‘So?’
‘So what if we think about it the other way around? What if she found something? Maybe we should quit looking for what somebody stood to gain, and think about what somebody has to lose?’
‘Hey, now,’ Jason said, and Delaney turned his pop-eyed stare on her – in fact, everybody in the room was looking at Sarah now.
‘Just a thought.’ She made a fending-off gesture. ‘I don’t, you know, know anything.’
‘I like the thought, though,’ Delaney said. ‘Let’s pursue it. What might somebody have to lose? Let’s make a list.’
‘The truth about something,’ Jason said.
‘Well, of course. But what?’
‘Where the gun came from,’ Ray said.
‘That’s good.’ Delaney started a list.
‘The money,’ Leo said. ‘Nobody’s ever found the money. Maybe somebody’s getting ready to use it.’
‘That’s even better,’ Delaney said. ‘Gold star, that one.’
‘Who has a taser handy?’ Ollie said.
‘Anybody who wants one,’ Delaney said. ‘This is Arizona. Easy to buy a taser similar to the ones we use.’
‘What Frank Martin was so sorry about?’ Oscar said.
Delaney looked at him, surprised. Oscar hardly ever volunteered anything in meetings. Delaney said, ‘What? Say that again.’
‘In the farewell letter he left, right at the end, he says …’ Oscar had that same slip of paper out of that breast pocket again – he really was carrying it around with him, ‘At the end he says, “Eddie, I’m sorry for everything. I’ve loved you all your life – please try to forgive me.”’
‘Isn’t he apologizing for stealing the money?’
‘Why would he need to apologize to Ed for that? It was the credit union that got hurt. And the depositors. Ed didn’t lose anything.’
‘And while we’re on the subject of the message,’ Sarah said, and turned to Leo, ‘let’s ask him about our idea.’
‘Go ahead,’ Leo said.
Delaney said, ‘What now?’
‘Well, you know, we’ve never found the letter.’
‘I know. I thought we’d find it in the trunk, but no, huh?’
They all shook their heads.
‘So over the weekend I started to think, what if it wasn’t a letter? And this morning I asked Leo, any chance it was an email?’
‘Sarah, surely that must have been settled three years ago.’
‘Well, see,’ Leo carefully scrutinized the corner of the desk, ‘we thought maybe Eisenstaat might not have, you know, thought to check.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Delaney said. ‘That does sound entirely possible, doesn’t it?’
‘So I was just going to ask you, shall we ask Tracy to look for it on the laptop, as long as he’s going through it anyway—’
Delaney looked at Ollie. ‘You gave the laptop to Tracy? The one I signed out to you?’
Ollie said, ‘Oops. I’m afraid I did. Was I supposed to make a note on the whiteboard or something?’
Delaney, looking ready to eat glass, said, ‘Might have been a good idea, don’t you think? So the system would work the way I set it up and we’d all know where everything is?’ He collected himself and said, ‘Sarah, will you find out if Tracy’s here? And get him over here if he’s in the building.’
Sarah stepped outside and around the corner to the support staff bullpen where the head stenographer sat talking on two phones and pulling notes out of a pile to hand to an aide. When she got to something resembling a pause, Sarah said, ‘Elsie, is Tracy working this morning?’
‘Can’t you tell by the quiet that he isn’t?’
‘Oh dear. Back in school, huh? I thought Christmas vacation …’
‘No, he was on the schedule but he called in sick. Woke up with a cough, could be flu or valley fever. I told him not to come near us till he’d seen a doctor.’ Elsie frowned. ‘You really want the little nutcase?’
‘I need to ask him a question, yes.’
‘Well, here, I’ll give you his home phone.’ Elsie kept neat records; she found it right away. ‘Be careful, if he coughs he’ll break your eardrum.’
Tracy wasn’t coughing when he answered the phone, but he wasn’t home, either.
‘I’m waiting at the clinic where I go to get my allergies tested. I told the Dragon Lady I get this allergy every year – something pollinates after a winter rain. But she’s sure I’ve turned into Typhoid Mary so I can’t come back to work until I get a slip from my doctor. I offered to take the laptop home and finish the job I was doing for you and Leo, but Our Lady of Perpetual Dread was sure that would be a hanging offense, so—’