The Zen Man (6 page)

“Marry me,” I mouthed.

She frowned slightly.

“Marry me,” I mouthed again, this time shaping my words carefully.

When she smiled, I honest to God felt it right through the glass. Maybe it was the sensory Deadhead in me, but that smile was like sunlight, emitting a pleasurable heat that speared its way right down to the core of my pathetically pounding heart.

I smiled back, more confident and hopeful than I had felt in days.

“No,” she mouthed.

• • •

“Hey, Mr. Popularity,” barked the shirt-straining sheriff, “ya got another visitor.”

I looked up from where I sat on the lower bunk of my bolted-down cell, hoping that visitor might be Laura again. I’d been nursing a serious case of deflated macho ego since her rejection an hour earlier.

“Who is it?”

“I’m not your personal greeter, champ, but I’ll give you a hint—not the chick who slam-dunked your marriage proposal.”

As he secured my leg shackles, I made a mental note that if and when I got relicensed as a lawyer, no way in hell I’d practice criminal law again. Just didn’t pay to piss off half the law enforcement in the state.

Minutes later, I was back in the visitor area, staring at Sam through the glass. He wore a natty sweater that probably cost more than I made in a day as a private dick.

He held the phone to his ear. “Keeping your chin up and your mouth shut?”

“More the latter than the former.” I paused. “Laura just visited.”

Sam nodded. “She told you the good news?”

“Seems the lodge was quickly appraised for a substantial sum, more than needed, and the property bond is on its way to the judge.”

Sam flashed his signature cocky smile. “That’s right, old chap.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Who’s the judge?”

“Teresa Mancinelli.”

“That tight-ass never liked me.”

“She’s a former prosecutor, you were a defense lawyer, what’s to like?” He winked. “No worries. She loves every inch of me.”

Appeared Sam had not only been bedding my ex-wife, but also my upcoming judge.

“Heard anything through the grapevine about Deborah acting differently, making any unusual comments, in the weeks before her death?”

“Not a word.”

“Who at the retreat had motive?”

Sam quirked a brow. “Off the top of my head, Debby had troubles with Lou Reisman and Iris DaCosta.”

“Why?”

“Secrets, why else?”

“Why so coy? We’re protected by privilege.” Jails couldn’t record attorney-client conversations.

“Not being coy. Just didn’t want to pry.” He checked his shiny Rolex. “I have an appointment in fifteen, so let’s cut to it.” Leaning forward, he gave me a dead-on, all-business look, the kind I’d seen him give a thousand times to clients. I suppose I once gave it to clients, too, but I like to think mine had a glint of mercy.

“Your advisement is tomorrow, Monday, one-thirty.”

“Fast work. Did the judge fax the papers to the jail?”

Sam shrugged. “Don’t know. But considering the rapport she and I share, I think things will be moving quickly. I’ll call Laura, tell her to have dinner and a suit ready for you.”

“You think I’ll be out
tonight
?”

“Good chance.”

Talking like a lawyer, all bluster and bravado and bull, but better that than to share doom and gloom with the guy behind bars. I well knew from years representing people like me stuck in jail, it was a crap shoot to guess when the booking and release staff would finish processing the bond papers. All depended on their mood and whether or not the Broncos were on TV. No one ever gets out of jail during a Broncos game.

“What time’s the Broncos game?”

Sam was checking his watch again. “How would I know?”

“Well, if it’s in Denver, it’ll probably be at two, which means I’m either out over the next few hours, or it’ll be late tonight.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, obviously disengaged from the conversation because he had better places to go, women to do.

I almost asked about Mellow, but didn’t bother. I knew the answer. Her probate lawyer would’ve had the car towed to a garage, where it’d stay until her will was probated. If I got out of this mess, I was gonna bid on that car. Not sure what with, but I’d figure out something.

Sam and I said our good-byes, then Sheriff Stretched Shirt escorted me back to my cell. The shackles clanked and jingled as I walked, a weighty reminder that reality was a lot heavier than the frothy news my buddy-lawyer had just shared with me. Maybe I’d be out tonight, but maybe not.

