Time of Departure (3 page)

At my comment, McCandless seemed to recover. He came out fighting. “Your Honor, these tactics are an outrage! My client—!”

“—had already entered her guilty pleas when this surveillance took place. Her status before the Court had changed. Ms. Talbot's conduct would be open to criticism only if it were unlawful. Tell me how it was unlawful.”

“She's had this evidence for a week! We have had no notice—none!—and therefore we have had no opportunity to study it, or to obtain medical evidence to … to assist the Court.”

I waited quietly. I knew the judge would come back to me.

He did.

“Ms. Talbot, Counsel does have a point. Am I to understand that you arranged for your investigator to place the defendant under intrusive surveillance in her own backyard, that you obtained the proffered evidence one week ago, and that you have been sitting on it until today?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“No to what?

“No to each of your questions.”

Judge O'Connor leaned forward. “Ms. Talbot, please don't play word games with the Court.”

“Permit me to explain, Your Honor. Our office did not arrange for this surveillance. We first learned it had taken place at six o'clock last evening, when an insurance adjuster attended at our offices and briefed Mr. Carlyle. The surveillance on this DVD was conducted by a private investigator retained by the insurer of the other driver involved in the defendant's automobile accident. The attorney representing Mrs. Hauser in that action—not Mr. McCandless—has submitted a very substantial claim. The surveillance was conducted from a neighbor's property. The neighbor, we have been told, was only too ready to assist. Therefore, as a result of Mrs. Hauser's own actions in separate proceedings, the State is today in a position to refute her claim that her ‘disability' should exempt her from a prison sentence.”

McCandless interjected. “Your Honor, the prosecutor told us she wants to call Mr. Carlyle to the stand. In light of what we just heard, clearly he is not a proper witness to place the DVD into evidence. For all we know, this footage is a year old and entirely unrelated to my client's civil claim! Only the investigator who recorded the footage could prove otherwise. Why isn't he here?”

The judge looked at me.

“The investigator is currently working on a foreign assignment. We understand he is in Germany. His firm expects him back by the end of the month.” I held up the DVD. “The identity of the subject of this footage is self-evident, and every frame is date stamped.”

McCandless protested. “Date stamping can be faked, Your Honor!”

“I think we can deal with that remote possibility, Mr. McCandless,” Judge O'Connor responded. He turned back to me. “Ms. Talbot, I expect the defendant's accommodating neighbor can cast some light on this. How much time would you require to secure that person's appearance?”

“A moment, please, Your Honor…” I conferred quickly with Eddie and then addressed the judge. “I am told that her workplace is only a few blocks from this building. May I have thirty minutes?”

“Make it an hour. Have Mr. Carlyle contact the witness. In the meantime, I want to see you and Mr. McCandless in my chambers. And bring that DVD with you.”

*   *   *

Three hours later, while her daughter quietly wept, Barbara Hauser was escorted from the courtroom to begin serving a ten-year sentence. Pointedly, the judge ordered her to leave her wheelchair behind.

I delayed packing up, allowing time for McCandless to beat his dejected retreat and for the gallery to clear. I chatted with Eddie and then began loading my briefcase.

As I turned to exit the now-empty courtroom, I saw an older gentleman sitting in the back row, watching me. I'd noticed him enter earlier, just before the court reconvened to hear evidence from Mrs. Hauser's neighbor. The witness—a widow, we'd learned—had lived in the adjoining property for five years. She'd been only too willing to certify that the footage on the DVD had been shot the previous weekend from a guest room on the second floor of her residence. She must have had a specific reason to dislike Barbara Hauser, because she took pleasure in recounting how she came to be recruited by the insurance investigator, and how she had kept him supplied with food and drink during his two-day “stakeout,” as she called it. As I listened to her, I caught myself wondering what other services she might have volunteered.

When the older man saw me looking at him, he rose from his seat. He was quite handsome, and he possessed something you don't see often on men of a certain age—a flat stomach. He gave me a strange smile and then exited through the double doors to the lobby. I followed.

I was immediately approached by a married couple I had interviewed when I was preparing the Hauser case. The wife was one of the defendant's bilked former employees. They were both effusive with their thanks. Even though they were unlikely ever to recover their money, they seemed to derive some gratification from the stiff sentence the defendant had received. But as soon as I heard the husband utter the word “closure” for the second time, I decided it was time to end the conversation.

The older man who had left the courtroom ahead of me was standing several feet away, watching.

“Thank you,” I said to the yammering couple. “But you'll have to excuse me now. There's something I need to deal with.” I shook their hands and then walked over to the man. He was clearly a few decades older than me, but I couldn't tell if he was in his fifties or his sixties. The lines on his face seemed to speak more of tumultuous life events than the simple grace of aging. As I approached, I noticed that his eyes were a startling shade of blue, and disconcertingly, they were showing more than a glint of male interest.

I couldn't help smiling inwardly.
Good for you, old man,
I thought
.

“Very neatly done,” he said.

“What?”

He nodded toward the courtroom. “The way you wrapped that up.”

“Thank you. Are you connected to the Hauser case?”

“No.”

“Okay. Did you want to speak to me?”

“Not yet.” There was an odd catch in his voice.

“Not yet?”

“That's right. But soon.”

His cryptic replies were faintly irritating. I decided I didn't need this conversation. “Fine. Let me know.”

“I will.”

I started for the elevator.

“By the way, you're very beautiful.”

I stopped and turned. “Don't you mean ‘intriguing'?”

“Definitely.
And
beautiful.”

I smiled and walked away.

How about that? A man who thinks I'm beautiful.

Too bad he was twice my age.

As I was leaving the building, an attractive young woman stopped me to ask if there was a Starbucks nearby. While I gave directions, I noticed male heads swiveling as they passed us.

