by Amy Lane
“Well, it seems like he got bored of you looking, doesn’t it,” Mike said grimly. “What a sweetheart. Do you have a description?”
“Five eight, brown and brown, medium build, medium nose, has been known to use prosthetics to alter his appearance—for years at a time.”
Mike sucked air in through his teeth; the sound was unmistakable. “This fucker ain’t screwin’ around,” he said softly. “Jacky, do you think he’ll come after Jade?”
“We can put you two into protective custody,” Jackson promised—rashly in Ellery’s opinion, because dammit, they didn’t have enough evidence to get that sort of backup. Then Mike answered, and Ellery got it.
“In a rat’s eye,” Mike muttered. “For one thing, they wouldn’t take my dog. He’s pining away for your damned tomcat enough as it is. For another, who’s gonna watch your goddamned house, Jackson? Nobody. It’ll just be open here, and those drug people will make it their bitch. They’ll whore her out to meth-heads and shit, and we’ll have to gut her to live in her again. I just got this place to where it didn’t feel like a cracker box, dammit!”
Jackson grunted. “I’ll see if I can get some guys to drive by the place. They should be on the lookout as it is because of the drug activity. Just… you know. Owens was a cop for five years. Don’t let anyone in the house you don’t know personally.”
“I like that Kryzynski guy,” Mike said, brightening considerably. “Maybe he can help us out.”
“Fucking aces,” Jackson snarled.
“If he’s watching Mike and Jade he won’t be crawling up your ass like an ugly bug,” Ellery said quietly, thinking it would make things better.
“It’s not my ass he wants to crawl up, but fine.”
Mike heard everything, of course. “He’s got the hots for Ellery? That’s amazing! Ellery, he’s too young for you.”
“Chronologically or emotionally?” Yes, he knew it would get a nasty side-eye from Jackson.
“Nice one.” Mike chuckled, but they could hear him sober up quick. “Jade and I won’t take any chances, and we sure would appreciate whatever supervision you can give us. But it’s getting cold enough to keep Albert in the house at night, and you had that alarm system installed in August, so that’s a relief.”
“You did what?” Ellery asked, surprised.
“I was paranoid,” Jackson responded without shame. “Sue me.”
Ellery pulled into the outside parking lot by the river and parked far away from one of the trees dropping soaked yellow leaves on everything. “I’d rather not. Mike, I’m going to send you Officer Kryzynski’s number. Call him if your dog has so much as a gas bubble, or a workman starts working next door that you don’t recognize.”
“Will do, chief,” Mike agreed. Then, “You guys going to tell Jade about this? She might take it more serious from you two than she does from me.”
“You fuss over her,” Jackson said, smiling just a tiny bit. “I know she knows how to fight.”
“Yeah, well, as proud as I am of her, I’d just as soon she not have to remember.”
Jackson let out a sigh. “More than fair, Mike. I’ll do what I can.”
“Take care of you, kid. What did the doctor say about your shoulder?”
Jackson groaned. “He put in a tube, Mike.”
“Aw—I’m sorry. Well, don’t do anything stupid, and do what he says and maybe it’ll come out before you absolutely positively have to yank it out yourself.”
“Thanks, man. Talk to you later.”
Jackson hung up just as Ellery killed the ignition.
“Ouch,” Ellery said, thinking about Jackson’s shoulder.
“It’s the least of our problems.” Jackson looked moodily out the window to the tree-lined levee. “When do we need to check on our scumbags?”
Ellery consulted his phone. “I have a conference at the jail with the one waiting for his bail hearing. You’re coming with?”
“’Course—when?”
“Few hours.”
“Okay. I’m going to have Crystal run down the phone number Mike gave me. If it’s a landline, I’ll pay a visit—”
“And if it’s not?”
Jackson was getting good at the one-shouldered shrug. Well, he’d been in bandages and slings for a couple of months. “We’ll see who’s paying the bills. I’ll also ask Toe-Tag to run a dead body search for any fortyish drug dealers named Billy.”
