Ransom (19 page)

“If he has a phone book in it, remember to mark those numbers down too.”

“We already did.” One of the agents smiled at him.

“Anything interesting?”

“It's all the same stuff that was in his desk. Some guy called Morgan called while we were working on it, and when I said I was FBI, he hung up.” The agent laughed, and so did Holmquist.

“I'll bet he did.” But the name struck him again. His name and number were on the two pieces of paper from Phillip's desk, and he was obviously someone he spoke to regularly, if he had called looking for Phillip. It was probably nothing, but it was one of those odd instincts he had sometimes, like a tic, that gnawed at him and clicked later. He had a sixth sense about the name. It stuck in his mind, and for some reason he couldn't forget it.

It was after seven when Rick Holmquist left his office that night. Phillip Addison was in custody for the night. His lawyer had stopped harassing them to make an exception and let him out, and he had finally gone home. Most of the agents were gone by that hour. Rick's girlfriend was out of town, and on his way home, Rick decided to call Ted Lee. They had been best friends since they had gone through the police academy together, and been partners for fifteen years. Rick had always wanted to join the FBI, and the cut-off was thirty-five. He had just made it by joining at thirty-three. And he had been a special agent now for fourteen years. He had another six to go before he retired at fifty-three, after twenty years with the FBI at that point. Ted liked reminding him that he only had a year before he could retire with thirty, but neither of them intended to retire anytime soon. They both still loved what they did, Ted even more than Rick. A lot of what Rick did for the FBI was tedious, the paperwork nearly killed him sometimes. And there were times, like tonight, when he wished he was still working with Ted at SFPD. He hated people like Addison. They wasted his time, their lies were less convincing than they thought, and their attitudes disgusting.

Ted answered his cell phone on the first ring, and smiled as soon as he heard Rick. They had dinner or lunch religiously once a week, and had for the last fourteen years. It was the best way for them to stay in touch.

“What are you? Bored?” Holmquist teased. “You sure picked up quick. It must be a dead night downtown.”

“It's quiet tonight,” Ted admitted. Sometimes it was nice that way. And Jeff Stone, his partner, was out sick. “What about you?” Ted had his feet on his desk. He was doing paperwork on a robbery that had happened the day before. But other than that, Rick was right. He was bored.

“I had one of those days that make me wonder why I left the force. I'm just leaving the office. I handled more paper today than a printing press. We busted a real sonofabitch for tax evasion and laundering money. He was one incredible pompous prick.”

“Anyone I know? We get a few of those too.”

“Not like this. Give me an assault and robbery or a shooter any day. You've probably heard of him. Phillip Addison, he's head of a bunch of corporations, and he's a big-deal socialite. He has about two hundred businesses, that are probably all fronts for the taxes he doesn't pay.”

“He is a big fish,” Ted commented. It always struck him as odd when people like that got arrested, but they did sometimes. It happened to them too. “What did you do with him? Let him out on bail, I assume,” Ted teased Rick. Suspects like that usually had a battalion of lawyers or one very good one. Very few of the people Rick arrested were flight risks, except for the guys carrying weapons or drugs over state lines. But the paper pushers and the tax evaders always bailed.

“He's cooling his heels in jail tonight. By the time he stopped talking, none of the judges were around to set bail.” Rick Holmquist laughed, and Ted grinned. The irony of a man like Addison spending a night in jail amused them both.

“Peg's in New York with her sister. You want to grab something to eat? I'm too tired to cook,” Rick suggested as Ted glanced at his watch. It was still early, and other than his robbery reports, he had nothing else to do. He had his beeper, his radio, and his cell phone on. If they needed him, they could find him, and he'd come in. There was no reason why he shouldn't have dinner with Rick.

“I'll meet you at Harry's in ten minutes.” Ted suggested a familiar haunt. It was a hamburger joint they had gone to for years. They would give them a quiet table in the back, as they always did, so they could talk quietly. There would be only a few stragglers left at that hour. Most of the business they did at night was at the bar.

Rick was already there when Ted arrived, and he was relaxing at the bar with a beer. He was going off duty so he could drink. Ted never did. He needed his wits about him when he was working.

