Playing Dead

by Allison Brennan

  “I think I found something important.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Your friend Jayne came by and we went out to the data warehouse. She’s damn brilliant.”

  “She is. And?”

  “Nothing was deleted. When the reports were scanned, blank sheets were scanned in place of the two reports you asked about. So the right log was generated, but unless someone had rechecked the data, they wouldn’t have known the reports were blank.”

  “Damn.”

  “I thought that would help.”

  “I need to see those reports, Phin. What about hard copies?”

  “We only keep hard copies for three years, then they’re preserved at the data warehouse and destroyed.”

  Shit! “So we don’t have them at all. Anywhere.”

  “If they’re not in the court file, I don’t know where they would be. Unless the prosecutor kept a copy for some reason. And I’m sure the D.A.’s office has their own archive system.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think on it.”

  “I do have one more thing, though. I have the name of the head tech who performed the autopsies and filed the reports. The employee number is in the log as part of the file. Reny Willis. He’s not here anymore, he went to Contra Costa County in 1994, according to his employee file.”

  1994. The year of the trial. “When in 1994?”

  “His last day here was August 31, 1994.”

  Her father was sentenced the week before that. The trial had ended two weeks earlier. Coincidence? “Phin, is Jayne still with you? I need to talk to her.”

  “Here she is.”

  Jayne got on the phone. “What—”

  “Find Reny Willis. Phin has his personnel file. I need to find out exactly where he is, preferably an address. I think he knows exactly why those two coroner’s reports are missing.”

  “I’ll do it for you, Claire, but promise me you won’t confront him alone.”

  Who was she supposed to bring? Call up the FBI and ask Agents Bianchi and Donovan to join her? But . . . Bill would do it. Or Dave. She felt bad about throwing him out last night, but at the same time she was still furious that he continued to dig into her personal life when he promised he wouldn’t.

  “I promise,” she said and hung up.

  Tip Barney had moved to the opposite side of the bar, serving up drafts to the men at that end. Lora had migrated to that end of the bar as well. Good, the woman was a bit freaky. Since she’d arrived, more people had come in. It was nearing five o’clock. People getting off work. Tip was avoiding her, Claire could tell. What more could she get out of him? She was certain he knew more than he was telling her. She sipped her beer. She’d pushed him hard, appealed to his sense of humanity and justice, and he hadn’t budged. Maybe he knew Frank had been murdered and he was scared. He had left Sacramento shortly after the fire, for Los Angeles. A big place. She’d need to go back to the Rogan-Caruso offices and run a more detailed search on Tip Barney, focus on L.A., see if she could find a pattern to anything. Maybe he’d been paid off. No, that didn’t fit. He seemed genuinely upset that Frank was dead. Upset and scared.

  Tip lived upstairs, and he was working down here in the bar.

  Claire drained half her beer, put a five-dollar bill under the glass, and walked out.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Frank Lowe watched Claire O’Brien leave the bar. When she was gone, he was still tense.

  First the law student, then the Feds, now Tom O’Brien’s daughter.

  For fifteen years Frank Lowe had led a quiet life off the grid. And now it was over. He should never have come back to Sacramento. But after his dad died, he had nothing left in L.A. And even though his mother thought he was dead, he felt better being here than there. Isleton was perfect. No one should have been able to find him. He’d taken Tip’s identity—it had been his dad’s idea in the first place—and he thought he could simply run the bar here until he was as old as Sanderson.

  But for the first time in fifteen years, he feared his days were numbered. In the single digits.

  “Tip? You okay?”

  He smiled brightly at Lora. The dim woman was really a sweetheart, but sometimes she was too nosy. Because her father was the chief of police, Frank made sure Lora was well taken care of. He didn’t need Henry Lane looking too hard at his past. He might find out that Tip Barney was supposed to be sixty-one years old.

  “Just fine, Lora.”

  “That woman was mean.”

  “She was just doing her job.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s a private investigator. I just didn’t have the information she wanted.”

  What he knew would get him killed. If they knew he was still alive, they would burn down this bar with everyone in it. Frank didn’t want anyone else getting hurt. It was bad enough that the woman Taverton was having an affair with had been killed, but . . .

  Claire O’Brien was that woman’s daughter. Guilt washed over Frank. While he didn’t know for certain that the husband wasn’t guilty of murder, he knew in his gut that Jeffrey Riordan and his partners were responsible for Taverton’s death and the fire that killed Buddy, the poor bum whom Frank and Tip had let sleep in the storeroom on those nights when the temperature dipped below thirty-two.

  It was sheer luck that Frank had been able to climb out the window and into a tree; then he’d hopped a fence and gotten out into the neighborhood. He’d walked the twenty-seven blocks to Tip’s small house and told him what happened.

  “It was Riordan’s people, I know it.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No, but on the news they said D.D.A. Taverton was killed today. He knew. Somehow, Riordan knew I was turning state’s evidence. I couldn’t get to Buddy—he’s dead, I’m certain. I don’t want to die, Pop.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  What Tip decided was to let everyone think Frank was dead—including Frank’s mother. Frank felt bad about that, but he’d never been close to his mom. Always wrapped up in her own life, she had never really cared what he did or who he did it with. She had sent him to live with Aunt Rose, who was ancient.

