The Zen Man (17 page)

Be what Jack Kerouac really was, and they’d never hope to be.

Minutes later, I’d just parked in front of Justin’s LoDo loft when my cell rang.

“Levine,” I answered, killing the ignition.

“Brianna.”

She spread out her name like thick jam. Bree-aaa-na.

“What’s up?” I stared out the window at Justin’s place, noticed the blinds were closed tight. Same dead plant on his doorstep.

“Good afternoon to you, too. Got a copy of the autopsy report, read it through. It’s inconclusive as far as I’m concerned.”

“Any more good news?”

“You probably already know this, but the medical examiner has officially determined the type of weapon that allegedly killed Deborah was the same type of knife you’d wielded earlier that evening.”

“Official.” I snorted. “It’s what everyone’s been saying since they found Wicked’s body.”

“You still call her that?”

“Only to friends. Tends to miff everybody else.”

“I first heard about the knife from Mike Dowling.”

I recalled the name. “Jeffco deputy D.A.?”

She made an affirmative noise.

“You’re talking to the
D.A.’s
office?”

“Let’s just say he mentioned your name socially, not professionally.”

“
Socially?
” I groaned. “You’re fucking the D.A.” Didn’t have to ask. When you’ve been around the city block more times than a packed transit bus during rush hour, you know what lies underneath such seemingly casual references.

“Deputy D.A., and no, we’re not fucking.”

“Maybe not anymore. Is this the same
friend
who leaked the crime scene photos?”

“Rick, you’re such a…” She huffed something under her breath. “Back to friends, I called one, an investigative reporter at channel nine.”

“The plot sickens.”

“I told him that, in my expert opinion, you’re innocent.”

I leaned my head back against the seat head rest, pressed my forefinger against a pulsing pain in my right temple. “Wonderful,” I muttered, “my ex is bedding the enemy, getting her hands on confidential information and forwarding it to vultures. Who needs a trial?”

“You’re still over-dramatic.”

“No, I’m fucking frustrated, increasingly desperate, and more than a tad paranoid, but let’s not mince words.”

“He’ll play it safe.”

I snorted a laugh. “Oh yeah, that’s what vultures do. Play it safe while writing incriminating articles filled with hearsay and rumors about innocent people.”

“Rick, don’t worry! Just wanted to give you a heads up. And ask if you want to meet soon, discuss the autopsy report? It’s Sam Wexler who’s representing you, right? Mighty fine, invite him too. I think my insights could help your case.”

I muttered something about calling her back, ended the call.

Then I got out the door and jogged across the street against the red light, flipping off a car as it screeched to a halt.

• • •

A few minutes later, Justin opened his door, wearing a red satin smoking jacket. With the moody lighting inside, his sallow complexion, and that over-the-top jacket, he looked like some goth dude who’d missed the bus to Wuthering Heights. He scratched the stubble on his chin as he stared at me, the realization of who I was slowly dawning on his face.

“Got your card,” he said groggily. “If I wanted to talk to you, I’d call.”

“Well I’m here now, so no need.”

“Sorry, I’m busy.”

As he shut the door, I stuck my foot inside. The door thumped against it once, twice, followed by a sputtered curse about uninvited assholes. Fortunately I was wearing my winter boots, so he could thump that door all he wanted.

Finally, the door opened all the way, revealing a pissed-off Justin whose face almost matched the color of that jacket.

“I’m going to call the police on you.”

“Yeah, well, stand in line.”

He looked down at my foot still in the door jam. “You’re trespassing.”

“By a foot.” I laughed. He didn’t. “Look, I only want to ask a few questions. You’re a public defender. You of all people should know that people are entitled to a defense.”

“That’s my work week. Right now I’m off-duty, your foot’s in my door, and I’m hung-over.”

“And you’re also the only other person Deborah argued with at the retreat cocktail party, minutes before she was murdered.”

His eyes narrowed. “Real good, Rockford. Accusing me of the murder
you
committed?”

“No, but my lawyer might.” I let that sink in for a moment. “So why don’t we take you, and all that Jose Cuervo you’re breathing on me, and go inside for a brief chat?”

