I shrugged. “Could be, but if I was them I’d have parked the bikes out of sight and jumped me when I got out. Besides, how would they know I’d go up there? It was a whim on my part.”
“Then what’s the connection?”
“Drop site? They were waiting for a buy or a meet. Saw me, ran me off, then went back.”
“Right. And the bicycle theft…”
I sat forward. “The guy in the F150. He’s waiting there to score some meth, maybe from the nomads. Along comes Jerry Conrad on his expensive toy and the perp sees a chance for a quick buck. Snatches it, throws it in the truck bed and takes off.”
“Okay, it fits. So what? Nothing to do with your case. Can’t prove anything.”
“You could run the truck.”
“With no plates? Thirty million cars registered in this state. Got to be hundreds of that model F150 in red.”
I crossed my arms and rubbed them. “Damn. I got nothing.”
“You know how it goes. Just keep digging and you’ll turn over something.”
“Right.” I stood up to hug Elle goodbye. “Good to see you again.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s do dinner sometime, huh? Bring your reporter friend. Tell him it’s for research and we’ll ambush him with cheap red wine and cop stories.”
“Good idea. Later, Elle.”
“Take care.”
Daylight saving time was still in effect and the valley stayed warm so I left the top down on the way home. When I started climbing Altamont Pass with its thousands of high-tech windmills I turned on the floor heat, which not only warmed my feet but was a trick to keep old engines running cool on long uphill stretches. I gloried in the combination of toasty toes and brisk air through my hair. Truckers blew their horns as I passed them and I waved, living the California Dream of the all-American girl in the convertible, if only for a little while.
Down the long stretch into Livermore I watched the sunset glowing in oranges and reds above the coast range in front of me, reminding me why I loved this brash, bold coastal state despite its problems. Up and over the hills brought me through Castro Valley, Oakland and across the Bay Bridge to arrive at my house. The familiar wet chill came on, but I didn’t care. The City was home, and so was I.
Chapter 5
After parking Madge in Mom’s garage I popped inside to see her. After all, it would be rude to just leave. Unfortunately, dinner was waiting for me.
The kindest way to describe my mother’s cuisine was laissez-faire. She had a tendency to try out recipes without all the ingredients. No baking powder? Try baking soda instead. No rosemary? Use dill weed. And it nearly always had tofu in it, the vegan answer to everything. It takes talent to make tofu taste like anything at all and my mother was definitely lacking in culinary skill.
Fortunately, red wine is vegan. So are things like heroin, cocaine and LSD, but I hoped all that was behind her now. The most I’d seen her use was some dope now and again, and not even much of that. Aging banks all fires. Mom had been born smack in the middle of the last century, turning fifty-five this year.
After the usual hug-hug kiss-kiss I pulled the cork on a nice Pinot and poured us each a glass, hers larger than mine. I had to keep a clear head for the case.
My phone had run out of juice an hour ago and I had no charger with Madge as I seldom took her out of the City. Next time into the valley would be with Molly and all the equipment I kept inside her. I hadn’t turned the phone back on, figuring if there was a message I’d be better off ignoring it for now. If there had been some huge emergency Mickey would have called Mom and told her to tell me when I walked in.
“What is it this time?” I asked as my mother spooned me a big bowl of something stewy.
“Your favorite. Fried Tofu in ginger sauce.”
“Oh, goodie.” I almost meant it, too. Frying helps anything, even tofu, and her ginger sauce was tolerable.
“I had to substitute nutmeg for ginger, though,” she remarked, but it was too late. I already had a big bite of the stuff in my mouth and spent the next ten seconds using all my willpower to smile and chew.
“Great, Mom, but I gotta go.” I washed my mouth out with the Pinot and put the bowl on the counter, grabbing for plastic wrap. “I’ll finish it at the office. I have a client waiting.”
“Oh, California,” she sighed, one of my least favorite refrains. “Your brother called,” she added.
