The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
“I’ll leave that to you two,” said McKenzie. “I got an actual date tonight.”
“Always have cab fare and be in before midnight,” said Glenn.
She deadpanned him, then turned to wink at me and walked away.
I spent an hour in the crime lab looking at the hairs and fibers through Glenn Wasserman’s scanning electron microscope until my eyesight began to blur.
I was pleased to see in the very fine autopsy photographs that a visibly large piece of Garrett Asplundh’s right index fingernail had been torn away and could possibly still be imbedded in a garment worn by his killer.
Back at my desk, it took me five minutes to call up the Squeaky Clean video clip from Garrett’s laptop and confirm that Jordan’s crescent-moon earring was very similar to the one found in Garrett’s Explorer.
I called Glenn to see if he could do a visual comparison of the latent fingerprints in the Explorer with Jordan Sheehan’s ten-set in the PD file.
“Isn’t she too squeaky clean to leave a print?” he asked.
“You tell me, Glenn.”
On my way home, I stopped by John Van Flyke’s Ethics Authority office unannounced and received a flinty look from Arliss Buntz. She admitted that Mr. Van Flyke was upstairs in his office, but unavailable. I asked her to let him know I was there but she didn’t. I sat at the rickety little table and picked up a very outdated sailing magazine.
I heard her forcefully open, then close a drawer. I heard the rattle of papers on her desktop. I turned and looked at her.
“You thought Garrett was headed for trouble,” I said.
“I saw it the moment he walked through those doors.”
“Why? What did you see?”
She fixed me with her old gray eyes. “That he had standards.”
I thought about that. He had a higher opinion of human nature than was realistic. Van Flyke appeared at the top of the stairway and motioned me up. I walked up the stairs, listening to my footsteps on the wood and the sudden loud ringing of Arliss Buntz’s telephone. I noted again how sounds carried in this drafty old Edwardian building. I wondered if the Italian baker and his wife ever got much privacy. I wondered why America’s Finest City couldn’t afford a better office for its own Ethics Authority Enforcement Unit.
Van Flyke swung his office door shut.
“We found Garrett’s laptop,” I said. I told him what we’d found on it.
“It’s ugly stuff,” said Van Flyke.
“You knew?”
“I was his boss.”
“What were you planning to do with it?”
“We wanted Garrett’s Squeaky Cleans to gather all the evidence they could gather. Then we’d see where we stood. Delicate matter. You do things just wrong and the big boys get away. You do things just wrong and the feds or the state gets into the mix and you lose control of your own battlefield. Garrett, Director Kaven, and the attorney general’s office were going to meet next Wednesday, in fact, to figure out where to go with certain investigations. Certain situations. That meeting has been rescheduled.”
“Does Kaven know what Garrett had on disc?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you take the evidence to the grand jury?”
“Kaven will insist, and I’ll concur. That’s how we’ll keep things out of the State of California’s hands.”
“Did any of the johns know what Garrett had on them?”
Van Flyke shook his head. “Not that I know of. We were waiting. Ethics does its best work when people have just enough rope to hang themselves.”
“Did you know about Garrett’s safe house?”
“No.”
I could tell by his expression that he didn’t. And by the fact that no red squares tumbled into the air in front of him. I gave him the basics about the apartment, but not the address. And I told him nothing about April Holly.
He looked at me from under his bushy brows. “I’d like copies of everything on the drive, at your convenience.”
“That will take a little time, Mr. Van Flyke.”
“Take whatever time you need, Brownlaw.”
I looked at the sparse walls of John Van Flyke’s office. No pictures. No paintings. Just a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio State and a commendation from the Drug Enforcement Administration from three years ago. The frames hung close together on a wall of freshly painted plaster, not far from a window with a peek of the blue Pacific.
“Garrett interviewed with you for a job in Florida early last year,” I said.
Van Flyke stared at me with his deep-set eyes. “Yes. We’d met at an FBI digital-evidence seminar at Quantico two years ago. He contacted me later, said he wanted to raise his daughter somewhere other than Southern California. I brought him out for an interview and ended up offering him the job — a small pay increase, but he’d be with a good bunch of people at DEA. He brought Samantha and Stella out with him. They seemed to enjoy Miami. He asked for a week to make his decision, then called and declined.”
“Why?”
“Stella decided she wanted to stay in San Diego after all. Garrett had this theory that Southern California wasn’t the best place to raise a daughter, though I told him Miami has its problems, too. Does it ever. Anyway, Garrett always seemed willing to accommodate his wife.”
“She seems... emptied.”
“She’s still heartbroken over the daughter,” said Van Flyke. “Now this.”
“If they’d have moved to Florida—”
“I’m sure that’s crossed Stella Asplundh’s mind a million times,” said Van Flyke.
I wondered what it would be like to have that dark fact inside you, ready to flash into your thoughts when you least expected it.
“What brought you to San Diego?” I asked.
Van Flyke nodded. “Garrett recommended me to Kaven and he liked what he saw.”
“So Garrett returned the favor you tried to do for him.”
Van Flyke shrugged, tapping on his desktop with his fingers. “A man’s life can change in a moment, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Something divides it into what went before and what comes after.”
I had the odd feeling that Van Flyke was talking to himself as much as to me.
“You, Brownlaw, should understand that. What I’m trying to explain is that when I came to San Diego last year for the first time, it took me all of about an hour to see I wanted to live here. There’s no place like it. This is the best big city in the country. I’ve seen them all. I still can’t figure out why Garrett would want to leave.”
I couldn’t either, but I’ve always loved my city, blemishes and all.
“Just so you know,” I said, “I got a message from Garrett’s brother, Samuel. He came down from Los Angeles yesterday. He’s FBI and next of kin. Interesting combination.”
“I know, I know, and I think so, too. Sam and I have been in contact,” said Van Flyke. “How long until you get me those hard-drive files?”
“Monday afternoon,” I said.
“I’m having lunch with Sam Asplundh at Panchito’s, one o’clock. Drop off the files there, would you?”
11
At home that Friday evening, I logged on to the FBI Drug Fire site and ran the serial number of the gun used to kill Garrett Asplundh.
The gun was originally sold in 1985 by the Oceanside Gun Rack to Carl Herbert, sixty-five, also of Oceanside. Oceanside is just a few miles from here. The gun was a Smith & Wesson Model 39 chambered for the Parabellum nine-millimeter cartridge. It is a double-action, self-loading pistol with a four-inch barrel, an aluminum-alloy frame, and an eight-round magazine. It weighs twenty-six and one-half ounces and carries a total of nine cartridges when the chamber is loaded.