One thing was certain: They weren't looking at me.

The woman didn't seem to notice. She listened intently, touched my arm to thank me, and went on her way.

Oh, to be that oblivious.

As I was walking away, something nagged at my memory. The woman had reminded me of someone.

Or … something.

Then I had it.

The scent she was wearing.

I had smelled it in my living room.

I turned to look for her, but she was gone.

*   *   *

There were only four treadmills at the small second-floor fitness center where I held a membership. When I arrived that evening, two were in use and a third was out of service. That left the fourth one, which was positioned a few feet from the floor-to-ceiling bank of windows that overlooked the street. I had never been too keen about using that machine because it made me feel like I was exercising in a fishbowl. But I'd missed a few sessions lately, so I programmed it for random speeds and inclines and climbed aboard.

My membership at the gym kept me fit and kept me off the streets at night. I preferred running outdoors, but only in daylight—something my work hours didn't always permit. A female jogger always needs to be careful, but one who is routinely instrumental in sending people to prison needs to be vigilant. Most convicted prisoners have at least one pissed-off relative.

The treadmill was set up parallel to the window, so at least I wasn't staring out into the night while I ran off the day's frustrations. But my continuing unease about being a brightly lit target for any passing wacko with a grudge and a gun caused my eyes to drift to the left from time to time. Despite the reflected glare of the gym's lighting, the angle from my vantage point afforded me a degraded image of the street and sidewalk below.

Twenty minutes into my run, I caught movement. A steady crowd was filing along the sidewalk from left to right. There was a multiplex just around the corner, so I assumed a movie had just finished. Then I noticed one particular male figure in the crowd. All I could make out was a ball cap, a white shirt, and dark-colored pants. What drew him to my attention, although for only a second, was his trajectory against the flow of pedestrians. He was striding determinedly forward in a straight line, forcing a path through the oncoming flood of humanity.

I fixed my gaze on the wall in front of me, and concentrated on my running and my pain.

I glanced down at the sidewalk a few minutes later. The crowd had dispersed, but Ball Cap Man was still there. He was standing perfectly still next to a parked car.

He appeared to be watching someone.

Me.

I couldn't be certain, but he sure as hell looked like that older guy I'd met at the courthouse. I'd been slightly charmed the first time, but if that was him, he was getting under my skin. I launched myself off the treadmill, leaving it running, and sprinted for the stairs.

When I reached the street, he was gone.

Down the street, a set of taillights brightened. I had seen that LED pattern before. The car turned at the corner and passed under a streetlight before it disappeared.

It was a white SUV.

*   *   *

That night, I had the dream again.

It was always the same. I was back in the playground, across the street from our house in Archer. I don't know how old I was, but the playmates who kept popping into my field of view didn't seem much older than first-graders. I say “field of view” because the dream always made me feel as if I were watching the action through a telescope. I could never see any part of myself, not even my arms or legs. It was as if I were a disembodied observer. All I saw were kids on swings … kids on the teeter-totter … kids on our beaten-up old carousel that squealed when it turned … and a man sitting motionless on a bench, watching us.

Watching me.

And, always, my mother calling from the porch of our house. “
Cat!
Come now, please! Now, Cat! Now!”

 … and me running and running and running on invisible legs … and the freeze-frame sequence of me racing up the steps of our porch, and my mother holding me tight against her thigh, and the man getting into a car, and the car's taillights disappearing at the end of our street.

There was something wrong with my life.

It had been lurking behind the tree line of my consciousness for a very long time.

 

3

“What's going on with Martínez?”

“His inventory's down, so we should get some action soon. The taps are in place.” The cop sounded confident.

“Good. I want daily transcripts.”

“Daily?”

“Is that a problem, Detective?”

He waited a beat before he answered. Just so I'd get the message. “No, ma'am.”

“Thanks.” I hung up.

Roberto Martínez ran a local auto wrecking yard out on NE Fifty-third. It turned out his business was devoted to more than just offering a highway towing service and salvaging cars that insurance companies had written off. The man was making his real money by operating a steal-to-order auto theft ring.

Wreckers tend to form unofficial networks. If one yard doesn't have a particular part for a particular model, the owner will contact wreckers in neighboring communities to see if they have the part or know where to find it. Martínez always seemed to have hard-to-find parts in stock. In the rare cases when he didn't, he would have the part within a day or two. Eventually some of his competitors got together and compared notes. Being good citizens—and prudent businessmen—they reported him to the authorities. After the detectives assigned to the case had exhausted the usual investigative techniques, I was able to secure an ex parte interception order from a judge. For the past two weeks, the squad had been running a wiretap on the phones at the wrecking yard and Martínez's residence.

But if the cops working the case appreciated my help, they weren't ready to show it. Roy Wells had been the Felony Division Chief for eight years. He'd been their tame attorney and their drinking buddy. They clearly weren't ready to transfer their allegiance to a successor who was not male, not tame, and mostly kept to herself.

There was a knock, and my door opened. Annie Morrison entered. Annie was ten years older than me, a single mom, a bit overweight, and an absolute star of a secretary.

She was carrying a thick package. “A man left this for you.” She set the package on my desk.

It was addressed in neat printing that looked like it had been done with a Sharpie.

FOR DELIVERY TO CLAIRE TALBOT—CONFIDENTIAL

“What man?”

“Older guy. He wouldn't leave his name.”

Older guy? Oh hell!

“Describe him!”

“Harrison Ford.”

“What?”

“I mean, he kinda reminded me of him.” Annie smiled, more to herself than to me. “Maybe not as old, but he was fit like him, you know? Joan called me out to reception, and he was standing there, and my first thought was that he was probably pretty hot when he was younger.”