J is for JUDGMENT Page 19

  “Well, he was till she died. I thought maybe somebody fixed you up and you didn’t like his looks.”

  “It’s a little trickier than that. Uhm, I wonder if you could do me a favor,” I said. “I’m going out to the lot to that public telephone booth. When I call and ask for him, could you let him use this phone?”

  She gave me a look. “You’re not going to hurt his feelings, are you?”

  “I promise I won’t. This has nothing to do with dating, I assure you.”

  “As long as it’s not a put-down. I won’t participate in that.”

  “Scout’s honor,” I said, holding fingers to my temple. She handed me a take-out menu that was printed on heavy paper. “Telephone number’s at the top,” she said. “Thanks.”

  I kept my face turned away studiously as I left the restaurant, crossing to the pay phone in the comer of the lot. I propped the menu against the phone box and then fished out a quarter, which I put in the slot. After two rings the hostess answered.

  “Hello,” said I. “I’m looking for Harris Brown –”

  “I’ll go get him,” she said, putting me on hold. In her absence, I was treated to the weather report on a local radio station. After a pause Brown picked up the line, sounding just as cranky and impatient as he had when I talked to him the first time. His manner would have been perfect for a bill collector. “Yes?”

  “Hi, Lieutenant Brown. This is Kinsey Millhone.”

  “It’s Harris,” he said shortly.

  “Oh, sorry, Harris. I thought maybe I could catch you before you left this morning, but I must have missed you. Something unavoidable has come up, and I’m going to have to give you a rain check on lunch. Can I call you later in the week and maybe set something up then?”

  His disposition improved, which was really worrisome when you consider I was bowing out of lunch with no advance notice whatsoever.

  “No problem,” he said. “Just give me a call when it suits.” Casual, good-natured.

  A little warning bell went off, but I soldiered on. “Thanks. I really appreciate this, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Oh. Tell you what, though. I was hoping to have a quick chat with Wendell’s ex-partner. I figure he might know something. Have you had any luck reaching him?”

  I nearly blurted out the information, but I caught myself. Ah. Got it. This guy was hoping to jump the gun, bypassing me, so he could get to Wendell himself. I raised my voice. “Hello?” I let two seconds pass. “Helllooo.”

  “Hello?” he repeated back to me.

  “Are you there? Hello?”

  “I’m here,” he yelled.

  “Could you speak up? I can’t hear you. We have a terrible connection. What’s wrong with this phone? Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you fine. Can you hear me?”

  “What?”

  “I said do you happen to know how I can contact Carl Eckert? I can’t seem to find out where he’s living these days.”

  I banged the mouthpiece on the little shelf the telephone company provides in any public booth. “Hellllooo! I can’t hear you!” I sang. “Hello?” Then, as if annoyed, I said, “Well, goddamn it!” And slammed the receiver down.

  I picked it up again once the connection was broken. I stayed where I was, my face averted, pretending to converse with animation while I kept an eye on the restaurant entrance. Moments later I saw him come out, cross the parking lot, and get into a battered Ford. I might have followed him, but to what end? At this point, I couldn’t believe he was going any place interesting. The man wouldn’t be that tough to connect with again, especially since I had a piece of information he was hoping to get.

  As I opened my car door, I could see the hostess watching me through the plate glass window. I debated about going back with some cock-and-bull story, anything to forestall her tipping him off to my deception. On the other hand, I didn’t want to make more of the incident than I had to. He probably only went in there every two or three months. Why call attention to a matter I wanted her to forget?

  I went back to my office, circling the block endlessly until I found a parking place. I’m afraid to calculate how much time I waste this way on any given day. Sometimes I pass Alison or Jim Thicket, the paralegal, driving in the other direction, as intent as I am on ferreting out a space. Maybe Lonnie would win a big case and sport us all to a little lot of our own. I finally broke down and pulled into the public parking garage beside the library. I’d have to keep an eye on the clock and fetch my car again before the first free ninety minutes ran out. God forbid I should pay a buck an hour for parking if I didn’t have to.

