‘Do you have a copy of the agreement?’
‘At home with my papers. The box in my closet,’ she says.
I have the key to her place, Sarah and I watering her plants, taking care of the place.
‘Maybe he sold it or lost it?’ I’m thinking out loud.
‘Not likely. Why?’
“Cuz when the cops asked him, the night Melanie was murdered, if he ever owned a gun, he told them no. They searched the house pretty well. If it was there they would have found it.’
‘You think that was the gun?’
‘No. But I’m wondering why he lied.’
It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, Harry and I locked in a heated argument over the strategy on pretrial motions. My intercom buzzes. I pick up the receiver.
‘Dana Colby. She says it’s important.’ The receptionist.
‘What line?’
‘No. She’s here in the office.’
I tell Harry, make a face like search me, and excuse myself for a moment.
I find her out in the reception area, looking at one of the prints on the wall, Harry’s pride, a black-and-white daguerreotype of two riverboats locked in the dead heat of a race, steaming under streams of black smoke up the river from the Delta, before the turn of the century.
She hears me and turns. ‘Sorry to bother you.’
‘No problem, what is it?’
‘I’ve got something I have to show you,’ she says. ‘Can we talk someplace private?’
I lead her to the library and close the door. I offer her a cup of coffee. She says no. I pour myself a cup.
Dana breaks open her briefcase on one of the library tables and pulls out a manila folder.
‘I have some pictures I’d like you to take a look at.’
I’ve been doing this on and off for days at the federal building, looking for the face of the courier in FBI mug books, broken down by specialty; people who do bombs.
The fact that Dana has brought this set to my office tells me that maybe they think they have something hot.
‘Bear with me,’ she says.
She arranges the photographs, various sizes, facedown on the coffee table.
‘I want you to look carefully at each one,’ she says, then flips over number one, an eight-by-ten glossy. A guy, caucasian, in his twenties, white numbers on a black plaque jammed under his chin, a lot of dead in the eyes. I shake my head.
Number two is a little older, military haircut, no numbers, more clean-cut, but he rings no bells.
She turns over the third picture. Still no prize.
The fourth picture is a tiny one. She turns it over. Color on a blue background. Not a mug shot, but something from Motor Vehicles. I have to squint to see it, hold it in my hand, and suddenly I am standing bolt upright, big eyes like someone has fed me cyanide.
Dana sees my expression and stops.
‘That’s him. The courier,’ I tell her.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I could not forget that face.’
Thin lips, hair clipped like someone ran a mower over it. Eyes as cold as an Eskimo’s ass. As for age, it could be the picture of Dorian Gray, anywhere from twenty to forty-five, but in good shape, like he works out. He looks more mature in the picture than he did that day at the post office. I attribute this to the uniform he wore. The eye sees what the mind expects. A lot of couriers are college students making ends meet.
‘Who is he?’
She reaches for a notepad in her briefcase.
‘Name is Lyle Simmons, alias Frank Jordan, alias James Hays, and so on and so forth. Former Green Beret, sometime soldier of fortune. Hires himself out for odd jobs.’ The way she says this I know she’s not talking about gardening.
‘He’s under suspicion in two unsolved murders in Oregon. No convictions. Fancies himself a high-tech security type. That’s what he claims to be his legitimate business. When you can find him.’
‘Any record?’
‘He’s been arrested three times on weapons violations, two convictions. It seems they always catch him on the way to or from work, never at it,’ she says.
‘How did you find him?’
‘It wasn’t easy. We backed into him, based on your theory about Jack. The thought that maybe he hired somebody to murder his wife.’
I’m all ears.
‘We had an informant. A hanger-on around the fringes of politics in the Capitol.’ She makes a face like this is not someone you would take home to meet your family.
‘This informant saw Jack in some sleazoid bar across the river some time ago. A real dive,’ she says. ‘Not one of the places your brother-in-law usually frequents. We know. We’ve watched him. He was in tow with another man, the two of them talking over a table, guzzling beer.
‘A state legislator in a thousand-dollar suit, Vega stood out,’ she says. ‘The guy, our informant, took notes.’
‘Why would he bother?’
‘He’d been netted in the Capitol probe. A sometime lobbyist, one of the guys who ultimately led us to Jack. He was low on the political food chain and was looking to play, make a deal. He didn’t know what we were doing, but he knew we had an eye on Jack. So among other things he got the license off of Mr. Simmons’ pickup truck. It was in the notes on Jack’s case. We hadn’t pursued it at the time.’
I am sitting, saying nothing. Letting it all sink in.
‘This informant. Where is he?’
‘That’s the bad part. The man seems to have slipped off the edge of the earth. At least momentarily. The agent who was his point of contact hasn’t seen him in at least three weeks. Word is he’s on vacation, but nobody knows where. We’re looking.’
‘And where’s this Mr. Simmons?’
‘We don’t know that either. He gave DMV a false address.’
Wonderful. Having seen him kill once and try on a second occasion, he is probably staking out my house at this moment. I mention this to Dana. She tells me not to worry. They have already thought of this. Agents have the house under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, she says. They are also watching Sarah at school. If Simmons shows as much as a hair on his ass they will take him down.
Then to more professional concerns. ‘This meeting between Simmons and Jack. When did it take place?’
‘I’m glad you asked,’ she says. ‘Five days before Melanie Vega was murdered.’
I am stone cold, the kind of shudder that courses through your body and chills your brain, like a double shot of adrenaline. My theory about Jack has just taken on the flesh of reality.
After meeting in the office, I called it a day and asked Dana to join me for dinner at the house. She is fixing the salad. Sarah is helping, standing on a stool in the kitchen like she used to do with her mother. I cannot help being bothered by this. Thoughts of Nikki and the hole that is left in my daughter’s life. I have my work. Sarah has a lot of loneliness, kids at school who ask why her mother doesn’t come to class on Monday mornings, teacher’s helper, as she used to do. At seven, children don’t have a solid concept of the finality that is death. Sarah is starting to learn, a long, painful lesson.
‘Maybe you’d like to pour the dressing while I toss the salad?’ Dana’s trying to take Sarah under her wing.
‘No. You do it,’ says Sarah. ‘I want to help Daddy with the corn.’
Like most children Sarah takes a while to warm to strangers. She is starved for a mother’s affection, a real hugger. Sarah would spend twenty minutes every morning cuddling with Nikki on the couch in the family room before dressing for school. I have the corner on this market now, giving her what she craves, a father’s love, her last sanctuary against life’s insecurities. Though when my daughter now looks at me, it seems too often that she is measuring me with wary eyes, fearful that I too might leave her.
Sarah holds the bowl while I put the hot cobs of corn in with metal tongs.
‘The steaks will be a couple of minutes,’ I tell them.
‘Quick. We’d better set the table,’ Dana moving toward the cupboards. ‘Show me where they are.’ She looks at Sarah, trying to make this a game.