The Fregoli Delusion (20 page)

“Holland did it. We’re wasting
time.”

This time Hank’s irritation was
genuine. “Then prove it, goddammit.”

19

“C’mon, Jimmy boy,” Karen urged,
“it’ll work. Trust me. Just make it sound like you’re really rich and really,
really horny.”

Horvath looked at his cell phone
doubtfully. “The second part I can do, but I don’t know about the first part.”

“You
expect
her to make
time for you. Everybody makes time for you. They make time for your money. Your
money gets you everything you want, whenever you want it.”

Horvath punched in the number on
the business card in front of him and put the phone to his ear. “Corona
Services? Yeah, hi, am I speaking to Melissa? This is Kincaid. John Kincaid.
Kincaid Industries? Yeah, a mutual friend passed along your card.”

Horvath patiently steered his way
through the preliminary fencing and small talk, then said, “I’m in town maybe
twice a month. But my jet’s on standby to fly me out at six today, which is why
I just want to meet you before I go. Kind of a get-to-know-you thing.”

He listened, then nodded. “I
understand completely. But I don’t need very long to make up my mind. I never
do. And trust me, I’m always very generous in the business arrangements that
please me. My bonuses alone have to be seen to be believed.”

Horvath listened and laughed, face
reddening. “So I heard. Well, seeing
is
believing, isn’t it? Four
o’clock? Perfect. See you then.”

He listened and laughed again.
“Yeah, me too.” He ended the call and looked at Karen. “Christ, I need a cold
shower.”

“Down, Rover.”

“I have my own private jet, but
she wants to look
me
over?”

“Well don’t sound all resentful
about it, Horvath. Jesus. She’s a courtesan. They cater to the high-end crowd.
She’ll probably get you to fill out application forms and get a blood test
done.”

“Not a chance. I got my limits.”

Karen laughed.

20

Later in the afternoon, Maureen
Truly knocked on Hank’s doorframe and peeked in. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, do you
have a minute?”

“I have several.” Hank closed a
file folder on his desk and put it into a drawer. “What’ve you got?”

Truly hesitated. Captain Elspeth
Williams, her supervisor back in Cold Case, detested interruptions and repaid
them with brusqueness bordering on hostility, but Hank seemed genuinely open
and interested in what she might have to say. It was a little disorienting.

“Mickey, CSI Marcotte, that is,
and I have been running background on Perry Crocker and we found something
interesting.”

“Come in, Maureen. Sit down.”

She edged into his office and
perched on one of his visitor’s chairs. “The thing is, Perry Crocker was issued
a traffic summons on Thursday morning at seven nineteen
a.m
. on Beechwood Road. He was southbound between Metcalfe and
Salmon Boulevard when he was pulled over for doing seventy in a thirty-five
zone.”

“Really.” Hank leaned back in his
chair. “That puts him close to the crime scene and our time frame.”

“Eight blocks away. I can go over
the background information with you,” Truly said, “but the most important thing
right at the moment is the fact that he’s about to leave the city. His private
jet has filed a flight plan for Chicago and is scheduled to depart from
Skychaser FBO,” she glanced at her wrist watch, “in less than an hour from
now.”

She watched him unlock his desk
drawer and remove his gun. “Do you drive?”

“Yes, sir. My POV’s parked
downstairs.”

“Let’s go.”

As they waited for the elevator,
Truly handed him a slip of paper. “The number for the air traffic manager at
the FBO.”

“Thanks.”

The doors opened and she preceded
him into the elevator car. She kept her eyes down, careful not to allow her
expression to betray her thoughts. As they rode down to the sub-basement parking
garage, he called the number she’d given him and asked for the manager of the
fixed base of operations. When he came on the line, Hank began trying to
convince him to suspend the clearance of Perry Crocker’s flight until they had
a chance to question him.

Truly remembered when they’d first
met, a year ago. He and Stainer were meeting with Detective Dennis Waverman in
the cubicle next to hers on the sixth floor. Hank ducked his head into her
cubicle and asked to borrow her visitor’s chair. She looked up from the file
she was reading and frowned at the chair.

“They don’t usually come back on
their own.”

He’d promised to return it when he
was done, and was careful to do so when his meeting with Waverman was over. She
hadn’t looked up from her computer monitor.

The next time he was down to see
Waverman he poked his head into her cubicle again. She looked up with
annoyance. “May I help you?”

