Hard Fall Part 4

ON SAt.u.r.dAY MORNING, August 25 nearly two weeks after the Bernard explosion at National Airport Daggett stood in the lobby of the Seattle Westin. He spotted the cop before any introduction was made. Lieutenant Phil Shos-witz's dark eyes looked out from a pale face, the result of long hours behind a desk. He wore a b.u.t.ton-down white s.h.i.+rt and a wrinkled tie. His rubber-soled shoes showed the irregular heels of age and the scuffed toes of neglect. Shos-witz looked directly at Daggett; he, too, recognized an FBI agent when he saw one. They shook hands and made introductions.

Shoswitz had a drawn face and exaggerated, oversized brown eyes. He struck Daggett as a man who might have had a sense of humor once. In a voice unfamiliar with contest, he said, "I thought we'd head directly to Duhning. I have a car waiting."

Daggett welcomed the coolness of the Seattle air. He drank it in. The monorail pa.s.sed overhead, tourists' faces framed in the windows. A street person draped in dirty burlap walked by, unsteadily holding a steaming plastic cup of coffee. His bloodshot eyes looked right through Daggett.

"You ever been out here?" Shoswitz asked, somewhat surprised.

Daggett maneuvered to keep the man on his left. "I was a.s.signed here for a while. Back in the Bronze Age. Met my wife in this city. Met her in a bar. I even remember the name of the band that was playing Duffy Bishop and the Rhythm Dogs." For a moment, no more than a blink of the eye, he was right back there. "You remember the little things."

Shoswitz nodded, but with sadness. "Still married?"

I must wear it on my s.h.i.+rt sleeve, Daggett thought. "No," he said.

"Me neither. Comes with the job, I suppose."

"More often than not, it seems."

"And now you're married to counterintelligence, huh?"

"Closer to the truth than I'd like to admit. Counterterrorism actually. Foreign counterterrorism. My third year on this squad."

"Kids?"

"A son."

"I got two daughters. Somewhere. She get your boy?"

"No, I did."

"You're lucky. That's the worst part for me."

"How many years on the force?" Daggett asked. He felt uncomfortable sharing his life's story with a stranger, and yet perhaps it was that they shared a badge, a way of life; perhaps it was their shared failure he felt a bond between them. Shoswitz had apparently summed him up in a glance.

"Me? Too many, can't you tell?"

A beat-up car with black-walls and a bullet hole in the corner of the winds.h.i.+eld pulled up, and they climbed in.

The driver, a sergeant named LaMoia, better dressed than most cops, had a strong hand, like grabbing on to a leg of lamb. He wore his black curly hair long, and carried an air of confidence that bordered on c.o.c.kiness. Daggett and Shoswitz rode in the backseat. Daggett was struck by the changes in the city. "Some of 'em good, some of 'em bad," Shoswitz said. They took a left onto an elevated highway heading south. They discussed the first officer's report, and a preliminary conversation with Dr. Ronald Dixon, the King County medical examiner.

"Way it works at Duhning," Shoswitz said, "in case you're not familiar with it: If we want to talk to any of their employees, we do it off site, or else in a room their Security provides us. They arrange the interview, time and place, so there isn't a lot of fuss about someone being pulled away from their post. Now normally the sheriff would handle a homicide out at Duhning. Technically, it's his show, his turf the Duhning site dates back so far that it's not within the city jurisdiction. But the Sheriff's Department asked for our help, which is just fine with us. LaMoia's on loan to them. I'm overseeing, which is why I left my desk to tag along." He paused, apparently leaving room for LaMoia to contribute. Then he continued, "Bottom line: Duhning doesn't like us on site. Period. But on a homicide, they don't have much choice. Thing about it is, we like good relations, so no s.h.i.+elds, no heavy stuff. More than likely, we'll be shown around by their top guy, name of Ross Fleming. He's okay one of your FBI boys Duhning s.n.a.t.c.hed up after mandatory retirement. He'll take us in quietly. Simulation is an unsecured area, so we'll hardly be noticed."

"Unsecured? I read that in the report you faxed," Daggett said. "How's that possible with so much equipment in there?"

LaMoia answered, "Fleming is taking a lot of heat about that."

"I don't doubt it."

Shoswitz added, "You talk to him, it's understandable. He oversees security for a hundred and fifty thousand Duhning employees worldwide. A hundred-some-odd physical plants. He's working with a fixed budget, with his top priority the defense contracts, followed by aeros.p.a.ce and engineering. Simulation is essentially an advanced training facility for commercial pilots. Way Fleming tells it, until a few days ago until this it was a low-priority facility for him. They've got key codes on the doors s.h.i.+t like that but that's about it. I kinda feel for the guy; anywhere else, key codes and pa.s.s systems would be considered high security. One of their boys gets toe-tagged, and now everybody's pointing fingers. Truth-a-the-matter is I mean we all know this a guy wants to get in a place, he's gonna get in there. Plain and simple."

