Nine

“I’m sure the department wouldn’t hesitate to acknowledge your help.”

Serault gave a sigh of relief and slumped back in his chair. Alex left him sitting there and went out to the reception area.

While he waited for Nola Phillips, Alex looked over the files. He noted that only three people who no longer worked for the company had worked on both segments, only four more had worked on both segments and still worked there.

“Detective Brandon?”

He looked up from the paperwork to see a petite blonde approaching him. Her short hair was styled into spiky tufts and peaks; her pale complexion was enlivened by a slash of bright pink lipstick and a small silver nose ring; her large blue eyes were slightly magnified by the black-rimmed rectangular lenses of her glasses. He wondered if the glasses were supposed to be a somber note. She wore a skintight lime-green blouse, black leather pants, and black Charles David stiletto heels.

“The Volkswagen,” he said, and she laughed.

“How’d you guess?”

“The blouse,” he lied, and liked the impish, doubting look she returned.

“I’m Nola.” She glanced at the receptionist and added, “Let’s talk in my office.”

Her office was a windowless cubicle at the end of a hallway, past the closed metal doors of the studio. The room would have been completely dark, but she had plastered most of its surfaces with glow-in-the-dark stickers shaped as stars, planets, dinosaurs, and insects. “They keep me from bumping into the furniture while I find the switch,” she said as she made her way across the room to the desk. She snapped on a desk lamp, and the room was made only slightly more officelike. She gestured toward a pair of beanbag chairs, but knowing they weren’t made for the comfort of those who wore weapons, he opted for a more traditional office chair. She seemed disappointed but took the chair behind the desk, then propped her feet up on it. She held out her hand and said, “Gimme.”

“I wish I didn’t know you meant the folders,” he said, handing them to her, and she laughed again. He liked the laugh, too-a laugh with meat on its bones. Watching her look of intense concentration as she studied the files, he doubted Nola Phillips had giggled since she was five. Which, he reminded himself, was probably not all that long ago.

“I saw the press conference,” she said. “You’re looking for someone in these files who could be a killer?”

“Not necessarily. Could be someone who accepted a payment for information. And your staff person might not have known the real reason the other party wanted the information.”

He moved closer to the desk and pointed out the names of the seven who had worked on both shows. He started with the ones who were still employed by the company, then moved to the ones that had left. As he went through the list, she offered reactions: “No, not in a million years. Wouldn’t catch him jaywalking… No, she’s one of those people who would confess immediately if she did… Doesn’t have the nerve… Doesn’t have the imagination.”

A former employee, Dwight Neuly, was working on a “creepy student film.” Alex made a note to talk to him. She had moved on to the next name.

“Eric? Hmm. Really sophisticated one moment, goofy kid the next. He worked really hard, but he was also a clown. But he seemed, like, I don’t know, really harmless.”

“Harmless?” Alex took the folders back and stood. “Maybe he just didn’t know what he was up against.”

She smiled. “Is your day just starting?”

“Oh no. But the hours are hard to predict. What about you?”

“I’ve only been in since two o’clock, so I’m around for a while. Ty is easygoing about hours, so long as you’re here when he needs you during the production season and you get your work done in other times. One of the reasons I like working here.”

“Any of the people in this file going to be here this evening?”

“No, sorry. They only come in on the night the show airs-Thursday. Want to come back then?”

“If I need to, yes. Will that be okay with your boss?”

“Sure. He loves having real cops around here.”

“Tell him to open an all-night coffee shop.”

“Not a doughnut shop?”

“And here I thought you’d avoid the stereotype.”

“Sorry.” She openly assessed him. “I take it back. You have definitely not been sitting around eating doughnuts.”

“Maybe I work out so that I can. But that reminds me-any of these seven people involved in sports of any kind?”

“I don’t know. Eric was in good shape, so was Dwight.”

“Okay. Thanks for the help. I’ll start by seeing if I can run down Creepy Dwight and Harmless Eric.”

“Don’t tell them I said that!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“What do you dream of?”

“Pardon?”

“Your dreams. Dreams interest me. I do dream interpretation.”

Not being a believer in such things, he found himself wishing he had left five minutes earlier, before she said this, but he could see the earnestness with which she asked, so he decided to play along. His dreams of the last few nights had been unpleasant surreal versions of crime scenes, and he wasn’t going to speak of them to her. So he thought back to the most recent pleasant dream. “I dream of cliffs.”

“Oh! Fear and vulnerability.”

He smiled. “Not for everyone. So long, Nola.”

He left her staring after him, the desk lamp light reflecting stars and dinosaurs on her glasses.

12

Sandia Towers Hotel

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Monday, May 19, 6:13 P.M.

Frederick Whitfield IV was in stealth mode. And enjoying himself immensely.

He was seated at the hotel bar, wearing dark sunglasses, drinking a club soda. He was dressed in a cheap suit and inexpensive men’s dress shoes. He didn’t like wearing the clothes, hated them only a little less than the midsize rental car he was driving. For a guy who was used to wearing Armani and Ferragamo, and driving a Lamborghini, it was a lot to put up with all at one time. More than the clothes and the rental car, he hated the haircut and hair color he had adopted: short and light brown. But he was playing a part, and he was willing to make sacrifices.

Frederick was pretending to be an FBI agent. No one had asked him to do this. He had no false identification or weapon with him, and he hadn’t told anyone that he was with the FBI. But he believed himself, in this moment, to be a perfect imitation of an agent. He was fairly sure that if a real FBI agent walked into this bar, right now, he would feel a sense of recognition, of brotherhood, if not an out-and-out conviction that here was a fellow member of the agency.

Morgan Addison had followed Meghan Taggert here. Morgan, a surfer, had found the oceanless Land of Enchantment less than enchanting. Frederick had quickly volunteered to take over the watch.

Morgan had been mistrusting at first. “I don’t get it, man. Most of the time, you kiss Everett’s ass.”

This was true. Frederick readily admitted it. “He’s like a magnet. When he’s near, I can’t resist doing whatever he wants me to do. When he’s away…”

“I don’t know,” Morgan said warily. “Ev’s go

“Perfect,” Frederick told him. “This covers you with Ev. If he complains about your handing this over to me, you just tell him she made you.”

“You want Ev to think I fucked his dream woman?” Morgan asked in disbelief.

Frederick held back a sigh of impatience. “First, she is not his dream woman.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever you say, Freddy.”

“Second, do not call me Freddy.”

“I’m crapping my pants in fear here, Freddy.”

“Fine. Stay there. I’m going to bone that little surfer girl you’re so hot for.”

There was a silence.

Interpreting it correctly, Frederick said, “Yes, I know all about her. Did you think that was a secret you could keep from me, Morgan? I know her better than you’d think. We had a drink together this afternoon.”