“Good morning.” He nodded at the
nameplate on her desk. “Detective Truly?”

“Yes, I Truly am,” she replied,
without cracking a smile.

“Clever. I’m Hank Donaghue, Homicide.”
He stepped forward, and she saw that he held a tray with three cups of coffee
in it. He removed one of the cups and put it down in front of her. “Listen, I
won’t keep you. I had an extra cup of coffee and thought you might like it.
Kind of a thank you for the loan of your chair the other day.” He waved at her.
“Have a good one.”

A few minutes later she
interrupted his meeting with Waverman, holding up the cup of coffee. “Where did
you get this?”

“From the chip trailer two blocks
over.”

“Chip’s Heaven?”

“That’s the one.”

“It’s really good. I’m going to
start buying my coffee there every morning if it’s always this good.”

“It’s always that good.”

“Thanks very much.” Truly returned
to her cubicle, humming.

A few weeks later, after she heard
that he’d been shot, she left a voice message on his cell. She was upset about
his injury and hoped he was okay. When she learned that Jarvis had been chosen
to head up the new task force last month and that Hank was replacing him as
supervisory lieutenant, she hung out at the chip trailer one morning, waiting
for him. When he arrived, he bought her a coffee. She accepted it with a quiet,
unsmiling “thank you,” then abruptly asked if she could transfer to Homicide to
work for him.

When he told her they couldn’t
bring in anyone new at the moment, she experienced that combination of
mortification and relief which she often felt when she took a personal risk and
failed. Then he went on to say that she was welcome to come up and talk to him
about it further, if she liked, and the embarrassment evaporated. It wasn’t a
categorical No, it was a conditional No that left the door open. Just a crack.

She dithered for two days, then
decided while brushing her teeth on Thursday morning that she would find the
nerve to go up to the ninth floor that day. Now here she was, two days later,
seconded to Homicide on one of the most important investigations in decades.

She led the way across the
sub-basement parking garage to her personally-owned vehicle, a 1982 Land
Cruiser. As she started the engine, he climbed into the passenger seat and
looked at her.

“Are you serious?”

“Always.” Truly tooled out of the
parking space and headed up the ramp for the exit.

“I guess I should be grateful it
has doors.”

“Yes, sir.” Truly stopped at the
booth, waved her pass card, and rolled out onto the street. “It’s a collector’s
item. Four-speed manual transmission, the front and rear axles have ARB air
lockers, it has front and rear integrated rear winches, and there’s even an arc
welder mounted under the hood for ad hoc repairs. I’m a certified welder.”

She stopped talking, not wanting
to sound like a complete idiot. He said nothing, watching the street and the
sidewalks around them as they drove. She braked for a stop sign and saw him
look down. Then he bent down and picked up a book that had slid out from under
his seat and tapped him on the heels. It was her copy of the
National
Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils
, by Ida Thompson.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said,
reaching for it. “I’ll get rid of that for you.” She took the book and tossed
it over her shoulder into the back.

“Interested in paleontology?” he
asked.

“I like to go off-roading, and I do
a lot of fossil hunting around the state.” She rubbed the steering wheel
self-consciously, “You know, places like Calvert Cliffs, Sandy Mile, Henson
Creek. My father gave me that book. When I was young. I have better ones than
that, more detailed. Are you interested in that sort of thing, Lieutenant?
Fossil-hunting?”

“No, sorry. I’m more of an
indoorsman than an outdoorsman.”

She smiled politely, accelerating
through the intersection, thinking of her twenty-acre property near Lothian
with its restored saltbox house and outbuildings, her little herd of goats, and
her patiently-refurbished metal windmills connected to a generation system that
provided power not only to her house and outbuildings but also enabled her to
sell electricity back to the grid on good months when she produced a surplus.
He’d probably think she was weird if she tried to explain her lifestyle to him.
Professionalism, she reminded herself for the hundredth time, was much safer
ground on which to operate.

“Perry Crocker’s vehicle is a 2009
Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren, silver,” she said. “The witness, um, Parris, spoke
about having seen a silver sports car leave the scene.”

“Correct.”

“Yes. And Richard Holland drives a
silver Ferrari, so that makes two possibles.” She glanced over at him. “Is
Detective Stainer upset with me?”

“No, she’s upset with humanity.
It’s a very non-specific attitude, so don’t take it personally.”

“I won’t.”

