Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [44]
“No.”
“Can you talk dirty to—” he began, but I was already hanging up.
A few hours later, still alone in my office in Eagle Rock, I gazed morosely at the list of people employed on the Queen set. Generally, when I need to know something that can be found on the Internet, I call Solberg. And although Laney had finally told him about the letters, she was downplaying their significance and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him the truth.
“Lieutenant Rivera.” He answered his phone like Robocop on steroids. It made me rather desperately want to mock him, but I resisted. Such is the way of maturity.
“Ph.D. McMullen,” I said. Okay, maybe I was mocking him a little.
“What?” he said, and I immediately felt stupid. Go figure.
“This is Christina,” I said.
I heard his chair squeak as he sat down.
“Being a smart-ass?” he asked.
“Let’s keep in mind that I’m very brave,” I said, and could almost hear him relax on the other end of the line.
“Has someone threatened your life yet today?” he asked.
I resisted glancing toward the door. “It’s still early.”
“Most crimes occur during daylight hours.”
Now I did glance. “Really?”
“Do you have your doors locked?”
“Wouldn’t that be bad for business?”
“You’re still at work?”
“I’m brave and ambitious.”
“You should consider changing your hours.”
“Maybe I could counsel the neurotic and paranoid just until noon. In case it gets dark.”
“There’s a reason for paranoia.”
“Too much time talking to you?”
“I’m only …” he began, then sighed as if giving up. “Did you have a reason to call?” The “other than to irritate me” part was implied.
“I was wondering if you had learned anything about those letters yet.”
He paused. I realized I was holding my breath. “The analyst has a suicide letter, two ransom notes, and five bomb threats ahead of you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no overt threat implied in those letters.”
“Unfortunately?”
“It would still put them behind the bomb threats and the ransom notes, but might boost them ahead of the suicide.”
“Any idea when things might be happening?”
“A week maybe. If no one else feels the need to blow up anything or talk about offing himself.”
“Laney’s right,” I said. “You’re overly sensitive.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said.
“I’ve got some info on the Overo case.” Someone was speaking from the background of the precinct.
“A minute,” he said, partly covering the mouthpiece, then to me: “I’ll try to hurry it up, but no guarantees.”
“Do you think Laney’s in danger?”
He exhaled softly. “I’m a cop.”
“Ergo everyone’s in danger?”
“Check your trunk,” he said.
I snorted and moved to hang up, but he spoke again.
“Who are you planning to call next?”
“What?”
“To ask ’bout the letters. Who else do you have on your list?”
“No one.”
“No one owes you any favors?”
“Besides you?”
“What do I owe you?”
“I saved your father’s life.”
“And I’m trying to forgive you for that,” he said, and hung up.
I sat there for a while, fidgety and fretful, reminding myself that, as Rivera had said, the letters weren’t overtly threatening. But sometimes danger isn’t obvious. I thought of a dozen such scenarios. Scenarios regarding people who thought they had been perfectly safe.
Rivera’s father, for instance. Rivera himself, paranoia personified, had thought the senator was safe. But that hadn’t been the case. In the end, I had found the senator held at gunpoint on his ranch in the Santa Monica foothills. And from there things had gone downhill. The gunman had gotten angry, the police had revved their sirens, and I had been shot.
On the upside, the senator had sworn his eternal gratitude.
The thoughts spun to a halt in my head.
Of course, Rivera and his father were barely on speaking terms. Hence, I shouldn’t get senior involved in junior’s affairs, namely police work. That would be wrong.
Then again, I wouldn’t feel all that great about letting my best friend get killed, either, I thought, and picked up the phone.
16
I believe in sex and death, two experiences that come only once in a lifetime.
—Woody Allen
That night I was lying