Hard Bitten

by M. K. York

  “Oh shit, you’re still working nights?” Nick made a face. “Thought you were done with those.”

  “No, the overnight gigs pay better. Got to take a few.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “Tell me about it.” He took a long drink of his glass of beer. The pitcher was getting low. “You guys want to keep talking shit or head home?”

  “Ugh.” Alex rubbed at his eyes. “I should probably get home. Lila’s going to be so pissed if I leave her to deal with Madison all night.”

  “All right, man. I’ll walk you.” Lukas knew Alex’s place was on his way, sort of, just a couple of blocks south.

  They made it halfway back in companionable, exhausted silence before Alex had to fucking run his mouth. “Luk—you know we don’t mean shit by it, right?”

  “What?” But there were icy fingers running down his spine.

  “All that shit about settling down.” Alex yawned blearily. The sidewalk was chilly, barely damp, littered with limp leaves; the air was wet but no rain was falling through the beams of the streetlights. “You—you take your time, buddy. No rush. You can find somebody whenever it happens. Whenever it’s real.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And if, uh...” Alex hesitated, visibly.

  Lukas deliberately caught his foot on the sidewalk and fell, catching himself on his palms lightly but letting it look hard. The conversation left Alex’s head immediately as he crouched to help Lukas up, putting out a strong, rough hand. “Shit! Man, you scared me!”

  Lukas made a show of shaking his head. “I should eat before I go hitting up a pitcher with you assholes. I always drink more than I mean to.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Alex. And then they moved on to football, which was a vastly safer conversation.

  When he’d crawled into bed, Lukas contemplated the closet for the millionth time.

  It wasn’t that Alex was clueless. Alex was a little smarter than the rest of them, sure, and if he was trying to put out olive branches, Lukas could take them.

  But that would inevitably mean a lot more conversations, because nobody in that group could keep a secret for shit, and he didn’t feel like talking about it. He didn’t feel like talking about it with his friends, or his parents, or his friends’ parents, or his parents’ friends, or his family’s pastor, or literally anyone, and if that meant he spent more time with Grindr hookups than any boyfriend he’d ever had—well. That was how it was. He’d trade one form of exhaustion for another.

  Chapter Three

  “Did you see this fucking shit?” Lena was livid, voice at an unnatural volume on the phone. Mark winced.

  “No. What is it?”

  “The fucking discovery for my fucking arson case!”

  “Oh, Jesus. What is it?”

  “She’s fucking the dead guy!”

  “I assume you mean she was, since he’s dead.”

  “Don’t get smart with me. She was fucking her boss. Best friend ratted her out.”

  “So...” He paused to absorb that. “She’s got motive.”

  “Probably. This guy doesn’t sound like Prince Charming.”

  He frowned down at the report Lukas had filed. “Sounded like people at work didn’t know. At least at her level.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m asking Katie to figure out who did know. If his wife knew, she might be a pretty good candidate.”

  “Shit. He was married?”

  “Yeah. Fucking asshole.”

  “Lukas is supposed to interview her boss’s boss today. The owner.”

  “That’s fucking something, at least. Find out if she had problems with him.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Preliminary hearing is in three weeks, I want a viable alternate candidate by then if we can field one.” Lena huffed out an angry breath. “Katie’s trying to talk to the wife. We’ll see what we can get.”

  “Detectives not filed that yet?”

  “Like they’re going to. They interviewed her yesterday, they’ll push it.”

  “They seemed pretty sure. Charging her so fast like that.”

  “Either they’re sure or they jumped the gun and they’re thinking they were wrong. We’ll find out.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the info.”

  She hung up, and he rocked back in his chair. Great. A huge piece of information the client had conveniently omitted to tell them. If a clandestine affair wasn’t a motive for murder, he’d eat his L.A. Law DVDs. (God knows he never watched them anymore, not since partway through law school when he’d realized they just made him think more about school.) One of his other clients called about a plea deal—he’d decided to go for it to get out of jail, even though he kept insisting with diminishing volume that he was innocent. After that, he texted Lukas: New case info, call me.

  “Hey, it’s Lukas. What’s up?”

  “Have you done the interview yet?”

  “No, I’m waiting. He’s supposed to see me in ten.”

  “Good. Look, it turns out the client was having an affair with the victim.”

  Lukas whistled softly into the phone. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “It really doesn’t. See what the owner knows, okay? Whatever Katie gets, or whatever the cops get, I want as much as you can get out of him today.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Lukas sounded faintly amused.

  “Great. Thanks. Call me after. I want to know how this goes down.”

  “Will do.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Mark went to get a cup of breakroom coffee, and then settled down to read the discovery himself, with the initial police report, all careful phrasing about how the suspect had done this and that to pique the officers’ interest. They knew the drill; they’d write about erratic driving and slurred speech and they’d dust off their hands, call it good. Key phrases for making sure someone went to jail. The field blow should be in there somewhere. That should make some of the questions in his case, if not moot, because it wasn’t admissible, at least a little clearer.

  It wasn’t.