At least those odds were better than Laura’s answer had been.

“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”
—Jerry Garcia

A
t one-thirty on Monday, Judge Mancinelli looked out over the courtroom and said, “People of the state of Colorado versus Richard Levine.”

“Tally ho,
mon ami
,” Sam murmured, standing.

The Jefferson County Courthouse made ample use of wood—from the walls to the jury’s chairs to the spectators’ benches—yet the rooms still lacked any warmth whatsoever. Judge Mancinelli’s pulled-back black hair and slash of red for lips didn’t make the room feel any cozier. From the orange hue of her skin, it appeared she spent as much time in the tanning booth as on the bench.

I followed Tally Ho to the podium. D.A. Brett Crain, who’d been sitting at the prosecutor’s long wooden table flipping through a file, stood. He looked like a younger Jimmy Stewart, all earnest and gangly in a navy twill suit. I half expected him to stutter when he spoke.

“Sam Wexler for the defense, your honor,” Sam said loudly. “Mr. Levine is present.”

I took my place next to Sam. “Good morning, your honor.”

She stared at me, Sam, back at me. “Mr. Levine, I’m sure you remember the Fifth Amendment. Use it. That’s the last thing you say in this courtroom without Mr. Wexler’s permission.”

I seemed to be on a run of badly perceived actions lately.

“Brett Crain for the people,” said Brett, smoothing his hand down the front of his jacket. “May I approach? I have charges.”

“You may, Mr. Crain.”

He crossed the room and handed a sheaf of papers to the judge with a flourish worthy of a Shakespearean actor. As much as law enforcement loved fucking with a defense lawyer, a D.A. loved it even more.

“Your honor,” he said, “please take note that together with these charges, the people have filed a motion to revoke bail because Mr. Levine is a flight risk and a danger to the community.”

My insides curdled. Flight risk? Danger to the community? As Brett walked back to his table, he smirked in my direction.

Then I remembered the Phillips case. Gang banger. First degree. His grandmother depleted her life savings to hire me as his counsel. In the course of our investigation, we discovered a dirty homicide detective had hidden evidence. Judge Hall, a wizened ex-prosecutor who valued perseverance over sleight of hand, had dismissed the case. After that, Brett Crain spent eighteen months doing DUIs in a rural courthouse before the D.A.’s office brought him back to the mother ship.

I may have thought I was fucked back in the jail, but I was really fucked now with a D.A. damn near salivating with his golden opportunity for revenge.

“May I approach for our copy of the charges and the motion to revoke bail, your honor?” asked Sam.

I thought the honorable judge did a lousy job feigning impartiality. I caught a slight smile cracking that orange tan.

“You may, sir,” she responded.

Sir Sam brought back the papers, laid them on the podium. “We waive reading of the charges and advisement of rights and request a preliminary hearing that is combined with the hearing to revoke bail.”

Any idiot lawyer would waive reading of charges and rights to streamline the proceedings when faced with a judge who would be ruling on his client’s freedom in a few weeks.

“No objection, your honor,” said Brett.

Mancinelli looked down at her desk. “Checking my calendar, I have the morning of January thirteenth available. Eight
A.M.
”

“Your honor,” said Sam, “I have a DUI trial in Gilpin County on that date—”

“Gentleman, that’s the date. We’re not playing battle of the network calendars here. If you have a DUI in Gilpin County on that date, call a lawyer with three years or less experience to replace you there. I need you here, and so does your client.” She looked at me. “Mr. Levine, your bond continues until that date and time. Oh, and no mistakes, Levine. Zero tolerance here.”

I nodded, knowing better than to utter a single word.

January thirteen. Thirty-one days from today. Although it’d be nice to think Sam’s relationship between the sheets with the good judge might mean she’d smile favorably on me on that date, the opposite was more likely true. No judge wanted his or her reputation sullied by innuendoes of bias. Knowing Sam’s penchant for flaunting his infidelities, Teresa Mancinelli would probably be harsher in her ruling to combat any gossip. Which meant if she revoked my bail on January thirteen, I’d be staring at bars until the trial took place, which could be any time from March to September.

