Follow the Money

28


I woke up early thinking of Liz and realized I had forgotten to call her. I was so exhausted when I made it to my room the night before that I had simply passed out. I reached for the phone and dialed. Her voice answered, groggy. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Ollie? Where are you? What time . . .” Her words trailed off as she took her mouth away from the phone to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Christ, it’s quarter to six. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m staying in a hotel downtown. We’re hoping to have something in tomorrow’s paper.”

Liz moaned something, only half awake at best, then spoke in a sleepy voice. “I was worried about you last night. I thought about calling you.”

“I wish you had.” I realized I really meant it the instant I said it. I could feel the same emotions from the day before — the urge to speak, to say more. If I could say the right things in the right way, if I could show her I meant them, that I regretted my mistake, then couldn’t I . . . ? The silence lingered on the line and I hesitated, fearing those necessary steps and words. She could reject me then and there when I needed her the most. The moment passed, and she spoke again.

“Today’s paper?”

“No. Tomorrow’s. I just have to let them get the story together and then I’m good. Last night I think I figured out who was following me. I think it’s the same guy who went around asking everyone all kinds of questions earlier in the summer. He’s working for Andersen. Maybe Steele too, who knows?”

“If you know who he is, maybe you should go to the police now. They can arrest him.”

It was a good point. I was pretty certain that the guy in the black car was the guy who was following me. Beyond that though, I was really only guessing. There was no hard proof. I said as much to Liz. I was afraid of the cops just asking questions and letting people back on the streets. I was only safe if everyone involved was locked up. “I have to be careful,” I said. Then I added, “I just want my life back.”

“I know,” She responded in an ambiguous voice.

“Well,” I hesitated again, wanting to beg her to forgive me. “I’ll call you later today to let you know how it’s going.”

“Okay.”

“Alright.” Neither of us had hung up. Each waited for the other to say something more, to establish something, anything. I stared at the desk across the room, with its hotel lamp and hotel chair, distracting myself. “Bye,” I finally said. And she said the same and hung up.

I lay there, unsure what else to do until I spoke with Ed. I tried his cell again from the hotel, but he didn’t answer. I wondered if he actually met with Ray, or Gary, or whoever the guy really was. Maybe Gary would offer to pay him off too. Maybe it would all fit into Ed’s master plan about the Alaska Wilderness Preserve.

The idea made me laugh, until it hit me in the shower. I stood under the hot water, trying to remember it clearly. The last day Steele spent in Alaska he met with a man at the Fairbanks Hotel. The name was written only as Gary R. Was I remembering it right? Could it possibly be that Steele had met with Gary Rollins in a hotel in Alaska three days before he killed his wife?

And if so, why?

I had to go to the office to confirm it before I worked myself into a frenzy. Not only did Steele know Andersen before the murder, but he may have met Gary Rollins too. The same guy who, twelve years later, went by the name of Ray G. and tried to bribe people into solidifying Steele’s alibi. Was he working for Andersen the whole time? Were they all just working for Steele?

I couldn’t straighten it out. I needed to talk to Ed. There were too many pieces, and too many unknowns for it all to make sense. I stood in the shower for a long time. My head hurt thinking about it.

I finally got dressed in the same clothes from the day before. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since the carnicera with Ed and debated calling room service. But the prospect of paying twenty dollars for a stale bagel didn’t thrill me.

But after checking out and finding myself on the sidewalk, I realized I’d never tried to find breakfast downtown before. I resigned myself to being hungry for a while longer. I figured I’d run up to my office, check the day planner, and then head to campus and at least sit through my classes while I waited to hear from Ed.

The day planner held no surprise. I’d remembered the entry perfectly: 3 P.M., Fairbanks Hotel, Gary R. That it could be some other Gary R. seemed too coincidental. It had to be the same guy. I tried to think of reasons they might have met as I walked out to my car. But the twelve-year gap was baffling.

Out in the garage, I spent a few seconds looking for my BMW before remembering I had the rental and that I’d parked in a different spot than usual. I took the stairs up two levels and had to try to remember exactly which car it was. I pressed the alarm button on the key chain and the lights of a white four door Chevy blinked halfway down a row of cars facing the concrete wall of the parking structure.