Shoswitz sucked some air between his teeth. "Fleming's not real happy about that either. You ask me, it just confirms it was professional. Like I said they want it, they're gonna get it. This day and age, you just gotta start waving money around."

"Any evidence of that with Ward? Money, I mean."

LaMoia answered, "No. Nothing. No change in lifestyle, no sign of any hidden accounts that we can find. Wife says everything had been perfectly normal. But I'm not buying it. You ask me, he had a piece of pie on the side."

"Why do you say that?"

"John tends to think with his d.i.c.k," Shoswitz replied, interrupting. "I'd consider the source, if I was you."

"Careful, I'm driving," LaMoia said. He jerked on the wheel to prove his point. The three of them laughed.

Shoswitz added, "A girl bends over at the water fountain .. . she better be on the pill."

"Whoa! Low blow, Lieutenant!"

"Low blow .. . See what I mean? Always s.e.xual puns with this one."

"The reason," LaMoia said loudly, attempting to defend himself to Daggett, "that I say that about Ward, is because of this season ticket of his. I mean the guy lays out some major change for a regular seat at the Mariners "

"Which, the way we're playing, shows some low-voltage intelligence in the first place," Shoswitz contributed. "Mind you, I'm guilty of the same offense. I got a season set as well."

"And then never shows up until the last inning," LaMoia concluded. "We checked that out, in attempting to confirm what his wife told us. She claims he was at the game. The person in the next seat over also a season ticket holder claims Ward seldom showed up before the ninth. On the night in question, he never showed up at all." He glanced into the mirror and searched out Daggett. "Conclusion from one who thinks with his d.i.c.k he was handing his wife a wad of s.h.i.+t while he was handing some hair pie a wad of something else."

"Any clues who she might be?" Daggett asked.

"You're not buying into this?" Shoswitz protested.

Daggett shrugged.

LaMoia saved him by continuing. "Way it looks to me is she would have to be someone at work. This guy was a twelve-hour-a-day man, know what I mean? No outside interests. So unless it's a waitress, someone like that, I'm thinking it has to be someone in Simulation."

"Oh, Jesus!" Shoswitz barked.

"But no idea who?"

"If Fleming wasn't so tough on us about providing evidence before questioning his people, we might could quiz the pies out there and see if anyone blushed, or crossed their legs, or something. But the way it is "

"I might be able to help there. If he used to be one of us, chances are he'll bend a little to help out."

"I wouldn't count on it," Shoswitz said. "This interrogation rule is policy; it comes down from above him. They've got their own little world going, over there. Same as all the multinationals around here. They make us jump through every paper hoop ever made for even the smallest of things. They cooperate, all right, but only if and when we've got a case dead to rights. Otherwise they'd rather take care of it themselves. Keep it in the family."

"So we think of some other way," Daggett suggested.

"Such as?"

"If Ward isn't at these ball games, then he's somewhere else. And," he said, addressing LaMoia, "I a.s.sume he's in his car."

"Far as we know."

"So we check the Duhning parking logs for the dates and times of the ball games. Maybe he was at work. Then we check DMV for any parking citations, going back maybe six months at a time. We pay strict attention to the dates and times of games. If we don't have enough hits there, we cross-check his credit card charges, see if he took hotel rooms or did some 'entertaining." I don't like it much, but we dig this guy up out of the grave and we spread him around until we see what stinks."

"s.h.i.+t," LaMoia said in a voice that bordered on respect, "for FBI, you're all right."

Daggett glanced out the car window. Ward's killer could be halfway around the world at the moment, or he could be in a Seattle hotel room drinking champagne, eating smoked salmon, and marveling at the picturesque litter of white sails on Elliott Bay and Puget Sound beyond.

"How about the car itself?" Daggett asked.

"Not yet," Shoswitz said. "We're a.s.suming the killer drove it off site."

"So he didn't plan on killing Ward," Daggett said. "If we're right about him being a professional, he sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't have taken a risk like that without being forced to."

"Agreed," Shoswitz said.

Steel cranes were busy stacking containers onto s.h.i.+ps. Out on the water, a c.u.mbersome ferry steamed for points unknown. The killer could be on that ferry. He could be on one of the container s.h.i.+ps. He could be anywhere. He could have Bernard's handiwork in his possession. Maybe LaMoia could drive a little faster. Maybe they should skip over the tour of the simulator and get right down to tracing the movements of Ward's car.

Shoswitz read his thoughts. "We'll walk you through the simulator area, show you where the body was found, and let you speak to Fleming. Your Seattle office has been through all this once, but they said they asked you to come out here and have a look for yourself."

"That must make you some kind of expert or something," LaMoia said.

