It was another fifteen minutes before I heard the footsteps coming. They were fairly distinctive, heavy and determined. I’d heard them plenty of times before, usually coming in my direction for something like this. “You can go,” a voice like rumbling thunder said to the cop outside. The cop nodded once and hurried away.
Dan Evans drew the treatment bay’s curtain back and looked at me. “Hey, boss,” I said.
Dan was captain of the San Diego Police Department’s homicide division. He was also probably number one on my very short list of friends. And he was a bit of a scold. That was putting it lightly, to be honest. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to fight with him for a while, though. I’d put him through a lot. Watching me trying to kill myself with vodka in the old days had been torture for him. He’d been there for my first seizure almost a year ago, and had been the one to take me to the hospital that day. He hadn’t left my room the entire time I lay in a bed shaking and sweating, hooked up to fluids that were all that kept my body from shutting down entirely. It had been close. Too close for him. I suppose it had been too close for me, too, but somehow I was always less concerned about my own life than others were.
“Nevada,” Dan said. “You look like shit.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You know, that’s kind of a recurring theme in our conversations. I say hi. You say I look like shit. I tell you to go fuck yourself. You could almost set a clock to it.”
“Are you telling me to go fuck myself?”
“No.” I shrugged. “It’s fair enough. I usually do look like shit.”
Dan stepped forward and closed the curtain behind him, giving us some modicum of privacy. “I’ll tell you something, Nevada,” he said. “I actually didn’t believe it when I got the call. Nevada James beat up a paparazzi, they said. No, I said. That can’t be right. Why on Earth would Nevada beat up a paparazzi?”
“It’s actually paparazzo,” I said. “Paparazzi is the plural form.” Dan stared at me. “You know, I wasn’t sure that little nugget was all that interesting, either.”
“It’s not.”
“But at least you learned something today, right?”
There was a small chair against the wall next to the sink. Dan took a seat. He looked almost comically large there. Dan was a big bear of a man. If he grew out a beard, he might actually be mistaken for a bear in a navy blue suit. I decided not to mention that to him.
“You want to tell me your side of this?” he asked.
“There’s not much to tell. I saw him twice in one day. He was taking pictures of me. I thought it might be the Laughing Man, or maybe someone that worked for him. It never really occurred to me that he might be the paparazzi.”
“Paparazzo,” Dan said.
I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “That’s right! I was testing you! Good testing!” He didn’t laugh. Damn it. I’d thought that was hilarious. “Anyway, you know the Laughing Man keeps tabs on me. Always seems to know where I am.”
“He’s quite committed to that,” Dan said.
“So my theory wasn’t an unreasonable one. It was just wrong. But I had to be sure.”
Dan nodded slowly. “That was more or less what I thought. His story checked out, though.”
“Oh,” I said. “So you talked to him?”
“Where the hell do you think I’ve been all this time?” he asked. “Of course I talked to him. I talked to him at some length, Nevada. We confirmed everything he said, though. He sells his trash to the Sneaker and a couple other garbage rags on the Internet. Real shitbag stuff. But he’s got nothing to do with the Laughing Man. So we let him go.”
“No charges filed?”
“He’s not pressing charges, no. And he’s not suing you, either.”
“I meant charges against him, really, but I guess all that’s good, too.” I squinted at him. “Wait. How do you know he’s not suing me?”
“I explained to him that it would be a bad idea.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “You threatened a…” I waited for him to finish the sentence.
“Fuck you, Nevada.”
“Come on, Dan. Say it. You threatened a…” I put a finger to the side of my forehead like I was struggling with a thought. “Now was it paparazzi or paparazzo? I can’t remember. Show me what you’ve learned, Dan.”
“I didn’t threaten anyone. I’m a goddamn captain, Nevada. I don’t make threats. I explained my position to him in simple terms. I can’t help it if I’m…” he trailed off and I thought he might look vaguely guilty.
“Terrifyingly large?” I guessed.
“Blame my parents.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you are going to have to pay for the window you broke. Which…” He stopped and I watched something strange happen to his face. For a moment I couldn’t identify it, and then I realized he was trying to keep himself under control. Whether he’d been about to start crying or start screaming at me I didn’t know, but I didn’t really want to see either thing happen. “You jumped through a second-story window,” he said, his voice unusually quiet. “You just jumped right through it.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “Yeah.”
“Nevada…” He stopped again.
I decided to angle for the short version of this conversation. “It was extremely dangerous and I wasn’t thinking, okay? I just had in my head go and so I went. That’s what I do.” He glared at me. “I’m not defending it, but it’s who I am. I’m sorry, though. I know after everything I’ve done the last couple of years you’d really like to stop worrying about me, and I don’t make that easy. So next time I’ll try to take the stairs, instead.”
