Lady Jane’s served breakfast in the garden when the weather was decent, Michelle knew, and it was nice enough today. Mid-sixties. Almost sunny. She missed the LA heat, sometimes. It was hardly ever really warm in Arcata.
At least the climate here is good for my skin, she thought, and then she wanted to laugh.
Gary sat at a table in the back of the garden, under a wicker archway threaded with ivy, his legs stretched out, feet propped on a chair in front of him. He wore a baseball cap, the first time Michelle had ever seen him in any kind of hat, and sipped from a teacup. He seemed to be staring at the fountain, though she couldn’t be sure. The centerpiece of the fountain was an Indian-style Buddha. Not really a good fit with Victorian. She’d always wondered about that.
“Well, good morning, Emily.” He bowed his head a fraction and pinched the brim of his ball cap.
Michelle took in the logo. “The Humboldt Crabs?”
“Champions of the Far West League,” Gary said, grinning. “You know they beat the Healdsburg Prune Packers last night?”
Michelle pulled out the other chair and sat. “I missed it.”
“Right here in Arcata.” He shook his head. “I have to say, this town … it isn’t really you, Michelle.”
“How would you know?” she snapped back.
“I’m actually a pretty good judge of character.”
The waitress approached. One of the owners: Jennifer. A few years older than Michelle. Patagonia vests, hemp skirts and handmade soft leather boots.
“Emily, so nice to see you!”
Michelle forced a smile, and nodded. “Great to see you too.”
“What can I get you?”
“Just coffee. Thanks.”
Gary watched Jennifer pick her way down the gravel path that led to Lady Jane’s kitchen. “Interesting woman, don’t you think?”
“Do not fuck with anybody else here, Gary.”
For a moment, he was silent. “Well, well,” he said.
Jennifer returned with coffee. “Is there anything else I can get you? We have fresh baked scones.”
“No thanks,” Gary said. “I have to watch my gluten.”
Michelle sipped her coffee. She made a better cup at Evergreen, but this wasn’t bad.
“All right,” she said, when Jennifer could no longer hear. “What do you want me to do?”
“That’s it? You’re just gonna agree?”
He sounded oddly disappointed.
“No. I’m going to hear what your job is first. And then I’m going to think about it.”
Gary leaned back in his chair. “You know, I gotta admit, I was pretty surprised to see you and Danny still together. I never would’ve thought that would last.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
Now Gary smiled. “So you’re willing to go to the mat for him? Who’d a thunk?”
You can’t lose it, she told herself.
More to the point, you can’t pull out your .38 and shoot him in Lady Jane Grey’s garden.
“What’s the job, Gary?”
“Babysitting,” he said. “I need you to look after somebody. She’s rich. And tragic.” He shook his head. “Such a sad story.”
“Babysitting?”
“Well, she’s gone a little overboard with the self-medicating, and she operates in the kind of social milieu that I figure you’re familiar with. Fundraisers and such.”
“What would I do?”
“Look after her. Manage her appointments. See if you can get her to take a yoga class or two.” He snorted. “Right in your wheelhouse.”
No way it could be that easy.
“That’s it?”
“Well, there might be a couple other things. Nothing you can’t handle.”
Great, she thought.
“So who is this woman, exactly?”
“You take the job, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, you can pretend it’s one of those gossip columns, where you’re supposed to guess. ‘This wealthy socialite with a tragic past is known for her charitable efforts and social conscience. But when she’s out of the public eye, she likes to drink till she pukes and take pills till she passes out. Friends fear she’s gonna drown in her own bathtub.’” He chuckled. “I never can figure out who it is. Can you?”
“I don’t try.”
Gary pushed his baseball cap back on his forehead and tilted his face up toward the sun, which had just managed to break through the coastal fog.
“Well, you take a day or two to think about it. Examine your situation, and decide what your priorities are. I’ll be in touch.” He smiled. “You got a number you prefer for me to call?”
