Dying Embers (28 page)

“I was inside, I don't know.” I shrugged. “The explosions were loud. I heard a lot of shooting. I don't know about the van. I was here. I talked with you in the street last night. Are you telling me that my janitor is stalking me?”

“All right,” said Van Huis. “I can play this, too. You don't have a detective license. You don't have any business walking around with that pistol on your hip.”

“This is private property, and I am now the Security Director for Light and Energy Applications.”

“I catch you on the street wearing that pistol and I am going to run you in. I don't care about your weasel-ass attorney or how many feds pop out of the woodwork.”

The telephone rang. Marg picked it up. “Security, Light and Energy Applications,” she said.

I always knew she was listening.

“Yes, he's in,” she said. “Just a moment please.” She announced from her desk, “Pete Finney on line one.”

“It's my pet weasel,” I said. “You want to talk to him?”

“Just tell him you're going to need bail.”

“If I go out there unarmed and get killed, who are you going to get your answers from?”

“Art,” Van Huis said, “I'm a policeman. I'm going to try to see that you don't get killed—even if you won't help me.” He turned to walk out of the office.

“Jerry,” I said. He looked over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Van Huis nodded and stepped through the door.

“Forgot your paper,” I said.

“Already read it.”

I picked up the telephone. “Pete, I'm glad you called. Something's come up that we need to talk about. It concerns the Lambert case.”

“Good,” said Finney. “Scott Lambert is the reason I called. I need you to join me for a conference with Mr. Lambert this morning. Can you be at the county jail in an hour?”

“Are you at your office?”

“Yes, I have a couple of small matters to clear up.”

“Great, I need a ride,” I said.

“I have a motion with Judge Barton this afternoon.”

“Back up!” I heard Van Huis growl from the door to the hallway. “No.
You can't wait in the office. Clear the doorway.”

“I'll fend for myself when we're done,” I told him. “From the sound of the local police, I may not need a ride back.”

“We might find that advantageous. Scott was set upon by a gang of hooligans in the jail last night.”

• • •

“All very interesting, Arthur,” said Finney—made it sound like “Awtha,” minds his r's in the courtroom, though—”but it's hearsay. And then the prosecutor asks why this man cannot be called as a witness and you answer, ‘I am ever so sorry sir, but someone blew his head off.'”

Finney nailed the brakes and swerved right to avoid a left turner. “Heathen,” he said.

“Had his signal on, Pete.”

“Wouldn't be a problem if Americans drove on the proper side of the street.”

“No, I guess then he'd have been turning right.” I hooked up my seat belt.

“Exactly,” said Pete. “But we have to deal with things such as they are. In Mr. Lambert's case, he had an ugly scene with the deceased just prior to her violent demise and the authorities recovered his hair from her hand.”

“He was set up and the hair was planted.”

Pete looked in the mirror. “Bloody carnival parade! We've two of those news vans and a string of autos following us.”

“People hoping that I'll tell them what the feds won't.”

“I read the story this morning. Odd they would say the man was killed in a ‘clash with federal agents.'”

“Why's that?”

“They are usually very particular about calling them Special Agents.”

“You read like a lawyer,” I said.

Pete turned his face to me. A wry smile wafted over his lawyer's mask and dissipated like smoke. Pete's half century had begun to bulge in his suit, and show up gray in his bristle thicket eyebrows and carefully trimmed beard.

He didn't ask the question. He turned back to the business of driving and said, “We need the man who witnessed the murder of Ms. Frampton and soaked Lambert's hair in her blood so it would stick to her palm.”

“Not like we can just snap off a subpoena,” I said. “But Hank Dunphy's
available and he is in this up to his armpits.”

“It was Mr. Dunphy's passport and ticket Scott Lambert tendered when he was apprehended at the airport. The jury wouldn't believe Mr. Dunphy if he personally confessed to the murder on the stand.”

“They never check my passport,” I said.

“Mr. Lambert used the passport as identification at the boarding counter.”

“They don't look even vaguely alike.”

