Very Bad Men (19 page)

I lingered in the hallway and pictured the dresser at home where I had picked up my wallet, phone, and keys. My Swiss Army knife had been there with them, but I didn't remember taking it, and when I patted my pocket it wasn't there.

Leaving the door ajar, I drew my key from the lock and spent a moment thinking about the sensible thing to do. The prudent thing. I decided I should leave, go back down to the car. Call someone. No need to take chances.

I let another moment pass before I eased the door open and stepped into the outer office. Prudence has never been my strong suit. I pocketed my keys and flipped the light switch. Fluorescents flickered on. No one leapt at me.

The reception desk looked undisturbed. The door to the inner office was closed. Likewise the door to the storage room. I stood quiet for several seconds, listening.

Nothing.

The door to the inner office has a lock, but I rarely engage it. The knob turned and I went in, flipping on the lights. A coatrack on my right, empty except for a dusty black fedora. Filing cabinets, bookshelves. Gray gunmetal desk. Papers on the desk, neatly arranged. Maybe a little more neatly than I had left them.

I went around behind the desk and opened the left-hand drawer. It has a false bottom with a compartment underneath; I had hidden a spare copy of the man in plaid's manuscript there. I cleared away the pens and the stapler and lifted out the bottom. The compartment was empty.

Slipping off my shoes, I padded to the outer office and stood for a few seconds listening at the door of the storage room. Heard nothing. I went back and slipped my shoes on again and walked past the reception desk to the photocopier. It was powered off. I lifted the document feeder slowly and laid my palm on the glass. It felt warm.

I picked up the phone on the reception desk, touched nine-one-one on the keypad, and waited.

“My name is David Loogan,” I said. “I've had a break-in at my office.” I recited the address, then listened for a moment with my eyes on the storageroom door.

“Thank you,” I said. “I'll come down to the lobby to let the officers in.”

I replaced the receiver and picked up a ream of paper from beside the copier. With the paper under my arm I walked out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me. Down the hall to the elevator. Pushed the button. The doors rumbled open. Seconds later they rumbled closed. Seconds after that I was back outside the door of
Gray Streets,
pressed against the wall to the left of the door frame, with the ream of paper held two-handed over my right shoulder.

Before long I heard sounds from inside: the door of the storage room opening and closing, soft footsteps crossing the carpet. Then a delay, probably a detour into the inner office. Finally more footsteps, coming closer. The doorknob being turned. I watched the door sweep inward, shifted my weight to my left foot, and swung the ream of paper around.

She had good reflexes. Lucy Navarro. Better than mine.

She ducked her head and brought her right arm up to ward off the paper. I tried to check my swing, not enough, and the corner of the ream struck the pebbled glass of the door, sending shards across the carpet. Sending the door crashing into the wall.

Lucy stepped back, both arms up now, covering her face.

“Jesus, Loogan!”

I tossed the paper on the floor. The door bounced off the wall and a long, jagged chunk of glass dropped out of the frame, like an icicle falling from an eave.

“Jesus,” she said again.

I took hold of her forearms and drew them away from her face. She had her eyes closed tight. She tried to pull away from me.

“Hold still,” I said.

I plucked a speck of glass from her hair and another from a spot just below the lower lid of her left eye. I moved her face gently from side to side, searching for more.

Finally I said, “Open your eyes.”

She opened them and blinked several times. Stared back at me, pupils huge, green irises. I didn't see any glass.

“You're all right,” I said.

I let go of her and walked past the reception desk, heading for the inner office. At the doorway I turned and saw her standing on the same spot, blinking. She wore a pale yellow summer dress with sandals, a handbag slung over her left shoulder.

“Come on,” I said.

I settled in behind the desk, opened the left-hand drawer, lifted the false bottom. My copy of the man in plaid's manuscript was back in place. By the time I closed the drawer, Lucy had taken a seat in the guest chair across from me. She dropped her bag on the floor.

“Let's have it,” I said.

“Have what?”

“You know what I mean. The manuscript.”

She pointed at the desk. “I put it back.”

“You made a copy.”

“I didn't have time.”

“I checked the copier. The glass is still warm.”

“The glass is warm. You're a trip, Loogan. What are you doing here this late?”

“I come here sometimes when I can't sleep.”

“How come you can't sleep?”

“I get to thinking about all the troubles in the world. Are you going to give me the copy you made, or do I have to call the police?”

“I thought you already called them.”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“So that was all an act?” she said. “Did you know it was me hiding in the storage room?”

“If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have tried to slug you with five hundred sheets of recycled bond. Hand over the manuscript, Lucy.”

“I told you, I never made a copy. I turned the machine on, but it was still warming up when I heard you get off the elevator. I barely had time to kill the power and duck into the storage room.”

I almost let it go. I think it was the yellow dress. It made me want to give her the benefit of the doubt. What can you say about a woman who wears a yellow dress to break into an office at night? How bad can her intentions be?

Still, I was reasonably certain she wasn't telling the truth. Not that it bothered me. Not really. I watched her sitting there, bent slightly forward, the palm of her right hand open in her lap, her left hand rubbing her shoulder. Lips curled in a smile. Innocent eyes looking back at me. It was like being lied to by a basket of kittens.

I shook my head. “You made a copy and it's either in your bag or somewhere under that dress. I'd frisk you myself, but I like to think I'm a gentleman. I'll leave it to the police.”

I reached casually for the phone and laid the receiver on the desktop so we could both hear the dial tone. I pressed the nine. She tried to stare me down, but when I pressed the first one, she picked up her bag and took out several sheets of paper rolled into a cylinder.

She tossed them on the desk. I flattened the pages and left them facedown between us. She returned the receiver to its place.

“All right,” I said. “Let's hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“Only a handful of people know about this manuscript. How did you find out about it?”