Truly ran him through the basics.
Perry Crocker was forty-two years old, stood six feet, two inches tall, and
weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds. He was born and raised in Grosse
Pointe, Michigan. His father was a retired vice-president of General Motors and
his mother's father had been a vice-president with Chrysler. Crocker had a
bachelor of science degree from the University of Michigan and was the president
and majority shareholder of CrocComm, a multi-million-dollar corporation
specializing in high speed wireless telecommunications. He owned a home at
11145 Waterbury Place in Granger Park as well as other properties in Miami,
Grosse Pointe, and San Bernardino, California. He was twice-divorced and had no
children. He had no record of military service. He also had no criminal record,
although their systems checks had produced a rather long list of traffic
violations, mostly for speeding, unsafe lane changes, and illegal parking. He
paid his tickets and fines religiously. The McLaren was one of six vehicles
currently registered under his name. He'd been nailed for speeding in the
McLaren more often than the others. He also owned the Hawker 400XP private jet
Hank had successfully prevented from taking off. It was manufactured by Hawker
Beechcraft. It had a cruising speed of four hundred and forty-three knots at
twenty-three thousand feet and a range of almost two thousand miles, Truly
explained. It cost Crocker seven and a half million dollars to purchase, and he
flew all over the place in it.

“So on the surface,” Hank said, “a
typical successful businessman with no red flags.”

“No red flags, sir.”

“Don't call me sir, all right,
Maureen?”

“All right, sir.” She felt herself
blushing. “Sorry.”

They met Crocker in the small VIP
lounge of the Skychaser fixed base of operations on the northern edge of
Glendale International Airport. Truly recognized him immediately from his DMV
photo: a tall, slender, handsome man with well-groomed black hair, brown eyes,
a long jaw, and slightly pointed chin. He wore an expensive navy suit, white
shirt, red foulard tie, and black cap-toed shoes. He held a cell phone to his
ear and was listening to someone with obvious impatience. He caught sight of
her and the lieutenant, said something brusque, and put away the phone.

“There better be a damned good
reason for this, Detective Donaghue,” Crocker groused. “I've got a crucial
meeting in Chicago, and if this deal falls through it'll cost millions.”

“Murder's a good reason for
everyone to make time to talk to the police,” Hank replied. “And it's
Lieutenant Donaghue. This is Detective Truly. We have a few questions for you,
and then you can get on your way. Why don't you start by explaining what you
were doing on Beechwood Road at seven nineteen on Thursday morning.”

Crocker stared at him. “Are you
kidding me? You want to interrogate me about a speeding ticket?”

“I want to know what you were
doing eight blocks away from the bike path where H.J. Jarrett was shot to death
approximately ten minutes before.”

Crocker bit off whatever he was
going to say. He touched the knot of his tie and rolled his shoulders. “Chrissy
told me you were asking questions about us. Do you seriously believe I had
something to do with H.J.'s death?”

“I seriously want to know what you
were doing there. If you prefer, I can explain your rights to you and we can do
this downtown. Or we can do it here, and you can be on your way if you answer
our questions to our satisfaction. Your choice.”

“Jesus Christ. You cops are all the
same. Goddamned power trippers.” Crocker looked around, spotted a comfortable
leather armchair, and walked over to it. “Ask your damned questions.” He
dropped into the chair and turned his eyes to the big window through which they
could all see his Hawker 400XP waiting for him on the tarmac.

Truly sat down on the edge of an
adjacent chair and took out her notebook. Hank sat down opposite Crocker and
took out his notebook and pen, as well.

“I've already asked the first
question,” he said. “I'm waiting for the answer.”

“I live in Granger Park.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“I was dropping off a gift to a
friend on my way to the office. He also lives in Granger Park.”

“Name?”

“Stephen Willis.”

“Address?”

Crocker reluctantly recited an
address that was in the general area of Beechwood Road.

“This friend can vouch for the
fact that you were at his home on Thursday morning?”

“No,” Crocker replied, disgusted,
“he can't. He was at Myrtle Beach. He came back later in the morning. I left
the gift on his front step. It was a joke.”

“What was the gift?”

“A case of single malt scotch and
a box of cigars. Dominican, thank you. Strictly legal.”

“You weren't afraid they’d be
stolen?”

“You're kidding, right?”

Hank sighed. “How well did you
know Jarrett?”

“Not well. Different generations.
The people I spend my time with are younger, more vibrant, a lot more
interesting.”