Simple (24 page)

Christie came into the room that held the DVD player. “Anything?”

“Suppositions. Connolly left early Thursday the sixth and Friday the seventh. I'm about to start on the Thursday in question—the thirteenth.”

“I put Potocki on her credit cards. He found something.”

“Yeah?”

“Cassie Price paid for a breakfast in Breezewood on Saturday the eighth using her credit card.”

“Breakfast?”

“He checked the credit card for motels, but nothing doing. We're guessing she was seeing Connolly somewhere—maybe they had a private place, a friend's cabin or something. What do you think?”

Colleen said, “So he goes to Harrisburg, has a real meeting in the late afternoon, suppertime. She drives to somewhere, let's say Breezewood. Gets there at seven. He drives back, meets her at say, eight, drives on home later. She goes home, too, on Thursdays. On Fridays she stays and goes to her folks.”

“Could happen.”

“They didn't have very long together,” Colleen says quietly. “It probably made them all the more crazy.”

Christie shuffles at the door between staying and going. “Potocki is going to call some motels.”

“But nothing on her credit cards—”

Just then Potocki comes into the room, saying, “You're talking about the credit cards? I learned something a few minutes ago. Could help.”

“Let's hear it,” Christie said.

“Well, it seems the motels are supposed to keep a list of reservations or bookings even when a person pays cash because they're supposed to use a credit card to establish identity. So, the card company won't have any record, but the motels should. Might. If they're working as they should be. The only trouble is, some of them probably don't keep records, and there are a lot of motels between here and Harrisburg. It's going to be grunt work.”

“And he could have been seeing her, yes, and still the killing was something else—Cal Hathaway losing it,” Christie said. “I still don't think it was Cal. And I think Connolly is a nice enough guy—”

“Not too charismatic for you?”

“I think there's some soul there.”

Colleen and Potocki both stifled the jokes. Their boss was getting into his priest mode.

“How are Coleson and McGranahan handling this?” Colleen asked.

“They look pretty sleepless. So does Connolly, for that matter. And we aren't terribly rested.” Christie paused uncomfortably. “I have to go talk to the doctor from behavioral now. I'll let you know what she says. If you two could keep at the tapes and the motel connections … let's see what we have.” He looked at his watch. “Be good.” He left the room.

Be good? She felt like a teenager.

*   *   *

POTOCKI AND GREER
worked well together. Christie knew it, but he'd have to break them up sooner or later.

He found Dr. Beni standing outside his office, practically tapping her foot.

“I'm sorry. Emergency.”

“It's okay.”

“Come in.”

They settled in his office. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I very much want to get your take on Cal Hathaway.”

“He's not easy.”

“I know.”

“All right. I read his history, and then I talked to him at length. Some people have thought of him as mentally challenged. I think a high school teacher called him ‘simple.' He isn't. I went back yesterday and gave him an intelligence test. He's careful. He's slow. Deliberate. He takes his time out of some sort of
caution
. But there's nothing deteriorated in his intelligence. He's not a superhigh IQ but he's very competent. Math is fine. Reasoning is within the normal limits.”

“What do you make of his confession?”

“He retracts it.”

“I know. Does it strike you as a false confession—are you using that term these days?”

“We don't have any better term. It's hard to persuade judges and juries that a confession is false. They think if a person says it, it has to be true. Jurors think, ‘I would never confess to something that I didn't do. Never.' But people do confess falsely—”

“I know that.”

“Of course you do. I don't mean to be insulting. I think … I think I might be rehearsing for the hearing in case I'm needed. Cal Hathaway doesn't know why he said it. He felt pressure. He wanted to rest. Everybody who was coming at him seemed to think he did the murder. He knew he had experienced blackouts in the past. He broke. But in the cold light of day he can't make any sense whatsoever out of the idea that he would kill Cassie Price—he doesn't know why he would do it,
how
he would do it. He's at a loss.”

“We may have other factors that point away from him…” He thought about the newest information, the labs saying they found some paint chips in Hathaway's car but no plaster dust, no particular match to what was gathered from Cassie's floor. “Would you be willing to say what you just said in the hearing? If necessary?”

She took her time before replying. “Yes.” She rubbed one hand against the other, nervous. “Honestly, if I'm letting a psycho out, if I'm fooled, I don't think I'm going to forgive myself.”

“I feel the same way. It's a big responsibility.”

“Do you have a line on someone else?”

He nodded ever so slightly. “I can't talk about that just yet. The hearing is Tuesday. I really don't know what I'm going to do just yet. I see the DA on Monday. Be in touch?”

“Yes. Thank you, Commander.”

“The thanks are mine.”

*   *   *

AT SIX THIRTY COLLEEN
and Potocki were still at the office. They caught something—they saw the silver car that belonged to Todd Simon leave the garage. They saw the driver look into the rearview mirror, put on his turn signal. Just behind him was the blue Focus. Cassie Price put on her turn signal. The silver car paused while she inserted her ticket. Then both cars turned left out of the garage.

“Ask Boss for the list of places where the good margaritas are.”

“Could have been a bad margarita.”

“True.”

“Could have been anywhere.” But Potocki was already on the phone to Christie for the information. “Some weekend assignment,” he told her while he waited for Boss to answer. “Margaritas and motels.”

The list of where to get a decent margarita included some of the upscale places downtown: Palomino, Eleven, Steelhead, Six Penn, Nine on Nine. It included the places on Mt. Washington. And the Big Burrito group of restaurants sprinkled throughout the city.

“That's too many drinks,” Colleen said. “Even for us.”

“Let's eat someplace first and then hit these places with our questions.”

They ate crackers from their desk drawers to tide them over while they copied a dozen photos of Cassie Price to take with them on this tour of duty. Finally they got to the parking lot and decided to take only Potocki's car and to start with Six Penn for dinner, fancier than their usual, but not exorbitant.

