Falling Down (23 page)

Click. Click.

“You knew it was empty!” I shouted into Ken's face when he came back to us. “You knew, you made her try anyway.”

“I knew,” Ken said. Palming the .357. “But she didn't. Come on. We've had a party. Let's go back to your house, you two get some sleep.”

 

But at home, nobody guarded the driveway entrance. Winding clockwise up the drive, apprehensive, we came into the parking lot and saw two TPD cruisers.

“Miss Winslow?” an officer said, Maglite in my face.

“Yes.”

“Miss Winslow, I've been ordered to take you to headquarters.”

“It's two in the morning,” I said. “Can't this wait?”

“Lieutenant Kligerman said to bring you in. Now.”

“Is there a charge?” Ken said.

“The lieutenant will discuss that, ma'am. But we have orders to cuff you if necessary. So please get out of your vehicle and in back of the cruiser.”

“Call Christopher Kyle,” I said to Ken.

“Detective Kyle will meet you at headquarters,” the officer said, one hand holding out handcuffs, the other hand on his duty weapon.

T
he four of them huddled around one end of a huge oak table, elliptical in shape, with a rounded notch cut into the far end. TPD Chief of Police Rich Wallach, Assistant Chief Django Manouche, Bob Gates, and Jordan Kligerman.

At fifty-seven, Wallach's hair still more blond than gray, cut in military style, shaved at the sides and sparse bristles on top, no more than an inch high and dead flat across the crown of his narrow head. Jarhead, I thought. But just the hair, his voice not that of a Marine, but very soft, a faint burr, Scotch or Irish, long since smoothed by Arizona's slower pace.

Wallach wore a short-sleeved Brooks Brothers shirt, a button-down collar with the buttons cleverly tailored underneath the collars. A very light orange shirt, tucked into carefully creased seersucker pants, held up with braces, the pants in turn tucked into sixteen-inch-high cowboy boots with a two-inch roping heel.

“Bob?” I said. Gates didn't even smile. “Bob, what is this?”

“You know who I am,” Wallach said.

“Chief of police.”

“And you know these other men?”

“Yes.”

A fifth man entered the room, left the door open, pulled out a chair next to Gates but didn't sit down. Lids
falling slightly over light blue eyes, no crinkles at the sides as he smiled, lips wide and curved, the smile broadening to show impossibly white teeth, capped or a dental plate, the smile as fake as the teeth.

I'd met him three years ago.

I couldn't remember his name, couldn't remember if I'd ever known his name, and he wasn't introduced.

An assistant United States attorney who'd threatened me with old FBI arrest warrants if I didn't work with him. This guy, he'd been at two or three meetings back then. Sat away from the conference table, took no notes, never said a word. Another U.S. attorney. From the Phoenix office. My hair was different, shorter, redder, I was three and a half years older.

Maybe he didn't recognize me, but I knew him.

Taut body stretched out for my file, muscles rippling inside the starched blue shirt, and he twisted sideways. He looked down at the file, turned his head slightly, sunlight across his reading glasses, I couldn't tell if he was looking at my file or me. Idly licked an index finger, pushed up one page after another, he
was
looking at me, he already knew everything in the file. Finger pushed out a photograph, he nudged it free of the folder and across the desktop.

“This
is
you,” he said. Not a question. He was pleased.

A Washington State driver's license. My face, no doubt about it, the long wig I'd worn, fake eyelashes, huge earrings, smeared lipstick, it looked so fake I wondered what I'd ever thought I could get away with back then, fifteen years ago in Yakima, when I had half a dozen grifts working at the same time. I don't even remember what name I'd used, what name was on the license.

Oh, yes, he was pleased. He gestured at the doorway and a woman came tentatively into the room, two steps at a time, like a dance movement.

“Is this her?”

The woman came halfway down the room, placed her hands flat on the desktop, nails trimmed but not painted.

“Yah.”

“And what's her name?”

