AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Remmi headed for the back stairs, carrying the cream, passing Beverly, who had opened the dumbwaiter door and was pulling out a basket of clean dishtowels. “This is the best,” Beverly declared. “El majore. At least that’s how I think you say it.”
“It is,” Greta called from the kitchen. “Buen trabajo. Good job.”
On the third floor, Remmi found Noah still engrossed in his computer. “Anything yet?” she asked from the kitchen, where she reheated her coffee in the microwave and added some cream.
“A couple of things.”
“Tell me.” Cradling her cup, she took a seat next to him on the couch, in Romeo’s spot, from the looks of the long hair left behind. The cat had now somehow climbed to the top of the bookcase, where he surveyed the living room like an emperor.
“Okay. I asked Emma to go back through old records and find out if anyone was reported missing in Las Vegas around the time of the explosion in the desert.”
“Didn’t the police already do that?”
“Yeah, to try and ID the guy in the Mustang, and they came up empty.”
“And you found someone?” She couldn’t believe it. Was it possible that the man might finally be identified?
“I expanded the search a little, that’s all.”
“More than the cops did?” She found that hard to believe.
“Right.”
“And?”
“Some possibilities. She’s still looking to see if any of them were later located,” he said, “but she found out something else. Something a little more interesting.”
“What?”
“Phone records. For Gertrude Crenshaw.”
Trudie. Remmi felt a little tremor of trepidation. Something in his tone was worrying.
“Take a look. These numbers, all the same?” He was pointing at the screen to a list of incoming calls from different phone numbers and was picking out many that were the same. “Emma tried to track down who owns this number, but she couldn’t. It seems to be for a disposable phone, you know, one of those prepaid and untraceable burners.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, here’s a cluster of them.” He scrolled back through the digital pages. “They all happened about a year, a year and a half ago.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m guessing that was the time Trudie was doing research on the book. These calls are to numbers around Las Vegas. This one, closer to us, belongs to Harold Rimes, and this one,” he pointed to another, “belongs to Leo Kasparian. Looks like she was getting stories and checking facts for putting the book together. She calls them, and then they call back, or she re-calls them. You can tell by the duration of the calls.”
“I get it.”
“So. Here’s one.” He pointed to another number. “And the call lasts less than half a minute. Like a pocket dial. Wrong number.”
“So?”
“So, almost immediately, that number is called again, only this time from this same burner number. See?”
She compared the numbers. “Yes.”
“What if whoever made the first call goofed. Called on his mobile phone, then, realizing his mistake, hung up and phoned back on the burner, to make himself anonymous.”
“Or it really was a pocket dial.”
“Could be. Or a mistake, and the burner call is a coincidence.”