  As long as I was close, I ducked into the minimart and bought myself a bag lunch. The weather report I’d picked up while on hold was full of cagey meteorological phrases, citing lows and highs and percentages. From this I gathered the weatherperson didn’t know any better than I did what would happen next. I walked over to the courthouse and found an unoccupied spot under shelter. The sky was overcast, the air faintly chilly, trees still dripping with rain from the night before. For the moment it was clear, and the grass in the sunken garden smelled like a soggy bouquet garni.

  A white-haired female docent led a group of tourists through the big stone-and-stucco archway toward the street beyond. I used to lunch here with Jonah in the days of our “romance.’? Now it was difficult to remember just what the attraction was about. I ate my lunch, then gathered up my crumpled papers and my empty Pepsi can, depositing the paper bag in the nearest waste container. As if on cue, I saw Jonah moving toward me across the saturated courthouse lawn. He looked surprisingly good for a man who probably wasn’t very happy: tall and trim, with a wash of silver showing in his dark hair just above his ears. He hadn’t seen me yet. He walked with his head down, a brown bag visible in one hand. Though I was tempted to flee, I found myself nearly rooted in place, wondering how long it would take for him to realize I was standing there. He lifted his face and looked at me without a hint of recognition. I waited, motionless, feeling oddly ill at ease. When he was ten feet away, he stopped in his tracks. I could see the tiny flecks of wet glass plastered to his shoes. “I don’t believe it. How are you?”

  I said, “Fine. How are you?”

  His smile seemed pained and slightly sheepish. “I guess we just did this couple days ago on the phone.”

  “We’re allowed,” I said mildly. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked down at the brown paper bag in his hand as if perplexed. “I’m supposed to meet Camilla for lunch.”

  “Oh, that’s right. She works here. Well, that’s convenient for you both with the station half a block away. You can give each other rides to work.” Jonah knew me well enough to ignore my sarcasm, which in this case was automatic and didn’t mean that much.

  “You never met Camilla, did you? Why don’t you hang around for a bit? She’ll be here any minute, as soon as court’s recessed.”

  “Thanks, but I have something to take care of,” I said. “Anyway, I can’t believe she’d be that interested. Maybe some other time.” Jesus, Jonah, get a clue, I thought. No wonder Camilla was always mad at him. What wife wants to meet the woman her husband was boffing during past marital separations?

  “Anyway, it’s nice to see you. You’re looking good,” he said as he moved away.

  “Jonah? I. do have a question. Maybe this is something you can help me with.”

  He paused. “Fire away.”

  “You know much about Lieutenant Brown?”

  He seemed puzzled by the subject. “Sure, I know him some. What in particular?”

  “Remember I told you CF hired me to check out this Wendell Jaffe sighting down in Mexico?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Harris Brown was down there. In the room next door to Jaffe’s.”

  Jonah’s face went blank. “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me, Jonah. This is not something I could be mistaken about. It was him. I was this close.”
I held my hand to my face, implying nose to nose. I repressed the fact that I’d kissed him right in the chops. That was still enough to make me shiver some in retrospect.

  “Well, I suppose he could be investigating on his own time,” he said. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s been a lot of years, but he always had a reputation as a bird dog.”

  “In other words, he’s persistent,” I said.

  “Oh, shit, yes. he spots a perp in the distance, he’ll hold a point till he drops.”

  “If he’s retired, can he still use the NCIC computer?”

  “Technically, probably not, but I’m sure he still has friends in the department who’d help him out if he asked. Why?”

  “I don’t see how he could find Wendell without access to the system.”

  Jonah shrugged, unimpressed. “That’s not information we have or we’d have pulled him in. If the guy’s still alive, we’d have a lot of questions for him.”

  “He had to get his information somewhere,” I said.

  “Come on. Brown’s been a detective thirty-five, forty years. He knows how to get information. The guy’s got his sources. Maybe somebody tipped him off.”

