It came sooner than I expected, just as I was turning off Third Street onto Army. Never fails. I’m in the car driving and that’s when my cell rings. I could let it go to my voice mail, but I’m one of the people who can ignore a ringing phone only in extreme circumstances. Kerry keeps telling me I ought to get one of those Bluetooth things that let you talk on the phone while keeping both hands on the wheel, but I’ve seen enough drivers who appear to be having animated conversations with themselves and the image is always one of a mental case babbling to a carload of imaginary friends. Better a hands-free device than breaking the law by talking with a phone glued to your ear, as too many people still do despite the recent state law. Or sending text messages or e-mails on laptop computers while driving, two of the crazier techno-surfing, machine-juggling addictions people have been known to indulge in these days.
I’m law-abiding, so I did what I always do, and hardly anybody else seems to, when my cellular goes off: I found a place to pull over and stop and took the call on the fourth ring.
“Fast work finding Roxie,” Virden said. “Alive or dead?”
“Alive. Living right here in San Francisco.”
“No kidding. Well, that simplifies things, doesn’t it.”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t.”
“… What do you mean? Did you see her, deliver the envelope?”
“I just came from talking to her. She wouldn’t take it.”
“What? Why the hell not?”
I told him why not.
Long pause this time. Then, hard and angry, “Well, shit! How can she still hate me that much? It’s been eight goddamn years.”
I had nothing to say to that. Not my area of expertise.
Virden said, “Too bad you didn’t find her in a cemetery instead.”
Or to that, because it wasn’t worth a civil comment.
“She’s got to sign that document,” he said. “It’s all that’s standing in my way. Nothing else you can do?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then it’s up to me. I don’t like the idea of seeing the bitch again, but I’ll just have to bite the bullet.”
“Do you want us to mail the envelope to you?”
“No. I’ll pick it up before I go talk to Roxie. Too late to do it today, I’m meeting Judith at five, and I have a business appointment in the morning. Say one o’clock at your office?”
“Fine. I’ll have a report ready for you with her address and the other particulars of the investigation.”
“How much more do I owe you?”
“There’ll be a final invoice with the other material.”
“I’ll bring my checkbook.” Five or six seconds, and then he said, “Ex-wives. Christ, what a pain they can be.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said.
“Take my word for it. Even when they’re being cooperative, they’re a pain in the ass.”
Ex-wives weren’t the only ones.
6
TAMARA
All day Tuesday, as on most days, she had the office to herself. Bill was out on an interview for an insurance fraud investigation; Jake was following up with the hit-and-run witness. And Alex Chavez was working a pro bono hate-crime case for a black family that was being victimized in Monterey Heights-one more example, as if anybody needed one, that racism was not only alive but running rampant like crap through a sewer.
Fine with her, working alone. She liked being in charge, handling her end of the agency in her own efficient, organized way. Plenty to handle these days, too; business was booming, despite or maybe because of the tanked economy. Two other insurance-related cases, a missing-person investigation, a b.g. check for a rich dude in St. Francis Wood who believed his daughter’s brand-new fiance was after the family fortune… plus client reports on closed and in-progress cases, invoices, bookkeeping, and, as a favor to Jake, a deep backgrounder on a woman he suspected of abusing his lady’s kid.
All that was liable to keep her here long past five o’clock closing. Had the night before and probably would the rest of the week. Was a time when she’d’ve chafed at that much overtime because it cut into what little social life she had. Now, she welcomed it. After what’d happened a couple of weeks ago, being alone in the office was a lot more comfortable than holing up alone in her flat on Potrero Hill. The flat just didn’t feel the same as it had when she moved in. Maybe never would again. But she was stuck there for another ten months, like it or not; the lease was ironclad and she’d lose a bundle if she broke it. Besides, she was just too busy to go hunting for another place to live.
Antoine Delman, aka Lucas Zeller. That son of a bitch. Nearly ruined her life… nearly took her life. Not enough time had passed for her to get over her outrage every time she thought about him and what he’d tried to do to her and a whole long list of other brothers and sisters. Happiest day coming up was the one she’d spend in court testifying against him and his freaky mama.
Something else he’d done to her was sour her on men. The way she felt right now, she didn’t care if she ever had another relationship, ever even got laid again. Use it or lose it? Well, maybe it was better to lose it than risk losing everything else because of it.
The morning went by quickly, with only one phone call to interrupt her work. Just after one o’clock the annulment client, David Virden, showed up to collect his envelope and the report she’d typed out for him. He didn’t look at the report, just asked her if his ex-wife’s current address was in it. Well, of course it was; what did he think they’d do, hide it from him? He didn’t look at the invoice, either. Demanded to know what he owed, wrote a check for the full amount, and stalked out without bothering to say thanks or good-bye. Mr. Personality. No wonder none of his first three marriages had lasted. Another of those slick dudes, like that bastard Antoine, who were all surface charm when they wanted something or somebody, but cut them open and what you’d find inside was a mess of dirty ice and a festering ego.
Tamara had most of her priority client work caught up by two thirty. Which left reports and bookkeeping, neither of which she felt like tackling just yet. Instead she started in on the deep backgrounder for Jake. Child abuse was about as low a crime as there was; anything she could do to help put a stop to what was happening to Bryn’s son was a mandate.
Francine Whalen. Jake had been fairly thorough in what he’d pulled up on the woman so far, but the Net was a vast storehouse of information, some of it distorted and useless, and what you had to do was get down into the nooks and crannies far below the surface and then start a careful sifting. Same principle as rummaging around in attics and sub-basements and dusty old buildings where the long-stored, valuable stuff was hidden away.
Didn’t have much luck at first. The twenty-nine years of Whalen’s life to date seemed pretty clean, without any apparent psychological or other problems. Except for the five-months-and-out marriage to the investment banker, Kevin Dinowski, but that could’ve been simple incompatability; whatever the reason for the quick split, there was no indication of it in the public record. Still, everybody had some dark spots in their lives, no matter how small or how well buried. Get a hint of what they were and you could usually pull them out into the open.
Tamara picked up the Whalen hint when she started probing into the lives of her two sisters. Gwen Whalen, the unmarried one living in Berkeley, had tried to commit suicide when she was sixteen and had spent three months in a psychiatric facility. Wasn’t her only stay in a twitch bin-six months in another at age twenty. No public record on cause or treatment in either case, and hacking into private hospital files was a risky proposition; get caught and there went your career down the rabbit hole. The last of Gwen’s two incarcerations was six years ago; she seemed to have pulled her life together since then. The past several years she’d worked as a caregiver in a Berkeley elderly-care facility called the Sunshine Rest Home and, from all indications, appeared to be leading a normal life. What passed for one these days, anyhow.