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:
“Then what?”
“I continued to watch. With the rain and the branches and the darkness it was difficult to see. This is when I saw the shape of the man moving between the vehicles. Then the white Hummer reversed up the hill. It slipped in the wet grass and the tires appeared to spin, but then very slowly it climbed to the crest of the hill and went over. The headlights were still off.”
More yellow triangles.
“How much time passed between the flash and when you saw the man moving from one vehicle to the other?”
“Ten seconds.”
I wondered why a shooter would wait so long. Any shooter I’ve ever known would have bolted into his car and up that hill in a heartbeat. Tossing in an earring to confuse the investigation? Wiping off his prints?
“How long between the time you saw him and when the Hummer reversed up the hill?”
Sanji Moussaraf wiped his brow with a pale blue handkerchief that matched his necktie. “Perhaps five seconds. Enough time to start the engine and put it in gear. Not long.”
We stopped walking at the crest of a gentle rise. The graves stretched on for acres and acres around us and the grounds crews gathered up the flowers and tossed them into a pickup truck like trash from a sporting event. The Asplundh mourners seemed small and black and minor in this ocean of grass and stone. Van Flyke had left his tree and now stood with Sam and Stella and her parents. The morning clouds brooded above us in various shades of gray.
“As soon as I saw the flash I looked at my watch,” said Sanji. “It was exactly eight fifty-two. My watch is a Rolex and accurate. I waited for perhaps a minute, maybe two, after the Hummer left. Then I got out of my car. I climbed the fence. There was a drainage ditch full of water and I jumped across it. I went to the SUV and saw that the window was broken and a man was in the front seat, not moving. It was very bloody. I ran to the fence and climbed it again. I cut my hand on the chain link. I got back into my car and tried the engine again but it would not start. I thought about what I had seen. The tow truck delivered my car to the mechanic’s lot. The driver gave me a ride and I took a taxi home.”
He showed me a small, jagged cut on the index finger of his right hand. We started back toward the mourners and Garrett Asplundh’s freshly dug grave.
“But you didn’t call until after three that morning,” I said. “That’s over six hours.”
He glanced at me again and sighed. “I know it was wrong to wait.”
“Why did you?”
“When I got home,” said Moussaraf, “I stayed up late, drinking coffee. I thought about the immigration jail where I was taken after the September eleventh attack. It is called CCA because it is a private jail run by a private company called Corrections Corporation of America. I spent sixty nights there with no charges, no lawyer, no phone calls allowed to me, and no information about my status or future. Sixty nights, no exercise, no sun, no contact with my family or friends. My student visa was current and legal. I thought about the suspicion and disdain of the men who interrogated me about the San Diego — based terrorists. I was fifteen years old and my crime was that I attended the same mosque as one of the suicide hijackers.”
A flood of yellow triangles swept past me and vanished.
“Did you know him, the hijacker?”
“No. I had met him exactly one time. But my name and phone number were found in his address book. I remembered him as being secretive and humorless. He asked me for money for a humanitarian relief project in Afghanistan. I refused. You can imagine the suspicion of the United States government, given the economic power of my family in Saudi Arabia. I thought about many things that night. Then I went to a pay phone and called the police.”
“Did you follow the story in the papers?”
He nodded. “I knew it was important to talk to you. I suspected that what I saw could help your investigation. And Sergeant Waimrin said I could trust you.”
“Better late than never,” I said.
“Yes. I’m a junior now at San Diego State. I have an American girlfriend, though I know my family will not let me marry her. I have many friends here in San Diego. I was afraid to risk all that I have.”
We continued back toward the mourners. Only a few remained. Apparently this was the kind of cemetery where they don’t actually bury the coffin until all of the mourners are gone. The gravediggers sat on their Bobcats down the road a few yards, smoking and waiting. I watched as Van Flyke held open the limo door for Stella, her parents, and Sam, then closed it and walked back toward his car.
“There is one more thing,” said Sanji. “I saw a new white Hummer drive down Kettner when I was at the mechanic’s waiting for the taxi. It had what looked like a temporary license on the windshield. I cannot say that it was the vehicle from earlier. This is possibly coincidence, but maybe not.”
“What did the driver look like?”
“I could see nothing through the darkened windows. But there was mud on the bottom of the body.”
“Like it had climbed a muddy hill in reverse.”
“Correct.”
“What time?”
“Nine forty-four.”
“Which way was it traveling on Kettner?”
“North, toward the airport.”
Sanji pulled a small brown paper bag from his coat pocket. It was folded over once and neatly creased. “When the white Hummer was stopped at the signal, the driver rolled down his window and threw this out. Unfortunately, it was run over before I could get to it.”
He gave me the bag and I opened it. Inside was a flattened paper Higher Grounds coffee cup, the small size, complete with the padded cardboard ring that keeps your fingers from getting scalded. The plastic cover lay on top, crushed and cracked, the vents stained with coffee.
“I wonder if you can obtain DNA from this material,” said Sanji.
“Maybe. And fingerprints from the lid, if we’re lucky.”
20
The swimming pool where Samantha Asplundh drowned is small and looks harmless. It is rectangular, lined with blue tiles above the waterline, and overshadowed by two large pine trees that drop needles to the deck but make the air smell good. The former Asplundh home is located near La Mesa, which is east of San Diego and gets hot in summer. The backyard is shaded and secluded, which gives it charm. It is set downslope from and slightly to the side of the house and is all but hidden by a hedge of oleander blooming pink against the dark wood siding of the home. But the seclusion also suggests complicity in the terrible thing that happened here. The neighboring homes are set away and separated from the yard by large, sloping lawns behind chain-link or grape-stake fences, as if not wanting to get too close to a tragic place.
There was a For Sale sign in the front yard when I drove up. The home was now owned by Dr. Owen James, a dentist. His wife, Cindy, had given me a key for the padlock so I could get into the pool area.
She and two small children watched me from the house as I peered through the new chain-link fence at the pool. The fence was eight feet high and looked penal in this domestic setting. The bubbled plastic pool cover was littered with pine needles. The filter was humming and I could hear the water slurping into the catch.
I had no trouble picturing the Asplundh family here in this backyard. It looked very similar to the way it had looked in Garrett’s Fourth of July video from last year. I shot a couple of pictures with the digital camera strapped around my neck.
I turned and waved to the dentist’s children, then opened the lock and let myself through the gate. I toured the area slowly, trying to stand for a while in each of the places from which the Fourth of July party video was shot. I shot pictures from each place. I had no idea what I was looking for, other than a clearer idea of what had happened that day. And to pay respects to a little girl I’d never met and whose father I had just helped bury. But there was something more. I wanted to see this place for the same reason that I had wanted to watch and rewatch the pool scenes from “The Life and Death of Samantha” — because I had the feeling I was missing something.