tip he’s got involving Serna. Makes sense that if that’s the only connection between the two of them, and if the accident was staged to trap them both, that the story he was working on is probably the reason.”
“OK, tell me this,” says Harry. He finally looks up from the report. “Says here there is no evidence of mechanical malfunction in the steering or brake systems of either car. And catch this, no evidence of any malfunction or tampering with the accelerator, cruise control, or other speed maintenance systems in either vehicle.”
“They can tell all that from the burned-out remains?” says Herman.
“Steel doesn’t burn,” says Harry. “So, if he was unconscious, on roofies, unable to coordinate his arms or his legs and there was no alteration to the steering, the accelerator, or the cruise control, how did they do eighty miles an hour and steer one car into another in the space of a small intersection? And don’t tell me they did it remotely because if they did, there would be evidence of hardware left behind no matter how small it was. The cops would have found it.” Harry looks at me across the table, tapping the page of the accident report with his finger.
It is a good question, and one for which I have no answer.
SIX
The phone on her desk buzzed. Maya Grimes reached for the receiver.
“Senator, you have a call. The man refuses to identify himself but says you know him.”
She thought for a moment. “OK, put him through. And hold my other calls and appointments.” She put the receiver down and a few seconds later it buzzed again. Grimes picked it up. “Hello.”
“Sorry to bother you at your office.”
“I told you never to call me here. You’re not calling from a cell phone, are you?”
“I’m at a pay phone. It was unavoidable. We’ve got a problem. We have to talk.”
“Not here,” said Grimes. She glanced at her watch and thought for a moment. “The bench on the north side by the reflecting pool. You know the one.”
“Where we met last time?”
“Give me fifteen minutes.” Grimes hung up the phone.
Early spring, and the Mall outside the Capitol was already bustling with early tourists and busloads of children on school field trips. Senator Maya Grimes walked quickly, trying to melt into the crowd, as unobtrusive as possible. Still, her face was recognizable to some of the passersby who stared at her and others who stole second glances as she clicked along quickly in her high heels down the path.