The Blue Nowhere

knows.”
    Lowering his voice so far that Bishop had to lean forward to hear, Cargill muttered, “Fucking office rumors—that’s all they are.”
    Twenty-two years as a detective, Bishop was a walking lie detector. He continued, “Now, if a man is parked with his mistress—”
    “She’s not my mistress!”
    “—in a parking lot he’s going to check out every car nearby to make sure it’s not his wife’s or a neighbor’s. So, therefore, sir, you saw the suspect’s car. What kind was it?”
    “I didn’t see anything,” the businessman snapped.
    It was Bob Shelton’s turn. “We don’t have time for any more bullshit, Cargill.” He said to Bishop, “Let’s go get Sally and bring her over here. Maybe the two of them together can remember a little more.”
    The detectives had already talked to Sally Jacobs—who was far from being the ugliest girl on the sixteenth, or any other, floor of the company—and she’d confirmed her affair with Cargill. But being singleand, for some reason, in love with this jerk she was far less paranoid than he and hadn’t bothered to check out nearby cars. She’d thought there’d been one car but she couldn’t remember what type. Bishop had believed her.
    “Bring her here?” Cargill asked slowly. “Sally?”
    Bishop gestured to Shelton and they turned. He called over his shoulder, “We’ll be back.”
    “No, don’t,” Cargill begged.
    They stopped.
    Disgust flooded into Cargill’s face. The most guilty always look the most victimized, street-cop Bishop had learned. “It was a Jaguar convertible. Late model. Silver or gray. Black top.”
    “License number?”
    “California plate. I didn’t see the number.”
    “You ever see the car in the area before?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see anybody in or around the car?”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    Bishop decided he was telling the truth.
    Then a conspiratorial smile blossomed in Cargill’s face and he shrugged, nodding toward his house. “Say, Officer, man-to-man, you know how it is. . . . We can keep this between you and me, right?”
    The polite façade remained on Bishop’s face as he said, “That’s not a problem, sir.”
    “Thanks,” the businessman said with massive relief.
    “Except for the final statement,” the detective added. “That will have a reference to your affair with Ms. Jacobs.”
    “Statement?” Cargill asked uneasily.
    “That our evidence department’ll mail to you.”
    “Mail? To the house?”
    “It’s a state law,” Shelton said. “We have to give every witness a copy of their final statement.”
    “You can’t do that.”
    Unsmiling by nature, unsmiling because of circumstance now,Bishop said, “Actually we have to, sir. As my partner said. It’s a state law.”
    “I’ll drive down to your office and pick it up.”
    “Has to be mailed—comes from Sacramento. You’ll be getting it within the next few months.”
    “ Few months? Can’t you tell me when exactly?”
    “We don’t know ourselves, sir. Could be next week, could be July or August. You have a nice night. And thanks for your cooperation, sir.”
    They hurried back to their navy-blue Crown Victoria, leaving the mortified businessman undoubtedly thinking up wild schemes for intercepting the mail for the next two or three months so his wife didn’t see the report.
    “Evidence department?” Shelton asked with a cocked eyebrow.
    “Sounded good to me.” Bishop shrugged. Both men laughed.
    Bishop then called central dispatch and requested an EVL—an emergency vehicle locator—on Phate’s car. This request pulled all Department of Motor Vehicles records on late-model silver or gray Jaguar convertibles. Bishop knew that if Phate used this car in the crime it would either be stolen or registered under a fake name and address, which meant that the DMV report probably wouldn’t help. But an EVL would also alert every state, county and local law enforcer in the Northern California area to immediately report any sightings of a car fitting that description.
    He nodded for Shelton, the more aggressive—and faster—driver of the two, to get behind the wheel.
    “Back to CCU,” he said.
    Shelton mused, “So he’s driving a Jag. Man, this guy’s no ordinary hacker.”
    But, Bishop reflected, we already knew that.
    A message finally popped up on Wyatt Gillette’s machine at CCU.
    Triple-X: Sorry, dude. This guy had to ask me some shit about breaking screen saver passcodes. Some luser.
    For the next few