One Through the Heart (27 page)

Lash typed: ‘
remember all my students
.’

Raveneau got it now. Lash believed Royer was sent to kill him because Lash would recognize their faces and the ideas bandied about years ago. He remembered drunken debates about how to provoke social change on a large scale. Fires were talked about as economical and viable. Fires were just the start.

‘You’re still alive, so you’re still in danger.’

He typed: ‘
yes
.’

‘OK, now we’re somewhere.’ And Raveneau leaned back, thinking about Lindsley showing him where to dig, Lindsley trying to extricate himself and Lash talking now again. Raveneau leaned over. Lash tried several times to say the word philosophical. He couldn’t do it and Raveneau said it for him, and when he struggled with the next word, Raveneau filled that one in too.

‘Philosophical discussions.’

He typed. ‘
Yes
.’

‘You, Lindsley, and Siles.’

‘
yes
.’

‘Ike Latkos wasn’t there?’

‘
no
.’

Maybe it was a fantasy they all shared and maybe they really got into the details, the mechanics of how to make it work. Lash communicated now that targeting the San Francisco water supply was possible, and Meech explained that Professor Lash wanted police protection. He wanted acknowledgement. Then as Lash faltered and the conversation ended he offered another proposal. Raveneau turned that one back to Lash as a question.

‘You have proof that Brandon Lindsley murdered Ann Coryell and if you’re granted complete immunity you’ll testify against him?’

Lash gave the slightest nod and then closed his eyes.

‘I’ll get back to you soon.’ He turned to the lawyer, Meech. ‘Let’s you and I go talk.’

O
utside Lash’s room Raveneau turned and said, ‘We can sit in my car or we can stand in the street, but I don’t want to talk in the building. There’s too much video and sound equipment in here.’

They sat in Raveneau’s car, and Meech, who was tall, slowly stretched his legs out and tried to get comfortable with a situation he had no experience with and was unprepared for. He was doing his best but when he tried to take the offensive Raveneau cut him off.

‘Get him to reveal what he knows and do it now. I know you were thrown into this, but it couldn’t be more serious. He’s alluding to knowing things the FBI needs to know and if the knife or surgical saw comes back with his DNA or even her blood type we may charge him with Ann Coryell’s murder. He can’t ignore this. He can’t talk his way around it or out of it.’

‘He could die from the stress.’

He’s dying anyway, Raveneau thought and leaned back against the door so he could see Meech better. He waited a beat before speaking again. ‘The FBI is on their way here. They’ll ask the same questions but with more urgency. They’ll want to know what he can tell them about the evolution of this plot and you’ll probably ask for the same conditions. Why does he need immunity? If he didn’t kill Ann Coryell or take part in a plot to kill indiscriminately what’s the risk?’

Meech struggled with his role. He was confused and didn’t understand why his client wasn’t more forthcoming. But he also doggedly tried to make his client’s case. ‘If my client is going to ask for something he has to do it now before he gets encumbered in the process. He’s too weak to defend himself and his remaining time shouldn’t go to it. I don’t have any question about cooperating with the FBI and I’m sure Albert wants to help. He’s not asking for any favors or to escape justice. He’s asking to be afforded the dignity to die in peace. You know this far better than I do, but I don’t believe investigators will release him from the possibility of criminal charges until they’re confident they’ve gotten everything they can from him.’

‘You’re setting conditions for revealing something he should have volunteered days ago.’

‘I’m representing my client’s point of view.’ He paused. ‘But there is another way we can do this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He does everything he can to help you charge this Lindsley and the others behind these fires and you back off on the old case. You let it go. The house is sold. People have forgotten, and as you said, he’ll die sooner than not. You let it go. Close the file and work on something else. Professor Lash wrote a number of good books that have helped the American people better understand themselves. He was a popular professor and well respected. Let him depart with that intact.’

‘Put away the murder file?’

Meech turned slightly to face him and adjusted his glasses. ‘You looked at him closely once before and cleared him. Yes, put it away.’

‘Let it be and forget about her?’

‘I’m not saying that.’

