“My name is Elvis Cole. I’m a private investigator.”
“April.”
A whisper.
“Are you her sister?”
She didn’t respond.
“Did Rachel have a friend named Kim or Kimmie? Maybe went by Kaykay?”
“Can’t talk.”
The line went dead, and April was gone.
Can’t talk didn’t mean won’t talk. Can’t talk was promising.
I put the laptop aside and checked the time. Lucy and Ben were due to land and Joe would arrive in minutes. Dinner was prepped and ready to go. The house was clean, the guest room was squared away, and I had showered and shaved. Nothing left to do except wonder what Lucy wanted to talk about. I was deciding whether to check the guest room again when Terri Grafino called. Terri didn’t sound like her usual friendly self. She sounded subdued.
Terri said, “This number.”
That was it.
I said, “Couldn’t find the account?”
“I found it. I couldn’t get into it, but I found it.”
Her voice trailed away to silence.
I said, “Terri?”
“Be careful, Elvis. Don’t get stupid on me.”
I’d never heard Terri sound empty.
“I don’t understand. Is this about the phone?”
“The number, not the phone. It’s the account. Whose number is this?”
“Just a guy. Nobody special. I’m trying to find him.”
“The number’s account is caged. When I tried to access the account, which I did, a message appeared. Please contact the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C.”
I felt a dull throb behind my eyes.
“The Department of Defense.”
“I’ll probably be investigated.”
“Maybe you transposed a digit.”
“It’s the number you gave me. A DARPA number. It’s caged.”
DARPA handled research for the military.
“At least they said please.”
“These people don’t joke.”
“No. I guess they don’t.”
Terri Grafino hung up without saying good-bye. I went to the glass doors and stared across the canyon without seeing it. I felt angry and a little scared. Maybe more than a little. I called Wendy Vann.
“Did you get his call log yet?”
“Give me a break, Cole. I’m working on it.”
“Might be faster if you didn’t need to ask the Defense Department.”
“Take it easy.”
“Why does Josh Shumacher have a DARPA phone number?”
“Take it easy.”
“Who are you people?”
“His parents used to work for the government. That’s all. The phone’s a perk. That’s all it is.”
“How about you and Kurt? Are you a perk?”
“Forget the phone, Cole. You were hired to find her son, so find him. Do your job.”
“Answer my question. Who are you people?”
Wendy paused.
“Here’s my answer.”
She smiled. I sensed it. I didn’t like the smile or the reasons behind it or what she said next.
“Enjoy your tacos.”
17
Joe Pike and I had been partners since the day we bought the agency from old George Feider, my former boss. He’d been my friend even longer. Pike’s uniform du jour was jeans, a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, and military-issue sunglasses, which was pretty much what he wore every day. He leaned against the counter in my kitchen with his arms crossed. Pike stood as still as a tree. Arrows tattooed on the outsides of his shoulders wrapped forward across his deltoids as if pointing at me. The arrows were red.
I said, “It was a threat. They want me to find Josh, but they didn’t expect me to discover the DoD connection. Wendy was warning me to stay clear.”
“Think they’re feds?”
Wendy and Kurt.
“The government doesn’t provide free phones and security to retired academics.”
I had googled the Schumachers after Wendy hung up. Adele Schumacher, under her maiden name Adele Raisa Voight, had received a Ph.D. in Computer Theory & Mathematics from MIT, after which she joined the faculty at Stanford. Corbin Schumacher was on the faculty when she arrived, having received a doctorate in Materials Science the year before. During the next eight years, they married, published sixty research articles, and registered as an LLC called Applied Thought, through which they worked as consultants to the aerospace industry. They left Stanford the following year, after which I could find no further information about them or their company.