Broken (11 page)

Chapter 16

I felt my
legs starting to tremble as I walked back to my Mustang. When was the last time
I’d had a drink? This morning? Yes, and I’d thrown that up. That might be a new
record for my sobriety, although to be fair I’d still been pretty drunk when
I’d woken up this morning.

Withdrawal wasn’t on the agenda tonight. I needed to get
a drink soon if I was going to stay functional. When this was all over I really
needed to think about seeing a doctor, maybe get some tests done and see what
was going on with my liver. If I even still had a liver. Experience told me I
would never actually make the appointment, but at least I could pretend to think
about it.

I drove three blocks up the street until I came to a
run-down liquor store, the kind with steel bars over the windows that were
ubiquitous in bad neighborhoods. Inside I picked up an energy drink and a
flask-sized bottle of cheap vodka. The cashier stuck it in a paper bag for me,
the camouflage of street alcoholics everywhere. I didn’t need it. I had a car
to drink it in.

Once I got back behind the wheel I choked down three
large mouthfuls of vodka, nearly vomiting after the third. I had to swallow
hard a good dozen times afterward to suppress my gag reflex. It was hard not to
notice that the act of drinking itself had been getting more difficult lately.
I was probably so poisoned by this point that my body couldn’t stand taking any
more alcohol in. My body would have to deal. I didn’t have time to have a
seizure today.

When I was sure I could keep the alcohol down I raised
my right hand into the air and watched it for a moment. It was pretty far from
steady, but once the liquor took hold I should be fine for a while. At least
for long enough for me to get up to Heather’s condo and ask some questions.

I considered taking the rest of the vodka along with me,
but decided instead to get rid of it. There was no need to have an open
container in the car if I did get stopped. I was about to chuck the bottle into
the trash can outside the store when I spotted a homeless guy snoring on the sidewalk
half a block away. I walked over and sat the paper bag down next to him. He
needed it more than the trash can did.

Back in the car I took a long look at myself in the visor
mirror. I really did look like someone who had been dead for a while. I didn’t
like it all that much. I’d never  been beautiful, but I’d certainly looked a
hell of a lot better than
this
.

For one brief moment I thought about driving the three
blocks back to the A.A. meeting and sitting there for the rest of the hour. It
wouldn’t take long. But I needed to work. Time was too important now, and what
good was sitting in a church possibly going to do me? I could find out who Bill
W. was some other time.

I put the car in gear and squealed the tires as I pulled
away from the curb, starting off for Heather Davies’s condo in La Jolla.

The security guard in the lobby was the same guy I’d
talked to when I’d been here the other night, meaning he wasn’t the guy who had
been here when Heather’s kidnappers had taken her away. I’d never bothered to
get the guy’s name. He looked up at me as I entered the lobby. Recognition
showed on his face, but I could also see a question written there.

“Hi there,” I smiled.

“Hello,” he replied.

“Nice night tonight?”

“It’s…fine,” he said. “Ms…”

“James.”

“That’s right,” he said, the question on his face
answered now. “It’s Nevada, isn’t it?”

“It is. What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack…”

“Jack Stevens.”

 I watched him for a moment, hoping I had enough
intuition left to let me know if he was hiding something from me. “You know,
Jack, you knew me right away the last time I was here. You said, ‘Good evening,
Ms. James.’”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I’d been told to expect
you just before you arrived.”

Truth
, I thought. “That’s how it works in a place
like this, isn’t it?”

“How’s that?”

“Let’s do an experiment. I walk in here and say, ‘Hi,
I’m Nevada James. I’m here to visit Bill Jones in unit 112.’”

He frowned. “But there isn’t a Bill Jones in unit 112.
That’s Mr. Anderson.”

“It’s an experiment, Jack. Work with me here. What would
you say?”

Jack clearly wasn’t used to this kind of bold thinking.
“I’d say that I need to call up to Mr. Anderson…uh, Mr. Jones…and let him know you’re
here.”

“Oh, but we’re old friends, Bill and I. I just got in
from Tallahassee and I want to surprise him.”

“Tallahassee?”

“It’s just an example.”

“I still need to call him,” Jack said. “It’s the rules.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “What if Bill had told
you in advance he was expecting me and to just let me go on past?”

“I’d let you go on past.”

“You wouldn’t call up?”

“Not necessarily, no. Maybe.” He looked like he’d just
bet everything on the last
Jeopardy!
question and couldn’t decide
between two answers.

“Close enough,” I said “Same with deliveries?”

