Disclosure

"I did, Mark."

Sanders was certain that he had called Mark Lewyn from Meredith’s office. Standing in the parking lot in the rain, he again pressed L-E-W on his keypad. The phone turned itself back on, the little screen flashing LEWYN and Mark’s home number.

"There wasn’t any message when I got home."

`I talked to your answering machine, about six-fifteen."

`I never got a message. "

Sanders was sure that he had called Lewyn and had talked to his answering machine. He remembered a man’s voice saying the standard message, "Leave a message when you hear the tone."

Standing there with the phone in his hand, staring at Lewyn’s phone number, he pressed the SEND button. A moment later, the answering machine picked up. A woman’s voice said, "Hi, you’ve reached Mark and Adele at home. We’re not able to come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, we’ll call you back." Beep.

That was a different message.

He hadn’t called Mark Lewyn that night.

Which could only mean he hadn’t pressed L-E-W that night. Nervous in Meredith’s office, he must have pressed something else. He had gotten somebody else’s answering machine.

And his phone had gone dead.

Chapter 18

Because . . .

Forget that phone.

`Jesus Christ," he said. He suddenly put it together. He knew exactly what had happened. And it meant that there was the chance that

"Tom, are you all right?" Fernandez said.

"I’m fine," he said. "Just give me a minute. I think I’ve got something important."

He hadn’t pressed L-E-W.

He had pressed something else. Something very close, probably one letter off: With fumbling fingers, Sanders pushed L-E-L. The screen stayed blank: he had no number stored for that combination. L-E-M. No number stored. L-E-S. No number stored. L-E-V.

Bingo.

Printed across the little screen was:

LEVIN

And a phone number for John Levin.

Sanders had called John Levin’s answering machine that night.

John Levin called. He said it was important.

I’ll bet he did, Sanders thought.

He remembered now, with sudden clarity, the exact sequence of events in Meredith’s office. He had been talking on the phone and she said, "Forget that phone," and pushed his hand down as she started kissing him. He had dropped the phone on the windowsill as they kissed, and left it there.

Later on, when he left Meredith’s office, buttoning his shirt, he had picked up the cellular phone from the sill, but by then it was dead. Which could only mean that it had remained constantly on for almost an hour. It had remained on during the entire incident with Meredith.

In the car, when Adele finished the call, .she hung the phone back in the cradle, She didn’t press the END button, so the phone line stayed open, and their entire conversation was recorded on the persona answering machine. Fifteen minutes of jokes and personal commentary, all recorded on his answering machine.

And Sanders’s phone had been dead because the line stayed open. The whole conversation had been recorded.

Standing in the parking lot, he quickly dialed John Levin’s number. Fernandez got out of the car and came over to him. "What’s going on?" Fernandez said. "Are we going to lunch, or what?"

`Just a minute."

The call went through. A click of the pickup, then a man’s voice: `John Levin."

`John, it’s Tom Sanders."

"Well, hey there, Tom boy!" Levin burst out laughing. "My man! Are you having a red-hot sex life these days, or what? I tell you, Tom, my ears were burning."

Sanders said, "Was it recorded?"

`Jesus Christ, Tom, you better believe it. I came in Tuesday morning to check my messages, and I tell you, it went on for half an hour, I mean-"

"John-"

"Whoever said married life was dull-"

"John. Listen. Did you keep it?"

There was a pause. Levin stopped laughing. "Tom, what do you think I am, a pervert? Of course I kept it. I played it for the whole office. They loved it!"

"John. Seriously."

Levin sighed. "Yeah. I kept it. It sounded like you might be having a little trouble, and . . . I don’t know. Anyway, I kept it."

"Good. Where is it?"

"Right here on my desk," Levin said.

"John, I want that tape. Now listen to me: this is what I want you to do.

Driving in the car, Fernandez said, "I’m waiting."

Sanders said, "There’s a tape of the whole meeting with Meredith. It was all recorded."

"How?" "It was an accident. I was talking to an answering machine," he said, "and when Meredith started kissing me, I put the phone down but didn’t end the call. So the phone stayed connected to the answering machine. And everything we said went right onto the answering machine."

"Hot damn," Alan said, slapping the steering wheel as he drove.

"This is an audio tape?" Fernandez said.

"Yes." "Good quality?"

"I don’t know. We’ll see. John’s bringing it to lunch."

Fernandez rubbed her hands together. "I feel better already." "Yes?"

"Yes," she said. "Because if it’s any good at all, we can really draw blood."

John Levin, florid and jovial, pushed away his plate and drained the last of his beer. "Now that’s what I call a meal. Excellent halibut." Levin weighed nearly three hundred pounds, and his belly pressed up against the edge of the table.

They were sitting in a booth in the back room of McCormick and Schmick’s on First Avenue. The restaurant was noisy, filled with the lunchtime business crowd. Fernandez pressed the headphones to her ears as she listened to the tape on a Walkman. She had been listening intently for more than half an hour, making notes on a yellow legal pad, her food still uneaten. Finally she got up. "I have to make a call."