The phone rang and I picked it up like an automaton, my mind on the problem at hand. “Yes?”
“Kinsey?”
“Speaking.”
“I wasn’t sure that was you. This is Jonah. You always answer that way?”
I focused. “God, sorry. What can I do for you?”
“I heard about something I thought might interest you. You know that Callahan accident?”
“Sure. What about it?”
“I just ran into the guy who works Traffic and he says the lab boys went over the car this afternoon. The brake lines were cut just as clean as you please. They transferred the whole case to Homicide.”
I could feel myself doing the same kind of mental double take I’d done just minutes before when I finally heard what the name Blackman meant. “What?”
“Your friend Bobby Callahan was murdered,” Jonah said patiently. “The brake lines on his car had been cut, which means all the brake fluid ran out, which means he crashed into that tree because he rounded the curve with no way to slow down.”
“I thought the autopsy showed he had a stroke.”
“Maybe he did when he realized what was happening. That’s not inconsistent as far as I can tell.”
“Oh, you’re right.” For a moment I just breathed in Jonah’s ear. “How long would that take?”
“What, cutting the brake lines or the fluid running out?”
“Both, now that you mention it.”
“Oh, probably five minutes to cut the lines. That’s no big deal if you know where to look. The other depends. He probably could have driven the car for a little while, pumped the brakes once or twice. Next thing he knew, he’d have tried ‘em and boom, gone.”
“So it happened that night? Whoever cut the lines?”
“Had to. The kid couldn’t have driven far.”
I was dead silent, thinking of the message Bobby’d left on my machine. He’d seen Kleinert the night he died. I remember Kleinert mentioning it too.
“You there?”
“I don’t know what it means, Jonah,” I said. “This case is starting to break and I just can’t figure out what’s going on.”
“You want me to come over and we’ll talk it out?”
“Not, not yet. I need to be by myself. Let me call you later when I have more to go on.”
“Sure. You’ve got my home number, haven’t you?”
“Better give it to me again,” I said and jotted it down.
“Now, listen,” he said to me. “Swear to me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“How can I do anything stupid? I don’t even know what’s going on,” I said. “Besides, ‘stupid’ is after the fact. I always feel smart when I think things up.”
“God damn it, you know what I’m talking about.”
I laughed. “You’re right. I know. And believe me, I’ll call you if anything comes up. Honestly, my sole object in life is to protect my own ass.”
“Well,” he said grudgingly. “That’s good to hear, but I doubt it.”
We said our good-byes and he hung up. I left my hand on the receiver.
I tried Glen’s number. I felt she should have the information and I couldn’t be sure the cops would bring her up to date, especially since, at this point, they probably didn’t have any more answers than I did.
She picked up the phone and I told her what was going on, including the business about Blackman in Bobby’s address book. Of necessity, I told her as much as I knew about the blackmailing business. Hell, why not? This was no time to keep secrets. She already knew that Nola and Bobby were lovers. She might as well understand what he had undertaken in Nolas behalf. I even took the liberty of mentioning Sufi’s involvement, though I still wasn’t sure about that. I suspected that she was a go-between, ferrying messages between Nola and Bobby, counseling Bobby, perhaps, when his passion clashed with his youthful impatience.
She was quiet for a moment in the same way I had been. “What happens now?”
“I’ll talk to Homicide tomorrow and tell them everything I know. They can handle it after that.”
“Be careful in the meantime,” she said.
“No sweat.”
Chapter 26
There was still an hour and a half of daylight left when I reached the old county medical complex. From the number of parking spaces available, it was clear that most of the offices were closed, personnel gone for the day. Kelly had told me there was a second parking lot around the side that was used by the janitorial staff at night. I didn’t see any reason to park that far away. I pulled into a slot as close to the entrance as I could get, noting with interest that there was a bicycle chained to a rack just off to my left. It was a banged-up old Schwinn with fat tires and a fake license plate wired onto the rear, reading “Alfie.” Kelly had told me the building was generally locked up by seven, but that I could buzz in and Alfie would buzz back to admit me.
I grabbed my flashlight and my key picks, pausing to pull a sweatshirt over my tank tbp. I remembered the building as chilly, even more so, I imagined, if I was there after sunset. I locked my car and headed for the entrance.
I paused at the double doors in front and pressed a bell to my right. After a moment, the door buzzed back, releasing the lock, and I went in. The lobby was already accumulating shadows and reminded me vaguely of an abandoned train station in a futuristic movie. It had that same air of vintage elegance: inlaid marble floors, high ceilings, beautiful woodwork of buffed oak. The few remaining fixtures must have been there since the twenties, when the place was built.
I crossed the lobby, glancing idly at the wall directory as I passed. Almost subliminally, a name caught my eye. I paused and looked again. Leo Kleinert had an office out here, which I hadn’t realized before. Had Bobby driven this far for weekly psychiatric sessions? Seemed a bit out of the way. I went downstairs, footsteps scratching on the tile steps. As before, I could feel the temperature dropping, like a descent into the waters of a lake. Down here, it was gloomier, but the glass door to the morgue was lighted, a bright rectangle in the gathering darkness of the hall. I checked my watch. It wasn’t even 7:15.
I tapped on the glass for form’s sake and then tried the knob. It was unlocked. I opened the door and peered in.
“Hello?”
There was no one in evidence, but that had happened to me before when Dr. Fraker and I had visited. Maybe Alfie was in the refrigerated storage room where the bodies were kept.
“Heellloo!”
No response. He’d buzzed me in, so he had to be around here someplace.
I closed the door behind me. The fluorescent lighting was harsh, giving the illusion of winter sunlight. There was a door to my left. I crossed and knocked before I opened it to find an empty office with a dark brown Naugahyde couch. Maybe the guy on the graveyard shift snagged some shut-eye in here when nothing else was going on. There was a desk and a swivel chair. The outside of the window was covered with ornamental wrought-iron burglar bars, the daylight blocked out by a mass of unruly shrubs. I closed the door and moved over to the refrigerated room where the bodies were kept, peering in.
No Alfie in sight. Inside, the light was constant, occupants laid out on blue fiberglass berths, engaged in their eternal, motionless naps, some wrapped in sheets, some in plastic, necks and ankles wound with what looked like masking tape. Somehow, it reminded me of quiet time at summer camp.
I returned to the main room and sat for a while, staring at the autopsy table. My customary procedure would have been to snoop into every cabinet, drawer, and storage bin, but it felt disrespectful here. Or maybe I was afraid I’d stumble onto something grotesque: trays of dentures, a Mason jar chock-full of floating eyeballs. I don’t know what I thought I’d see. I shifted restlessly. I felt as if I were wasting time. I went to the door and looked out into the hall, tilting my head to listen. Nothing.
“Alfie?” I called. I listened again, then shrugged and closed the door. It occurred to me that as long as I was there, I could at least verify that the number Bobby’d written down was, in fact, the same as the number on Franklin s toe tag. That wouldn’t do any harm. I took the address book out of my handbag and turned to the penciled entry on the back cover. I went into the cold-storage room again, moving from body to body, checking I.D. tags. This was like some kind of bargain-basement sale only nothing was marked down.