“Ma’am?”

“I’ve got flowers for Bill Jones. Can I go on up to 112
or are you going to call him?”

“You don’t have any…” he started to say. “Yes, I’m going
to have to call up.”

“Now, instead of flowers, I’ve got two enormous crates.”

“What’s in the crates?”

“Does it really matter what’s in the crates?”

He thought about it. “I guess not.”

“Okay. Are you calling up to Bill?”

“Of course.”

“Unless?”

He thought about it. “Unless I knew the crates were
coming and had been told to send them up.”

“We’re getting somewhere now,” I said. “The last
delivery Heather Davies received was two crates. It’s on your list, in the
drawer there.”

He retrieved his clipboard from the desk drawer and
started flipping through it. “In at 2:53,” I remembered.

“Out at 3:20,” he nodded. “You’re right.”

 “I know you guys didn’t call up to Heather Davies,” I
said. “But she wasn’t expecting any delivery. She never told you to let anyone
go by.”

“Oh.”

“So who told you guys the crates were coming?”

He looked at his clipboard. “Nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“There was no need,” Jack said. “He signed the crates in
himself.”

That wasn’t what I had been expecting. “Who signed them
in?”

Jack turned the clipboard around and showed it to me.
Next to the in and out times was a signature block. I’d never seen his
signature before, but it was there, as prim, proper, and somehow as arrogant as
I would have expected it to be: Chandler Emerson.

Chapter 17

“Well,
I’ll be goddamned,” I said.

“Ma’am?”

I didn’t
answer him. I was busy trying to work out whether I was the world’s biggest
idiot. It was starting to look that way.

“Is everything
all right?” Jack asked.

“Not
really,” I said. The signature could have been forged, of course. If they
didn’t have one on file to compare it to, how would the guards have ever known?
I could have done it myself if I’d wanted to, although I might have been tempted
to replace the “s” in Emerson’s name with a dollar sign.

“Do
you…want me to call someone?”

“How do
you know Chandler Emerson signed that?” I asked, pointing at the signature.
“Couldn’t anyone walk in here and sign his name there?”

“No,”
Jack said. “We check IDs, but in his case the guard on duty probably knew him by
sight and didn’t need to. Mr. Emerson is on the lease. He’s been here before,
plenty of times.”

I’d seen
Emerson’s name on the lease when I’d been going through Heather’s paperwork. It
made sense that any of the guards here might have seen him before.

“I’ve
met him myself once or twice,” Jack said, as if he had just read my mind.

“How
nice for you,” I murmured. Emerson was definitely involved. But was he behind
it or was he just a pawn, like poor Todd had been? I’d read him as a small,
scared man, not someone who had the steel to pull something like this off.
Could I have been
that
wrong?

God, I
really needed to quit drinking.

“Do you
want me to call Mr. Emerson?” Jack asked. His hand had strayed toward the desk
drawer. “I have his number in here somewhere.”

“No,” I
said. “No need. I’m going to see him later on.” That was probably true. Chances
were I’d be seeing Emerson again
very
soon. Unless he was on a plane out
of the country, which was exactly where I’d be right now if I were him.

I left
Jack in the lobby and went to sit in my car, wishing I hadn’t given my vodka to
that homeless guy earlier. Maybe I could go and get it back from him. Or I
could just buy more. That sounded like a much better idea.

Once
again I found myself wishing I had my cell phone handy. I really needed to
track that damn thing down. Or maybe I’d just pick up a burner the next time I
was in a convenience store. Pay phones were a thing of the past these days; you
hardly ever saw them and who carried that many quarters, anyway? I couldn’t be
running home every time I needed to make a phone call.

It was
getting late. Dan had been out at a crime scene earlier, which meant there was
a good chance he was still in the office doing paperwork and brooding. I could
stop by and pick his brain. I could even tell him I’d gone to an A.A. meeting,
which might get me back onto his good side after I’d told him I’d lied to him
when I’d told him I thought I was working on nothing more interesting than a
domestic dispute.

But what
I really wanted right now was information, and it was the kind that Dan wouldn’t
be able to give me without getting a warrant. And given that he was a homicide
detective with no jurisdiction over a kidnapping case that should have gone straight
to the FBI anyway, that warrant was never going to come.

There
were other ways to get information, though.

I put
the car in gear and headed for Santee, a small suburban city just northeast of
San Diego. I hadn’t been out there in years. Santee wasn’t on the way to
anything and there was no real reason to go there unless you called it home. But
I had someone I wanted to see and I was fairly sure I could still find his
house, unless he had moved. In that case, I’d be screwed.