  *

  Talking to powerful people about sensitive issues took a special approach. Lukas had fiddled with his over the years, and liked to think he’d refined it, but there was still a moment where his pulse was pounding in his ears before he asked, “Mr. Williams, were you aware that Ms. Carville was involved in a relationship with Gregory Kupfer?”

  Mr. Williams’s hands stilled. He’d been opening letters methodically with an ornate letter-opener while Lukas asked questions, and he’d given brief, careful answers to everything so far: no, he hadn’t been aware of any problems with Ms. Carville’s performance; no, he wasn’t familiar with anything that might have been going on in her personal life; no, he wasn’t aware of any issues between her and her colleagues.

  “Well.” Mr. Williams set the letter-opener down cautiously. “I might have had some suspicions, but nothing...concrete. Greg always had better sense than to do anything—unprofessional at work.”

  “And outside of work?”

  Mr. Williams sighed. His suit was a little tight, like he’d gotten it before he’d put on some weight; nice quality, though, and his belt was top-grain leather. “He and Melinda were having some difficulties. They had been for a while. So he didn’t always—go home, at night. Some nights he stayed in the warehouse. He had a couch in his office there.”

  “Who was aware of that?”

  “Oh, I suppose most of us knew.” Mr. Williams toyed with the letter he still held, sliding his finger back and forth along the opened edge. He had the blunt features of a Ballard man himself, a shock of thinning hair that had likely been blond before he went gray, a mustache in good condition. “It’s a small company.”

  “Small enough that people would have known about the affair?”

  “Well.” It was one of Mr. Williams’s verbal tells. And he kept smoothing his thumb along his eyebrow when he had to say something he didn’t want to. “Some of us
likely guessed. I doubt they actually told anyone.”

  “And what did you think of the affair?” Lukas kept his face still and calm when Mr. Williams looked sharply at him. The key was to project a lack of judgment.

  “I thought it was a damn stupid idea,” Mr. Williams said with an edge. Then he added, “And I thought it would blow over. Gina was fine but she wasn’t irreplaceable. We could have found a new assistant for Greg if she threw a fit about it.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Lukas nodded like Mr. Williams had said something profound.

  “Look, Greg and Melinda have been married for—ten years? Fifteen? She’s a good woman. She’s high-strung, but she loves Greg. Loved. The police were asking questions about her too, and I’ll tell you what I told them. Melinda catches spiders and takes them outside. Deathly afraid of them. She would never have hurt Greg, no matter what he did.”

  “So what do you think happened, with the fire?” Lukas’s voice was serious, level.

  Mr. Williams looked out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which showed a view of the gray, wet streets. They were in an office space only a few minutes away from the burned warehouse.

  “I think,” he said, frowning sadly out at the rain, “that no matter how I look at it, I don’t like it. Either Gina—and Gina never gave me any trouble—either Gina did something by accident, or Greg messed up and started a fire. But I just can’t believe anyone did this on purpose. Greg was a good guy. People liked him.”

  “You think Greg might have started the fire by accident?”

  “Well, he used to smoke. And if he started smoking again—that’s how a lot of fires start, isn’t it? People fall asleep with a cigarette?”

  “That is how a lot of fires start.”

  “So I don’t even know that I think Gina had anything to do with it. Even if they were having an affair. She’s kind of a mouse, you know? I don’t think she’d have it in her to set a fire.”

  “You don’t?”

  Mr. Williams shook his head. “That takes... I think it takes rage, don’t you? I think it takes some real anger to start a fire. And I just don’t think she was angry. I don’t think either of them were. Sad, maybe, but not angry.”

  “I see.” Lukas gave them a few beats of silence, to see if Mr. Williams would contribute anything else. “I’m sure you know that the police are concerned that Ms. Carville may have been drinking the day of the fire. Had you ever noticed any signs that she had trouble with alcohol?”

  Mr. Williams’s fingers tensed on the letter-opener’s handle. “No. Well—no. I wouldn’t have kept anyone on if I thought they had a problem. She liked a night out sometimes, that was all.”

  “Thank you. May I ask where you were on the night of the fire?”

  Mr. Williams’s eyes darted up, what looked like suspicion and annoyance in them. “At home. The police already asked. My housekeeper can verify that.”

  “Of course.”

  “I really need to get going. I have another meeting in a few minutes.”

  Lukas stood. “Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.”

  Mr. Williams stood, extending his hand for a final shake. “You’re welcome.”

  Outside, back on the rainy pavement, Lukas was calling Mark before he even made it back to his car.

  “Yeah?” said Mark when he picked up.

  “Boss says he suspected but didn’t know for sure about the affair. Said Gina didn’t seem like she had a drinking problem. He thinks this is all an accident and it’s a big misunderstanding.”

  “Huh.” Mark sounded thoughtful. “Makes you wonder why the cops are so sure it isn’t.”

  “Was there accelerant?”

  “They found a gas can in her trunk. Mostly empty. They figured it was used in the fire.”

  “Yeah, but at the scene? There’s signs fire investigators use to figure out if accelerant was used.”

  “I’ll have to check the report again to see if they mention it.”

  “If there was, that’s probably why they jumped to it so fast.” Lukas slid into his car, shutting the door. Rain was misting up on the windshield again, tiny little drops scattering fast.

