Fair Play (All's Fair Book 2) (7 page)

They lay spooned together on the damp mattress. Tucker’s half-hard cock still rested possessively inside Elliot’s body. One hand rested on Elliot’s hip, and Elliot’s hand rested on Tucker’s, keeping that contact. This was a concession to Tucker, who liked to cuddle after sex. And, if he were totally honest, Elliot no longer found it a hardship either.

Elliot said sleepily, “I love you too.”

The smile was back in Tucker’s voice. “Even if I have to wring it out of you.”

Elliot opened his eyes, surprised. He turned his head to see Tucker’s face. “You don’t have to wring it out of me. I love you. You do know that, right?”

Tucker nodded. Smiled with such tenderness that it made Elliot’s chest ache. “I know.”

“I’m not good at saying it. But I feel the same as you.”

“You’re terrible at saying it,” Tucker informed him. “But yeah, I still know.” He pretended to consider. “Though I might need you to prove it to me again later.” He rocked his hips and Elliot groaned in pained pleasure.

Chapter Ten

“I almost forgot,” Tucker said, returning to bed on Sunday morning.

Eyes still shut, Elliot made an inquiring noise. Tucker laid something light on his bare chest, and Elliot opened his eyes. He picked up the folder.

“Some guys say it with flowers,” Tucker said. “I bring you arson reports.”

Elliot smiled absently, scanning the report.

Based on char patterns, pour patterns, rate of travel and a host of “natural factors,” the investigator had gone on the record concluding that the origin of the fire was criminal and attributable to an incendiary device, most likely an old-fashioned alarm clock, a homemade fuse, low-power explosives—probably the combination of potassium chlorate, charcoal and sulfur—placed in Roland’s garage next to a couple of cans of paint thinner.

Right out of
The Anarchist Cookbook
, first edition.

“So that answers that. The fire was deliberately set.”

“Did you have any doubt?”

“Not really. Not after Friday.” Elliot said slowly, “I know someone capable of creating this kind of fire. Oscar Nobb, one of my father’s pals from the good old days. He was a decorated war veteran before he decided to hand back his medals in protest over the war.”

“Can he fly a plane? Was he in the Air Force?”

“No. Army.”

“I’ve got news for you.” Tucker, lying on his side, head propped on his hand, traced his index finger down Elliot’s solar plexus, fingertips brushing the dusting of dark hair that bisected Elliot’s torso. He flicked Elliot’s nipple with the edge of his thumbnail and Elliot sucked in a breath. “Anybody in the Big Chill Social Club would be capable of making a crude bomb like that. Pretty much anyone who can read could do that much.”

Elliot snorted at
Big Chill Social Club
, but then he thought of Mischa’s conviction for attempted armed robbery. “You could be right about that.” He wondered how often his father’s circle had resorted to violence, and what type of violence. He also wondered how it was that Tucker seemed so conversant with the members of Roland’s “social club.” Or maybe it was just an informed guess.

Tucker’s stomach growled loudly. “Was that you or me?” he asked.

Elliot studied him. Tucker’s eyes were wide and guileless, bluer than the Puget Sound itself.

“You. And yeah, I’ll fix you breakfast. What would you like?” Elliot sat up and set the copy of the arson report on his bedstand.

“Pancakes?” Tucker said with engaging hopefulness.

On the weekends they always slept late—or at least stayed in bed late—and Elliot usually, eventually, fixed something special for breakfast like eggs Benedict or blueberry pancakes. Or occasionally Tucker would make his “world famous” French toast, which involved ungodly amounts of cinnamon, ginger and real maple syrup.

At some point each day, Tucker went for a long run. Sometimes Elliot joined him, mostly not. He missed running, but jogging was one of the activities most discouraged for knee replacements, and because Tucker knew it, he inevitably slowed his pace and shortened his run for Elliot’s sake—even though nothing irritated Elliot more.

It was easier on both of them to let Tucker run on his own. Elliot walked a lot, and sometimes, just to prove to himself he still could, he ran alone.

That was about it for their weekend rituals. Everything else was open to negotiation. Previously, Elliot had worked through weekends or occupied himself with his Civil War miniatures, so spending entire days with Tucker just doing what they wanted still felt inexcusably indulgent. But he was getting used to it, starting to count on their weekends together.

And despite the ever-present worry about Roland, this was a good weekend too. As Tucker pointed out, in this instance no news was good news.

