Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (13 page)

“What’s that?”

“He didn’t want the police locking the house down as a homicide scene.”

“Go on.”

“You sure you want to do this tonight?”

“Unless you want to sleep on the couch.” Joselyn wants it all, everything I know.

“All right. Let’s say he was there looking for something. She comes in, interrupts him, maybe traps him in an area of the house where he feels threatened. He can’t be sure if she’s alone, or maybe he thinks she’s meeting somebody there. He kills her. Now he has a problem. If he leaves her there and somebody finds her, the police will throw a blanket over the house. He can’t keep searching because he can’t be certain someone else won’t walk in on him. So he takes Sofia’s body and her car, drives and dumps them—”

“Sofia’s car was near her body?”

“Yes.”

Joselyn is trying to make a mental picture in her head, the body dump and what it might have looked like.

“He walks a few miles back, either thumbs a ride someplace where he can get a cab or calls one. He gets back to the area where his car is parked. Probably a little ways from Emma’s house. But he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I have it.”

“What? What is it?”

“It’s a key to a safe-deposit box. Inside the box is another key and some papers. Beyond that we don’t have a clue. Call it a work in progress. But if you give Herman and Harry claw hammers and a few seconds alone with the cretin who killed Sofia, I’m sure they’ll be able to give you some answers in short order.”

“Is that how the law works these days?” She finally gives me a small smile, Mona Lisa. “Come on, let’s go get some dinner.”

SIXTEEN

T
uesday morning is spent at the courthouse. Harry and I spring Emma from jail. The judge sets bail at one hundred thousand dollars on the single count of voluntary manslaughter.

There is no euthanasia law in California. Assisted suicide is a crime. The state can charge either murder or manslaughter, depending on the circumstances. Though we don’t have access to all the state’s evidence yet, the charge doesn’t seem to make sense. Voluntary manslaughter is generally reserved for cases involving a homicide committed on the spur of the moment, in the heat of passion, where there is no evidence of premeditation or malice, like stabbing a person in a bar during a fight, especially if the knife just happens to be on the table.

If Harry and I buy it, which we don’t, that means the police believe that Emma killed her father using some means that conveniently presented itself in his hospital room, that she did it without prior planning, in a moment of weakness, where the element of heat of passion might have been supplied by her inability to tolerate the pain he was suffering.

It’s a creative theory, the kind you might expect from a defense lawyer in a closing argument after he spent a year or more thrashing out the evidence, and going toe-to-toe with prosecutors on motions to suppress, and arguments to exclude or narrow the testimony of expert witnesses.

But to have it presented in criminal information in the charging document as the state’s opening shot leaves little ground to bargain down unless they want to say it was an accident, that she hit him with her bumper on the fourth floor in the geriatric unit, and treat it as a traffic infraction.

We listen as the deputy D.A. does a verbal dance with the judge on the terms of bail. Emma can’t leave the county without notification and approval from the police. At no time is she to be within less than ten miles of the Mexican border. No trips on any waterborne vessels. No air travel, not even a hot air balloon . . .

I stand at the counsel table jacking my jaw like a wooden nutcracker: “Yes, Your Honor. We understand, Your Honor. No objection, Your Honor.”

Harry pens a note on a yellow pad and eases it across the table in front of me. “They intend to amend.” He underlines the word
amend
twice and then slips the pen back into his vest pocket.

Harry is right. And there is nowhere for them to bump it except up—to murder. If that’s the case, the question is, why are they are letting her go? Murder is a nonbailable offense. I’m wondering why they’re not charging her now and getting it over with.

But I don’t ask. Instead I thank the judge, smile at the prosecutor, and glance at the two city PD homicide detectives sitting in the back of the room.

“Next case,” says the judge.

Harry tells Emma we’ll see her downstairs. We drift away from the table as a sheriff’s deputy takes her back to the lockup to remove the waist chain and cuffs and get her street clothes in order to process her out. I sign the papers with the clerk on the bond and she gives me a receipt. Harry and I are now on the hook for ten grand, the premium on the bond if Emma goes on the lam, not that I’m worried.