“Scott charged up to the counter at the last minute and put his thumb over the picture,” said Finney, exhaling the words as if he were confessing his own stupidity.

“He should have just walked away.”

“The police were at hand.”

“Like they knew he was coming?”

“Probably,” said Finney. “He has had to forfeit his bond.”

“Guess it wasn't the bond agent that ratted him out.”

“Mr. Lambert posted a half-million in cash.”

I levered the electric window switch of Pete's brand new silver Lincoln. Nothing happened. “Something wrong with the window?”

“Sorry, locked out—kids, you know. I can put the air on if you like.”

“I thought I'd have a smoke before we got to the jail.”

“Really rather you didn't,” said Pete. “We can loiter in the parking lot while we put your pistol in the boot.”

“I left it at the office,” I said and made a pat inventory of my pockets. “Doesn't matter, I don't have any smokes. So what's this about Lambert getting the shit kicked out of him?”

Finney put the blower on. “Chingos,” he said. “What do you know about them?”

“What I read in the paper,” I said, “some Hispanic gang, supposed to be linked to the Mexican Mafia. I don't know as that's true.”

“They dusted him up. I don't know how bad. They want twenty thousand dollars for protection.”

“Bad idea,” I said. “Any amount of money paid to them would just turn out to be a down payment. Have them put Scott in ‘punk city.'”

“Fred Timmer is the assistant prosecutor on this. I talked to him about segregation, but he passed the matter off to the sheriff. He said that the operative policy was that Mr. Lambert would have to identify his attackers.”

• • •

Fred Timmer—six foot, but narrow at the shoulders and pigeon chested—stalked about the hallway outside the interview room wearing a tan polyester suit and carrying a cardboard index file tucked under his arm. Seeing me, he heated up until the red in his thermometer showed in his face.

“Listen, Hardin,” he said, “you should be in this jail, not walking around the hallways.”

“Mr. Hardin is the Security Director for Light and Energy Applications,” said Finney. “He will be working on Mr. Lambert's behalf.”

“Please tell me you'll put him on the stand,” said Timmer.

“You may ask anything you like, so long as you have foundation.”

“I have questions about his morals and the reliability of his testimony.”

“That's up to the jury,” said Finney. “I may need to confer with you after we have spoken with Mr. Lambert.”

“I'll be here,” said Timmer, his face serpentine.

Lambert, wearing green jail scrubs, sat with his right hand cuffed to a metal ring bolted to the table. Both of his eyes had been blackened, his left open only a slit, revealing a yellow iris awash in a sea of red. His left upper lip bulged, swollen so large that his lips would not come together on the right. A gauze patch covered his right cheek.

“They beat the shit out of me. I'm passing blood.” said Lambert, adding a pf sound to his esses and revealing a gap in his teeth.

Pete dropped his satchel on the floor and turned on his heel, his eyes electric. He rapped on the interview room door with his fist. The door came open and he said, “Have you seen Mr. Lambert?”

“Want to confer already?”

“My client has been savaged.”

“This is the jail,” said Timmer. “It's full of criminals and perverts. It's where they belong,” he added in a louder voice. In a conversational tone he went on, “We have lodged our displeasure with the sheriff.” And louder again, he said, “But things happen, don't they?”

“Is that a threat?” said Finney, his tone even and inquisitive.

“Not at all,” said Timmer, his mouth full of innocence.

Finney pulled the door shut and stepped over the bench on our side of the table.

“He said if I plead guilty,” said Lambert, lisping the t's around his missing
teeth, “that I could be alone in a safe cell.”

Finney sat, dug a yellow pad out of his satchel, and smacked it on the table like he was killing a bug. “He talked to you?” Finney plumbed a pen out of his pocket. “I can't believe it! The man has lost his mind!”

“Not exactly,” said Lambert. “He was in the room when they brought me in. The guard let him out and he said it. You know, from the hallway through the door before it closed. Like he was talking to the guard.”

