No Footprints (9 page)

‟It's just a quick question. No biggie.”

When he didn't move, I said, ‟But I need it now. Is he here?”

‟I'll check.” He lifted the phone, still eyeing me like something alien. ‟He's in. Down the hall, last door on the left.” Before I could thank him, he pushed up and walked over to a clerk and started talking. If I was making a bad choice he wasn't going to be in line for the backlash.

I hurried down the hall. Every sensation seemed heightened. Cops' leather shoes didn't merely hit but drummed against the floor, ringing cell phones echoed off the walls, guys barked orders like machine guns firing. Even the smallest woman looked huge in her stiff blue uniform, overlarge belt with holders and holsters protruding like pontoons. The last time I'd been down this hall it'd been to view the meager effects of a woman I'd thought would be a friend, not a corpse. I didn't look at the door to the viewing room as I passed, or at the people on the benches. When you're waiting in the Hall of Justice, the best you can hope for is to walk out alone, angry or bereft. From there the options go downhill.

I stood in front of the door. Declan Serrano, it proclaimed. I'd never met him, even seen him, but I'd heard the name often enough from John, and Gary when he'd been acting as John's attorney in a corruption mess. Declan Serrano had been up to his nostrils but he'd managed to keep
breathing and doing it in a corner office. He was, John had insisted, too well connected to ever get his head pushed under. He'd outlast everyone. The cockroach of corruption, someone had called him. Now, in our house, he was just known as the cockroach.

‟Can I help you? You're Lott's sister, aren't you? The stuntwoman?”

It took me a moment to recalibrate my mental image of the cockroach to the guy popping out of his chair with hand extended to me. His head was shaved, his nose so straight and wide that it seemed like a long tube cut off above his mouth. He looked like a frat boy headed to the basketball court.

‟I'm here to see Declan Serrano.”

‟Got me! Come on in. Let me get this file out of the way.” The folder was bulky and frayed at the corners but he slipped it into a drawer as easily as if it were an envelope. The office was standard issue, but spotless. If I hadn't seen the folder I'd've wondered if he worked in here at all. There were no pictures, no placards, nothing but the sign on the door to say this was his. He motioned to a substantial metal armchair. ‟Sit, sit.”

I know better than to sit in the seat of the enemy, even one as enthusiastically welcoming as he,
especially
one as surprisingly welcoming. I propped my butt on the chair arm. ‟So you underwrite Skilled Copy on Cunningham.”

‟How'd you connect me?” He'd had a smile in place but for an instant it slipped. Now that cute, flat, frat boy nose looked reptilian and the eager brown eyes had narrowed momentarily, removing any hint of innocence. I could see him, as an enforcer, playing both sides, cutting deals, cutting out colleagues and stabbing them in the back. I blinked, and he was the eager friendly guy again.

No way was I dragging Kristi's name into this. I used an exercise from an acting class a few years ago—Mimicking the Speaker. Then we'd been able to stare, but now—not. I glanced at his face, and flashed the feel of it
on my own. Maybe seeing my unguarded thoughts pop up in meditation had shown me I was as much a phony as anyone else, or maybe I was truly reflecting him. ‟I've done a bit of detective work.”

‟Stunts and sleuthing.”

I flashed a false grin. ‟I could sleuth into whether you own the property or if it's leased to the department. Or something else. But that hardly seems worth my time, since I have a hard time believing you're just encouraging small business. So what is it?”

Before he could open his mouth I realized the answer. ‟A front.”

I was ready for hard-hitting denial, but he shrugged. ‟Yeah, a front for . . . for us.” He settled in his chair and again motioned me to slide down into mine, as if he hadn't just asked me to sit a minute ago. ‟A very good front. With legitimacy we couldn't buy.”

‟Lucky.”

‟Lucky.”

‟Or not just luck?”

‟Yes and no. Luck that I spotted her, luck she found a guy to underwrite her business. Luck, well no, not just luck that she handles that business well. Competence.”

