High Fall (26 page)

Melchior poised his pen over a printed form. “Do you go out of your way to conduct all your lawbreaking activities in my district of the city, Ms. O’Shaughnessy? Or do you spend your daylight hours also careening through Point Loma or breaking into hotel rooms downtown?”

“I told the patrolman and I’m telling you—
I’m
not the one who hit that car,” she said, taking a step back from the counter, which was almost chin high for her. The reception area was empty but for a couple of other cops—presumably business was slow here on Wednesday nights. “Check my Jeep for scratches; you won’t find any. I’m not the offender.
I’m
the one who tracked him down and kept him busy until your men could find us,” she said with a straight face. “Is this the kind thanks a citizen gets in San Diego for putting herself in danger? Or just here at the
mall
station?”

Melchior hesitated just long enough to signal to the cognoscenti that he had heard enough cracks about the station’s Eastgate Mall address. “In danger? I assume, Ms. O’Shaughnessy, that you’ve been offered transport to a doctor?”

“I
am
a doctor.”

“A private eye and a doctor. My, oh my!”

Glaring at him, she let a beat pass before saying, “I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll definitely call one if this keeps on. Now tell me what you need, and let me get out of here.”

“Relax. You don’t make the rules here.”

Her back tightened; her neck felt as taut as if it were in a brace. She pulled out her address book and began paging through it. If she called at this hour, Ardis Ramaswami would take her head off. And having disposed with that, she’d race down to the police station like a hungry tiger and not be mollified till she’d chewed off every head that poked out of a tan uniform. It was not a call to be made lightly.

“We need your statement. In my office.”

“I gave it to the patrol officer. I’m too exhausted to do it all again.”

“Let me remind you, Miss—
Doctor
O’Shaughnessy, that we can charge you with reckless driving, reckless endangerment—”

“No one saw me driving.”

“Harboring a fugitive …”

/
didn’t know he was a fugitive,
she started to retort. But she’d already blown that one. Melchior, she realized, had not yet gotten the official word on her. If the forces of Hollywood and municipal San Diego were already pushing him, he wouldn’t be wasting words like this. Either McCafferty had been leading her on—and she doubted that—or she had to get out of here before the word reached Melchior. “Look, I’ll come back in the morning and give you a statement.”

“No, you won’t! You’re not leaving till you give me a damn good explanation of how you got hit over the head last night in an apartment rented to some woman in L.A. and ended up there tonight with the Evel Knievel of Pacific Beach paths.”

How much to tell him? The years she had worked in the coroner’s department, the police had been her allies. But it had not been a natural alliance. Trusting the authorities was something she would never do easily. Their job was to protect the status quo, and she was by nature a perpetual threat to that quo. “Like I told you, I’m checking out the accident at Gliderport yesterday.”

“
With
who?”

No one,
she almost snapped. Technically, Lark’s death wasn’t a murder. And the place where Lark had died wasn’t in his jurisdiction. The area around Gliderport was a quagmire of jurisdictional disputes. The land on top—the parking area—was city owned, the bluff itself was a state park, and portions of the beach belonged to each. “The cliff is the Parks Department’s. It never occurred to me you’d be involved in their case.”

Melchior hesitated.

Damn. She shouldn’t have baited him.

Melchior glanced at his phone list, then apparently thought better of disturbing the overworked rangers. He opened the gate in the counter and motioned her to a hard chair by the metal desk behind. “So, Miss O’Shaughnessy, just why were you following—at whatever distance and speed you say—Mr. Pedora?”

She didn’t move. “Because he tailed me from L.A. Finally, when I saw him sitting outside Liam McCafferty’s house—”

“You’re involved with Mr. McCafferty?” Clearly, the words had escaped Melchior’s lips before he could censor them.

With an effort, Kiernan restrained a smile. “You know Liam?” She hoped she wasn’t laying it on too thick.

“We know city officials.”

Melchior was doing his best to pass this off; she had every intention of letting him. The last thing she wanted was Melchior in contact with McCafferty and talking about her. But the interchange did tell her that McCafferty was more important than she’d realized. The assistant-designate to the state treasurer was a powerful man. A bad choice for an enemy. She stood. “So if that’s all then, I’ll be—”

“Sit down!” The typewriter across the room stopped; the patrolman at the desk froze. Even the phones ceased ringing, as if every con in La Jolla and Pacific Beach had called a momentary work stoppage. “You’ll do the statement now!”