“You look like shit,” Ted said with a grin, when he saw his friend. Actually he looked fine, just tired. It had been a long day for him, and Ted's was just beginning.

“Thanks, you too,” Rick returned the compliment, and they settled down at a corner table and ordered two steaks. It was nearly eight o'clock by then. Ted was on duty until midnight. They ate their steaks and talked about work until nine-thirty. And then Rick remembered something.

“Listen, do me a favor. It's probably nothing. I had one of those weird hunches I get sometimes. They're usually bullshit, but once in a while they pay off. There were a couple of pieces of paper in this guy's desk today, with a name on it. I don't know why, but it grabbed me, like I was meant to see that or something.” The fact that the name appeared twice told Rick it might be something.

“Don't go
Twilight Zone
on me,” Ted said, and rolled his eyes. Rick had a profound respect for his own intuition, and sometimes he was right. But not often enough for Ted to trust it completely. But he had nothing else to do. “So what's the name? I'll run it for you when I go back. You can come with me, if you want.” They could see if the person in question had a rap sheet of arrests, or a prison record with the state.

“Yeah, maybe I will hang around while you check. I hate going home when Peg's away. This is bad, Ted. I think I've gotten used to her.” As he said it, he looked worried. He'd managed to stay single in the years since his divorce, and liked it that way. But as he'd said to Ted a lot recently, this girl was different. They had even vaguely discussed marriage.

“I told you you're going to wind up marrying her. You might as well. She's a good woman. You could do a lot worse.” And had frequently. He had a weakness for loose women, but this one wasn't.

“That's what she says.” He grinned. Rick paid the check since it was his turn, and the two men walked back to Ted's office. Rick had jotted down the name with both phone numbers and handed it to Ted. He had checked for federal charges on him, but there were none. But sometimes what the feds didn't have, the state did.

When they got back to his office, Ted fed the name into the computer, and poured them each a cup of coffee while they waited, and Rick talked about Peg in glowing terms. He was obviously crazy about her. Ted was pleased to hear how serious Rick was about her these days. As long as he was married, he thought everyone else should be. And Rick had been avoiding that for ages.

They were still drinking coffee when the computer spat the answer out at them. Ted glanced at it, and raised an eyebrow as he handed it to Rick.

“Your tax evasion guy has some interesting friends. Morgan got out of Pelican Bay six weeks ago. He's on parole in San Francisco.”

“What did he do time for?” Rick took the printout from him and read it carefully. All of Peter Morgan's charges were there, along with the name of his parole agent, and the address of a halfway house in the Mission. “What do you suppose Mr.-Fancy-Pants-Social-Leader-of-the-Community is doing with a guy like this?” Rick said aloud, as much to himself as to Ted. It was a new piece of the puzzle.

“Hard to say. You never know why people hook up. Maybe he knew him before he went to prison, and the guy called him when he got out. Maybe they're friends,” Ted said, as he poured them both another round of coffee.

“Maybe so.” There were bells going off in Rick's head, and he had no idea why, as he looked at Ted. “He had a lot of strange stuff in his desk. A loaded gun notably, four hundred thousand bucks in cash, for pocket money apparently. And a file on a guy called Allan Barnes that was about three inches thick. He even had a picture of Barnes's wife and kids.” This time Ted looked at him strangely. The name had struck a chord with him.

“That's weird. I met them about a month ago. Cute kids.”

“Don't give me that. I saw the photograph. She looks pretty cute too. What got you to her?” Rick was well aware of who they were. Allan Barnes had made the front page often enough for his deals and meteoric success. He wasn't like Addison, flaunting himself in the social columns for going to the opening of the symphony. Allan Barnes was an entirely different breed, and there had never been any rumors of monkey business around him. He had appeared to be a straight shooter till the end. Rick had never read otherwise, nor had Ted. There had never been any question of tax evasion, and he was surprised to hear Ted had met his widow. That was a pretty fancy group of people for Ted to meet in the line of duty.

“There was a car bombing up the street,” Ted explained.

“Where do they live? Hunter's Point?” Rick teased.

