Pearl smiled and nuzzled Bernie. “Tell me something. Does trouble just naturally find you two?”
I checked my clothing before answering and was happy to discover that nothing was ripped during the fiasco. “It is a talent. I’m just not sure where this trouble leaves us.”
I glanced back at the grounds of the estate. Conrad Harper was probably already on the phone with the department lodging a complaint. If that happened, my problems with IAD would only intensify. I remembered what Harper had said when he lost control. I looked back at Pearl.
“What’s your take on his statement about secrets we could never imagine?”
“When we find that out,” Pearl said, “it just might help us solve a murder or two.”
“We need to discuss a few issues in preparation for the parole hearing,” Melvin Coben says to his client. The overhead lights are harsh, shinning like a beacon on the attorney’s bald head. “There are some things we need to take care of so there are no mistakes.”
“Mistakes are not an option.” Nathan Kane studies the wiry little lawyer he pays a small fortune to keep on retainer.
They are meeting in the medical wing of the prison infirmary. The parole hearing is less than forty-eight hours away. The attorney-client privilege keeps any information discussed confidential. Kane speaks freely, without displaying any of the symptoms of the disease that he hopes will facilitate his bid for freedom.
Coben thumbs through the paperwork in front of him. “We have a solid history documenting your medical condition, including the report from your private physician. The prison psychiatrist, a Dr. Wentworth, is also recommending release based upon a finding of medical incapacitation. Her report minimizes any risk you might present to the community.”
Kane’s dark eyes are fixed on the attorney. “None of that’s a surprise. So what’s the problem?”
The elderly attorney hesitates, twisting his reading glasses between his fingers. A vein pulses in his forehead.
“There’s been an arrest,” Coben says. “The man’s name is Bobby Jenson. He works here in the medical wing as an orderly. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.”
Anger surges through the prisoner. Why did he trust the little bastard? “Yeah, he’s helped me with a couple of small favors.” There’s little question about what the drug addict has been arrested for, but he asks anyway.
“Drug possession. There was a traffic stop. The arresting officer found a large amount of heroin in the car.” Coben puts on his reading glasses, skims the file in front of him. “Jenson is trying to cut a deal for his release. The only reason I know about this is because I’ve got a friend in the local public defender’s office.” The attorney’s gaze lifts. “He wants to give you up as his connection.”
Kane unleashes a torrent of obscenities. He pushes away from the table, at the same time feeling the freedom he’s anticipated slipping away.
Coben continues, “The prison authorities don’t know anything about this—yet.”
“Then we’ve got to keep them out of it.”
“That may not be possible. There’s a girlfriend who’s quite vocal. She’s telling Jenson’s attorney that she’s coming straight here to give you up unless a deal is cut for her boyfriend’s release.”
Kane slams a fist on the table. “Take care of it. I need you to buy me forty-eight hours, then I will personally deal with Mr. Jenson and his girlfriend.”
Coben swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his skinny neck. “You want me to pay her off?”
“I want you to buy them both off. I don’t care what it costs. Just see to it that they keep their mouths shut until I’m released.”
The attorney is silent. His vision is fixed on the file in front of him.
“What is it?” Kane demands.
“Even if you are released, if the authorities learn about any of this, your parole will be revoked.” Coben flinches as he gazes up at his client. “You will be rearrested and required to serve the remainder of your sentence.”
Kane smiles, exposing teeth that are long and sharp. “That will never happen.”
When Melvin Coben is gone, Kane is escorted back to his room. That night he lies awake, unable to sleep. Anger flows through his veins like liquid fire.
Bobby Jenson and his stupid girlfriend will die. There’s no doubt about that. He curses in the darkness, wondering what, if anything, is happening with Jack Bautista and the cop who let him escape. He has no way of making contact with anyone now. Everything will have to wait.
The prisoner looks up at the clock above the doorway in his room. He slams a fist into the wall, breaking the skin on his knuckles. While he’s trying to stop the bleeding, an orderly comes into the room and sees the blood.
