BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

to pass. He turned right onto Talmage, and right again at State: now a Friday-night-is-party-night zoo. Every parking space was filled outside the Garden Cafe. The Regency Inn boasted, “No vacancies.” He turned right a third time, into a blaze of arc lights, and eased onto a Chevron pump.

He climbed from the vehicle, tugged open the fuel door, lifted a nozzle for high-octane Supreme, plugged it into the tank, and locked the grip.

Eighteen gallons throbbed as he grabbed a black squeegee, slapping its streaming sponge across the windshield. He flipped to the rubber blade, skimmed the glass dry, and did the same the other side. Front and back. Then he stepped to the pump and tapped his Mastercard.

But the reader wouldn’t read it.

Swipe card

He swiped.

Swipe card

He reached into the car, grabbed the remote fob transmitter from the cupholder, slammed the door, and thumbed the lock button. Then he crossed the forecourt to a snack-packed convenience store, where the clerk ran his card. No problem.

Back at the Camaro, he squeezed the fob again, but this time pressed something wrong. Instead of what was needed to unlock the coupe’s doors, he hit whatever opened the trunk. A metallic sound thumped from the back of the vehicle, and the lid swung up a few inches.

He moved to push it down, but then thought better, raised the lid, and looked inside. In the glow of a pale lamp, he saw two cardboard cartons, a duffel bag, and a brown leather briefcase. The cartons were labeled “Salomon ST Inline Skates” and “Pro-Tec Classic Helmet.”

The briefcase was monogrammed.

VG

Viraj Grahacharya. What else could it be? This must be Doctorjee’s bag.

But that was pretty strange. Why was it here? Did Doctorjee leave it in the car? Ben dragged it toward him and slipped open its jaws: a lunchbox and a handful of journals. He pulled one: Virology. Another: Nature. A third: Annals of Internal Medicine.

As he pressed them back, he spotted something else. He noticed writing on the cover of Nature. Below the title and subtitle (“The International Weekly Magazine of Science”), a single word in black Sharpie.

UKIAH

Was that Doctorjee’s writing? Ben held it near the light. He didn’t think it was. No, it wasn’t. There was none of the grandiosity: this was smaller, more normal. He yanked open the duffel bag, pulled a cardboard folder, and riffled to a contract.

THH

Theodore Hosea Hoffman. He wrote “Ukiah.” He must have written it as they talked on the phone. He must have made this note when they set up the meeting. Ben remembered spelling it out to him: “U-k-i-a-h.”

But why write this note on Doctorjee’s journal? And how did it get in the car? Were they both in the Camaro when Hoffman phoned? That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He’d surely been somewhere else—most likely the hospital—where Doctorjee put the journal in his briefcase. Then somebody took the briefcase and put it in the car. And that’s why “Ukiah” was here.

Ben shut the trunk, wiped his face on a shirtsleeve, and considered the implications of this discovery. If Doctorjee had gotten a ride—say to a hotel in San Fran—then why leave his case in the car?

Shit, he thought, is Doctorjee here? Is the EVP here in Ukiah? Had Hoffman dropped him off somewhere on the way to the Bottle Shop, to wait on Doc Mayr’s reaction? Was he hanging around someplace, lying low, out of sight, while the general counsel got the lay of the land?

He opened the trunk again and now noticed something else: at the back, behind the skates and helmet. He saw a flat alloy case, like guitars are often shipped in, but not even one third of the size. He dragged it out, flicked the catches—snap, snap—raised the lid and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

He banged shut the gun case and forced it out of sight. He slammed the trunk lid, leaped back into the coupe, and reversed to the rear of the gas station.

Luke’s voicemail kicked in. Ben tried the landline and heard his own voice. Fuck it, fuck. “You got the right number for Luke and Ben, but you got the wrong time. Start talking.”

Damn. Shit. Fuck. “You there? If you’re there, pick up. It’s me. Pick up… Fuck it, bro. If you’re out, please call me… Call me tonight… Any time… This is heavy.”

Forty-one

THE DOUBLE doors swung open. The double doors swung shut. They swung open and shut once again. They’d swung open and shut for the past three hours. Sumiko could do little but watch. By now she was an expert on their chipped brown paint and the dark-stained pine underneath. She was unrivaled on the scuff marks on their shiny steel kick-plates and the grease on their safety glass panes. There was no greater authority in the State of California on Southern District Police Station doors.

She could hardly begin to grasp what insanity brought her. What absurdity, what screw-up, could explain it? Her mind could hardly process the information she’d received, her body hardly deal with the shock.

But soon she’d know. This would all make sense. The mistake would be fixed. And they’d go home.

She’d been contacted after five by a Mr. MacKenzie or McKechnie—an attorney retained by Sanomo. At the time, she’d been sealing a box of sharps for disposal, when Ardelia called through about a man on the phone who wouldn’t say who he was or what he wanted.

“Says it’s personal and confidential, and urgent as well. Says he needs to get to speak with you right away.”

Sumiko assumed it was Hiroshi or Ben—and wasn’t sure which she’d prefer. But MacKenzie/McKechnie introduced himself bluntly and gave the bare bones of what he knew. Dr. Murayama was being held in the Hall of Justice police station, at 850 Bryant, south of Market. He’d been arrested on suspicion of possession with the intent to sell more than five hundred grams of cocaine. This was a felony offense: up to four years in jail and a fine