The Blue Nowhere Part 15

"Yes?" the woman asked.

"Mrs. Cargill?"

"That's right. Can I help you?" Cautious now.

"Is your husband home?" Bishop asked, displaying his shield.

"Uhm. I--"

"What is it, Kath?" A stocky man in chinos and a b.u.t.ton-down pink dress shirt came to the door. He was holding a c.o.c.ktail. When he noticed the badges the men displayed he put the liquor out of sight on an entry way table.

Bishop said, "Could we talk to you for a minute, please, sir?"

"What's this about?"

"What's going on, Jim?"

He glanced at her with irritation. "I don't know. If I knew I wouldn't've asked now, would I?"

Grim-faced, she stepped back.

Bishop said, "It'll just take a minute." He and Shelton walked halfway down the front path and paused.

Cargill followed the detectives. When they were out of earshot of the house Bishop said, "You work for Internet Marketing Solutions in Cupertino, right?"

"I'm a regional sales director. What's this-- "We have reason to believe that you may have seen a vehicle we're trying to track down as part of a homicide investigation. Yesterday at about seven P.M., this car was parked in the lot behind Vesta's Grill, across the street from your company. And we think you might've gotten a look at it."

He shook his head. "Our human resources director asked me about that. But I told her I didn't see anything. Didn't she tell you that?"

"She did, sir," Bishop said evenly. "But I have reason to believe you weren't telling her the truth."

"Hey, hold on a minute-- "You were parked in the lot behind the company around that time in your Lexus, engaging in s.e.xual activity with Sally Jacobs, from the company's payroll department."

The priceless look of shock, morphing into horror, told Bishop that he was right on the money but Cargill said what he had to. "That's bulls.h.i.t. Whoever told you that's lying. I've been married for seventeen years. Besides, Sally Jacobs... if you saw her you'd know how idiotic that suggestion is. She's the ugliest girl on the sixteenth floor."

Bishop was aware of the fleeting time. He recalled Wyatt Gillette's description of the Access game - to murder as many people as possible in a week. Phate could already be close to another victim. The detective said shortly, "Sir, I don't care about your personal life. All I care about is that yesterday you saw a car parked in the lot behind Vesta's. It belonged to a suspected killer and I need to know what kind of car it was."

"I wasn't there," Cargill said adamantly, looking toward the house. His wife's face was peering at them from behind a lace curtain.

Bishop said calmly, "Yes, sir, you were. And I know you got a look at the killer's car."

"No, I didn't," the man growled.

"You did. Let me explain why I know."

The man gave a cynical laugh.

The detective said, "A late-model, light-colored sedan -like your Lexus - was parked in the back lot of Internet Marketing yesterday around the time the victim was abducted from Vesta's. Now, I know that the president of your company encourages employees to park in front of the building so that clients don't notice that you're down to less than half the staff. So, the only logical reason to park in the back portion of the lot is to do something illicit and not be seen from the building or the street. That would include use of some controlled substances and/or s.e.xual relations."

Cargill stopped smiling.

Bishop continued, "Since it's an access-controlled lot, whoever was parked there was a company employee, not a visitor. I asked the personnel director which employee who owns a light-colored sedan either has a drug problem or was having an affair. She said you were seeing Sally Jacobs. Which, by the way, everybody in the company knows."

Lowering his voice so far that Bishop had to lean forward to hear, Cargill muttered, "f.u.c.king 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 bulls.h.i.t, 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 single and, 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 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. "Say, Officer, man-to-man, you know how it is... We can keep this between you and me, right?" He glanced back at house, indicating his wife.

The polite f.a.gade remained on Bishop's face as he said, "That's not a problem, sir."

"Thanks," the businessman said with ma.s.sive 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 circ.u.mstance 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 c.o.c.ked 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 s.h.i.t about breaking screen saver pa.s.scodes. Some luser.

For the next few minutes Gillette, in his persona as the alienated Texas teenager, told Triple-X about how he defeated Windows screen saver pa.s.scodes and let the hacker give him advice on better ways to do it. Gillette was digitally genuflecting before the guru when the door to the CCU opened and he glanced up to see Frank Bishop and Bob Shelton returning.

Patricia Nolan said excitedly, "We're close to finding Triple-X. He's in a cybercafe in a mall somewhere around here. He said he knows Phate."

Gillette called to Bishop, "But he's not saying anything concrete about him. He knows things but he's scared."

"Pac Bell and Bay Area On-Line say they'll have his location in five minutes," Tony Mott said, listening into his headset. "They're narrowing down the exchange. Looks like he's in Atherton, Menlo Park or Redwood City."

Bishop said, "Well, how many malls can there be? Get some tactical troops into the area."

Bob Shelton made a call and then announced, "They're rolling. Be in the area in five minutes."

"Come on, come on," Mott said to the monitor, fondling the square b.u.t.t of his silver gun.

Bishop, reading the screen, said, "Steer him back to Phate. See if you can get him to give you something concrete."

Renegade334: man this phste dude, isnt their some thing I can do I mean to stop him. I'd like to f.u.c.k him up.

Triple-X: Listen, dude. You don't f.u.c.k up Phate. He f.u.c.ks YOU up.

Renegade334: You think?

Triple-X: Phate is walking death, dude. Same with his friend Shawn. Don't go close to them. If Phate got you with Trapdoor, burn your drive and install a new one. Change your screen name.

Renegade334: Could he get to me do you think, even in texas? Wheres he hang?

"Good," said Bishop.

But Triple-X didn't answer right away. After a moment this message appeared on the screen: Triple-X: I don't think he'd get to Austin. But I ought tell you something, dude...

Renegade334: Whats that?

Triple-X: Your a.s.s ain't the least bit safe in Northern California, which is where you're sitting right at the moment, you f.u.c.king poser!!!!

"s.h.i.t, he made us!" Gillette snapped. Renegade334: Hey man I'm in Texas.

Triple-X: "Hey, man" no, you're not. Check out the response times on your anonymizer. ESAD!

Triple-X logged off.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n," Nolan said.

"He's gone," Gillette told Bishop and slammed his palm onto the workstation desktop in anger.

The detective glanced at the last message on the screen. He nodded toward it. "What's he mean by response times?"

Gillette didn't answer right away. He typed some commands and examined the anonymizer that Miller had hacked together.

"h.e.l.l," he muttered when he saw what had happened. He explained: Triple-X had been tracing CCU's computer by sending out the same sort of tiny electronic pings that Gillette was sending to find him. The anonymizer did tell Triple-X that Renegade was in Austin, but, when he'd typed BRB, the hacker must've run a further test, which showed that the length of time it took the pings to get to and from Renegade's computer was far too short for the electrons to make the round-trip all the way to Texas and back.

This was a serious mistake - it would have been simple to build a short delay into the anonymizer to add few milliseconds and make it appear that Renegade was a thousand miles farther away. Gillette couldn't understand why Miller hadn't thought of it.

"f.u.c.k!" the cybercop said, shaking his head when he realized his mistake. "That's my fault. I'm sorry... I just didn't think."

No, you sure as h.e.l.l hadn't, Gillette thought.

They'd been so close.

In a soft, discouraged voice, Bishop said, "Recall SWAT."

Shelton pulled out his cell phone and made the call.