Just as he’d turned away from his computer screen an incoming email caught his attention.
As he read, his lower jaw dropped. Inching closer to the message as if he’d missed something, he rubbed his face. Sat back and pointed.
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]
Topic: Meeting possible?
Lieutenant Sturgis: Brearely and I are leaving Rome and will be back in the US tonight. We’d like to meet with you as soon as possible, even tomorrow. Best, Garrett Burdette
Milo said, “Would ‘hell, yeah’ be over-eager?”
Hi, Garrett: Sure, no prob. Hope you had a good time. How about 10 a.m., tomorrow my office?
Robin put down her fork.
Dinner had been a surprise greeting, fragrant and just-plated as I got home. Grilled cumin-rubbed lamb chops, hummus, spicy carrots, and tomato-based Turkish salad. She’d cooked the meat. The sides had come from a take-out place in Pico-Robertson, not far from the run-down studio apartment of a ninety-three-year-old Spanish guitarist who could no longer drive and whose fingers failed at restringing his ’46 Santos Hernandez.
Robin had been servicing Juan’s prize instrument for a long time and considered her visits welfare checks.
I said, “This is delicious. So how’s he doing?”
“Such a sweet man, it’s sad. While I was working, he tried to show off with some Villa-Lobos on his other guitar, the cheapie. He managed to hit a few good notes that reminded me he was one of the best. But mostly…” She shook her head. “Anyway, you can thank him for dinner. I brought him a sandwich from the old deli and noticed a new place nearby. Kosher Tunisian. Smelled great, so I figured why not? What do you think?”
“Terrific. I’ll clear and wash.”
She smiled. “I’ll accept that offer unless Big Guy calls and you need to run out again.”
“Nope, the day’s over. Maybe tomorrow morning will be interesting.”
“The honeymooning couple. Think it’s some kind of confession?”
“To multiple murders? Unlikely. Milo’s been wondering about Garrett as the high-IQ boyfriend but that’s never felt right to me. Yes, he knows something about Poland, but in terms of direct involvement?” I shook my head. “If Amanda’s visit to the condo is relevant, it backs that up. Garrett was in Italy so it wasn’t him she came to see.”
“Hmm,” she said, cutting a small piece of lamb and chewing it.
I said, “What?”
“What if she was being sisterly and checking out his place for him while he was away? Watering plants, tidying up.”
“Unless he’s managed to conceal millions, he doesn’t own a unit there. Plus Amanda doesn’t come across as the tidying type.”
“Your basic sloppy student?”
“I have no idea about her personal habits,” I said. “She doesn’t come across as other-directed.”
“She wouldn’t do a favor for her brother?”
“I guess anything’s possible.”
We ate some more.
She put down her fork. “So what do you think he wants, honey?”
“To pass on information he’s been withholding about Poland,” I said. “In the best of worlds he’ll identify The Brain and clarify the link to Skiwski.”
“Why step forward now?”
“Conscience? Fear? Who knows?”
Robin smiled. “Am I being annoyingly Socratic?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I just don’t have answers.”
“Hopefully tomorrow will clear it all up.”
“As Milo would say—”
“My mouth, God’s ears.”
“Your mouth, there’d be a good chance.” I leaned over and kissed her hard.
“Whoa. I surprise-feed you, you get romantic, huh?”
“What, I’m all gastrointestinal tract?”
“Darling,” she said. “You’re a prince among men but you do have a Y chromosome. Please pass the carrots.”
CHAPTER
40
Milo’s seven a.m. text asked me to be at his office half an hour before the ten o’clock with Garrett and Brearely Burdette. I arrived at nine fifteen, found him hunched at his keyboard. He waved me to sit, kept typing.
An empty box from a West Hollywood baker and the crumbs that went with it littered his desktop. Ditto for a grease-splotched take-out carton from a pizza joint near the station. A mug filled with cold coffee sat perilously close to the edge. Toss in an unsmoked panatela, smudges under his eyes, black hair worked wild by nervous fingers, sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, and a tie knot yanked down to mid-belly, and he’d been there for a while.
“Morning,” he said. “For what that’s worth. Went over the wedding list again, no overlap with the condo list. Doesn’t eliminate anything with all those owners shielded by corporate bullshit, so I searched those to see if I could find a link to Academo. The geniuses at Google failed me.”
He nudged the mug to safety, looked inside, shook his head. “You have breakfast?”
“I’m fine.”
“You always are.”
“When did you get here?”
“Six thirty but who’s keeping tabs?” Wheeling his chair around to face me, he examined his Timex. “Forty minutes, let’s strategize.”
I said, “Nothing I say is going to teach you anything.”
“Try me.”
“Don’t scare them away.”
He nodded. “I called at eight to confirm. Garrett answered and said, ‘Of course, sir,’ but he did sound like someone with a gun to his head.”
“Any indication why he got in touch?”
“Didn’t ask. Tell you one thing, he stands me up, I’m going after him big-time. And his parents. They all know something and they’re going to give it to me.”
I said nothing.
He said, “Fine, I’m posturing. Apart from not freaking them out, what’s the strategy?”
“Don’t know that the concept’s relevant.”
“Why not?”
“Too many unknowns.”
He rolled his shoulders, then his neck, a great ape chafed by a zoo cage. “I’ll ask it this way: What if it was you doing the interviewing?”
Collecting crumbs, he sprinkled them into his wastebasket. Creating a delicate beige rain that he studied with weary but sharp eyes.
I said, “I’d treat it the same as meeting a new patient. Keep things friendly, do very little talking and a lot of listening.”
“Psychological warfare.”
“That’s not exactly how I’d put it—”
“Fine, emotional manipulation. And if he tries to leave, I chain the goddamn door.”
* * *
—
He’d returned with a cup of biohazard coffee from the big detective room downstairs when his desk phone rang.
“Really…be down in a sec.”
Knotting his tie and smoothing his hair, he said, “Ten minutes early, ol’ Garrett is eager.”
I said, “Maybe you won’t need the chain.”
We walked up the hall where a couple of interview rooms sit.
He opened the door to the first, flipped the Interview in Progress switch. “Wait here, no sense overwhelming them with a welcome party.” Winking. “Psychological sensitivity and all that.”
* * *
—
I entered to find that he’d prearranged the furniture for The Soft Approach: table positioned in the center, rather than shoved into a corner to make an interviewee feel trapped. The chairs were also socially configured: three of them placed around three sides.
Like friends dining out, rather than two against one.
No equipment was visible but this room had been retrofitted last year with invisible audio sensors and video cameras. Flip the switch, it’s a go.
I’d barely settled when Milo stepped in toting a fourth chair. Following him were Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Burdette.