“Where the hell are you? Why haven’t you fixed the whatever? Get your worthless asses over here and blah, blah, blah,” Kovac said. He looked to Elwood and Tippen again. “What about the other handyman? Verzano?”
“We’ve got nothing on him other than the fact that he’s been in the Chamberlains’ house, and that the professor wasn’t happy with the job,” Tippen said.
“He denies any involvement. He says he doesn’t know where Krauss is, that he doesn’t hang out with the guy, that he’s worked with him only a few times,” Elwood added.
“He did hint that he thought Krauss was a bit of a twitch,” Tippen added.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Kovac grumbled. “The missing guy is conveniently the twitch.”
“We took his prints,” Elwood said. “He objected to that, citing his Third Amendment rights.”
Kovac rolled his eyes. “A freaking constitutional scholar.”
“He seemed confused when I explained to him that our taking his fingerprints for elimination purposes had nothing to do with the quartering of soldiers in private homes.”
Elwood chose a carton of stir-fried vegetables and chopsticks and sat down to eat, his brow furrowed beneath the short brim of his porkpie hat. “He could have theoretically made a Fourth Amendment argument. He would have lost, of course, but still . . .” He sighed. “I find it deeply disturbing that the average citizen isn’t better informed.”
“The average citizen knows more about Kim Kardashian’s ass than the Constitution,” Tippen cracked. “For that matter, half the politicians running for president know more about Kim Kardashian’s ass than the Constitution.”
“Can we discuss the decline of civilization later?” Kovac asked. “You got his prints, and . . . ?”
“They’re being processed now. His prints might legitimately be in the kitchen of the Chamberlain house,” Tippen said. “But they won’t legitimately be in the professor’s study or in the dining room.”
Kovac looked to Taylor again. “Go on.”
“There are no calls from Diana to Rising Wings, or from Diana, Sato, or Charlie to Handy Dandy or to Dan Franken or Gary Verzano,” Taylor said. “There are still a couple of numbers from Diana’s phone, and from Sato’s phone, I’ve got to run down.
“This doesn’t show the professor’s call to his attorney or the call to the insurance agent regarding a new appraisal of his collection,” he went on. “He probably made the calls from his office phone. We can get those records if need be, but because it’s the university, there’s extra red tape.”
“Did you speak to Forrest Foster?” Kovac asked.
“Yes. He had no idea Chamberlain was planning to give the collection to the university. They hadn’t spoken about it. But he did say Chamberlain made a cryptic remark the day before about having an announcement to make at the meeting on Wednesday morning. It didn’t mean anything to Foster at the time.”
“Yeah,” Kovac nodded. “Chamberlain made that decision during or after the fight at dinner Sunday. That’s my guess. He was getting set to put himself in the catbird seat for that promotion. Was there any indication of communication between Chamberlain and the daughter or between Chamberlain and Sato?”
“No. None. There were calls between Diana and Sato, but neither of them contacted or were contacted by Lucien Chamberlain.”
“Since we can only speculate as to the contents of any of these conversations, what else is interesting here?” Tippen asked. “Is there anything odd or out of place?”
“Yes,” Taylor said, tapping his finger beside a call noted in pink marker. “Sondra Chamberlain didn’t use her cell phone at all from Sunday evening until Tuesday evening, when she called Charlie. He told us she’d left a message for him, which he didn’t listen to until the next day, after his parents had already been killed.”
Tippen shrugged. “So?”
“So that’s the anomaly,” Taylor said. “If she made all her other calls in that time period from the landline—including a call to Diana just minutes after the call to Charlie—why did she call Charlie on her cell?”
“Maybe she’d misplaced the phone and had just found it again,” Elwood offered. “My mother has never gotten the hang of having a cell phone. She loses it, she forgets to charge it.”
“Maybe. But why switch back to the landline right after?” Taylor shrugged. “I don’t know what it means. It’s just the odd thing. Looking back on the rest of the month, she made or received a few calls a day on the cell. There were no long gaps with her not using the phone.”
“Do you think the kid lied about the call?” Kovac asked. “Why would he? I mean, there it is right there.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t have to say anything about it at all, so there wouldn’t seem to be a point to lying about it. And he seemed genuinely upset about not having taken the call,” Taylor said. “That just makes it stick out all the more.”