“Ron? He’s back?” My younger brother Elrond – yeah, I know, remember who was doing the naming – had been assigned to the FBI’s D.C. headquarters, that big building that looks like it was built out of cement cubes with flags attached, the one in stock shots on all the crime dramas. Unfortunately, things were a bit awkward between us right now.
“No he’s not back, he just called. From Washington. On the telephone?”
“Did you pass him my cell phone number?”
“You know I don’t like those things. They’ll give you brain cancer.”
“Mo-ther! What does that have to do with passing my number to him?”
“Star-light. If I did that, he would call you on it and I would be facilitating your death.”
Mental facepalm. I tapped the business card I’d stuck onto the refrigerator. “Just give him the number, please?” I guess I wasn’t really being fair. I could call him or at least send him an email when I got to my office, but this wasn’t about contact with my brother anymore. It was about beating Mom at the stupid game we spent our lives playing. “Bye, Starlight.”
“Wait, you forgot your fo-od!” I heard her singsong as I scooted out the door as fast as my Asolos could carry me.
“No I did-n’t,” I mouthed to myself as I strode out of earshot. I took the short way to my office this time, checking my Glock in its holster. Wisps of cold mist whipped by me in the night breeze and I could smell the sea in it. Lovely.
A furtive sound behind me brought a turn of my head, hand on my gun, but it was just a homeless woman huddled in the lee of one of the houses’ steps. Usually they kept out of the residential streets. Too many people would call the police and roust them to a shelter. Normally they hung out along the main drags where they could panhandle and most were harmless. Now I regretted not taking the tofu surprise. I could have given it to her.
What was I thinking? Cruelty like that would kill off any good karma I’d accrued today by giving the bum the pastry.
I hustled up to open my front office door, seeing light through the window. “Thought you might be waiting,” I said to Frank Jackson as I came in.
He splayed on my commercial-grade sofa, this time wearing cheap sweats and tennis shoes. Probably bought them today. “Any luck?” he asked.
“That’s what I was going to ask you.” I cocked my head and held out my hand.
Frank sighed and pulled out a wad of cash, laying it on my desk. “Two thousand.”
“Excellent. Anything else? Is Mickey here?”
“Here, Boss,” my assistant said as he huffed up the stairs and sat gingerly on a chair that was not really made to hold his weight.
“Anything on Frank’s car?”
Mickey leaned over and tossed a loose stack of printouts on my desk. “It’s heading south.” The top sheet showed a blurry picture of a Camry on a freeway. “I got it put into the system quick enough for that to show up going through the merge before the Grapevine.”
“Good job, Mickey. Bad news, Frank. Whoever has it will probably either unload it to a chop shop in L.A. or swap plates and drive it into Tijuana for a quick sale unless LAPD or CHP run across it first. Then again, they might catch it at the border. You called your insurance?”
“Yes. Damn, I had three dresses in there and a bunch of pricey shoes. And makeup. Do you know how expensive makeup is? Especially foundation?”
“Yeah,” I said drily, tossing my head, “I do.”
We stared at each other.
“Well?” Frank asked after a moment.
“Well, I took a drive out to your
hometown to make some inquiries.” I gave him an edited version of my day. “You didn’t tell me about this burglary.”
“I didn’t think of it, that’s all.”
“New pair of Blahniks says it’s connected. Either the burglar found your secret and decided on some blackmail or he already knew and was looking for evidence. Either way he probably followed you out here and set you up.”
“What about the girl in the pictures?” he asked, a plaintive note in his voice. “I liked her. Maybe she isn’t in on it.”
“Oh, I bet she is, one way or another. Either in on it or a one-off hooker the guy hired to get the pics. If she’s an accomplice, she’s still kind of a whore, don’t you think?” I fixed him with a withering stare. “Either way, it’s sex for money.”
“Hey, whores need to eat too!”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m starting to wonder why you haven’t gotten yourself in trouble before. You’re the director of special education in a small-town school, for God’s sake. You can’t live this secret lifestyle forever. Someone was bound to find out, and guess what? They did. Lucky for you that it’s blackmail instead of immediate publication.”