‘She was young, brilliant, full of promise, emotionally unstable, but maybe that’s about genius. I don’t really know, and I’m not sure I’ve ever known a genius. I’ve known two people who belong to that organization, what’s it called, MENSA, and are very proud of their high IQs. I guess technically they’re geniuses, but I’ve never found them to be much different than the rest of us. I think the word is meant for something else and shouldn’t be used very often. She may have been that. Or maybe she was just one of us, but either way what you’re saying is close the file and forget about her because continuing to investigate could affect what Albert calls his legacy.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘I think you need to be very frank with the emperor about his clothes. He’s facing death and he’ll appreciate candor. He doesn’t have any legacy. Why don’t you go in there and tell him what everyone else already knows? It might come as a big relief to him to not have to worry about it anymore.’

‘Inspector, he has only weeks left. Don’t you have any compassion? You don’t seem to want to acknowledge that truth. Why is that?’

‘Ann Coryell’s life ended ten years ago when it was taken from her. She’d be thirty-nine now. Maybe she would have written the book of her ideas that Lash plagiarized and there’s a very good chance this little group of social engineers never would have formed.’ Raveneau paused. He was getting lost here and not getting anywhere, but he asked Meech, ‘Do you have a legacy?’

‘You bet I do. I have two divorced wives who hate me and will always remember and talk about me. I also have three adult children who would like me more if I died tomorrow and left them what I have in assets. I had a tumor removed five years ago so they always ask about my health. I know the younger one has studied every Internet article he could find trying to determine the odds of recurrence. I know that because I’ve read the same articles and he’s right to hope because the odds are it will come back. My ex-wives have taught my children to hate me.’

‘I don’t have a legacy either.’

‘Inspector, he would like to go quietly. If you determine he participated in something terrible, whether with her or others, is there really a need to charge him? He’s never going to stand for trial or go to prison.’ Now Meech’s pale blue eyes found the windshield.

‘Albert told you something. What did he tell you about the bomb shelter?’

‘I can’t answer that, as I’m sure you know.’

‘Did he confess to you?’

Meech was silent. He adjusted his glasses again and in the rear view mirror Raveneau saw vehicles approaching. One pulled in just in front of them and two behind.

Raveneau opened his door and said to Meech, ‘Tell me before they get here.’

Meech was silent.

‘You’ll love the FBI,’ Raveneau said. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you.’

W
hen Raveneau walked back in Coe was sitting close to Lash who despite the tubes and wheelchair was in control. He had something to trade and the full attention of the FBI. Coe went along. He read the signals and deferred to Lash, but Raveneau’s presence was distracting. It broke the happy cooperative mood and Raveneau soon left. Later that night he picked up a voicemail from Coe. He listened and then called him back.

‘Lash wants to trade six months for the rest of what he knows,’ Coe said. ‘It’s not at all clear what that is, but we’re rolling with it. He faded on us about eight o’clock and we’re back in the morning.’

‘You’re rolling with it, but you’re not sure what he’s talking about yet?’

Coe sighed and then apologized, ‘Sorry, long day, and yeah, the murder investigation is in the mix. He wants to be left out of your investigation for six months. Obviously, this is your decision not ours, but as his lawyer keeps saying, he’s never going to trial. Innocent or guilty, he won’t be here. He isn’t going to be around and I was knocking on wood when I walked out of that room hoping nothing like that ever happens to me. He got his lawyer to call one of his doctors and then put her on speakerphone and asked her to be frank about the progression of the disease. He asked her to make her best guess on life expectancy and to be detailed about the end. She balked a little and then did it.’

‘How long?’

‘On the outside four months max. He wants six. He wants a buffer and wants it in writing. He wants it in writing but he also wants your word. He believes you’ll keep your word.’

‘Translate that for me.’

‘If you solve the murder in the next six weeks and he’s the killer, you still wait the full six months. He doesn’t get charged.’

‘Why would he? He’s innocent.’

‘He’s ready to make that agreement now, but it takes you. He’ll do it tomorrow morning if you agree. He says he’s up before dawn every day and if you want to talk again that’s when he feels best. He says he has some things that he’ll say only to you.’

