“I don’t want to die, John, I really don’t. Were you driving that car, wearing that ski mask, trying to run me down?”
“The cretin who wrote you that letter, he’s trying to turn you against me. Why can’t you believe that? None of this is true. A drunk nearly hit you, nothing more than that.”
“And the food poisoning, John? Was that all an accident, too?”
“Of course it was! Just call up the doctor and ask him again. That damned letter isn’t from Cleo!”
“Why not? How can you be so sure that Cleo didn’t write me? She wants to protect me, save me from you. You did want to kill her, didn’t you, John? Did you really believe she was being unfaithful to you, or was that just a ruse, or some sort of sick fantasy?”
“I’m not sick, Nicola,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. She was suddenly afraid, very afraid. She eased her hand into her jacket pocket, felt the grip of her pistol.
“The truth is that the bitch was sleeping with Tod Gambol, my trusted senior aide for eight fucking years! He had the gall to sleep with my wife! They would go out to motels during the day when I was in Washington, or even when I was in Chicago and in meetings. I have the motel receipts. I’m the wronged one here, not Cleo. Dammit, you knew that, everybody knew that. Don’t you remember how sorry you felt for me? You cried, I remember that. As for Elliott Benson, I don’t know if she slept with him, it doesn’t matter. And now you believe this insanity just because someone who hates me wrote you a letter, scribbled a confession. God, Nicola, that’s just stupid.”
“John, I told you. Cleo wrote that she never slept around on you, that she has no idea where Tod Gambol is, but she thinks he might be dead.”
He said very quietly, “Nicola, why would you believe this letter when you’ve known me for four years now? I’ve always been kind and considerate to you, to everyone around me. Have you ever seen me lose my temper? Have you ever heard anything remotely this bad about me? Anything about my ever sleeping around on Cleo?”
“Then why didn’t you tell me about your mother? About your dead fiancée?”
“Why the hell would I? They were very painful times for me, and no one’s business. Maybe, after we were married, I’d have told you about them. I don’t know.”
“It’s true that I always felt safe around you because no one ever even hinted that you played around like many of the other men in Congress, hitting on young women.”
He faced her, palms spread out, and his voice softened, deepened, “Please, let’s sit down and discuss this like two people who are planning on spending the rest of their lives together. It’s all a misunderstanding. You’ve gotten ideas that simply aren’t true. We’ll find out who tried to hit you in that car. It will be some drunk, you’ll see. As for the food poisoning, it was an accident. There’s no big conspiracy here, no mystery, other than who sent you that letter.”
“I realize if I take these journal pages to the police that you and all your spin doctors could just claim I was a nutcase and wasn’t it so sad, and everyone would probably believe it. If only she’d sent me the original journal pages and not copies, then maybe I’d have a chance, but not with these.”
She paused. He said nothing.
“But I don’t want to see you again.”
Without warning, he ran at her, his hands in front of him, his fingers curved. Oh God. She whipped the Smith & Wesson out of her pocket, but he was on her, grabbing for the letter. He ripped it out of her hand, leaped back, panting hard. He stared down at the pages before he shredded each one. When he was done, he bunched the paper into a ball and threw it into the flames. He said, both his face and voice triumphant, “That’s what your letter deserves.”
His hands were still fists, the fingers curved inward. She would have been very afraid if she hadn’t had her gun. She was shaking as she said, “I’m leaving now, John. Stay away from me.”
She came awake that night at the sound of a noise. It was more than just a condo creak, more than just the night sounds she always heard when she was lying in bed alone, with nothing to do but listen.
She thought of Cleo Rothman’s letter, now destroyed, about that car with the accelerator jammed down coming straight at her, about the food poisoning that could have put her in her grave. She thought of John coming toward her, destroying that letter.
There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he’d wanted to kill her. But there was no proof, not a single whisper of anything to show the police.
She heard it again, another sound, this one like footsteps. No, she was becoming hysterical.
She listened intently, for a long time, and it was silent now, but she was still afraid. She thought she’d rather be in the dentist’s chair than lying there in the dark, listening. Her mouth was dry, and her heart was beating so loud she thought anyone could hear it, track the sound right to her.
Enough was enough. Nicola got out of bed, grabbed the poker by the small fireplace, turned on the light, and looked in every corner of her bedroom.
Nothing, no one was there.
But then she heard something again, something or someone running, fast. She ran to her living room, to the large glass doors that gave onto the balcony. The doors weren’t locked, they were cracked open.
She ran to the railing and looked down at a shadow, and it was moving.
Then she smelled the smoke. She ran back into her condo and saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen. Oh God, he had set a fire. She grabbed up her phone and dialed 911. She ran into the kitchen, saw that there was no way to put out the fire. She had time only to pull on jeans, shoes, and a shirt, grab her purse and coat, and she was out of there, banging on her neighbors’ doors as she ran. She knew he was waiting downstairs, probably hiding in the shadows between the buildings across the street, knowing that she’d get out alive since she’d been on the balcony looking down at him.
She stayed close to the building, huddling with the neighbors, watched the fire trucks arrive, watched the chaos, the evacuation of everyone in the building. No one died, thank God. Actually, only her condominium was destroyed, and the one next to it slightly burned and smoke-damaged.