Justin gave me a look that was part disgust, part exhaustion. “Make it fast and…cool it with the bad jokes.”

He led me down a hall into his living room, told me to sit anywhere, then excused himself. I had an interesting choice of seating options, from the long black leather couch to several bean bag chairs around a wood-burning fireplace. Although I preferred the bean bags, I didn’t want to sit so low to the ground—psychological advantage and all that—so I settled at the end of the couch.

Justin sauntered back in from the hallway, pinching his nose and inhaling deeply.

“Want something to drink?”

“No thanks.” I realized I’d left my digital recorder in the car, but I wasn’t going back outside to get it. He might not open the door again. “You were seen arguing with Deborah at the party. I just want to know why.”

He sat on the opposite end of the couch, fidgeted with the sleeve of his robe. “She was loaded and kept hitting on me for Tracy’s, my ex-girlfriend’s, phone number.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“I’m guessing,” he said flippantly, “but Tracy’s middle name isn’t ‘toot’ for nothing.”

“She sells?”

“Good deduction, Sherlock.” He picked up a playing-card size box off a coffee table that looked like a piece of metal origami.

Ignoring his surliness, I check out a large, framed photo of the Rat Pack on the far wall. While observing how Sinatra held his cigs with three fingers, I pondered the connection between Wicked and Tracy. Sure, Wicked had always loved getting a buzz, but I’d never known her to do powders. Hadn’t seen any signs of coke at her place, but maybe the crime techs had already seized it. If she’d been snorting the night of the retreat, toxicology reports would show it. I guessed they’d be ready in another week, maybe two.

“Why else would she want to talk to Tracy?” I asked, turning my head to look at him.

Alarm spurted through me.

He held a dart mid-air—with three fingers, just like Sinatra—the tip pointed at me. “They met a few times at parties when Tracy and I were together,” he said pleasantly, “so maybe they just wanted to talk.” He closed one eye, took aim at my forehead.

I dove for the floor as the dart zipped through the air. I shot a look behind me, saw it’d stuck in a small dart board mounted on the back wall. My face flaming, I hissed, “You ass.”

“What?” He picked up another dart from the box, his lips curling like a worm.

I raised a warning finger. “Don’t—”

The dart flew past my thigh, stuck in the carpet.

“Darn.” He sighed theatrically. “Missed.”

As he reached for another dart, I jumped to my feet. Lunging, I fell on him, hard, the air shooting out of my body. Gasping, I held onto his arms as we toppled off the couch, onto the floor. Minus the use of his hands, one of them still holding a dart, fucker head-butted me.

My eyes rattled in their sockets. My head screamed.

I blinked, clearing my vision in time to see the tip of a dart inches from my eye. I shoved back his arms, held him against the rug where he squirmed and writhed like a pinned bug.

Time seemed to stop.

Details mushroomed into full-blown impressions, one after another. The dart in his hand. My white knuckles gripping his arms. His stricken, panicked eyes. The rust carpet, its color like stale blood.

Then life fast-forwarded, sounds sharpened. He was thrashing and kicking, screaming obscenities. We wrestled, rolled, a pain shooting through my back as we smashed into the table. The dart swerved close to my cheek, my neck. With every ounce of force left in me, I shoved him onto his back, heaved myself on top, then slammed his arm once, twice against the floor.

The dart hopped silently from his hand.

Sucking lungfuls of air, I watched drops of sweat fall from my face onto his flushed, frightened face. Sweat. No blood. Good.

“Get off me you fat fuck!”

I glanced around me, spied several darts within reach.

“You’re hurting me…” He made a wheezy, irritated sound. “And I can’t breathe!”

“Tell me…” I held my grip on his arms as I fought to catch my breath. “About you and Deborah arguing…or I’ll shove…one of these darts…into a place…it’ll take half of the ER docs…in Denver General to remove.”

He looked up at me, blinked rapidly. “Fuck you. This is stupid. She was drunk, all worked up over nothing. Told her I hadn’t talked to Tracy in a year, had no idea how to reach her, but Deborah was bearing down like it was a fucking cross-examination. Now, get off me!”

Couldn’t believe he could speak without gasping. Shit, I felt old. “Did she…accuse you of stealing anything?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“A necklace?”

