Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

“That sounds kind of fast.”

“Apparently he’d been approved weeks ago, but there was some slip up when it came to notifying him.”

“Sounds like he was lucky he got the news at all,” Maggie said, feeling her way around the conversation.

“Sounds like.” Then, “You cut it off, dyed it.”

“What? Oh, the hair. I felt like a change,” she said.

“It looks good on you.” He hadn’t had any trouble picking her out of a crowd of students, but then cops were trained to be observant.

“So, what are you doing here?”

“You were supposed to come down to the station and look at more photos.” He was studying her hair. Any second she expected him to ask why she’d done it.

“Now?” Maggie fought panic. She wasn’t ready.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’ve got a class.”

“How about after?”

“My last class gets out at 4:00.”

“Mrs. Kenyon.”

“I’m sorry, school’s important to me.”

“Alright, I’ll pick you up at 4:00.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Norton. I know how to find the police station.”

But she had trouble finding a parking spot that evening and didn’t get into the squad room with Norton till ten after five. “That’s a lot of books,” she said when she saw the stack she was going to have to go through.

“We could be here a while,” he said. “It’s a good thing I live alone.”

“Okay, let’s get started.” Maggie was glad she’d called Gay and told her she might be late. From the amount of mug books on Norton’s desk, it could be an all nighter.

Three hours later, eyes bleary, she turned a page and sucked in a quick breath.

“See something?” Norton said.

“That kinda looks like him.” It looked like Horace with the ferret face, only lots younger and with longer hair.

“You’re sure?”

Maggie looked at the picture for a few seconds. It was Ferret Face. She gulped. Part of her wanted to tell this policeman everything. Another part said to hold her silence and that’s what she did. Yes, he and that Virgil character had chased her on the beach, but what if it was only because they’d seen her in the paper? What if they were only going to mug her?

“It’s not him,” she said.

“You don’t look so good,” Norton said.

“It’s a little warm in here.”

“No it’s not.”

“I’ll be alright.” But she didn’t know if she would be.

“Make real sure it’s not him. Look hard.”

Maggie did. “It’s not him.” But it was Ferret Face, however that didn’t mean he was the one who did the killing in the mini mart. She couldn’t be sure, not for certain. She couldn’t name him for that. Besides, she’d look awful stupid if she said it was him and it wasn’t. If he had an alibi, like if he was miles away or something.

“Norton, phone,” a seedy looking detective from the other side of the room called out. “I’ll transfer it over.”

“Norton here.” He listened. “Oh no!” He sat as if the air had been ripped from his lungs. “I see.” He hung up.

“What?” Maggie knew it was bad.

“My mother took her life.” He was shaking.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” He looked at her, eyes misty. “My ex-wife died last year. A skiing accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We were young, had kids, then divorced. We never should have married, but she got pregnant, you know how it goes.”

“Yeah, I do,” Maggie said.

“The kids have been staying with my mother in Avalon.”

“I’ve been to Catalina. It’s nice. Good place for kids to grow up. Safe.”

“I’m going to have to take some time, go over there.”

“Of course.” Maggie wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know how.

“I’ll have to get my cases reassigned, yours too.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you do.” He was speaking as if every word was an effort. “A man named Larry Striker is the lobbyist for Nakano Construction. They build all over the county, office and apartment buildings of the ten to twenty story variety. It’s rumored they use a lot of Yakuza money. Yakuza, that’s like the Japanese Mafia.”

“I know who the Yakuza are,” Maggie said.

“Striker used to be a cop. Twenty years, rose to captain. He knows everybody. When he left the force he went to work for Congressman Nishikawa as his local administrative assistant. It was Nishikawa who got him the job with Nakano. You see, there’s laws, a congressman can only pay so much. With Nakano, the sky’s the limit for a guy like Striker.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was the kind of cop who wasn’t afraid of breaking the rules. He wouldn’t think twice about lying on the stand, lying to his boss, to the press, to anyone if it furthered his career. I’d imagine he’d be very valuable to a company like Nakano.”

“So, why are you telling me all this?”

“This guy you almost identified, Horace Nighthyde, he used to snitch for Striker.”

“Surely that’s a coincidence?”

“Maybe.” He stared across the room with a faraway look in his eyes. “Let’s look at what we have so far. When we pulled your ex in, he acted like the ballbuster he is in court, but as soon as we threatened him with a few hours in a holding cell, he started to make nice. He confessed he was working with Frankie Fujimori. They knew you were following him and were waiting for you to harasses him. Kenyon didn’t just want a restraining order, he wanted you arrested.”

“Swell guy.”

“You married him.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Yeah, well, I know about that.” Then, “Fujimori wasn’t the only Asian in that store when he was killed. Ichiro Yamamoto, ex-employee of Congressman Nishikawa, was there too. He was Striker’s right hand when Striker was in the Congressman’s employ. He stayed on for a year or so, then he was caught in a bar with an ounce of cocaine and sixty-thousand dollars.”

“Let me guess,” Maggie said. “He said it wasn’t his.”

“You’re partly right. He owned up to the coke, but said the money wasn’t his. He wanted to cut a deal, said he had the goods on the Congressman. For something that big we called the DA and Assistant DA Norris Stover came right over. Yamamoto said the money was from Striker and Nakano, a regular payment which Nishikawa distributed among a few other congressmen to get them to vote against anything that has the government interfering in Western Africa.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Yamamoto claimed Nakano was supplying some oil company with weapons and that somehow those weapons were being traded for illegal diamonds.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Conflict diamonds. Diamonds mined by rebel armies. They use them to finance their wars.”

“Oh.”

“But the investigation stopped dead in its tracks, because Yamamoto made bail and two days later someone shot Frankie Fujimori dead right in front of his eyes. All of a sudden Yamamoto says he was lying about the congressman and the diamonds. Apparently he’d rather go to jail, than have what happened to Fujimori happen to him.

“You think Nishikawa had Striker send this Nighthyde character to kill him? Nishikawa’s a war hero. He wouldn’t do that. That’s nuts?”

“You’re probably right. It’s just one of those things that bothers a homicide detective, you know, a coincidence.”

“Your Yamamoto character was probably lying through his teeth.”

“I admit it’s thin, but it’s something I would have followed up.”

“Do you think it should be?” Maggie didn’t want to admit that Congressman Nishikawa might be a crook. She’d met him at several functions. He was kind of a friend of Nick’s. He seemed like such a nice man.