But he hadn’t cared if the whole building had burned. He just wanted to make sure she was dead. She heard a firefighter say to the chief, “The fire was set. The accelerant is in the kitchen of 7B.”
She realized in that moment that Senator John Rothman had burned her condo, or had it burned, with the hope that she’d be burned with it. He wanted her dead.
Since she had nothing left, since she had only her purse, it wasn’t hard to decide what to do.
She spent the night in a temporary Red Cross shelter, watching to see if John would come looking for her. She even gave them a false name. The next morning, the volunteers gave her some clothes. She had decided during the night what she was going to do. Before she left Chicago, she used her ATM card, then cut it up.
An hour later, she was headed for San Francisco.
TWENTY-FIVE
LOS ANGELES
Savich and Sherlock were back the next morning with coffee and bagels.
“Nonfat cream cheese,” Sherlock said, pulling out a plastic knife. “Dillon refuses to allow any high cholesterol in his unit.”
Savich, who’d been studying Dane’s face, said, “We’ve decided that you two are going to stay in today. Sorry about that, Nick, but Dane will doubtless try to go find the bad guys unless someone with staunch resolve keeps him here. You willing to take on the job?”
“Yes, he will do as he’s told,” Nick said as she gave Dane a bagel smeared with cream cheese.
He took one bite and turned green.
“You’re still nauseous?” Sherlock said. “Not to worry, it’ll ease off soon.”
“How do you know?” Dane asked, staring at Sherlock. “Don’t tell me you’ve been around another gunshot wound?”
“Well, the thing is,” Sherlock said, paused, looked at her husband, then quickly away. “I sort of got a knife thrown i
nto my arm once—a very long time ago.”
“Yeah, a really long time,” Savich said. “All of two and a half years ago.”
“Well, it was before we were married and it feels like we’ve been married forever.” She gave her husband a fat smile and said to Dane, “True, it wasn’t much fun, but I was up and working again within two, three days.”
“I think she felt nauseous,” Savich said, his voice emotionless as a stick, “because the doctor gave her four shots in the butt. I remember that I cherished every yell.”
Sherlock cleared her throat. “That is neither here nor there, the whole thing’s best forgotten.”
Savich said, “Forget the four shots in your butt or the knife wound?” He was trying for a light touch, but Dane heard the fear in his voice, a fear he still hadn’t gotten over. He’d felt that fear for his brother when they’d been younger, whenever Michael had put himself in harm’s way, something both of them did playing football, white-water rafting, mountain climbing. They’d done so much together before and during college. Then came Michael’s time in the seminary and Dane’s trip to Case Western to become a lawyer, something he’d hated to his bones. At least it hadn’t taken him all that long to realize he wanted to be a cop.
Sherlock said, “Okay, no more about that incident. We’ve got a murderer who’s running scared, so scared that he tried an insane stunt yesterday. He’s insane, desperate, or both. We’ve been trying to find out what Linus Wolfinger did during that year after he graduated and before he came to work here and met Mr. Burdock, the owner of Premier Studios.”
“And not having much luck,” Savich said. “MAX is pretty upset about the whole thing. He just can’t seem to find anything, as of yet—no credit-card trail, no employment trail, no purchase of a vehicle.”
Sherlock said, “So we’ve decided to ask him, straight up. What do you think, Dane?”
“Why not the direct approach?” Dane said and shrugged. “It’ll give us a story to check, not that it’ll matter. I’m beginning to believe that none of them is telling the truth.”
“At least everyone is consistent,” Savich said.
Sherlock’s cell phone trilled the leading notes to the X-Files theme. “Hello?”
“This is Belinda Gates. We’re in really deep trouble here. Maybe.”
“What happened?”
“I was watching a cable station last night, nine o’clock. I saw The Consultant, the third episode.”
“Oh no,” Sherlock said, “we are in trouble.”
Three hours later, LAPD Detective Flynn, feeling harassed, said to the group of ten people crowded into Dane’s Holiday Inn room, “The program director, Norman Lido, of KRAM, channel eight locally, said Frank Pauley from Premier Studios sent him the episode and gave him permission to show it, told him they’d canceled the show, but maybe KRAM would like to pick it up. He liked the episode, showed it last night. This particular cable channel reaches about eight million people here in southern California.”
“Didn’t the idiot know why the show had been pulled?” Dane said. “The whole world knows.”
“Claims he didn’t know,” Flynn said, shrugged. “Of course he’s lying through his teeth. Why, I ask you, would any person with any sense of ethics want to air this show?”
The answer was money, of course, but it hung in the air, unspoken. He’d probably been paid a bundle to show the episode.
Flynn said, “When I told him it was all over the news, the jerk smirks and tells me he never watches the networks, they’re a bunch of has-beens. I told him that even minor stations like his had it plastered all over their local news. The jerk just stood there and pretended to be surprised. It was really close, but I didn’t slug him.”
“Why didn’t Belinda Gates call me last night?” Sherlock said. “Right after she saw the show?”
“We’ll ask her,” Delion said.
