An Absence of Light

Last nodded miserably. Graver opened the door of the BMW and got out. He walked to his car, got in, started the motor, and backed out of the parking slot Punching in Arnette’s number on the handset, he started down the ramp, and looked in his rearview mirror. The midnight blue BMW hadn’t moved. He could only imagine the conversation inside.

Chapter 67

“No, I don’t want to pick him up,” Graver said. He was headed back to the police department and had just given Faeber’s location to Arnette. “I already know his lines of communications to Kalatis are closed so he wouldn’t be any good to me in that regard.” “But…”

“But…”

“But I suspect they’ll try to hit him. And I don’t know anyone who could have a more direct contact to Kalatis than a hit man. Kalatis would want to order something like that personally. And he’s been doing a lot of it.”

“Then you think they know where Faeber is?”

“If they don’t they’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“And you want us to pick up the hit man when he comes for him.”

“If you can. If you have people who can do that.”

There was a pause on Arnette’s end of the line.

“Yeah,” she said finally. “I’ve got people who can do that.”

Graver said nothing else. This was a big decision for Arnette. Though some of her people had had plenty of experience in operations, she always had stayed away from it, which was professionally prudent and legally imperative. Now she was stepping across the line too. This entire operation had been a study in crossing the line.

“I’ll get them on the way as soon as we hang up,” Arnette said.

Graver was relieved but said nothing about it Instead he asked, “Any luck on those first names of those pilots?”

“Neuman is running them on Sheck’s data, which we were finally able to scan onto a diskette,” Arnette said. “And Paula’s doing the same for Burtell’s document We ought to have something-or nothing-in a few minutes.”

“If you get a last name and an address, have Neuman call me,” Graver said. “I want him to be the one to pick them up, but I want to talk to him first.”

“Will do. What’s going on ‘officially?”

“I haven’t heard anything. I don’t think Hormann’s death will cause even a ripple. He’s not a subject in any file so his ‘heart attack’ will go unnoticed. Kalatis really has something there with his veiled hits. I still think this whole thing will stay under until they identify Dean’s body. The amazing thing is that no matter how much the FBI and the DEA swarm around this bombing, they’re not ever going to come up with Kalatis. It’s hard for me to believe the guy’s completely off the screen. It makes you wonder who else is out there we haven’t got a line on.”

“I wouldn’t dwell on that if I were you,” Arnette said. “Incidentally, I like your people. Very good. My compliments.”

“Look, I’ve got to get off of this thing,” he said. “I’m going to be waiting to hear from you.”

When he got back to the office he had been gone almost three hours, so he checked once again with his squad supervisors. Nothing had come up, and it was still too soon for anything to have developed at the marina. There were check-in calls from both Westrate and Hertig, both of which Graver decided not to return since there was nothing to add to what he had already told them. He went through his messages, all of which could wait, and just as he was about to call in his temporary secretary to check on the paperwork his handset rang. He answered it immediately and was surprised to hear Lara’s voice.

“Marcus. Ginette and I have just walked into her condo to get some clothes… the place has been wrecked.”

“Jesus-are you sure there’s nobody still there?”

“Yes, I checked. Ginette’s really upset…”

“Lara, grab some of her clothes and then get the hell out of there. Listen, I’ve called her sister from Seattle. She’s on her way. Okay?”

“Yeah, fine. She’s getting her clothes now. After we made sure nobody was here I got her busy getting her things together. But what about someone following us? Should I worry about that? I mean, I wouldn’t know what to do about that.”

“Just get straight back to the house,” Graver said. “I’ll have a squad car get right over there to Ginette’s and follow you back to my place. I’ll have them go inside the house with you, make sure everything’s okay. If you have the slightest concern about anything, call me.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. This is just a little creepy, that’s all.”

“I know it is. I’m sorry to have to put you in this position.”

“No, I didn’t mean that.”

“Lara, I’m going to call the shift lieutenant in patrol right now. You want to hang on?”

“No, go ahead. Really, we’re all right I’ll check in with you later.”

He hung up and called the patrol lieutenant He explained briefly what he wanted without going into any background information. One of the advantages of commanding the CID was that if you didn’t always explain yourself there was the assumption that you couldn’t because of the nature of your responsibilities. Everyone accepted that, though sometimes grudgingly.