  “But what’s it to him? Why not pass the information on to someone in the department?”

  He studied me, and I could see his mental gears engage. “Offhand, I can’t tell you. Personally, I think you’re making too much of this, but I can check it out.”

  “Discreetly,” I cautioned. “Absolutely,” he said.

  I began to walk backward at a slow pace. I finally turned and moved on. I didn’t want to be caught up in Jonah’s orbit again. I’ve never really understood the chemistry between the two of us. While the relationship seemed to be dead now, I wasn’t sure what had triggered the spark in the beginning. For all I knew, mere proximity might set the whole thing off again. The man wasn’t good for me, and I wanted him at a distance. When I looked back, I saw that he was staring after me.

  By two-fifteen my office phone rang. “Kinsey? This is Jonah.”

  “That was quick,” I said. “That’s because there isn’t much to report. Word has it he was taken off the case because his personal involvement interfered with his work. He sank his entire pension into CSL and lost his shirt. Apparently, his kids were up in arms because he’d blown all his retirement monies. His wife left him, and then she got sick. Eventually she died of cancer. His kids still don’t speak to him. It’s a real mess.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” I said. “Is it possible he’s been authorized to pursue the case?”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know. The chief? The CIA? The FBI?”

  “No way. I never heard of that. The guy’s been retired for over a year. We got a budget barely pays for the paper clips. Where’s he getting his funds? Believe me, Santa Teresa Police Department isn’t going to spend money chasing after some guy who might have been guilty of a crime five or six years back. If he showed up. we’d chat with him, but nobody’s going to put in a lot of time on it. Who cares about Jaffe? There was never even a warrant out for his arrest.”

  “Guess again. There’s a warrant out now,” I said tartly.

  “This is probably just something Brown is doing on his own.”

  “You’d still have to wonder where he gets his information.”

  “Might have been the same guy told California Fidelity. Maybe the two of ‘em know each other.”

  That sparked a response. “You mean Dick Mills? Well, that’s true. If he knew Brown was interested, he might have mentioned it. I’ll see if I can get a line on it from that end. That’s a good suggestion.”

  “Let me know what you find out. I’d like to hear what’s going on.”

  As soon as he hung up, I put a call through to California Fidelity and asked for Mac Voorhies. While I was waiting for him to free up from another call, I had a chance to reflect on the wickedness of my lying ways. I didn’t actually repent, but I had to consider all the tricky repercussions. For example. I was going to have to tell Mac something about my encounter with Harris Brown down in Viento Negro, but how could I do that without confessing my sins? Mac knows me well enough to realize that I bend the rules on occasion, but he doesn’t like to be confronted with any instances thereof. Like most of us, he enjoys the colorful aspects of other people’s natures as long as he doesn’t have to deal with any consequences.

  “Mac Voorhies,” he said. I hadn’t quite made up my cover story at that point, which meant I was going to have to fall back on that old hoary ruse of telling some, but not all, of the truth as I knew it. The best strategy here is to conjure up strong feelings of honesty and virtue even if you don’t have the goods to back ‘em up. I’ve noticed, too, that if you pretend to confide in others, they tend to accord great truth value to the contents of the revelation.

  “Hi, Mac. This is Kinsey. We’ve had an interesting development I thought you ought to be aware of. Apparently, five years ago when Wendell’s disappearance first came to light, an STPD fraud detective named Harris Brown was assigned to the case.”

  “Name sounds familiar. I must have dealt with him once or twice,” Mac put in. “You having trouble with the guy?”

  “Not in the way you might think,” I said, “I called him a couple days ago and he was very cooperative. We were supposed to meet for lunch today, but when I got there, I took one look at the man and realized I’d seen him in Viento Negro, staying in the same hotel as Wendell Jaffe.”

  “Doing what?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said. “I’m not a big fan of coincidence. The minute I realized it was the same guy, I backed out of the restaurant and bagged the appointment. I managed to cover myself so I didn’t blow the contact. Meantime, I asked a cop I know to check it out in the department, and he tells me Brown lost a bundle when Wendell’s financial scheme collapsed.”

