Steve Martini - Double Tap

“I needed three years’ experience workin’ in the field before I could even apply for my PI license,” he tells me. “But I got lucky. Just so happened my old employer-You remember them?”

“How could I forget. They owned all those big SUVs we wrecked down on the Yucatán.”

Herman laughs. “That’s the one. They was so nice after I got shot. It’s like I told them: I coulda been on disability the rest of my life. Know what I’m sayin’? You never know what a doctor’s going to say.” He winks at me.

Herman should have been a lawyer.

“Them’s almost my exact words to my employer,” he says. “You never know what a doctor’s gonna say.” Especially if he’s a surgeon and Herman is threatening to shake his hand.

“They heard that and, well, they really got on top of things. That’s why they’re the big company they are.” Herman says this as if he has aspirations. “They’re into the details, know what I mean? Anyway, make a long story short, wouldn’t ya know, one of their personnel people found them employment records. And that’s all I needed. Did the trick.”

“Which records would those be?”

“The ones they forgot to withhold any taxes on,” replies Herman. “Seems I worked for ‘em during summers before college and during the school year.” He puts one finger to the side of his nose and winks at me. “I forgot all about it,” he says. “Why, they even went and paid the back taxes and penalties. Then they gimme the stubs showing everything, so’s I could give the information to the state and get my PI license. Saved me a whole year working for somebody else just so’s I could apply,” he concludes. “Now how lucky is that?”

Luck to Herman is an eternal exercise in self-help.

“Comes from living a clean life,” I tell him.

“Ain’t that the truth.” He takes a sip of coffee, looking over the edge of his cup at me. “So what kinda sinnin’ you up to these days?”

“Actually, I’m up to my ass. Buried in cases, mired in court, investigations I don’t have time for.”

Herman’s eyebrows arch with the scent of opportunity.

“Which is part of the reason I came by,” I tell him.

“What? You mean to tell me you didn’t come by just to say hello?”

“Actually I did, but. .”

“Never mind, I’ll get over it,” he says. “Just tell Uncle Herman what kinda work you got for him. And please don’t go tellin’ me it’s a divorce. Without worker’s comp, I don’t need to be shaggin’ any more bullets right now.”

The county has finally sorted out the problem at the jail and eased up on the lockdown. Harry and I are back, closeted with Ruiz in the cement cubicle for another conference.

According to the transcript of the preliminary hearing, the cops are operating on the theory that Chapman jilted Ruiz and that he smoldered for six months or so before he confronted her at her home and killed her. There is speculation in the press that he may have stalked her, but if the cops have evidence of this, they have yet to produce it.

“You said you left the assignment six months before she was murdered?” I ask.

“Right. I did. But she called. Said she had to talk to me. I told her I was busy, no longer on the assignment. But she said it regarded a matter of personal security. She was scared. She said she couldn’t discuss it on the phone but she had to talk to me.”

“So you went to see her?”

He nods.

“Where?”

“A small restaurant in San Diego, on the edge of the Gaslamp Quarter. She was careful. Didn’t want anybody to see us talking. She said it was far enough from La Jolla that people would be less likely to recognize her there. It was mid-morning, between breakfast and noon, so the place was empty. We talked about twenty minutes. She wanted to know if I could help her.”

“What did she want you to do?”

He looks at me, then offers up a healthy sigh. “She. . she said she had some security concerns. She wanted to know if I could follow her just for a few days. Keep an eye on her from a distance. She said it wouldn’t last long and that there was probably nothing to it.”

“Why didn’t she just call the security detail back in?” I ask.

“I don’t know. She said it was complicated. There were some issues she couldn’t discuss. There was some corporate infighting at Isotenics. Nothing unusual. Madelyn was always afraid she was losing ground on issues of control ever since the corporation had gone public a few years earlier. It was an obsession with her. With Madelyn you were either an ally-in which case she thought she owned you-or an enemy. There was nothing in between. Seems there was a minority faction on the board wanted to wrest control from her. She was sure she’d win in the end.”

“I don’t understand,” says Harry. “What did that have to do with her personal security?”

“Some members of the board had made an issue over some of the perks she was getting: the two corporate jets, the fleet of stretch limos, the entourage of security wherever she went. They said it was extravagant. And there had been some bad press. One of the national business magazines did a story, CEOs who live like rajas. Madelyn got her own picture. Half-page spread. She was fit to be tied, spitting vinegar. She suspected enemies on the board had fed the reporter information and then used the story against her.”

“She told you this?”

“Not in so many words. But I know that that’s why she canceled the personal security detail. She also unloaded the limos and ordered the red Ferrari so she could start driving herself around. If she went back to the board and told them she wanted the executive security detail brought back, she’d have to give them a reason. What she told me was that she couldn’t tell them why she needed it. She also refused to tell me.”

“So whatever it was that frightened her, she didn’t want her own board to know about it?”

“All I can tell you is what she told me. Whatever was going on, she didn’t want the board to know about it.”

“You think she was violating directions that they’d given her?”

“I don’t know. She was willing to pay me on the side for some informal security. I told her it was not a good idea. Whatever I did alone in my spare time was likely to have holes in it-that if there was a real threat, it wouldn’t do much good if I was a hundred yards away watching through binoculars. Also I wasn’t available all the time. I had other assignments, clients with Karr, Rufus I had to attend to. She said she’d find somebody to spell me when I wasn’t available, that we could work out a schedule. She said it would only last for a week or ten days.”

“And you agreed?” Harry asks.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t seem happy about this. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I’m thinking it probably did more harm than good. Probably gave her a false sense of security. It was a big mistake.”

“Go on.”

“Whoever it was who scared her, I think he killed her,” says Ruiz. “And I wasn’t there to stop it.”

“Where were you that afternoon?”

“At home. In my apartment, asleep. I was working the graveyard on another detail later that night. And of course there was nobody there with me. So I have no alibi.”

“Did she hire anybody else, to back you up?”

He shakes his head. “Not that I know of. She never got around to it. I’d watch the house two or three nights a week. I figured she’d be okay at the office. Besides, I couldn’t get on the Isotenics campus anyway. Not without explaining what I was doing there. And they had ample security on the grounds.”

“Unless whoever threatened her was working there,” says Harry.