Puzzled, I called information for the 904 area and asked the operator what the largest city in the zone was. Jacksonville, I was told. I then asked if the zone included the town of Raiford and was told that it did. I thanked her and hung up.
I knew from the library stories on Horace Gomble that the Union Correctional Institute was located in Raiford. UCI was where Horace Gomble was currently incarcerated and where William Gladden had once been imprisoned. I wondered if Thorson's call to a computer in the 904 area code zone had any connection to the prison or Gladden or Gomble.
One more time I called information for the 904 area. This time I asked for the general number for UCI in Raiford. The exchange prefix I got was 431, the same as the number Thorson had called from his hotel room. I leaned back and brooded about this. Why had he called the prison? Could he have made a direct connection with a prison computer in order to check on Gomble's status there or to look at a file on Gladden? I recalled Backus saying he would have Gomble's status at the prison checked. Possibly, he had given the assignment to Thorson after he picked him up at the airport Saturday night.
I thought of one other possibility for the call. Thorson had told me less than an hour earlier that Gladden had been checked out and dropped as a suspect. Perhaps his call was in some way part of that check. But what part, I couldn't guess. The only thing that seemed clear to me was that I had not been made privy to everything the agents had been doing. I'd been in their midst, but on some things I had simply been kept in the dark.
The other hotel bills provided no surprises. The bills for Carter's and Thompson's rooms were clean. No calls. Backus, according to his bill, had called the same Quantico number at about midnight on both Saturday and Sunday. Curious, I called the number from the plane. It was answered immediately.
"Quantico, Operations Board."
I hung up without saying anything. I was satisfied that Backus had called Quantico as Thorson had done to return or check messages or take care of other bureau business.
Lastly, I was down to Rachel's bill and an odd feeling of trepidation suddenly came over me. It was a sense I didn't have as I had studied the other bills. This time I felt like a suspicious husband checking on his wife's affairs. There was a voyeuristic thrill to it as well as a sense of guilt.
She'd made four calls from her room. All were to Quantico exchanges and twice she had called the same number as Backus. The Operations Board. I called one of the new numbers she had called and a machine answered the call with her voice.
"This is FBI Special Agent Rachel Walling. I am not available at the moment but if you leave your name and a brief message I will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you."
She had checked her own office line for messages. I keyed in the last number, which she had called on Sunday evening at 6:10 and a female voice answered.
"Profiling, Doran."
I disconnected the call without speaking and felt bad about it. I liked Brass, but not enough to possibly tip her off to the fact that I was checking out the calls her fellow agents had made.
Done with the hotel bills, I folded them and put them back in my computer bag, then I snapped the air phone back into its cradle.
35
By the time I pulled up in front of the LAPD's Hollywood Division it was nearly eight-thirty. I didn't know what to expect as I looked at the brick fortress on Wilcox Street. I didn't know whether Thomas would still be there this late, but I hoped that because he was the lead detective working a fresh case-the motel maid killing-that he was still on the clock, preferably behind the bricks working the phones instead of out on the street looking for Gladden.
Inside the front door was a lobby of gray linoleum, two green vinyl couches and the front counter, behind which three uniformed officers sat. There was an entry to a hallway on the left and on the wall above it a sign that said DETECTIVE BUREAU above an arrow pointing down the hall. I glanced at the only desk officer not on a phone and nodded as if I was making my nightly visit. I got to about three feet from the hallway when he stopped me.
"Hold on there, partner. Can I help you?"
I turned back to him and pointed up to the sign.
"I need to go to the detective bureau."
"What for?"
I walked over to the counter so our conversation would not be heard by everyone in the station.
"I want to see Detective Thomas."
I took out my press identification.
" Denver," the cop said, in case I had forgotten where I was from. "Let me see if he's back there. He expecting you?"
"Not that I know of."
"What's Denver got to do with-yeah, Ed Thomas back there? Got one here from Denver to see him."
He listened for a few moments, creased his brow at whatever information he was being given and then hung up.
"Okay. Go on down the hall. Second door on the left."
I thanked him and headed down the hallway. Along both walls were dozens of framed black-and-white publicity shots of entertainers interspersed among photos of police softball teams and officers killed in the line of duty. The door I was told to go to was marked HOMICIDE. I knocked, waited a beat for a reply and then opened the door and stepped in when I didn't get one.
Rachel was sitting behind one of the six desks in the room. The others were empty.
"Hello, Jack."
I nodded. I wasn't that surprised to see her.
"What are you doing here?"
"That should be obvious, since you've obviously been waiting for me. Where's Thomas?"
"He's safe."
"Why all the lies?"
"What lies?"
"Thorson said Gladden was not a suspect. He said he was checked out and dropped. That's why I came out. I thought he was either wrong or lying. Why didn't you call me, Rachel? This whole thing-"
"Jack, I was busy with Thomas and I knew if I called anyway, I'd have to lie to you and I didn't want to."
"So, you just had Thorson do it. Great. Thanks. That makes it better."
"Stop being a baby. I had more to worry about than your feelings. I'm sorry. Look, I'm here, aren't I? Why do you think that is?"
I hiked my shoulders.
"I knew you'd come no matter what Gordon told you," she said. "I know you, Jack. All I had to do was call the airlines. Once I knew your ETA, all I had to do was wait. I only hope that Gladden wasn't out there watching the place. You were on TV with us. That means he probably thinks you are an agent. If he saw you come in here he'll know we're running a setup."
"But if he was out there and close enough to see me, then you'd have him now, right? Because you've got a twenty-four-hour watch for him on the outside of this place."
She smiled thinly. I had guessed right.
She picked a two-way radio up off the desk and called her command post. I recognized the voice that came back. It was Backus. She told him she was coming in with a visitor. She then ended the call and stood up.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"The command post. Not too far."
Her voice was curt, clipped. It was cold toward me and I found it hard to believe that I had made love to this woman less than twenty-four hours earlier. It was as if I was a stranger to her now. I kept quiet as we walked through a back hallway of the station and to an employee parking lot in the rear where she had a car waiting.
"I've got a car out front," I said.
"Well, you'll have to leave it for now. Unless you want to stay on your own and keep doing the cowboy shit."
"Look, Rachel, if I hadn't been lied to this might not have happened. I might not even have come."
"Sure."
She got in and started the car and then unlocked my door. It always annoyed me when people did that to me but I didn't say anything when I got in. She headed out of the lot and up toward Sunset Boulevard with a heavy foot on the gas. She didn't speak until a red light forced her to stop the car.