“I couldn’t believe you came back. I thought you were taking the boys off on a trip.”
“Turns out they had plans to go camping with friends in Yosemite and didn’t know how to tell me. When I read about the murder in the Santa Cruz papers, I told them I needed to drive back. I felt guilty as hell, but they were thrilled to death. Given the perversity of human nature, it pissed me off somehow. They could hardly get me in the car fast enough. I pull away and I’m looking in the rearview mirror. They don’t even stop to wave. They’re galloping up the outside stairs to grab their sleeping bags.”
“You had a few days together.”
“And that was good. I enjoyed them,” he said. “So tell me about you and what’s been happening down here.”
Having been through the drill with Lonnie, I laid out events with remarkable efficiency, faltering only slightly in my account of Guy. Even the sound of his name touched a well of sorrow in me.
“You need a game plan,” he said, briskly.
I waggled my hand, maybe-so-maybe-not. “Jack will probably be arraigned tomorrow if he hasn’t been already.”
“Will Lonnie waive time?”
“I have no idea. Probably not.”
“Which means he’ll insist on a prelim within ten court days. That doesn’t give us much time. What about this business of Max Outhwaite? We could try chasing that down.”
I noted the “we,” but let it sit there unacknowledged. Was he seriously proposing help? “What’s to chase?” I asked. “I tried the hall of records and voter registration. Also the city directories. The name’s as phony as the address.”
“What about the crisscross?”
“I did that.”
“Old telephone books?”
“Yeah, I did that, too.”
“How far back?”
“Six years.”
“Why six? Why not take it all the way back to the year Guy Malek left? Even before that. Max Outhwaite, could be the victim of a rip-off during his teen crime years.”
“If the name’s a fake, it’s not going to matter how far back I go.”
“In other words, you were too lazy,” he said, mildly. “Right,” I said, without taking offense.
“What about the letters themselves?”
“One’s a fax. The other’s typed, on ordinary white bond. No distinguishing marks. I could have dusted for prints, but there didn’t seem to be much point. We’ve got no way to run them and nothing for comparison even if a latent turned up. I did put the one letter in a plastic sleeve to protect it to some extent. Then I made copies of both letters. I left one set at the office, locked away in my desk. I get paranoid about these things.”
“You have the other set here?”
“In my briefcase.”
“Let’s take a look.”
I pushed the sheet back and got up. I retrieved my briefcase from the kitchen counter and sorted through the contents, returning to the sofa bed with my pack of index cards and the two letters. I slid between the sheets again and handed him the paperwork, turning over on my side so I could watch him work. He put his glasses on. “This is really romantic, you know that, Dietz?”
“We can’t screw around all day. I’m fifty. I’m old. I have to save my strength.”
“Yeah, right.”
We propped up the pillows and settled in side by side while Dietz read the two letters and thumbed through my index cards. “What do you think?” I asked.
“I think Outhwaite’s a good bet. Seems like the object of the exercise is to find another candidate, divert attention from Jack if nothing else.”
“Lonnie said the same thing. The evidence looks damning, but it’s all circumstantial. Lonnie’s hoping we can find someone else to point a finger at. I think he favors Donovan or Bennet.”
“The more the merrier. If the cops think Jack’s motivation was Guy’s share of the inheritance, then the same case could be made for the other two. It would have been just as easy for one of them to slip into Guy’s room.” He was thumbing through the index cards. He held a card up. “What’s this mean? What kind of scam are you referring to?”
I took the card and studied it. The note said: widow cheated out of nest egg. “Oh. I’m not sure. I wrote down everything I could remember from my first interview with Donovan. He was talking about the scrapes Guy’d been in over the years. Most sounded petty acts of vandalism, joyriding, stuff like that-but he was also involved in a swindle of some kind. I didn’t ask at the time because I was just starting my search and I was focusing on ways to track him down. I didn’t care what he’d done unless it somehow pertained.”
“Might be worth it to take a good hard look at his past. People knew he was back. Maybe somebody had a score to settle.”
“That crossed my mind, too. I mean, why else would Max Outhwaite notify the paper?” I said. “I’ve also toyed with the idea that one of Guy’s brothers might have written the letters.”
“Why?”
“To make it look like he had enemies, someone outside the family who might have wanted him dead. By the way, Bader kept a file of newspaper clippings, detailing Guy’s escapades.”
Dietz turned and looked at me. “Anything of interest?”
“Well, nothing jumps right out. I’ve got it at the office, if you want to see for yourself. Christie offered to let me take it when I was at the house.”
“Let’s do that. It sounds good. It might help us develop another lead.” He went back to the two letters, analyzing them closely. “What about the third one? What did Guy’s letter say?”
“I have no idea. Lieutenant Bower wouldn’t tell me and I couldn’t get much out of her. But I’d bet money it’s the same person in all three cases.”
“Cops probably have their forensic experts doing comparisons.”
“Maybe. They may not care about Max Outhwaite now that Jack’s in custody. If they’re convinced he’s good for it, why worry about someone else?”
“You want some help with the grunt work?”
“I’d love it.”
EIGHTEEN
I dropped Dietz at the public library while I drove out the freeway to Malek Construction. I hadn’t expected to be gone long, but as I turned into the parking lot, I spotted Donovan getting into a company truck. I called his name and gave a quick wave, pulling into a visitor’s space two spots away from his. He waited while I approached and then leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side.
Donovan’s face creased with a smile, his dark eyes all but invisible behind dark sunglasses. “How are you?” he asked. He slid his glasses up on top of his head.
“Fine. I can see I caught you on your way out. Will you be gone long? I have some questions.”
“I’ve got some business at the quarry. I’ll only be gone about an hour if you want to come along with me.”
I thought about it briefly. “Might as well,” I said.
He moved his hard hat from the passenger seat to the floor, then opened the truck door for me. I hopped in. He wore blue jeans and a jean vest over a blue plaid sport shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His feet were shod in heavy-duty work boots with soles as waffled as tire treads.
“Where’s the quarry?”
“Up the pass.” He fired up the pickup and pulled out of the parking lot. “What’s the latest word from Jack?”
“I haven’t talked to him, but Lonnie Kingman had a meeting with him before they took him off to jail. You talked to Christie?”
“I took a late lunch,” he said. “I must have gotten home about ten minutes after you left. I had no idea this stuff was going on. How’s it looking at this point?”
“Hard to say. Lonnie’s in the process of working out his strategy. I’ll probably take a run over to the country club later to start canvassing members who were there on Tuesday. We’d love to find someone who could place Jack at the club between nine-thirty and eleven-thirty.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said.
I’m about as perky as an infant when it comes to riding in trucks. Before we’d even reached the narrow highway that snaked up the pass, I could feel the tension seeping out of me. There’s something lulling being a passenger in a moving vehicle. In Donovan’s pickup, the combination of low grinding sound and gentle bumping nearly put me to sleep. I was tired of thinking about murder, though I’d have to bring the subject around to it eventually. In the meantime, I asked him about the business and took inordinate pleasure in the length of his reply. Donovan steered with one hand, talking over the rattle of the truck.