Dennison lifted his cup and peered over the lip at Weir, eyebrows on full alert. “What do you have?”
“Kearns and Blodgett. The physicals match up pretty well, and both of them took some time off between midnight and coming back in.”
“How much time?”
“Kearns, twenty minutes — a coffee break, he says. Blodgett, almost the whole hour. Fifty minutes, no contact.”
“Fifty fucking minutes? Which beats?”
“Kearns had the peninsula, where Ann was working. Blodgett was on north end.”
Dennison leaned back and crossed his arms. His pale gray eyes had gone hard and his eyebrows had cut the comedy routine. There was in Brian Dennison, as in most of those in law enforcement, a mandatory capacity to perform violence. He looked at this moment more like a tough cop than a mayor.
Dennison’s head jerked when the back door slammed open behind them. Virginia marched in, wrapped in her yellow windbreaker against the morning cool. She glanced at Dennison, then at Jim, then stared at Brian in unmasked disbelief.
“Good morning, Mrs. Weir,” he said quietly.
“What exactly is good about it?”
“That’s just an expression. I’m awfully sorry about Ann.”
“Well, yes... so am I, Brian. It’s been very hard.”
When Virginia turned her pale blue sun-worn eyes on Jim, they said, What the hell are you doing with this fascist mayoral candidate in my café? That established, Virginia announced that Jim had an urgent call.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t think that should be public knowledge.”
Brian shrugged and started to stand, but Jim held his mother’s arm and took her back toward the walk-in. Out of earshot, Jim raised a finger to Virginia and shook his head. He explained that Chief Dennison was there to talk about Ann, to find her killer. Politics, mayoral races, and neighborhood rivalries would have to be set aside. She met his look head-on, her “you’re talking to a rock” expression. Jim knew that in some ways, he truly was. The way around Virginia was submission: If she thought you deserved help, she was usually willing to give it. As would anyone who had spent a lifetime with the vagaries of someone like Poon, she enjoyed feeling kind when she was sure it wouldn’t cost her much.
“Gold,” she said. “Dr. Robert Gold. Said it’s important. He’s holding for you.”
“I’ll call him back.”
“I remember that name.”
“One of my teachers at State, Mom.”
“Maybe he knows something.”
“Tell him I’ll call back in a few minutes. Take a number. Can do?”
Virginia’s hard stare broke down and she looked at the floor. “What I can’t do is make any progress with the flowers. The Sunday... before Ann... was Mother’s Day — busiest day of the year. I finally got through the Newport Beach listings. Nobody sold Annie any roses, or delivered any to her.”
“Keep on it. What are those test tubes doing in Ann’s refrigerator? They’ve got your writing on them.”
She crossed her arms, shot a look toward the dining room, and lowered her voice. “We’ll have time for that, later. Get back to your friend now.”
“Believe it or not, he’d like to help.”
Virginia regrouped her forces. “I do not want that man in my café. He’s a stooge for C. David Cantrell of PacifiCo, and he stands for everything I oppose. He won’t even debate Becky in public. From now on, you meet him somewhere else.”
“He wants answers as much as we do.”
“Don’t you believe it. Call Gold. He says it’s important. When you’re done with that self-serving oaf in there, I can tell you about the tubes.”
Virginia cast a contemptuous look toward the dining room, then headed out the service door. The back of her yellow jacket had a jumping marlin on it, with the words NEWPORT BEACH LADY ANGLERS below in red embroidery. Virginia was president, ten years running.
Back in the dining room, Dennison had both hands around his coffee cup, and a worried look on his face. His urge to violence must have crawled back down its hole. “You didn’t tell her what—”
“Of course I didn’t. Don’t worry, Brian.”
“That woman scares the hell out of me.”
“She has that effect on people.”
Dennison chuckled, himself again, eyebrows raised in hyperbolic doubt. “What scares me most is that she thinks she’s the only one with the interests of this city at heart. She thinks that people like Dave Cantrell and I are trying to change it, but believe me, the real threat comes from somewhere else.”
Jim waited for the revelation.
But Dennison must have thought better of it. He settled back into his chair with a sigh that said, If these people could only share my burdens.
Jim waited again, wondering whether silence would bring the interim chief to his point. What Dennison said next surprised him.
“I hope Virginia knows she can come to me anytime. I know she thinks my Toxic Waste unit is a joke.”
“She’s never said that to me,” said Jim. What Virginia had said was that Dennison cared more about getting a new chopper into the city sky than he did about keeping the harbor clean. He had seen correspondence from the EPA on Virginia’s desk. Was she making an end run?
“The last thing we need is the feds running all over this town, Jim. I hope Virginia is smart enough to see the danger in that. We need to be taking care of Newport Beach ourselves. We... the people who live here.”
So there it is, thought Weir: another reason why Dennison hired me for this. I can talk to Virginia on his behalf because I am her son. That, while I dissuade Becky from learning that the cops are looking at the cops, because I am her friend, ex-companion, ex-lover. Dennison looked less antic to him now, wholly disingenuous. The idea crossed Jim’s mind that he himself had inherited his mother’s thirst for conspiracy.
“I’m sure she’d agree.”
“She won’t sit still long enough to listen.”
Weir understood the corollary: Bring Virginia to the bargaining table.
Dennison studied him for a moment, apparently convinced that he had been effective. “Okay, Blodgett and Kearns on patrol, time not accounted for with Dispatch. What else?”
“Blodgett and Ray had some run-ins. The race stuff.”
“That was two years ago.”
“It’s something to consider.”
Dennison nodded silently, staring out the window. Weir followed his line of vision to the bay, where the morning light had risen an octave against the fog. The look on Dennison’s face told Weir that the chief already regretted letting his files go. “Kearns and Blodgett,” he said quietly. “What else do you need from me?”
“Whatever you’ve got.”
“I’ve got nothing you don’t know, and you still have an open line to Robbins. Use it.”
“I’d consider a polygraph if I were you. Do both shifts, every man on patrol. Have the operator angle the questions toward something else — drugs or sexual favors — anything. Ask your men to take it, but don’t insist. What we need is an explanation of what Kearns and Blodgett were doing. If they talk, fine. If not, we’ll have to wonder why.”
“No. The union would have my ass. That’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to do. That’s exactly why I brought you on.”
Dennison leveled his pale eyes on Jim, then jumped again as Virginia barged in from the back door. “He called again,” she said. “Says it’s important.”
“I’ll call him back in five minutes.”
“He’s waiting for you.”
“I’ll call him, Mom.”
The door slammed shut.