A Bitch Called Hope (12 page)

“If smoking would bring on an attack, why would your dad do it?”

“No self-control,” Scott said.

“Like at the party with Priscilla?”

Scott drained his beer. He didn’t wipe the foam off his lip. “It was nothing.”

“Tell me about your parents’ will.”

“What about it?”

“How did you know that you would inherit?”

He lit a cigarette and sucked in a lungful of smoke. Tipped his chin up and popped out a succession of smoke rings. “Because I looked,” he said. “Sue me.”

Chapter 17

Diagonals of cold, sleety rain blew against Lennox’s legs as she made her way from Scott’s apartment on Irving Street through the alphabet finally to Quimby Street where she had parked her car. Not one shopper looked jolly as they scoured the shops for Christmas presents. But Lennox was happy, the cigar box her first solid lead. She sat in her truck and called Kline, told him she wanted to see Delia first thing in the morning. Kline got hinky with her, said she was going to have trouble with this line of inquiry. Told her Delia was unhappy with Lennox’s investigation. Then he went off about impeaching evidence and cracks in the prosecutor’s case and reasonable doubt and then more about fucking cracks.

“But the prosecutor’s case is solid,” she said.

“Look, I can’t talk now,” he said. They agreed to meet at the jail at ten the following morning. Her truck windows were fogged over. She was feeling steamed all right. She turned the key in the ignition and let the defrost blow cold air in her face.

And called Tommy. She asked him if they could they meet after work. There were some things she wanted to discuss with him.

He was saying you bet before she’d finished her sentence.

“No last minute Christmas shopping?” she said.

“How’s seven?” he said.

The Yuk Tav—if he hadn’t suggested it, she probably would have. At seven sharp she parked around the corner from the tavern and got an eyeful of the Christmas revelers across the street at Papa Haydn’s. From the windows she watched them in their party clothes laugh and click champagne flutes. It was candlelight and triple chocolate torte at Papa Haydn’s.

The Yuk Tav was a whole different experience, a little oasis in a sea of starched tablecloths and waiters with master’s degrees. The Yukon Tavern didn’t have a website, didn’t have half its neon, but it served six different microbrews on tap and had a surprisingly good back bar. It was located in the Sellwood neighborhood, a tangle of shops and eating establishments both blue collar and la-di-da. An old favorite of Lennox and Tommy’s, least it used to be, dive bars being a hobby they both had shared. And it was always nice to have a place you could quaff a couple drinks and not worry about running into anyone you knew, like a wife.

It might be Christmas party and soft lights at Papa Haydn’s, but down at the Yuk Tav they kept the lights turned up to harsh, just in case you’d walk in and miss the dusty Halloween decorations and taped red vinyl seats. Or the spider veins running across Jeannie’s nose. Jeannie, who had tended bar there since the dust settled.

“I thought you had died or something,” she said to Lennox in a throaty, two-pack-a-day voice. She slapped a cocktail napkin, one with their Stone Age cocktail jokes, on the bar and placed a pint of pale ale on top of it. “Where’s Laughing Boy?” she said.

“Running late,” Lennox said.

Jeannie nodded wisely. “Some things don’t change.”

Lennox was halfway through her pint when an old dude plugged quarters into the vintage jukebox and out came “I Write the Songs.” Where else could you hear Barry Freaking Manilow?

Tommy breezed in. His hair curled over the collar of his jacket, the date night leather jacket. His beard was filling in. The bright lights of the Yuk Tav reflected off the tip of his nose and cheekbones.

“Jeannie, my love.” He leaned across the bar and snatched Jeannie’s hand, a hand still clutching a bar rag, and bent his lips over it in a kiss. Jeannie started laughing and collapsed into a coughing fit. He dropped her hand and put his on Lennox’s shoulder, nuzzled the back of her neck.

Lennox pulled away. “Don’t,” she said.

“I can’t help it,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she said. “You can.”

He sat on the bar stool, said he was sorry and kept his eyes off her as he ordered a Jack on the rocks. He paid for his drink and they went to their favorite booth in the corner.

There they were back in their old booth and his eyes were still the color of the sea and his dimples miles deep. Not that she cared how he looked, not much anyway. He lifted his drink and read the jokes on his napkin, groaned and shook his head like he always did. Then he set his drink down and squared the napkin to the edge of the table. Took a sip and set it down again. Finally he said, “What did you want to see me about?”