“What’s going on here?” the attendant asks.
The prisoner’s muscles twitch and his hands shake. He utters a few words that make no sense. All the symptoms of his disease are on display for the orderly.
Beneath those symptoms lies a more subtle condition, burning like hot coals. Nathan Kane is consumed with rage.
The morning after our run-in with Conrad Harper, I decided to pay a visit to the Narcotics Enforcement Unit about Mr. Wiener. As I was putting my purse in my desk drawer, Charlie arrived from the break room sipping a diet soda through a straw.
“You look like you’ve been up all night,” I said, noticing he hadn’t shaved and his clothes were more rumpled than usual.
Charlie moaned, rubbed his jaw. “You oughta be a detective.
“How’s the tooth?”
“Haven’t seen it in twenty-four hours. The terrorist took it home to show his wife and kids what a torture device looks like.”
“I don’t understand, if he pulled the tooth, you should be feeling better.”
Charlie sucked air at the bottom of his soda, tossed the can in the trash. “It’s the tooth next to the one he pulled that’s killing me. I’m gonna wrap up a couple of things and then go home, Kate.”
“Take two Vicodin and call me in the morning.”
After Bernie and I strolled across the parking lot, I met up with Chewie Smith and Jimmie Riggs in the Narcotics Enforcement Unit. Their office was located in a portable trailer adjacent to the main building.
Rumor had it that their odd behavior and unsavory associates, rather than the need for additional space, were the department’s reasons for putting them in the portable building. Smith and Riggs liked the arrangement and sometimes referred to themselves as
trailer trash
.
“It appears Mr. Wiener wasn’t just stiffing you,” Smith said after I took a seat next to his messy desk. Bernie settled next to me.
“Yeah, he wasn’t just going off half-cocked,” Riggs agreed. His work station was a table a few feet from Smith’s. It was covered with files and lined with several editions of the state penal code.
After I endured more puns, I said, “So there’s some truth to what he said about Joaquin Robinson?”
Riggs, who once played linebacker for the Rams, took the lead, “So far his story seems legit. We’ve heard rumors about Robinson before, so we’re not entirely surprised. We talked to the D.A. He’s willing to cut Mr. Wiener a deal if we present a solid case.”
“That’s a big if,” I said. “Robinson will get the best lawyers money can buy.”
Chewie Smith walked over to a filing cabinet. “That’s why we’re breaking out the little guns.”
The heavyset detective had almost as much hair as his Star Wars namesake. He brought a small box over to Riggs’s desk and opened it, showing me what appeared to be a white button that might ordinarily be sewn into a shirt.
Smith got a nod from his partner who was working on his laptop. He held the button between his fingers. “Smile you’re on Butt Cam.”
I watched as Riggs turned the laptop screen in my direction. I heard myself over the computer speakers, saying, “It’s a miniature camera?”
“The technical term is NSD or Neutral Surveillance Device,” Riggs said as Smith turned the Butt Cam in my direction. I saw my image on the laptop.
Riggs disagreed. “The code name for this operation will be the Wiener Cam.
“The company makes different versions, all designed to be sewn or affixed to clothing,” Smith said. He tossed me a lapel flag pin from another container. “Our compliments, although the flag pin is only for sound recordings. All the NSD devices are configured to download to a secure, wireless Internet site.”
Riggs laid out their intention, “The plan is to sew the Wiener Cam into our favorite felon’s shirt before he meets with his basketball buddy this Thursday night after the big game. We’ll get to see the whole deal go down live and record everything to a flash drive.”
“The game’s at seven-thirty, so we figure the postgame action should heat up around eleven,” Smith said. “You’re welcome to watch the proceedings live and in person right here, if you’re so inclined.”
“I’ll be here.”
There were more Wiener puns on the way out the door. Boys will be boys.
When I got back to my desk, I was told I had an emergency phone call. I prayed it wasn’t from IAD or even someone higher up in the chain of command telling me that Conrad Harper had lodged a complaint about last night’s fiasco.
