I unlocked the office and he followed me in. The two of us did a walk-through, he with an eye out for vandalism and me with an eye to theft. I assured him nothing seemed to be missing or out of place.
“I’ll turn in an incident report. If you want to file a formal report, you can stop by the station in the next few days. I can’t see asking your insurance company to pay for damages so minor, but it never hurts to have something on record. Sometimes you get a repeat attempt if they think you keep drugs or valuables on hand.”
“I don’t have either, but I’ll be on the alert.”
After he left, I sat down at my desk and tried to talk my way through the surge of fear I experienced once I was alone. I thought about Ned Lowe. There are times when I question my reactions, but this wasn’t one. There was nothing silly about my suspicions and I didn’t chide myself for jumping to conclusions. I had no proof it was Ned unless he’d left fingerprints, which he would have been careful to avoid. I couldn’t imagine his purpose, but his thinking was warped in any event and what he considered a legitimate motive would have subjected any other man to a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold. A 5150, if you want to get technical.
To offset my anxiety, I put a call through to Diana Alvarez on the theory that being annoyed with her would supersede my apprehension. On the desk in front of me, I had the newspaper article she’d written about Fritz McCabe. She answered on the third ring and I identified myself.
“Well, Kinsey. This is an unexpected surprise.”
“Like there’s any other kind,” I said.
“Uh, good point. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’m looking at your article about Fritz McCabe, wondering if you uncovered information you didn’t include.”
“I expressed my personal opinion, but my editor cut that part.”
“What’s your personal opinion?”
“I thought Fritz was fortunate he was tried as a juvenile. If he’d been tried as an adult, he might have been eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Instead he served eight years and now he’s free.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s the matter of Austin Brown. I felt he deserved a mention. He’s on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. You know there’s a bounty on his head? Fifty thousand bucks.”
“Well, that’s generous. The reward’s been sitting there all these years?”
“Untouched. Either nobody knows where he is or they’re not willing to step up to the plate. I was hoping the story about Fritz McCabe would generate interest in Austin’s whereabouts.”
“Maybe you could write a separate article.”
“Afraid not. My editor says it’s old news.”
“But Austin Brown is a bad dude. You’d think it would be important to bring him in.”
“Not to my editor. If you ask me, this whole story is epic and deserves to be told beginning, middle, and end.”
“So far the end is missing.”
“Right, but aside from that, it’s got all the elements: youth, sex, money, betrayal.”
“Death,” I added.
“Right. I know it sounds cynical, but Austin Brown is the last dangling thread.”
“You have a theory about where he went?” I asked.
“Why? Are you going after him?”
“For fifty grand, I might,” I said, though the idea had never occurred to me.
“He’s been sighted half a dozen places, but none of those leads were legitimate. People are so eager to help, they hallucinate. Why are you so interested?”
“Strictly curious.”
“Fifty thousand dollars’ worth at any rate,” she remarked.
“Can I tell you my problem?”
“Why not? You’ve already interrupted my work.”
“Sorry about that, but here’s the deal. I want to talk to the players in the case, but I have no cover story and no bargaining power. I can hardly pass myself off as a reporter.”
“Sure you can,” she said. “People are more interested in talking than you’d think. I see it all the time when I’m trolling for interviews. Here’s the trick. Imply you have the information and you’re looking for confirmation. Better yet, tell ’em you’d like to hear their version of events before you go to press. Say your editor wants an update and he suggested you talk to them.”
“I wouldn’t need press credentials?”
“Only if you’re crashing a rock concert. People assume you’re who you say you are.”
“What about Sloan’s mother? Do you think she’d agree to meet with me?”
“God, you sound so tentative. I thought you had balls. Trust me, she’ll talk. All she does is talk about Sloan’s death. People who know her say she’s obsessed. For years now, she’s left Sloan’s room as it was. Closed the door and locked it.”
“Someone else mentioned that,” I said. “Sounds like she’s still sensitive about the loss.”
“I’m not sure grief like that ever goes away. In the meantime, she loves going back over the ‘facts of the case,’ hoping she can make it come out differently. Look her up in the phone book under the last name Seay.”
“Spell that.”
“S-E-A-Y. Like the word ‘sea’ with a Y on the end. She’s in Horton Ravine.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that,” I said. I glanced at the list of names I’d jotted down after my meeting with Lauren McCabe. “You don’t happen to have an address and phone number for Iris Lehmann?”
“The girl who got kicked out of Climp? Why talk to her?”
“I’d like to know what’s happened to her since.”
“Not much, I’ll bet. I have the home number I picked up years ago. Might not be good now, but you’re welcome to try. Last I heard, she was working in that vintage clothing shop on State. That might be the best way to contact her, but I can give you the home number if you like.”
“That would be great.”
“Hang on a sec.”
It took her a few minutes to retrieve her address book and flip through the pages. She gave me Iris’s home phone number with one condition attached. “You have to swear you’ll let me know if anything new develops. That might give me an arguing point for additional coverage of the old case.”
“I can do that,” I said. “In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same for me.”
“Happy to. Of course, then you’d owe me.”
“I can handle that.”
“Best of luck. I can’t wait to see what it feels like to have you in my debt,” she said.
After she hung up, I sat and stared at Iris Lehmann’s contact information. Hers was the first name on the list of people I wanted to talk to, but I was oddly reluctant to get in touch with her. What if the blackmail demand came from her? I couldn’t think why she’d try extorting money on the basis of a sex tape in which she starred front and center. I didn’t think her role was a criminal matter, but it certainly would be an embarrassment if it came to light.
5
THE SHUNNING
May 1979