They had a lazy breakfast and then Elliot spent the next few hours surfing the web while Tucker clicked back and forth through the sports channels.

Elliot found and reread Will MacAuley’s “Tenured Terrorists” column.

Don’t get me wrong.
So far private institutions can still hire—and fire—who and what they like
,
and I’m all in favor of that.
It’s the blatant hypocrisy that sticks in my craw.
Can you imagine a liberal arts college hiring a member of the American Nazi party or a former supporter of Francisco Franco?
Can you picture a far-right gunman who had critically injured an FBI agent in a fair and
“
square
”
shootout being welcome at PSU?
Let alone Columbia or NYU?
The bitter truth is those who dwell in the ivory towers of academia fall over themselves to roll out the red carpet for former radicals with fringe views and violent backgrounds—provided the violent fringe views were
“
misguided
”
in the direction of due left.

Elliot’s scalp prickled as he reread the sentence
Can you picture a far-right gunman who had critically injured an FBI agent in a fair and
“
square
”
shootout being welcome at PSU?
He hadn’t missed the significance of that “square shooting” the first time he read MacAuley’s blog, but he had dismissed it as the predictable and deliberate provocation of a shock jock, one of those clowns whose celebrity was based on saying the outrageous and the offensive to build ratings. Given recent events, it no longer felt quite as harmless.

Disgusted, he clicked away.

It wasn’t too difficult to find Roland’s
Mother Jones
interview, and Elliot was able to determine the publisher of his
Memoirs of a Militant
, which had undergone a name change and was now titled
Power to the People:
Memoirs of a Militant.
Roland’s book was being put out by a small university press in Ohio.

Midwestern Foundation Press looked to be legitimate. Not that Elliot was any expert on book publishing, but they had a long list of authors he’d never heard of and a short list of scholarly titles on subjects as varied as writing grants and gender globalization.

What the hell was gender globalization?

On the Coming Soon page was a picture of
Power to the People’s
book cover, and Elliot winced at a vintage photo of his father, younger than Elliot was now, screaming into the face of an equally enraged cop. It was certainly...visual.

As Elliot contemplated his father’s contorted expression, it occurred to him that there might be a way to get hold of that manuscript, after all. Maybe he didn’t know about book publishing, but as someone who had published a number of scholarly papers, Elliot knew that a lot of the back-and-forthing of manuscripts, even the editing, was now done through email.

If that was the case with Roland’s publisher, then it was very possible a copy of at least some version of the manuscript might exist in Roland’s outgoing email. And Roland used a web-based email provider, which meant Elliot didn’t need his father’s laptop, he just needed his email address and his password.

He already had Roland’s email address. So actually he just needed his password. Which, true, he did not have. But Roland was not the most security-minded person in the world, and most people were not particularly original or tricky in their password creation. Names of spouses, children, pets, birthdays, anniversaries...those were the most common, barring the ubiquitous 1234567 or abcdef. And Elliot was hoping his father wasn’t
that
lax about security.

He went onto the website, typed in Roland’s email address, and then considered the password field. A minimum of six letters or numerals were required. No insistence on a mix of characters—or even a mix of upper and lowercase characters.

How hard could it be?

Jesse
was too short. His mother’s full name had been
Jesslyn
. Elliot typed in
Jesslyn
.

Up flashed the message INCORRECT USER NAME OR PASSWORD! in red.

Elliot grimaced.

“Is the caps lock on?” suggested the Helpful Tips.

Elliot typed in
Elliot
.

INCORRECT USER NAME OR PASSWORD!

“Oh, shut up,” Elliot muttered.

He typed in Roland’s birthday.

INCORRECT USER NAME OR PASSWORD!

“Goddamn it!”

“Everything okay?” Tucker asked, glancing away from the game.

“Yep. Great.”

“There’s a lot of muttering going on over there.”

“There’s a lot of eavesdropping going on over there.”

Tucker laughed.

Elliot typed in his birthdate.

CANNOT COMPLETE YOUR REQUEST. PLEASE CALL 800-444-8888 WITH YOUR SECURITY KEY.

“Fucking-A,” Elliot said. Clearly he was not cut out for a life of crime. He would have to find someone who was. Luckily he worked in a baby criminal incubator. Maybe tomorrow he’d start looking for someone at PSU to help him commit his first federal offense.

