Frank leaned forward just slightly. Carlson leaned back. He kept his grip on the desk.
“I don’t think I could have possibly heard you correctly.”
Carlson looked down at his desk again. “I want to reiterate that this is not to be discussed with the press.”
“Who around here has ever leaked anything to the press?”
Carlson colored. Not so long ago, he had received a formal reprimand for discussing a sensitive investigation with the Express. He had evidently counted on the fact that Frank’s marriage to a reporter would always make him the first person the department suspected of leaking stories to the paper. Fortunately for Frank, Carlson’s efforts to divert suspicion for the leak had backfired.
Carlson cleared his throat. “I’m only saying that I dread what this department will inevitably be put through as a result of reopening old wounds. I gather you understand my concerns?”
“I’ve got a few of my own. Once everybody up there realized I didn’t know jack shit about my own case, they didn’t have much to say. What little I heard from them doesn’t make sense, and now—”
“The basics are simple. We believe Lefebvre stole evidence and killed a teenager who was a witness in a capital case. Word on the street was that he was paid handsomely to ruin the case — half a million dollars.”
“Half a million, huh? Nice to have an official figure.”
“You found it?” Carlson said eagerly.
“Only if he spent all but forty-three bucks of it gassing up the plane.”
Carlson looked ludicrously crestfallen. “What do you mean?”
“I mean either Lefebvre stashed it somewhere, had a confederate, or never had it in the first place. From what I saw today, I’d say he never had it.”
“Perhaps it was stolen from the plane—”
“Doesn’t seem likely.” Frank described the scene.
Carlson sat brooding. He began making a low, tuneless humming noise, a sound he made whenever he was inwardly debating something. He was unaware that his coworkers referred to this as “Carlson’s thinking noise.” The office joke was that it would have driven everyone crazy if he’d made it more often.
“Cliff Garrett said that Lefebvre was a department hotshot,” Frank said by way of interrupting the humming.
“He was a fine detective,” Carlson agreed. “One of the best.”
“A friend of yours?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was in uniform then. Not very likely I’d be fraternizing with a detective.” He shifted in his chair — undoubtedly he had suddenly recalled that Frank often socialized with uniformed officers.
Harriman was silent, studying him. Carlson had never spent much time on the street, and Frank suspected he hadn’t been very useful during the time he was in uniform. Hell, he wasn’t very useful now. “So you didn’t know him at all?”
“He was a loner,” Carlson said, shrugging. “Afterward, we realized how much he had really held himself apart from others in the department.”
“So he had enemies — even before the kid’s death?”
“Not really. He was someone we were proud of,” Carlson said. “If you want to know why, take a look at his record.” He smiled smugly. “In fact, your wife seemed to be rather fond of him.”
“Is there something you’d like to come right out and say?”
“No, not at all,” Carlson said, quickly losing the smile. “She was a crime reporter then, and naturally she wrote about him. A lot. I’m sure she was devastated when you told her he was dead.”
“I haven’t told her.”
“I suppose Louise conveyed my level of concern about the sensitive—”
“Setting aside your dire warnings about discussing the case, I haven’t had the chance to talk to Irene today. She’s up in Sacramento, covering a political story. She won’t be home until tomorrow. But you were talking about Lefebvre — at least, I think that’s who you were talking about.”
Carlson went back to making his thinking noise, then abruptly said, “You don’t believe Lefebvre ever had the money. Why not?”
“He wasn’t a stupid man, right?”
“Not at all.”
“So, being a cop, he’d know you could trace his movements if he used his credit cards, right?”
“Certainly.”
“And so this man who supposedly has a half a million in cash, who knows you can put a trace on his credit cards, buys gas for a plane on one and only pulls forty-three bucks out to cover his other expenses during his great escape?”
“But if he hid the cash in Las Piernas—”
“He’s coming back here, where his face has already been on television and all over the newspapers?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“There’s no sign that he stopped off anywhere between here and that mountainside, right?”
“Right,” Carlson said. “We checked every possible landing strip in the local area. But we don’t really know when that airplane crashed, do we?”
“Not definitely, but the logbook and other indicators say it was the night he left town. No one saw him after that?”
Carlson shook his head.
“Even if he was dumb enough not to take all of the money with him,” Frank said, “he would have carried a couple hundred, don’t you think? How long can a man hide out on forty-three bucks? What’s he planning to do, write a book called How to Lie Low on Pennies a Day?”
“You mentioned the possibility of a confederate.”
“Same argument. Why does he take off with only forty-three dollars?”
“Perhaps he anticipated we would catch up with him, thought he might be questioned, and decided that this would make him appear to be innocent.”
Frank shrugged. “Even two hundred out of this rumored half-million would have looked innocent.”
Carlson had been frowning, but now a slow smile came over his face.
“What?” said Frank, mistrusting any of Carlson’s smiles.
“Read the files. The ones for Lefebvre and the Randolphs.”
“Lieutenant, just because — listen, he could have asked for a wire transfer to a foreign bank account. I’m just saying he didn’t have it with him, that’s all. After this beginning, I don’t think — I’m requesting that you put someone else on this case.”
“Your request is denied.”
“Shouldn’t this go to IAD?”
“We have discussed this with them. For the time being, this will proceed as a homicide investigation. Unfortunately, the two members of IAD who originally investigated the case have retired — and one is deceased.”
“Natural causes?”
“Yes,” Carlson said, narrowing his gaze. He apparently decided that Frank was not being flippant and continued. “Because all the current IAD investigators were involved in the Dane case, they will be assigning someone new to IAD to handle their part of the investigation — someone like yourself, who was not with the department at the time. Until then, you are in charge of investigating Detective Lefebvre’s death. Naturally, if you discover evidence implicating him — or any other member of this department — in wrongdoing, we will make that available to IAD.”
Carlson lifted the stack of files and held them out again. “Read these. If you still want someone else to take over the case — you may talk to Captain Bredloe on Monday morning with my blessing.”
“I may talk to him on Monday morning with or without it.” Frank took the files and walked out. He noticed that the other detectives had left. He sat down at his desk and locked the files away without looking at them, knowing Carlson was watching him.
Carlson stepped out of his office, locked it, and marched over to Frank, briefcase at his side, walking with his typical stiff-assed gait. What does this guy do to relax? Frank wondered. He pictured Carlson at home, practicing drills in the living room while his CD player blasted The Complete Works of John Philip Sousa.
“I don’t want to be accused of letting you walk into another situation without fair warning,” Carlson said. “So there’s something you should know before you step into the captain’s office on Monday.”