“They must be desperate,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you dig a hole, you fall in. That’s what I used to tell the unfortunate souls who ended up in my court.”
“Until you fell into your own.”
“Who are you? Roland F. Christ?”
“I’m just a PI, locally sourced and hopefully sustainable.”
“Life is surprise.”
Virgil hit the lights and the glowing arachnids receded into the pebbled flooring of their cages. Up close and in good light his face looked like a wrinkled map, cross-hatching and contradictory lines in all directions.
“You want enemies of Dalton and Natalie?” asked Virgil. “You were right about Dalton’s older brother. Kirby’s the one who took up with her first. He never got readjusted quite right after she went with Dalton. Nobody falls in love like a Strait.”
I bumped down the mountain drive from Virgil Strait’s rock castle, followed by one of his watchdog trucks with the rifles in its window. Howard Wilkin, my contact and sometimes ally at the Union-Tribune, called, his voice cutting over the radio speakers loud and clear.
“I’m working on a story about Natalie Strait,” he said. “But nobody knows how I can get in touch with her. Do you?”
“I saw you out in Valley Center,” I said.
“They’re treating it as a crime scene,” said Wilkin. “And asking me to stand down for now. Asking as a reporter, Roland, what were you doing there?”
“I got a tip, Howard. Just like you probably did.”
“From Dalton?”
“Maybe.”
“It would make sense, with him being in Sacramento.”
“What did the crime lab find in her car?” I asked.
“They won’t say anything. They won’t even confirm that the vehicle belonged to Natalie Strait. My contact at the DMV came in handy. Help me out here, Roland.”
“They’re telling me less than they’ve told you,” I said.
“But you got a lot closer to the crime scene team than I did. They must have shot two hundred pictures. What did you see in there?”
“Nothing unusual that I could see. I can’t comment for publication, Howard. You know that.”
“Do you have a number for her? For Natalie Strait?”
“Talk to Dalton.”
“He said talk to you.”
I had expected more of Dalton. Maybe name, rank, and serial number. And some good old-fashioned political evasion.
“I’ll ask her to call you when I find her, Howard. Let’s let the cops handle this for now. Give the Straits their privacy.”
“He’s the assemblyman for the eighty-second district, Roland. People should know if his wife has been the victim of a crime.”
“Nobody’s saying that, Howard.”
“That’s what bothers me. I know something’s wrong here. The Straits have been living pretty big for years now. I’m the only media on this story, and this could be big with the election six months out. I need more than an abandoned car. You owe me from last year.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
I ended the call, turned the radio back on, made a fist and tapped it on the steering wheel. I called Dalton to find out why he’d handed me over to Wilkin, and to find out what, if anything, Lew Hazzard of the Special Enforcement Detail had told him about Natalie’s vehicle. The call went to message.
Next I called Dalton and Natalie Strait’s three current credit card companies, gave Dalton’s account numbers, PINs, passwords and security codes, and the last four digits of his social security number. Yes, I was calling from a new phone number. Asked for balances and recent activity. The balances for April — the most recent full month of activity — were $5,705, $4,013, and $7,922, and all of the monthly minimums were past due. None of the credit cards had been used in the last four days. Would I like to speak to an account representative?
I logged in to my mobile IvarDuggans account to pry into Dalton and Natalie Strait’s credit history. The security site doesn’t have access to current balances, but they do have a list of credit cards, both active and closed, that are “associated” with practically any individual who has ever used a charge card.
Dalton and Natalie Strait’s information popped right up. I noted the card issuer and account numbers, logged off and started calling.
By the time I hit Alpine, I’d come up with three more active credit cards not listed by Dalton but used by both Straits and discovered balances totaling $37,039.
I clicked off, wondering how Dalton’s hundred grand and Natalie’s up-and-down commissions in the fickle car market could cover mortgage, private college expenses, taxes, insurance, food, utilities, gambling, everyday expenses, and roughly $55,000 in credit card debt.
A few minutes later the phone went off again, this time with a San Diego County Emergency Alert:
An explosion has been reported at the San Diego County Administration Center downtown. Multiple injuries have occurred and first responders are on scene. Authorities are asking all citizens to stay away from the building, which is located at 1600 Pacific Highway…
Which is about two blocks from the city building where the bomb addressed to the mayor had gone off five days ago.
Eight
By the time I got to the city, the waterfront was barricaded and the traffic was inching through downtown. I pulled into an airport parking structure on Kettner, paid the attendant for a few minutes on the rooftop, and wound my way up four stories to the top. Plenty of spaces. I stood with the breeze in my face, looking out at the airport and the tuna fleet and the county center. Raised my binoculars and saw the stately old building surrounded by emergency and media vehicles, SDPD prowlers, and fed and state vehicles of all description. Fire companies and medics still deployed, crews standing outside their engines and trucks. A helicopter hovered low. Various personnel came and went through the cop-clotted entrance, with attitudes of purpose but not emergency. Just doing their jobs now.
I called Lark, not expecting him to answer.
“I’m in the county building,” he said. “You have twenty seconds.”
“Another mail bomb?”
“But stronger. Blew three fingers off the supervisor’s aide who had gone in on a Saturday morning to take care of a few loose ends before a vacation. She’s going to live.”
“Who was it meant for?” I asked.
“Supervisor Holder. The package originated at a FedEx franchise in Ramona. Time’s up, and mum’s the word, Roland. Over and out.”
I looked down on America’s Finest City, at the emergency crews and law enforcers traipsing in and out of the county building. I glassed the cruise ship terminal and Tuna Harbor and Marina Parks and the Midway. The statue Unconditional Surrender. The convention center and the tall hotels. A sleek black helicopter angled down from the blue. My city, America’s finest or not. My turf now. My beat.
I had met Justine in one of those hotels, at a tedious Christmas party that changed my life. That memory drifted across my mind’s eye like a movie clip as I lowered the binoculars and looked at the hotel and I saw her face as it had once been before I’d spoken a word to her. The memory clip played for a moment, pleasantly, but was soon overtaken by another, in which a little pink plane fell into a dark ocean and was swallowed up. That plane will still be crashing on the day I die.
All we control is the volume knob. How much to remember? How much to forget?
I glassed the county building again. The sleek black helo lifted back into the sky, its mission apparently complete. A white SUV rolled to a barricade gate and a cop looked inside and waved it through. I wondered at an America where people blew fingers off of other people they believed to be enemies because they held certain beliefs or opinions. An America where a thousand differing ends now justified the means. An America of open-carry hate.