Playing Dead

by Allison Brennan

  “No,” she said haughtily. “Plea agreement details are not always public record.”

  Claire left her cell phone number and hung up. It was after one in the afternoon; she didn’t want to wait. Chances were the judge wouldn’t be done until late that afternoon. Time to hit Isleton and maybe when she returned the judge would be free.

  Frank Lowe’s mother lived in a run-down row house in an old Elk Grove neighborhood surrounded by four-unit apartments built in the seventies.

  Mitch knocked on the locked screen, then glanced at Steve and rolled his eyes. There was no doubt she was home. The sound of game shows rang loud and clear through the open windows. A wall air-conditioning unit rumbled loudly in the background. No wonder her television was on full volume—Mitch couldn’t hear himself think. He rang the bell, holding the buzzer down for three full seconds.

  The woman may not have heard the bell, but the small dogs did. Three of them began barking in earnest.

  “Down, boys! Down. Stop it!” A moment later she opened the door. “Yeah?”

  “Ms. Betty Lowe?”

  “Yeah? You selling something I don’t want?” Ms. Lowe was a short, skinny woman. Dyed red hair with gray roots. Leathery skin from long-term sun exposure.

  Mitch and Steve flashed their badges. “FBI Special Agents Bianchi and Donovan, ma’am. We have a couple questions about your son if you don’t mind.”

  “Who? Frank? He’s dead. Can’t get into any trouble from the grave.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but we’re looking into his death.”

  “The fire?”

  “Yes.”

  She opened her screen and they stepped across the threshold. Three fluffy dogs barked and turned in circles at Mitch’s feet. They ignored Steve.

  “You must have a dog at home,” Ms. Lowe said. “That’s why they’re acting up.” She herded the dogs down the hall and shut the door behind them. They barked a minute, then calmed down.

  Mitch didn’t have a dog, but he had been around them a lot lately. He put Claire out of his mind—and the question of where she might be right now—and focused on finding out if Betty Lowe knew anything about her son’s activities prior to his death.

  Steve asked, “Just for the record, are you Frank’s only living relative?”

  “I have two sisters, both live out of state. Never see them. My parents are dead. They didn’t much care for me after I got pregnant with Frank and didn’t want to get married.”

  “Frank’s father isn’t in the picture?”

  “He was, on and off. More off, really, until Frank was grown. I think if Tip was around more, Frank wouldn’t have been so wild growing up. Though the military was good for him, very good.”

  “Frank’s father is Tip Barney?”

  Mitch couldn’t restrain his surprise, and Ms. Lowe turned to him. “Is there a problem? Tip and I never married, and he never paid child support, but we settled that after Frank died. Tip felt awful about that, sent me half the insurance money from the fire and moved to Los Angeles.”

  “Did Frank know that Tip was his father?”

  “Know? Of course he knew. Tip came ’round every so often, gave Frank that job in the bar when he got out of prison. Why is this important?”

  “We’re just trying to put the pieces together of what happened during the two weeks prior to the fire,” Steve said.

  “Frank always had sticky fingers. It’s why I kicked him out of the house when he was a teenager. He started stealing from friends, and I was having none of that. He went to live with his great-aunt after living on the streets didn’t sit well with him. Aunt Rose and Frank seemed to get along all right, though I think Frank was the only person she didn’t hate. Frank was a nice kid. Just couldn’t keep his hands off other people’s stuff.”

  “Is that why Frank got emancipated?” Steve asked.

  Regret crossed Ms. Lowe’s face. “Aunt Rose died and Frank thought she was leaving her house to him—he liked it out at her ranch. He’d been living there on and off about a year, in the apartment above the garage. Had a part-time job. Helped her when she needed it. Then she ended up having her house sold to some developer and giving the money to a conservancy group. Not that I’m knocking the need to help the environment, mind you, but it wasn’t like her. She was stingy. I expected her to want to be buried with her money. Giving it to a liberal charity? Naw.”

