True-Life Adventure

Not the biggest bank in the Golden State, but an up-and-coming one. The Hearne sisters seemed to be a motivated crew.
    Joan told Jack that Lindsay called her the Saturday morning she disappeared and said she was about to make the snatch. But according to Joan, she refused to say where she’d be on grounds that it was safer that way. It sounded pretty unlikely to me, but Jack said he believed her. All the same, my report went on, Jack was monitoring her mail in case Lindsay wrote. That may or may not have been illegal, assuming all he did was look at the postmarks, but it was unquestionably ineffective. Lindsay could write to Joan at the bank, or at a post office box, or at a neighbor’s, for one thing. But most likely she’d phone. So what was the point of mail-monitoring?
    To misguide the client into believing he was getting his money’s worth, so far as I could see.
    Anyway, Joan provided one other pertinent bit of information, dutifully recorded in one of our reports: She said Lindsay had a boyfriend, a guy named Peter Tillman.
    That fact inspired Jack to do some of his famous “background checking” on Tillman before gumshoeing off to question him. He found out the guy was forty-two, a wealthy real estate developer, and married.
    Tillman was understandably reluctant to talk to him. But he did say he’d had a date with Lindsay for Friday, the night before she disappeared, and that she broke it, saying she was sick.
    Susanna Flores, the final person on the list, was Lindsay’s producer. She was the one who provided the information about Lindsay calling in sick, apparently after mailing a letter that said she was actually resigning. She was very close to Lindsay and pretty shocked by her behavior. Shock must have made her lower her guard, because she asked Jack if he’d talked to Michael Brissette, Lindsay’s ex-boyfriend. Jack said no, but he would.
    And he did. I presume he didn’t need to do much “background checking” on Brissette, since he was a household word— a San Francisco supervisor with plans to be the next mayor.
    Brissette, a lawyer by trade, said he hadn’t heard from Lindsay in months, until the Wednesday before she disappeared. That night, he said, she called him on a legal matter. He wouldn’t tell Jack what it was.
    That sounded promising, come to think of it. But it was about the only thing in any of the reports that did.
    I thought about typing all that stuff up and maybe giving it to Blick, but there wasn’t really any point in it— he could just get the originals from Jacob. Anyway, he was already ringing my doorbell.
    “This better be good.”
    “Someone just tried to kill me.”
    “Couldn’t have been a jealous husband, Mcdonald. You’re not the type.”
    Now, was he saying I wasn’t the type because my ethics were exemplary, or was he taking another shot at my bearlike physique? It was a way he had, putting a person off balance.
    “Somebody tried to run me down. I mean it.”
    “Now who’d want to kill you?”
    “The same person who killed Jack Birnbaum, maybe.” I swallowed hard. “You were right, Howard,” I said. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would. “I think he was killed by someone connected with the case we were working on.”
    “And who might that be?”
    “Christ, Howard, how would I know? You’re the detective.”
    “You don’t know who killed Birnbaum, but you now think the motive had something to do with the case that you used to think was too routine even to consider.”
    “That’s right.”
    “So what made you change your mind, asshole?”
    He wasn’t making it easy. I decided to give him a little of his own. “Someone stole the goddam file,” I said, “in case you didn’t notice.”
    I could see his face twitch a little— he really hadn’t thought of that. “You got any proof?”
    “Yes, I have proof, goddammit! A San Francisco police inspector with a search warrant tore my entire house apart and didn’t find it!”
    “Maybe you flushed it down the toilet, Mcdonald.”
    “Howard, for Christ’s sake. I’m trying to cooperate.”
    “Why would he steal your file, Mcdonald? He’d have to steal Birnbaum’s as well.”
    “Why don’t you check it out?”
    “I will. What’s the client’s name?”
    “Koehler. Jacob Koehler.” I spelled it for him.
    “So what was the case?”
    “Ask him.”
    “I’m asking you.”
    “Why don’t you ask me about how somebody tried to kill me?”
    “You know why, Mcdonald?