Bookins and Danner had spent a week investigating Brenda Varda, who was not only Tanner’s colleague and ex-wife, but also his primary beneficiary. They had a theory that she killed him but did too good a job of hiding the body and then couldn’t collect her inheritance. That was why she’d been nagging the police to find him; if he was believed to be alive the company would never be hers.
O’Hara never believed that for a second. She’d met Brenda Varda and seen that she was honestly worried about her ex-husband. And just to prove she hadn’t lost all her instincts, she checked Varda’s financials and confirmed that even with Tanner alive she had enough money to buy most of Central California. Bookins and Danner should have been able to figure that out, too, but they were blinded by the hope that the woman who’d made their professional lives hell would turn out to be a bad guy.
Now the case was toxic. Bookins and Danner had been assigned to desk duty pending review and the FBI was investigating what everyone finally had to admit was a kidnapping. O’Hara had originally hoped that the department would bring Shawn in as a consultant on this one, since it was his clue that had provided the only break in the case. But Shawn had disappeared shortly after they’d found the remains of the Impala. He hadn’t shown up at the station, hinting around for the gig, and he hadn’t even responded to any of her voice mails.
As she got closer to the doorway she could see that her regular was there as usual. Frank was what he called himself, and over the weeks he’d let a few bits of information about his previous life slip out. None of it was unique or surprising: the standard story of youthful promise disappointed, middle-aged disappointment drowned in drink or drugs, drink or drugs destroying careers and relationships, and finally a home on the streets. But he still managed a twinkle in his eye and he seemed to enjoy the semblance of a life he’d made for himself on the streets. And, as Frank liked to say, if you had to be homeless Santa Barbara was where you wanted to be.
Frank sat up in his sleeping bag as she got close. “Got a nip for old Frank, Detective?” he said with a gap-toothed smile.
“If by nip you mean a doughnut, help yourself,” she said, holding out a box.
“Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Frank said, helping himself to a glazed old-fashioned, “but it’ll do. How’s the patrolling going?”
Since the first time they met Frank had thought of O’Hara as an officer walking her beat. The first time he’d made this mistake she pointed out that Santa Barbara didn’t have beat cops, and even if they did, she wasn’t wearing a blue uniform. But apparently in his mind she was, down to the nightstick on the Sam Browne she hadn’t worn since her earliest days as a rookie in Florida. Since he seemed to like the idea that the local force was out looking after people like him, she stopped arguing early on.
“Pretty quiet tonight,” she said truthfully. “So I’ve got some time to look into that hit-and-run that happened here a few weeks back.”
“Seem to recall somebody talking about that just yesterday,” Frank said, screwing up his eyes as he struggled to squeeze the memory out of his brain.
O’Hara offered him the doughnut box again, and this time he plucked out a glazed jelly. “Do you remember who it was? Or what they said?” She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.
He thought this over as he bit into the doughnut. He didn’t seem to notice the jelly squirting out over his graying beard. “It was a woman,” he said finally. “Yeah, a pretty blonde.”
“Can you remember anything else about her?” O’Hara asked impatiently. This was the first lead she’d had in all the nights she’d spent down here.
“She was maybe around thirty,” he said. “Like I said, real pretty. I couldn’t figure out why such a nice girl would be asking so many questions about such a dismal subject.”
“What kind of questions?” O’Hara said. Who was this woman and what could she have been looking for? Was somebody else trying to find the driver-or to see if anyone had spotted her leaving the scene?
“She kept asking if I’d seen anything or if I’d talked to anyone else who might have seen something,” Frank said. “And then she gave me a cookie.”
O’Hara felt any trace of excitement vanish. “That was me, Frank,” she said.
He squinted up at her, unsure. “It was?”
“Oatmeal raisin, with a hint of cinnamon, right?” she said.
He broke into a broad smile at the memory. “Could have done without the walnut pieces, personally, but on the whole a damn fine cookie,” he said. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
She nodded wearily and held out the doughnut box again. At this rate she’d run out before she made it down one block, but she was having a hard time caring about that. She’d been down this street too many times, asked the same people the same questions and gotten the same non-answers over and over again. Maybe this was finally the sign she should stop.
“I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything else since last night,” she said without any real hope.
“Not me,” Frank said.
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Thanks for trying, anyway.”
“The other guy might have, though,” Frank said.
“The other guy?” This time she wouldn’t let herself get her hopes up. “Do I know him?”
“Don’t think so.” Frank chuckled to himself. “Takes off like a startled rat every time you come around here. I always tell him he should stick around, at least on brownie night. But he just takes off like a startled rat scurrying for the sewers.”
“You’ve never mentioned this man before, have you?” she said.
“Haven’t I?” Frank said. “I don’t know.”
“And you think he saw the hit-and-run?” she said, fighting against the excitement that was building inside her.
“Can’t say for sure he did or didn’t,” Frank said. “All I know, when I mentioned there was a police officer asking questions about some car thing and paying for answers with treats, he ran away. And then whenever you started coming down this way he just took off like-”
“A startled rat, right,” she said. “Can you describe him for me?”
“He’s got beady little eyes, white whiskers sticking out this way from his face,” Frank said, making sure she was writing all this down. “And don’t forget about that long tail.”
She slapped her notebook shut, disappointed. “Frank, that’s a description of the startled rat, isn’t it?”
He just chuckled in response.
“There is no other man, is there?”
“Oh, but there is,” he said. “I was just having some fun with you. This guy’s about six feet tall, maybe thirty years old. His hair’s about your color, and he’s got a month or two’s worth of beard. Don’t think he’s been on the streets long.”
“Why’s that?” she said. This was sounding promising, the first possible break they’d had in the case yet.
“His face doesn’t have these wrinkles you get from living out under the sun all day,” Frank said, pointing to his own. “And his hands are too soft.”
“Do you know where he is now?” O’Hara asked, scanning the street for any sight of the new man. This could be the break she’d been searching for. At the very least he was a witness. But the way he was so terrified of being asked about the accident suggested he might be much more.
“Hiding where any startled rat’s going to hide,” Frank said. “Someplace you’re not going to be able to find him.”
That’s what he thinks, O’Hara said to herself. There is nothing that’s going to stop me from finding this guy if I have to talk the chief into putting every officer in the force on State Street every night for a week.