‟On both your parts?”
I spotted her
—odd choice of terms. I could ponder that later. This sparring was a quick in-and-out game. ‟I need to find her.”

‟Why?”

‟She tried to jump off the bridge.”

‟The Golden Gate?”

‟I happened to be there. I pulled her back. I think it's her.”

‟You
think?
”

‟She didn't leave any identifying . . . anything. There're probably pictures on the bridge cams.”

‟What's it to you?”

The sparring was over. Now it was for real. I waited a moment, then told him what he'd know that I knew he knew and what it explained. ‟When someone goes missing you think there's a point that you'll adjust and go on with your life. There isn't. We waited for Mike every day. There was never a time we didn't wonder what we did wrong, what we missed, what we said or didn't say. Trust me on this.”

He hesitated and in that moment I knew he'd been planning to stonewall me. He was taking advantage of the pause to decide how to play it now.

I didn't have time for that. ‟Tessa said she'd try again! It's already afternoon. In a few hours she could be back there climbing over the rail.
Your
employee, the woman you say you spotted.”

A hint of a smile flickered. ‟You think I'm callous?”

‟I don't think about you at all. Look, I'm just asking for her address! I don't really even know if it's her. Maybe I'll go to her house and she'll be in her bathrobe drinking coffee, reading the
Chron
.”

He didn't reply. I could see him still trying to figure out the damage control.

What're you more concerned about than her life? Is it your precious front? Or maybe—‟
Tessa, is she a cop?”

‟Hell, no!”

‟Cops aren't suicides? Give me a break.”

‟Cops off themselves, Darcy. But they don't have to jump from bridges to do it, not with a forty-five in the holster, a private in the glove box, and narco down the hall.”

‟So you have civilians working in your fronts?”

‟That's what fronts are.”

‟You're telling me you hire people off the street? So you could be hiring me?”

‟Not after this.”

I laughed. ‟Tessa's address?”

Unwarned, I'd have taken him as a pleasant lightweight. But he was better than just a good cop who'd mastered the poker face. He was maintaining character and running his thoughts behind it, a front operation of his own. ‟Okay, but you're going to owe me.”

If I hadn't known better—

I did know better. Favors in the cop shop are a whole different animal than favors in wine bars. Declan Serrano was one guy I definitely did not want to owe.

And yet . . .

He pulled open a file cabinet and poked around. ‟I'm doing this as a favor.”

‟I could Google her. But thanks.”

‟A favor.”

‟Thanks. If you ever want a pass onto the set when we're doing a stunt, let me know. If your kids—”

‟A pass, yeah. I'll let you know. Or I'll let your brother know.”

I shook my head as if amused. ‟We're big people, Declan. You can deal directly with me.”

‟Really?”

‟Yeah. The address?”

He masked up with that smile again. Did it always hide the same thing? With luck I wouldn't find out.

I took the paper, gave him my best fake expression, and walked out.

The question was, what was he going to do now? He'd already gotten on the horn. Outside, eyes would be on me and they'd stay on me at least till I cleared out of Tessa Jurovik's apartment.

Why not make it easy on myself?

I retraced my steps back inside, past Sam at the desk, who looked up then quickly away, and on to Serrano's office. ‟You've already got a guy on the way there, right? Cut out the middle man and give me a ride.”

He looked up and grinned, this time for real. ‟There's a burrito truck outside just south of the main door. Pick me up a carnitos with extra hot and you're on.”

Only an idiot
gets into a police car unless he's driving—another of my brother John's dicta. Hey, in for a lamb, in for a sheep.

Or was it
hanged
for a sheep instead of just a lamb?

Whichever, when I got to the front of the line at the Carnitos Burritos truck, I opted for the chicken burrito, and got the special for Serrano, adding a couple of Cokes, Mexican Cokes—from the old recipe with sugar not sucrose, that gives more bang for the buck.

