What if the cop had been Wolper?
In the waiting room, he slid an end table underneath the smoke detector and stood on it as he disabled the device. That detector was not wired into the AC, and all he had to do was remove the battery.
She replayed the session in her memory. Brand's voice, slow and thick, recounting the events.
"Eddie brings out the money. Thick wad, wrapped in wax paper, all taped up. Looks like a fat deli sandwich. Makes me hungry when I see it. I didn't have lunch that day"
Her own voice, interrupting.
"Not you. You're the observer, Alan. You're only watching. Tell me about the two men. Eddie and the cop."
And Brand going on: "The cop takes the money, puts it in his coat. It doesn't print too bad against the material. Nobody will notice it there."
Every time he'd injected himself into the story, she had made him pull back and focus as an observer. It had never occurred to her that he might have actually been an observer all along. Maybe he had been making the pickup with Wolperno, that made no sense; he had called in the report on his radio before entering the garage. He must have followed Valdez inside and stumbled on the transaction, watched from the shadows as it went down.
When Wolper realized he had a witness, he swore Brand to silence. More than that, he made Brand take the fall for the shooting, since Brand had already radioed that he was in pursuit of Valdez. Wolper, or perhaps others involved in the conspiracy, had finessed the shooting review so Brand was assured a positive outcome. Whatever discrepancies there were between the bullet that had killed Valdez and the gun Brand carried would have disappeared.
Finished with the smoke detector, Wolper went into the kitchenette. She couldn't see him without turning her head, and her head wouldn't turn, of course. But even over the clicking of the magnetic coils, she could hear drawers and cupboards being opened as he looked for flammable materials.
The conspiracy had all been covered upuntil Brand started talking under the influence of MBI. Although he hadn't implicated Wolper, he had opened up the incident for a new investigation. Wolper had to take care of things before they went any further. She had told no one but him about her findings. He stalled her for a day with a bogus claim that he was going to review the case file on the Valdez shooting. Then he came after her.
At dinner she'd told him she was treating an inmate. She'd even said when her session with the convict was held. While the session was under way, Wolper must have entered the waiting room, made small talk with the deputyand killed him with a knife or other sharp instrument when the man's back was turned. He came into this room, concealed by darkness, unheard because both she and Gray were wearing headsets. He would have killed her the same way he'd killed the deputy, then found a way to make Gray look responsible. Maybe he was planning to shoot Gray and then claim he had arrived early for his four-o'clock appointment. He would have been a herothe off-duty cop who stopped a serial killer's rampage.
But Gray spoiled his plans. He had the screwdriver. He used it to free himself from the straps. And when Wolper attacked her, Gray took him by surprise.
Gray really had saved her life. The blood on the screwdriver was Wolper's, not the deputy's.
Wolper had fled. He would have had to bandage his cut, dispose of any soiled clothes and other evidence. Then he returned to her office, feigning shock and sympathy. He had to return. He had to know how much she remembered.
He had taken a terrible chance. Suppose, when she saw him, her memory of the attack had instantly returned. He would have been finished. No more cards to play.
Except that wasn't true, was it? He'd had another card. The highest card of all.
He'd had Meg.
That was why she'd been taken. She was Wolper's insurance. His guarantee that whatever Robin remembered, she wouldn't dare talk. At the first hint that her memory was coming back, he would have quietly informed her that if she breathed a word, her daughter would die.
He had pretended to be concerned about her. He'd stuck close to her, handling her interview himself, chauffeuring her to Hollywood. He had needed to stay close so he could be sure she didn't start to figure out what was really going on.
Wisps of smoke drifted from the kitchenette. The smoke had an oily smell. She guessed he had poured cooking oil on the stovetop's electric burners and turned them on. The heat of the burners would ignite the oil. No doubt he'd put down paper towels and paper plates as kindling. It wouldn't take long for the fire to grow and spread.
Wolper emerged from the kitchen. "Clock's ticking, Doctor. But you already knew that."
He clapped his hands, a man satisfied with his work.
"To be honest," he added, "you should've been dead already. Would be, if Brand had come through. I told him to take care of you when you left Parker Center. Problem was, he wouldn't give me a commitment. Didn't have the stones. So when you went sightseeing, I had to play chaperon, make sure you stayed out of trouble. Then, surprise, Brand shows up at the arcade. Doesn't shoot you, though. He cuts and runs. And when I frisk him, what do I find? His off-duty gunand nothing else. No throwdown."
He paused as if the significance of this statement were obvious. She just stared at him.
With a sigh, he explained. "You don't carry out a hit with a gun that can be traced to you. So if Brand wasn't planning a snuff job, what kind of bullshit game was he playing? I think he intended to warn you. He wanted to be a hero. I talked him out of that. Still, it was a close call. Too close. Lots of things have gone wrong tonight." He smiled. "But now I'm going to make everything right."
She spoke slowly, her voice dull and faraway. "They'll know it's arson."
Wolper shrugged off the remark. "That's not a problem."
He checked to be sure the windows were tightly closed. Already the smoke was getting dense, making her eyes water and her throat burn.
"Meg amp;" she whispered. She couldn't frame it as a question, but he understood her meaning.
"Don't worry about your daughter," he said. "She's a corpse."
The words made sense, but she wasn't able to take them in.
"We stashed her in an old bottling plant on South Central Avenue. I sent Tomlinson to take care of her."
Tomlinson. The detective who'd tried to talk her out of treating Brand.
Wolper looked briefly concerned. "Hasn't reported back. But he must've done it. She's a kid. How hard can she be to kill?"
So he wasn't certain Meg was dead. It hadn't been confirmed. There was a chance.
He read her thoughts. "Always hope, huh, Doctor? Good for you. Keep the faith. Me, I'm a realist, like I told you all along. You and your daughter are dead. Both of you."
He left, shutting the door to the waiting room, sealing her in to ensure a quicker suffocation.
The heat wasn't too bad yet, but the air was already fouled with smoke.
She still couldn't move. She would never move again. She would die in this metal chair. And Meg amp;
Meg was probably dead already. Even if she was somehow alive, Wolper would see to it that she didn't survive for long.
There was no hope for either of them, not anymore.
Chapter Fifty-one
Gray steered the Crown Vic onto the Santa Monica Freeway, eastbound, keeping one hand on the wheel. The other hand held the gun pointing at Sergeant Brand in the passenger seat. He was pretty sure Brand had been whipped into total submission, but it didn't hurt to be careful. A guy like him could come up with a surprise or two, especially if he had nothing to lose.
"Your file says you got, what is it, post-dramatic stress?" Gray asked over the hiss of the road surface.
"Post-traumatic. How the hell did you see my file?"
"I'm everywhere. I see everything. I'm like Santa Claus or God. I see when you are sleeping; I see when you're awake amp; You never had no post-trauma stress, did you, Sarge?"