Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) (27 page)

“I took a walk,” Tom said.

“In the rain? Whatever for?”

An embarrassed smile. “It seemed preferable to a cold shower.”

“There was another alternative, you know.”

“That was the problem,” he said. “I didn’t really know.”

So I showed him, and in the end we made use of the Trojans after all.

Chapter 20

“You got a florist box containing
what
?”
The young desk sergeant had that fresh, all-American look you find in Pepsi commercials, but his eager smile had given way to wary skepticism.

“Fish guts,” I said for the second time, handing him the plastic sack. Benson wasn’t going to be in until Monday, and I wasn’t eager to hold onto the evidence in the interval.

The sergeant opened the bag, then closed it again quickly. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a couple of times as he held off a choke. “You want to make a report?”

I nodded. The young man rolled a printed form into his typewriter. When everything was adjusted to his satisfaction, the sergeant cleared his throat and blinked at me. Then he took down my story, typing carefully, one painstaking word at a time.

“I think it might be related to the Marrero murder,” I told him when we’d finished.

His eyes widened, and his Adam’s apple bobbed again. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s a long story. Chief Benson knows all about it. You’ll make sure he gets a copy of this as soon as possible?” I hoped that was enough to keep the report from finding its way to the bottom of the processing pile. “I’m a lawyer. Jannine Marrero is my client.”

“Ah,” he said, sitting up straighter, “I see.” But his expression said he didn’t see the connection at all.

“You want my fingerprints or anything, for comparison?”

“Someone will contact you later if that’s necessary.” He smiled another wholesome American smile. “You have a nice weekend now, ma’am, and thank you for coming in.”

At least he hadn’t added, “Hope to see you again real soon.”

He turned back to the baseball game he’d been watching when I came in, and I went off to retrieve Loretta. I’d left her tethered to a tree in the plaza in front of the station. She was curled up contentedly on the warm cement, but she lifted her head when I approached.

The vet had given her a clean bill of health, and me a list of dos and don’ts -
don’t
 
worry
being number one on the list. Easy for him to say. Until a week ago, I’d never so much as walked a dog, and now, suddenly, I would be responsible for a whole family of them.

Loretta, who seemed to be taking the vet’s advice to heart, sauntered blithely along behind me on the way to the car. She climbed in and settled herself by the window, then whimpered softly until I rolled it down a crack. I backed out of the parking space, trying hard to ignore the nose smudges on the windows and the muddy paw prints stretched across my lovely leather upholstery.

Back home, I poured her a bowl of Kibble and made myself a cup of instant coffee — vile-tasting, fully caffeinated stuff that I hoped would keep me awake through the afternoon. It had been late when Tom and I made it to bed, and a whole heck of a lot later by the time we made it to sleep. And then Tom had bounced out of bed at 6:00 that morning.

“Cub Scout camping trip,” he explained.

“At this hour?”

He looked at his watch and grinned. “I guess if I skipped breakfast, I could wait till seven.”

He did, though we hadn’t used the extra hour for catching up on our sleep.

I yawned and wrapped myself for a moment in the pleasant memory of Tom. As long as I didn’t
think
about it, didn’t try to make sense of it, I was okay. The thinking part left me feeling shaky and a little short of breath. Without really reflecting on the matter, I’d sort of gone with the moment, yielding to what felt good. The fact that it still felt good was troublesome.

Then I took another gulp of the brown swill, got out the phone book and went to work.

There are a limited number of financial institutions in the towns neighboring Silver Creek, and I got lucky on my fourth call. The woman at Great Northern Savings was happy to verify that Foothill Cleaning did indeed have an account there, but she was unable, or unwilling, to tell me anything further.

I didn’t actually expect to be any more persuasive in person, but I was running out of ideas. I hopped into the car, which now smelled decidedly doggy, and drove to the Sierra Vista branch of Great Northern, a different and smaller branch than the one I’d called. Along the way I tried to figure out what it was I was after, and how to best go about getting it. I had only a murky idea about the first part, and none at all about the second.

Sierra Vista is a sleepy little hamlet about twenty minutes from Silver Creek, and far enough off the main highway that it’s been more or less overlooked in the great rush of development. Great Northern, situated at the far end of the town’s main street, was housed in a narrow masonry building that looked as though it had been there since the Gold Rush days. The interior had been refurbished, but none too recently. The floor was uneven, the desks wooden, the walls painted a dingy gray. If it hadn’t been for the massive grill at the vault entrance and the computer terminals posted about the room, you’d have thought you’d stepped into an authentic assayer’s office rather than a modern-day bank.

The teller, a gentleman almost as old as the building itself, suggested I speak with Mrs. Lee and pointed me in the direction of an open office at the back.

Mrs. Lee was a tiny Asian woman with a dusting of gray at her temples. Looking up from the pile on her desk, she greeted me with a smile. Standard banking practice, I know. But hers was a genuine, from-the-soul smile that caused me a momentary tremor of guilt. Nice people deserve better than I was about to deliver.

