Garza frowned. "Some kind of grandfather. He laid as much blame as he could on the boy, said Curtis wanted to set off the bomb." He looked at Ryan. "If the defense attorney can get the boy to lie, on the stand, to protect Gramps, that could complicate matters. Would you want to talk with him again? See if he'll open up? He's scared now, since we arrested Gramps. The old man has threatened him. But maybe if we can convince him Gramps will stay locked up, and with the dog to comfort him, maybe he'll open up, tell us what happened."
"I could try," Ryan said doubtfully. "It can't hurt to try."
"I took makings for the bomb from that shack where Gramps was living, and from the trash bags he hid at the Pamillon estate, along with the stuff from his underground meth lab. Empty containers of Drano, white gas, alcohol. Propane cylinders, you name it. The old man's prints all over everything. And the Jag is registered to Curtis's mother, she's been driving the old man's broken-down truck." He looked at Max. "I'd sure like to thank your snitches.
"I'm guessing the old man waited until we checked that area up there, before the trial and again last month, waited until he thought we'd lost interest, then moved in."
Max nodded. "Checked every out-of-the-way house and shack in the county. And the Pamillon ruins."
"It's called egg on our face," Dallas said, laughing. "Anyway, the grand jury had a full and productive day. Davis will have Holland back here safe and sound, early tomorrow."
Ryan looked at Clyde. 'That's what Larn Williams was talking about when he accused Dad of having affairs with his caseload-a parolee named Martie Holland, alias Marianna Landeau. Only it wasn't Dad she was involved with. It was Rupert."
Flannery said, "Martie came out of federal prison ten years ago. Beautiful woman, could have had anything she wanted. But she couldn't stay out of trouble. She wasn't out two months, she was into an extortion racket. When I told her to clean up her act or I'd send her back, she came on to me. She thought she could buy the world.
"When she understood that I wasn't buying, she decided to target my family. She wasn't used to not having her way. She settled on Ryan, I guess because Rupert was… accessible. She was soon in bed with him and teaching him how to skim the company books. When I found out, I revoked her, sent her back.
"She came out with no time to serve. Was in L.A. for a while, got married. Became Marianna Landeau. I didn't keep track of her, didn't know they'd moved back to the Bay Area or that she'd laid a false trail under her own name to the Bahamas.
"Apparently she got involved with Rupert again, perhaps out of spite. Martie was never what you'd call forgiving. They began skimming the books again, before Ryan left him. We've talked with Ryan's attorneys. If I'd known that Martie was back in the city…"
"The woman I built that house for," Ryan said angrily, "the woman I created that beautiful cottage for. That was their love nest. Her and Rupert's love nest. She killed him there, to pin the murder on me. To destroy me."
"To destroy me," Flannery said, "by destroying you."
"She shot Rupert in there," Ryan said. "A love nest as lethal as the web of a black widow. Luring the male in, to kill him."
Dallas said, "The lab found blood in the rug that was taken from the cottage, the rug Ryan and Hanni gave to the Coldirons. That too was a tip from one of Harper's snitches. The lab came through right away. Since the county allotted more funds, they've been able to do some hiring. We're waiting for an answer on the DNA. If it's Rupert's, we've got a closed case.
"She shot him in front of the fireplace," Dallas said. "Shot into the niche where the right-hand sculpture is placed. Where the concrete had been patched and repainted, Davis and I dug out two spent bullets. I have no idea how the informants knew about the damaged fireplace. Maybe I don't want to know. The important thing is, their information dovetailed in nicely with our investigation."
"We're not sure yet," Harper said, "what else the Landeaus were into. The feds will be dealing with that. Could be, we'll be able to nail them with backing the Fargers' meth labs, we don't know yet. As to the bombing, from the evidence we now have, that was strictly a Farger family project."
"And what about the dog?" Clyde asked. "With all the threads that stretch from San Andreas to Molena Point, everyone's guilty but the dog."
Mike Flannery laughed. "He's the only innocent."
"Maybe," Dallas said, "Rock can help convict Gramps, if he and Ryan can get Curtis to talk." He glanced at his niece. "And maybe Rock's some kind of compensation, for Ryan having to go through this mess."
Ryan grinned, and rubbed Rock's ears, where the big dog leaned against her.
30
When Ryan left the job at noon with Rock, heading for the PD, she had more stowaways than she'd accommodated coming down from San Andreas. Hidden under the tarp in the truck bed the three cats crouched as warm and cozy as three football fans snuggled under blankets in the bleachers awaiting the big game.
Despite the hard bouncing of the truck, Dulcie and the kit purred and dozed; but Joe crouched tense and excited, ready to scorch out the minute Ryan parked, and slip inside the station. If their luck held, if the timing worked, this might be the game of the season.
He had placed one phone call just after breakfast. Using the extension in Clyde's bedroom to dial Ryan's cell phone, where she worked in the attic above him, he had suggested that today at noon might be the optimum time to have that talk with Curtis Farger, and he had shared with Ryan his take on the matter.
"Have you wondered why Rock pitched a fit, the day you took him to the Landeau cottage?"
"Yes, I have," she'd said softly. She didn't ask how he could know about that. Like Max Harper and Dallas, she kept her answers brief, and she listened.
"Davis and Green will be bringing Marianna in from San Francisco around noon," Joe said. "Would it be instructive to let Rock have a look at her-kill two birds with one… stone?"
She was silent, as if thinking about that.
"Couldn't hurt, could it?" Joe said.
She remained quiet. But then when she spoke, there was a lilt of excitement in her voice. "I'll be there at noon," she said softly. Then in a faintly seductive voice, "You know a lot about this case. I can keep a secret, if you care to tell me who you are."
Joe had hit the disconnect, pushed the headset back on its cradle, and left the house by his cat door. Slipping along beneath the neighbors' bushes, he'd followed a route away from the house that he well knew was invisible from the room above.
And now as he rode into the courthouse parking in Ryan's truck, he was highly impatient, tense to fly out. Ryan found a parking slot just to the right of the glass doors, one of those spaces marked Visitors Only, Ten Minutes, where the cars nosed up to a wide area of decorative plantings. Stepping out of the cab, commanding Rock to heel, she locked the door behind her. While she stood waiting to be buzzed inside, Joe dropped from atop a toolbox into the bushes. Behind him, the kit and Dulcie would take another route. As Ryan moved inside, Joe slipped in behind her and under the booking counter. Rock rolled his eyes at the tomcat, but didn't make a wiggle.
The shelves under the counter were stacked with rolls of fax paper and computer paper, cartons of pens and pencils, and all manner of forms, neatly arranged. Slipping in between boxes of printer cartridges and computer disks, he crouched where he could see both the front entry and the holding cell, but could pull back quickly out of sight. Curtis sat in the cell looking glum. He had apparently been brought up where he could speak freely, out of earshot of Gramps. Joe could hear from above the ceiling the faintest rustle of oak leaves as Dulcie and the kit swarmed up like a pair of commandos to the high, barred window mat looked down into the cell.