Evidence (41 page)

“Monte
chokes out Doreen then abuses her corpse? Why would Rieffen point out the
stain? And why not wipe it off right at the murder?”

“Maybe
Monte didn’t want her to. Proud of himself, playing his own head game. On her
own, Rieffen might’ve been more cautious. Or she thought it was fun, too. In
either case, she knew the stain would be gone by the time the body got to
Jernigan. That’s exactly the kind of high-risk adrenaline rush psychopaths
crave. Rieffen takes control of the evidence, making herself look sharp-eyed in
the process. Then she finds a quiet moment at the crypt and destroys the
evidence, making the rest of the coroner’s staff look incompetent.”

“It’s
not enough that I succeed,” he said. “You have to fail.”

“Antisocial, self-aggrandizing puffery at its finest,
Big Guy.”

“One
speck of DNA could’ve screwed the deal—if anyone would bother to analyze the
stain. But she’s a goddamn C.I., would know how to do it right.”

“No
reason to analyze DNA,” I said. “The way the bodies were posed, the obvious
donor was Backer.”

“Speaking
of Backer, maybe we’re talking foursome down to twosome. They all knew each
other. One shot to the head, Desi’s out of the picture, they get the storage
key. Leaving Doreen to deal with two armed baddies, piece of cake subduing her.
Rieffen trains the little gun on her while Monte jams the big one. Then he
strangles her, delivering an incredibly demeaning coup de grâce. Then they
reposition the bodies.”

“They
left Backer’s I.D. in place, but took Doreen’s because she’d lived with them,
could be traced to them.”

“Rieffen
and Monte living with a pyro, and Monte’s copping the fifty G’s says they knew
about the plot. What if the foursome was a business arrangement, Alex?”

“They
were all involved in the fire,” I said.

“Eliminate
Backer and Doreen and the share doubles.”

“Foursome,”
I said. “Two other kids were suspects in the Bellevue fire. Kathy Something, I
forget the boy’s name.”

He
snatched up his pad. “Kathy Vanderveldt, Dwayne Parris. Lindstrom said they
turned out fine, she went to med school, he went to law school.”

“Lindstrom
never actually met them, she’s relying on the previous agent’s notes. What if
Kathy and Dwayne
planned
careers in medicine and law, but fell short? A
C.I. deals with the human body but works under a physician’s supervision. A
paralegal—who tells people he’s a lawyer—has to answer to an attorney.”

“Wannabes,
they change their names … the Feds being their usual thorough selves miss it.”
He faced his computer. “Okay, let’s see what we locals can come up with.”

He
called up a series of high school reunion sites, found one that
offered yearbook photos for a fee, zeroed in on Seattle.
Plugging in
kathy vanderveldt
struck gold at Center High. After
confirming that Dwayne Parris had been a member of the same class, he used his
own credit card to pay for the shots and printed.

Black-and-white
shots, but clear enough.

Younger
versions of the two faces we’d just seen carrying groceries.

Kathy
Lara Vanderveldt had smiled warmly for the camera. Member of the science club,
the nature club, Future Physicians of America.

Dwayne
Charles Parris had maintained a narrow-mouthed stoicism. An average-looking
kid, in every way, with bushy dark hair worn low over his forehead. Varsity
hockey, Model U.N., accounting club.

I
said, “She’s using her middle name as her first, he’s Carlo as in Italian for
Charles. Wonder where he got Scoppio.”

“Maybe
it means something in Italian.”

It
did.

Explosion
.

Milo
said, “Monte go boom.”

He
kept searching, starting with
kathy vanderveldt
. No criminal record on
file, same for Dwayne Parris, but a five-year-old account of the
Vanderveldt-Rieffen family reunion was featured in
The Seattle Times
.
Serious human interest, because a hundred fifty-three people had participated.
Page-wide group photo, Kathy nowhere to be seen but a small child with the same
name sat in the front row, beaming.

Milo
said, “Little cousin makes it to the party but Big Kathy doesn’t, because she’s
using an aka. She’s running from something bad, but no record?”

I
said, “It’s possible that whatever she’s running from never made the files. As
in her own lost years.”

“Another
teen eco-terrorist who kept it going?”

“And
whose career somehow got derailed. Doreen conned the FBI, but Lindstrom did say
she’d tossed them a few bones. Minor
stuff, but
everything’s relative, to the Bureau minor could mean big buildings aren’t
blowing up. What if Doreen’s info implicated Kathy and Dwayne seriously enough
to screw up their educational goals and force them underground? Kathy and
Dwayne figured out who’d betrayed them, but Doreen and Backer didn’t realize
that. Years later, the four of them reconnect in L.A., agree to collaborate on
a torch job. Shades of the Bellevue fire that killed Van Burghout, but now
they’re getting paid serious money. Kathy and Dwayne go along with it until
they figure out how to get hold of the money. After that, Backer and Doreen are
history.”

“Reunion
of the nature-hiking eco-pyros,” he said. “Okay, it’s time to have a go at
Gayle’s ego.”

Special
Agent Gayle Lindstrom met us at a pizza joint in Westwood Village, not far from
the Federal Building. College student clientele meant oceans of cheap beer on
tap, not much in the way of décor.

Milo
talked, Lindstrom listened, growing steadily more tense with each revelation.
When he finished, she said, “Those two. Oh, crap.”

“Kathy
and Carlo are your buddies.”

“They’re
names in a file.”

“You
made it like they turned out sterling. She’s a doctor, he’s a lawyer, all
that’s missing is an Indian chief.”

