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I dug in.
“There’s something I need to discuss with you,” Joe said when my mouth was full.
“Good or bad?”
“You’ll tell me,” he said.
CHAPTER 101
BRADY CALLED BEFORE I’d finished my coffee.
“What news?” I asked.
“We’ve got Bryan Catton’s fireproof box in the war room. If you want to see the contents, come now. I can hold it until about 10:30.”
My day off faded out to nothing.
Joe was loading the dishwasher. “Joe? Can you drive me to work?”
He looked at me, resigned, and said, “No problem.”
“It’s just a meeting.”
“Uh-huh.”
I found clean jeans in the dryer, a pressed pink shirt in the closet, and after a search, I found both of my shoes. Twenty-five minutes later, I was in the war room, feeling edgy and curious to know what Blackout thought important enough to keep locked in a safe, inside a secret room, inside an abandoned store.
Brady stood up, dragged a chair over to the table, and satdown. Alvarez grinned at me and said, “Starting to feel a lot like Christmas.”
I held up crossed fingers, wheeled my chair close to the table. Cappy came in and sat in Richie’s empty seat. He asked me if there was any news of Cindy.
“She’s out of the ER,” I said.
“Aw-right. That’s tremendous.”
Hal Williams from maintenance knocked on the door jamb, holding a crowbar. Brady asked him to come in and as four pairs of eyes fixed on Williams and his crowbar, he popped the lock on the fireproof box.
He asked the group of us around the table, “Anything else?”
Brady thanked him and when Williams had gone, Brady lifted the lid. I stood up to see. The box was filled with about a dozen eight-by-eleven-inch brown envelopes.
Brady gloved up, took one out of the box, and peeled up the flap. He reached inside the envelope and pulled out a paper-clipped packet of papers. He reviewed the packet and we waited for him to say something.
“These appear to be photocopies of letters ‘B.C., Esq.’ wrote to Evan Burke, care of San Quentin State Prison.”
I was the one who said loudly, “He was writing to Burke?”
Brady said, “Catton was posing as Burke’s attorney. He visited Burke in disguise, and they exchanged unmonitored letters under Burke’s constitutional right to counsel.”
He spread the papers out on the table. Cappy called out for Brady to read a letter or two.
Brady picked one up.
“This is from Catton, dated about three months ago.
‘Hey there, Evan, I want you to know that I enjoyed our meeting yesterday. I like your idea very much and will be scouting for appropriate candidates. Meanwhile, I’ve contacted your publisher asking for an advance copy ofYou Never Knew Me.
‘Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be in touch.
