She emerged from this perfect circle once to find herself staring at the control panel on the washer while Tia Louisa asked her, looking a little worried, ‘Whatsa matter? You forget how to run the machine?’
Sarah explained that she had been thinking about something else. Louisa nodded, plainly suspecting that her employer had gone a little lame in more than her foot. But when Sarah limped back to the table and added another note on the bottom line of her growing list, she was wearing a small, satisfied smile.
By Monday morning, Sarah’s foot had given up the Northern Lights display and settled back to all-over ocher. It was still tender to the touch, though, so none of her shoes would work. Snow had fallen in downtown Tucson Saturday night and quickly melted Sunday morning, but the wind off the mountain had fangs and claws. She put on a pair of her thickest wool hiking socks and the Big Ugly Sandals, and stumped off to work.
She had an idea she wanted to peddle to her fellow detectives, and had made up her mind not to waste any more time thinking about her stupid foot. So as soon as she’d checked her email and answered the essentials, she sought out Cifuentes first in the clustered workstations. He was already bivouacked in his cubicle, almost buried in paper, and raised a cautionary hand as she entered.
‘Careful, careful! Don’t make a breeze.’ He laid staplers, scotch tape and scissors across any mounds not already secured. ‘There. I’m reading case histories, remember? If I tip over a pile and lose my place I’ll kill myself.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Autopsy reports are filled with long, technical words. Leo loaned me this.’ He held up a dictionary of medical terms.
‘Yeah, I have one too. It helps, but I think they add new words every few months.’
‘Exactamente. Thank God for Google. What do you need?’
‘Have you ever found any mention in all those records of the original of Frank Martin’s farewell note?’ He blinked at her. ‘The one you copied and frequently carry in your shirt pocket so you can read it to your admiring teammates. Where’s that?’
‘The one Frank wrote? I told you – I never had that.’
‘What did you copy?’
‘Um … I’m trying to think. Wasn’t it in all the newspaper stories when he shot himself?’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking … never mind. No, God, don’t get up, you’ll start an avalanche. I’ll ask Leo.’
She walked around the connecting half-wall to his desk, where he was already looking up over half-glasses, saying, ‘Ask Leo what?’ He was pretty well walled in by stacks of paper himself. All the top pieces were warm, copies he had just made of newspaper stories from the months after Frank Martin’s death.
‘Have you found any mention yet of Frank Martin’s suicide note?’
‘Mention, are you kidding? It’s quoted verbatim in about a dozen places. All the reporters got their rocks off repeating it. Talk about juicy – right out of Edgar Allen Poe.’
‘Well, do any of them say where it was? Who found it?’
‘Uhh … let’s see, do they?’ He loosened his tie, stuck a judicious forefinger in a stack, read a sentence and thumbed down through a few pages. ‘Here we go … “The note he left …” That’s no help.’ He tried another stack. ‘Here’s from the day he was charged. ‘The message he sent his nephew, Tucson police sergeant—’ He looked up. ‘Ed made Sergeant?’
‘While he was a trainer, sure. He lost his rank after the first reprimand.’
‘Ah, yeah. OK, the message he sent blah blah, and then the quote again, “I didn’t take the money but I won’t” blah blah.Doesn’t say how it was sent. Or where.’ He squinted at her. ‘Who cares? You do, obviously, but why?’ His squint turned into a scowl. ‘You’re looking all games-afootish, Sherlock. What’s the— Oh.’ His forehead smoothed out, and he made a small motion in his chair, like nesting. ‘All of a sudden I think I see why.’
‘Yeah. We’ve been looking for a letter, on paper, in Frank Martin’s handwriting—’
‘So we could all nod wisely and say, “Well, it’s right here in his handwriting, and it proves he felt so guilty he offed himself—”’
‘But if the message was an email …’ They stared at each other, breathing shallowly, thinking about the possibilities. Anyone can send an email. Finally Sarah said, ‘This can’t be the first time anybody ever brought up the question, can it? Remind me … how long ago did he shoot himself?’