“There’s no reason for you to come out,” Derek had said, on that first phone call.
“I need to talk to him.”
“Look, we’ll have the arraignment Friday, we’ll hear the complaint, and we’ll find out what the bail conditions are. Best-case scenario, he’s back in Arcata in a couple days.”
“Worst case?”
“Well, there’s a whole range of possibilities with bail, home detention, electronic monitoring, surrender of passport …”
He hadn’t said anything about the court not granting bail at all.
“On what grounds?”
“They consider Jeff … a flight risk, apparently.”
“A flight risk.”
Michelle laughed. It wasn’t a bad call.
She sat on a stool in her kitchen at home. Derek had scheduled the phone call for 9 p.m., after his flight home to San Francisco, and she’d left Evergreen to take it. No way she wanted to deal with this at work, not even in her office.
“Look, I know this is all pretty scary. And it is serious, but it could be worse.”
“How so?”
“They’re charging him with trafficking under a thousand kilograms. If it had been a thousand or above, he’d be facing a ten-year mandatory minimum. As it is, it’s his first offense, so he’s looking at five.”
“Five years?” She could hear the edge of hysteria in her voice. But why was she so surprised by this? So flattened? She’d known the kinds of risks he was taking.
“At a minimum. On the high end, as much as forty.”
“Jesus.”
“Now, I don’t think that’s a likely scenario. My goal is to have Jeff spend as little time in jail as possible and to walk out of there with a clean record. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t inform you of all the potential outcomes.”
Michelle tilted back the bottle of Napa meritage she’d brought home to sample and poured another glass.
“There’s another thing we need to discuss. Odds are they’ll get a warrant to search your house. And at some point, they’re going to want to talk to you. I strongly advise you to not have any conversations without having an attorney present. A case like this, they’re looking to find evidence of a conspiracy. And they love rolling up a girlfriend because she’s holding cash or drugs.”
“I’m not holding anything,” she snapped.
“I know, I know,” he said quickly. “I just want you to be prepared.”
Was there anything in the house? Anything that could incriminate her, or Danny? She didn’t think so. The gun she carried was legal. The cash they had on hand, well, there was about $5,000 in the safe, but that wasn’t illegal, was it?
“Because of that, I’m going to ask you for an additional retainer up front,” Derek was saying, “in case your asset situation gets … complicated.”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand if you can. That should be more than enough, assuming this doesn’t go to trial.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.
“Try not to worry. I’ll call you as soon as I have news.”
“I’m coming out,” she said. “I need you to arrange the visit. To the jail.”
“Emily, look …” There was a considered silence on the other end of the line. “Jeff feels … it might be uncomfortable for you to … present yourself to the auth
orities. It’s … not a nice situation.”
Which probably meant, Danny was worried about their fake identities being exposed to too much scrutiny.
Too fucking bad.
“Just tell me what I need to do to see him,” she said. “And I’ll be there.”
She found a late afternoon flight from San Francisco that would get her into Houston just before 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, with an unavoidable layover in Phoenix. The flight from Arcata to SFO wasn’t much cheaper than the flight to Houston.
She had a few hours to kill at SFO. She sat in the Mission Bar and Grill, had a quesadilla, and drank a glass of wine. Watched the jets pull up to the gates, through the smoked Plexiglas windows.
She didn’t know what Derek knew. How much he knew about Danny and his background. He knew about some of it, obviously. That Danny was involved in the drug trade, certainly.
Who Danny had really worked for before, who he was working for in Mexico?
Michelle didn’t know if Derek knew that much.
When they’d set themselves up in Humboldt, Derek had been there. He’d arranged the payments to her father’s nursing home. To Ben’s college fund. “Untraceable,” he’d assured her. “I know that you have some privacy issues.”
Did he know enough to have sold them out to Gary?