“Lucky?”
“Yes, because there’s a chance that this can be made to go away. One time. Maybe. I hope.” I shut up before I got up on my moral high horse, but I could already hear my father’s voice channeling through me. He’d been a different kind of hippie, a righteous Catholic crusader for social justice rather than a hedonistic free spirit like Mom. Opposites had attracted, I guess.
“That would be great,” Frank said with the fervor of someone whose life is about to collapse. I knew that feeling, because I’d been there once or twice.
I booted up my computer and plugged in my cell phone as I sat down at my desk. I noticed messages on the answering machine but ignored them for now. “Is there anything else that you can tell me now that you’re rested?”
“I dunno.”
“Sure there’s nothing you want to tell me? Maybe about someone you’re seeing in town?”
Frank said, “No,” but he hesitated.
It seemed obvious he was lying. Those condoms and love letters in his desk confirmed it to me. I wondered why, and resolved to keep coming back to the issue until he confessed. At the moment, now, it didn’t seem relevant.
“Who investigated the burglary?” I asked.
“Deputy Mike Davis, if you want to call it an investigation. Didn’t even take fingerprints.”
I shrugged. “They don’t, for minor felonies like that. Costs money. Besides, any burglar worth his salt wears gloves. Don’t even ask about CSI or DNA or any other fancy acronyms unless it’s a major crime.”
“What the hell are cops good for then, anyway?” he cried.
“Protect and serve. You want your taxes to go up?” I asked. “Or maybe victims should pay for how much service they get? You think my rates are steep?”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Did you lose anything except what was in the blotter?”
Frank’s brow furrowed, but I thought his acting might be overdone. Maybe it was his flair for performance, as if he was always on stage, but… “No, nothing,” he said.
“Come on, Frank,” I pressed. “I’m not a cop. I’m not going to report anything unless you hurt someone. You didn’t hurt anyone, did you, Frank? A kid or anything?”
“Oh, God, no!” Sincere shock, I’d bet on it. “No, it was just…”
“Something you didn’t want the cops to know about. Party time?”
Frank hung his head. “Yeah, just a little stash for myself. Some this and that, you know. Sometimes the ladies want a taste.”
“Great.” I thought for a minute. “Where do you get it from?”
“Oh, come on, Cal.”
I reached for the stack of bills on my desk and counted out enough for the time I’d clocked, stood up and dropped the rest in his lap. “Thanks for the nice drive, Frank. There’s the door.”
“Oh, come on!”
“You already said that. I can’t help you if you hold back vital details.”
“All right, all right!” Frank passed the stack to Mickey, who made as if to put it in his pocket.
I pointed emphatically toward the corner of my desk and Mickey set it there with melodramatic reluctance.
Frank said, “The bartender Kerry at the Old Mill deals a little. Nothing major, mind you. One time I overheard a tweaker asking him where to pick up an ounce of crystal and the next thing you know he’s out the back door on his ass. Kerry doesn’t deal to strangers anyway, just people he knows. Never has more than the misdemeanor personal use limit on him, I don’t think.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Look, the drag-queen-and-cheap-sex is one thing, but if your kids’ parents found out you were using…”
“I know, I know. Look, I never use in town. I party here in the City, then I go home and never touch the stuff.”
“Why even have it at home, then? Why not buy it here, use it here, leave it here?”
He put his palms to his forehead and then spread them in the air. “Yeah. That’s what I did for a while, but hell, I was flushing a hundred bucks’ worth of stuff every weekend. Eventually I just started triple-bagging it, sticking it in a full coffee can and bringing it home for the next time.”
“Is that where it was when you got burgled?”
“Yeah, in my freezer.”
Crap. I had hoped it would be somewhere else. “I hate to tell you this, but freezers are the first place smart burglars look. It’s a very cliché hiding spot. Better to have just left it in your cupboard.”
“I’ll remember that next time I get robbed.”
I sighed, pulled two twenties off the pile and handed them to Mickey. “I’m starving. Walk over and get us some Chinese, will you? Our usuals. What for you, Frank?”