  Which was what put him in this miserable situation in the first place.

  Aunt Rose had kicked him off her property because he’d pawned one of her two hundred fifty-seven brooches. He didn’t think she’d miss it—he didn’t realize she counted them every Sunday. She threatened to call the police if he ever showed up again, until he brought back the brooch.

  Frank had no place to go. He didn’t want to go home, and doubted his mother would welcome him. His dad was living in L.A., and he’d worn out the welcome at his few friends’ houses. He stole money by picking pockets on the K Street Mall to buy back the brooch. Three days later, he went in with the cash, but the brooch was gone. “You said I had thirty days!”

  “I didn’t think you’d show up for it. Sue me.”

  He didn’t doubt Aunt Rose’s threat to call the police. He snuck onto the property at night and hid out in the apartment above her garage. She didn’t handle stairs very well anymore, so it was fairly safe. When he was certain she was asleep, he’d walk right into the house—she never locked the door—and nibble on her leftovers, or quietly make a sandwich. She was ninety-one—her hearing was going, but not her mind. He made sure he never took the last of anything. That she’d notice.

  It was on one of those midnight kitchen runs that he heard two men enter the house.

  They didn’t speak. He didn’t know who they were, though he got a good look at one of them. He heard a third man pacing on the front porch. Frank was trapped.

  Ten minutes later, the two men came downstairs. One man held a sheet of plastic in his hands. They left.

  Frank walked upstairs and saw his aunt in her bed. And knew she was dead.

  He left and went back to his apartment. It would be dumb to disappear. The police might think he had something to do with his aunt’s death. He considered calling the polic
e, but he wasn’t supposed to be here. And why would they believe him? Especially since his aunt was leaving her entire property to him. She’d told him that many times before he swiped the brooch. She had a son, but she didn’t like him. “I like you more, Frankie.” She may have changed her will. But he’d only been on the outs with her for a couple weeks.

  The police should be able to figure it out, right? Without him saying anything?

  Except when her neighbor came by the next day when Aunt Rose missed her bridge game, her doctor said she’d died in her sleep of a heart attack. She had a bad heart and high blood pressure. There wasn’t even an autopsy. Frank still didn’t say anything. After all, he didn’t know who the men were. He wasn’t even sure he could identify them.

  But when his aunt’s will was read, Frank got nothing. Her property was sold to Waterstone Development, and the money given to the Delta Conservancy. It made no sense. But Frank didn’t know then what he learned ten years later when he saw Jeffrey Riordan on television running for Congress.

  He was the man with the plastic in his aunt’s house.

  The only person Frank had told the entire story to was Chase Taverton—not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Frank didn’t want to go to prison—and look where that got the prosecutor. And Frank.

  Riordan would kill him in a heartbeat if he knew Frank was alive. Frank didn’t know who Taverton told, who had connections to Riordan so strong that they would kill to keep the secrets.

  When Oliver Maddox had called, Frank told him he knew nothing, but the kid came down anyway. Frank denied everything, but Maddox kept pushing. The kid had been scared. Then he whispered, “I know who you are, Frank. You can save a man from dying for a murder he didn’t commit if you just come forward.”

  Frank continued to deny everything. He thought Maddox had given up. It wasn’t until two days ago when his body was brought up from the river that Frank realized he may have gotten the kid killed.

  He didn’t want anything to happen to Claire O’Brien.

  More important, he didn’t want to die.

  The bar door opened and Frank turned his head to see what drink he needed to pour, based on who was coming in.

  He might as well lace his own soda with hemlock. The Feds were back, and Frank knew damn well they wouldn’t be able to protect him.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Claire didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but figured she’d know it when she saw it.

  Tip Barney was a tidy bachelor. Rather minimalist with one old, clean sofa; a recliner; a tiny table and two chairs in the kitchenette; and a small desk with an old IBM computer. So old that the monitor was black and white. The only expensive item was a wide-screen television centered to face the worn leather recliner. His small bathroom smelled like Old Spice and the bedroom barely fit a double bed and dresser. His tastes in art were simple as well: scenic rural photographs.

  Even his paperwork was filed away neatly in the desk drawers.

  She searched the desk and quickly learned that it was all business. No personal papers. Insurance documents, but all business-related. The bedroom had less interesting items in the solitary dresser—socks, boxers, T-shirts. The guy hung up his pants and a couple dress shirts. Tip certainly lived modestly enough. The insurance settlement must not have been that great, or he’d spent it all in L.A.

  She felt uneasy, and hot, and a bit sick to her stomach. Served her right drinking half a beer without eating.

  What did she want here? What did she expect? A connection to Oliver Maddox? Did she honestly think that Tip Barney had anything to do with Maddox’s murder? He didn’t seem the killer type, but then again there wasn’t really a type.

  She walked the small apartment twice, found nothing, and turned to leave. Her head hurt and she just wanted to get home. Lack of food, lack of sleep, too much caffeine was catching up to her. Her hand was on the knob when she saw a picture of Tip and an older man. They looked a lot alike. Must be Tip’s dad. But something seemed . . . off.