The moment she stepped off the plane and onto the jetway in Houston, she could feel the heat. Even at 11:30 p.m., it clung to her: thick steam perfumed with burnt jet fuel. Puerto Vallarta wasn’t this bad, she thought. There was an ocean there, at least. This, this was some kind of malarial fever dream. Endless freeways looping around a flat plain, strings of Christmas tree lights marking the way. Houston was a drained swamp; she thought she’d read that once. No physical landmarks. No hills. No valleys. No ocean.
Strip malls. Condos. Warehouses and big-box stores. Highrises, clustered here and there like outbreaks, transplants from some other city.
She’d been the last stop on the Super Shuttle. She’d picked an inexpensive hotel that wasn’t too far from the jail, but far enough away to get some distance from whoever might be watching Danny’s visitors. Far enough away for her to relax, or try to, at least.
The hotel was nice enough. The room had a view of the freeway, and of a water tank on the other side of it. She thought it was a water tank, anyway. Shaped like a mushroom, painted a sea-foam green and surrounded by a spiderweb grid of wire.
Maybe it was a gas tank, she thought. This was Texas, after all.
“You can’t bring anything with you,” Derek had said. “No purse, no cell phone, no notebook, no pens, nothing. You have to put it all in a locker at the jail. The only thing you can bring in is the locker key. Be careful how you dress. No tank tops. No short skirts. Nothing see-through. And if you wear an underwire bra? Switch it out. You only get a couple tries through the metal detector. Oh, and don’t forget your driver’s license. They won’t let you in without a valid state or federal ID, with photo.”
She’d nodded, even though he couldn’t see that. Taken notes. Sipped her meritage.
“What happens next?”
“We’ll petition for another bail hearing. Line up witnesses and documents showing that Jeff isn’t a flight risk.”
Good luck with that, she’d thought.
“You’ll do that from San Francisco?”
“There’s no point in my staying in Houston. You don’t want to get billed for all those hours, and I’m limited in what I can do for you right now. I’m not licensed to practice in Texas. But I’m working with a local firm and petitioning the judge for pro hac vice—that’s representation ‘for this occasion.’ They usually will grant motions like this, and I should be able to act as Jeff’s official counsel going forward. In the meantime, my counterpart in Houston, Marisol Acosta, is on the case and a very sharp gal who specializes in federal drug trafficking. If you have any questions or concerns, call her.”
Michelle lay on the queen bed in her hotel room and listened to the fan blowing cool air through the room. She’d closed the blinds and the curtains so no light leaked in, but she could still hear the rush of cars from the freeway, like a low ocean wave that never stopped hitting the shore.
Christ, she thought. How are we going to pay for all this? She’d paid Derek the ten thousand, but in a case like this … the bills would add up.
Plus, asset seizures. Derek had warned her about that. Things you owned that might be funded by drug money, police departments and federal agencies, they seized those. All the time. People in Arcata complained about that, how the federal authorities would confiscate property if they could reasonably claim it was connected to drug profits.
Vehicles. Houses. Businesses.
Like Evergreen.
You can’t worry about that now, she told herself. First things first. See Danny. Tell him what was going on. Find out what he thought she should do.
She’d worked through all the options, and she thought she knew what the best one was, but maybe he had a better idea. An angle she hadn’t thought of. Because the best option she’d thought of for this situation wasn’t very good at all.
Chapter Four
Michelle hoped she was in the right line.
The jail reminded her of a bank in a seedy neighborhood crossed with a DMV. It had that institutional smell: stale air, dust and old sweat, mixed with the chemical tang of industrial cleaner, chilled by air conditioning. White brick walls. Plexiglas windows. Long lines. The people who waited were mostly women. Black women. White women. Latinas. Some Asians too. A lot of them looked poor, going by their clothing, by the extra weight they carried.
