Her eyes widened. “No way!”
“I don’t know. I just have to assume it. Listen, how long does Susie have that rental in Nantucket?”
She cocked her head. “Till the end of September, probably. Why, you’re thinking maybe we could borrow it for a couple of days? I’m not exactly in the best condition to take a vacation.”
“I’m not talking about a vacation. Do you think it’s safe for you to fly over there?”
“Flying’s fine. As long as I don’t exert myself. But what’s this all about?”
“I want Susie and Ethan to go back to Nantucket and take you with them. As soon as possible. Tomorrow morning, first thing.”
She looked at me. A series of expressions played on her face: confusion, skepticism, amusement.
Then realization. “It’s about Kurt, isn’t it?” she said.
Susie and Kate and Ethan got in a cab the next morning for Logan Airport and a flight to Nantucket. I went to the office, and at nine o’clock I grabbed a few minutes between meetings. I returned a call from the CEO of the Red Sox, who turned out to be a supernice guy-I guess I was expecting George Steinbrenner with a Boston accent or something-and wanted me to set up a demo of the PictureScreen and get him some numbers. We agreed to meet in a week.
As soon as I hung up, I took the elevator down to the lobby. Left the Entronics building, drove a few blocks away, took out Sergeant Kenyon’s card, and called him from my cell.
The phone was answered in a gruff voice, a Spanish accent: “State police, Trooper Sanchez.”
Office noise in the background, phones ringing, voices.
I said, “Sergeant Kenyon, please.”
“Who’s calling?”
I paused just a second. “Josh Gibson.”
In a minute, Kenyon picked up. “Mr. Gibson,” he said. “Let me take this in my office.” He put me on hold, then picked up again a few seconds later.
“Well, this is a nice bit of timing,” Kenyon said. “I was going to call you, give you the news.”
“News?”
“Accident Recon found nothing.”
“They found nothing,” I said. That stopped me in my tracks.
“That’s right. No evidence of a crime. No evidence of a crime means no investigation. Means I get assigned to something else.”
“But I know that Kurt-I know he did something to the car.”
“If the CARS unit says there’s nothing wrong, there isn’t a lot I can do.”
“They didn’t look hard enough.”
“You may be right. I don’t know. They’re busy. Lots to do.”
“It’s there. He did it. I know it. Did anyone check the ball joints?”
“I don’t know what they checked. All’s I know is, they didn’t find anything.”
“Where’s the wreck?”
“Scrapped, I bet.”
“Scrapped?”
“Processed out of the system, anyway. That’s what they normally do.”
“Who?”
“Tow yard. It’s theirs now. Normally they ask the deceased’s family if they want it, and when it’s totaled like this, the family always says no, so they sell it off for scrap. Why?”
“You’ve got to get your Accident Recon people over there to look at it again before it’s scrapped.”
“Out of my hands. Out of police custody too.”
“Which tow yard?”
A pause. Kenyon laughed. “Uh-uh. Forget it.”
I tried another approach. “If you search Kurt Semko’s apartment, I’ll bet you find some tubes of something called LME. Liquid Metal Embrittlement agent. Issued to the U.S. Army Special Forces.”
“LME, huh? Well, here’s the problem, see. There’s not going to be any search. No evidence of a crime means no investigation means no search warrant. That’s the way it goes in the real world.”
“He’s got the stuff there. I’ve seen it. That’s your evidence.”
“Let me explain something to you, Mr. Steadman, because you obviously don’t know how the system works. If you want to get a search warrant, you have to get a judge to sign off. The judge isn’t going to sign off unless there’s what you call probable cause.”
“I’ve seen the stuff in his apartment.”
A pause. “I don’t know what you saw, but my instinct about you is that you’re an honest fellow. Are you willing to be my informant?”
“Confidential, sure. But not named. No way in hell. Kurt knows people all over. He’d find out. Kurt bugged the room you and I talked in at Entronics, you know. He heard every word we said.”
“Jesus.”
“The guy is dangerous. So you see why I can’t go on the record as your informant.”
“Doesn’t work that way, Mr. Steadman. Judge uses something called the Aguilar-Spinelli test.”
“The who?”
He sighed. “Basically, it means that you can’t issue a search warrant based on plain old hearsay. If the warrant application’s based on information you get from an informant, you’ve either got to list the name publicly or establish a long history of reliability. As a confidential informant. Which obviously you don’t have. Now, if you’re willing to put your name on the search warrant-”
“Forget it. Not going to happen.”
“Then there’s no search warrant.”
“Don’t you want to solve this case?”
“Look here, Mr. Steadman. My hands are tied. As far as the state police goes, there is no case anymore. I’m sorry.”
“So Kurt’s just going to get away with this?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Steadman.”
I called directory assistance, got the number for J & A Towing-the company that had towed away Trevor’s car-and gave them a call.
“You have my brother’s Porsche,” I said to the woman who answered the phone.
“Okay?”
“Name is Trevor Allard.”
“Hold on.”
When she got back on, she said, “Hey, looks like we already talked to your brother’s-widow. She said she didn’t want the wreck. She gave us the go-ahead to sell it for scrap.”
“Shit,” I said. “That was my brother’s car.”
“The wife was listed as the next of kin. It’s probably been picked up already. Wish I could help you.”
“Can you find out if it’s been picked up yet? I’m sorry to bother you-it’s just that-well, it was my brother’s car. And if I can salvage anything from it-well, there’s, like, a sentimental value. He really cared about that car.”
“Hold on.”
I waited.
A man picked up. “This is Ed.”
“Ed, my name is-”
But he kept talking. “We followed all the proper procedures, sir. We notified the next of kin, and she authorized us to scrap it. The wreck’s scheduled to be picked up this afternoon by Kuzma Auto Salvage-”
“You still have it?”
“Like I said, it’s scheduled to be picked up.”
“Listen. This is really important to me. What do you get from the salvage company for it?”
“I really couldn’t tell you. That’s worked out between them and us at the time.”
“Ballpark.”
“Could be a hundred, two hundred bucks.”
“I’ll give you three.”
“You really want this wreck, huh?”
“If I can salvage something from it-anything-for my brother’s sake-”
“I don’t think three hundred bucks is going to motivate anyone, know what I’m saying. We got a relationship with this salvage company, and we already sold a bunch of vehicles by weight.”
“Ed, is this your towing company?”
“Sure is.”
“Three hundred to your company, and another three hundred to you personally for expediting this sale.”
He chortled. “That important to you, huh?”
“Do we have a deal? Or do I have to buy it off of Kuzma Auto Salvage, for what I’ll bet will be a fraction of that?”
“It’s a Porsche, you know.”
“A Porsche or a Kia, it’s a heap of steel and aluminum now.”
“Cash?”