  Her voice softened. “I was a bit of a free spirit back then. I let Frank do what he wanted. In hindsight, that wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t discipline him enough, but see, my daddy always used a paddle on my butt, and I didn’t want Frank growing up being hit to stay in line. And he was a good kid, but for those sticky fingers. We’d just started getting things back on track when he died.”

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Steve said.

  She sighed. “I miss them.”

  “Them?”

  “Frank and Tip. Tip moved to L.A. after the fire—I think he blamed himself in some ways—and he died of cancer two years ago.”

  Mitch straightened, exchanged glances with Steve. “Do you know what Frank was offered as a plea agreement before he died?”

  She was confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know he was arrested for home invasion robbery two weeks before the fire.”

  “Of course, but he told me they gave him probation. Community service.”

  So she didn’t know anything. “Do you have any of Frank’s personal effects?”

  She shook her head. “No. Frank hadn’t lived with me since he was fifteen, I didn’t see any reason to keep anything, and he took what he wanted.”

  “Do you have a picture of Tip Barney?”

  “Why?”

  “For our report,” Steve said.

  She rose, crossed to a bookshelf, and took out a photo album. She sat back down, flipped through it. Near the back she pulled out a picture. “This was Frank and Tip at the bar about a year before the fire.”

  She handed the picture to Mitch.

  He stared. Showed it to Steve. Everything clicked into place. “May we borrow this?”

  “Sure. I probably have the negatives somewhere.”

  “We’ll return it,” Mitch promised.

  They thanked Ms. Lowe for her time, then walked out.

  “It all makes sense now,” Steve said.

  “Frank survived the fire—or faked his own death—because he feared for his life,” Mitch said, holding up the picture. “Think he and his father went to L.A. together?”

  “And when his dad died, he took his identity and moved back, close to home.”

  “Now we just have to figure out why.”

  “Back to Isleton.”

  THIRTY

  Claire parked down the street from the Rabbit Hole in Isleton.

  She’d just gotten off the phone with Nelia Kincaid. Less than three hours from now Tom O’Brien would surrender at FBI headquarters and be taken to Sutter Memorial Hospital for evaluation and possible surgery.

  She wanted to see her dad before he went into surgery. What if he didn’t survive? She shook her head. Right now figuring out who killed her mother and Chase Taverton was the single most important thing. She’d call Nelia when she was back in Sacramento and see if the attorney could get her in to visit her dad.

  She took a deep breath and put her forehead on the steering wheel. She hadn’t slept much last night after her father and Nelia left. She worked on the case, putting together all the information she had and what she needed to check out, telling herself it was for her dad. And all that was important, but it was all rehashing the same stuff.

  The truth was, as soon as she went to bed, she couldn’t get Mitch out of her mind.

  She wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to hate him. He’d used her, manipulated her. She’d always prided herself on reading people, and yet Mitch hid himself, created a false identity. And she’d fallen in love. He’d been exactly who she wanted him to be, as if the FBI agent
had been able to read her subconscious and identify the perfect man for her. He became that man, and she fell for it. She’d exposed so much to him, not just her body, but her heart. She’d wanted to share more with him than with anyone.

  Claire had dated more than a dozen guys, more or less seriously, over the years, but it never hurt—physically hurt—when they split. Nothing like this.

  She almost wished she could cry over it again, but the tears had dried up last night.

  Taking another deep breath, she got out of Bill’s truck. Time to focus on what was most important right now: proving her father’s innocence. She double-checked the Kahr P40 she had strapped in her ankle holster. She opted to leave her blazer in the truck, knowing full well that men were more forthcoming with information if you gave them something to look at. Anyway, her blazer made her look too much like a cop or a PI. She unbuttoned one of the buttons of her black shirt, just enough so her lacy pink bra could be seen if she turned the right way.