“The autopsy report on Bill Pike,” she said. “What did you make of the tobacco under his fingernails?”

“Whoa.” Tommy’s drink sloshed over his fingers and soaked the napkin. “You know better. I can’t talk to you about this. They’d fire my ass.”

Fire his ass? Who did he think he was talking to here? “Jeannie,” she called. “Give me a Jack. A double. Two doubles. One for me and one for Laughing Boy.”

“No-oh,” Tommy said. “I’m not talking about the case, Dish.”

“Come on, Tommy, give me something,” she said. “I thought you wanted to be friends.”

Tommy rolled his shoulders, popped his neck, his leather jacket creaking with every adjustment as he made up his mind. “The old guy smoked. Probably why he had asthma. So what?”

She said, “Delia tells me Bill had given up smoking five years ago. Said the smoke would bring on an asthma attack.”

“So he lapsed. It happens all the time.”

“Bill probably smoked one of those cigars you found out behind the house.”

Tommy put his drink carefully on the table and turned the full wattage of his attention on her.

“How do you know what we found in the back of the house?” His tone was dangerous.

“We’re entitled to discovery.”

“There was nothing back there. Yard debris,” he said. “Which is why you didn’t get it in discovery. Who have you been talking to?”

“Are you telling me you didn’t find any cigar butts?” she said.

“You got all the discovery. Period.”

“When I was a cop, we didn’t keep secrets,” she said.

Which was never true. A married man always has his secrets. It was a dig. If not for Tommy she’d still be a cop. She knew it, he knew it.

“What about Bill and Delia’s laptops? Their datebooks?”

Tommy took a long pull from his drink. “If I’m getting this right and I give you what you want, we can be friends?”

What he was calling friends wasn’t about sharing stories and a bar tab; he was asking her to whore for information. So she had a choice: throw her beer in his face, or get what she came here for. “I’m not asking for the moon,” she said. “Someone tempted Bill with a box of Havanas that cost as much as a car payment. I just think maybe the person who talked Bill into having a cigar was the same person who switched labels on the inhalers. As for the computers, I should have access.”

“There was nothing interesting on their computers,” Tommy said. “Photographs. Music. E-mail. None of it had a thing to do with the murder.”

“Just the same, I’d like a look.”

“You know the drill. We don’t use it, you don’t get a look at it.”

“What about the cigars?” she said.

“How do you know Pike didn’t buy them for himself?” he said. “You’re making too much of this. The guy had some drinks. Impaired judgment, not good impulse control to begin with.” Tommy smirked. “What did I always tell you?” he continued, taking a patronizing tone with her. “The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one.”

“You were always the lazy one not thinking things through,” she said. “Impulse control. How does that jibe with buying the cigars for himself?”

“You want to bet who’s right this time?” he said. The missing grin materialized on his face.

“If it’s just yard debris,” she said, “let me have it.”

His smile deepened and the dimples plumbed new depths. “What will you give me?”

Like she hadn’t already given him more than he ever had a right to. “You’re blocking a legitimate lead. And now you want to turn this into some kind of game?”

He wore that stunned look men get when you get too real for them. “I just want to be friends,” he said.

“Then give me the fucking evidence.”

Tommy did a credible impression of a man who’d given up trying to be reasonable with an unreasonable woman. He slapped a couple bills on the table and slid out of the booth.

“Good-bye, Dish,” he said.

Chapter 18

You’d have to live in Portland to witness firsthand how hysterical Portlanders get when they see two flakes of snow. The local news jams with school closings and cancelled events from book clubs to Pilates classes to the Knights of Columbus monthly meeting.

Lennox’s twenty-minute commute to the jail the next morning turned into a forty-five-minute slog as she passed cars creeping at twenty miles an hour. But once she got downtown it was life as usual, a river of intrepid consumers going from store to store still shopping for the holidays. God bless ‘em, every one. Lennox parked the Bronco five blocks from the jail.

Kline was waiting at the top of the jail steps, out of the weather. He glanced at his watch. She was fifteen minutes late.

“Traffic,” she said.