When I took the call, a pleasant voice said, “Ms. Sexton, this is Coventry Surgical Spa. Your mother is ready for discharge. She asked that we contact you.”
I hadn’t talked to my mother since the lunch disaster. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t informed I would be the one to pick her up.”
“Our records indicate that an Amanda Keating was to be the responsible party,” the woman said. “We’ve been trying to locate Ms. Keating but haven’t been successful. Your mother asked us to call you.”
Twenty minutes later, my anger had turned into acceptance, after contemplating various methods of sisterly homicide. Rhonda Blake, the woman who had called me, escorted Bernie and me through the grounds of Coventry Surgical Spa, past cottages with the names Carmel, Aspen, and Santa Fe. I found my mother in a wheelchair sitting in front of the Monterey Cottage. She looked like a burn victim.
“The surgical dressings will need to remain on for a few days,” Blake explained. “It helps reduce the swelling and recovery time.”
“How are you feeling, Mother?” Her gray eyes moved behind the thin layer of gauze. She appeared heavily medicated.
“It hurts,” Mom said. “They kidnapped me and I was tortured.”
Before I could ask, Rhonda Blake explained, “Your mother’s got quite the imagination. She’s also been having a reaction to the medication. She just needs some rest.”
After loading Mom and Bernie into Olive, I got her suitcase, walked around and opened the trunk. The parking lot was nearly deserted. Suddenly, from somewhere behind me I heard tires squealing.
As I turned, a Mercedes with tinted windows skidded around a corner. The engine revved. The car was heading directly for me. I had only seconds to react.
I slammed down the trunk lid and jumped up on my car. The Mercedes screeched past, coming within inches of Olive’s bumper.
As quickly as it appeared, the car roared through the parking lot disappearing onto the highway. I cursed myself for panicking, not getting a plate number.
“What’s going on?” Mom asked, trying to make eye contact through the swath of bandages and drug haze as I opened Olive’s door and got in.
“Damn it.” I pulled the door closed, seeing the rip in my white silk blouse. I remembered what I’d paid for the top as I answered her. “I guess somebody just dropped off his wife for a little work and was in a hurry to get home.”
My anger over the ripped blouse subsided as Olive popped and rattled through the tree-lined streets of Beverly Hills. It was my second near miss with a black Mercedes in days. The first incident involved the same kind of car nearly running me and Natalie off a cliff in the Hollywood Hills. It was pure speculation, but I wondered if Conrad Harper could somehow be behind both events.
A woman who was having an executive level affair extinguished the thought.
“My name is Margaret Butler,” Mom said.
“What? Mom you’re hallucinating. It’s the drugs.”
“We’ve been having sex. Dick and I are doing the dirty deed.”
For some reason, an image of my mother and Harold Wiener in bed flashed through my mind. I felt a wave of nausea. “Who is Dick?”
“He’s the president.” I think she was smiling through her bandages. “We’ve been screwing in the Lincoln Bedroom.”
I suddenly made the connection. “Nixon?” The thought was almost as revolting as Mom and Mr. Wiener. “You think you’ve been having sex with Richard Nixon?”
Mom giggled. “He’s quite vigorous. I like it when he talks dirty—”
“STOP!”
I pulled the car to the curb. An image of Cher in that old movie
Moonstruck
came to mind. In this version of the classic film, instead of Cher slapping Nicholas Cage, it was me imagining myself trying to knock some sense into my mother.
“Listen to me. You are not living in the 1970s. You are not Margaret Butler. And you are not having sex with Richard Nixon. You are my mother and you just had a face lift. Get a grip!”
Mom’s eyes tried to focus beneath the gauzy veil, raising hope that I’d gotten through. She giggled. “Dick likes to wear his socks with the presidential seal when we make love.”
“God help me!”
I drove on, tuning out the sexual play-by-play as Margaret Butler described the intimate details of a love affair that was beyond bizarre. When I finally got her home and into bed, I said, “Maybe you can sleep off the last forty years, then rejoin the human race.”