“Sweet and sour pork is good.”
Mickey started to reach for my phone but I waved him downstairs. “Walk over to Ling’s,” I repeated. The exercise and fresh air would do him good.
“Aw, Boss,” was all he said, but I stared him down and he went.
Once he was gone I asked Frank in a lower voice, “Are you sure you’re not seeing anyone in town?”
“No,” he replied, but again his reaction seemed forced.
“Okay, let me rephrase. Have you ever dated, been with, or hooked up with anyone in Granger’s Ford?”
“Yeah. Didn’t work out. Too much Peyton Place in Mayberry, you know?”
“Who was it, Frank?”
“Just a lady by the name of Carol Conrad.”
“As in Jerry Conrad? What, his daughter?” Jerry was a fit fifty-something so that wasn’t unreasonable. Frank was in his thirties, I thought.
“Um…no. Trophy wife. Very hot. Started a couple years back.”
I put my chin in my hands for a moment and took a deep breath through my fingers. “Okay. Did Jerry ever find out about it?”
“I don’t think so. It was fun, then we broke it off about a year ago.”
“We?”
“Well…she did. Said she wanted things I couldn’t give her. Which was fine, because all I wanted was sex. In fact, it was getting stale anyway.”
“You know you’re giving men of all sizes a bad name, right?”
Frank shrugged with a weak grin. “I am what I am.”
“Okay, Popeye. You’re either older than you look or you watch a lot of Cartoon Network.”
“I teach special-ed, remember? I got a lot of the oldies on DVD for the kids. They love it.”
I sighed, mentally lining up the people from his town that I had met. “Is there anyone that doesn’t like you? An enemy in town?”
“No, nobody.”
“Anyone prejudiced against blacks or little people?”
He glanced to the side, and then back. “Folks in town bend over backward to prove they don’t mind my height, my dwarfism, but…sure, I’m one of only a few blacks in town. There’s a married cou
ple with one kid, and also a light-shade lady teacher on the non-special side who they probably hired to fill a quota, but she’s a straightlaced churchgoer and won’t have anything to do with me. Then there are a couple hundred Hispanics, a handful of Asians, and that’s it. So yeah, there’s some prejudice, but it’s pretty tame.”
“How about Marilou at the Sheriff’s substation?”
Frank’s face twisted up like he’d just drank sour milk. “I don’t talk to her anymore. Besides being the town gossip, she wanted me to…you know.”
I feigned surprise. “And did you?”
“That washed-up cougar? Besides, if I had, the whole town would have heard about it the next day. I’m not that stupid.”
Just stupid enough to have an affair with a married pillar of the community, I thought before I reminded myself that he was the victim and the client. Still, it was getting harder to like him all the time.
I did find it interesting how Marilou could seem very…old-fashioned in her racial attitudes while still wanting to give Frank a whirl. Then again, lots of bigots seemed to find the objects of their loathing sexually attractive.
“There are too many suspects with not enough motive for blackmail,” I mused out loud. “You sure you have no idea who broke into your place? Like, was there a junkie or tweaker that knew you were holding?”
“Anyone like that, Mike Davis runs them out of town pretty quick. Or the Niners do.”
“The bikers?”
“Yeah,” he eyed my surprise. “They kinda keep other riffraff under control.”
“Sounds cozy. Deputy Mike have anything to say about that?”
Frank shrugged. “I think he likes it. The man isn’t what you’d call, uh, energetic, unless something threatens the domestic tranquility.”
“Hmm.” That started my wheels turning. A lazy cop might be a corrupt cop or he might have just given up the good fight. Or maybe… “Frank, you ever get any idea anyone else in town was being blackmailed?”
Frank sat back and stared at the ceiling. “Never really thought about it.”
“Well, you start thinking about it. And when you get back tomorrow, you keep your ears open. It may take a while to run this guy to ground and the best way is to find other victims and correlate information. Right now we’re floundering.”
In a Bind Page 6