Who used to feed little kids granola bars. Ellery wasn’t going to eat for days, his stomach was so upset.
He sighed now, though. He could see where Jackson was going with this. “Meet me at the jail in two hours and forty-five minutes. Take the car if you need to leave.” He held out the car keys even though the jail was within walking distance, but Jackson didn’t take them. Ellery had given Jackson the keys before.
“If Jade brought my car, I’ll get the key from her.”
“Just….” Ellery closed his hand over Jackson’s, trapping the keys between their palms. Jackson’s hand felt clammy and uncomfortable, and his eyes were still a little bit dilated and shocky. “Come see me before you go anywhere. I mean it. If I’ve got time, I’ll go with you.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. To Ellery’s face, he lied.
“Sure. But I’m asking you to do this anyway, because that thing we just saw? That was horri-fucking-fying. I don’t want to think about you tooling around the city and into that bullshit all by yourself.” Here it comes. What are we up to, five times? But Jackson surprised him.
“You’re afraid for the car,” he said, with a pale ghost of his usual fuck-me grin. “You can admit it. Me and cars—you think my luck’s run out.”
“That’s right, Jackson. It’s the car.” He’d had to have his own engine replaced that summer, because the drive-by that had taken Jackson out—the one perpetrated by Tim Owens, the guy who was probably responsible for the butchery they’d just witnessed—had shot up Ellery’s beloved sedan.
If Ellery knew how to work a grenade launcher, he’d blow the damned thing up himself if it would keep Jackson out of the investigation and forced to look into his own head.
“I knew it.” Jackson winked and pulled the keys out from Ellery’s grasp, sliding out of the car. “You go through one little car—”
“Three,” Ellery argued, getting out of the car and grabbing his suit jacket from the back. Early November and a rare, stunning fall in the Sacramento area meant it would be a comfortable seventy or so degrees. Ellery felt almost naked without a lightweight trench coat, but he would have felt overheated with it.
“Three?”
Ellery slid on his jacket and shut the car door. “Three,” he repeated, counting on his fingers. “The Toyota, in the first drive-by.”
“Owens,” Jackson said with a grunt.
“The first CR-V in the second drive-by.”
“Owens!”
“And the second CR-V in a car accident you engineered to keep a drunk witness from driving.”
“Emile Whatsis—”
“No, that one was all you.” Ellery snorted in disgust. “I don’t even blame the guy who got convicted. You were being stubborn.”
“Did you win the case?”
Well, yes, because without that witness the prosecution’s testimony fell apart, and who could trust a witness who would get into a car falling-down drunk?
“That,” Ellery said with dignity, “is beside the point.”
“What’s the point?”
By this time they were walking companionably across the street, like any two colleagues who had carpooled. Neither of them had said anything about their relationship going public. The law community was pretty conservative on the whole. Heterosexual couples didn’t routinely give public displays of affection, and Ellery was more comfortable holding hands or bussing Jackson’s cheek when they were in their street clothes, in their home neighborhoods.
In this moment, though, Ellery wished he could hold Jackson’s hand or put his palm in the small of Ja
ckson’s back.
“The point is, I’d rather have you destroy cars than yourself, but try not to make a habit of either.”
Jackson turned a pale, drawn face toward him—and winked. “You worry too much,” he said winsomely, and then had the gall to chuckle as Ellery sputtered his way into their law office.
Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson & Cooper was located handily on Eighth Street between the courthouse and the jail, a couple of blocks down. The outside was a squat concrete building like much of the area around the park, but once inside and on the fourth floor, the elevator opened to a pleasing, modern office space with shiny chrome accents in the leather furniture and warm wood paneling, as well as cream-colored carpet.
Ellery had always loved the offices because they looked—to him—exactly like a successful lawyer’s working space, but now, as Jackson sauntered in next to him, his everyday game face on, he had to wonder. Jackson lived much more simply than this. Ellery’s house still weirded him out. Did this place ever make him uncomfortable?
