An Absence of Light

“If we locate them, do you want us to go ahead and talk to them on the telephone?” Paula asked.

Graver hesitated. “No. Hold off on that. Just make sure we know where we can find them.”

“What about the Seldon thing?” Neuman asked. Graver was expecting it. After all, neither of them knew what had happened that morning with Burtell after they had walked out of Graver’s office. He told them Burtell’s account of what had happened.

“Jesus Christ. Marcus.” Paula was incredulous. “I don’t believe that. Did he expect you to swallow that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so.”

“Son of a bitch.” Paula was shaking her head. “That’s outrageous. That means the investigation is just vapor.” Her eyes were wide as she gaped at Graver. “Besom. What about Besom? What are we going to do about him? We at least ought to go through his office. And Dean’s too, for God’s sake.”

Neuman was shaking his head. “No, that’d be a mistake. They’re not going to have any tangible evidence in their offices, Paula. And they’d know for sure if we went in there. We’d only be giving ourselves away.”

“Look, when he left to go fishing he didn’t know Tisler was going to kill himself,” Paula said, turning to Graver. “Like you said, they’ve been doing this for so long they have their routine down pat. But maybe they’ve grown complacent, too, a little careless, maybe.” She turned back to Neuman. “Look at Dean’s screwup with your folders, Casey.”

Graver stood and walked to the windows. Once again late afternoon was muting the colors of the city. He was beginning to hate this office. He had seen too much of it, and he was dreading how much more of it he was going to have to see before this was over.

“No, I’ve thought about going through their offices, too,” he said, half-turned away from them, “but I think Casey’s right. Besides, I can’t believe they’d leave anything incriminating while they were away for any period of time.”

“But Dean…”

“Yeah, I know that, Paula, but I think he must’ve been working on those drafts at the time he left. Yes, he left them there… even in the wrong folders, but he was only going to be gone for an hour. Yes, he was careless, maybe even complacent But he’s not going to do something like that and leave it overnight or for two weeks while he’s on vacation. Especially now, after what’s happened. I think Casey’s right It wouldn’t be worth the risk.”

He stepped back to his desk and, standing beside it, turned another page in his file.

“Casey, you said Tisler had rental property.”

“Right. In Sharpstown.”

“Did you check it out? Did you see if there were renters?”

“No.”

Graver sat down at his desk and turned around to his computer. “What’s the address?”

“Six twenty-three Leiter.”

Graver pulled up the street index in the city directory.

“Lewis O. Feldberg, 555-2133.”

He pulled up the name index. “Four Feldbergs,” he said. “Lewis O. at 623 Leiter… is retired.”

Graver tapped the keys a few more times and brought up the Water Department records. “The old man sure as hell doesn’t use much utilities. Minimum billing. And, apparently, he moved into the place shortly after Tisler bought it. Feldberg started paying the utility bills just a few weeks later.”

He kept tapping. “Mr. Feldberg’s never had a traffic ticket.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Paula said.

Graver tapped some more.

“Last time Mr. Feldberg registered to vote was in 1956,” he said.

“That’s hard to believe,” Paula repeated. “Go to vital stats.”

Graver made a few more entries and then waited for the screen to quit flashing. When it stopped, he read the information: “Lewis O. Feldberg. Christ, he died in Fort Worth on August 3, 1958.”

Chapter 25

It was nearly dusk and the streetlights already had come on by the time Graver found the address of Tisler’s rent house in a dying neighborhood off Beechnut inside the Southwest Freeway. The area looked as if it had been developed in the late fifties and had started its decline fifteen years later-several streets of small ranch-style houses with low-pitched pebble and asphalt roofs and brick veneer wainscoting. He drove by the house once very slowly.

There was nothing about it that distinguished it, a fact that did not surprise Graver. Tisler wouldn’t have owned anything that distinguished itself. There was an old mulberry in the front yard growing close enough to the straight, short sidewalk for the tree’s roots to have burrowed up under it, buckling the concrete until it broke. Graver was glad to see that on either side of the front yard a dowdy ligustrum hedge marked the property lines. The front door was introduced by a little stoop with a wood railing the same height as the brick veneer. A dull black mailbox was tacked to one of the wooden posts that held up the stoop’s roof.