Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries)

by Matthew Storm

  He looked at the Glock again. “You know something funny, Nevada? That looks like a Glock, and I can’t seem to remember giving you a Glock.”

  “You didn’t. The Glock fits my hand better. The .45 you gave me is in the nightstand.”

  “You don’t like the .45?”

  “I never said I didn’t like it, but it’s huge. You might as well have gotten me a shotgun.”

  “You’re getting a shotgun when you move into your house,” he said.

  “Funny man.”

  “You think I was kidding?” he asked. He picked up the Glock and looked it over. “This one of the new 19’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it legal for you to have it?”

  “Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

  Dan looked up at me. “Do I even want to know where you got this thing?”

  “No.”

  He sighed and put it back down, then sat on the bed next to it. “We should talk.”

  I took one of the motel chairs near the window. “Dan, you know I love you, but you are getting very close to pissing me off with this watchdog shit.”

  He looked at me for a long moment, probably trying to size me up. “Sarah told me she had you come out to the crime scene.”

  “Yeah. You mad about that? It was a possible Laughing Man case, and I’m more or less the expert on those. It was the right call.”

  “That much I know.”

  “Then what? You thought I’d see the dead guy’s face and start having flashbacks? I don’t have PTSD.”

  “You absolutely have PTSD,” Dan said. “You have so much PTSD they should name a new variety of it for you.”

  I shrugged. The point wasn’t worth arguing, and he was probably right, anyway. “Well, I didn’t have any flashbacks. I don’t wake up in cold sweats. I have been having these recurring nightmares, though…”

  Dan leaned forward. “About him?”

  “No,” I said. “I keep dreaming that California gets invaded by these robot people from another dimension and I have to lead a resistance movement to fight them. And I make friends with a werewolf.” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine what it means.”

  “For god’s sake,” Dan sighed. “Can’t you be serious for five seconds?”

  “Nope.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Well, at least you’re sober.”

  “I am. Want to ask me how much I’m enjoying it?”

  “I don’t care how much you’re enjoying it.”

  I kind of wanted to get on Dan’s case for barging in here this way, but the truth was I deserved it. I’d put him through a lot. Dan was one of the only people that had never given up on me, and I was a person who actually deserved to have been given up on.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I didn’t really think you were drinking.”

  “Then what were you so worried about? Oh, of course. You were afraid you’d forget to give me the souvenir you brought me from Santa Fe.” I looked at his suitcase. “You are going to tell me there’s a souvenir in there, right? Is it a t-shirt?”

  “No.”

  “Is it a mug?”

  “I didn’t get you a souvenir, Nevada.”

  I clucked my tongue at him. “It’s like you don’t care about me anymore,” I said. “If I went to Santa Fe, I’d get you a souvenir.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Anyway, Sarah told me you looked over the crime scene.”

  “Of course I looked over the crime scene. She didn’t ask me over there to perform musical theater with them.”

  He ignored my clever remark. “She said you told them it wasn’t the Laughing Man.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “She knew it, too. I think she just wanted me to confirm it before she made the call.”

  “And when she called me afterward, she was worried about you. She said you were completely emotionless about it. Like you didn’t give a shit. You looked at a dead body and called it trash.”

  I tried to resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Okay, that wasn’t my best choice of words ever.”

  “She said you were like a robot.”

  “Now that’s just mean,” I pouted. “I don’t know how I’m going to get to sleep tonight after hearing that.”

  “Damn it, Nevada, you know what I’m getting at.” He leaned forward on the bed and interlaced his fingers. “Human beings react to that kind of thing.”

  I stood up. “I’m getting a Diet Coke,” I said. “You want a Diet Coke?”

  “Did you hear anything I just said?”

  “Yeah, but I’m thirsty. Do you want the soda or not?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  I went to the refrigerator and took two cans out, handing him one as I went back to my chair. Mine I popped open and raised like I was toasting him, then took a drink. “I don’t know what you want to hear,” I said after a minute. “No, that’s not true. I do know what you want to hear. You want to hear that I was affected by it.”

  He opened his own can and took a sip. “I do want to hear that, yeah.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “I wasn’t. I don’t have that in me anymore, Dan. Don’t get me wrong. I know I should. I’m perfectly aware that I’ve lost some part of me I used to have. Well, that’s just too bad. It’s just spilt milk.”

  He nearly choked on his soda. “It’s spilt milk? That may be the worst analogy you’ve ever made.”

  “Well, technically it’s an idiom, but I don’t think it quite worked. It’s water under the bridge? No…”

  “We’re having a serious conversation, Nevada. Remember?”

  “I think you’re the one having a serious conversation,” I said. “I’m still worried about those robots from my dream.”

  He ignored that. “I remember you were upset when you broke that guy’s neck. The one Emerson sent over to waste you. You’re telling me you went from that to this in three months?”

