The fifth message was from George Biddle, my insurance guy. My car insurance was overdue. I put down the receiver.
CHAPTER 15
I couldn’t sleep. I worried about Sol’s message, worried about my missing gun, and worried about what would happen when the cops found it. But I knew what would happen. I’d been part of the system long enough, first as a cop, and now as a lawyer. I’d be dragged to the slammer, locked in a cell, and everyone including a jury would assume I was guilty.
After several hours of those pleasant thoughts rattling around in my brain, I got up, sat by the window and stared out at the darkness until the sun peeked over the mountains in the east.
It was still too early to phone Sol. I’d wait until a decent hour, then call him from my office. I dressed and headed to Dolan’s Donuts on Brookshire, down the street from Downey High, where I ordered two glazed and a large coffee and grabbed a copy of the Southeast News, Downey’s local paper. I thought I’d take a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes and just enjoy my breakfast. I was very good at compartmentalizing my problems, and anyway why should I ruin my morning worrying about the cops? By now, they must have found new evidence, something that pointed away from me and steered them to the real killer. I squeezed into a plastic booth by the window and unfolded the paper.
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. I don’t have many clients as it is, and now this. The newspaper had my picture plastered on page one under the headline, “Downey Man Suspected in Brutal Murder.” I knew I was a suspect, and because of Sol’s message I knew I was the only suspect, but seeing it in print made my skin crawl.
I quickly scanned the article. It told about the sheriff department’s investigation of the Hazel Farris murder and that the police had me in their sights. The reporter quoted detective Hammer: “There is a definite connection between the murder victim and O’Brien. He was the last known person to see her alive. We don’t have sufficient evidence right now to arrest Mr. O’Brien, but we’re digging. The case could break wide open at any moment.” What they reported was true, including Hammer’s remarks, but none of it proved my guilt. Still, anyone seeing the story would assume I was a cold-blooded killer.
I slumped down in my seat. Where would this end?
“You having heart attack? Go outside!”
I looked up. The Asian guy behind the counter was screaming at me.
“What is your problem?” I asked.
“No die in here! Bad fu.” He scrunched up his face and made a shooing motion with his hands, like he was sweeping me out along with the used-up coffee cups. “Bad Fu, you go now.”
I began to get peeved. “I’m not having a heart attack.”
“Why your face all white? And you shout!”
“The coffee’s too hot.”
I had no idea what bad fu meant, but I figured whatever it was, I probably had a dose of it. I took my tray with the donuts, coffee, and newspaper, dumped it all into the trash and walked out. Only 6:30 and the new day was already starting off sick, like one of those take-three-aspirins-and-call-me-in-the-morning kinds of days.
Five minutes later, I unlocked the office. I knew Mabel wouldn’t be there that early, so it was a surprise to see a full pot of freshly brewed coffee sitting on the counter. I ambled over to pour myself a cup, wondering who had made it. Had to have been Rita. She must’ve had an early appointment.
I was irritated that I let the counterman at Dolan’s get on my nerves, making me waste the donuts and almost a full cup. It wasn’t his fault that my nerves were shot. But the photo pushed me over the limit, reminded me that I was still a target and that my problems wouldn’t go away until I somehow brought Robbie back.
“Psst, Jimmy. Over here.”
I set the cup down and glanced around. It sounded like Rita, but no one was in sight.
“Psst, Jimmy. Your office, quick.”
I saw her peeking out from behind the slightly opened office door and walked to where she stood. She pushed the door open all the way, pulled me in, and quickly closed it behind us. She looked tense.
“Rita, my God, what’s the matter?”
One hand covering her mouth, she stood with her back to the door and jabbed her finger toward the filing cabinet across the room.
“Did you see a mouse?”
She dropped both hands. “Oh Christ, Jimmy, gimme a break,” she said. “Your gun is behind the filing cabinet.”
“What?”
“Yeah, your gun.”
I rushed to the cabinet and pulled it out a little. Sure enough, a.38 revolver sat there, as if someone had carelessly dropped it into the space between the cabinet and the wall. I ran to my desk, found a wire coat hanger, fished out the gun, and held the hanger with the.38 dangling by its trigger guard.
Rita grabbed her purse off my desk and held it open in front of her. “Don’t touch the gun, Jimmy. Quick, drop it in here.”
Suddenly a bag of emotions, sadness, and guilt rocked my consciousness. I knew what she was planning. Rita was going to hide the gun, not turn it over to the police.
We both figured the gun was the murder weapon. The cylinder held five live rounds and one spent cartridge. By concealing the weapon, she would not only be violating her personal code of ethics, she’d be breaking the law. If caught, she’d not only lose her bar license, she’d go to jail. Rita was going to risk all of that for me.
“No, Rita…”
“We don’t have much time. Gimme the gun!”
“Go and call Hammer. Tell him you found the murder weapon.”
She didn’t move. She just stood there silently, holding her purse open. She looked small and vulnerable and hurt. My head throbbed with frustration. We stood there eye to eye for what seemed like a long time, but it was only a few seconds.
“Rita,” I finally said. “How did you know it was there?”
She lowered her purse. “Last night when I was getting ready for bed, I started thinking about the gun, and what you said about it being the murder weapon. Remember, you said how the real killer would hide it where the cops would eventually find it and it would be somewhere that would make you look guilty?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I climbed into bed, turned out the lights, but it kept nagging me. I couldn’t sleep. Something was missing. Then it hit me. Where else could the real killer have planted the gun to implicate you?” She was quiet for a moment, giving me a chance to absorb what she was saying.
“My God, Rita you’re right. It could’ve been behind that cabinet since the murder.”
“I got up and rushed here. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until-”
“Until you came to the office and searched and found the gun.”
“It only took about five minutes to find it. The killer would bring it back to your office. Finally, I peeked behind the cabinet. Bingo. But here’s the scary part.”
“What?”
“The police already searched all around the crime scene, your apartment, and heck, they even scoured the trash bins. Now they’ll get a warrant and search the office.”
“It was easy for them to get the no-knock to search my apartment,” I said. “But to get a warrant to search a criminal defense lawyer’s office would be a lot harder. They would have to get a special master to accompany them.”
“He’d have to oversee the search,” Rita said.
“Yeah, client privilege, our files are sacrosanct. To get one, they’d need solid evidence. The D.A. would have to be involved. Even Frisco wouldn’t sign a warrant assigning a special master without a compelling reason. Too many watchful eyes.”
“Jimmy, the very fact that you were the last known person to see Hazel Farris is enough to convince a judge. But, getting a special master would delay the search. Maybe only for a day or so, though.”
“The cops could show up sometime today.”
“That’s what I figured. That’s why I had to be sure your gun wasn’t here. But it was…”