“Would you like another observation?”
“Fire away.”
Fiske held open the car door and pointed at the inside part of the doorjamb, the section that you don’t see when the door is closed. Chandler fumbled for his glasses, put them on and saw what Fiske was pointing at. Chandler slapped on a pair of latex gloves he pulled from his coat pocket, gently lifted the small piece of sticky plastic off and held it in his palm, observing it carefully.
“Your brother just had his car serviced at Wal-Mart.”
“It recommends that the next oil service takes place in three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first. They put the future date and future mileage reading on that sticker as a reminder for when you’re supposed to come back in. According to the date on that sticker, and subtracting out three months, my brother went in for service three days before his body was found. Now look at the mileage for when the next service is recommended and subtract three thousand miles from it. That’ll give you approximately what the odometer should read right now.”
Chandler swiftly did the math. “Eighty-six thousand, five hundred and forty-three.”
“Now look at the Honda’s current odometer reading.”
Chandler leaned back in the car and checked. Then he looked back at Fiske, his eyes slightly wide. “Somebody put about eight hundred miles on this car in the last three days.”
“That’s right,” Fiske said.
“Where the hell did he go?”
“The sticker doesn’t have which Wal-Mart he used, but probably it was one close to his home. You should call around, they might be able to tell us something useful.”
“Right. Can’t believe we missed this,” said Chandler. He slipped the plastic sticker in a clear zippered bag he pulled from his coat pocket and wrote some information on the outside of it. “Oh, and John?”
“Yeah?”
He held up the zippered bag. “No more tests, okay?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
A half hour later, Chandler and Fiske walked through the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court.
Inside, the place was large and intimidating. What really engaged Fiske’s attention, though, was the quiet, so extreme as to be unsettling. It seemed to border on the hallucinatory — trying to imagine a functioning world right outside the doors. Fiske thought of the last very silent place he had been today: the morgue.
He said, “Who are we supposed to be meeting?”
Chandler pointed to a group of men walking purposefully down the hallway toward them. “Them.” As they drew nearer, their collective footsteps became the boom of cannon in this acoustical tunnel. One of the men wore a suit; the other two were in uniforms and carried sidearms.
“Detective Chandler?” The man in the suit extended his hand. “I’m Richard Perkins, marshal of the United States Supreme Court.” Perkins was about five-nine, skinny, with the stuck-out ears of a boy, and white hair combed straight over his forehead like a frozen waterfall. He introduced his companions. “Chief of Police Leo Dellasandro; his second-in-command, Ron Klaus.”
“Good to meet you,” Chandler said, and he watched Perkins look expectantly over at Fiske. He added, “John Fiske. Michael Fiske’s brother.”
All of them rushed to provide their condolences.
“A tragedy. A mindless tragedy,” Perkins said. “Michael was so highly thought of. He’ll be sorely missed.”
Fiske managed an appreciative demeanor in the face of all this instant sympathy.
“You’ve locked up Michael Fiske’s office, as I requested?” Chandler asked.
Dellasandro nodded. “It was difficult, because he shared it with another clerk. Two to an office is the norm.”
“Let’s hope we won’t need to keep it off limits long.”
“We can meet in my office if you’d like and go over your agenda, Detective Chandler,” Perkins offered. “It’s right down the hallway.”
“Let’s do it.”
As Fiske started off with them, Perkins stopped and looked at Chandler.
“I’m sorry. I was assuming that Mr. Fiske was here for another reason unrelated to your investigation.”
“He’s helping me out with some background information on his brother,” Chandler said.
Perkins looked at Fiske with what Fiske gauged as unfriendly eyes.
“I didn’t even know Michael had a brother,” said Perkins. “He never mentioned you.”