“So you get the picture? Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands as I stood with mounting irritation to throw him out. “It’s blackmail, all right? Here’s the text that came with it.”
Send $1000 in cash every week or the pictures go viral, it read, and listed a box address in Chicago.
“So…pardon me,” I said, “but with the lifestyle you’re living anyway, how can this hurt you? Might even get you more business. They say all publicity is good publicity.”
“Look, Cal…can I call you Cal?” His dimples appeared and I saw how a certain segment of the female nighttime drag-queen-show-viewing populace would find him attractive. “I have to keep my day job and my side job separate.”
“I should think so. I can’t figure out why you’re engaging in all this risky behavior.”
“What, you’ve never taken risks for fun?”
He had me there. I guess I could understand his thrill-seeking, even if his kinds of thrills weren’t mine. I nodded in sympathy. “All right. I get it. Go on.”
“This picture was taken last night and when I left the hotel around five a.m., my car was gone. When I went back to her room the woman in the picture had checked out. I killed time with breakfast at the hotel, looked you up and here I am.”
“Okay, Frank,” I said around another bite of pastry, “what’s your day job that this would be worth fifty Gs a year to keep quiet? You a priest or something?”
“No, special education teacher out in Granger’s Ford.”
That stopped me in my tracks. I mean, technically he hadn’t done anything wrong, or at least not illegal, though there might be some kind of morals or community standards clause in his contract, but I got it. Perfectly rational, live-and-let-live adults turn into slavering, out-for-blood Puritans when they sense a risk to their kids, real or imagined. “That’s in the Sierra foothills across the valley, right? Small town?”
“Very small, at least in mind. I’d lose my job and probably never work again this side of Denver, but I love my kids. I really make a difference. Even if I found the guy who has the pics and got a lawyer and an injunction, he could ruin me overnight. It would take years suing him to recoup the costs.”
“Look, Frank…my best advice to you is to get out ahead of the story. Go to the school board and come clean right now. Make it perfectly clear everything you do is consensual and doesn’t involve underage girls or anything illegal.”
“The drugs?”
“I wouldn’t mention that. It’s the only real weak spot in your defense. But the drag and the sex…if you’re up front and explain it to them, and maybe do a similar, less detailed mea culpa at a town meeting, you’ll get through this. Especially if you get a lawyer and show you’ll fight.”
“No way. My job is everything.”
“Should have thought about that before you got in too deep.”
“I didn’t come here for you to judge me,” Frank said angrily.
“Sorry. I still think you should fight through it.”
“No. This all has to go away.”
I sighed, my best advice defeated. “Okay. Why do you think it is a he? I mean, that is a woman’s derriere, right? She had to be complicit.”
“You’re right. Could easily be a woman, though the one I was with didn’t seem the type.”
“The smart ones never do. Are there more pictures? No, don’t show me.”
“Yeah,” Frank replied. “A couple more of the, uh, encounter, and some of me on stage that night.”
“Are the bedroom shots all from the same angle? Like it was an automatic camera rather than someone taking them?”
Frank flipped through the pictures on the screen. “Yeah, looks like it.”
“Hmm. Still no confirmed accomplice.”
“What about the car?”
I scratched my head with both hands, trying to stimulate my brain through the hair follicles. “Yeah, that would argue for someone else. What kind of car?”
“Two-year-old Camry.”
“Ugh. Among the most stolen cars in America. Could it be a coincidence?”
“I dunno. Little people like me don’t have many choices. It was modified for my size and there are affordable kits for only a limited number of models.”
“You sure it wasn’t towed?”
Frank shook his head wearily. “Don’t think so. It was on a side street in front of a meter, but the sign on it said you can park there free on weekends. I called a few of the nearest towing yards anyway, but no dice.”
I pushed over a pad of paper and a pen. “Write down everything about it – tag number, year, make, model, details of the short people kit, exact location you left it, anything else. And your phone number. Take my card. I’ll need two thousand up front as a retainer and it’s fifty an hour plus expenses.” My rates were flexible, depending on what I thought clients could afford. For a schoolteacher I’d charge less.
The number seemed not to faze him. “Sure. I’ll go by the bank and have it for you today.”
“Good. One more thing…why Chicago?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“None at all? Seems like an odd place to have the money sent. Are you from there? Got contacts there?”
“Nope.” Frank shook his head. “Born and raised in San Jose, got my degree from State…maybe it’s just a long way away and they don’t figure I’ll go there to check it out.”
“Maybe. Probably some kind of reposting drop anyway. If I have to fly out there it’s going to cost you.”
“Better than paying blackmail. As you said, a thousand a week is over fifty a year. I’d rather pay you.”
I grunted. “Good for both of us. Just remember, I’ll probably burn through the two grand pretty quick. I cap at ten hours a day so that’s four days worth of work, plus expenses, which can add up fast. I have a research assistant to pay and if I need muscle I have to lay out for them too. I’m assuming you want the pictures back and a guarantee they won’t be publicized, but I’m not sure that’s possible as they’re digital. I’ll do the best I can, but it will depend on what kind of leverage I can find on whoever did this. We can’t go to the cops right away, because eventually this will get on the police blotter and those are public records. Even if I manage to clean everything up, you don’t want official paperwork lurking in some file if you can help it, I’m thinking.”
