Выбрать главу

He came toward us and introduced himself again.

“Louis Frye,” he said and shook our hands before taking the chair next to Conklin.

Jansing said, “Lou, please tell these officers about the text messages.”

What was this? We hadn’t heard about any texts relating to the belly bombs. If Jansing had withheld information, he’d better have a damned fine reason or he was going to be charged with obstruction.

“This text came from a prepaid boost phone,” Frye said. “I printed it out for you.”

He passed over a plain sheet of copy paper with a smattering of words: “Time to pay up.”

“When did you get this?” I asked.

“After the bridge bombs. It came to me,” said Lansing. “I thought it was spam. It meant nothing to me. We didn’t know that the bridge incident was related to us,” said the lawyer, “until the FBI descended on our Hayes Valley store.”

Frye said, “Then Michael got another text. Identical message, but they followed up the text with a phone call naming the amount. We decided to pay.”

Of course they paid. Chuck’s Prime only cared about keeping the company name off the record and out of the news.

“How much?” Conklin asked.

“Fifty thousand,” said Frye. He was slapping at his pockets, looking for his smokes. He found a worn pack of an unfiltered brand, opened it, closed it, and put it back in his jacket pocket.

He said, “We bundled the bills in a Chuck’s Big Lunch Box and left the box in a garbage can at our Monterey location.”

Conklin said to the head cheese, “You’re telling us you believed that would be the end of it?”

“Yes. Of course. And we agreed, Lou and I,” said Jansing. “Rather than let someone else die, we forked over the money. It seemed like the best course.”

I wanted to shout at the two suits, “You morons.”

Instead I said, “So rather than call the cops, have them monitor the transfer, you trusted a bomber, a murderer, an extortionist, when he said that there would be no more bombs.”

Jansing had gone pale around his eyes and mouth. I didn’t think he was feeling remorse. More like he was realizing how much shit was about to hit the fan.

“We employ thousands of people, all of whom would be negatively impacted if the public—”

“The FBI contacted us two hours ago,” I said, cutting his self-serving spiel off at the knees. “A Chuck’s customer exploded from inside out. Happened in one of your parking lots in LA.”

I passed the name of the FBI guy across the desk to Jansing and said, “I spoke with this gentleman, Special Agent Beskin, and he’s about to call you. I advise you to tell him everything you know. Any questions?”

Chapter 32

Cindy was at her desk at the Chron, rereading her old Randy Fish files, straining them for any missed morsel of information that could lead to Morales. By 10:00 a.m. she had put down three cups of coffee and two churros, the only food groups that appealed to her in her current mood.

Apparently her body was telling her what she needed.

Henry Tyler was in Washington today, meaning Cindy had a reprieve from a humiliating meeting where she would have to inform him that her story had gotten away from her and she wouldn’t be nominated for the Pulitzer anytime soon.

It was a conversation she really didn’t want to have.

Just then, a gaggle of her coworkers who were raving about a new reality dating show parked themselves in the hallway outside her office. Cindy got up and shut the door, and when she returned to her desk, an e-mail had arrived from Capt.Lawrence@CWPD.com.

Hope sprang, leapt around, did a pirouette and a curtsy.

Hi Cindy,

Morales’s prints were found in the house, but they were dusty. So give yourself a gold star for figuring that out, anyway. Fyi, if you don’t know, there was a bank robbery in Chicago on Monday and the perp was tentatively id’d as our friend Mac. According to what I got from our cop network, she shot and killed two people and got away with about a thousand dollars. Disappeared in plain sight, right outside of the bank. So maybe Morales was last seen in Chicago. Or maybe it was someone who looked like her.

All the best,

Pat

The few short lines felt to Cindy like bright sunshine breaking through the cloud cover after forty days and nights of torrential rain. She’d been right that Morales had used the Fish house as a hideout.

And now here came a fresh lead.

Morales had staged a bank holdup and she had killed two people—both a measure of her psychopathy and of her desperation.

No question in Cindy’s mind, Morales was going to need money again soon and she would resurface.

Cindy went online, searched for “bank robbery, Chicago” and spent the next hour reading about it in the Chicago papers. Mackie Morales wasn’t mentioned by name. Law enforcement was no doubt working according to the same principle as when Cindy had found out that the Fish house was wired with explosives.

Namely, they had to keep Morales out of the press so that she wouldn’t know that she’d been exposed.

Cindy located the videos from the Chicago news broadcasts. Customers who had fled the bank right after the shootings had been interviewed by the local press.

Cindy noted the names, and she sent out an e-mail to the staff writers at the Chron, asking if anyone had contacts in the Chicago PD.

Then Cindy wrote to Henry Tyler:

To: H. Tyler

From: C. Thomas

Subject: Update Morales

Henry, Morales may have held up a bank in Chicago and killed two people. Her name has not been released. I’m following up, digging in. More TK as I get info. Cindy.

Then Cindy wrote to Captain Lawrence, thanking him for the lead. Next, she booked a flight to Chicago.

Chapter 33

Mackie Morales was behind the wheel of the silver Acura she’d boosted from a parking space on State Street, a high-end shopping street in Chicago’s Loop. Well, she’d seen the keys in the trunk lock, so the Acura’s owner was definitely a dummy, probably still wondering where she’d parked the car, and would take her time to report the theft.

Meanwhile, as Mackie set out due west, she and Randy had had some laughs. He said, Sometimes life hands you dummies.

“Good one, lover.”

When Mackie stopped for gas in Bettendorf, Iowa, two and a half hours west of Chicago, she found the dummy’s peacoat in the trunk. She transferred her gun from her blue trench to the dummy’s felt coat and stuffed her own coat into the trash bin near the pumps.

About that time, she also found a pair of leather gloves in the pocket of the peacoat, very handy, and about sixteen dollars in ones and coins. It would have been great if the dummy had had some real cash in the car, but there had been a package of Oreos in the console and Mackie had been glad for those.

Now, after several cash purchases—gas and snack and dinner in a truck stop outside Cheyenne—Mackie was keeping to the speed limit on the interstate, cutting through the barren plains of southern Wyoming. She was looking for a good radio signal and a clear road with no cops. Instead, she saw a figure on the side of the road near the Laramie on-ramp.

As she drew closer, she saw that the figure was a young woman wearing jeans and a denim jacket. She had long dark hair and held a piece of cardboard with a sign written in marker, reading ROCK SPRINGS.

Randy’s type. To a T.

Mackie slowed the Acura to a stop, and the girl picked up her backpack and ran toward the car.

Mackie buzzed down the window.

The girl said, “Hi, wow, thanks for stopping. How far can you take me?”

“I’m driving to Portland,” Mackie said. “I can take you all the way.”