  “No,” I said, “but I was drunk then. And I was the one who killed him, and I didn’t mean to do it. He was just some stooge I hit too hard. It’s not the same thing as seeing some dead guy in an alley.” Dan grunted. “Give me a break,” I said. “Do Sarah and that guy Ellis come cry on your shoulder every time they catch a homicide?”

  “No.”

  “Would they be good detectives if they did?”

  “No, but everyone deals with it differently. Sarah’s been in therapy for five years and Brad…he was for a while, anyway. He was in a shoot a while back and couldn’t clear his psych evaluation after, so I made him do some couch time until he could.”

  I put my soda down. “Sarah’s in therapy?”

  He smirked. “Oh, look at you now. Are you actually concerned with another person’s welfare?”

  “Don’t be a dick,” I said, just a little more coldly than I meant to.

  “I wasn’t. It’s nice to see you have an emotion. Yeah, Sarah’s in therapy. I encourage my people to talk to a professional whether they think they need to or not. You can’t take all that shit home. If I’d made you go when you worked for me maybe you wouldn’t have lost your shit the way you did.”

  “I’d have liked to see you try to ‘make me’ do anything,” I said. “That would have been fun.”

  He drank his soda. “I really don’t know what I expected this conversation to sound like,” he said, “but this wasn’t it.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “This is the longest we’ve talked in a while without you offering me my badge back.”

  “It’s in my desk at the office. You want me to go get it?”

  “No.”

  “It would be good for you,” he said. “At least you wouldn’t be sitting around here all day.”

  For a moment I thought about telling him about my conversation with Anita Collins, but I decided against it. He’d probably just find a reason to lecture me. “I’m fine,” I said. “I could never go back, anyway. Somehow I think I’d fail the background check now.”

  He gave me a contemplative look. “There are w
ays.”

  “You going to strong-arm someone?” I asked. “Blackmail the Chief if he says no?”

  “The Chief would take you back.”

  “The Chief hates me,” I said.

  “Oh, he does hate you, Nevada. He hates you worse than Hitler. But you close cases. He likes that. With the media attention this copycat thing is getting, I could swear you in tonight and he’d probably come in to give us medals at the same time.”

  He was exaggerating about the medals, probably, but I also knew he was serious about the job. I was a special case. If I’d wanted it, they’d find a way to make it work. A tiny part of me did want it. The rational part of me knew it would be a huge mistake.

  “No,” I said. He opened his mouth and I held up a hand. “Don’t tell me to think about it. I have thought about it. I’ll probably think about it more. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

  He nodded. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to take that, for now. But swearing you in isn’t the only way we could do it. We could probably appoint you as a consultant.”

  “A consultant? What the fuck is that, Dan?”

  “I don’t know, all right? Damn it, Nevada, I just want you out of this room.”

  “I’ve got an interview at McDonald’s coming up,” I said. “I don’t have a ton of experience with food, but I hear they’re not all that picky…”

  “Shut up, Nevada.”

  He finished his soda and belched under his breath. “One other thing.”

  “Okay, Columbo.”

  He ignored that. “Why did you tell Sarah not to investigate the copycat?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said. “I said not to bother. It’s not the same thing. And you know exactly why I said it. She already told you.”

  “Yeah, I know what she said.”

  “You thinking I’ve gone mental?”

  “I already know you’ve gone mental,” he said. “I was just wondering if you’re going to go look for this guy yourself, and then sit on him until the Laughing Man shows up to kill him.”

  I raised my eyebrows as if that had never occurred to me. “That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “Hey, can you get me a copy of the case file? I just want it for no reason.”

  “Nevada…”

  “I was kidding,” I said. “I’m not looking for him. I’m not going to say I never thought about it, but I’m not looking.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because say I did find him. You think I’m going to sit by while he kills someone else, just because I’m hoping the Laughing Man is going to show up for me to shoot? I’m mental, but I’m not that mental.” I thought about that. “You know, that might not have been my answer three months ago. See? I’m making progress!”

  Dan stood up. “Go fuck yourself, Nevada,” he said.

  “Love you, too.”

  “You have my number,” he said. “Call me if you need to. I’ll check in on you in a few days.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I care about you, you stupid shit.” He took his phone out of his jacket and called for a cab. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

  “You, too.”

  “Try not to get in any trouble.”

  “You know me,” I said. “What could possibly happen?”

  He glanced at the Glock sitting on my bed. “Knowing you? Almost anything.”

  Chapter 8

  An hour after Dan left I took the vodka out of the dresser and poured half an inch into a cup. I sat with it while I watched part of a talk show, then poured it down the drain. I wondered if the need to do that was ever going to go away. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t. It probably would be if I ever drank it. If I went down that hole again there wasn’t much chance I was ever coming back.

  In the morning I called Anita at the number she’d given me. “Hello?” she answered in her grandmother voice.

  “I’ll take the job,” I said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. The grandmother voice was gone. “Let’s talk about money.”

  “We don’t need to talk about money,” I said. “I doubt this is going to go anywhere. If I’m wrong about that, you can pay me whatever you think it’s worth. Alan Davies gave me a small fortune to find his daughter. I’m not going to need money for a long time.”