“Katrina Mangin. When I knew her, she called herself that.”

“I'll show you a Washington State driver's license. What is the name?”

She held the license about six inches from her eyes.

“Katrina Mangin.”

“Who are you?” I said.

The woman wouldn't answer, wouldn't even look at me.

White spots at the ends of each nail, her way of control and misdirection so she wouldn't have to answer my question quickly, hands straight out, fingers slightly separated and pointed at me.

“I don't have to say, do I?” she said. “I don't give my name, right?”

Those fingertip white spots, she was pressing very
very
hard to keep control. A bit of a smile, perfect teeth, just a wee tilt of the head, used to flirting, and she
laughed
just a bit, inhaled and just as quickly exhaled.

I stared at her, walked over to her, she recoiled as I looked into her face, but I didn't recognize her from anywhere. Her eyes cut from me to a credenza along the wall. Restless, not given any direction, she picked up a silver frame, photo of a young girl on a merry-go-round horse, photo of some young woman and an older man, swimsuits, from the pilot deck of a thirty-foot powerboat rigged for deep-sea fishing. She set the frame down, looked all around the office, at every square inch of floor and walls and furniture and finally the ceiling.

“Jesus,” she said. “What do, what
else
do you want me to do?”

Her arms locked in front, hands on elbows. I shifted my eyes to her open-toed hump-me pumps, her toenails a bright, deep orange, but chipping.

“That's all,” Kligerman said. “Send in Heather.”

Heather. Heather Celli, I remembered her vaguely
from my visit to Kligerman's squad room. Not nervous, not showing any kind of emotion, she laid a laptop on the table.

“Miss Celli,” the U.S. attorney said.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I didn't get your name.”

“I didn't give it,” the attorney said. We locked eyes for a while, then he turned slowly back to the papers in front of him. “Miss Celli. Just summarize. Right now we don't need anything but a summary.”

“Four times a day, I check a lot of files, a lot of computer logs. I look for any trace of somebody hacking into our system.”

“And, in summary, what did you find yesterday morning at three oh two?”

“Five illegal entries.”

“To the TPD databases?”

“No. To our entire system. All files. Personnel, financial, long-range planning, criminal investigations. Everything.”

“And, again, just summarize, what happened?”

“Several files were altered. One deleted. One new file added.”

“All at once, Miss Celli. Tell us everything, all at once. I don't want to drag this out with a thousand questions.”

“Seven files on our latest investigations of the
maras
gangs. They'd been altered to show negative results of searches, identity checks, mostly financial transactions. A master file of financial data was deleted.”

“But you were able to reinstall those files? In original formats?”

“Yes. And we immediately began backtracking, trying to work out where the hacker came from. The IP numbers.”

“Don't get techie on me. Just summarize.”

“We traced all the illegal entries to computers at the offices of private investigator Laura Winslow.”

“That's a lie,” I said.

Heather held out some papers, shook her head. No
body objected when I took the papers, flicked through them. It was my office.

“And the file that was added? You said one new file?”

Heather flipped the laptop open, pressed a few keys, swiveled it so the men could see something hidden from me.

“Again. Show her this time.”

Approximately ninety seconds of video. Me, in my biker outfit, standing on the top bleacher of the cockfight, shouting, laughing. I was stunned.

“Where did you get that?” I said.

“That's all for now, Miss Celli.” She left the room.

“Laura,” Gates said. “For God's sake, Laura. Why?”

“I didn't do this.”

“That's you, Laura. That's you at an illegal cockfight.”

“Yes, that part, yes, that's me. I was there undercover.”

“Part of an investigation?” the attorney said.

“Yes.”

“And who is your client?”

“I don't have to tell you that.”

“And all this other stuff?” Gates said.

“It's fake. I didn't personally do any of it.”

“Then one of your employees?”

“Never.”

“The evidence,” Gates said. “It's all there.”

“It's fake.”

