The Killing of Bobbi Lomax (22 page)

He would do what Sanford wanted.

He picked the address book back up out of the blood and tapped out the dentist’s number on the dial pad.

Last night, after Patricia’s little top-of-the-news story which featured select footage of Judge Laidlaw’s warrants being executed and a seemingly impromptu interview with lead Detective Sinclair, somehow, against the Captain’s yelling, Marty had managed to calm him down. Told him that he was working a plan, there’d be a result in twenty-four hours, or he’d die trying. The Captain looked a little disappointed the latter might not come true. Marty had told him that the past thirty-six hours without a bomb was pretty good news. And then the phone rang. The Governor. It had been almost a week since the first bomb. He’d want answers. The Captain, face still set on growl, shooed Marty out of the office and reached across to pick up the call. Marty was glad of the interruption. He wanted to go downstairs to the basement and work on putting all those pieces of paper together. Al was already down there, helping search the fingerprint records, get it done quicker. The fingerprint on the Lomax/Hartman IOU was their best lead yet in finding Hartman. If that didn’t work, Marty knew they’d have no choice but to contact the Feds to find its owner and once the Feds were involved they’d take over the entire case and give the Captain the chance to fire Marty out of the department.

The deli had repaired their window. Outside, a decorator was sketching out
DAILY DELI
onto the window, preparing for it to be filled in with paint. Clark watched as they entered, polite smiles. They must be curious. They had been respectful on the phone, but they knew detectives didn’t tend to call people at 7 am. Not unless it was urgent, or fatal. It was only just 8 am, but they were meticulously turned out. Gloves, tweeds and those long green waterproof overcoats you see in J. C. Penney marked ‘English Country Style’. It was almost as if they’d been fully dressed and ready when the phone rang, not long after dawn.

‘I’m Rod.’

‘And I’m Ron.’

They sat down. He remembered them from Mission when they were younger, maybe twenty-five or so . . . and he was just a teenager. They didn’t shake hands then either. But they smiled politely. Still did.

The Rooks each ordered a glass of hot milk and a slice of banana loaf. They told Marty how good it was. How they got it every morning on their way into work. They looked out the window over to their store. It was boarded up. ‘We have to leave it like that, for security.’

‘So many valuable things inside,’ said Ron.

‘It must be very difficult.’

Both men nodded sadly. ‘Our father’s store,’ said Rod.

‘And his father’s before him. Our family’s been here since before the city even had a name.’

‘You’ll have it back together soon.’

Rod clamped his hands together. Closed his eyes.

Ron leaned forward. ‘Your summons intrigued us, Detective. How can we help you?’

He had called them just as soon as he’d finished piecing it all together. He and Al had worked through the night, taking it in turns to get some shut-eye while the other one kept working on it.

‘Is it about the bombings?’ said Ron.

It was about the bombings but he didn’t want to tell them that just yet. He had a few questions to ask them first.

‘We gave a statement to the detective who spoke with us, while we were waiting for the paramedics to tend to us,’ said Rod.

‘We weren’t badly hurt or anything, not like poor Mr Angel. We could wait a while.’

‘Hobbs?’

‘Yes, that was his name.’

‘We told him that we hadn’t seen anything that morning,’ said Ron.

‘Yes, thank you. I’ve read your witness statements.’

‘We hope it was of help?’ said Rod.

‘We’d really like to help catch whoever did this. They damaged so much of our stock, wrecked the store,’ said Ron.

‘What I’d like is your expert opinion on something,’ said Marty.

‘Is it a coin?’ said Ron.

Marty shook his head. Ron looked disappointed.

‘He’s coins. I’m documents. Manuscripts. Books. All of it,’ said Rod.

‘Not that I don’t know anything about them.’

‘No. It just makes it easier for people to tell us apart, if they know what we sell. We split the store right down the middle, to make it even easier.’

Marty thought it might be impossible to tell them apart, except for their speech patterns which were just a tiny bit off-rhythm from one another. But if they didn’t speak they were identical.

Marty pulled the large sheets of card up off the floor, from where they were propped between the table and the wall. He’d sat at a six-seater table, just so he could spread these out all over it. He could have asked the Rooks to come to the station, but he wanted to keep it under wraps for now. He knew the deli wouldn’t get busy until the other stores opened at nine.