  “When you find the murderer, I’m sure you won’t have any complaints about your compensation,” she said. “I’ll make sure you never need money again.”

  There was more than one way to take that, but somehow I doubted Anita meant it in the sense that I wouldn’t need money because she’d have me killed. Maybe that meant my paranoia was improving. “I really do doubt I’m going to come up with anything,” I said. “I’m going to start digging, though. You sure there’s nothing you need to tell me before I start? If I’m going to uncover embezzlement or affairs or something like that, you may as well tell me now.”

  “Nothing like that. My husband was as upstanding and true a man as you could ever want to meet.”

  I tried not to snicker. That had been more than a little over the top. Then again, it had sounded like she’d meant it. “Yeah, great. Look, I don’t care, all right? Unless you were running a child slavery ring or something, I’m not going to judge you. But if I find out you’ve lied to me, I’m going to be pretty pissed about it. People say I’m not much fun when I’m pissed.”

  “I have no trouble believing that,” Anita said.

  “All right. I’m going to get in touch with Jason London and tell him I want the case file. I’d rather nobody else found out I was looking at this; it might cause some friction with the SDPD.” I paused. “What’s your connection to Jason, anyway? He said you were a friend, but I don’t really see you two hanging out in the same social circles.”

  “No, we don’t. One of my foundations provides supplemental healthcare costs for police officers and firefighters.”

  “And?”

  “I paid for his rehab.”

  I frowned. “I’d think the SDPD’s insurance would cover rehab.”

  “It doesn’t cover a month at Passages.”

  I knew the name. Passages was a rehab facility in Malibu that was known for treating celebrities. I had no idea what it cost, but it was probably more than Jason made in a year. “Okay,” I said. “I guess I can see that. Anyway, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you, Nevada. I appreciate this more than you’ll ever know.”

  I hung up. She’d never gone back to using her singsong voice with me. That had been wise. I wondered how many people she let through that wall.

  I was hungry and cold pizza for breakfast didn’t sound appealing. I decided to text Jason first, though. Need case file for Collins. Going to take a look. He replied two minutes later. Already have it ready. Where to meet? I didn’t feel like having him over to my motel room, so I sent back the name of a diner I knew near Old Town and went to the window for my usual routine of looking for anything suspicious in the parking lot. As was also the usual, nothing stood out. If the Laughing Man was watching me, he was doing it from a distance. Then again, he probably knew my routines better than I did. They never varied much. It wasn’t as if I’d taken Alan Davies’s money and started a life of jet-setting around the globe.

  The diner was about half full when I went inside. I ordered an omelet and hash browns and sipped a Diet Coke while I waited. Jason walked in just as the food was coming to the table. He was wearing aviator sunglasses with a Tommy Bahama shirt and shorts. “You look like a drug dealer,” I said when he got to the table.

  “I’m buying half a ton of weed later,” he said, sitting down. “Some people appreciate the look.”

  “You look like you’re in an action movie from the 90’s. Bruce Willis is going to come in here and mess up your shit.”

  “It’s okay. I have a ninja army standing by.”

  For a moment I was shocked, then I laughed. “You aren’t usually funny,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’m not u
sually in this good a mood. I appreciate you helping Anita like this.”

  “Helping people is what I do,” I said. “I’m like…” I thought it over but couldn’t come up with anything clever, “somebody who is always helping. Damn. That one got away from me.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  I looked him over. “So where are the files?”

  “In my trunk.” The waiter came by and Jason ordered two soft-boiled eggs and coffee.

  “Why are they in the trunk?” I asked. “I was expecting you to give me a thumb drive.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing that old has been digitized. You’re getting three dusty boxes. That’s it.”

  I sighed. “Why can’t anything be easy?”

  Jason’s food came and he tucked into his soft-boiled eggs. “I meant it before. It’s nice of you to help Anita.”

  “It’ll come to nothing, I’m sure. Have you looked at the files?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not my field. What do I know about bomb analysis? There were never any serious suspects. They interviewed a couple aging hippies that were involved in the anti-war scene.”

  “Desert Storm? Did that even count as a war?”

  “No, the Vietnam War. You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one that had to do with the impressment of sailors.”

  Jason stared at me. “What?”

  “Forget it. It was a War of 1812 joke. Actually, it was probably the only War of 1812 joke. Of course I’ve heard of Vietnam. Why were they interviewing old hippies?”

  He shrugged. “The hippies had their share of radicals. One of them had been part of a group that was suspected of putting a bomb under a police car in 1968. They were fighting the power, or the pigs, or whatever people said back then.”

  “I think they were worried about ‘the man’ always getting them down.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “You like any of them for it?”

  “No. It’s a pretty big stretch to go from anti-war to blowing up a guy that wanted to make smart computers. I always figured it was a jealous lover, but Anita says neither of them had a lover, and I believe her.”