Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

She stopped, turned to face him, and put her hands on her hips. “What things?”

“Sorry. I can’t discuss the specifics.”

“Huh. You people.” She took off again. They reached her car, a midsized family sedan. She pushed a button on a keyring remote to click the lock open. “Doesn’t matter that we can’t do our job, doesn’t matter if people may get hurt, must keep the lying client’s secrets.”

Frustration overrode all other feelings. “Officer, we need those files back.”

“You’re a real one-note samba.”

“I know you don’t have the best opinion of Nina Reilly. But she appreciates your getting her vehicle back, and says you’ve been very professional in your dealings with her.”

“My personal feelings don’t interfere with my job.”

“Exactly what I’m saying. I’m glad you were able to put your differences aside and find her Bronco.”

“You have new information I can use?”

Paul was silent.

“Of course you don’t. We got the vehicle back, that saved her a bundle, but now some backseat litter’s missing, which no one will describe. Well, that’s just tough, isn’t it? Tough for us, tough for her.” She opened the car door. “Mr. van Wagoner, I’m off duty. I’ve got better things to do than to listen to you grumble about this problem not getting priority over the dozens of other cases we’re handling.”

“Listen, I’m aware you have bigger trouble in this town than a defense attorney’s missing papers. I was a cop.”

“I know,” she broke in. Seeing his surprise, she said, “You think in a little town like this when a city type like you comes nosing around we aren’t interested? You run an investigative agency in Carmel, which has business when it wants it. You’ve been coming up here for a couple of years now, working mostly for Nina Reilly and only occasionally for other private clients. You were fired from the SFPD years ago. You went to work for the Monterey Police Department and that didn’t work out either. You have a buddy on the force here, Sergeant Fred Cheney. He speaks well of you or I wouldn’t be standing here.”

“How is he?”

“Working too hard.”

“So what you’re saying is-”

“Don’t give me any more shit about Nina Reilly’s petty problems, ’kay? It’s my investigation and it’s open. I do my job whether I like the vic or not. Anything else?” She got in her car and stomped on the accelerator, swinging out of her parking space with a cop’s practiced skill.

Hands in his pockets, Paul watched her drive away. Scholl hadn’t liked talking to him but she had done it. Was she looking for the files at all or had she back-burnered them? He couldn’t say. He didn’t like the way she said Nina’s name. He didn’t like her tone, civil in the middle and hostile around the edges. He could use police help on this-hell, he could use any help at all on this. He couldn’t think of another case where leads had vaporized into smoke so fast.

He walked beyond the courthouse to the city jail. Cody Stinson had not been moved to Placerville as yet, which was convenient. At the jail, Paul submitted to the usual rigmarole before being admitted to a visiting area. Stinson came in shortly after.

“You!” he said. As slight in build as Mario Lopez was built-up, Stinson was spending his time in jail creatively, sculpting a new goatee. “You’re the one who tackled me. They ought to arrest you, not me. I wasn’t doing anything illegal at that shelter. I even knocked. What in hell was that woman doing with a gun, anyway? I didn’t do nothing!”

Paul explained his purpose. “We just want to know who tipped you off about the two women you met at the beach.”

“Why should I help you?”

“I’m trying to get to the bottom of all this. If I do, and if you are innocent, that’s got to help you, Cody.” This was sticky strategy. If Cody was innocent, well, he might jump. If he was guilty he still might jump, because people in jail leap for any old broken rings if they think there might be some advantage. “If we find another bad guy in all this, you’ll get out of jail.”

Cody thought for a while, scratching his chin with a stubby finger. He had bad skin, which the overhead lights exaggerated. “I got a call.”

“From?”

“I don’t know. Somebody. Probably a guy, but it sounded like the voice might have been changed. Synthesized or something.”

“What did this person say?”

“Told me some names and where these people lived. Told me that these women were running around telling the cops and the D.A. and anybody who would listen that I strangled Phoebe that night. That they saw me at the camp later that night.”

“When did the call come? What day of the week?”

“I don’t know. Last weekend. Saturday, I think.”

“To your house?”

“Yeah.”

“You listed?”

“Yeah.”

“So you decided to talk to the witnesses, straighten them out.”

“That’s right. Like I told you, I’m an innocent man. They’ve got no business running all over town wrecking my good name.”

“So how’d you find them?”

“I called around. Called Brandy Taylor’s house in Palo Alto. Their machine message gave her cell number out. I called the number a couple of times. When I finally reached her, she asked did I know where Bruce was? So I, uh, played along you might say. Told her he wanted to meet her, that his cell phone was broke so he couldn’t call her himself. Can you believe she bought that? People ought to be more careful. She must have been desperate to see the guy.”

“You met her at the beach just to talk?”

“That’s right. But those two ladies, they’re loons. Before I could even introduce myself, they started screaming and jumping around. I tried to settle them down, and the one got knocked over. Things went from bad to seriously bad. Then, you know, I holed up at the Hilltop in Truckee. Laid low.”

“While you waited for some money to come in.”

“That’s right. Mario tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“He has a share coming, if I ever contact that guy that owes us, which doesn’t look too likely with me stuck here.”

“Mario would be delighted to hear that.”

“Yeah, he probably thinks I’m planning to stiff him. Maybe I will. Least I can do for Phoebe.”

“You mean because if you didn’t kill Phoebe, odds are, he did.”

“Yeah. Bastard,” Cody said. “How could he do that? You think you know someone. Oh, I’ll never get over her. I can’t believe she’s gone. You ever see a picture of her?”

Paul nodded.

“Then you know she was drop-dead hot. But she was somebody, you know? A real nice person, warm. Homey. She also had this completely lousy singing voice.” He sang a few notes in a grinding, off-key falsetto. “Like that. Bad enough to bend a spoon. She knew she sounded terrible, but she didn’t give a damn, sang all the time anyway, loud.” He sighed. “She’d tickle my face with that silky black hair of hers to wake me up… We were just starting to talk kids when Mario showed up.” He shook his head, sounding forlorn. “Jealousy’s a mean, unpredictable son of a bitch.”

“While you were at the Hilltop, you got another call? I mean, how did you know those two women were staying at the women’s shelter?”

“I called Carol-a family friend-and we got to talking. We were guessing where two ladies who wanted to feel safe might hide. She told me about the shelter. Before her divorce she escaped from her former old man there once.”

Paul remembered that name. “Carol Ames is the woman who gave you the alibi for that night.”

“She wasn’t lying. She never even knew I left. She sleeps hard. It was easy to sneak out.”