I spent most of the afternoon getting Mom settled. I arranged for her best friend, Janet Logan, to take over for me. Janet said that she could stay for most of the week, even after I explained about Mom’s presidential fantasies. A true friend.
I called Captain Jankowitz and explained about my mother, leaving out the presidential calisthenics. Jank was understanding. He allowed me to take the rest of the afternoon off. I spent the time scraping together enough money to buy a new outfit for the night’s Dark Dating event.
At home, I modeled the chocolate brown skirt and jacket for Bernie who gave it a dismissive sniff. He convinced me that the outfit was too conservative.
I ended up squeezing into a black dress that I saved for special occasions. I was suffering from five-pound-weight-gain depression when Robin called and asked me to meet him for a drink.
I left Bernie at home and met my brother at Mulligan’s on Highland, a noisy little bar filled with golfing memorabilia and great beer.
“I went to Donovan’s estate yesterday, tried to get some answers,” Robin said after we settled in at a table away from the bar. “His bodyguard, Zen, wouldn’t even listen to my questions. He also threatened me.”
“What did he say?”
“He waved a gun around, said he didn’t want to see me there again.” Robin ran a hand through his spiked hair. “Kate, I think something might have happened to Clark—something bad.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at?”
“When I was at the estate before, Zen told me that he didn’t know who Clark was. But this time he said that if Clark wanted to find me he would. He’s covering something up.” Robin took a moment to compose himself. “Were you able to find out anything through your contacts with the department?”
I felt guilty. I’d been so busy that I hadn’t asked anyone about Wolf Donovan’s bodyguard. I doubted it would change things anyway. Clark was free to make his own decisions, even if they were all the wrong choices.
“I’m still doing some checking,” I said. “Try not to worry. I’m sure Clark can take care of himself.”
“Easier said than done.”
I checked my watch, realizing I had ten minutes to make the dating event. I made my excuses and pecked Robin on the cheek. I turned back to him before leaving. “By the way, what the hell is Dark Dating?”
He shrugged. “Beats me.” He then offered to go by and check on Mom.
I told him a quick version of the Margaret and Dick story, ending it with a warning, “Just try to keep the visuals out of your head.”
***
I found a line of women in the lobby at the Standard Hotel on Sunset. After waiting my turn, I was greeted by Sara Johnson. My friend was about forty-five with a frank, chubby face. Frizzy brown hair curled over her ears. Was I going to be another Sara a few years down the road? I stifled a wave of depression.
Sara took my hands in hers. “I’m so glad you could come. I think this will be one of our best extreme dating events.”
She was wearing a casual blazer and slacks. I felt overdressed. “I’ve been dying to find out what Dark Dating is all about.”
Sara motioned to the meeting room. “The men enter from the southwest entrance so we can’t see them. The room is completely dark. There will be guides that lead you to your chairs. After that, it’s drinks and conversation.” A sly smile. “We just see what develops.”
I frowned. “So you’re telling me I could end up with a three hundred pound wrestler?”
“Or, a dreamy architect with a home in Malibu overlooking the ocean. The great thing about Dark Dating is that you just never know.”
After waiting my turn, I was met by a woman named Alice with a
Dating Guide
nametag. She wore what looked like a cross between 3-D movie glasses and those night vision goggles that soldiers wear.
Alice was businesslike as she gave me instructions. “Please stay at my side until we get you seated. We’re going to be moving slowly for your safety.”
After I stumbled through the blacked-out room, Alice settled me at a table. I felt disoriented—a little panicky in the darkness as I listened to the thump and jostle of bodies finding their way to tables around me.
After a few minutes, the room quieted. A rustling sound came out of the darkness. I heard Alice’s voice, “Kate, I’d like you to meet, Sean.”
I put my hand out and Sara guided it to Sean’s. His hand was large, a bit rough. Not the hands of an architect.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“I hope this is a very memorable evening.” His voice was friendly, causal. I had the impression he might be older than me, maybe around forty.