"Or something," Daggett said. He couldn't tell if he was being teased.

"What we know for sure," Shoswitz said, "is that one of them blew lunch or dinner inside the simulator."

LaMoia added, "Lab is checking the puke to see if there's any medical reason for this guy heaving. Microbes, that kind of s.h.i.+t. If not, then one of them had a bad case of the b.u.t.terflies."

"Other than that we don't have squat, except that Fleming thinks it had to be based on inside information." Shoswitz picked at his ear. Daggett rolled down the window. His chest felt tight. The air smelled good. It reminded him of a restaurant out on the pier, and a time when he had been extremely happy. It suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago.

Daggett, Shoswitz, and Duhning's head of Security, Ross Fleming, completed a lengthy tour of the Simulation facility. Fleming, an energetic man in his late fifties, with short gray hair and hard blue eyes, wore the face of a man with a dozen secrets and chose his words carefully. He elected to observe, rather than speculate, chewing his thoughts behind an impa.s.sive face that revealed nothing. Daggett was shown the hiding place in the floorboards of the computer room, was given a "flight" in the 959600 simulator, and spent twenty minutes in Ward's office with yet another Duhning executive, going through Ward's paperwork and hoping for a lead. Fleming suggested a tour of the badge room; Daggett felt he was being asked to leave.

That was when LaMoia, escorted by an attractive black woman under Fleming's command, arrived with a precocious grin pinned on his face. "Done," he said, handing a sheet of computer paper to Shoswitz.

"Already?" Shoswitz said in bewilderment. Even he seemed surprised by the efficiency of his own troops.

"What?" Daggett asked, attempting to interrupt, but wholly ignored.

LaMoia answered his lieutenant with a confidence that Daggett recognized as success. "I phoned DMV. Ward had three unpaid parking tickets, all in the last two months.

That, and six months ago we cited and towed his Taurus for blocking a hydrant. All citations issued within a block of each other." To Fleming he said, "What saved us was the way you fellas do everything on computer. Very impressive! They got this database, Lieutenant "

"What exactly do we have?" Daggett asked.

Shoswitz handed him the green-and-white-striped computer paper.

LaMoia explained, "We searched the database for the addresses of Simulation employees first based on my natural instincts. And there she was bingo! fifth one down. Lived right in the same block as all of Ward's citations. A thirty-one-year-old redhead; single; built to take a ride, or so I'm told."

"Sarah?" the Simulation man said in registered shock.

"See?" LaMoia said, popping a fresh stick of gum into his mouth. "Everyone knows her."

The conference room held a stainless steel and gla.s.s table with eight black leather chairs, a bulletin board, a projector screen, a phone, and a Mr. Coffee that had a fresh pot waiting. They each poured themselves a cup. Daggett noted the lack of a clock. No windows. A silk ficus with dust on its leaves. The only phone had a dozen incoming lines and a box attached to it that he a.s.sumed involved encryption. This is what the military would be like if it went private, he thought.

Sarah Pritchet was a little toothy. She was scared to death and it showed in her bright green eyes and her clammy palms, which Daggett felt as they shook hands. She wore a khaki suit with a pressed white T-s.h.i.+rt and black leather heels that stretched her calves tightly. Her hair was flame red, and she had so many freckles, it looked like she had been splattered with chestnut-brown paint, giving her face a kind of wounded look. Her brow was tight as she stood at the head of the table with her arms crossed tightly.

The suit hid her body, but not from the imagination. LaMoia had made sure of that.

You hit people like Sarah Pritchet, he thought. You hit them hard and see if they try to hit back. Daggett jumped on the silence and said sternly, "Dr. Ward wasn't at the ball game Tuesday night," while she was still standing. He didn't offer her a seat because he didn't want her comfortable. He explained that both LaMoia and Shoswitz were homicide cops. That helped turn up the heat. She knew Fleming. With both time and Ward's killer slipping away from him, Daggett felt the need for victory. He loosened his tie and unb.u.t.toned his collar. It made him think of Backman; it was the same s.h.i.+rt he had been wearing that day, and the b.u.t.ton he had sewn on didn't fit the hole well. "We thought perhaps Dr. Ward had been approached at the ball game by the man who killed him, but we know now that wasn't how it happened. He wasn't at the game, Miss Pritchet."

Tearing into the mind of a woman already upset by the murder of her lover was not Daggett's idea of fun. Exposing the secrets of the dead was even less so. The two had had an affair. So what? If Ward had died in a traffic accident, no investigation would have occurred he could have died with his secret intact. As it was, it had to come out, at least to some degree, and if it had to come out, then the best thing for the investigation was to use it to advantage. Shove it into a crack and lean on it with all your weight. Eventually the crack would widen, and things would spill out.

