"He was interviewed, but the boy was only fifteen at the time, ma'am."
"Yes?"
Her incredulity was an act intended to place Smith on the defensive. It worked.
Smith said, "It is his family, the Franklin family, that requested that I contact Locard, ma'am. The family is underwriting a significant amount of the expenses associated with reopening the investigation."
"Yes?"
The chief hesitated and looked around the room for help. None was forthcoming.
"Do you follow golf, ma'am?"
She fielded the non sequitur with aplomb. She said, "No, I'm sorry. Should I?" as she busied herself picking some errant threads from her needlepoint that had ended up on her sweater.
"Tami Franklin's younger brother is Joey Franklin. The golfer? Perhaps you've heard of him."
"Actually, no, I have not. But that's very nice for him. I hope he enjoys the sport more than I do. But my question remains, what was Joey Franklin, the golfer, whose family so wants our help solving these crimes, what was that Joey Franklin doing the night his sister and her friend disappeared?"
Excitement clear in her voice, Lauren whispered, "Alan, you know who that is? I think that's Mary Wright. She's a legend in the Justice Department. She was on the team that prosecuted Noriega. People talk about her sometimes for the Supreme Court."
The name Mary Wright meant nothing to me.
The police chief finally replied to Marys question.
"In his initial interview, Joey stated that he was out riding his horse until sunset. He said that after he brushed his horse down he went inside and was playing video games after that. He maintains he went to bed early."
Mary had returned her half-glasses to her nose and had refocused her attention on her needlepoint.
"Were his reports of his activities ever corroborated?" The chief didn't respond. Kimber said, "No, Mary, to my knowledge his whereabouts have not been independently verified. His parents were out that night. Mr. Franklin wasn't back from a business trip of some kind. Mrs. Franklin was having dinner with a friend. Joey was home alone."
Mary clarified, her voice mildly admonishing.
"I'm afraid that is a slightly elastic version of what we know to be true, Kimber. What we know appears to be limited to the reality that, if young Joey was home, he was home without parental supervision, and without a corroborating witness. His solitude cannot be established with anything approaching certainty."
Kimber grinned and proceeded to add a line to the chalkboard that read:
Alibi, Joey Franklin??? Reinterview.
Lauren gestured at the new line on the board and whispered, "Is Joey Franklin who I think he is? That young golfer who everyone's talking about? The one who had the playoff with Tiger at that tournament?"
That tournament was the recent Masters. Lauren didn't follow sports much. I nodded and said," It must be him." "He's cute," she said.
I didn't have an opinion about his cuteness.
Kimber continued his solicitousness toward Mary Wright.
"Is there anything else, Mary? Before we move on?"
She smiled warmly, her gaze wholly above the lenses of her glasses.
"Perhaps one more thing. The location of the murders? I'm troubled that we haven't talked more about that. The initial investigation? One of the things that we don't know is where these poor girls were murdered. That's correct, isn't it?"
Kimber's strategy all along had been to require that the Steamboat Springs cop take the responsibility for acknowledging the weaknesses in the case. The chief finally admitted, "No. The initial investigation did not reveal the precise location of the actual murders."
Mary faced Flynn Coe.
"Flynn, dear? You and russ have determined that the site of the murder wasn't where the bodies were found, was it?"
"No, Mary. The girls weren't killed there. The bodies had been moved. Possibly on the snowmobile." Mary said, "It seems to me that it would be very helpful for us to find that girl's hand and the other one's toes now, wouldn't it?"
Kimber wrote:
Tami Franklin, missing hand. Mariko Hamamoto, missing toes. Locate.
"That's all for me," said Mary.
The meeting persisted through two breaks until late afternoon. Lauren was gamely trying to stay awake as the day waned. A. J. looked exhausted, too.
Finally, Kimber Lister called for an end to the debate and then a vote about the formation of a working group. To the visitors, he explained that the creation of a working group, if approved, would indicate that Locard had reached a decision to make resources available for this investigation. The membership of the working group would be composed of those Locard regulars and invited guests whose special skills were considered essential to advance this particular case.
The debate was brief. In short order, the formation of a working group was approved with only one dissenting vote. Kimber moved to appoint Flynn Coe to coordinate the working group, no one demurred, and he quickly listed the initial working-group membership on his chalkboard.
Flynn Coe, crime scene, working-group coordinator Russell Claven, forensic pathology Laird Stabler, hair and fibers A. J. Simes, profiling, psychology Mary Wright, prosecutor Percy Smith, guest, detective Lee Skinner, detective Lauren Crowder, guest, prosecutor Alan Gregory, guest, psychologist
Lister asked for recommended additions. None were proffered. He gave a short speech about confidentiality and relations with the media, should they learn of our work. He explained that each guest would be partnered with an active member of Locard. Percy Smith would work with Lee Skinner, Lauren with Mary Wright, I with A. J. Simes.
He thanked us for our time, and the meeting was over.
My watch told me it was 4:36 in Boulder, Colorado. But Lauren's drawn face and rapid-fire yawns told me it was much too late in the day for her. She'd told me more than once that one of the most difficult things about her illness was how it shortened her days. Most people get twelve or fourteen waking hours to work and to play and to love.
"Sometimes," she'd said, "I feel like I only get four or six" Whatever allotment she'd had today, she'd severely overdrawn the account. It was absolutely clear to me that she needed to get horizontal and she needed it quickly. I despaired for her and worried about the effects of the fatigue on our baby.
Percy Smith approached the love seat just as I was about to go looking for Russ Claven to see what he could tell me about travel arrangements back to Colorado.
Percy smiled at Lauren, whose eyes were closed, her fingers laced across her belly. He said, "Jet lag? Me, too."
I didn't bother to correct him.
He and I introduced ourselves, and managed some small talk about how nice it would be to be working together, before he said, "Listen," in a tone that was unnecessarily abrupt.
"The three of us? We're traveling back home to Colorado together on Joey Franklin's jet. Just us. At the last break I phoned the people who coordinate the jet service. They can be ready to fly in about an hour. We'll get a cab from here out to Ronald Reagan. I assume that's okay with the two of you. The jet will drop me off in Steamboat and then take the two of you back down to Denver or wherever."
I glanced at Lauren for some sense of her inclination. Her eyes didn't open; I suspected she had actually fallen asleep. The alternative to accepting Percy Smith's invitation was finding a hotel room for the night, arranging a commercial trip back to DIA the next day, then getting a cab to Jefferson County Airport, where we'd left our car. Smith's plan sounded better.
"Sounds good. Chief Smith. My wife's pretty tired. She will probably just sack out on the sofa in the plane."
He exhaled in a short burst through his nostrils. A feral snort.
"Well, if there's two of them I got dibs on the other," he said. I was about to chuckle at the juvenile humor until I realized that the man was serious. He pointed at my chest and said, "How about you get the cab," then looked down at his watch.