One Clean Shot

by Danielle Girard

  “The same angle on both,” Hailey repeated, feeling the finality of the words.

  “Are you okay?” Roger asked.

  “I will be.” She glanced across the lobby, thought about getting home. “I’ve got to go now.”

  “What do I do about the cork?”

  A woman in a suit stepped out of the elevator and glanced over at her, then away. Something in her stride reminded Hailey of how she saw herself—strong, focused. Suddenly Hailey no longer felt like that woman. “Tell Hal.”

  “What?”

  “Tell him. Call and tell him about the cork. He’ll know how to handle it.”

  “Don’t you think it should come from you?”

  She looked at Roger, at the furrow of his naked brow. She didn’t even think Hal would stop being angry long enough to listen. “Not this time.”

  “What’s going on with you two?”

  Hailey didn’t answer.

  “Are you okay, Hailey?”

  “I’m fine.” The answer came too quickly. Roger didn’t push.

  “You want me to tell him that you said to call him? So at least he knows you weren’t keeping it from him?”

  Hailey shrugged again. It wouldn’t matter.

  The trust from her was too little, too late.

  Chapter 22

  Hal was no idiot. Hailey had gone after Roger.

  The way she dropped everything, the urgency in her voice, the way she evaded his questions—he still read her like a book.

  Add that to the list of stuff she was keeping from him.

  His anger was like an acid. It burned through everything he came across, and after twenty-four hours, it had started to burn through itself.

  What remained was disappointment, betrayal. He needed to go for a run—to sweat—but he was stuck at the scene where their best evidence required a forensic accountant.

  One named Tiffany was already at work on Rendell’s books.

  Arriving in jeans and a button-down white shirt, her hair in a ponytail, Tiffany looked about twelve.

  “It was my day off,” she said as explanation for her attire before making herself at home at the secretary’s desk.

  “We’ll need to go through all the books, but right now, I’m most interested in his payroll,” Hal told her. “I need to locate someone who worked here. Home addresses and contact numbers would really help.”

  Hal paced the worn blue carpet in front of the desk, stopped to stare at a panoramic photograph hung on one wall, the only art in the room. Maybe four feet long and a foot and a half wide, the image was a mountain range he didn’t recognize. Jagged sharp mountain peaks cut into the red-orange sky of sunset. The tallest mountain looked like a shark’s tooth, hooked to the left.

  “Tetons,” Tiffany said.

  “What?” Hal asked.

  “The mountains—they’re called the Tetons. Big one is the Grand. In Jackson.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Wyoming. Great skiing.”

  “Never been skiing,” Hal said.

  “You ought to try. It’s awesome.”

  Hal studied the mountains. Nothing about skiing seemed awesome, only cold. But what did he know? He’d never been closer to Lake Tahoe than Sacramento. He sat in an uncomfortable metal-framed chair opposite Tiffany.

  “He kept good books on some things. Client funds are all clearly denoted as are payables. But there’s no payroll system.”

  “Maybe it’s on another computer.”

  “But there are no records of payroll deductions in his books. He’d have to denote them somewhere.”

  The secretary didn’t work for free.

  Hal hadn’t seen her yet. They’d taken her for coffee, to calm her down. Why weren’t they back yet? “Damn it. How is it possible to have employees and no payroll?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “There are lots of ways to do payroll.”

  “What do you mean? He had to pay his secretary. Where are those entries?”

  “I think he paid her. It just doesn’t look like Mr. Rendell believed in the traditional W-2 system,” she explained. She swiveled the monitor toward him, pointed to a line item for thirty-two thousand dollars. “Twice a month, he took out big chunks of cash.”

  “He paid his employees in cash?”

  “Looks like it.” She scrolled down the page, pointed to another debit for twenty-eight thousand two weeks prior, then farther down another for forty thousand.

  Hal came around the desk as she clicked through the records. “It’s just about twice a month. The twelfth and the twenty-eighth last month.” She brought up the calendar on her phone. “Twelfth was a Wednesday. Twenty-eighth, a Friday.”

  She scrolled through the numbers, jotting them on her notepad. “No real pattern in the last six months. Can’t tell if the secretary makes fifty thousand a year or a hundred and fifty. And other employees—” She shook her head.

  “He pay anyone?”

  She nodded and launched a program called Sage Pro. “Like I said, some of the accounting is really good. Phone bills, cell phones—two of those.” She looked up.

  “Maybe him and the secretary.”

  “I’ll get the numbers.” She scrolled down. “There’s a printing service—probably does prospectus mailing and stuff.” She nodded to the screen. “Lease expense is here, his credit card.” She double-clicked. “He’s got it itemized. Meals and entertainment, travel.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “One ticket to New York on this statement. Stayed at Trump Tower.” She closed the Visa information and continued down. “Here’s a company listed under security—Security Specialists. Maybe that’s where he got his employees.” She opened up the account detail. “He paid them sixty thousand a couple months ago.”

  “How far back do these records go?”