Ron was picking up the fragments of letters. His brother had homed in on the letter Whittaker had tested and said was signed in human blood.

They were silent for a minute. Marty didn’t speak, just nodded over to the waitress for another fresh juice.

Rod spoke first. ‘Where did you get these?’

‘I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.’

Marty thought he knew exactly what the documents were. He could read a lot of what was written there, despite the water damage, the charring through the pages. He just wanted to be sure. He had to be sure.

‘You must know what this is. Your father, he would have spoken of this,’ said Rod.

‘Please, Mr Rook. Tell me what
you
think it is.’

Marty was no expert any court was going to listen to. If he had to he would call one or both these guys as experts. He also couldn’t lead the experts to their answer. He had to hear it from them, unadulterated.

Ron was reading over his brother’s shoulder now. ‘How can this be?’

‘What do you think that letter is, sir?’

‘It’s the Letter of Accession.’

‘The Letter of Accession? That can’t be it,’ said Ron.

‘No. It can’t. This isn’t right. Can’t be right,’ said Rod.

‘And why do you think it isn’t right? Ron? Rod?’

‘But you know why, Detective,’ said Rod.

‘Please. I have to hear you say it.’

‘Because we’re the real Faith. Not them. Not Reno, not the so-called Real Faith, not the children of Rebecca and her son Jeremiah, but us, the children of Elizabeth and her son Abraham.’

‘And that’s what it says there, on that Letter of Accession? That Robert Bright chose Jeremiah to hand his Faith on to?’

‘Yes. From what I can read,’ said Rod.

‘These letters, eleven of them. Back and forth between the wives, disputing it all. They stop a few days before the war of succession began,’ said Ron.

‘Can you tell me if you recognize the handwriting of the women, of Robert Bright?’

‘Well, the women, yes. But there’s no extant handwriting to make a comparison with Robert Bright.’

‘So this could be anyone’s writing?’

‘Yes,’ they both said at the same time.

‘Is it in keeping with the period? Would you believe it was genuine?’

‘Examining it in these conditions, and with these letters with it – they came together, I presume?’ said Rod.

‘Yes.’

‘Then they’re real,’ said Rod.

‘Or someone’s playing a very clever trick,’ said Ron.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Why do you have them? That’s what I’d ask you, Detective? Why don’t the so-called Real Faith have them? Surely, it’d be of benefit to them?’

‘Great benefit.’

‘How come the Police Department has them?’ He smiled at Marty. ‘That’s a rhetorical question.’

‘Well, we’d assume that, yes, they should be with the Real Faith. I can tell you one thing, they didn’t have possession of them, at least, not last. Which, of course, begs the question: why didn’t they have them?’

‘Have you spoken to anyone over there?’

‘Not yet. I was waiting to hear your thoughts. Also, do you know why they would be going to a newspaper?’

Marty pulled out the envelope, what was left of it, a fragment out of a square typed label. They could see
Desert Times
clearly. ‘By Hand’ printed above it. But whoever it was made out to just had a random e and a capital F left visible. ‘And do you know who this might be? Anyone at the paper interested in documents?’

The men leaned over it together, and almost conferred silently before saying together, without a beat, ‘Debra Franklin.’

‘Is that the one that’s anti-Faith?’

‘A real troublemaker, Detective,’ said Rod.

‘So, if somebody wanted to create mischief, that’s who they’d send this to?’

‘No one better,’ said Rod.

‘Is that what you think it is? Mischief? It’s not genuine?’

‘I’m not sure until I can get it tested,’ said Marty. ‘But I’m always extremely dubious of things that show up miraculously after a hundred and fifty years of being missing and, in this case, no one ever seeing them before. Am I right?’

‘Your father taught you well,’ said Rod.

‘God rest his soul,’ said Ron.

Hands clasped together. Eyes closed.

Marty nodded, thank you.

‘No one has any record of the Letter of Accession. Nothing. The Faith likes to think of it as just that, faith in our path,’ said Rod.

‘The One True Path,’ said Ron.

‘If this is real, what do you think it would be worth?’

‘Oh, millions,’ said Rod.

‘How many millions?’

‘Really, however much someone would be prepared to pay for it. But at least two million.’