“Mr. Rivers!” Unlike Mr. Pfeist, who was a broad man who favored bow ties and looked like he ate bugs for breakfast, Carlyle Langdon smiled surprisingly often. “Here, come visit me in my office!”
His office was large—but not intimidatingly so. He liked fresh-cut flowers in crystal vases and small, bright paintings peppered about on his cream-colored walls. He also liked deep, plush, buttery-soft leather furniture. Ellery sank into the chair across from his desk with happiness. His head was starting to hurt. It had been that kind of a morning.
Langdon offered him a mint from the bowl on the desk, and Ellery accepted. He turned the bowl toward Jackson, but Jackson—leaning casually against the wall by the door—shook his head politely no.
Pleasantries done, Langdon got straight to the matter at hand. “I understand you and Mr. Cramer requested a pro bono case?”
Ellery opened his mouth to throw himself on the mercy of his bosses, but Jackson beat him to it with either a really convincing lie or a really astute line of reasoning.
“The guys got busted in a vacant house selling smack—and trying to cook meth. Thing is, they’re both too stupid to either cook or run a business. I’m thinking that if we get one turned loose and follow him around, we can find the bigger fish.”
“And then defend him for money?” Langdon asked hopefully. “Because this firm really does like to make money.”
Ellery bristled, but again, Jackson spoke up with that surprising charm. “Oh, come on now, Mr. Langdon. All that publicity we got in the Bridger/Chisholm case didn’t generate a little bit of extra income? Just a smidge? You know, enough to cover the two hours, tops, Ellery here is going to need to free up Bozo Number Two so I can track him down?”
Langdon laughed heartily, because of course the case had generated good publicity. Great publicity—and Ellery knew for a fact that at least four big-time clients had signed on to pay Pfeist, Harrelson, Langdon & Cooper a big fat standing retainer afterward. Ellery had gotten two of those guys, and he’d had to turn two of the others over to other associates, mostly because they were scumbags, although Ellery didn’t always get to pick and choose whom he worked for.
“I think we can spare Ellery here for that.” He smiled at Ellery, who smiled and nodded back, feeling like a fraud because he would have taken the time anyway. And then he remembered that they really did need to take some time.
“That’s not going to be the biggest thing, sir.” Ellery sobered and moved in, trying to pull Jackson into a close conference. Jackson remained slouched against the wall, arms folded in front of him. The mental fetal position—who could blame him? Ellery carried on. “You may recall the research we’ve been doing on Tim Owens.”
“You’ve made some discoveries there?” Langdon’s eyes were a pale shade of blue, and Ellery almost hated to fill him in. He looked as innocent as a baby.
But fill him in he did, while Jackson leaned back against the wood paneling like none of this affected him or even ruffled his cool.
“You’re certain this is Owens?” Langdon asked after a moment.
“The victim was very carefully chosen.” Ellery darted a glance at Jackson, who managed to look bored. “It was a clear message, and we have reason to believe that people who were close to Mr. Rivers or myself during the investigation might be targeted.”
Langdon frowned. “So we should ask for another marshals’ detail for the Camerons and some officers for our paralegal?”
Ellery blinked. “If possible, yes.”
“You didn’t think of asking?” Langdon looked concerned, and Ellery couldn’t blame him.
“I thought of asking, sir, but I’ll be honest—I didn’t think we’d get it.”
Langdon’s lazy smile was uncomfortably perceptive. “I think Mr. Rivers is rubbing off on you, Ellery. Remember, we’re the law part of ‘law and order.’ We get to expect the system to help us.”
Ellery nodded, feeling numb. When had he stopped believing that?
Maybe it was when he’d looked up Jackson’s past and put together what had been done to him—how Jackson had trusted the system, and the people in it had betrayed him.
“Well, I’m grateful,” Ellery said, his throat dry. His head pounded too. He felt disloyal and weak, because Jackson had pretty much refused all but the bare minimum of painkillers. “Anything else you can think of?”