  “As far back as he’s been entering the data.” She went back to the check register and dragged the scrollbar up to the top of the page. “Looks like he started in October of 2014, so he’s got records for almost two years.”

  “What about before that?”’

  She shook her head. “No way to know without taking the computer in and digging around. Nothing in the files?”

  “Mind if I look?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Hal took the mouse and scrolled through the register. The first large transaction was in the amount of $72,000. That date. “What is that?”

  “Cash withdrawal. No details.” She glanced up at him, eyes narrowed. “Why? What does it mean?”

  November 10, 2014 . Was that the right date? “What day was November 9th?” He paused. “In 2014, I mean.”

  “It was a Sunday. Why?”

  “The Dennigs—” She nodded, waiting. “They were murdered on Tuesday, the 11th.”

  His phone buzzed. Sheila.

  He was angry he’d slept with her. He knew better. He hadn’t been that drunk. There had been plenty of time to change his mind.

  Worse, he’d taken her to the Tempest. Just two blocks from his house, that bar was his refuge and now she would know how to find him.

  There were a thousand dive bars in San Francisco but this one had been his.

  Not anymore.

  Even the bartender Izzy—a six-foot, two-hundred-fifty-pound black man—gave him a look when he’d brought Sheila into the bar. Izzy didn’t say anything.

  Izzy wouldn’t.

  Just like Hal didn’t say anything when Izzy came into the station in handcuffs, wearing a red dress and black heels in a men’s size thirteen.

  Izzy had shrugged and served up the shots of Patron. Beers. Some other shots. He couldn’t remember how many. Only barely remembered her reaching into his pocket for his keys, her fingers taking a detour.

  He didn’t know how she had managed to stay sober enough to manipulate him, but she did
it.

  At least he’d had the sense to wear a condom.

  This morning, after she’d left, one of the kitchen drawers had been open, his set of spare keys was missing.

  The professional safe breakers arrived.

  Hal went into the hallway to escape the noise, his head still pounding. Rendell’s secretary came off the elevator a few minutes later. She was followed by one of Roger’s techs, who looked exasperated.

  “Miss Riley,” Hal said, stepping forward. “I’m Inspector Hal Harris.”

  The tech raised his hand to Hal and stepped back onto the elevator.

  “Call me Tammy,” she said, her cheeks pale, the skin a flawless cream except for the small round spots where she’d applied a glittery blush. Her brown eyes were lined in black and her mascara had melted into the space under her lower brows and in the corners of her eye.

  “Can we talk for a few minutes?”

  Her gaze skittered toward the door and she whispered with a hiccup, “Is he still in there?”

  Hal nodded. “He’ll be coming through soon,” and when she gasped, he added, “He’ll be in a bag, though.” She nodded and backed to the far corner of the elevator lobby, where she glanced lovingly at the Smith Barney doors as though she’d always wished she worked there instead of for Rendell.

  “We didn’t find any employee files in the office,” Hal said. “Were you the only one he had working for him?”

  She shook her head, dotted her eyes again. “There was one other.”

  “In the office?”

  “No. Well, he came in sometimes but not very often. Harvey couldn’t stand having him here so he was mostly in the field. That’s what Harvey called it, ‘the field.’”

  Hal opened his notebook. “What was his name?”

  “Gordon.” She paused to think. “Gordon Price.”

  “Why didn’t Harvey want Price in the office?”

  “He was sort of conspicuous—if you know what I mean.”

  Hal shook his head. “I don’t.”

  The secretary flushed. By conspicuous maybe she meant black.

  “And he had this annoying habit of flipping his retainer around his mouth. It would click against his teeth. Drove Harvey crazy.”

  “A retainer,” Hal repeated. Tawny Robbins had said the man who shot James and his friend clicked. “You have an address for Mr. Price?”

  “I think I can find it.”

  “Excellent.”

  Hal held Price’s address in his hand as he entered the empty lobby. In one corner was a sign for the stairs, a stick figure walking down a crude drawing.

  He didn’t have time for thirty flights of stairs.

  He had a man with a retainer to find.

  Inside the elevator, Hal pushed “L” for lobby, then closed his eyes.

  Chapter 23

  Hailey left Roger with questions. She couldn’t face them.

  Not when she should have been asking them all along. Why hadn’t she demanded more answers from Jim? She’d taken so much for granted.

  No wonder Hal was so angry.

  She caught a cab on California Street and gave the driver her address, asked him to please hurry.

  She still had time to get home, pack a bag and get to the girls’ school before the release bell.

  She dialed Jim’s line. Dee answered, but Hailey didn’t make small talk. She had about four minutes to talk before they arrived at the house. “Is he there?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Hold on.”

  A moment later, Jim came on.

  “You know Harvey Rendell?” she asked.

  “I do. He’s a fund manager.”

  “He’s dead.”

  The driver glanced into the backseat.

  Jim made a funny sound, something in his throat. “Dead?”

  Dee spoke in the background and Jim snapped at her. “How?” he asked.

  “Someone fed him Halcion and smothered him.”

