“What new secretary?” I asked as anxiety hummed again, this time more loudly.
A strange expression passed over his face. Then he looked angry.
“I’ve sent you several memos marked private and confidential. Goddamn it! Now this is going too far.”
“I’ve gotten nothing from you,” I said.
He pressed his lips together, his cheeks turning red. It was one thing to tamper with e-mail; it was another to intercept the secretary’s scaled, classified memorandums. Not even Rose opened anything like that.
“Apparently the Governor’s Crime Commission’s gotten stuck on the notion that we should transfer your office out of Health and into Public Safety,” he told me.
“For God’s sake, Sinclair,” I exclaimed.
“I know, I know.” He raised his hand to quiet me.
This same ignorant proposal had come up shortly after I’d been hired. The police and forensic labs were under Public Safety, meaning, among other things, that if my office fell under Public Safety, too, there would be no checks and balances anymore. The police department, in essence, would have a say-so in how I worked my cases.
“I’ve written position papers on this before,” I told Dr. Wagner. “Years ago, I fought it off by preaching to prosecutors and police chiefs. I even went to the defense attorneys’ bar. We can’t let this happen.”
Dr. Wagner said nothing.
“Why now?” I persisted. “Why has this just come up now? The issue’s been dormant for more than ten years.”
“I think Representative Connors is pushing it because some of the higher-ups in law enforcement are pushing him,” he said. “Who the hell knows.”
I did, and as I drove toward my office, I got energized. I thrived on unanswered questions, on excavating for what wasn’t plain to see, on getting to the truth. What detractors like Chuck Ruffin and Diane Bray had not factored into their machinations was that they’d served to wake me up.
A scenario was materializing in my mind. It was very simple. Someone wanted me shot out of the air so my office would be vulnerable to a takeover by Public Safety. I had heard rumblings that the current secretary, whom I liked very much, was reti ‘fit . Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if Bray just happened to take his place.
When I reached my office, I smiled at Rose and bid her a cheery good morning.
“Aren’t we in a good mood today!” she said, enormously pleased.
“It’s your vegetable soup,” I commented. “I have it to look forward to. Where’s Chuck?”
lust his name gave Rose a sour look.
“Off delivering several brains to MCV,” she replied.
Now and then when cases were neurologically suspicious and complicated, I would fix the brain in formalin and have it delivered to the neuropathology lab for special studies.
“Let me know when he comes back;” I told her. “We need to set up the Luma-Lite in the decomposed room.”
She placed her elbow on her desk, chin in her hand and shook her head, eyes on me.
“I hate to be the one who tells you this;” she said.
“Oh God, now what? Just when I thought it might be a good day.”
“The Institute’s doing a mock crime scene and it appears their Luma-Lite is in for repairs.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Well, all I know is someone called here and Chuck took our Luma-Lite to them before he left for MCV”
“Then I’ll just go get it back.”
“It’s at an outdoor mock scene some ten miles away.”
“Who gave Chuck the authority to lend it to anyone?” I asked.
“Just be glad it isn’t stolen like half of everything else around here,” she said.
“I guess I’ll just have to go upstairs and do the examination in Vander’s lab,” I said.
I walked into my office and sat down at my desk. I took my glasses off and massaged the bridge of my nose. I decided the time had come to set up a rendezvous between Bray and Chuck. I signed on to Ruffin’s address and e-mailed a note to Bray.
Chief Bray:
Have some information you must know. Please meet me at Beverly Hills Shopping Center at 5:30. Park on