‘I’ll meet you there at five tomorrow morning.’

‘You’re on.’

Raveneau was up at four thirty the next morning and out the door with coffee fifteen minutes later. He arrived ahead of Coe but not before an ambulance. He parked and hurried inside and knew as he saw the face of one of the security guys that it was Lash.

‘What happened?’

‘They’re saying heart attack. They’re trying to figure out how to move him.’

Coe arrived and he and Coe followed the ambulance to UCSF Medical Center. They watched him wheeled in and waited around and talked eventually to a doctor. They asked about talking to Lash and didn’t get a verbal answer, just a shake of the head. They were like two ghouls, Raveneau thought, hanging around to make sure Lash wouldn’t die on them.

Raveneau turned to Coe as they walked out into the early cool. ‘Let’s get breakfast and talk. I’ll buy. You need some food.’

‘What I need is sleep and what I don’t understand is why we haven’t caught up to these assholes yet. We should have them by now. We’ve got over a hundred agents here and at headquarters working on this. We’ve got nine teams and round the clock surveillance on Brandon Lindsley. We’re considering every sabotage scenario we can think of, but if you think of anything you call me, OK?’

Raveneau was ready to head to his car when Coe asked, ‘What happened at Wounded Knee? I mean, from the perspective of a homicide inspector, was it genocide or a series of misunderstandings and mistakes on both sides that led to an overreaction? I want to know what you think as a career homicide investigator.’

Raveneau stopped. It was an off-the-wall question this morning but it was also something he had thought about. ‘On one side you’ve got people being herded on to reservations and fearful there’s a plan to exterminate them, and on the other side people so frightened of an Indian uprising they sent the Seventh Cavalry. One hundred twenty men and two hundred thirty women and children being led by Chief Bigfoot were apprehended by the Seventh Cavalry who then set up a camp for the night. Two Hotchkiss guns were placed on a ridge above and trained on the Sioux tents. Those guns could put out a shell a second. They got used the next morning when an attempt to collect all of the Sioux firearms turned into a firefight after a Sioux brave resisted giving up a rifle he’d paid a lot of money for.

‘In a homicide investigation we start with the dead. Almost three hundred Sioux died, one hundred fifty or more in the initial shooting and the rest from wounds. The Seventh Cavalry lost thirty-seven. Almost all of those thirty-seven were killed by friendly fire. I think when the Seventh started firing they didn’t stop until they had shot every Indian they could find. They quit when there was no one left to shoot at. They weren’t looking for prisoners and the evidence suggest they weren’t in danger. It all happened fast, but it wasn’t an accident. I’d charge the shooters with murder.’

‘Was it a significant enough event to reach down all these years?’

‘It’s not reaching down. It’s still here. That was her point. I’ll talk to you in a couple of hours.’

H
ugh Neilley grew up in a family of five boys who fought with each other for anything and everything, their violence an extension of a father whose frustration with life and marriage usually showed itself at or around the third or fourth drink. That was the story Hugh wove and one that Raveneau believed. Hugh had little contact with any of his brothers. He didn’t return their calls, and his sister, Matt Baylor’s mother, was the only one in his family who could talk to him. Raveneau’s friendship with Hugh had survived other hard times, but he didn’t think it would this one. No matter how this investigation turned out, Hugh was going to wall him off. He picked up the phone now and called him.

‘You’ve got about ten seconds to explain what you want.’

‘I can do it in less. We’ve recovered a bloodstained knife and a surgical saw and we’re on our way to DNA results. Lindsley led us to a site up above the Presidio graveyard. He said Lash took him there and told him where to dig.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘What do you know about Lash’s diaries or notebooks?’

‘What’s in the files about them?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then I don’t know anything. Is there anything else before I hang up?’

‘Lash’s sister called and left a message this morning. She mentioned your name, said I should talk to you because you contacted her recently. Is that true?’

‘She talks to people who aren’t there. I thought you knew that about her. She probably heard her brother’s name on TV and remembered mine.’