“Thelia needs an assistant.”
“I know.”
“Find her one.”
“Me?”
“You. First, call around to the agencies we cooperate with and ask if they have any recommendations. If not, run an ad. You know what kind of person we’re looking for. Then interview the most promising ones.”
“But I just can’t go ahead and hire-”
“By the time you complete the interviews, I’ll be back to make the final decision and negotiate salary and benefits.”
“Okay,” he said, “I can do this.”
“Of course you can. If you get really swamped with new cases, call on Rae. She delivered her latest book to her publisher last month.”
We discussed a few other matters, and by the time we ended the conversation, Patrick seemed more confident and in control than ever.
Way to delegate, McCone.
Next calclass="underline" Mick. I hadn’t heard from him about his deep backgrounding on Trevor Hanover since Wednesday. There was no answer at his extension at the rehab center. Probably in therapy, I thought. But it wasn’t like him not to keep me posted, so I called Rae.
“Oh, God, I should’ve let you know!” she said. “Yesterday afternoon he had an episode of internal bleeding and they had to transfer him to UC Med Center to perform more surgery.”
“Is he okay?”
“He will be. I’ll tell you, this experience has taught him a lot. Us, too. We should’ve kept in closer touch after his breakup with Charlotte, given him the support he needed.”
“I should’ve, too. I was so mired down in my own situation I didn’t realize how bad off he was. When’s he going back to the rehab center?”
“This afternoon.” She paused. “Oh, I just remembered-before he went into surgery he told Ricky that there was some information on his laptop that ought to be forwarded to you. But Ricky forgot, and he had to go to LA this morning. He only called a while ago to tell me about it. Do you want me to go over to the rehab center and try to access it?”
“No, don’t bother. I assume when Mick’s back there he’ll send it along. Give him my love when you see him.”
“Frankly, I’d rather give him a good slap upside the head. God, I’m glad I never had children!”
“Yeah-and instead you became stepmother to six of them.”
“Independence traffic, Two-Seven-Tango, turning for final.”
“Two-Seven-Tango, Three-Eight-Niner. I’m still behind you. That’s a damn pretty plane you’ve got.”
“Thank you, Three-Eight-Niner.”
I glanced over at Lark. She had her eyes closed. She’d closed them when we’d taken off from Tufa Tower, then kept them rigidly focused on the instrument panel during most of the trip. She was capable of speech, however, and we’d discussed the scenario for our interrogation of Boz Sheppard.
Lark had spoken with her superiors and the DA in Mono County, and then the sheriff and DA in Inyo. Together they’d worked out a plan that would ensure Sheppard’s cooperation without either jurisdiction giving up very much. While we were aware that Sheppard-like any criminal or, for that matter, anyone who watched crime shows on TV-knew the good-cop bad-cop routine, very few of them failed to be rattled by it.
“Are we there yet?” Lark asked.
I leveled off, then set the plane down on the runway without so much as a bump.
“Are we-?”
“We’re there.”
“What?” She opened her eyes and looked around as I braked and turned off toward the tie-downs. “When did-?”
“That was one of my better landings. And since you had your eyes closed, you couldn’t tell where we were at.”
“No way! I could feel every motion-”
“I’ll demonstrate on the way back.”
“The hell you will!”
An Inyo County Sheriff’s Department car took us to the jail, and a guard led us to an interrogation room that was much smaller than the visiting area where I’d earlier spoken with Sheppard.
Lark pulled out a chair from the metal table and looked around. “The ambience is perfect. Very claustrophobic.”
“And scenic.” I nodded at an ugly water stain on the ceiling. “Where do you want me?”
“Stand over there by that big crack in the wall. Fold your arms and look relaxed.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Seconds later Sheppard was brought in. He looked pretty bad-drug withdrawal, I supposed. His face was pale and pinched, more like a lab rat’s than ever.
“Hello, Boz,” Lark said. “You remember me? And Ms. McCone?”
Sheppard grunted and sat down across from her.
“I’m going to be taping this session,” she said, activating the recorder on the table. “I’ve been talking with the authorities and DA’s offices down here and up in Mono. I can offer you a deal, depending on the information you’re willing to give up.”
Flicker of interest in his eyes. “Yeah? What kind of deal?”
Lark began ticking off the items on her fingers. “No charges in the Hayley Perez murder. No charges in the attack on Amy Perez-”
“Amy? She didn’t know I was the one-”
Snared. Snared and stupid. But Mono wasn’t giving up anything, because they had no evidence Boz had killed Hayley, and Amy really couldn’t identify him as the perp.
“Yes, she knows,” Lark lied. “And she’s willing to testify to that effect. On the other hand, McCone is willing to forgive you on the trespass on her ranch and assault charges. You tell us what you were looking for in Amy’s cabin, it all goes away.”
“… A letter from Miri Perez. Something Bud Smith gave Hayley. What this meeting the night she was killed was all about-the one she was gonna profit from. I tore the trailer apart, but it wasn’t there. So I figured she’d given it to Amy.”
“You have to beat up and cut Amy to search for it?” I asked.
Sheppard started. He’d forgotten I was there. “I didn’t know the little skank was in the cabin. She woke up and tried to hit me with a lamp. Real fighter, that one.”
“Don’t browbeat the man, McCone,” Lark said, glaring at me. She turned back to Sheppard. “Tell us about your history with Hayley.”
“What about the rest of my deal?”
“This information is to cement the deal with Mono.”
“Okay, okay. I met Hayley in Vegas. She was hooking.”
“And you were…?”
“Working in a casino.”
“Which one?”
“Same one she was.”
“The name?”
“I forget.”
I said, “He was probably dealing-but not cards. Or pimping. Were you her pimp, Sheppard?”
“Leave him be, McCone,” Lark said.
“He wasn’t doing anything legitimate in Vegas, that’s for sure.”
Again Lark glared at me. “Not relevant.” She turned her attention back to Sheppard. “Okay, you knew Hayley in Vegas. When?”
“When she was first there, I don’t remember how many years ago. Then I did a stretch for possession. I was railroaded.”
I said, “That’s what they all claim.”
“And after you got out?” Lark asked him.
“I decided to go to Vernon. I had connections-”
“Drug connections,” I said.
Lark gave an exasperated sigh. “You see Hayley in Vegas beforehand?”
“Yeah. I stayed with her a few days till my parole officer gave me permission to leave the state. She said she had family here and might visit me sometime. And she did-late September, I think. She needed a place to stay. She’d come up HIV-positive, was already feeling sick.”
So that was why she’d taken out the insurance policy with Amy as beneficiary. The county’s pathology reports hadn’t showed any evidence of her illness because they hadn’t been looking for it. Which meant the life-insurance policy benefiting Amy would pay off.
“And?” Lark asked.
“I let her stay. Next thing I know, she’s talking about cashing in on something, living out the rest of her life in luxury.”