“Hey,” his son chorused from another part of the house.
Klinghoffer stopped in the kitchen. There was a plate of meat loaf and mashed potatoes sitting at his spot at the kitchen table, and he saw a fly buzzing around it. He stuck his finger in the mashed potatoes. They were ice cold.
He went to the doorway leading to the living room and stopped. Becky was hunched over the dining room table, dressed in grey sweats. During the day, she home-schooled Karl Jr. At night, she wrote religious tracts for her father’s church. She did not look up.
“Where you been?” she wanted to know.
“Out and about.”
He came in and peered over her shoulder. Becky’s writing appeared in religious pamphlets that were mass-mailed by her father’s church, and it was not uncommon to see them floating around town during windy days. Her handwriting was poor, and he had to squint.
“Is it any wonder why young people are committing such horrible crimes against the innocent, when we protect the rights of atheists, and abolish the recognition of the Lord Jesus in our schools? The diabolical forces of moral corruption walk the halls of Congress, state legislatures and the courts. The gay coalitions, rabid feminist groups, United Nation one-world government radicals, and A.C.L.U., all use their political action committee funds to influence elected officials who force us under protection of law to tolerate their despicable conduct. These are the forces destroying our society!”
“Where you been?” she asked again.
He pulled up a chair. At the bar, he’d thought over what he wanted to say. Rehearsed it to the drunk next to him. The drunk had seemed to like it. Sitting, he said, “Has Jesus ever spoken to you, Becky?”
She smiled, still writing. “Sure. He speaks to me every day.”
“He spoke to me today. At least I think it was him.”
Her smile grew. “What did he say?”
“Promise you won’t laugh.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Just promise me, okay?”
She looked up and made eye contact with him. “Karl?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Have you been drinking? Your eyes look funny.”
He’d decided in the bar that if he was going to tell a lie, it might as well be a big one. The drunk next to him had approved of the strategy.
“Jesus told me to play a slot machine.”
Becky swallowed hard. “Jesus told you to play a slot machine?”
“That’s right.”
“You sure it wasn’t some drunk you met?” she said, turning nasty.
“Couldn’t have been.”
“And why’s that, Mr. Alcohol on his Breath?”
Klinghoffer took stacks of hundred dollar bills from his pockets, and tossed them onto the table. Becky’s mouth opened, but no words came out. She picked up the money, her face aglow. Right then, Klinghoffer knew he was going to be okay. She wasn’t going to throw him out, or threaten divorce, or do any of the other childish things she did whenever his behavior did not suit her. She held the money to her bosom.
“Praise the Lord,” she said.
Valentine, Gerry, and Bill Higgins landed in the Reno Airport at eight o’clock that night, and were taken by police escort to the Washoe County Detention Center. The Reno police had been alerted to the fact that someone might be gunning for Valentine, and the show-of-force was befitting a politician.
The detention center was an enormous facility. During his trips to Nevada, Valentine had heard it referred to as a debtor’s prison because Reno’s judges often extended jail sentences when prisoners couldn’t pay fines. Bill had called the sergeant who ran the center before leaving Las Vegas, and told him they wanted to interview Bronco Marchese.
The sergeant was at the front entrance when they arrived. He was a large, gregarious Irishman named Joe O’Sullivan, and he greeted them with smiles and handshakes. O’Sullivan escorted them to his office on the second floor, and after they were seated, explained why the interview wasn’t going to happen.
“Bronco’s lawyer left town,” the sergeant said, sitting at his desk. “Slime bucket named Kyle Garrow. I called Garrow on his cell phone, told him you wanted a meeting with his client. Garrow said he was in California, and wouldn’t be available until tomorrow morning. Personally, I think he’s lying, and was nearby. That’s why I hate cell phones. You never know where the person you’re talking to really is.”
“You think Garrow is stalling,” Valentine said.
O’Sullivan nodded. Pictures of his four kids filled his desk. Like their father, they were fair-skinned and red-haired. “I had him checked out. Garrow’s hardly spent a day of his life in court. Makes his money giving legal advice to crooks before they get arrested. Basically, he tells his clients how to stay out of jail, which in my book, makes him a piece of garbage.”
Valentine had known lawyers that did this, and agreed with O’Sullivan’s assessment of them. He said, “Governor Smoltz has given me unlimited power in my conducting this case. Is it possible for me to meet with Bronco without his lawyer?”
“Anything’s possible, “O’Sullivan said. “But personally, I’d advise against it.”
“Why’s that?”
“It would land you in hot water with the judge presiding over the case.”
“I can do hot water,” Valentine said.
“It will also compromise our case against Bronco for killing Bo Farmer,” O’Sullivan said. If you want my advice, wait until tomorrow.”
There was a window behind O’Sullivan’s head, and Valentine stared at the garish neon which defined Reno’s skyline. He was itching to get in Bronco’s face, and make him sweat; it was one of the great satisfactions of his work. But he didn’t want to ruin the case in the process. He shifted his gaze back to the sergeant.
“What about the girl? Can I talk to her?”
O’Sullivan’s expression turned blank. “Which girl is that?”
“The bride in the scam. Karen Farmer.”
“That’s not going to be very easy either, I’m afraid.”
“Why? Is Garrow also her lawyer?”
“Karen Farmer tried to commit suicide yesterday. Hanged herself with a bed sheet, only the knot came undone. She’s in the psych ward at the Washoe Medical Center under observation.”
“Can she talk?”
O’Sullivan acted offended. “No offense, Tony, but she’s in a bad way. Grilling her could set her over the edge again.”
“Who told you that?”
“Her doctor at the hospital. I talked to him earlier.”
Valentine’s eyes returned to the window. Then, he glanced back at O’Sullivan. “Here’s what I want you to do, Joe. I want you to pick up the phone, and call the hospital. Tell them I’m coming over to talk to Karen Farmer, and don’t accept any ifs, ands or buts from anyone who says I can’t. I’ll make the determination whether she’s stable enough to talk to me. Understand?”
O’Sullivan looked surprised, then mad. Just as quickly, it all vanished, and he put his professional face on. He picked up the phone on his desk, and punched in a number.
Chapter 15
O’Sullivan drove them to the Washoe Medical Center. While Gerry and Bill waited in the lobby, Valentine went upstairs to interview Karen Farmer.
Psych wards in hospitals were depressing places. Valentine’s mother had ended up in one before she died, his father’s years of abuse having finally taken their toll. Walking down the hall to where Karen Farmer was being kept, a little voice inside his head told him to turn around, and go back to the lobby. Let Bill interrogate her, the voice said.
He stopped outside the ward. There was no shame in walking away. He’d learned that from a book by Ernest Hemingway called Death in the Afternoon. It was about bull-fighting, and Hemingway talked about famous matadors who’d run away from bulls they didn’t like the looks of. He started to walk away when the door opened, and a woman in a starched white nurse’s uniform stepped out.