“Probably. Thanks a lot.”
I started back to my car as the first flurries started floating down. Pena called after me.
“What about the hypnotizing?”
“They’ll call if they want to do it.”
Before getting in the car I checked the trunk. There were no chains.
On my way back through Boulder I stopped at a bookstore called, appropriately enough, The Rue Morgue and picked up a thick volume containing the complete stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. My intention was to start reading it that night. As I drove back to Denver I worked on trying to put Pena’s answers into the theory I was working on. And no matter how I moved his answers around, there was nothing that derailed my new belief.
When I got to the DPD, I was told up in the SIU office that Scalari was out of the building, so I went to homicide and found Wexler behind his desk. I didn’t see St. Louis around.
“Shit,” Wexler said. “You here to bust my chops again?”
“No,” I said. “You going to bust mine?”
“Depends on what you’re going to ask me.”
“Where’s my brother’s car? It back in service yet?”
“What is this, Jack? Can’t you even conceive of the possibility that we know how to run an investigation?”
He angrily threw the pen he was holding into a trash can in the corner of the room. He then realized what he had done and went and picked it out.
“Look, I’m not trying to show you up or cause you any problems,” I said in an even tone. “I’m just trying to settle all my questions and the more I try the more questions I have.”
“Like what?”
I told him about my visit with Pena and I could see him getting angry. Blood rushed into his face and there was a slight tremor along his left jawline.
“Look, you guys closed the case,” I said. “There is nothing wrong with me talking to Pena. Besides, you or Scalari or somebody missed something. The car was out of his sight for more than half a minute while he was calling it in.”
“So fucking what?”
“You guys were only concerned with the time prior to his seeing the car. Five seconds, so nobody could’ve run away. Case closed, suicide. But Pena told me the windows were fogged. They had to have been for someone to have written the note. Pena didn’t look in the back, onto the floor. Then he leaves for at least thirty seconds. Somebody could’ve been lying down in the back, got out while he was making the calls and run into the woods. It could have happened easily.”
“Are you fucked in the head? What about the note? What about the OSR on the glove?”
“Anybody could have written on the windshield. And the glove with the residue could have been worn by the killer. Then he took it off and put it on Sean. Thirty seconds is a long time. It might’ve been longer. It probably was longer. He made two calls, Wex.”
“It’s too iffy. The killer would be relying too much on Pena taking that much time.”
“Maybe not. Maybe he figured he’d either have enough time or he’d just take out Pena. The way you guys handled this thing, you would have just said Sean killed him and then himself.”
“That’s bullshit, Jack. I loved your brother like he was my own fucking brother. You think I want to believe he swallowed the goddamn bullet?”
“Let me ask you something. Where were you when you found out about Sean?”
“Right here at the desk. Why?”
“Who told you? You get a call?”
“Yeah, I got a call. It was the captain. Parks called the watch captain. He called our captain.”
“What did he tell you? His exact words.”
Wexler hesitated a moment as he remembered.
“I don’t remember. He just said that Mac was dead.”
“He said it like that or did he say Mac had killed himself?”
“I don’t know what he said. He might’ve. What’s the point?”
“The ranger out there who called it in said Sean shot himself. That started the whole thing rolling. You all went out there expecting a suicide and that’s what you found. The parts of the puzzle fit into the picture you brought with you. Everybody around here knew what the Lofton case was doing to him. You see what I’m saying? You were all predisposed to believe it. You even got me believing it on the ride out to Boulder that night.”
“That’s all bullshit, Jack. And I don’t have the time. There’s no proof of what you’re saying and I don’t have time for theories from somebody who can’t face the facts.”
I was silent a moment, letting him cool down.
“Then where’s the car, Wex? If you’re so sure, show me the car. I know how I can prove it to you.”
Wexler paused himself. I guessed he was contemplating whether he should get involved. If he showed me the car, he was admitting that I had at least put a small doubt in his own mind.
“It’s still in the yard,” he finally said. “I see it every goddamn day when I come in.”
“Is it still in the same condition as the day it was found?”
“Yeah, yeah, still the same. It’s sealed. Every day I come in I get to see his blood all over the window.”
“Let’s go look at it, Wex. I think there’s a way to convince you. One way or the other.”
The snow flurries had made it over from Boulder. In the police yard Wexler got the key from the fleet manager. He also checked an inventory list to see if anyone had taken the keys or been inside the car other than the investigators. No one had. The car would be in the same condition as it was when it was towed in.
“They’ve been waiting for a requisition from the chief’s office to clean it up. They have to send it out. You know there are companies that specialize in cleaning houses and cars and stuff after somebody’s been killed in them? Some fuckin’ job.”
I think Wexler was talking so much because he was nervous now. We approached the car and stood there looking at it. The snow was swirling around us in a current. The blood sprayed on the inside back window had dried to a dark brown.
“It’s going to stink when we open it,” Wexler said. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is going no further until you tell me what is going on.”
I nodded.
“Okay. There are two things I want to look at. I want to see if the heat switch is on high and if the security lock on the rear doors is on or off.”
“What for?”
“The windows were fogged and it was cold but it wasn’t that cold. I saw in the pictures that Sean was dressed warmly. He had his jacket on. He wouldn’t need the heat on high. How else do windows get fogged when you’re parked with the engine off?”
“I don’t—”
“Think about surveillances, Wex. What causes fogging? My brother once told me about the stakeout you two blew ’cause the windows fogged up and you missed the guy coming out of his house.”
“Talking. It was the week after the Super Bowl and we were talking about the fucking Broncos losing again and the hot air fogged everything up.”
“Yeah. And last I knew, my brother didn’t talk to himself. So if the heat is on low and the windows are fogged enough to write on them, I think it means there was someone with him. They were talking.”