It'd been many hours since my donut on the set. Had the day been decent the sun would have been midheavens. It doubtless was, lounging atop the fog. Like so many San Francisco days this one had started out overcast with the promise of clearing—i.e., it had lied. If I hadn't had so much food in my hands I would have pulled my jacket tighter around me.

When a black unmarked car, the kind that marked the driver as SFPD, pulled up I was glad to slide in and pass him his share of lunch.

He eyed my half-eaten burrito. ‟You got time.” But before I could take a bite, he said, ‟What's with that guy Dale?”

Uh oh.
‟I don't know. Blowing the horn like that—”

‟Horn's the least of it. Asshole called City Hall. Wants to file a complaint!”

‟What?” I didn't know where to begin being outraged. ‟Sorry. He's got no business—really, sorry.”

‟Tied up half my morning.”

‟Sorry,” I said and took a conversation-blocking bite of burrito.

As we drove down Mission Street, there were plenty of distractions. Best time for questions. I started out slow. ‟Where'd you spot Tessa?”

He corralled a bean with his tongue. ‟More like I was crushed into her. At last year's Lit Crawl—one of the readings at Muddy Waters. So mobbed the author was yelling and you still couldn't hear her.”

‟Pulling overtime?”

‟Cops can read, or maybe you didn't know that.”

Touché.
Declan Serrano might be an aficionado of the city's literary scene but nothing I'd ever heard about the cockroach suggested that. Still, I felt like an oaf. I took a swallow of Coke and did a mental reset. ‟So you ran into Tessa, and what? Asked her out?” Could he be the boyfriend?

‟Nothing that formal. Just coffee and business. Enough for me to know she was right for what I needed.”

‟How so?”

He took a big bite, but a slower bite. Not a good sign.

He'd been answering so automatically, why was he hesitating now? ‟What do you know about her?” I prodded.

‟She's just one of my employees.”

Oh, please!
‟An SFPD officer doesn't run a background on the woman fronting his operation?”

‟I can read people. It's my business. If I couldn't I'd be dead thirty times over. Took me one look to know she was right.”

‟Really? What'd that look tell you?”

He lifted the burrito and took a bite that would keep him busy chewing for blocks.

It didn't surprise me that he wasn't answering—what stunned me was his evasiveness. I'd've put money on his first reply being, ‟Fuck off.” By the time he swallowed and said the meaningless ‟She looked competent,” I was barely listening.

What had he
not
said? ‟Where'd she come from? Surely you ran a social security check, asked for employer references.”

Another big bite.

I didn't have time to wait out his lunch. The guy could nod or grunt. ‟Back east?” Could she be from Pennsylvania? Near Dickinson College? Was that the—

‟Toledo.”

‟Ohio?”

‟What'd you think? Spain? Yeah, Ohio.”

‟What'd she do back there?”

‟Minor offense.”

I almost choked. I'd meant her work, not her rap sheet. I swallowed fast, too fast, and had to grab for my Coke while he looked at me and laughed. ‟What kind of crime?”

‟That's more than you need.”

‟What? Her committing a crime makes her a good employment prospect?”

‟For me, yeah. You got a record, you don't want to mess with the cops.” At that moment, he screeched to a red light, turned, and gave me such an innocent smile it sent chills down my spine.

As he hung a left off Mission onto a side street, I asked, ‟How'd she seem to you recently? Depressed, desperate, hopeless?”

‟Normal.”

‟Which means?”

‟Means that I only saw her when I went by there.”

‟How often? Daily?”

‟Whenever.” His phone buzzed. His phone rang. He ignored it. ‟Leave a message,” his message said.

Almost immediately it buzzed again. He picked up. ‟What?”

I couldn't hear the caller, which was fine. Time was running out on this ride and I needed to think. When he hung up, without a word, I said, ‟Why would you even go over there? If she's not a cop, if she's just staffing the front, you have no reason—”

‟Don't be telling me what I can't do.” Suddenly, he shot the car to the curb, slammed on the brake. ‟Let me make something clear to you. Don't think this is a free ride just 'cause you're sitting there. You don't like it, get out.”