Finney scratched notes. Without looking up he said, “I understand that you need only identify your attackers to be placed in segregation.”

“I told them who did it,” said Lambert, sitting straight and making his eyes as wide as he could. “They put me back in the cell with them and this is what they did.” He peeled the bandage off his cheek and revealed a deep cigarette burn. “Said it meant I was their bitch. If I didn't pay, they'd pass me around.”

“You can't pay them,” said Finney.

“Then tell that bastard in the hallway he has a deal. These guys are going to kill me.”

Pete put his pen away. “Big prostate, small bladder,” said Finney, “I should have stopped by the restroom before we came up.” He walked to the door and knocked to get out.

When the door closed behind him I said, “Well, we're a matched set.”

“Not hardly,” said Lambert. “You got to defend yourself. I can't do anything. There's too many. They're all over me. If I could get a bunk I'd be afraid to sleep.”

“Pete's right. This isn't a good idea. It's just the first of many larger payments.”

Lambert shook his head.

“Fine,” I said. I wanted to rub my face but knew better. “Who, how, when, and where?”

“Hank Dunphy.”

Hank Dunphy? Are you nuts?
I let him finish.

“You met him at the airport. He'll bring the money to your office. Twenty thousand in tens and twenties. Then tonight, at ten o'clock, you take it to Milwaukee Street, by the zoo. There's a pedestrian tunnel under the expressway. Wear a Detroit Red Wing T-shirt and ball cap. Look for a man in a Detroit Lions T-shirt.”

“I think you need to look long and hard at Mr. Dunphy.”

Lambert waved his free hand. “I know you had a misunderstanding, but
Hank Dunphy is very loyal. We were at BuzzBee Batteries in the R&D department together.”

Pointless.
“Scott, I'll do what you ask, but you have to listen to Pete. In the meantime I have a lead on the person who killed Anne Frampton.”

“Who was it?”

I shook my head. “I was told that it was a woman.”

“Anne was a lesbian.”

“You knew?”

“Certainly.”

“Why on earth did you ask me to find her?” I tried to conceal my anger.

Lambert looked away. “I had to find her. We did a physics project together in college. BuzzBee Batteries is challenging my patents. They said I developed the technology while I worked for them and stole it. Anne knew the truth.”

“She had a sculpture. Looks like a ship sailing out of a brick wall. When the light hits it, a sea captain appears.”

Lambert snapped his head toward me and made the happiest smashed face I have ever seen. “
The Dutchman?
You saw it?”

“It's on the mantel at the Frampton estate.”

“That's all I need. I asked Anne about it, but the woman she was with got angry and started shoving me.”

“She use a voice synthesizer?”

“She didn't say anything. She just shoved me and threw plates of food. They escorted me out of the restaurant. Christ, I thought I'd been invited.”

“Hank Dunphy sent you there?”

“Wasn't his fault. Somebody called and said they were from your office.”

“That wasn't the deal, was it? I was to give her your telephone number. Period.”

“You can't understand how important this is. Programmable machines the size of molecules and absolute conductivity at ambient temperatures.”

“I bought one of your cameras,” I said. “Amazing.”

“The science is light years in front of the engineering. This year I can print batteries onto greeting cards. In five years I'll be able to paint a battery onto an automobile like a primer coat. The finish coat will be photoelectric. You can guess the rest.”

“I just like the idea of changing the color of my car with a switch,” I said. “But somebody with a lot of money has bought some very heavy hitters …”

The door opened. Finney's voice came from the hallway. “Mr. Hardin, we need you to come out here.”

I shuffled out to stand in the open door. My foot had much improved but wearing only one shoe gave me an odd gait. I found Pete in the company of Timmer and two armed deputies. Pete stood with his hands folded, looking at the floor. The deputies looked bored. One of them had his handcuffs out.

He said, “Are you Arthur Hardin?”

I looked at Finney. He would not raise his eyes to meet mine. “Don't tell me, let me guess,” I said. Timmer's face went stupid, which in his case I believe passed for smug.