He shook his head at himself and turned off the computer.

* * *

Late afternoon SAC Montgomery called. Once upon a time Montgomery had been Elliot’s boss too. She chatted briefly, cordially with him and then asked to speak to Tucker. Elliot handed the phone over and tried not to listen in on Tucker’s phone call from the other room.

It was a lengthy call though, and his curiosity was definitely aroused when Tucker returned to the sun porch and didn’t volunteer any information.

Elliot couldn’t help asking. “How is the Sculptor case coming?”

Tucker shrugged, eyes on the TV screen. “You know how it goes. At this stage we’re still compiling evidence on all the killings and helping the prosecution prepare for trial.”

“I know. You haven’t said much.”

Tucker’s gaze turned his way, his smile brief. “There’s not much to say.”

Elliot started to push for more info. After all, he was the one who’d broken the case. Naturally he felt invested in the outcome. But then he remembered Tucker’s comment about not respecting boundaries. That still bothered him because he thought he was pretty good at respecting boundaries—having so many of his own.

Or was Tucker not talking because the call had something to do with Roland?

Almost as though he overheard Elliot’s thoughts, Tucker said, “That wasn’t about the Sculptor case though. It was about my murder-for-hire investigation.”

“I thought that was closed?”

The soon-to-be ex-wife of Seattle’s City Council President George Clifton Blewe had been caught trying to hire someone on the internet to murder her better half. It wasn’t a very complicated case, or at least it hadn’t seemed to be. Pretty much open and shut, in fact.

“Blewe doesn’t want it to go to trial,” Tucker said.

“You mean, he wants her to accept a plea bargain?”

“No. Or at least it doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like he wants the whole thing dropped.”

“Dropped?” Elliot stared. “You mean he’s still in love with her?”

Tucker gave a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t think so. Montgomery thinks he’s afraid if it ends up in court, people are liable to believe his ex had the right idea.”

“Ha. Modern Families,” Elliot said.

Tucker replied, “Modern politics. Blewe is one ambitious guy.”

* * *

They had hot sandwiches and cold beer for dinner, watched
60 Minutes
, arguing amiably through most of it, and then while Tucker searched for a movie they could watch, Elliot had another try at getting hold of Mischa Weinstein.

This time she answered before the call could go to message.

“Elliot. This is a surprise!” Mischa sounded pleasant but guarded.

“Sorry to disturb you at home,” Elliot said. “I’m not sure if Tom or Nobby have spoken to you since you flew back?”

“I haven’t heard anything. Why?” Mischa’s unease traveled across the miles. “Has something happened? Is Roland all right?”

“I don’t know. Someone tried to kill him Friday evening.” He was deliberately blunt, waiting to gauge her reaction.

Mischa’s “
What?
” sounded genuinely astounded.

“He was okay as of Saturday morning, but he took off without telling anyone—that I know of—where he was going.”

There was complete silence on the other end.

“Mischa?”

“I—I don’t know what to say. Are you saying he didn’t leave any kind of note or message?”

Elliot wished he could see her face. Voices could be deceiving, and to make matters worse, it was not the best reception. He noticed she hadn’t asked
how
someone had tried to kill Roland. He said, “He left a note saying that he thought he had an idea of who might be after him and he was going to try and find them first.”

Maybe it was his imagination, but this time her silence sounded stricken.

“I’ve got to ask—”

“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “I don’t have any idea where he is. If he wouldn’t tell you, he certainly wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why did you come to Seattle? What was so urgent that you had to fly out here to see Dad?”

She made some protesting sounds before she said, “I didn’t! No. I tried to tell your father I was already there. I was in Seattle for a women’s conference. I found out about the fire from Nobby, and it seemed only natural to see Rollie. Under the circumstances.”

She was not at all a good liar, though he was uncertain which part of that stumbling explanation was false. Unfortunately he no longer had a badge and he couldn’t insist that she talk to him, let alone tell him the truth.

Elliot said, “I talked to Nobby yesterday and he said he asked you to try and talk my dad out of publishing his memoirs.”

“Nobby
told
you that?”

“Yes. He did. And although the prevailing theory is that some conservative extremist faction is gunning for my father, I can’t help wondering what it is you’re all so afraid is in that book?”

Mischa made little irate clicking sounds with her tongue before finally getting out, “Since he’s in such a helpful frame of mind, maybe you’d better ask Nobby that too!”