Double

Another glance at Ferguson, who nodded slightly. She said, “You might as well know it all. I tried to call him several times at his home and at his office, both on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Carl told me to keep trying; I’d finally got through to him late Saturday. We both felt I had to talk to Lauterbach before Timmy and I left for Mexico.”

“And?”

“He answered his office phone about ten-thirty Sunday morning. He was angry, abusive; he wanted to know where Timmy and I were. I wouldn’t tell him. He said that unless I came to his office inside an hour he’d call the police.”

“Did you go?”

“I had no choice. But he wasn’t there. That’s the truth — I swear it. His office was unlocked and Timmy and I sat there for over an hour waiting, but he didn’t come. I didn’t know what to think. It never occurred to me that he might be somewhere in the building, dead. But I couldn’t wait any longer. Ibarcena was picking us up at one o’clock. I had to take the chance that neither Lauterbach nor the authorities would be able to stop us from leaving the country, and that they wouldn’t be able to find us down here.”

“What time was it that you got to Lauterbach’s office?” I asked her.

“After eleven sometime.”

“Did you see anyone on his floor when you arrived?”

“No, no one.”

“Anyone in the building?”

“Well... a man bumped into me in the lobby, coming out of the elevator just after we got there. I was standing in front of the doors when they opened and there he was.”

“What did he look like, this man?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t pay much attention to him. He was just a man carrying a machine under one arm.”

“What kind of machine?”

“It looked like a tape recorder, one of those small ones. I noticed that because a corner of it dug into my arm when he bumped me.”

“Can you remember anything about him? The color of his hair, his size, what kind of clothes he was wearing?”

“No. It was just one of those things that happen in two or three seconds. We ran into each other, he said, ‘Excuse me, dear,’ or ‘sweetheart,’ something like that, and then he was gone and Timmy and I were in the elevator.”

“You don’t have any impression of him at all?”

“No. I was too nervous and worried.”

“Any chance you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

“I don’t think so.”

The man had to be Lauterbach’s killer, I thought. The time element was right, the tape recorder under his arm was right. He must have taken the recorder from Lauterbach’s office after the shooting; I remembered that I hadn’t seen any electronic equipment in there on Monday morning, and how odd that had seemed considering Lauterbach’s past record and the stuff I’d noticed in his car on Friday night. Whatever had been taped on that machine figured to be the motive, or part of the motive, for his murder.

Not much of a lead without some clue to the man’s identity, but a small lead was better than none. I would pass it on to the cop in charge of the case, Gunderson, as soon as I got back to San Diego.

I said to Ferguson, “Let’s back up a little. How did Lauterbach know Timmy by sight?”

“I once made the mistake of hiring him, earlier this year in Detroit.”

“To do what?”

“Confirm what a friend from Bloomfield Hills told me — that my ex-wife was abusing Timmy.”

“And did he confirm it?”

“To my satisfaction, yes. But he tried to gouge me for more money and I fired him and brought another detective into it.”

“Who also confirmed the abuse?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities? Why kidnap the boy?”

“It was the only choice I had. The proof my detective found is inconclusive in the eyes of the law. Timmy wouldn’t have been taken away from my ex-wife immediately, not without an official investigation. And the boy is terrified of her — she threatened to beat him bloody if he ever told anyone how she treated him. She’d have done it, too. She might have done it anyway, even if he hadn’t told the truth. She hates Timmy because he’s my son, a part of me. When she hits him she’s really hitting me. Can you understand that?”

“I can,” I said, “if it’s true.”

“You saw Timmy’s back,” Nancy Pollard said. “Isn’t that enough proof for you?”

“Not necessarily. It doesn’t prove his mother was the one who put those marks on him.”

“Ask him. Just ask him.”

“I guess I’ll have to do that.”

“I have the detectives’ reports,” Ferguson said. “I’ll show you those too, if I have to. But why should I? I still don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. Or how you found us.” He turned to Nancy Pollard. “How could he find us with all that maneuvering around they put you through?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something Timmy said to him when they talked in San Diego... I don’t know.”

“What maneuvering?” I asked her. “And who’s ‘they’?”

She didn’t answer. But Ferguson said tiredly, “The people I made arrangements with to get Nancy and Timmy from Bloomfield Hills down here.”

“You mean Lloyd Beddoes and Victor Ibarcena?”

His expression went blank. “Who?”