Which meant I had thirty days to find the real killer.

My investigations were starting the moment I bolted this inner sanctum of justice.

“Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills, One man gathers what another man spills.”
—Jerry Garcia

“W
hat?” The Durango lurched as Laura drove over a speed bump in the Jefferson County courthouse parking lot. “No. Absolutely not. Investigating your case is one thing, rolling in strangers’ filth is another.”

“Getting down and dirty is part of being a private eye.” I looked around the passenger seat. “The gloves?”

“Center compartment.”

I pulled out my nylon gloves, noticed she’d brought hers, too—black leather with rabbit lining.

“I’m not dressed for the occasion. This skirt is a Gucci.”

Laura’s partially open winter coat exposed a black knee-length skirt that matched the color of her low-heeled pumps. Hardly down-and-dirty wear, unless one had a serious school marm fantasy. Which this Deadhead boy might’ve had if he’d been stuck in jail another day. Instead, I’d morbidly fantasized about her rejection of my marriage proposal. If I’d been released last night, instead of barely over an hour ago with minutes to throw on a suit and race to the courthouse, I’d have already asked her why. Right now, we had work to do.

“Just keep the motor running, I’ll do the dirty work.” I pointed to an upcoming on-ramp. “Take 6 East.”

As she took the exit, I scanned the list of CrimDefs and their addresses that she’d printed for me. Being a third-generation Denverite, I knew my way around the city and its ‘burbs the way Jerry knew his way around a riff. Checking Lou’s street address, I knew he lived in a cushy suburb of Lakewood, Iris in culturally diverse Wash Park, south of downtown Denver. Lou’s address was closer, so he’d be first.

“Those bags will be full of…” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll never get the smell out of here.”

“Just crank up the heater and drive with the windows down. After a day or two, you’d never know the Durango went undercover as a trash truck.”

“But there’ll be…gunk on the back seat.”

“Most people put their stuff in plastic bags.”

Checking the side mirror, she switched lanes. “Isn’t it illegal taking someone’s trash?”

“Lakewood and Denver deem curbside trash public property. Of course, we don’t know if today’s their pick-up day, but it’s possible their trash is accessible anyway. If either of them threw out anything after last Friday night that links them to Wicked or her murder, today’s a primo day to check.”

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up in front of Lou Reisman’s home, a palatial number with rolling lawns and a garden sculpture that looked like a weathervane on growth hormones. All behind a massive wrought-iron security fence.

No visible trash cans. None in front of the other mansions, either.

“Drive down the alley,” I said, “let’s see if there’s a dumpster.”

There were none. I gave Laura directions to Iris’s home.

Half an hour later, we arrived in Wash Park, a sprawling residential area that boasted the second-largest city park in Denver and the largest number of jogging bodies stuffed into overpriced designer running duds. Back in the day, my dad’s bookie had lived a block down. A simple brick home with a view of the park. Had probably sold for a small fortune to some overpaid thirty-something who’d razed the lot and built a glass-and-stone monstrosity that were all the rage these days.

Iris, to her credit, hadn’t gone the razing route. Her single-level home was constructed of concrete in an Art Deco style popular in Denver after the Great Depression. Jack Kerouac, my teenage literary hero ‘cause he’d hung out in Denver and chased cool, had referred to a similar concrete building in his book
On the Road
, an eatery that had the balls to not put the sign “white trade only” in its window.

Cacti, yarrow, and yucca crowded Iris’s Xeriscaped yard. A closed one-door garage terminated the empty driveway.

I had an idea. “Pull up to that garage door.”

“But there’s no trash cans.”

“They’re probably inside that garage.”

“She could be home and her car’s in there.”

“She’s a public defender, which means she works eight to five and is at her office or in court.” I motioned for her to drive.

“But…opening that garage door is trespassing, right? Isn’t that a felony?”

“Misdemeanor.”

“Not a felony?”

“Only if we kill someone while opening the door. Now, either you drive up that driveway, or I’m jumping out of this car, jogging up there, and checking if that garage door opens. If it does, meet me down the block in ten.”