“Lovely children,” I said, nodding at the large photograph on her desk. That part was sincere. They were two girls, one about three, the other maybe nine or ten. Both had the same chin-length hair, dark eyes and exquisite doll-like features as their mother.

Mrs. Lee laughed. “They’re lovely sometimes, not so lovely others. Those angelic faces fool everybody. Now, what can I do for you?”

And here is where it got hard.

“I’d like to verify an account,” I said, taking a seat across from her. Start with what you already know and build momentum. It’s an old lawyer trick. “Foothill Cleaning. They’re a new customer of ours. They want to purchase supplies on an open account and, well, we’ve had some trouble in the past collecting from these small, family-owned businesses. They always have the best intentions, but things don’t work out quite the way they expect. Cash gets short, you know how it goes.

She turned to the computer on her left, flipped on the screen, hit a few keys, waited and then typed in a name. “Yes,” she said, smiling, “they do have an account with us. No problems to date.”

“Could you give me a ball park figure on the balance, and maybe some feeling for overall activity?”

The dark eyes grew darker. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do that without a written release. Do you have one? Or maybe a letter from them authorizing us to give you the information?”

“Yes, I do. Or did.” I began to fidget, which wasn’t a hard act to pull off under the circumstances. “But that’s the trouble. See, I was supposed to do this yesterday, and I forgot. The file is at the office.” I lowered my eyes. “I’ve only worked there a couple of weeks. If I don’t have this information for Mr. Gregory by Monday morning, he’ll be really angry. And with my being a new employee and all
...”

Mrs. Lee smiled sympathetically. “I really am sorry. I wish I could help, but I can’t. Not without a signed release.”

“Maybe you could ask your supervisor?”

She looked dubious.

“Please? Then I’ll at least know I’ve done everything I can.”

She dimmed the screen and went into an office at the back. Quickly, I scooted my chair closer to the screen, and turned it up again. There seemed to be regular deposits of $600, then withdrawals of an equal amount one or two days later. There were always exactly one hundred dollars left in the account, probably the minimum required by the bank. There were no other deposits or withdrawals.

It confirmed what I’d already suspected. Foothill Cleaning was a shell, a vehicle for skimming money from the tavern.

Mrs. Lee still hadn’t reappeared. I hit the “page up” key and scanned the screen. The names on the account leapt out at me almost immediately. George Marrero and Carla Newcomb. It was the second name that gave me a jolt. What connection could there possibly be between Cheryl’s mother and Eddie’s uncle?

I turned the screen off again and slid my chair over just as Mrs. Lee returned with her supervisor, an older man with a stem face. I repeated my song and dance, although I had trouble sounding as desperate as I had the first time around.

“Sorry,” he said, when I’d finished. “The rules are clear.”

Another person might have gloated, not Mrs. Lee. She looked at me with those soft brown eyes of hers, and I felt like a real heel.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You come back first thing Monday morning with the letter and I will get you the information you need. We will do it quickly, and you can get back to your boss right away. He will never know you let it slip on Friday.”

<><><>

As I stepped outside into the bright afternoon sun, my head was swimming. Carla Newcomb. What did
that
mean? What
could
it mean? I wound the information through my brain and came up with nothing. I was pretty certain Foothill Cleaning wasn’t a legitimate business. Not with only one deposit and one withdrawal each month. But I had no idea what it was.

I started with the one thing I was sure of. George Marrero was skimming money. And he wasn’t in it alone. So what was he up to? Drugs? Gambling? Was he feeding the money through Carla or was he paying her off? And where did Cheryl fit into all this? I was, by now, convinced her disappearance was no coincidence.

It was only mid-afternoon, but I felt drained, ready to settle in with a mind-numbing evening of television. Or better yet, skip the television and head straight for bed, diving into the soothing nothingness of sleep.

But I must have something of the Puritan in me, because instead of heading home, I drove straight to Carla’s.

She was sitting on the top porch step, next to her collection of plastic pink geraniums, painting her nails and getting an early start on her tan. The radio was pulsing out a tune about love gone bad, and Carla was humming along between drags on her cigarette and chugs of her beer. She didn’t hear me approach, and looked up only when my shadow darkened die steps. The hand holding the nail brush jerked, sending a streak of scarlet up the back of her finger.

“Geez, you scared me,” she said, squinting into the sun. “I didn’t see you until just now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

She dabbed at the errant polish with a tissue, then finished the fingers on her left hand.

“Remember me?” I asked, in competition with a radio commercial for Pizza Hut. “I’m the woman who spoke with you last week about your daughter.”

Carla looked up and squinted again. “That’s right. I thought you looked familiar.”

“Any word from her?” I took a seat one step below. Carla fanned the wet nails and took a long swallow of beer. “You want one?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, though.”