“Don't be such a smart-ass. They live in Pacific Heights. Someone hit Judge McIntyre's car, about four days after Carlton Waters got out of prison.” And then Ted looked at Rick strangely. Something had just clicked for him too. “Let me see that printout again.” Rick handed it back to him, and Ted reread it. Peter Morgan had been in Pelican Bay too, and had gotten out at the same time as Carlton Waters. “You're making me feel
Twilight Zone
too. Waters was in Pelican Bay. I wonder if these two guys know each other. Was there anything in your guy's desk with Waters's name on it?” That would have been too much to ask, and Rick shook his head. Ted noticed the date of Peter Morgan's release then, and fed something else into the computer. When he got it, he looked at his friend. “Waters and Morgan got out on the same day.” It probably didn't mean anything, but it was an interesting coincidence certainly. Although Ted knew it probably meant nothing.

“I hate to say it, but it probably doesn't mean shit,” Rick said sensibly. And Ted knew that more than likely, he was right. As a cop, you couldn't get carried away by coincidences. Once in a while, they panned out, but the rest of the time they went nowhere. “So what happened with the car bombing?”

“Nothing. We don't have anything on it yet. I went up to see Waters in Modesto, just for the hell of it, and to let him know we were paying attention. I don't think he had anything to do with it. He's not that stupid.”

“You never know. Stranger things have happened. Did you run it all through the computer to see if any of the judge's other fans had just gotten out?” But knowing Ted, Rick was sure he had. He had never worked with anyone as thorough and persistent as Ted Lee. He often wished he had been able to convince him to come to the FBI with him. Some of the people Rick worked with there drove him nuts. And he still missed working with Ted. They traded a lot of information, and talked about their cases with each other frequently. More than once, in fact many times, they had cracked a case together, just by talking it out. Even now they used each other as sounding boards, as they had tonight, and it always helped them. “You still didn't tell me what the Barnes woman had to do with the car bombing. I assume she wasn't a suspect.” Rick smiled at him, and Ted shook his head, amused. They loved teasing each other.

“She lives down the block from Judge McIntyre. One of her kids was looking out the window, and I showed him Waters's mug shot the next day. Nothing. He didn't recognize him. We came up cold. So far, no leads.”

“I gather she wasn't a lead,” Rick teased again, with a meaningful look. He loved doing that to him. And Ted always gave it right back. Particularly about Peg. She was the first serious romance Rick had had in years. Maybe ever. Ted knew nothing about that kind of thing. He had been faithful to Shirley since they were kids, which Rick always told him was sick. But he admired him for it, although he had known for years from things Ted said, and didn't, that their marriage wasn't all that it used to be. At least they were still together, and they loved each other in their own way. You could hardly expect it to be exciting after twenty-eight years, and it wasn't.

“I didn't say anything about her,” Ted pointed out to him. “I said the kids were cute.”

“So no car bombing suspect, I gather,” Rick commented, and Ted shook his head.

“Not a one. It was interesting to see Waters though. He's a tough customer. He seems to be keeping his nose clean, for now at least. He wasn't too happy with my visit.”

“Tough shit,” Rick said bluntly. He had no use for convicts like Carlton Waters. He knew who he was and didn't like anything he'd read about him.

“Those were pretty much my sentiments on the subject.” And as Ted said it, Rick looked at him again. There was something rolling around in his head. He couldn't figure out the connection between Peter Morgan and Phillip Addison, and it was bothering him. And the fact that Carlton Waters had gotten out on the same day as Morgan probably meant nothing. But it had just occurred to him that it might not hurt to have a look. And as a parolee, Peter Morgan was in Ted's jurisdiction.

“Will you do me a favor? I can't justify sending one of my boys over. Can you send someone out to Morgan's halfway house tomorrow? He's on parole, you don't need a search warrant to go through his stuff. You don't even need to clear it with his parole agent. You can go anytime you want. I just want to know if there's something there that ties him to Addison, or anyone else of interest. I don't know why, but I'm drawn to this guy, like a bee to honey.”

“Oh Christ, don't tell me the FBI has turned you gay.” Ted laughed at him, but he agreed to go. He had a certain amount of respect for Rick's instincts. They had panned out for both of them before, and it couldn't hurt this time. “I'll go tomorrow, when I get up. I'll call you if anything turns up.” He had nothing else to do in the morning, and with luck, Morgan would be out, which would make it easier to search. He'd have a look around his room, and see what he found there.