Dan shook his head. “You just can’t do anything the easy way, Nevada. You never could. God knows I’ve tried to…”
“Let’s be serious here for a minute,” I interrupted. “I’ve never had the option of doing things the easy way. Not even before this shit with the Laughing Man started. Not when I was a kid. Not when I was a woman coming up in a department dominated by men who used to tell me to get them coffee when I was a better detective than all of them put together. Not when you gave me the worst cases we got in…”
“You wanted those cases. You insisted on them. And you closed them.”
“Yeah. And I didn’t do any of that because I was worrying about dotting i’s and crossing t’s. I did it because I acted.”
“I’m not sure I entirely agree with that.”
“Agree with whatever you want to. Convention has never worked for me. And like I said, all of that was without the Laughing Man. Now I’ve got a serial killer out there who has exactly one goal: Play with me before he kills me. And he’s proven at every turn he’s faster than me, he’s smarter than me, he’s stronger…and somehow he knows goddamn everything about me. He sees the entire board and I’m still digging my bishops out of the box.”
Dan stared at me. “That was a chess analogy,” I explained. “Maybe it wasn’t so clear.”
“I got the analogy.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m not sure how we got there from you jumping through a window, though.”
“Me, neither. I had a train of thought, but it kind of went off the tracks at the end there.”
“That’s also typical.”
“I’m sober, though,” I said, trying to change the subject. “So there’s some progress for you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You are sober. I was a little surprised.”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “I think I’ve earned the right to be insulted by…” I stopped abruptly. “Wait. How do you even know that?”
“I used my intimidating presence to make a nurse tell me before I came in here.”
I nearly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you saying you cornered some poor woman and…”
“No,” he said. “It was a man. Nurses are often male, Nevada.” He smirked at me. “Sexist.”
I tried to scowl but wound up cracking a smile instead. “Fine. I should have known you’d ask.”
“
I was only a little surprised,” he said. “It’s your blood work I’m more interested in, honestly. They’re doing a liver function test.”
“I’m really looking forward to that.”
“You never know.”
“My last test didn’t look so good.”
“Your last test…you were also having seizures at the time, and you were on a potassium drip to keep your heart beating. It’s not really a surprise things didn’t look so good.”
“Yeah.”
“That was a year ago. We’ll see what they have to say about it now.”
I was pretty sure what they were going to say. There was no way my liver had survived the damage I’d done to it. I might forget to answer the phone when they called. Or would it be a mortician calling, asking to fit me for a casket? Did morticians do that? Probably not. But what did I know about morticians, really? “What were we talking about, anyway?” I asked.
“You were saying you’d be more careful in the future and I was saying I’d appreciate that. Why don’t we leave it there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good call.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. I’d never have admitted it, but I kind of liked the company. I really didn’t have a lot of friends. “Oh,” he finally said. “There was something else I wanted to tell you. One of your old informants called your line.”
I frowned. What line had that been? “Are you bugging my house?” I wouldn’t have put it past him to be keeping tabs on my land line. The Laughing Man had called there before. He seemed to enjoy the occasional late-night chat. But bugging my cell phone would have been next to impossible due to some modifications I’d had made to it. That was a long story Dan didn’t know about yet, and I didn’t want to tell him.
“Of course not,” he said. “Your office line.”
It took me longer than it should have to figure out what he was talking about. “At the station? That number still works?”
“We never turned it off. Someone answers it if it rings.”
“It’s been years, though.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “You never know. Deputy Chief is still on the table when you decide to come back, by the way.”
That offer had been on the table for a while. Deputy Chief was a political appointment and would mean next to nothing, but it would put me back behind a desk at the police department, which was exactly where Dan wanted me. He figured I might stay out of trouble that way. It didn’t seem likely, but I suppose he had to hold on to some kind of hope for me. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“No, you’re not. Anyway, nobody calls that line very often, but it rang the other day. Someone who called herself ‘Blueberry.’ Said she’d only talk to you.” He reached into his pocket and fished out a folded slip of paper. “Here.”
I took the paper and looked at the number. It was local, but I didn’t recognize it. I had no idea who Blueberry was. I didn’t normally give my informants code names, and if I did, I’d have been more creative than that. “Did she say anything else?”
“No. You going to call her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know who she is.” I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You should. It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do.”
“Not until the Laughing Man comes for me,” I said. “Then I’ll have a lot to do. For a few minutes, anyway.”
“Don’t, Nevada,” Dan said. There was a weariness in his voice. “Just don’t.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine. I’ll be serious for the next thirty seconds or so.” I looked at the paper. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to call and at least see what she wants.”
“So do it, then. You want me to wait here with you while you do?”
I stared daggers at him. “Yes. Could you also hold my hand in case I get nervous on the phone? Maybe I should put you on speaker so you can take over if I can’t figure out what to say.”
I’d meant that mostly as a joke, but it came out sounding meaner than I was happy with. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t deserve that,” Dan said.
“No. You didn’t. I’m sorry.” I put the paper in my jacket pocket. “I’ll call her later. You got anything else for me?”
“No,” he said. “I do want you to stop by the station sometime. We should talk about the position.”
“Yeah. Deputy Chief. I’d love to be your boss.”