Frank put his head in his hands. “Look, Miss Corwin, I’m just a guy in a bind here. I’ve never been involved with anything more than a misdemeanor, never had anything like this happen. I have no idea what to do except trust you to fix the situation.”
Oh, boy. That hit me in a soft spot, the part of everyone who ever wanted to be a cop and help people get justice. I had an idea how violated he felt right now, wanting a professional to make it all better. Well, I guess that was how I earned my living so I opened my mouth and did what I always do. I promised a little too much.
“Frank, you get me the cash and I’ll get you some answers. At least we’ll have something to hand to the police if it comes to that, or if I get lucky we might be able to make the situation go away.”
“Thanks, Cal. You’re a real lifesaver. Any chance you and me…”
“No,” I retorted automatically. “I make it a firm policy never to get involved with clients. You know, like with teachers and students,” I went on with sudden inspiration. “Ethics, and all that.”
“Oh, sure.” Frank blinked and swayed in the chair. “Hey, is there anywhere around I can get a room? Cheap, clean hotel or something? I’m really tired.”
“You don’t want a ride back home? I’m going over to Granger’s Ford to poke around anyway.”
“No, I’m wiped out and I already called in sick. Just what I need, old Annie the snoop to look out her window and see me sneak into my own house after getting out of a gorgeous and desirable woman’s car on a weekday when I’m supposed to be hanging out at home.”
“Give it a rest, Frank.”
Frank shru
gged and smirked as if he knew that the compliment felt good to me no matter how cheesy. “If my car doesn’t turn up maybe you can run me out tomorrow morning?”
“I’m not a morning kind of gal, Frank, but we’ll see.” I almost asked him why he couldn’t rent a car, and then remembered his stature and the special equipment he needed.
I gave him the address of the misnamed Five Star Hotel a few blocks away and told him to call Mickey if he needed any local help.
Once he’d trudged out I went down to the lower level where my assistant made his abode. One side of the large room, the less disgusting side, sported a semicircular arrangement of screens and computer gear. The other held an old sofa and loveseat, a couple of chairs and a blizzard of junk food wrappers, empty soda bottles and cans and some pillows that clearly needed a Maytag introduction. Once every month or two I had to threaten to pull the graphics chips out of his computers – I mean, my computers, as I had bought them, after all – to get him to clean the place up.
Mickey squatted like a frog in a rolling office chair, shaggy and overweight. Yeah, he was a nerd’s nerd and had his foibles, but boy, could he find things out when he was motivated.
“Wazzup, boss?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the frenetic game action on the screen.
“I have a case, I think. Need you to start with this.” I handed him a sheet of paper with pertinent facts copied from Frank’s notes plus some I’d added. “See if that Camry has shown up anywhere – towing yards, police blotters, anything. Then a quick rundown on the client. Franklin Jackson, special-ed teacher out of Granger’s Ford. Try to find the physical location of this box address in Chicago. Let me know when you run out of dirt to dig in.”
Holding out his free left hand, Mickey kept mousing around the screen with the right, firing frantically at his pixilated enemies. I put the paper into his palm and left. No point in micromanaging him. He’d be useless until he finished his current quest or whatever it was, but after that he’d do good work as long as there was food, cash and coffee.
Something caught my eye out the window that faced the courtyard behind my office. A woman, tall, redheaded and slim, in slacks and a windbreaker, lit a cigarette near Molly. She seemed to glance my way before turning to stalk off between buildings. Something about the way she walked bothered me, like her feet hurt perhaps. Fairly sure I had never laid eyes on her, but still…
Short of chasing her down there wasn’t much I could do. It might mean nothing or she might be trying to work up the gumption to walk into my office with a case. It was Monday after all. For now, I had to get started on Frank and his minor problem.
And it was minor. Not to him, I was sure, but in comparison to a kidnapped girl, a murdered ex-cop or a bomb the situation was tame. Stuff like this happened every day when I was on the force. Usually the information got out no matter how hard you tried to lock it down. I’d given Frank the benefit of my wisdom, but like most blackmail victims, he didn’t want to listen. So, I’d have to try it his way.
As a cop I’d had my ways of taking care of things and of course the Thin Blue Line still did. Policing was often a lot easier and more effective than law enforcement, and by that I meant that some things are better taken care of unofficially, off the books.
Now that I was even farther from those books, I could engage in my own version of policing now and again. A twisted arm, a payoff, a word in the right ear…when the goal was to suppress information, methods like these might work. If it came to law enforcement…well, at some point I could just dump it in the lap of SFPD and forget about it.
Closure? That was a luxury in this business.
Chapter 2
I took the opportunity to swap cars before driving out to Granger’s Ford. Madge, my lime-green 1968 Mustang convertible, provided a pleasant drive through the California sunlight with her ragtop down.
Before I left the good cell reception I called Cole Sage. Not only was the reporter a wealth of info about everything, he’d been based out of Chicago before he’d moved to San Francisco a few years back. I’d helped him out on a couple of cases so he owed me.