"We could take you downtown. We could turn you over to a policewoman and she could comb your hair. We could try for other, more personal, evidence. The lab could then tell us for certain whether or not you are the woman we're after. But we're also after a killer, Miss Pritchet. He has a head start on us. Quite frankly, we don't have the time for all that lab business. So, what we're hoping for is some cooperation." We're hoping for a miracle, he thought, but didn't say it. "Without that cooperation, Miss Pritchet, the courts, the press, and Duhning Aeros.p.a.ce will all become actively involved."

"No one wants that," Fleming added. She looked as frightened of him as a young girl might be of a father.

"May I sit down?" she asked.

He had to maintain his control. He didn't answer her. He asked in an unforgiving voice, "Dr. Ward was, or was not, with you on the evening of his murder?"

Anger forced her eyes wider. Beautiful green eyes, as hot as the color of her hair. "Was! All right? Yes, he was with me," she answered. "We were at my apartment. He left at the seventh-inning stretch."

"Have a seat, Miss Pritchet." Satisfaction pulsed through him. For the first time he felt the air-conditioning.

LaMoia removed a small tape recorder from his jacket, placed it on the table, spoke the date and time into it, named the people present, and then looked up at Daggett, who began the questioning.

Sarah Pritchet spent twenty minutes answering questions about her affair with Ward and the details of the night of Ward's murder. She was dismissed, and for the next hour and a half, Daggett, Shoswitz, and LaMoia reviewed the tape and established a more formal line of questioning for the upcoming lunch hour. Fleming checked in on them periodically and rejoined them for the second interrogation.

The initial search of Sarah Pritchet's apartment, conducted by both LaMoia and Daggett with a uniformed officer at the door, provided little of interest. Daggett looked over both her telephone bills and her canceled checks. LaMoia searched her personal belongings and toiletries. If Pritchet was lying about the extent of her involvement, it would require a team of experts to prove it. Nothing they found contradicted her story.

They moved their search outside to the Pay-and-Park she claimed Ward used whenever possible, and had most likely used on the night of his murder. Daggett thought of himself as Dr. Roger Ward as he rode the apartment building's elevator down to ground level and walked to the front gate. A pair of silver windowed office buildings on the other side of 1-5 blocked any view of the Sound. A group of sea gulls split the blue of the sky. Beyond, a commercial jet flew silently over Puget Sound. Sight of the plane reminded Daggett of his purpose. However faint, he couldn't rule out the possibility that Bernard's detonator might be intended for a Duhning 959600. Or was this merely coincidence? With Bernard dead and few leads, any day now he might be pulled from the investigation. He could keep it alive only by connecting this murder to Bernard's detonators. The plane he watched grew smaller and smaller. He felt his hopes of taking the Pritchet connection one step farther diminish just as quickly.

Daggett wandered the lot, studying the oil stains, the cars, the drain, the bushes. If you're the killer, where do you hide? He turned and studied the apartment building. He studied the layout of the Pay-and-Park and its relation to the building's front entrance. Slowly, like working with a grid system, he backed up, keeping both the windows of the apartment and the front door in view. He found his way to the far corner, where a battered trailer provided decent cover. He searched the area carefully.

"What are we looking for?" LaMoia asked, joining him.

"Who knows? Gum? Pocket change? Anything the killer might have left behind."

LaMoia prowled the scrubby bushes.

Daggett found a crushed beer can but it was clearly weathered. He found an empty bottle of motor oil, and a dead sparrow that appeared the victim of a cat kill. The loose feathers had collected in a pile behind one of the trailer's deflated tires. A pair of charcoal marks on the lip of the trailer's fender caught his eye. He touched one. The charcoal smudged his fingertip.

"When did you get your last rain?" Daggett shouted out to LaMoia, who had disappeared in the bushes.

"I'll have to check, but I got a hunch it was Monday night. Might-a-been Sunday."

Daggett dropped to one knee, eyes sweeping the blacktop like searchlights. He used his ballpoint pen as a probe, exploring the gray brown feathers piled behind the trailer's wheel. He found two cigarette b.u.t.ts. One in the feathers, the other lodged between the rubber and the blacktop. Not very old, by the look of them. Dropped by a man impatiently awaiting Roger Ward? The cigarette paper was black, the filter gold expensive, by the look of them. Unusual. European? Excitement built inside him.

A few feathers at a time, he continued his excavation. Past the cigarette b.u.t.ts, behind a good deal of plumage, he discovered a small, crumpled package still wearing half of its coat of torn cellophane. More evidence? If they had had rain on Sunday, as LaMoia had said, then this box had been discarded recently. As recently as Tuesday night? Was he on to the person who had killed Ward, or some innocent bystander who had killed nothing more than a few spare minutes in a parking lot? You go with the evidence, he reminded himself. You go with what they give you, and you make sense of it later.