“You're despicable,” the U.S. attorney said. “The last time we met, that whole business about smuggling women across the border, I didn't have enough power to charge you with complicity. Now I've got the power, and trust me, if there's any truth in these charges, I will take you down for good.”

Chief Wallach raised a finger. “I don't understand any of this,” he said. “Laura, you're saying, you're an expert in identity theft, and somebody has apparently stolen your own identity?”

“Yes. I could fake this myself. It's not hard.”

“I have all your files,” the U.S. attorney said. “Your
old arrest warrants, as much of your background as anybody knows. A lot of different names. What is your
real
name?”

They all froze, they all waited for me to talk.

“Kauwanyauma,” I said finally.

“What exactly is that?”

“My Hopi birth name. Am I under arrest?”

“Laura,” Gates said. “I, personally, I can't protect you.”

“You're a flight risk,” the attorney said. “No use asking you to surrender your passport or any documents. You'd just create a new identity.”

“Bob,” I said. “You came to me. You knew I didn't want this, you talked me into it, you
led
me into this. I trusted you.”

“I can't help you.”

“You people,” I said. “You came to
me,
you asked for
my
help, and now you can't even imagine that somebody has set me up.”

“Set you up?” Wallach said.

“You people. You're all so totally
ig
norant about computers, you have absolutely
no
idea what can be done with them. I'm being
framed,
this is so totally a setup. You assholes. You're being set up yourselves, the entire Tucson PD is being set up, and you're letting it happen. You don't even trust the one person you brought in from the outside to find one of your dirty cops.”

“What is she talking about?” Manouche said.

“Later,” Wallach said.

“What the
hell
is she talking about? A dirty cop?”

“
Later,
” Wallach said.

“So,” I said. “You arresting me? Or what?”

“Chief?” Gates said.

Wallach twiddled his fingers. “Is there a federal charge?” he said.

“Not at this time,” the U.S. attorney said.

“It's my jurisdiction?”

“Yes. But I'd advise you. Don't let her go.”

“Bob,” Wallach said. “Miss Winslow. I'll give you twenty-four hours. Show me
any
thing, disprove
any-
thing. But just twenty-four hours.”

“Chief,” Kligerman said. “That's the wrong thing to do.”

“And if I'm wrong, it'll cost me my job. You have your twenty-four hours, Miss Winslow. If you're guilty of this, God help you.”

 

“What happened in there?” Ken said. He'd followed me to police headquarters, waited for me to come out, expected the worst, that I'd been arrested and speed-booked without remand.

“Something really weird,” I said. “Something…I don't know what happened in there, but I was being set up.”

“For what?”

“That's what's so weird.”

“What did they say?”

“It's what they
didn't
say. I can't explain, it's not logical yet, I can't figure out what they didn't say. Take me to my office.”

But before Ken could turn on the engine, Bob Gates banged on the top of the car and slid into the back seat.

“Around the block,” he said.

“Bob, Bob,” I said. “Why am I being set up?”

“It's not real.”

“Not real?”

“We know you didn't hack into the TPD computer network.”

“You know?”

“You knew?” Ken said.

“Only two of us. Wallach and myself. We trusted nobody, Laura. Having Django Manouche in that meeting means half the department will know about it in an hour. Manouche can't keep secrets, he needs to tell secrets to get people to believe he's got the power. When I
first talked to you about this, Laura, I figured you'd get your company on it full-time. I didn't think you'd wait.”

“I wasn't sure what to do.”

“When you did nothing, I set up this meeting. We're just hoping we force somebody's hand, it's a long shot.”

“It's so long it's invisible,” Ken said. “Just one thing. Who do you like for the bad cop?”

“We don't know.”

“He's in either Narcotics or Homicide.”

“We agree.”

“I think…Homicide.”

“Yes. We agree on that, too.”

“How many people in Homicide?” I said.

“Way too many. Drop me off here. I'll walk back to headquarters. Twenty-four hours, Laura. Get out there, do your magic.”