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:
“Play it again,” I said.
Arliss rewound the tape and played it again.
“The time and date of each conversation is written down on a log that comes with the tapes,” said Arliss. “At first this conversation caught my ear because it was Mr. Asplundh. Then I saw that it was recorded just hours before he was murdered.”
I looked at her. She was lifting her chin in defiance but I could see the doubt in her old gray eyes.
“Nobody at Ethics knows you taped this for me?” I asked.
“I would be fired immediately.”
I nodded. “But you trusted me.”
“I trusted Mr. Asplundh because of his morals. I trust you because I have no choice. Someone heard this conversation. Someone knew that Mr. Asplundh would be at the bridge. Did you catch that? ‘I’m going to the bridge before, just to say a prayer.’ He went there and was killed.”
“Maybe he was followed there,” I said.
Arliss Buntz hit the “eject” button, and the cassette tape clattered out of the player and onto my table.
“Garrett Asplundh?” she asked. “You have no idea how keen his senses were. He was not followed. He was betrayed. By someone who heard that conversation. Someone who knew which bridge he was talking about.”
“Who is authorized to monitor Ethics Enforcement calls?”
“Kaven, the chief of police, the mayor, and each of the city councilpersons,” said Arliss. “But don’t forget the unauthorized ears that are always close by — there are all the office staff and aides to the councilmen, there are all the assistants and underlings to the chief, and the mayor’s staff. There are secretaries and office managers and even janitors. There are scores of people with ears, Detective Brownlaw. And after Director Kaven collects and organizes the tapes, they are sent back down the chain of command to Van Flyke, the city attorney, and certain police department captains.”
“Fellowes?” I asked.
“Yes, and Villas and Sutherland.”
“What about Sarvonola?” I asked.
“Unauthorized,” said Arliss. “And untrustworthy.”
She lifted the tape recorder and held it against her chest. “I never thought that Mr. Asplundh should have been reconciling with his wife,” said Arliss. “She brought out his weakness rather than his strength. With her he lost his reason and his sharpness. His heart went soft. I saw them together. I heard them talk. I know.”
“Thank you.”
“If I’m fired for this, I’ll know who betrayed me.”
“I won’t betray you.”
“It’s out of my hands now.”
I held open the back door for her. She marched through my garage toward the street, tape player held tight.
I watched her drive away and wondered at her courage and at her unusual devotion to Garrett Asplundh.
I called Stella, got a busy signal, and tried again a few minutes later. I apologized for calling on the day her husband was buried, especially so late, but told her I had an important question or two for her.
“Ask them,” she said.
“It has to be face-to-face, Mrs. Asplundh. I’ll explain it then.”
“Make it Stella,” she said. “Meet me at Higher Grounds. People keep calling. I’d love to get out of this apartment for just a few minutes.”
I made a copy of the tape, then opened the floor safe and stashed the original. At first the old familiar disbelief swept over me when I saw again that all of Gina’s jewelry was gone. Then came the familiar spike of anger, followed by the idea that I could bargain her back to me if I could only figure out what to offer her.
But by the time the safe lid clanked shut I realized I would never get her back. The idea came with sudden, awful finality. I hadn’t felt helpless since my fall, but a terrible helplessness swept over me again. I felt as if I had been shrunk down and locked in the safe, where I could do nothing but wait.
24
Higher Grounds was crowded and a little loud. I looked at the people who worked there and wondered who had served the driver of the Dream Wheels Hummer the night of the murder. I was looking forward to walking in with Kathy Iles’s sketch and finding someone who had seen our man.
We got coffees to go and walked down Fourth. Stella had traded her funeral dress for jeans, a long sweater with big pockets, and a red baseball cap. She looked pale and hollow, much as you would expect of a woman who had just buried her husband. I felt the same way myself.
I told her that I’d gotten an interesting tape recording in the mail.
“I want to hear it.”
“My car’s right there.”
I played the tape once, then again.
She stared straight ahead through the windshield.
“You told me about that conversation once,” I said. “Now tell me again.”
“March eighth,” she said. “Around four-thirty. I was at home and Garrett was at his desk. It was... just exactly what it sounds like. Two people trying to lay the past to rest and create a new future.”
I rewound the tape. I thought that if someone had monitored the Asplundhs’ four-thirty conversation, he would realize that Garrett would soon be alone and vulnerable under a bridge in the dark. Figuring that driving his own vehicle there might be too risky, the killer had taken a taxi down to Dream Wheels and rented the Hummer at five-fifteen.
But the name of the bridge had never been mentioned. It would have to be someone who knew their story and their attachment to the Cabrillo Bridge.
She looked at me. “How would they know which bridge?”
“You told your friends about the bridge because it was romantic. Assume that Garrett did the same. Friends tell friends, stories get repeated. Enemies hear things. Enemies collect things. Years pass. Anybody could know, Stella.”
She closed her eyes and let her head roll back against the rest. “Okay. Say that’s what happened. Someone knew the story and the bridge. Someone used that conversation to kill Garrett. Why would they send a tape of it to you?”
“They’re either trying to confuse me or trying to help,” I lied.
I saw the red squares hovering in the space between us. I didn’t want to lie to Stella, but I had Arliss Buntz to consider.
Stella opened her eyes. “This tape doesn’t really surprise me. For the last few months, I’ve felt watched and listened to. It’s been very strange.”
“Where?”
“On the street. In my car. Even in my home. Crazy? Maybe. Maybe some of Garrett’s paranoia rubbed off on me.”
“Have you ever seen anyone watching or following you?”
“No,” she said. “But I’ve felt as if I’ve made him turn his face away, like he knows I’m feeling watched and he stops. Like I’ve just missed seeing him. Garrett and my landlord are the only people I even told about it. The landlord lives on the ground floor of the building. I figured he could, you know, keep an eye out.”
“Is this watcher a man?”
“I think so.”
“You should have told me a lot sooner.”
She gave me an odd look, part strength and part surrender. “I didn’t want you to think I was losing it. Now I don’t care if you think I’m losing it.”
I ejected the tape from the player.
“Come up to my apartment,” she said. “There’s no reason we have to sit in a cold car.”
Stella put the tape in a player. She tossed her baseball cap on a chair and we sat at opposite ends of the big purple couch with the gold piping. There was only a corner lamp on, and one distant light from the kitchen, and it was strange to sit in the near darkness and listen to Stella Asplundh talk to her dead husband.