The Comic Book Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
haven’t priced everything out. I’ve done an inventory, I think I know everything they took. But—”
“Was this a break-in?” Bart asked.
“No. Uh, maybe. I mean, the back door, I think they, uh, jimmied the lock. They didn’t break in, like, uh, break in, you know. They didn’t smash the window or anything. But I guess you could say they broke in, sort of.”
“Well, it sounds like a police matter to me. How much do you estimate your loss to be?” Lindsey looked at the display screen to check Comic Cavalcade’s deductible. If it was a petty loss, it wouldn’t even be worth processing the claim.
“I’m not sure.”
“Give me an approximation.” Lindsey rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. Patterson would probably inflate the amount, Lindsey would have to go to the store and examine the premises, disallow the claim. Patterson would yowl and threaten to sue International Surety. Then they’d start haggling like a couple of rug merchants. What a mess. Well, at least Patterson had called the police. And how much could some trashy comic books be worth, even if he did inflate the amount?
“Uh, I’ll have to double-check this, Mr. Lindsey, against the price guides and such. But I figure they got some really choice items.”
Lindsey counted to five. “Yes, Mr. Patterson. Could you give me a rough dollar estimate of the value of those comic books? Just a preliminary figure.”
Patterson didn’t say anything.
“Try,” Lindsey urged. He let his breath out with a soft hiss. “Guess.”
“Uh, about a quarter mil, give or take. About that.”
Lindsey gasped. Ms. Wilbur had finished consoling Mr. Candliss and was typing an envelope. She looked up and stared at Bart. Into the telephone he said, “How much did you say?”
“Uh, ab-about a quarter of a million, Mr. Lindsey. A lot of the things were on consignment, you understand. So I d-d-didn’t just lose my own stock, I’ll have to make good to the owners. I can’t pay that kind of money, M-Mr. Lindsey. International Surety has to stand by me. You have to. Please!”
Lindsey yelped.
Ms. Wilbur turned to look at him. “Are you all right?”
He muttered something into the phone and hung up.
Ms. Wilbur asked if he wanted a cup of coffee.
He shook his head and stammered, “N-No. I couldn’t hold the c-cup!”
CHAPTER TWO
Lindsey asked Ms. Wilbur to hold the fort while he took a run into Berkeley. He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door. He got his Hyundai out of its basement parking spot and fought his way into the traffic.
For a minute Lindsey thought about telephoning Harden at Regional, but he decided against it. He’d rather take the initiative. He liked to be known as a can-do guy in International Surety. He’d bring Harden on board when he had some solid information to present. Something the company could dig its teeth into.
Lindsey considered the case before him. For all that he’d never met Terry Patterson, he could tell from their telephone conversation that Patterson was some kind of a wimp. That was no surprise—a grown man who made his living selling comic books to children. And he’d waffled about the burglary. Was it a break-in, or wasn’t it? Had there even been a burglary at all? Maybe it was a case of employee pilfering. Maybe Patterson had stolen those comic books himself. Maybe he was making the whole thing up, there had never been any comic books, and he was attempting to defraud International Surety of a quarter-million dollars.
Possible fraud, Lindsey jotted in his pocket organizer as he waited at a traffic light on Monument Boulevard. At least—contributory negligence. Already he was coming up with some good ideas about how to save the company money. That’s how a man makes himself valuable to an organization!
Maybe he’d send a memo to Harden about it, and copy Legal. Or...maybe better to send the memo to Legal and copy Harden! Lindsey knew Harden, and he did not trust the man. He knew Harden wasn’t above taking his ideas to Legal and presenting them as his own. Harden would get the glory, then toss a couple of crumbs to Lindsey after the fact.
But first things first. Get the facts on the case.
Lindsey got on the freeway and headed for Berkeley. He ran his hand over the leatherette seat covering, savoring the newness of the Hyundai. It had more performance than his old Mercury Capri had ever shown. Much more. He was a little concerned that the Hyundai was foreign made, but at least it was from Korea, not from Japan or Germany. The Koreans had been on our side—the South Koreans had, anyway—and that eased Lindsey’s conscience.
He parked in a municipal garage and walked to Comic Cavalcade on Telegraph Avenue. UC was back from semester break and foot traffic was heavy. A vagrant snap of wind stirred a flutter of newspapers and fast-food containers along the pavement.
He stood on the sidewalk in front of Comic Cavalcade and reconnoitered. You can learn a lot if you just observe before you enter a situation. Comic Cavalcade was a standard storefront. The glass display window was filled with Spider-Man and Batman and Fantastic Four comic books, and Japanese robots and toys and greeting cards and Zippy the Pinhead tee shirts.
The kind of thing that Lindsey had loved, once upon a time. But he was a man on the shady side of thirty now, and such things were no longer part of his life. He wished they’d never been! He’d grown up surrounded by comic books and toys, and only gradually had he come to realize what those things had meant to Mother. How they had shaped her life, made her the sad creature she was now. And, at least indirectly, taken so much from him.
He tried the door but it was locked. A Closed sign hung at eye level.
He picked his way over the trash that littered the sidewalk and checked the neighboring establishments.
On one side of the comic store was a clothing shop. Through the window he saw a high-school-age girl with purple hair and studiedly tattered jacket standing behind the counter, flirting with a young man in a well-stained tee-shirt. Lindsey thought he might want to check with the girl, find out if she was on duty when the burglary—alleged burglary—took place.
On the other side of the comic store was a pizza parlor. A black man in full chef’s regalia spun a circular sheet of pizza dough, threw it into the air and caught it when it spun back down.
Lindsey took his pocket organizer out of his briefcase and jotted a note. Pizza parlor...clothing store...access to C.C. stock?
He returned to Comic Cavalcade and tapped on the door with his pen. The sound was sharp and authoritative—much better than rapping with his knuckles would have been. He pressed his nose to the glass and peered inside. A young man in a disreputable-looking shirt slouched behind the counter. He was tall and skinny and wore dark-rimmed eyeglasses. He tapped his fingers nervously on the glass counter. A police officer stood opposite him. A rack of comic books blocked Lindsey’s line of sight, so he could see only part of the officer’s back.
The young man started to wave Lindsey away, then realized who he was, came to the door and let him in. He locked the door again.
“M-Mr. Lindsey?”
“You Terry Patterson?” Bart asked.
The young man gulped and nodded. He blinked his eyes uncontrollably.
Lindsey handed him his card. He gaped at it as if he’d never seen a business card before, and continued to stare at it for what seemed an eternity before he slipped it into his jeans pocket.
He said, “Off-Officer Plum, uh, M-Mr. Lindsey is here, uh, from the insurance, uh, company.”
Officer Plum turned around, picked up a clipboard holding incident report forms, and halved the distance between them.
Lindsey realized simultaneously that Officer Plum was female and that she was black. Lindsey bit his