The front door opened.

Momentarily, Tchernak filled the empty space. Then he strode forward, eyeing the defensive team behind the desk like a line set to blitz his quarterback. He leaned his six-four-240 on the counter. His deep raspy voice was frighteningly quiet as he said, “I need to get this woman home.”

Melchior looked at Kiernan and said in a stage whisper, “Is this the boyfriend you moved to Pacific Beach to get away from?”

“You’re Brad Tchernak, aren’t you?” the patrolman blurted out. “Hey, I saw you play against San Francisco when you smacked Haley into the mud. You were great, man. And the Raiders’ game that year … you know, my kid would go crazy over an autograph. His birthday is next week, and—”

All four phones rang. The outside door opened, admitting a loud argument and the couple creating it.

Melchior threw up his hands. He stepped in front of the patrolman. “Okay, Mr. Tchernak, take her. Get her back here in the morning. You’re responsible.” To Kiernan, he added, “You get involved in one more thing, I’ll jail you as a public nuisance. I can do it.” He turned to Tchernak. “You were a great tackle, the best, but if you can’t keep her out of trouble, I’ll pull you in, too.”

Kiernan glared. “Look—”

Tchernak grabbed her arm, shoved her through the gate and on outside.

“Don’t you know the first thing about taunting? In football, you can break a guy’s back and go on playing. But taunting—that can get you thrown out of the game.”

“I don’t play team sports!”

“You ever see the offense or defense down on one knee on the sidelines in communal prayer?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Ever wonder what that prayer is? It’s thanksgiving that you’re not on their team.” He motioned across the parking lot to the Jeep. “What’s this about a car chase through Pee Bee?”

“I got tired of Pedora following me. Where’s the Triumph?”

“Changing the subject, eh? Well, Little T’s at home. I caught a ride up, because a good servant never knows when he’ll be called upon to chauffeur his mistress.”

The hairs on her neck bristled, but she didn’t retort.

“And I figured you wouldn’t want to wait to know what I’ve discovered about Jane Hogarth,” Tchernak added quickly. He climbed into the driver’s seat. Silently, she opened the other door.

“Well, chief investigator,” he said as he started the engine, “your humble assistant had already pressed Persis at BakDat, right? I could have decided that it was late, that Persis had been staring at the screen so long, her eyes were crossed and the only thing that would lighten her mood was taking a bite out of me. I could have waited until tomorrow. That’s what the average guy would do. But the professional investigator”—he paused momentarily, daring her with a glance, then went on—”plans every move. He—or she—thinks ahead. And what’s ahead, you may ask. For Persis, it’s the prospect of some good jazz to unwind to, and sleeping till noon. So I started in about how bad I felt about ruining her morning tomorrow, and how I’d just give her the order now and at least it would save her that much shut-eye later and—”

“I get the picture.” Tchernak, she had to admit—to herself, certainly not to him—had good instincts. Better assessments of people than she would have expected. Maybe all those years of pass blocking, of keeping a step ahead of the defensive end, guessing which way he’d move, guessing how he’d react and acting first, had honed his skill at reading an opponent.

“Not quite, you don’t. Persis decided she’d save herself the trouble and run Hogarth tonight—at day rates!” The hairs on his chin were virtually quivering with delight.

“Give yourself a bonus.”

“I’ve already added it to the Oregon cherry budget. Anyway, what Persis came up with was that Jane Hogarth shared an apartment with her sister Joyce, who cosigned a loan.”

“So you got Joyce’s Social Security number.”

“And, oh employer mine, her address in Los Angeles. Where I am heading in the morning. I figured she’ll be more susceptible to my charm in person. Right?”