“I can't compromise my sources, Loogan. Journalistic ethics.”

“Yes, I can see you've got journalistic ethics. It's a shame you don't have the regular kind.” I reached again for the phone.

She put her hand on the receiver. “Arthur Sutherland,” she said. “Kyle Scudder's lawyer in Sault Sainte Marie. I went to see him. He had a copy of the manuscript on his desk. He hid it away before I could read any more than the first line—but the first line is a real hook. ‘I killed Henry Kormoran.' I knew I needed to see the rest.”

She tossed her shoulders carelessly. “Kormoran was killed here in town, so I assumed the killer must have sent his confession directly to the Ann Arbor police. I knew Detective Waishkey wouldn't tell me anything, so I spent some time hanging around the watch commander's desk at City Hall. Listening to gossip. Do you know who the cops talk about around the watch commander's desk, Loogan?”

“Who?”

“You and Detective Waishkey. They said you came there to see her the night Kormoran's body was discovered. And you had an envelope with you.”

I laid a hand over the pages on my desk. “How much of this did you read?”

“Enough to understand why you took your trip to Sault Sainte Marie, and what you and Detective Waishkey were doing on the hill at Whiteleaf Cemetery. Do you think this is true? He was there with his rifle? He took a shot at Terry Dawtrey?”

I gave her a blank look and said nothing.

“Stop being so cagey, Loogan. You and I can help each other. There's something going on here. Something bigger than a nut with a rifle on a hill. What do you think of Callie Spencer?”

“What do I think of her?”

“You went to her party tonight,” Lucy said.

“How do you know about that?”

“Gossip, Loogan. So what did you think? Did you talk to her?”

“For a few minutes.”

“What was your impression?”

“She's a politician. She wants to get elected.”

“Does she want it bad enough to send a nut with a rifle to kill Terry Dawtrey? Bad enough to send him after Henry Kormoran and Sutton Bell?”

I studied her face. Her pale green eyes gazed back at me. “You're not serious,” I said.

“Why not?”

“It doesn't make sense. Why would she want them dead?”

“To get them out of the way.”

“They were never in the way,” I said. “Dawtrey was in prison. Kormoran and Bell were leading unremarkable lives. They were a footnote in Callie Spencer's story: the men who robbed the Great Lakes Bank and put her father in a wheelchair.”

“But what if they were a threat to her?” Lucy asked.

I studied her some more. Sat back and put my feet up on the desk.

“What do you know?” I said.

“That's better, Loogan. You're starting to take me seriously. Tell me something. If you tried to contact Callie Spencer, would she take your call?”

“Why?”

“Because she won't take mine. I'm starting to feel desperate. If I tell you what I know about Terry Dawtrey, will you try to get me a meeting with her?”

I gave her my best hard stare. “What do you know about Dawtrey?”

“You'll call her?”

“I doubt it'll do any good.”

“But you'll try?”

“Yes. Tell me about Dawtrey.”

She turned her face away from me and her voice went quiet. “I think I got him killed.”

S
he told me the story haltingly at first, her eyes wandering from the file cabinets to the bookshelves to the window. But soon she became animated, getting up from the chair and pacing the room.

“I talked to Dawtrey this spring,” she told me, “a few weeks before he died. Right around the time Callie Spencer won her party's primary. The
Current
wanted a story about the Great Lakes Bank robbery—it was the most sensational part of Spencer's history. Solid tabloid material. They had sent reporters to interview Dawtrey before, but no one ever got in. He didn't want to talk. At least that's what the people at the prison said.”

She didn't let that stop her. She pretended she was his cousin and they let her see him. The visitation room at Kinross was a dreary place, she said. Crowded and noisy. She found Dawtrey sitting off in a corner. The first thing she noticed was that he had bruising around his left eye and a cut just above his eyebrow.

“What happened to you?” she asked him.

He started to bring a hand up to his face, then stopped and put it back on the table.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“You can tell me,” she said. “I'm a reporter.”

His eyes came to life. He almost smiled. “No kidding,” he said. “And I thought you were my cousin.”

“If someone beat you up, I can help you,” she said.

He really did smile then. “What you gonna do, cuz? Print it in the paper? Guy in prison got beat up—that's not news.”

She started to answer but he interrupted her. “What're you after? You wanna hear my hit?”

“Your hit?”

“The Great Lakes Bank. It's the only song I ever sing. That what you're here for?”

She told him it was.

“What's the angle?” he said.

She said nothing, unsure how to answer him.

“Callie Spencer?” he prompted. “That why you're here?”

“Yes. She's running for Senate.” Lucy felt clumsy, stating the obvious. But Dawtrey made her nervous.

“I heard about that, cuz,” he said. “You wanna make her look good, talking to the bad man who shot her father?”

“I want to hear whatever you want to tell me,” she said.

Dawtrey fell silent, rubbing at the base of his neck. “The morning of the robbery,” he said at last, “we all met at the hotel where Floyd Lambeau was staying. He had a minibar in his room. I had a drink before we got in the SUV. A shot of whiskey to calm my nerves.”

“That's what you want to tell me—that you were drinking?” Lucy said. “Do you think that helps explain what happened that day?”

“No. But some of the stories back then said I was drunk. It takes more than a little whiskey to get me drunk. I want to set the record straight.”

Lucy thought she saw a touch of mischief in his eyes, but she said, “All right. What else?”

“Floyd was a piss-poor bank robber,” said Dawtrey. “He should have thought more about what could go wrong. About escape routes. You don't think about banks having more than one exit, but they do. I found out later that the Great Lakes Bank had a door in the back that opened into an alley. We never thought to look for it at the time. Floyd went out the front, where the sheriff was waiting. So did I. That's one thing I regret.”