There
had been road construction on the way to Santee and the freeway didn’t run the
way I remembered it. I wound up taking the wrong exit off of Route 52, but
eventually found the McMansion I was looking for in a relatively upscale
neighborhood. It was certainly nicer than
my
neighborhood, anyway, but
after spending so much time at Alan Davies’s estate I was beginning to take a
second look at anything, assuming people were broke if they didn’t have columns
and marble fountains in front of their houses.

I got
out of the car and went to ring the doorbell. After a brief moment an
impossibly handsome man answered the door. He wore tight blue jeans, no shirt,
and had silky brown hair that reached down to his shoulders. He looked like
he’d stepped out of a Calvin Klein catalog.

“Wow,” I
said.

He
smiled at me. “Can I help you, miss?”

Miss
?
He was my new favorite person in the world. I opened my mouth to speak but
realized I’d forgotten what I’d come here for. I’d also forgotten most of the
words in the English language. I managed to make a strange squeaking noise
before I shut my mouth again.

“Who is
it?” a new voice asked. The shirtless Adonis stepped aside and I saw the man
I’d been looking for. Scott Landers was in his mid-forties, lean with a
swimmer’s build, and wore small circular eyeglasses that made him look like
John Lennon with a Wall Street haircut. “Good god!” he said, his face turning
white. “Nevada!”

“Scott,”
I said, trying to get my thoughts together before I made a fool of myself.

“Is
this…” he began. “My, god. You caught him?”

My heart
sank. I should have called Scott before I showed up on his doorstep. He thought
I’d come to give him the news he’d been waiting so long to hear in person. That
I’d caught the Laughing Man. Or better yet, that I’d killed him slowly.

I needed
to find my goddamn cell phone.

“No,” I
said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. It’s not about that.”

He
sighed. “I wouldn’t have been that lucky, I guess. Well, come in. It’s nice to
see you. Quite a surprise, but nice.”

Scott
showed me inside. I’d been here before several times in the past, but it had
been quite a while and he’d remodeled the interior since then, probably
spending more on his living room than I’d made in the best year of my life. We
sat down on leather couches while the Mayor of Hot Town took his shirtless self
into the kitchen to make tea.

“New
boyfriend?” I asked Scott.

“Fiancée,
now,” he said. “But I doubt you came to RSVP in person.” He noted my confused
look. “I sent you a wedding invitation some time ago.”

I’d
never noticed it. It had probably gone into the trash with a pile of unpaid
bills. “Congratulations,” I said. “He’s…he’s really something.”

“He is,
isn’t he?” Scott smiled, but his eyes betrayed his disappointment in me.
“Jean-Paul owns a salon in the Gaslamp. You really should let him take a look
at your  hair. It looks like you’ve been cutting it yourself.”

“When it
gets in my eyes,” I admitted. I’d been taking kitchen shears to it every now
and then for at least a few years.

Jean-Paul
returned to the living room with a steaming teapot and three cups on a tray
that he placed carefully on the glass coffee table between us. He reached out
and took a lock of my hair in his fingers, feeling it between them for a
moment. Any other man who tried that would have gotten a broken arm for his
trouble, but I decided Jean-Paul could do anything he wanted.

“I love
a challenge,” Jean-Paul told me. “Come see me next week. I’ll give you one of
my cards before you go.”

I wanted
to say yes but was afraid I’d just make another squeaking sound, so I kept my
mouth shut.

Jean-Paul
took a seat next to Scott. “I suspect this isn’t a social call,” Scott said.

“No,” I
admitted, a bit ashamed of myself. Scott deserved better than this. He’d spent
years waiting for me to come to him with good news, but all I had was a request
that he do something very illegal for me.

“Have
you come for financial advice? Why do I doubt that?”

“Because
you know I don’t have any money to invest.”

“Then…”

I
glanced at Jean-Paul, then back at Scott, trying to ask a question without
saying it out loud.

“Jean-Paul
knows about my past,” Scott said.

“We
share everything,” Jean-Paul confirmed.

I
nodded. That would make this a lot less awkward. Scott Landers was a stockbroker
and had made a small fortune in the early 2000’s investing in tech stocks. What
was less known was that prior to his career in finance, he had been one of the
most notorious computer hackers on the West Coast. He’d made a large fortune by
cracking bank systems and making money vanish from accounts, only to reappear
in accounts he controlled. I had no idea how much he’d gotten away with before
he retired. Nor did the FBI, who was still looking for “The Red Mockingbird,”
the only name they’d ever known him by. I imagined the NSA and half a dozen
other government agencies would also have liked to know his current whereabouts.

