The Dark Room(15)

“It caused acute liver failure. Also, some kind of skin thing.”

“Not the lawsuit, the pill—what was it supposed to do?”

“It was a hypnotic. And a muscle relaxant.”

“Like Valium?”

“More like Rohypnol,” Redding said. “But you should talk to a doctor. That’s not my expertise.”

Cain looked at his watch. He’d be able to talk to a doctor in about forty-five minutes, if he didn’t hit any traffic on the way back.

“Is there anything else?”

“The keys, here on the nightstand?”

“Don’t tell me you know what they fit.”

“Not all of them,” Redding said. “But the one on top—the long one—that’s the ignition to a 1984 Cadillac Eldorado.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Redding nodded toward the bank of linked computers on the back wall.

“They’re sure,” he said. “So I’d swear to it. Hand on a Bible.”

“You’ve got three reference points tying it down,” Cain said. “So either the photos were taken in the eighties, or someone hired a Hollywood prop coordinator to make sure everything fits.”

“Pretty much.”

“All right,” Cain said. “I’ve got to get back.”

Redding stood and reached across the desk to shake his hand.

“Maybe I’ll get to testify again?”

“We’ll see,” Cain said. “I don’t know where this one’s going.”

“The first one, that was a good time.”

“Not for everyone.”

Cain slid the photographs back into the folder, then put it under his left arm.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Redding said.

“It’s okay.”

He walked Cain to the door.

“Seriously, Gavin. I didn’t—”

“I said it’s all right,” Cain said. “And she’s doing a lot better now.”

“Both of you—you’re okay?”

“More than,” Cain said.

Redding opened the door.

“Give me a call if you get anything else I can run,” he said to Cain. “We’ll find her.”





6


CAIN STOPPED AT a light on Santa Cruz Avenue, put his phone on his knee, and began to dictate a note to himself. This didn’t require any real precision. He just spoke in a free flow of thoughts.

Thrallinex. Benzyldiomide.

Redding thought the drug was the key, and he might be right. In an hour, the ME could tell Cain how it compared to a hypnotic like Rohypnol, what a dozen pills would have done to the girl. Then there was the dress. When it came to high-end fashion, he had no idea where to begin. He’d been wearing the same suit three days running, and knew switching ties and shirts wasn’t fooling anyone. But every problem had an entrance. Maybe a clerk in one of the shops around Union Square could point him in the right direction.

The ’84 Cadillac Eldorado was something he might be able to work with, though. No one had to register a dress. Pills got passed hand to hand. But cops knew how to find cars.



As he was driving past the airport, his phone rang. He picked it up on speaker, without looking at the screen to see the caller.

“This is Inspector Cain,” he said.

“And this is your partner,” Grassley answered. “Where are you?”

“Twenty minutes south. They open the casket yet?”

“We’re waiting on the ME.”

“You in the morgue, or the office?”

“Morgue—you’re gonna be here for it?”

“That’s the plan.”

“We start in fifteen minutes. That’s why I called. If you’re not here, I’ll make them wait.”

“Good,” Cain said. “Hey, Grassley?”

“Yeah?”

“Think you could borrow a computer?” Cain asked. “I need you to look something up.”

“Hang on,” Grassley said, and then he must have put the phone on mute. Cain drove in silence, watched a mile tick past on the odometer. Grassley came back. “I got a Web browser. What do you want?”

“Harry Castelli,” Cain said. “Where he was thirty years ago. What he was doing from ’eighty-five to ’eighty-six.”

“This have to do with that thing you can’t talk about?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna keep me hanging?”

“For now,” Cain said. “Until I convince Nagata to bring you in.”

“All right,” Grassley said. “I got his Wikipedia page.”

“Anything about the eighties?”

“Hold on. It’s loading.”

Now Grassley was mumbling as he scanned through the page. Cain pulled into the left lane and accelerated to pass a corporate shuttle bus. Then Grassley was back.

“I got it, right here,” he said. “?’Eighty-one to ’eighty-four, he was living with his parents in London. His dad—”

“Was the ambassador, right? I remember that now.”

“—a Reagan appointee, yeah,” Grassley said. “But in ’eighty-four, Harry came back for college. At Cal.”