“Delia’s not happy with us,” Kline said.

Kline glanced past her and drew in his breath. She turned as Doctor E marched up the sidewalk and climbed the jail steps. He wore a pale blue muffler wrapped several times around his neck. The tip of his sharp nose was red with the cold.

The three of them passed through security and stood together in the high-ceilinged lobby of the jail. The floor was gray granite, the few sticks of furniture were black, one wall was covered with what looked like crumpled tinfoil, the other walls were gray. There was a slight oily tinge to the air, which added to the impression that they were standing inside a vast firearm.

“Delia called for me. I can’t tell you how upset she is,” Doctor E said. “Instead of working to get her out, you’ve been pestering her family. Why is she still in this place?”

A policewoman walked past. Kline knew better than anyone that a jail lobby was no place to have a sit-down; still, a guy can have his chain jerked only so many times.

He rocked slightly forward on the balls of his feet. The two men stood in the middle of the lobby floor, slugging distance from one another. “I’ve told my client why she’s still in here. If she wants to share that information with you, she will.”

Good. Two alpha men— best thing for Lennox was to let them struggle with the reins of power. See what shook out.

“Delia’s too fragile to manage anything beyond her own health and spirits,” said Doctor E. “I’m representing the family now.”

Kline fastened his iron gray eyes on the doctor. “Delia may feel fragile,” he said. “But she’s not incompetent and you’re not family.”

Several uniformed officers had passed them to get to the elevators. It seemed to Lennox they were keeping an eye and both ears on Kline and the doc.

Doctor E said, “Delia’s asked me to manage her affairs, as both her doctor and her fiancé.”

Excuse me, her fiancé? Was Delia out of her ever-loving mind?

Kline stared at Doctor E, his mouth half-open. Which made Lennox realize she, too, was standing there gape-mouthed. Kline said, “Of course, I’ll need to check this with Delia.”

“Do that.” Doctor E looked pointedly at his watch. “You were hired to protect the family, not to poke into their private business. Now Father Mac is complaining to Delia that your investigator has insulted him.”

Lennox leaned forward. “Wait a minute—” She was going to say, you’re telling me the priest is off-limits?

But Kline lifted a halt-right-there hand. “Not a word,” he told her. To the doctor he said in an even voice. “We were just discussing this very thing.”

“Good. I’ll tell her it’s handled.” Doctor E nodded, looking pretty damn self-satisfied. Then walked to the elevator.

Lennox never set herself up as the chairman of propriety, but this was flat wrong in so many ways. “We’re taking orders from Mrs. Pike’s boyfriend?”

“We’re taking this outside,” Kline said. “We’ll have to meet with Delia later.”

They passed the security line and walked down the steps into the snow.

“Why didn’t you want me to say anything?” she said as they reached the sidewalk.

“What I’ve been trying to tell you for a couple weeks now, but you’re so busy acting like a cop, you don’t listen. Delia has made it clear she doesn’t want you to investigate her boys or Doctor E. If you don’t stop now, she’s prepared to hire a different defense team.”

So that was it. First and foremost he wanted his fee. “Come on,” she said and jammed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “The DA’s got a winnable case against Delia. Someone in her family murdered her husband. If we don’t find out who, it’s damned likely she’ll go down for it.”

“You don’t know that.” Kline brushed off the snow from his hair and hauled in a deep breath. His exhale was white as smoke. “Since you’ve been a PI you’ve been investigating insurance claims. Once in a while you get a divorce. What do you know about investigating murder from the defense side of the bench?”

“It doesn’t matter what side of the bench I’m on,” she said. “I’ve had four years as a homicide detective.” The cold seeped through her shoes making her whole body ache from cold.

They were heading in the direction of Kline’s office. The longer they argued, the faster Kline walked. If they couldn’t find something to agree about, she’d be sprinting by the time they reached the Park blocks. The snowflakes grew bigger and wetter. A BMW lost traction and fishtailed, missing a parked car by a whisker. They reached the corner of Salmon and Broadway.

“My truck is parked on the next corner,” she said.

But Kline continued marching past her corner. Pontificating. Apparently there were a hundred ways a PI’s work is different from a cop’s. No shit. How witnesses weren’t required to talk to her. They could lie to her. Yada-yada.