I broke
down the case for Scott. He listened patiently, absently toying with
Jean-Paul’s hair while I talked. I wondered if they’d mind if I toyed with
Jean-Paul’s hair, also. He’d touched mine, after all. It only seemed fair.

Scott
was quiet for a moment after I’d finished, sipping his tea. “It sounds to me
like you need information, but that this information would be difficult for you
to come by through legitimate means.”

“Everything
there is to know about Emerson’s money,” I nodded. “If he’s getting payments
that can’t be accounted for. If he’s spending money that can’t be accounted for.
Where he shops, if he just bought a million dollars in Swiss bearer bonds, a
house in Antigua, or a case of gold coins…” I frowned, something just having
occurred to me. “If I got you the account number of the Swiss bank could you…”

“No,” he
cut me off. “Not in the time frame you need it by, anyway. The Swiss may be the
only people in the world who do security right.”

“But
Emerson’s accounts?”

“Anything
in the U.S. I can get you a pretty good look at.”

“How
long?”

“Not
long, but I have to put some equipment together and then I’ll have to take
it…somewhere else.”

I
nodded. “Could the FBI track it back to you here?”

“Not
yet,” Scott said. “But in ten years, who knows what they’ll be able to do? So
it won’t be done from here.”

“There’s
a reason you never got caught,” I said. Scott was one of the most careful
people I knew.

“I
know,” he nodded. “Tomorrow afternoon, maybe. I realize time is not on your
side, but that’s the best I can do. I have to be careful about this.”

“Okay.
Thanks.” I knew not to push him.

He
looked at me coldly. “It’s not free, Nevada.”

“I don’t
have anything now. Davies will pay me when I have his daughter.”

Scott
sighed and rolled his eyes. “Good god. Do you really think I’m talking about
money?” He turned to Jean-Paul. “Dear, Nevada looks like she’s been washing her
hair with something she found growing under her sink. Do you think you could
put together a little care package for her?”

Jean-Paul
and I both knew that was a pathetic excuse to get him out of the room for a few
minutes. He smiled gently at Scott and left us alone.

Scott
waited until he was sure Jean-Paul was gone, and then his calm expression
melted away into one of long-suppressed anger. “I went to an A.A. meeting…” I
began.

“Oh,
shut up,” he snapped. I shut up and let him glare at me, my hands folded in my
lap. I’d known this was coming when I’d seen him at the door.

Scott’s
eyes were on fire. “My brother is rotting in the ground,” he finally said. “He
is
in the ground
. Do you know what next week is?”

Was he
kidding? Half the time I didn’t know what
year
it was. But he wouldn’t
have asked unless… “His birthday.”

“His
birthday,” Scott said. “So next week I’ll drive my mother out to his grave.
She’ll put flowers next to his headstone and cry, and I’ll cry, and you know
what, Nevada? I would like to tell her that we can take some small comfort in
the fact that his killer was brought to justice. And it would only be a small
comfort, but it would be
something
, at least. But I can’t do that this
year.
Again
.”

“No,” I
said quietly.

“Do you
know why?”

“Of
course I know why.”

I knew he
was going to tell me anyway. “Because the only person actually capable of
catching
the Laughing Man is too busy drinking herself to death in her shitty little
house. Hmm? Because Nevada James would rather feel sorry for herself than
get
off her ass
and go do something about it.”

Those
were fighting words, but I had nothing to fight with. He wasn’t wrong. “It’s a
nice house,” I protested weakly.

“It was
a nice house before you trashed it.” I looked up at him, surprised that he knew
that. “I know what your house looks like, Nevada. I went to see you three
months ago.”

“You
did?”

“I did.
I’m a very proud man, but I was prepared to get on my knees and beg you for
help. I had reached the point where I was willing to beg. Do you know what
that’s like? To beg for help?”

“I
wasn’t home, I guess.” I
hoped
.

“You
were
home. You were drunk and incoherent. I don’t think you even knew who I was.”

I shook
my head. That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember
that.”

“I’m not
surprised.”

“Look,
I’ve had a rough time…”

“Oh,
fuck
your rough time. I am so sick of hearing about your rough time.
Everyone
has had a rough time, Nevada. Either get over it or kill yourself.”