Langdon looked over at Jackson. “Do you have the Jones case info, or Carruthers? I can give you a few more days—”
“Not a problem,” Jackson said, uncoiling from his lean against the wall with feline grace. “I actually had that info for you yesterday—here.” He pulled out his phone and started tapping. “I’ve got two witnesses on video claiming Jones was coaching his daughter’s soccer team when the files were pulled from his computer. Somebody at work had to have done it, and I’m forwarding you a big file from the security guard, who has Jones leaving out the front door—with his electronic ID—about two hours prior. I also have a list of the employees still in the building. You’ll see I highlighted the guy with the gambling debts in Jones’s department, but don’t discount his boss, because she’s on something. Coulda been caffeine, but coulda been something else. I ran her financials, and there’s a lot of commercial debt, but that could be covering something else too. So you’ve got two good suspects if you want me to go after them and enough evidence to clear your client completely before the investigation wrecks his life. Let me know how you want to—”
“I meet with the ADA today. After I get Jones off, I’ll turn over the evidence on the other two. We’ll let them do the heavy lifting.”
Jackson nodded. “Sir.” Simple word—but it told Ellery volumes about how much he’d like to see the case through. Well, that wasn’t his job. He knew it, Langdon knew it, everybody accepted it. “Now, about Carruthers….”
Langdon raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”
“Well, I have some wits with grudges who would be happy to discredit the state’s case, and if you want to go that way, I can turn that over.”
Langdon’s mouth twisted—half wry humor, half exasperation. “But—”
“Carruthers is guilty. He sold out his brother to the mob, his brother said no, and they killed him. They had Carruthers kill him, which is worse. I know he’s got a lot of money, and your case is your problem, but you gotta know the cops are gonna bring it all back to the truth. The guy did it. Hates himself. Wants to die for it. Would rather take an ice pick through the brain than elude prison and is just going through the motions for his wife—but he did it.”
The wry twist went away, and Langdon sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Rivers. Ellery. That’ll be all.”
Jackson nodded and massaged the back of his neck. “Yes, sir.” He turned toward the door, and Langdon cleared his throat.
“Rivers?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t ever stop speaking your conscience. We might not follow up on it—sometimes we can’t. But we get very adept at looking f
or the big win here. It’s good to be reminded that law and order doesn’t always equal justice.”
Jackson flashed a quiet smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You do your best, sir. We all do.”
And then he was out the door.
Ellery was at his heels, but Langdon stopped him.
“Who was she?”
“Sir?” It should have been completely out of context, but Ellery knew. He’d evaded this question during their entire interview.
“The female victim connected to you and Rivers. Who is she?”
“Who?”
“The second victim. You told me about Jennifer Ricci, and we’ll look into who paid for her defense. But you said two victims, and then you evaded like a seasoned class A defense attorney, which makes me think you’re not getting paid enough. But Rivers is gone—if he’s who you were protecting.”
“His mother.”
Langdon was so surprised he stood up. “His—?”
“Well, sort of his mother. Like, you know how Spartans used to throw their children into pits with vipers and see if they could survive?”
“I’m not sure that’s how the legend goes—”
“The Spartans were better parents. So were the vipers. And given the way the body was mutilated, Owens knew it.”
Langdon sucked air through his teeth. “That’s… that’s horrifying. Do the police know the connection?”
“Yes, but since the department was unwilling to hunt for Owens in the first place, we didn’t want to share what we had until we had a stronger case.”
“Thinking like a prosecutor?” Langdon smiled, which was encouraging, but Ellery couldn’t even smile about this.
“When Bridger was first arrested, he said he’d been working with Owens and that there was something not right about the guy. Think about that—a man who beat a girl to death, a girl he’d known, thought there was something ‘not right’ about Tim Owens. And then we discovered that Tim Owens had no past or human connections beyond the military. And this is scary shit, right? But the police drop it, and the DA lets them—”