  She retrieved her Taser C2 from her tactical bag in the back. She loved the new design—she’d bought the metallic pink version—as well as the intense voltage in a compact six inches. She could hit someone up to fifteen feet away. If Claire were being attacked, she’d rather take them down safely without having to touch or shoot them.

  She stuffed it in her small purse, an image of hitting Mitch Bianchi below the belt with the two electric probes making her smile. Zap!

  Much better. Focus on the anger, not the pain. Toughen up.

  Claire surveyed the building. The Rabbit Hole was not much of anything to look at, but then again, at night Isleton pretty much rolled up the sidewalks unless it was their annual summer Crawdad Festival.

  Downtown Isleton was quaint with restored buildings, a few gift stores, an old-fashioned ice cream “shoppe,” and a video arcade. A must, Claire thought, for a small town. A sporting goods store took up half the block across from the Rabbit Hole. No surprise there, fishing and boating were big here in the delta.

  Though it was the middle of the day, there was little sign of life on the street. Three young teens were walking around with nothing to do. A mother with two young children exited the ice cream shoppe. There were no windows in the bar, but a red neon sign declared they were OPEN.

  She crossed the street and walked in. The bar was a third full—almost all of the men over sixty—and the music greeted her warmly. She didn’t particularly like country music, but it fit the atmosphere, and the sound was definitely more pop-country than the soulful my-dog-died-and-my-wife-ran-away-with-the-sheriff ballads. Two men played chess in one corner, and a larger table had a quarter poker game going on.

  “Hey, Tip!” one of the old guys at the bar shouted loud enough for her to hear, “you’re really bringing in the lookers with that snazzy new sign you put up.”

  Claire had seen the sign—it looked neither snazzy nor new—but she turned her attention to the bar.

  “Told you it would help,” a man behind the bar said. Claire couldn’t see him behind the heads of the patrons. She approached and sat on an empty stool next to a man who wore a military hat from WWII with SANDERSON sewn on the edge. He looked old enough to have fought nearly seventy years ago.

  “Told you classy chicks like men in uniform,” Sanderson said. “I’d buy you a drink, sweet thing, but my military pension only covers two drafts a day and I’m already on my third.” He laughed at his joke.

  She smiled. She liked this place. It had a good feeling about it, small-town folks of modest means coming together for a beer to keep each other from getting too lonely. She’d bet every one of the five men sitting at the bar was a widower.

  Claire smiled at the bartender. He wasn’t exactly what she expected, but she didn’t have a description of Tip Barney. The bartender was in his mid-forties with an average build and average features. Pleasant looking.

  “What can I get for you, pretty lady?” the bartender said, putting a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of her.

  “Whatever you have on tap is fine.” Claire didn’t particularly like draft beer, but fitting in was important when you were looking for information.

  There was an older couple sitting at a table near the bar, and the only other woman was two stools over from Claire. She leaned over. “Hi, I’m Lora. Who are you?”

  The woman had a bright appearance and subtle manner that told Claire she might be developmentally disabled. She was very pretty even though she wore too much makeup.

  “Hi, Lora. Claire.” She smiled.

  The bartender put the beer in front of Claire. She sipped. Smiled. Ugh. She’d been spoiled after drinking Guinness for so long. “I’m looking for Tip Barney.”

  The bartender crossed his arms and leaned against the back bar. “That’s me.”

  Claire didn’t know what she was expecting, but he looked much younger than she thought he would. By the looks of it, he’d have been in his twenties when he’d owned Tip’s Blarney. Not impossible, she supposed, but odd enough that she made a mental note to check into the history of the previous bar.

  “Popular guy today,” one of the guys at the end of the bar said.

  Tip smiled and shook his head. “Ignore them. What can I help you with?”

  She’d already decided that honesty would work best with Frank Lowe’s old boss.

  “My name is Claire O’Brien.” She took a sip of beer. “I work for Rogan-Caruso Protective Services, and I have some questions about one of your employees.”

  He knew exactly who she was. She saw the recognition in his eyes when she said her name.

  “I don’t have any employees.”

