Liquid Smoke (2 page)

But I was stuck.

“Who is your client?” I asked.

“My client is Russell Simington,” she said.

The name meant absolutely nothing to me. “So?”

Darcy Gill folded her arms across her chest, casting a long, thin shadow across the shallow water. “Russell Simington is your father.”

I walked out of the ocean, the board tucked under my arm and Darcy Gill chasing behind me.

“Did you hear me?” she asked, coming up to my side.

“I heard you.”

“Your father is on death row.” “I don’t have a father,” I said.

“Spare me the Movie of the Week drama,” she said, keeping pace. “I know you don’t have a relationship with him. But he is still your father.”

I trudged up the sand, stepped across the pavement of the boardwalk, and set my board down behind the small retaining wall that bordered my patio.

I turned to Darcy. “I didn’t even know his name until you just said it. I don’t know that this guy is my father.”

“Your mother is Carolina, correct?” she said, dropping her rental board against the wall.

I didn’t say anything.

“He told me where to find you,” she said. “He told me who your mother is. I checked you out. He got your birth date correct. He is your father, whether you want to believe me or not. And he is scheduled to die.”

The temperature was in the high sixties, but I fought off a shiver.

I sat down on the wall. “He knew where to find me?”

Darcy nodded. “He knew your address by memory. And your mother’s.” She paused. “And you would have no way of knowing this, but you look a hell of a lot like him.”

Something lurched in my gut. I’d never known a thing about my father. Knowing my mother had nearly done me in. She’d never brought him up, and I’d never asked. There were veiled references on occasion, but nothing strong enough to start a conversation. I’d done fine without a father and, over the years, that independence had only grown stronger and quashed any fleeting curiosity I might have had in learning anything about him.

“Who did he kill?” I asked, trying to get my thoughts in order.

“Two Mexican nationals,” she said, sitting down next to me. “Five years ago. He shot them point blank in the back of the head, hands tied behind their backs.”

“Sounds like a guy I really want to meet.”

“Look, I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “You can find out the facts pretty easily, so there’s no point in it. He’s a hard man. He’s comfortable in jail. He’d been in before this conviction.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, it didn’t matter. I’d never met him, never spoken to him, and never touched him. The only influence he’d had on my life was my having to give an embarrassing answer when people asked where my father was.

On the other hand, if he was truly my father, the blood of a lifelong criminal was pulsing in my heart.

“He was convicted with special circumstances that allowed for the death penalty,” Darcy continued. “He’s never participated in his appeals, and he’s waived the opportunity for several of them even to be heard. That’s why he’s come up so fast. He’s been on the row for eighteen months. Generally, the average is thirteen years before we get to this point.”

“Why hasn’t he appealed?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just picked up this case last month. I work for a firm that only handles appellate cases. We grab cases like your father’s.”

“Don’t call him that,” I said sharply. “And I know what appellate firms do.”

“Then you know we’re his last chance,” she said. “The attorneys who handled his earlier appeals told me that he just wasn’t interested in spending time in court anymore. He’s barely spoken to me.”

I stared at the gray sky draping the ocean like a big canopy. “Why would you think I’d give a shit about helping him?”

“I don’t. But you’re basically my last option to get him to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

She shuffled her feet on the concrete walk. “He killed those two men. There’s no doubt about that, and he confessed to it. But when he was first arrested, he indicated that he was working for someone. He’s denied it ever since. But if I can show that he was under orders, it might buy him a little sympathy and get the sentence commuted to life.”

“You already told me he’s not talking.”

“Not to me. But he might to you.”

I couldn’t imagine what he’d have to say to me. And I’d reached a point in my life where I didn’t think I really had anything to say to him. Not anything that was worth the anger it would bring to the surface, anyway.

“Why would he talk to me?” I asked. “We don’t know each other.”

“The only words he’s said to me were about you,” she said. “Coming from a man facing a death sentence, that says a great deal about where his mind and heart are.”