  Mac said. “Huhn.”

  “The cop suggested Brown and Dick Mills might have a prior relationship. If Dick knew Harris Brown had some kind of ax to grind, he might have told him about Wendell the same time he told you.”

  “I can ask Dick.”

  “Would you do that? I’d really appreciate it, if you don’t mind,” I said. “I really don’t know the guy. He’s probably more likely to ‘fess up to you.”

  “No problem. Fine with me. What about Wendell? You got a line on him yet?”

  “I’m getting closer,” I said. “I know where Renata is, and he can’t be that far off.”

  “You heard the latest on the kid, I guess.”

  “You mean Brian? I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll love this. I caught it in the car coming back from lunch. There was a computer glitch at the Perdido County Jail. Brian Jaffe was released this morning and nobody’s seen him since.”

  Chapter 18

  *

  I hit the road again. I was beginning to think the real definition of Hell was this endless loop between Santa Teresa and Perdido. As I came around the comer into Dana Jaffe’s neighborhood, I spotted a Perdido County Sheriff’s Department car parked in front of her house. I parked across the street and down a few houses, watching the front porch for signs of life. I’d probably been sitting there for ten minutes or so when I caught sight of Dana’s neighbor, Jerry Irwin, returning from his afternoon jog. He ran on the balls of his feet, almost on tippy-toe, with the same stooped posture he favored in his leisure moments. He was wearing plaid Bermuda .shorts and a white T-shirt, black socks, and running shoes. His color was high and his gray hair was matted with sweat, his glasses secured with a length of rubber tubing that made a circular indentation. He finished the last half a block with a little burst of speed, his gait the mincing, irregular hopping of someone running barefoot over hot concrete. I leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side.

  “Hey, Jerry? How’re you? Kinsey Millhone here.”

  He leaned forward, gasping, hands on his skinny knees while he
caught his breath. A whiff of sweat-wafted through the window. “Fine.” Huff, puff. “Just a minute here.” He was never going to look like an athlete doing this. He seemed like a man on the brink of a near death experience. He put his hands on his waist and leaned back, saying, “Whooo!” He was still breathing hard, but he managed to collect himself. He peered in at me, face wrinkling with the effort. His glasses were beginning to fog up. “I was going to call you. Thought I saw Wendell hanging around earlier.”

  “Really,” I said.

  “Why don’t you hop in?” I leaned over and popped up the lock, and he opened the car door, sliding onto the seat.

  “‘Course I can’t be sure, but it sure looked like him, so I called the cops. Deputy’s over there now. Did you I see that?”

  I checked Dana’s porch, which was still deserted. “so I see. You heard about Brian?”

  “Kid must lead a charmed life,” Jerry remarked, “You think he’s headed for home?”

  “Hard to say. It’d be foolish… that’s the first place the cops are going to check,” I said. “But he may not have any other choice in the matter.”

  “I can’t believe his mother would tolerate that.”

  We both peered at Dana’s, hoping for activity. Guns going off, vases flying through the window. There was nothing. Dead silence, the facade of the dark gray house looking cold and blank. “I drove down to see her, but I thought I better wait until the deputy leaves. When did you see Wendell? Was it just recently?”

  “Might have been an hour ago. Lena was the one who spotted him. She called me in quick and had me take a look. We couldn’t quite agree if it was him or not, but I thought it was worthwhile to report. I didn’t really think they’d send somebody out.”

  “They might have dispatched a deputy after Brian came up missing. I didn’t hear the newscast myself. Did you happen to catch it?”

  Jerry shook his head, pausing to wipe his sweaty forehead on his T-shirt. The car was beginning to smell like a locker room. “Might be why Wendell came back,” he said.

  “That occurred to me, too.” Jerry gave a little sniff to his armpit and had the decency to wince. “I better head for the shower before I stink up your car. You let me know if they catch him.”