“I
said that because that’s what’s in the
file
. There’s absolutely nothing
pointing to them being criminal, let alone homicidal.”

“All
you know is what you read.”

“Cut
it out,” she snapped. “You don’t have to make me feel stupider than I already
do.”

“If
you had nothing to do with working Vanderveldt and Parris, there’s no reason
for you to feel stupid—”

“You
just don’t
get
it, do you? The first time we met, you figured
out I’ve got my issues. As in having trouble ignoring
obviously brain-dead decisions being made with more concern for butt-covering
than the public’s welfare. I like to tell myself if I’d been in charge, 9/11
never would’ve happened. Maybe that’s self-delusional crap, maybe I need to
stroke myself because the job’s turned out to be not what I had in mind.
However you want to see it, I’m an
outlier
and what I need—what I
needed—was a reprieve. When I learned you nailed the Swiss witch, I was ready
to buy you dinner at Spago.
Then
I find out the Swiss witch had nothing
to do with killing Doreen and the State Department’s on our butts because you
went into that hangar without authorization. Not only haven’t you helped me,
you’ve made my life more difficult.”

“Gee,”
said Milo. “Here I was thinking solving murders was my job, when all along it
was being your life coach.”

Lindstrom’s
hands clenched.

Milo
plucked pepperoni.

“Milo,
we’re the good guys, why are we going at each other?”

“Help
me out, Gayle, and we’ll be sandbox buddies again.”

“What
makes you think I can help you? I’m an unpopular girl with a cubicle full of
old cold files and a directive to clear them or else. Which is like asking me
to teach Britney nuclear physics.”

“Forget
physics,” said Milo. “Let’s talk medicine. And law.”

“You
want me to find out if Kathy ever enrolled, fine, I can do that. Same for
Parris and law school, but what’s that going to tell you? You need physical
evidence.”

“Whatever
builds the case is worthwhile, Gayle. Now tell me exactly what Doreen gave the
Bureau before she split.”

“Dinky
stuff.”

“I
like dinky, Gayle.”

“This
was real minor-league, it stayed with the Forest Service. There was a chunk of
disputed federal land in northern Washington State. The usual
logging/farming/dune-buggying/tourism side fighting the totally
leave-it-for-the-mosquitoes side. Doreen had volunteered as a tree-hugger a few
months before she got nabbed hooking
in Seattle. Doing
field tests, whatever. What she gave up when we pressed her were two schemes.
The first was her fellow volunteers tilting the odds by planting Canadian lynx
hairs near tree trunks—smearing the DNA then ‘discovering’ it. Apparently, the
lynx is mucho endangered, so that would’ve meant big-time land restriction. The
second con involved poisoning wild horses and leaving carcasses in spots
grizzly bears didn’t frequent to draw grizzlies and enlarge estimates of
their
habitat. See what I mean? Low-rent, the Forest Service gave even less of a crap
than the Bureau, took no action. Then a senator who got tons of logging money
found out and he raised a stink and an investigation ensued. No one went to
jail but people lost their jobs.”

“Names,”
said Milo.

“I
don’t have any, the guy from whom I inherited the files wasn’t into extraneous
detail.”

“Maybe
not so extraneous, Gayle, if Kathy Vanderveldt and Dwayne Parris were among
those volunteers. Some people lost their jobs, others might’ve lost their
careers.”

“Expelled
from med school and law school due to moral turpitude?” she said. “Yeah, I
guess that could happen.”

She
stood, tried to put money on the table. Milo’s big hand closed around hers. “My
treat, Gayle.”

“Why?”

“You
deserve it.”

“Yeah,
sure,” said Lindstrom. “When I got a bad grade, my dad lied to me the same
way.”

I
said, “Manipulating physical evidence.”

He
said, “Kathy Lara can’t be a doctor, but gets herself a gig where she can still
have fun with biology. Same old story, with twisted types it’s all about
control.”

“With
everyone it’s about control,” I said. “The key is how you go about it.”

Lindstrom’s call came as we drove back to the station.

“That
was quick, Gayle.”

“Wish
I could say I pulled strings, all I had to do was pull our copy of the Forest
Service file. Vanderveldt and Parris are named as participants in both cons. In
fact, they’re the only participants named. And Vanderveldt was, indeed, booted
out of U of Idaho med school—where she’d been at the bottom of her class.
Parris’s standing at U Wash law school was actually pretty good but he also got
tossed. Both of them appealed twice. Denied. You really see that as motive?”

“That
and fifty G’s, Gayle.”

“Yeah,
I guess that covers a lot of bases,” said Lindstrom. “So what now?”

“So
now I talk to them.”

“I’d
like to be involved.”

“When
the time’s right.”

“Hope
that’s
not a lie. With my dad I could tell. With you, not so easy.”

Deputy
D.A. John Nguyen confirmed what Milo already knew: insufficient grounds to
arrest Rieffen and Scoppio for anything, all interviews would have to be
voluntary.

“You
are cordially invited to chat?”

“Unless
you witness them committing some kind of naughty and bust them for that.”

“Bad
lane change do the trick?”

Nguyen
laughed. “I was thinking something involving blood.”

“How
about smearing lynx DNA on something?”

“What
the hell’s a lynx, anyway?” said Nguyen. “Something you make a coat out of,
right?”

“Bite
your tongue, John.”

“I’m
talking theoretical, Milo. My pay grade, the wife’s lucky to get wool.”