“At the CrimDef party?” He barked a laugh. “I’d be a pretty stupid burglar doing that at parties packed with overworked, underpaid public defenders. There’s no money in turquoise, pink ribbons, or peace signs.”

I looked around the room at a wide-screen TV that would give mine an inferiority complex, a tubular floor lamp that resembled a giant dick-shaped vibrator, and a bar with front panels so luminous even during a blackout people could find their way to liquid refreshment. This was more than a mere bachelor pad. This was a testament to testosterone and intoxication.

A pricey testament.

I released my hold, got up. While he coughed and carried on about crazy suspended-attorneys, and how he had a mind to file charges, I picked up the darts.

“You make a good living for a public defender.”

“I’m a single guy. I can blow all my money on myself.”

“Blow being the operative word, eh?”

After giving me his best withering look, he glanced at a chrome wall clock, back to me. “It’s getting kinda late—does your parole officer know where you are?”

“Only guilty people get parole officers. If I turn you in for threatening me with a deadly weapon, you could have your own parole officer, too.”

“My word against yours, dickwad.” In a flash of movement, Justin latched onto my elbow, his grip surprisingly strong for a guy who’d just been whining about being man-handled, and forcibly escorted me to the door. I had a fleeting thought of using one of the darts to gain the upper hand, but decided against it.

Justin opened his front door, gave me a shove.

I staggered onto the porch, turned. “One last question.” I rasped.

“Jesus,” he muttered, “you never give up.”

“How’d you hook up with Tracy?”

“She worked for Sam. Now leave, asshole, before I call the police.”

The door slammed shut.

I stared at the darts in my hand, debated whether to leave them in his mailbox, then decided I was doing society a favor by taking them with me. Party-boy Justin had a mean streak. Tied to drinking and drugs, maybe. Emotional disorder, possibility. Both, likely.

Or was he hiding something? That homicidal streak I’d just witnessed could have been turned on Wicked. Only his out-of-control hysterics didn’t match the cool premeditation of the killer.

In case he had more insights after he sobered up, wanted him to know how to contact me. Took out one of my business cards, scribbled “Thank you” on the back, and left it in his mailbox.

I might be an asshole, but I’m a polite asshole.

Live each moment as if your hair is on fire.
—Zen quote

T
wenty minutes later, I was tooling down 6
^th
Ave West. Thanks to my recent dart-wrestling escapade, half my brain cells were banging around like a Mickey Hart drum solo. With the other half, I pondered the Tracy-Sam-Wicked connection. Sam hadn’t mentioned Wicked’s powder habit, so I figured he didn’t know. Wondered if he knew his former paralegal-assistant-paramour—knowing Sam, probably all three—had been dealing drugs on the side. Years ago, back when Wicked and I pretended to be a law firm, we had an office manager who supplemented her paycheck by dealing meth from her office, conveniently located in a back room with its own entrance. I represented a lot of criminal cases, so I unwittingly provided her a parade of colorful clients to pitch her wares to. I wasn’t into abusing chemicals at that point in my life, just booze, so I didn’t catch on to her moonlighting antics for a while. When I did I canned her, but too late. After my suspension, the Attorney Regulation Board dredged up several of my former clients who shared that they, and others, not only retained legal counsel at Levine & Levine, P.C., but they obtained recreational drugs there as well. A regular crank-and-counsel shop.

Just as I’d been clueless what my clients were scoring right under my nose, I could understand that Sam might’ve been, too.

Didn’t have XM in my Pontiac, so whenever I drove my trusty metal warhorse, I listened to The Wolf 92.5, a country station. I punched on the radio. Some lovesick dude was crooning about watching the sun go down while knowing another man held his girl in his arms. After that, Reba McIntire wailed a baleful “Consider Me Gone” about leaving her man.

I decided to call Laura, tell her I loved her.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, just…” I cleared my throat. “…song was getting to me.”

“You’re listening to that station again.”

“Not anymore.” I flipped the knob. Damn The Wolf anyway.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be listening to those sad country songs,” she said softly, “especially now, when everything’s so…anyway, how’d your interview go?”

“Fucker tried to play dodge-dart with me.”