I could hear my own footsteps echo in the early morning garage as I crossed the pavement. I opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat and reached to drop my briefcase on the floor, but instead recoiled in horror at the sight of Ed Snyder’s severed head, set upright and staring at me from the passenger’s seat. The white cloth seat cushion was stained a dark black and most of his fluffy curls were matted with dried blood. I flailed backward through the open door and up against the neighboring car, setting off the wailing shriek of its alarm.

But I heard none of it. I sat alone on the cold pavement, wide-eyed and mouth agape, staring into dead, but frightened eyes. Ed Snyder’s face wore the expression of a man who knew his head was being cut from his body. A face aware that what it felt in its final moments was the flow of its own blood draining from its brain, down through a massive and irreparable hole. A face already dead when the words “watch out” were carved into its forehead.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in a conference room full of cops. Ten minutes after that, Detective Wilson walked back into my life and started grilling me.

The two officers who found me in the parking garage took me to a conference room, and tried to calm me down. They stepped to the rear of the room when Wilson walked in. I recognized him, of course, but I didn’t say anything to him. I just stared at him. He stared right back.

He said, “You sure know how to f*ck things up, don’t you, Olson.” Then he took a seat across from me. “The boys tell me you found a little surprise in your car this morning. What can you tell me about that?”

“What?” I looked him in the eye. Everything in the room seemed artificial, like a bad joke, including Wilson.

“Nice watch,” Wilson said with a sneer.

“Oh, thanks.” I spoke vaguely and looked at the watch, almost surprised to see it. By the time I took my eyes off of it, I’d already forgotten what Wilson had asked me. He could tell, so he tried again.

“How did you know Ed Snyder?” Wilson asked. This time his voice was softer. He was shifting gears, trying various tactics to see what would get me to talk. It was a logical place for him to start, so I couldn’t fault him for that, but the answer couldn’t begin to tell the story.

Wilson leaned forward on his elbows, resting on the table, waiting for my answer. I started telling him about Snyder and then backed up. “We might as well start at the beginning,” I said.

Wilson leaned back and shrugged. “I’m all ears.”

I rubbed my head and tried to focus. I was exhausted. Where was the beginning? When had it all started? Three days ago? Three months ago? Twelve years ago? How had I become involved? That was the question I was trying to answer for myself. The beginning of the summer felt like a lifetime ago, almost unimaginable now. Had I really changed so much in such a short time? Somewhere along the line I’d sold out everything I thought I believed in for a shot at something I never really wanted to be.

But Detective Wilson wasn’t interested in any of that. He wanted to know about the body. They’d found the rest of Ed Snyder in the trunk of my rental car, so they actually had the whole thing now. He kept asking me questions and I kept answering them. I went through the story, every detail, for the fourth time in two days. Wilson listened attentively, asked questions, and interrupted now and then, but he took no notes. The note taking was someone else’s job. When silence fell over the conference room, I could hear scribbling behind me as Wilson and I exchanged stares through the sterile fluorescent light.

Wilson went page by page through my file. Each document, each phone call, each line of notes, and for each one Wilson asked me when and why, as well as what I was thinking at the time. It was slow, methodical, and grueling. No one suggested I killed Snyder. But each question rested on a hint of suspicious caution. I knew Wilson wasn’t the kind of man who trusted people, at least not people who found severed heads in their cars. And when Wilson asked me questions like, “Why did you ask your girlfriend to get the credit report?” — answers like “I don’t know” didn’t sit too well with him.

After every significant event, Wilson ordered people around like MacArthur lording over Japan. There was a sense of urgency in the air. Everything was important, everything had to happen immediately. Wilson dispatched people to go through Ed Snyder’s office, to fingerprint the rental car and review security tapes, to talk to Murdock, to search my apartment for clues of any kind, and to check out the house in Topanga. People rushed in and out of the room.

At one point Wilson asked me when I first suspected something was wrong. I thought about it for a minute and then smiled. All I could think about was Morgan, and the way she whispered in my ear on her couch. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the pressure of the interview, or just being surrounded by all those cops, but I leaned back in my chair, snorted a little, and then started to laugh and laugh. I slapped my hand on the table and then held the edge to steady myself. I could see her and hear her in my head and, for whatever reason, it struck me as the funniest thing in the world.