  “Frank Lowe. He died in a fire in your bar fifteen years ago.”

  “Frank.” He nodded. “Poor Frank.”

  “You’ve never talked about him,” one of the guys at the bar said. Claire wished she could have this conversation in private.

  “He was a good guy. A friend, though he had some problems. A couple arrests, petty theft mostly, but I told him if it happened again I’d have to let him go.” Tip shook his head and reached for a half-empty water bottle on the back of the bar, took a long swallow. “It was a tragedy, really. The police thought that some gangbangers burned down the bar for fun, not knowing Frank lived upstairs. It was an old building, burned down quick.”

  “That’s sad.” Lora had moved to the stool next to Claire, elbows on the bar and chin in her hands.

  “What do you want to know about Frank?” Tip asked her.

  “Fifteen years ago, my father was convicted of killing two people. You probably remember it, if not then, perhaps because it was all over the news after the San Quentin earthquake.”

  “Of course I’ve heard of it.”

  “Hey,” Sanderson said, “O’Brien. Isn’t he the guy Channel 3 did that report on a couple months ago? That he was capturing the other prisoners? I remember that. He’d been a cop, right?”

  Claire nodded. She needed to get the conversation back to Frank. “As a favor to me, Rogan-Caruso is looking into the conviction.” She had no qualms about lying on this point. Rogan-Caruso’s reputation was such that everyone would take their involvement seriously, which gave everything she said credibility. In addition, if Tip Barney—or anyone else in this bar—had killed Oliver, they would think twice about attacking her if they believed that Rogan-Caruso had the same information she had.

  She continued, “When Oliver Maddox turned up dead, I approached my boss and asked if he would look into what happened. I never believed Oliver when he told me my father was innocent and he felt he could prove it. But with Oliver being murdered, it looks like he was right.”

  “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me or Frank.”

  “Rogan-Caruso uncovered information about Chase Taverton, the prosecutor who was murdered, that leads us to believe that he had a plea agreement with Frank Lowe regarding a capital offense that Mr. Lowe could testify to.” Claire remembered what Abrahamson said about big fish and little fis
h. “Mr. Lowe was a petty thief. I’m sure you know he was arrested several times. He always got off with a slap on the wrist or minimal jail time. But after the last time with the little girl in the house he graduated to the big—”

  Tip interrupted. “I knew Frank very well, and he didn’t hurt kids. He never hurt anyone. He only broke into places where no one was home.”

  She nodded. “Right. That’s what the records say. Until the last time.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Do you know what Frank told Chase Taverton? I know there was a plea deal. It might not have been signed, sealed, and delivered, but it existed.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” He picked up a rag and started wiping down the clean bar.

  “The fact that both men were killed within twenty-four hours has us suspicious. Both of them. Murdered.”

  “Those kids didn’t know Frank was inside.”

  “And you believe that?”

  Claire had almost forgotten Lora was sitting next to her until she leaned over and, practically right in Claire’s face, said, “Why are you being so mean to Tip?”

  Claire really wished she had Tip Barney alone. He knew something important. She ignored Lora and said, “Tip, please. An innocent man will die if you don’t tell me what you know.”

  He shook his head back and forth. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, girl. I’m sorry about your dad, but there’s nothing I can help you with. Nothing.”

  “Frank could have been killed before the fire even started, and the arson was to cover it up.”

  “You have an overactive imagination, missy. Look. I’m sorry about your father, really, but there’s nothing I can do for you. Frank didn’t tell me anything. And it doesn’t matter anymore because he’s dead.”

  “It does matter. It matters to my dad. To me.” Her voice caught. She’d planned on appealing to his humanity to talk, but the emotion wasn’t planned. This whole miserable situation was getting to her.

  Her cell phone rang and she grabbed it. It was Phineas. Lora was staring at her with a frown on her face. Claire swiveled in the seat and put her finger in one ear as she answered the phone. “Hey, can I call you back?”