  “Did you ask if anybody had it in for Greg?”

  “Not in so many words. He said everybody liked Greg.”

  “Fat chance. Warehouse boss? He’s pissed somebody off.”

  “I can always try stopping by the warehouse and seeing if anybody wants to talk.”

  “Yeah, could you do that? I want to know whether he was an asshole. Some guys are fine with management and complete dicks to the guys doing the dirty work. And you can ask around if Gina ever showed up drunk.”

  “Sure. I’ve got time before my next thing.”

  “Your next thing?” Mark sounded amused. “What kind of things do you do?”

  Lukas prickled a little. “I don’t know, what kind of things do you do?”

  “Nah, nah, I’m an asshole. Seriously, what’s next?”

  “I’m checking out a potential hire for a company.”

  “They get real investigators for that?”

  “It’s mostly Google. But yeah. I do a little background work for sensitive positions sometimes.”

  “That’s cool! Okay, anyway, if you can check in on that warehouse today—it’s up and running again?”

  “Oh, yeah. I mean, the fire wasn’t that bad. It took out some of the offices around where they found that guy, but most of the structure was fine. Just smoke and water damage.”

  “Good for them, I guess. Ask around! Let me know what they say.”

  “Will do. I’ll even file a real report eventually.”

  Mark laughed. “Sounds good. Thanks!”

  Lukas sat in his car for a minute after hanging up, frowning out the windshield. He had plenty of time to stop by the warehouse, and putting in some more time to bill for would be good.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling he’d gotten from Mr. Williams, though. He didn’t like Mr. Williams. He rarely liked men like that—rich, grasping, petty tyrants; so many small business owners thought of themselves as genius Santas, there to trickle down the profits of their brilliance to the little people they hired, oblivious to how grating and condescending they were.

  But something about Mr. Williams in particular had rubbed him the wrong way. He didn’t want to say anything about it, not yet. But it had been an instant and profound dislike that had only solidified over the course of their conversation. He hadn’t really been hired to dig into this. Just for the DUI, just to ask a few questions, and he’d asked, mostly. It wasn’t his business.

  Well.

  He started the car and pulled out into the empty street. He’d stop by the warehouse. He’d ask a few questions. Maybe ask how people felt about the owner, while he was at it.

  *

  “Hi, this is Mark.” He had the way he answered his cell down pat. Just a bright, professional, impersonal voice he could do in his sleep (and, on a few notable occasions, had).

  “It’s me.”

  There were a few beats of silence while Mark tried to reorganize his thoughts. He’d been expecting—oh, maybe Lena; Gavin or Jennifer; Lukas, even, or one of the people from the DA’s office calling to give him a courtesy heads-up about some upcoming action.

  Not Dylan.

  “Hey.”

  “Sorry about calling.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.”

  “I know you’re at work.”

  “Yeah.” He was on lunch break, actually, huddled in a little diner that sold questionable turkey and limp lettuce on slightly damp bread as a sandwich. “What is it?”

  “I’m going to be back in town around Thanksgiving, and I was just wondering if I could pick up some of my stuff.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Thanks for holding on to it.”

  “No problem.”

  “How have you been?”

  “Fine.” He crumpled the bag of potato chips he’d been picking at. “Working a lot. You?”


  Dylan laughed a little, voice catching. He sounded flat and unhappy. “Same.”

  “They’re keeping you busy?”

  “I think I billed a hundred and ten hours last week.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Yeah. God. I don’t know how I’m going to survive.”

  “Well.” Mark didn’t say it. It sat in the silence between them: I told you so.

  “Anyway. I’m taking Thanksgiving and the day after. Seeing family. Can I come by on Friday?”

  “Sure, just text me when you do.”

  “Okay, cool.”

  There was an awkward pause before Dylan said, “Goodbye, I guess.”

  “Goodbye.” Mark hung up and stared at his phone for a minute, the New York area code blinking on the screen. Dylan’s megafirm was legendary. He was making a whole lot of money for his misery, multiples of Mark’s salary, but Mark got to go home at the end of the day, never had to sleep at the office, didn’t have to cope with New York rent.

  And Mark—Mark got to feel good about what he did, sometimes. Not all the time. Not even most of the time. Most of the time, the job was a grind. But every now and then he got to be the one who made things right for a client. Not just get them the best plea deal they were going to get on their charges, but figure out that they shouldn’t have been in that situation at all.

  Everyone got a trial. Maybe not a fair trial, because it wasn’t a fair system. Money bought a lot more than people who watched TV figured. More than the difference between bail or no bail, more than the quality of the lawyer, money meant that when you walked into the courtroom the judge saw you as a person. Most people never knew that clients still got charged for public defenders, that having if you cannot afford a lawyer in there meant that one will be appointed to you still cost money.

  But they got the fairest trial Mark could make happen for them, and that counted for something, in the pile of angry drunks and schizophrenic shoplifters, drug addicts who were never going to get treatment because they couldn’t afford it, men who were going to go home from court-mandated educational sessions and get drunk again and beat their wives again.

  Dylan probably still hadn’t seen the inside of a courtroom, sweating bullets over briefs the partners would barely glance at.