‘Have you heard of anyone offering it for sale?’

‘No,’ they said together.

‘But that would be very confidential,’ said Rod.

‘Yes. Imagine if the others got a hold of it,’ said Ron.

The others. Reno.

‘That’s true, Detective. It would destroy us.’

‘Worth killing for?’ said Marty.

‘What do you mean?’ said Rod.

‘Somebody might not want this becoming public property.’

‘Someone in the Faith?’ said Rod.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to,’ said Rod.

‘If I had a document worth a good sum of money, who would I go to at the Faith?’

‘Well, we’re a good conduit.’

‘And if not you?’

Rod held his hands up. ‘Dear Peter. Peter Gudsen. He always helped choose documents for us.’

‘He was the librarian?’

‘Not a librarian. An archivist,’ said Rod.

‘Did Mr Gudsen like to collect books – have a collection, do you know?’

They both looked at one another. Rod nodded, Ron spoke. ‘Yes. It used to be coins. But he switched to books, manuscripts. Bibles, mostly. He always thought of them as investments. Also, first editions.’

‘He bought from you?’

Rod looked around. The deli was still quiet. ‘Yes. Yes he did.’

‘But also from Clark,’ Ron chipped in.

‘Clark Houseman?’

‘Yes.’

Houseman.

‘If Mr Gudsen was unable to help, who else would help select documents and books on behalf of the Faith?’

‘Disciple Laidlaw.’

‘Alan Laidlaw.’ They both nodded.

Marty had kept the covering letter he’d put back together. He had known, within just a few words of piecing it together, who was its author. More specifically, who the real author wanted it to appear to be. The phrasing was perfect, the handwriting even more so. But something was very wrong about the covering letter. Alan Laidlaw would never betray his Faith. It stated that the Faith was trying to buy the Letter of Accession and hide its truth from the world. The letter wasn’t signed and the name of the author wasn’t anywhere on it. But it wouldn’t have taken a reporter long to find its alleged owner. And with the writing so perfect it would be hard for Laidlaw to deny. No smoke without fire.

Houseman was its courier. But that couldn’t be all.

‘Anyone else you know of, able to select documents for the Faith to acquire?’

‘Not until they were going to do the deal. Or if it was very important.’

‘Who would it be then?’

‘Either the Order of the Twelve Disciples or the Triumvirate, you know: the Supreme Leader and Disciples Laidlaw and Browne.’

Was that so?

‘Is Clark still in the hospital?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Poor Clark.’

‘Do you know if Mr Houseman might deal in documents of significant monetary value?’

‘Clark?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not exceptionally high value. Nothing like this. If this were real, of course.’ Rod looked at the Letter of Accession.

‘And he does bring a lot of things to us.’

‘He buys from us also, Detective. Regularly. Most weeks he’s in.’

‘What’s the highest-value item he’s ever brought to you?’

‘Oh, probably just over twenty thousand,’ said Rod.

‘What about the
Peter Pan
?’ said Ron.

‘The novel?’

‘Yes, Detective. But that was a fake. It doesn’t count,’ said Rod.

‘I guess so. Perceived value wasn’t what you meant, was it, Detective?’ said Ron.

‘When did he bring you the
Peter Pan
?’

‘Oh, recently.’

‘Could you be more precise?’

‘Probably a few days before Halloween.’

‘This Halloween?’

They both nodded.

‘Did he say where he got it?’

‘A yard sale, I think. On the road. He’s always out on the road. Buying and selling.’

‘He was very disappointed it wasn’t real. He tried to hide it, but I could tell,’ said Ron.

‘Yes,’ said Rod. ‘It would have been worth a hundred and fifty thousand retail if it was.’

‘Did he say how much he paid for it?’

‘Five hundred bucks I think.’

‘That’s a lot for a yard sale.’

‘Funny, that’s what I thought,’ said Rod. ‘But you find all kinds of things traveling. Often, people don’t know the value of what they’ve got. It was signed and everything – you know, by the author. I imagine they knew full well they were selling him a dud.’

‘Have you ever had reason to doubt any document Mr Houseman has brought to you? Or other books, coins. Anything.’

‘Clark!?’

‘No, Detective, we haven’t,’ said Ron.

‘Clark dealt with our father, even before we took over the business full-time.’