She’d found a tiny metal table with white paper slips that had to be filled out with Danny’s information, “Jeff’s,” rather: his SPN number—the number for the jail, his cellblock, his bunk. Found the lockers farther back, and stowed her purse in one for a quarter. Stood in the line for the 6th floor, at least, she thought it was. The line stretched the length of the institutional lobby. She’d glimpsed a row of Plexiglas windows, where the deputies waited, the ones who would process her request, and check her for outstanding warrants.
“This your first visit?”
Michelle flinched.
The woman who’d asked the question stood behind her in line. A tall, middle-aged black woman, dressed in a matching turquoise skirt and cardigan, like she’d wear to an office. Processed hair neatly curled.
“Yes,” Michelle said. “Yes, it is.”
“It gets better after you’ve done it a few times.”
“It does?”
The woman shrugged. “Well, not really. You just learn what to expect, that’s all.”
Her name was Deondra, and she was visiting her son.
“Off his meds,” she said with a sigh. “Not that it’s clear they work. At various times they’ve diagnosed him manic-depressive, mildly schizophrenic, ADD, Asperger’s … Anyway, he was creating a disturbance and had some marijuana on him, and that was that. A hundred eighty days for the marijuana and a hundred eighty days for disturbing the peace.”
“How much marijuana?” Michelle had to ask.
“Oh, it was about half an ounce or so.”
Great, Michelle thought. Half a year for half an ounce.
And Danny? Coming in between 200 pounds and a ton?
“That seems pretty harsh,” she said.
“Well, it was the second time he got caught with it.” Deondra’s smile was more of a grimace. “At least he might get some treatment, if I can get him transferred to MHU.”
“MHU?”
“The mental health unit. They’ve got more resources inside here than they do out in the community, I’m sorry to say.”
They’d reached the front of the line. The Latina woman standing at the window stepped aside. It was Michelle’s turn.
She pushed the piece of paper with Danny’s information into the battered aluminum trough.
“ID?” the deputy asked.
She gave him her California driver
’s license. Emily’s license.
There was nothing to worry about, she thought. Emily didn’t have any outstanding warrants.
She wasn’t so sure about Michelle.
The deputy held up the license, studying the photo, then shifted his attention to her face.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, dripped down her back.
Well, it’s over 90 degrees outside, she thought, so he won’t think that’s strange.
Will he?
She shivered in the cold draft from the air conditioning vent.
“California?”
She managed a smile. “Yes.”
He turned away to stare at a computer screen, and started typing on a keyboard.
She stood there. Waited.
Finally, he scribbled something on the white slip of paper with Danny’s information, and slid that under the window.
“You get the license back after,” he said. “Have a nice visit.”
The next line was for the metal detector.
It should have been quick, but it wasn’t. The detector seemed to buzz for every third person passing through it.
“They’ve got that thing set so sensitive,” Deondra said, rolling her eyes. She busied herself taking off her earrings, her necklace, a bracelet, and putting them in a Baggie. “You never know what’s going to set it off. Sometimes it’s the hooks in your brassiere, I swear.”
Michelle was glad that Derek had warned her about underwire.
It took her two tries to get through the metal detector, the second time passing it by removing her shoes. On the other side of the metal detector was an elevator. She stood at the back of the crowd waiting for it to return from the upper floors.
Behind her, Deondra asked. “Did you bring a wet wipe?”
“A wet wipe?”
Deondra reached inside the Baggie she’d used for her jewelry and pulled out a small packet. Stretched her hand out to Michelle.
A sanitary wipe.
“I brought two. Believe me, you’ll want to use it.”
Inside the elevator, Michelle faced the doors. She was nearly pressed up against them. Close enough to stare at the scratches in the aluminum that spelled out, suck pussy.
Another Plexiglas window with a uniformed deputy behind it. Another line, a short one this time. It was colder than downstairs, ridiculously cold. “Yeah, that’s why I wear the sweater set,” Deondra told her. “Supposedly keeping it cold helps with sanitation. There’s a lot of diseases here. Staph infections. Chicken pox.”
Go-Between Page 3
