Page 35 of The 24th Hour
“She had men friends. And she traveled. This coast, the other one. Overseas. I would drive her to the airport once a month. But if she had a boyfriend, I knew nothing about it.”
“You have a record?” I asked him.
“When I was nineteen, I stole a car.”
“How much time did you get?”
“Sixteen months at Wasco State, but six months off for good behavior. It was my first and only offense. Nothing since. Not even for speeding. I called Mr. Jamie when I was looking for a job two years ago, and he gave me this one. He knew my father years back.”
“What happened to the guy who had the job before you?”
“He moved to Wisconsin to take care of his mother. Robert Corazzo. I have his number.”
He wrote it down on the receipt.
“Rafe, our notes on you say that you have a gun?”
“Yes. A Kimber .40. It’s registered. Only fired at a range and not in the last two months.”
“I need it.”
Rafe took the gun out of a high kitchen cabinet and gave it to me. I sniffed the muzzle. Smelled like nothing. Still, I confiscated it and the box it came in. I told him I was going to need an official statement from him at the station later today and to please not get lost.
“I won’t go anywhere. Here’s a present for you,” he said.
He wrapped his hand around an empty ceramic coffee mug, put the mug in a paper bag, and handed it to me.
“My prints. I didn’t wash it. My DNA should be all over the lip of it.”
“Thanks, Rafe. It’s all safe with me.”
I let myself out of Rafe’s garage apartment, checked out his nondescript gray Nissan just outside, typed the tag number into my phone, and returned to Jamie’s office.
CHAPTER 44
JAMIE’S OFFICE LOOKED as I had left it. I gloved up and then opened the desk’s center drawer, fished around, and found the other cream-colored envelopes. One was addressed to Marilyn Stein, Holly’s former assistant; another to Judy Borinstein, financial manager; and another was addressed to Arthur Bevaqua.
I held the envelope for a moment. The letter opener again did the job. The note card inside had Jamie’s handwriting on both sides.
I read every word fast. On the second read, after “Dear Arthur,” I fell down the rabbit hole with the rabbit. As we tumbled like weightless astronauts, the rabbit said, “Wrong, wrong, wrong. You got it all wrong. You don’t know anything.”
CHAPTER 45
I WAS GOING through Arthur Bevaqua’s bedroom, which was on the second floor, down the hall from Patty’s. Like Patty, he had a bay view. Unlike Patty, his room was painted white. Photos on the wall were of pastel sunrises and blooming sunsets, and a very nice shot of Arthur sitting on a seawall between Jamie and Holly.
Arthur’s closet was lined with pressed trousers and white shirts, dress coats and sports jackets. Ties hung from a rack inside the door, and a basket of laundry sat on the floor.
His dresser drawers were filled with neat stacks of underwear and rolled balls of socks organized by color. No evidence of frisky fooling around. His desk faced the windows and had two deep file drawers. I’d started to go through the one on the right when my phone rang. I recognized the name on my caller ID.
I took the call.
A woman said, “Sergeant Boxer? This is Judy Borinstein, James Fricke’s financial manager. Your office told me thatyou’re at the house. I’m only five blocks away. Okay if I come over to speak with you?”
I said, “Absolutely. I’ll be in Mr. Fricke’s office. I’ll leave the door open.”
When Ms. Borinstein arrived fifteen minutes later, I was sitting in Jamie’s chair, going through his files. She was a fifty-something brunette, wearing a mauve-colored silk dress and a silver cross on a heavy chain. The diamond on her ring finger looked large enough to serve as a weapon in a fistfight. She looked formidable and at the same time stressed out, exhausted, and pretty sad.
I came around the desk, and after we’d shaken hands I offered her one of the chairs opposite Jamie’s desk and took the other. She didn’t look around the museum of Jamie’s life, which told me that she’d been here before.