“Only in name, Nevada. You know you’d still be working for me.”
“I don’t know. Deputy Chief? I’m pretty sure a chief outranks a captain.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to be the subordinate, and you’ll have to try to keep me under control. That would be a nice change.”
I stood up. “Thanks for coming,” I said. “I think I’ve had all the hospital I can take for one day, though. Hey, did you drive here?”
“Yeah.”
“You mind taking me back to La Jolla? My car’s still there.”
“Sure,” he said. “It’ll give me the chance to yell at you some more.”
“You really didn’t yell this time.”
“Maybe I was working up to it.” He gave me a curious look. “What were you doing at an art gallery, anyway? You don’t care anything about art.”
I’d been waiting for that question. “I was thinking about getting something for my walls,” I said. “I still haven’t bought any decorations. I thought maybe a painting would be nice; make the new house look like more of a home.”
That was plausible. Dan appeared to think it over. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’d have thought maybe you’d buy a couch first…”
“You said I never do anything the easy way. Why should decorating be any different?”
He sighed. “One of these days,” he said. “One of these days, Nevada.”
Chapter 3
I’d been lying about why I’d gone to La Jolla in the first place. My investigation into the Laughing Man’s identity had stalled out a long time ago. He was into art, though, and I didn’t know anything about art. I’d thought maybe going to look at some pieces at the gallery might give me some insight into his brain. It had been a long shot, of course, but it had been the best idea I’d come up with in weeks. After I’d jumped through the gallery’s window, though, I doubted they were going to welcome another visit from me. Maybe I’d get a book or something instead. Was there an Art for Dummies book? There had to be. They had those books for every subject I’d ever heard of.
Dan didn’t need to know any of that. He’d just worry. There had been a point last year when he’d somehow changed the rotation of city patrol cars so I had cops going by my place every twenty minutes. I had no idea whose arm he’d twisted into making that happen, but I didn’t need it to start up again.
I was back at my house in Ocean Beach an hour after we left the hospital. It was my new house, to be precise. My old house had been on exactly the same spot, but I’d been renting it from an older retired couple who didn’t need the space anymore. I’d figured I’d stay there until I managed to drink myself to death, but then two people were killed there in the span of a week. One of them had been by my hand, and the other by the Laughing Man’s. After that, there was no way I could stay there. Knowing that it would never be fit for renting again, I’d bought it with money I’d made working on a job that had been…quite lucrative, if questionably legal. A gangster had paid me a great deal of money to find his missing daughter. I’d taken a portion of that money to buy the house, tear it down, and have a new one built on the same spot.
My front door had two deadbolts and a keypad lock, as did the back. Each were reinforced and could withstand any blunt force up to a police battering ram, and even that was going to have its work cut out for it. Each of the windows were bulletproof and didn’t open. Security cameras covered every angle of approach and provided a wide field of view; if I wanted I could sit at my computer and watch the neighborhood goings on for hours. Every now and then I did, if I couldn’t find something on television to keep me e
ntertained.
My bedroom sealed up like a bank vault and had a security keypad that activated motion sensors everywhere else inside the house. Rolling over in my sleep wouldn’t set the alarm off, but when I’d first set the system up a spider crawling across the ceiling would. I’d eventually had to adjust the sensitivity so I could sleep through the night, but there was no way a person was getting inside without me knowing about it.
And if someone did get in, I was more than ready. Shotguns were placed at the front and back doors, and I had a number of smaller pieces secreted away in places that one wouldn’t readily see them. A 9mm Beretta sat in the silverware drawer in the kitchen. A .38 revolver waited under the air mattress in my bedroom. I’d put a .45 inside a Ziploc bag and hidden it in the toilet tank. It wasn’t the most accessible gun in the world, but you never knew when it might come in handy. And my Glock was rarely out of arm’s reach. I hadn’t left the house without it in longer than I could remember, and I usually wore it in the house, as well. When I slept I kept it under my pillow.
To any rational person that would have sounded like extreme paranoia, maybe the kind a person would need therapy for. And that was probably fair. But my paranoia had a very serious justification. The Laughing Man had been keeping a close eye on me for years. He sent me birthday and Christmas cards, and he’d had flowers delivered on more than one occasion. He’d also sworn to kill me. He just wanted to play first. Our previous “game,” which had ended four years ago, had been a resounding loss for me, ending with him beating me within an inch of my life. In the end he’d stood over me with his straight razor ready to finish me off, but then he’d just walked away instead. Later he’d told me it had been because he hadn’t wanted the game to be over. He wanted to play again. Nobody else was any fun for him. But the game I’d been waiting for him to start still hadn’t begun, and somehow that had been making me even more paranoid. What was he waiting for? Had he just not come up with anything he thought would be satisfying for him yet? That hardly seemed likely. But other than that and the possibility that he had died in some completely unrelated manner, I couldn’t come up with anything to explain it. And if he’d gone and dropped dead of a heart attack, I’d probably just stay this paranoid for the rest of my very short life.
Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) Page 2