  She took the picture off the wall. There was no writing on the back. She used her key to slip off the cardboard backing.

  On the back of the photograph was written:

  Dad and me, March ’06.

  Stamped in the lower right corner was: STILLMAN PHOTOGRAPHY, MANHATTAN BEACH, CA.

  She put the picture back on the wall and quickly texted Jayne to find out about Stillman Photography and anything about Tip Barney living or working in Manhattan Beach.

  Maybe Tip’s dad could be gotten to. If Tip had been living near him while in L.A., maybe he said something. It was worth a shot. Hell, Claire was willing to try anything at this point.

  She glanced at her watch. Quarter to six. Her dad was surrendering in fifteen minutes. She wouldn’t make it to FBI headquarters, but she could make it to the hospital by the time he got there.

  She quietly left the apartment and walked down the back stairs in time to see Mitch Bianchi and Steve Donovan enter the bar.

  Mitch approached the bar and flashed his badge, even though they’d been here earlier in the day. He and Steve had discussed how to approach Frank Lowe, and they decided to just bring him in. He’d faked his own death. That wasn’t a felony unless he profited from it, but since there had been an outstanding charge against him at the time, he was a fugitive: unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

  Steve walked up to the bar. Frank approached him. “Back so soon?”

  Steve clicked a cuff on Frank’s wrist before he realized what had happened. He put the other side around his own wrist. “Frank Lowe, you’re under arrest. You have—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Tip Barney. Real name’s George, but no one calls me that.”

  “We were just at your mother’s house. Betty has a whole photo album of you and your dad.”

  Frank paled. “You’re making a mistake. You’re going to get me killed. Please don’t do this!”

  “If you talk now, there’ll be no reason why anyone would kill you. Spill the beans and you’ll be safe.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Mitch said, “What was the plea agreement between you and Chase Taverton?”

  “I’m not talking.”

  “Fine.” Steve yanked Frank’s arm to force him to follow around the end of the bar.

  Mitch announced, “Okay, folks, go home.”

  Lora Lane, the woman they’d spoken to earlier, frowned. “I don’t understand. Did you catch him doing something?”

  “Ma’am, this isn’t your concern,” Steve told her.

  “But you can’t arrest him.”

  “Ma’am, please leave.”

  The patrons were leaving, murmuring among themselves. “Lock up, Frank,” Steve said.

  The door opened, and Mitch was about to tell the customer the bar was closed when he saw Claire standing there.

  She was pale, much too pale. She glared at him, hurt and anger in her expression. But Mitch was so relieved to see her—to know that she was okay.

  “Did you follow me here?” she asked, one hand on her hip.

  “No, we’re following up on Oliver Maddox’s murder. I had no idea you were here.”

  She grinned without humor. “You had someone sit on me.”

  “Didn’t last long.”

  “I’m too smart for you.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Claire, we need to talk. About your father and what you’ve learned about Maddox.”

  Frank Lowe said, “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “No one said you did, Mr. Lowe.”

  Claire blinked and rubbed her temples. “Lowe?” She turned to him. “You’re Frank Lowe?”

  “No,” he said while both Mitch and Steve said, “Yes.”

  Claire stared at Lowe. “You can clear my father. You bastard, why did you lie to me?”

  “You’re going to get me killed! D
on’t you understand, this is way above you. I’m going to die.”

  “If you don’t talk, my father is going to die!”

  Mitch watched the exchange, wondering if Frank was going to crack. He was clearly between a rock and a hard place.

  “I can’t clear your father,” said Frank. “I swear, I don’t know what happened that day.”

  “But you know why Chase Taverton was killed.”

  “I’m not saying a word.”

  “You’re still under arrest,” Steve said.

  Mitch walked over to Claire. “I will find out the truth. I promise.”

  She stared at him, arms crossed.

  He continued, “Your father called me a few days after the earthquake and tipped me off to where Blackie Goethe’s gang was. We took down the gang and your father risked his life to save mine. He told me he was innocent. I didn’t believe him, but I owed him. Out of curiosity I looked into his case. Saw some things that made me question whether he was even guilty. I befriended you because I wanted to bring him in safely and knew he’d be in danger if he went into state custody.”

  He stepped toward her, reaching out and touching her cheek. Claire flinched. Her mouth trembled.

  “I never expected to fall in love with you, Claire.”

  She whispered, “I don’t believe anything you say.”

  “I’m not sorry I met you, but I’m sorry I had to lie. I did it for the right reasons.”

  “And what right reason did you sleep with me for?”

  “I’d do anything to prove to you that I care.”

  She turned and left.

  “Ready?” Steve asked quietly.

  “Let’s get Lowe to headquarters,” said Mitch.

  Mitch stared at the door. Claire didn’t look herself. More than because he’d hurt her. He wondered if she was sick. She’d rubbed her head like it hurt.

  Or maybe it was all because of him.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Claire’s stomach was queasy. Damn Mitch. Why’d he have to say anything to her? It would have been easier if he just acted like a damn FBI agent. Why’d he have to tell her he’d fallen in love with her? Was it another game? Why?