“She didn’t know what her husband had done?”
Delion shrugged. “Don’t know yet. But Sherlock and Savich are off to see Pauley. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Depending on what he does say, I’m ready to haul his ass off to jail or stake him out in the middle of Pico Boulevard at rush hour.”
“At least there haven’t been any reports yet of any murders similar to the ones committed in episode three,” Flynn said.
“No news is good news, I guess,” Savich said. “When we spoke to Pauley by phone, he claimed he didn’t know anything about this, that he never gave a copy of any episode to anyone. We’re going to go see him again, and Belinda as well. Delion thought Sherlock would do best with her. Dane, you stay in bed and try to get yourself healed. Nick, you keep out of sight; the media is going to be crawling all over the studio.”
“No,” Dane said. “I’m okay, really. I want to come see Pauley with you.” He paused a moment, then said, “I really need to do this, Savich.”
After a pause, Savich said, “All right, Dane. We’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes. But I think this is the last time you guys should be out and about here in LA. There’s just too much media interest, and I’d just as soon not take any more chances with Nick’s safety. Or yours,” Savich added, looking at Dane’s arm.
Nick just looked at him and said, “I’ll get your clothes together for you while you take a shower.”
“Thank you.”
“Be careful of your arm.”
Frank Pauley stood in the middle of his office, his arms at his sides, and said without preamble to the four people who’d just been ushered into his office, “It’s like I told you a couple of hours ago, I did not send that damned episode over to KRAM. I don’t even know the program manager over there. I’ve never even heard of Norman Lido. Obviously, somebody got ahold of the tape—maybe the murderer, maybe not—and sent it over in my name to confuse things, to make you think I did it. But I did not. There’s a little thing called liability, you know, and the studio will get its butt sued off if there are more murders. Jesus, I wouldn’t ever do that. It’s madness.”
Sherlock said, “Why weren’t you watching TV with Belinda last night?”
“What? Oh, I was playing poker with some guys in Malibu. It’s a weekly game. There were five of us. You can check it out.”
Savich waved to the very long gray sofa. “Do sit down, Mr. Pauley.” He motioned Sherlock, Dane, and Nick to sit down as well. “Agent Carver was shot yesterday, so he needs to take it easy. It’s likely that the murderer was trying to kill Nick.”
Pauley just stared at Dane, then over at Nick. He said slowly, looking utterly bewildered, “I just don’t understand any of this. It doesn’t make sense. All of this is just plain crazy.”
“I’m starting to agree with you,” Dane said. He was feeling a bit green again. His arm was throbbing, a dull bite that just wouldn’t stop. He cupped his right hand under his elbow, sat back in the comfortable gray leather chair, and held himself perfectly still.
Nick’s hand hovered, then lightly touched his.
“Mr. Pauley,” Sherlock said, “help us get a handle on this, please. When you got home last night from your poker game, did Belinda tell you about the show?”
Pauley looked at his fingernails, then down at the tassels on his Italian loafers. “I didn’t go home last night.”
“Oh?” Savich said. “Just where did you go?”
“We played poker until really late and I had too much to drink. I stayed over at Jimbo’s house.”
Savich raised a dark eyebrow. “Jimbo?”
“That’s James Elliott Croft.”
“The actor?” Nick said.
“Yes. He’s also a lousy poker player. I won three hundred bucks off him.”
Savich said, eyebrow raised higher, “And he still let you stay?”
Pauley said, “Hey, it’s a really big house. I’m a quiet drunk, never bother anyone.”
Sherlock said, not breaking the rhythm that she and Savich had set up, “When you saw Belinda this morning, she told you about the show?”
/> Pauley shook his head. “No, she was pissed at me because I’d told her I was coming home but I didn’t. She’d left for a run before I even got back from Jimbo’s house.”
Savich said, “So you don’t know why she wouldn’t have called last night, the minute she realized she was watching episode three?”
“No clue. She’s at home right now. I know that Detective Flynn spoke to her. What did he tell you?”
Sherlock gave him a nice smile. “I think I’ll just keep that under my hat.”
“You shouldn’t wear a hat, ever,” Pauley said. “It wouldn’t look good on you.”
“Depends on the hat,” Sherlock said, still with a sunny smile.
The phone rang. Pauley shot a harassed look toward his desk, listened to it ring again. “I told Heather not to disturb me so it must be really important,” he said, and picked up the phone, a fake antique affair in, naturally, gray.
When he hung up, he said, “That was Jon Franken. He says that his own personal copies of the next episodes of The Consultant are gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Agent Savich, look, the episodes we taped of The Consultant—they’re videotapes, and all over the place. Anyone who wants a copy can get ahold of it. All the producers, the editing department, the grips, anyone on set could get copies. They’re not locked away. Jon said that someone evidently took his copies.” He sighed. “Everyone knows that actual murders were committed using the scripts from the episodes. Who would steal Jon’s copies?”
“How many of his episodes are missing?” Sherlock said.
“He said the next three. Look, there’s just no way to hide the last three episodes we shot last summer. I’m surprised that Jon even noticed.” He looked like he wanted to howl. Sherlock devoutly hoped he wouldn’t.