“Why are they waiting to file?” says Harry.

I shake my head. I don’t have a clue.

“Unless they’re still going through evidence trying to bake up a theory and they’ve run into a problem,” he says.

“Or there’s something else we don’t know.” Harry and I have spent the better part of the morning trying to tell the sheriff’s homicide detectives what we found at Emma’s house—namely, the cell phone trinket with the Eiffel Tower from the backyard and the dog feces in the basement. I tried to get through to Owen, but he wasn’t available, so Noland took the call.

I told him that we were wrong, that we made a mistake, that the trinket belonged to Sofia, and that I had seen it attached to her phone the Friday she disappeared. He asked me to describe it. I did. Noland said he was familiar with them, that his daughter had two just like it.

“They make a million of those things,” said Noland. “And they all look alike. Why don’t you check with your client and make sure it doesn’t belong to her?”

I asked him if they found Sofia’s phone.

He said they haven’t. So of course they can’t check to see if the chain with the little Eiffel Tower from her phone is missing.

“You don’t understand,” I told him. “The neighbor, the woman we talked to, do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“She wasn’t home that evening, Friday evening, when Sofia was supposed to come by to get the dog. The woman had an appointment and she didn’t get home until ten o’clock that night.”

There was silence from the other end.

Finally, I thought, I made a dent, until Noland said, “So?”

“So she couldn’t know whether Sofia got there or not. Don’t you understand? We relied on the fact that the neighbor didn’t see Sofia arrive at the house, but she
couldn’t
see her because she wasn’t there. She was out until ten.”

“Yeah, but the dog was still there, right?” said Noland. “Otherwise how did the neighbor get him?”

“Yeah, the dog was there, but—”

“That means your girl never got there.”

“Not necessarily. What if—”

“Listen, we’re on top of it. We’ve got some fresh leads. We’ll keep you posted.”

“Yeah, but the dog was in the basement . . .” The line went dead. I looked at my cell phone. Either the signal was dropped or Noland hung up. I dialed again. It rang three times and rolled over to his voicemail—“Leave a message at the tone.”

I did.

That was three hours ago, before Harry and I headed out to court for the bail hearing. Noland hasn’t called back, and when I call him now, I get the same message. He’s not taking my calls. I call Owen. His phone is turned off.

“Can’t you smell it?” says Harry. “They’re launched on a mission. In their minds they’ve already solved it.”

Harry and I are waiting downstairs for Emma to come out of the jail. I call Herman on his cell. He answers on the second ring.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“At the office,” he says.

“Good, I want you to get some help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Contract PIs,” I tell him. “Can you do it?”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Four or five, unless you think you can get more.”

“Depends what we’re paying,” he says.

“What’s the going rate?”

“Depends how fast you want ’em, for how long, and where,” says Herman.

I look at my watch. “Tell them we need them in ninety minutes on the street in front of Brauer’s house. Tell ’em we need them to canvass the neighborhood. It should take no more than two hours, depending on how many we get.”

“You want ’em to drop everything and come right now, it’s gonna cost you at least seventy-five, maybe a hundred dollars an hour,” says Herman.

“Do it,” I tell him. It’s nice to have money. “Give them the address and then wait for me at the office.”

“Got it,” he says, and I hang up.

“I’ll get the car,” I tell Harry. “You stay here and wait for Emma. I’ll pick you up. Tell her we have one errand to run, then we’ll swing by the office, pick up her car, and then take her home.”

“Why are we taking her if she has her own car?” says Harry.

“Because I don’t want her there alone.”

Forty minutes later we’re back at the office. Herman is waiting for us.

“How many were you able to get?” I ask him.

“Six. It was the best I could do on short notice,” he says.

“Good.” I fish through the drawer in my desk until I find the key to Emma’s car. I flip it to Herman. “You drive the Prius; take Emma. Harry and I will meet you there.”

“How is Sofia making out with Dingus?” When I look up, Emma is standing in the open door to my office.

“The dog is fine,” I tell her. Harry and I haven’t told her anything about Sofia, not yet.