I feared she was right.

“You said Simington might have been working for someone,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “You know that for sure?”

Darcy shook her head. “Not for sure, no. But looking at his history, Simington’s never been a leader. His record shows that he’s always been a middle man. A guy who takes orders.”

“What else has he done time for?”

“Armed robbery, assault, and various weapons charges. He did five years on the robbery and less than a year each on the others. Walked on several other charges.”

A bank of clouds moved in front of the sun and shaded the beach. The shadows added to the sour feeling in my stomach.

“Any idea who he was working for?” I asked.

“Not really,” she replied. “But I found a pattern in his employment. For the previous three years until his final arrest, he was working as a security guard for some different casinos.”

Putting a convicted felon in a casino was enough to raise anyone’s eyebrows.

“Any explanation for the murders?”

“None that Simington would give,” she said. “The detectives that put his case together tied him to an alien smuggling ring, but he never confirmed. Or denied.”

“Alien smuggling. You think Simington helped bring Mexicans across the border?”

She fixed me with her gray eyes. “Yes. I’m not sure exactly what his role was, but I believe Russell Simington—your father—was involved with that.”

I forced my mouth to keep from asking another question. I hated the fact that I was already curious, wanting to know more about Russell Simington. I didn’t want to want any part of this, and yet, I was already feeling a gravitational pull.

“Look, I know this will be difficult for you,” Darcy said.

“Will
be difficult?” I said, equally amused and annoyed. “When did I say yes? Did I miss it?”

She pursed her lips, accepting the chastisement. “I understand that you never knew him. But I’m not asking you to develop a relationship with him.”

“That’s exactly what you’re asking,” I said. “The moment I look at him, it becomes a relationship.”

She pulled at the yellow rash guard as if the neoprene T-shirt was too tight. Her intensity was almost tangible, like a force field around her.

“I don’t believe in the death penalty,” she finally said. “It’s wrong. I decided a long time ago that I would commit my life to stopping it. I don’t apologize for that. But I can’t control who it brings me to or whose lives I have to disrupt in order to stop it.” The first bank of clouds passed, and the sun splintered through. “This time, it’s brought me to you.”

“Lucky fucking me.”

“Just go talk to him,” she said, leaning closer. “Just once. If he won’t talk to you or it gets ugly, fine. You’re out, and I won’t bother you again.” She leaned back and shrugged. “I’ll figure out another way to get his story, and I won’t involve you.”

“How about not involving me now?” I said. “Or for that matter, ever? I don’t recall any of this being on my Christmas wish list.”

She shook her head and looked away, not appreciating the remark.

The ocean was dying as the storm trudged in, going flat with thin lines of white foam trickling in to the shore. We stood there for a few moments, not saying anything. We both knew she was getting to me, yet I wasn’t willing to acknowledge it and she seemed content to wait me out.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“San Quentin,” she said. Her cheeks were bright pink, a combination of sunburn and emotion. “It’s the only place in California that houses male death row inmates.”

“Do I just show up?” I asked. “Knock on the door and ask when visiting hours are?”

“I’ve already set up a visitation time,” she said. “I’ve booked a flight that leaves for San Francisco the day after tomorrow. For both of us.”

I laughed and shook my head at her bravado. “At least you’re confident.”

She rose from the wall and stood in front of me, the muscles in her jaw tense. “I told you his execution date is a month away. Twenty-seven days. I can’t afford to waste time. Because it’s his time I’d be wasting.”

I wanted to tell her that all of this was going to be a waste of time—that, no matter what, I wasn’t about to overlook all of the years this man had already pissed away. I may have been able to overlook the void in my life growing up, but it didn’t mean that I appreciated it, forgave it, or would ever accept it. Those feelings were bound to come out in any conversation with him. His death would just add finality to the void that had been a partner in my life.

I stood. “I’ll think about it.”

Her face screwed up with irritation. “I just told you I had the visitation set up.”

“Yes, you did. Congratulations.”

