“It wasn’t that kind of damage; it was a clean cut or, rather, two clean cuts. The tire would have blown as soon as I ran over a bump of some sort, like a pothole, and if I had been driving fast-say, in a pursuit-I could have been killed or seriously injured.”
“Buy why would anybody cut your tire, Chief?”
“I don’t know; I’m asking you for ideas.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a clue,” Jimmy replied.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Chief. I don’t know anybody who would want to cause you harm.”
“What about the Cade girl?” Bruno asked.
“Lauren? Why would she…”
“Oh, come on, Weathers. You know about the false charges she brought against me.”
Jimmy colored slightly and decided not to deny it. “I just don’t think Lauren is the type to do that,” he said finally.
“She’s a woman, isn’t she? A woman with an imagined grievance?”
“I guess you could put a guard on your car,” Jimmy said.
“We don’t have enough manpower as it is,” Bruno said.
“Well, we have a surveillance camera pointed at the back door. I guess you could aim it at the parking lot instead.”
“Now that’s a damn good idea, Jimmy,” Bruno said. “Do it now.” He walked away.
Jimmy sighed. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? It was a fault of his that, around anyone of authority, he tended to talk too much. He got up from his desk, walked downstairs to the basement and found a ladder. He left the building through the outside basement door and set up the ladder on the back porch of the building, then he turned the camera so that it was pointing directly at Bruno’s cruiser.
He was about to get down from the ladder when he saw a silver Toyota across the street pull out of a parking spot and drive away. The driver looked like that man he and Lauren had questioned, Smithson, his name was.
Jimmy climbed back down the ladder, stowed it in the basement and went upstairs again. He went to Bruno’s office. “Chief, I turned the camera so that it points at your car.”
“Let me see,” Bruno said, turning to his computer. He tapped a few keys and a grid of images appeared on his screen, views of a dozen cameras set up inside and outside the building. “Yeah, there it is. What kind of tape loop do we have?”
“It’s either six or eight hours, I think,” Jimmy replied. “You’d have to call our tech guy for an accurate answer on that.”
“Good work, Jimmy. Thanks.” Bruno turned back to his desk.
Jimmy returned to his cubicle and sat, thinking about the tire and Bruno’s reaction to it. His phone rang. “Detective Weathers,” he said.
“Hi, it’s Lauren.”
“Hi, Lauren.”
“Bruno had the tire changed before we could get to it and take a cast,” she said.
“Yeah, he just told me. He noticed the cut and was afraid he’d have a blowout at speed. Now he thinks vandals are persecuting him. He made me turn the back door surveillance camera toward his car, so he can watch it.”
“Who does he think the vandals are?” she asked.
“You.”
“Me? He thinks I cut his tire?”
“He mentioned it, but I’m not sure he really believes that. He’s just getting paranoid.”
“That’s going to make it harder for us to nail him,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, I guess it will make him more careful, but if he’s the guy, he’s already being real careful; we still don’t have anything on him.”
“No, we don’t. But he’s going to make a mistake eventually,” Lauren said. “I just hope nobody else dies before he does.”
“So do I,” Jimmy replied. He took a deep breath. “Hey, uh, Lauren, would you like to… have dinner sometime?”
“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, “but I’m seeing somebody, and he’s taking all my time.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks anyway.”
“Call me if you get any more ideas,” Lauren said. “See you.” She hung up. Oh, God, she thought, how’s he going to take that?
39
Lauren was about to leave for the day when her phone rang. “Lauren Cade.”
“Hi, it’s Holly Barker.”
“Hi, Holly.”
“How’d your search for Bruno’s tire go?”
“Not well,” Lauren replied. She told Holly about the search at the tire recycling plant.
“That’s a shame,” Holly said. “Maybe if I’d gone with you we would have had a better chance to find the tire before it got sucked into that machine.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Holly; it just didn’t work out.”
“Have you got anything else on Bruno?”
“Not a thing, nor on anyone else, either.”
“Lauren, you remember the printout of those clippings and the juvenile record on Bruno I gave you?”
“Sure, I’ve still got them.”
“Please shred them. They came from an Agency computer, and I don’t want anyone else to see them. It’s not like they’re evidence; they’re just background for you and Hurd.”
“Sure, I’ll do that right away.”
“Something else, Lauren: has anyone else shown you anything that might have come from a CIA computer file?”
“No, in fact, no one has shown me anything from any computer file, except you.”
“If anyone shows you anything that you think might come from an Agency file, will you call me immediately, please?”
“Sure. What’s this about, Holly?”
“Someone is logging on to the Agency’s computer system and extracting material on Bruno and me.”
“Together or separately?”
“Both, and I’ve got to put a stop to that if I can figure out who’s doing it.”
“Doesn’t the Agency have a lot of security stuff you’d have to go through to get into a computer?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone I know would have that kind of expertise,” Lauren said. “Certainly not anyone connected with the state police.”
“That’s what I thought; I’m just alerting you to the possibility.”
“I’ll keep an ear to the ground, sure.”
“Thanks, Lauren.”
“Say, you’re seeing that doctor at the hospital, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Josh Harmon.”
“I’ve got a new boyfriend, too, and he’s quite a cook. Why don’t the four of us have dinner together sometime soon?”
“That sounds like fun, Lauren. Let me know where and when.”
“I’ll check with Jack and let you know.”
“Bye-bye, then.”
Lauren found Holly’s computer files and shredded them, then straightened her desk, locked it and headed for Teddy’s.
Teddy had a rib roast in the oven when Lauren arrived. He fixed them a drink, and they relaxed in the living room.
“Good day today?” he asked.
“No. We’re back to square one after the episode with the tire.”
“No suspects other than Bruno?”
“Not a one. I know he’s doing this, but he’s been very, very careful not to leave any usable evidence. I wish the man had a conscience; he’d blow his own brains out.”
Teddy laughed. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Oh, Jack, I have this friend-well, acquaintance-named Holly Barker, who’s in town for a while, and she’s seeing a doctor in the emergency room at the hospital. Why don’t we invite the two of them over for dinner one night soon?”
Teddy drew in a quick breath. “I’m not sure I want to share you with anybody just yet.”
She dug him in the ribs. “Oh, come on. It’ll do us both good to socialize a little.”
“All right,” Teddy said. “When do you want to do it?”
“How about this weekend? Saturday? I’ll help in the kitchen.”
“That’s fine with me,” Teddy said, his mind racing.
“Oh, good,” she said, kissing him. “Holly’s a great girl. I knew her in the army, then she was chief of police here, and now she does something with the CIA.”
“What on earth is she doing here?”
“She’s just taking her vacation; she has a house here, from when she was chief.”