Favors are better currency than dollars in this business.
He picked up after one ring. “Sage.”
“Happy Monday morning, Cole.”
“Hi, Cal. What’s cooking?”
“Off the record?”
“Okay, off the record.”
I trusted Cole to keep all this confidential. In fact, reporters kept secrets better than anyone, often going to jail to protect their sources. Their jobs depended on discretion. Besides, this story was too small for a prizewinning investigative journalist like him.
“I got a client being blackmailed. The payoff delivery location is in Chicago, though it’s probably just a drop-forwarding place.” I recited the address for him. “Any chance you can have it checked out by one of your contacts?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
Sure, Cole, there’s a lot else, but I’m not going to say it. He sounded a little less tired and down than he usually did and I was happy for him even if it wasn’t me that was making him so. “I’m on my way over to Granger’s Ford right now, then I’m going to drop in on a friend in Turlock. I’ll be back this evening.”
I waited, hoping for…something, I guess. Pressing him would be stupid, so the best I could do was keep my door open and see if he ever wanted to walk in. I’d dropped enough hints, even put on a dress to meet him for “business lunches” in hopes of stirring up a little interest.
Not this time. Cole said flatly, “Okay, I got it. If there’s a good story…”
“Call me tonight if I forget to call you,” I replied, cheered anyway. Hell, a professional relationship was better than no relationship at all, right? And who better to catch him if he fell than someone nearby, a friend at least. “I’ll update you, but this is all off the record until the case closes.”
“Of course, Cal. Lips sealed.”
“Right. See ya.”
Once more I suppressed the urge to ask him about Thomas the cleaner, the hit man if I wanted to be crass, but I thought that might be pushing the bounds of professional friendship.
It was one thing for a journalist like Cole to know a guy like that. The press rubbed up against all types. It was entirely another for the reporter to be passing on information to a professional killer, even to help rescue a kidnapped girl, as he had in my last major case. Serious felonies lurked within that story. If I ever asked him about it, I would do so face to face over a steak and a beer. I’d want to gauge his responses.
As I was on a case and not inclined to dawdle, I took the interstate. Traffic flowed nicely this late in the morning. Except for the hardy trees in the valleys, the hills cupping Livermore remained brown in their late summer cloaks of dry grass, waiting on the autumn rains to turn them green for the winter. Once I cleared the coast range and wended my way down into the San Joaquin Valley the temperature rose into the eighties and the air dried out. I shrugged off my blazer and enjoyed the warm blast.
I’d half expected the presence in the passenger seat and the voice in my ear that said, “Barking up the wrong tree again, punkin.” I glanced over at my dead father’s apparition – okay, hallucination, since I was pretty sure he was a figment of my bomb-addled brain and not a real ghost – sitting there as usual in his tan corduroy jacket. Still, seeing him in my mind’s eye was better than not seeing him at all.
“What, Cole? My mind knows that, Dad, but my heart doesn’t.”
“You miss me and he reminds you of me. Do you really want to go there?”
“You make it sound creepy. Some people say you always marry someone with traits from your parents.”
“Maybe it is creepy. Why don’t you find someone your own age?”
I sighed, the sound lost in the rush of air through the ragtop’s interior. “Every man I meet my own age is trying to act like he's still twenty-one. They don’t seem to grow up until forty.”
&
nbsp; “That’s just an excuse.”
“You mind if we talk about something else? This case, for example?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“You’re not here at all, Dad. Take it or leave it.”
“All right. What about the case?”
“Any hints from the Great Beyond?”
“You don’t believe I’m a returned spirit, so why do you mock me?”
“If you’re not a ghost, why does it matter what I say to me?”
“Because if I’m you, you’re mocking yourself and that’s not healthy. If I’m not, you’re being rude to someone who loves you.”
“I never was very polite.”
“That’s an excuse, not a reason. And you were never rude to me.”
Sudden tears sprang to my eyes. By the time they dried, he’d gone. I reached over to brush the passenger seat, imagining I could feel his presence linger.
My route took me through Modesto, population half a million, notable for the Laci Peterson murder case, Gallo wines and the filming of George Lucas’ movie American Graffiti. From there I headed out the optimistically named Yosemite Boulevard. The east-west state highway connected up with north-south California 49, cleverly numbered for the Forty-Niners that had rushed the Sierra gold country a century and a half ago. 49 in turn gave access to a couple of routes into Yosemite National Park.
While other towns such as Turlock and Tracy boomed as bedroom communities of the Bay Area popular for cheap housing and decent schools, Granger’s Ford remained small. Six reservoirs within forty miles diverted those who wanted lakeside living. People who craved the cachet of the gold country or the burgeoning nearby wine industry bought farther up into the foothills, in Jamestown or Coulterville.
Neither fish nor fowl, Granger’s Ford squatted on the Tuolumne – say it with me like this, Tu-ol-um-mee, as the “n” is silent – providing a place for nearby ranchers to buy feed and groceries and hardware. A few historical buildings, a small marina and a couple of tract developments for people who wanted to get away from it all rounded out the picture. Population 8,423 as of the 2000 census, the town limits sign read.
In a Bind Page 2