“Do you think she might be able to bring Dingus home later?” she asks.

“Dingus is already there,” I tell her. “He’s with your neighbor.”

“Aw, she’s so sweet. Tell her thank you for me. Is she here in the office?” Emma steps away and looks down the hall.

“No. No. No. She’s not here.”

“I’d like to get her a present. Do you have any ideas?”

I glance at Herman, who is standing there looking down at the carpet.

“I’ll need to think about it,” I tell her. I’ll break the news to her when she’s home. But I don’t want to tell her that I think it happened at her house. I’ll leave that for later, and only if it becomes necessary.

Harry steps into the office. “Are we ready to go?”

“You and I are gonna stay here. Got some things to do. We’ll go out later. For now Herman can take care of it. But I wonder if you could take Emma out to the car, start the engine and the air-con, get her comfortable. Herman will be out in a minute. There is something he and I need to discuss.”

Herman hands the car key to Harry and he and Emma head out. Just before Harry gets to the door I whisper: “And Harry, don’t stop at the front desk on the way out. We don’t need Emma talking to the girls out front about Sofia.”

As soon as they’re gone I turn to Herman. “Here’s what I want you to do. Have your guys canvass the neighborhood around Emma’s house. Talk to all the neighbors, anyone who was around on Friday afternoon and evening. Ask them if they saw anyone around the house, any strangers or cars they didn’t recognize. See if any of them have surveillance or security cameras on their houses that might have video of the street. Oh, and by the way, while your guys are checking, call the city and see if they have any security cameras on any of the power poles in the area.”

Herman looks at me and says, “Who’s gonna tell Emma about Sofia?”

“You want to draw straws?”

“That’s beyond my pay grade,” he says.

“I’ll take care of it later when I come out. But check and see if any of your people there have licenses to carry. If so, we’re going to want them to get armed and keep an eye on the house and on Emma.” If Sofia was killed there, anyone staying in the house would be in danger. “They won’t be there long,” I tell him, “because Emma is probably headed back to jail. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

As soon as Herman steps out, I check the item in my pocket. The errand, the stop we made after leaving the courthouse, was to Emma’s bank. We used the key from her basement to open her safe-deposit box. Inside was a small cardboard jewelry box.

I take it out of my pocket. It looks as if it might have been white at one time. It has seen a lot of wear and now looks more gray than anything else.

I lift the small lid. Inside is a key similar to the one we found in Emma’s basement that we used to open her box at the bank. It clearly belongs to another safe-deposit box. Where this one is located is anyone’s guess. Under the key are two pieces of folded paper. One of them is the brown wrapper that originally covered the box. The other is the document that Emma described as an ID. I take it out, unfold it, and spread it open on my desk.

Harry comes through the door. “What’s that?” He looks at the small scrap of paper.

“I don’t know. It looks like German, maybe Dutch.” There is a picture, a photo ID, maybe an inch and a half square, like for a passport. It’s a head shot of a man in what looks like a brown or perhaps a gray uniform. It’s hard to tell because the picture is black-and-white, and old. The only thing I can make out is the name: “Jakob Grimminger.” And under it: “SS Standartenführer.”

“Who is he?” says Harry.

“I don’t know. But whoever he is, he’s German.”

SEVENTEEN

W
e are not paying you to play bull in a china shop,” said Ari. The Israeli attaché sat across from Nino, elbows propped on the table, his gold cuff links dangling over the beef and chopped liver on rye that lay open on the plate in front of him, untouched. The man had a face and fingers like a corpse.

Nino figured the Jew either had ulcers or a tapeworm. Whenever they met it was always the same. Nino wouldn’t get the call until just before the meeting. Ari would name the place, and Nino would have to hustle and would get there in a flop sweat.

Ari thought he was calling a pay phone at a location selected by Nino. But he wasn’t. Nino used a cell phone with a disposable prepaid SIM card from one of the major US carriers. He would buy a new SIM card and give Ari the number at each meeting, leaving the Israeli to believe he would be calling a different pay phone. Why should Nino race all over town being jerked around at pay phones when he could sit in a local bar and wait for the call?