  “Halcion? Isn’t that—”

  “Same thing the Dennigs got.” Before Jim could speak, she added, “You’re a client.”

  “Yes.” The word came out in a hiss of breath, an admission. The deflation in his voice was a concession and she’d push it as far as she could. “So were the Dennigs and Colby Wesson.” Hailey paused a beat. “They’re all dead, Jim. And you haven’t been honest. You’re involved in this somehow.”

  “Of course I’m not.”

  “You were invested with Rendell. You got a button. Someone shot at you. That’s not coincidence, Jim.”

  “I’m insulted that you would imply—”

  “I don’t care if you’re insulted, Jim,” she said, cutting him off. “If I were you, I’d be less worried about your ego and more concerned with ending up in prison.” She ended the call before Jim could say anything more and stared at the houses she’d passed a thousand times.

  Not all the homes were mansions—two thousand and three thousand square feet, but they cost millions of dollars. Three and five and eight million.

  Inside lived investment bankers and high-priced attorneys, people who made millions each month.

  How had she lived here this long?

  She would find a place where people like her lived.

  Real people.

  As often as possible, Hailey took the girls out of the area of San Francisco mansions where they lived and brought them down to the new theaters on Harrison Street or the old ones down in the Marina, winding their way back through neighborhoods where she hoped to one day afford a place of their own.

  The girls didn’t need this much. Hailey could give them enough on her own.

  Her phone buzzed. Jim.

  “I referred clients to Rendell,” he told her. “I don’t think that’s a crime.”

  The cab passed a house that had once belonged to Danielle Steel until she’d moved up a few blocks to one three times its size. Now some lowly surgeon owned it. “Did you refer Wesson?”

  “I don’t know Wesson. I don’t know what’s happening here, Hailey. I honestly don’t.”

  “But?”

  “Rendell supported my campaign.”

  “You mean in exchange for referrals?”

  He paused, uttered a sigh. “Something like that.”

  “Why all the gun guys?”

  Jim’s chair creaked. He would have his free arm extended out over the armrest, his hand relaxed at the wrist, his feet stretched out in front of him, legs crossed at the ankles.

  After a particularly long day, John had sat like that, too. Oftentimes holding a scotch in the other hand. It was one of the things passed from father to son, so that being with Jim meant being with John’s memory, too. “Rendell liked the gun guys, as you call them. It’s why he asked to meet Rittenberg in the first place. He networked through the NRA. I just made the introductions.”

  “Not just, Jim. You invested, too.”

  “For a while, I did.”

  “Not just a while.” There was a brief break in the line as Hailey added, “Recently.”

  “Hailey?”

  “I’m here.” Hailey listened to the silence on the other end, wondered what he was doing. “You sent him a check for twenty thousand last month. He’s got a copy of it in your file.” No clicks, no breathing. “Jim?” The cab pulled behind a garbage truck, blocking the driveway.

  “I’ll get out.” She paid the driver. “Jim?”

  “Yes. Sorry,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Can I call you later?” he asked.

  “Jim, this is serious. People are dying and you’re involved.”

  “I am not,” he said, the same stern voice he used to stop the girls when they ran through the house or played too loudly. Then, his voice softened, the volume dropped. “I will call you back.”

  “You can try my
cell phone, but I’m heading to a scene.”

  “I’ll call you.” The worry in his voice was unmistakable.

  It made her worry for herself, for the girls. Out of the cab, she pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder and hurried to the sidewalk. Rain fell in heavy drops from the oak trees above.

  Under the loud hum of the garbage truck engine was the whisper of water rushing in the grate at the curb, streaming under the streets from the hills above, racing toward the Bay.

  She prayed Liz would be out. This was the time of day when she normally did her errands or met a friend for lunch. She was in a garden club, had a standing bridge game. Afternoons, Liz caught up on household tasks so she could be home with the girls after school.

  A horn honked from the street as a tan Taurus pulled into the shallow driveway.

  Hal.

  She felt overwhelming relief. They would work through this.

  He hadn’t given up on her.

  A blond head appeared in the window.

  Not Hal.

  Bruce.

  He raised his palm in a wave, rolled the window down.

  Hailey stopped at the car and glanced at the street. Liz might be home. Anyone could show up. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hal told me you were picking the girls up and coming home.” He looked up at the house. “They here?”

  “You talked to Hal?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I had a long talk with Marshall, too.”

  Marshall. Hal’s transfer request. Bruce was internal affairs. He wasn’t here about whatever woman he was sleeping with. He was here about Hal. She had to pack a few things, go pick up the girls. “I can’t do this now, Bruce.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  Her stomach washed with anger. “I have a choice.”

  “Your captain called me, Hailey.”

  “Did he?”

  Bruce nodded slowly.

  “And did you tell Marshall that you can’t handle my case? That it’s a conflict of interest because we used to sleep together?” She drew out the words “used to.” She and Bruce were over. Living with Liz and Jim was over.

  Being partners with Hal was probably over, too.

  Bruce cracked his door open.