Tchernak’s question hung in the air. Kiernan considered it. He deserved the chance; he’d earned it. And he could save her a lot of time. Chances were, he’d charm Joyce Hogarth. Women warmed right up to Tchernak’s sexy, unfinished face. There was a dangerous, exciting feel to the man. He loomed, but something about him made people think he loomed
for
them. Tchernak was the guy to have beside you in a dark alley, and the one you could bet your last breath would show up there. Maybe it was all those years of protecting the quarterback, of keeping the defensive end at bay no matter how many seconds it took for the quarterback to throw the ball. Or maybe it was his habit of concentrating intently on each person he met—flattering to those who didn’t realize that he was sizing them up, and that he’d have no qualms about using everything he gleaned against them.

But she wasn’t willing to give up being quarterback. And the idea of anyone, even Tchernak—or perhaps especially Tchernak—having the right to be involved in every case made her want to rip off her skin and run into the night. In her lexicon,
consensus
was synonymous with
jail.
On the other hand, she needed Joyce Hogarth’s information. And, hell, how could she tell Tchernak no? Another time, maybe, but not now. She shrugged. “Once you’ve gotten Joyce to tell you where Dratz and her sister parted company, call me.”

Tchernak looked over at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re so—well, down. I mean, like almost normal.”

She laughed, but as soon as the sound came out, she realized it was halfhearted.

“Is it the case? You frustrated? It’ll pick up. You’ve just started. You’ve got to be patient, make your plans, and wait.”

She leaned back against the seat, glancing absently at the lighted store windows on Girard Street. Tchernak turned left at the corner, and she peered at the black of the ocean each time she could see between buildings.

When Tchernak pulled into her driveway, he said, “Ezra could use a walk. Come with me. Unless you’re too tired.”

Kiernan laughed. A nighttime walk on the beach, next to the throbbing of the waves—the heartbeat of the earth—the briny smell of endless possibilities had never ceased to cheer her. The Elavil out the window, she’d called it. “Do I sound that bad?”

“Every bit. I’ve never seen you like this on a case before.”

“It’s not the case,” she said letting herself out of the Jeep and waiting while Tchernak got Ezra. “It’s, well …” She rubbed the big wolfhound’s back as he loped by to the sidewalk.

“Greg Gaige? Is that it?” Tchernak prodded.

“Well, yeah. I just hate to think Greg sank to stealing the job from a colleague and then died.”

Tchernak rested a hand on her shoulder. “Kiernan, job-stealing goes on all the time in business.”

“Of course,” she conceded. She stopped, rested her arms on the railing over the staircase to the beach, and looked out into the darkness. “It’s not just that Greg did it, Tchernak, it’s that he must have felt he
had
to. How could he
have
to? He was the best in the business.” She started down the cement steps to the beach. Ezra eyed the steps and chose a path beside it, half stepping, half slipping his way down.

“Maybe,” Tchernak said cautiously, as they reached the beach, “because of what he meant to you when you were younger—”

“No!” Kiernan snapped. Digging her heels into the sand, she strode across the beach to the water line. “Look, I don’t want to wallow in that, like I’m a member of Survivors of a Less-Than-Perfect Childhood. I’m over forty years old; I don’t need to blame my moods on my parents or parent-substitutes.”

Tchernak jumped back; she suspected it was not just to avoid the breaking wave. The water chilled her ankles; it felt good. Tchernak was right in part, but she didn’t want to get into that. “Look, you have to get up early. I’ll take Ezra the rest of the way.”

Tchernak laughed. “Very gracious offer. But I’ve defended myself against better tongues than yours. Down in a three-point stance on the line of scrimmage, you want to know what some of the ends have labeled me, my family, my friends, my sexual habits, my intelligence, or my chances of surviving the next play?”

She wrapped her fingers through his in the thanks she couldn’t choke out in words. It was foolish, this inability to put feelings into words. She’d strode so briskly through her adolescence, through the lines of neighbors who scorned her because of her sister’s suicide, that it had been a shock to discover she’d grown up and that people who knew nothing about the scandal were jumping back to avoid
her.
“When I saw Greg in San Francisco, he was as caught up in his work as Ezra is in running on the beach. He could have done TV interviews—the film company wanted him to. Instead, he went to dinner with me and figured someone else would like the limelight.”

“He was the best, then, right?”

“He was the leading gymnastic stunt man. He’d created gags no one could match.”

Tchernak sat down on a flat rock and rested his elbows on his thighs. “He was the best. He didn’t have to consider taking another guy’s job, not then.