“We can’t afford to waste time.”

“You explained that, too.” I ignored the “we” and stepped over the wall onto my patio. “You’ve been aggravatingly thorough.”

Darcy stood on the boardwalk, the small wall between us seeming more like a gigantic barrier now. She picked up the rental board, clearly agitated.

“The flight leaves at nine,” she said, her voice edged with frustration and anger. “How will I know if you’re coming?”

I glanced at her. “Are the seats on the plane together?”

She brushed her wet, blond hair off her forehead and glared at me. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Then check the seat next to yours,” I said to Darcy Gill. “That’ll give you your answer.”

I showered, dressed, made a sandwich, and sat down in front of the TV with a beer to watch the second half of the San Diego State/UCLA basketball game. The Aztecs were starting to turn things around in the hoops program, and I was hoping the game would keep thoughts of Darcy Gill and Russell Simington out of my head.

The Aztecs were up by six when Carter bounded in the front door.

“Are you watching this?” he yelled as he hustled past me into the kitchen. “Gonna beat those Westwood weasels for the first time in forever.”

“Easy. Don’t jinx it.”

He jumped over the back of the couch and landed with a thud, two beers in one huge hand. “Done deal, baby.”

“Get a beer, why don’t you?”

He held one up to his mouth and emptied half of it, then let loose with a belch that rattled the windows. “Thanks. I think I’ll have two.” He was wearing a green tank top, red board shorts, and yellow flip-flops that matched the color of his hair. “I thought you were coming over to my place to watch this.”

“Forgot.”

“You forgot?”

I grunted in response.

The Aztecs threw the ball away four times in the last two minutes, which elicited a stream of profanity from Carter that would have cleared a locker room. But they managed to hit several free throws and hung on to win by four.

Carter stood, arms raised over his head, his fingers touching the ceiling. “I love beating those assholes.”

I walked into the kitchen and set my plate and empty beer bottle on the counter. “You on the team now? A uniform and everything?”

He brought his bottles to the kitchen. “Here’s a question. What the fuck is up your ass today?”

I dropped the bottles into the trash can beneath the sink. “Nothing.”

“Nothing is what a fat man leaves on his plate and what the ladies are yearning for when I’m done with them. But it is most definitely not what is bothering you.”

“That makes no sense.”

He waved a hand in the air. “Fuck off. You know what I mean.”

I did, but I wasn’t sure how to explain what was rattling around in my head.

I leaned on the counter. “Have I ever mentioned my father to you?”

His features softened, and he slid into a chair at the dining room table. “No, I don’t think so.”

That alone said so much about our friendship. I’d known Carter for fifteen years, and not once had he ever asked about my father. Not a single question. Somewhere along the road, he’d recognized that it wasn’t a subject I was comfortable talking about and he’d left it to me to broach the subject. He’d shown an enormous amount of patience.

“I don’t really know anything about him,” I said.

Carter shrugged. “I figured.”

“I mean, like nothing. No name, no location, nothing.”

He didn’t say anything, his face devoid of expression.

“Never really gave a shit, you know?” I said. “I had enough going on with Carolina. It was just the two of us, and I thought I didn’t miss what I didn’t have.”

Carter shifted in the chair and gave a slight nod.

“Figured if I ever ran into him, I’d just beat the shit out of him anyway, so it was better to not even bother.”

“Sounds about right.”

I flicked a stray bottle cap off the counter and into the sink. “So this woman shows up today

“What woman?”

“Just a woman who showed up while I was on the water.”

“Was she hot?”

I frowned at him. “Would you let me finish?”

“Okay.”

“She said she knows my father.”

He propped his elbow on the table and put his lantern-like jaw in his hand. “You believe her?” “Think so.”

“How does she know him?”

The insecurities that had plagued me for a lifetime came awake, and I couldn’t give him a completely truthful answer. “It’s complicated,” I said.

Carter didn’t miss a beat, letting me slide. “He wants to meet you?”