Colleen ordered a margarita. “Can't help it. Got it in my head.” When the waiter came back with it and a beer for Potocki, she ordered a skillet steak and he ordered a pork shank. Colleen dug out one of the photos and made her speech.

The waiters passed the photo around. Most looked puzzled, as if they hadn't paid attention to the news at all. Surprising as it was to the detectives who were working the case, Cassie Price and her fate were unknown to some and not on the minds of other Pittsburgh citizens going about their jobs.

She and Potocki spent an hour downtown and another in Mt. Washington, asking questions. Colleen refrained from ordering a second margarita anywhere. It was almost eleven when Potocki said, “Go for your car?”

She felt his hand on her back, familiar, not so professional. They were messed up, the line they had crossed was messy. “Let's make a last push. At least Soba, Casbah.”

Of course, life being life, the last place they went, Casbah, was where one of the waitresses said, “Yeah, that woman was here. I remember her. I wondered where she worked. She was dressed really well, like she was rich. Some guy was putting moves on her. I figured it happened to her all the time. I thought she was rich. Then I saw on the news that she got killed and that she lived in lower Oakland and it made me think how we don't really know what we're seeing.”

“You got that right,” Potocki told her. “We don't always know how to interpret what we see.”

Colleen took a careful breath. “The guy who was making moves on her? Can you describe him?”

“I can't. I don't remember him much—I mean not physically—but I had the impression he was cheering her up, you know, saying, ‘It's okay, lighten up, I can solve your problems.' Like that kind of come-on.”

“Try hard to remember him. Was he, say, very handsome and well dressed?”

“Well, no,” the waitress said somewhat irritably, since she thought she had made that clear. “Not handsome, but okay looking. Sport jacket I think. Sort of uncombed hair. Way older than the woman, say in his forties I'll bet.”

“That's useful,” Colleen said. “I might come back with a photo. In any case, thank you. I think you've been very helpful.”

They walked back to Potocki's car. He said, “She was here with Todd Simon. We need to talk to him again. Maybe Boss will want to. Or maybe he'll send me in this time.”

“Yeah. So. That guy makes me nervous.”

Potocki opened the passenger door for her. “You want me to take you back to your car?”

“Yes.” She relaxed into the seat while he walked around to the driver's side. “Let's get my car. I don't want people talking. Then I'll come to your place.”

He brightened.

She definitely didn't feel like being alone tonight.

EIGHT

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22

CHRISTIE'S KIDS WERE
slumped in front of the TV. Christie stood in front of the screen and made what he hoped was a pleasant face—shutting it off seemed too autocratic.

“What?” cried Julie.

“Homework.”

“I don't have any!”

Eric put his hands up. “I did mine.”

“Already? When?”

“Last night.”

“That's … unusual.”

“Mom made me do it. She said she didn't know how we would spend our time here.”

He laughed. What did she think, scrubbing floors? “Marina is taking you to a play.”

“That isn't until two.”

“Okay. Have breakfast with me. Help me work my case.”

“It's Saturday,” Eric said, frowning, but he looked alert, interested.

“Don't I know it?”

“What do we get to do?”

“Take a ride with me. Go pick up some phone records. Help me trace them. We could have lunch out.”

When the children started moving, he turned off the TV.

“I'm coming along,” Marina said. “I'm not that interested in laundry after all.”

“I'm also meeting Artie.”

“That's fine. I like Artie Dolan.”

So she made French toast and then they drove to Headquarters and got there before eleven.

“What's the deal?” Marina had asked as they drove.

“Artie did his magic with somebody in New Jersey. We're expecting a fax—they said about eleven o'clock—of some cell phone records. Both the victim and the accused.”

“They weren't easy to get?”

“Not so quick and easy. If you keep it clean, go through channels, it takes some doing.”

“Where do they keep phone records?” Eric asked.

“In a computer somewhere. Both are Verizon—so legal offices are in New Jersey.”

Marina said, “This is what I hate. Everything is like that. There is no such thing as local. You lose your luggage in Pittsburgh, you end up talking to somebody in Honduras.”

“I think it was Puerto Rico.”

“Whatever.”

“Anyway”—he directed his attention to his kids, who looked interested in the task ahead—“we ought to get something from the phone records. The woman who died—well, her cell is missing, but out there in some computer, there's a record of her calls.”

“No such thing as privacy anymore,” Marina said to him. He was parking the car. The kids were out of their seat belts and walking into the building before he could stop them.

“No such thing.”

When they caught up to the kids, Marina was saying, “I feel bad for the girl. All of us here to look at her dirty laundry.”

Julie's face showed she was listening. She appeared to be turning over the phrase
dirty laundry
—

Artie greeted them in the lobby.

“Hey,” Christie said. “Happy Saturday.”

“To you, too.” They went up a floor by elevator. Artie wore a short-sleeve madras shirt and jeans, but nothing ever looked quite casual on him because there was something of starch in the clothing as well as in his personality.

When they got to the copy room, Artie paced in front of the fax machine. “It better get here.” He watched Marina and the kids poking their heads into the staff kitchen, then going to Christie's office, where Eric immediately turned on the computer. “You have an entourage today,” Artie commented.

“For a little while. It's the only way I could spend any time with them.”

“I hear you.”

“Artie? Am I all wet? Be honest with me.”

“I don't think so, but I sure do like proof. What if we see there were tons of calls from Cal to her or her to Cal? What if he called her that night? That's going to tell us something.”

At eleven seventeen, they heard a hum and a click. They turned nervously toward the machine like two schlubs in a bomb flick. They watched page after page spit out, first Cal's wireless records, then Cassie's. They already had Cal's landline records, and there was nothing suspicious there.