More than half the people had already streamed out of the several emergency exits. The Old Maid was probably one of them, but there was a small chance she’d stick around to view her handiwork or to make doubly sure of what she’d done.
As I checked face after face for anything out of place, I wondered why she hadn’t poisoned me too. If she’d gotten close enough to hit Thomas she should have been able to try for me.
Then I remembered the plucking sensation I’d felt at my back, and twisted my torso and craned my neck to check on it. There, near my kidney, hung another dart, caught in my dress. I shivered at how close it must have been. I carefully pulled it out. Its reservoir still showed full, about two CCs. I removed the cap of my lipstick and slid its sharp tip inside, and then ran out of the building, looking for the M&Ms.
When I found them loading Thomas into an ambulance, I handed the dart to the paramedics with instructions to pass it on to the ER doctor when they got there. Then I went back inside.
Looking around, I found myself approaching a knot of people that had stayed – Carol and Jerry Conrad, Mike Davis and Alice and Brother John plus a few others. “Oh, hell no,” Carol was saying. “I’m not letting anyone intimidate me or this town. This just proves how badly we need our own police department, with you as Chief, Mike.”
“I’ll do my best, Carol, but don’t you think this is getting out of hand? We need to call in the feds, or at least the CHP.”
“State help will be fine, but federal law enforcement will just muddy the waters. After this incident, I think I have all the ammunition I need to get those people in Sacramento off their asses.”
Davis nodded. “I’m looking forward to it. If you’ll excuse me, I need to help secure this scene.” After squeezing her hand, he left Alice standing awkwardly as Carol began to speak earnestly to Brother John.
“Interesting turn of events,” I said to Alice, slipping my arm through the crook of her elbow and turning her to stroll us away.
She looked down at me with a puzzled frown, which cleared after a moment. “Cal? I didn’t recognize you.”
“That was the idea. What do you think Carol’s chances of getting elected are now?”
“She was already a shoe-in.”
“How about the proposal for the new police department?”
Alice pressed her lips together. “That would have been a close vote, what with the new taxes and the municipal bond issuance, plus Bartlett’s opposition, but now…”
“Yeah. Nobody’s going to vote against it now.”
“Patriot Act.”
“What?”
“It’s like the Patriot Act. You think they’d have passed that misbegotten thing without 9-11 to scare everyone?”
It was my turn to frown. “I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but this time I agree that was the idea. Those guys came in, scared the hell out of everybody, busted up a bunch of furniture, but I never saw them hit anyone with a bat and I didn’t see any injuries worse than cuts and bruises from being struck by folding chairs or broken glass. And they were in and out too fast to rob anyone.”
Alice detached her arm from mine. “I rest my case. I bet it was Jerry Conrad’s doing, to make sure his wife got her own personal police department. Insurance or the city will cover the damages. And I know who they were, those men.”
I nodded. “Bikers. Forty-Niners, most likely, though it might have been another club. I thought I recognized Laser, and they all had biker boots. Given that it’s common knowledge Bartlett’s cozy with them, this seems custom-made to backfire on him even though it’s going to be nearly impossible to prove.”
“I always knew Carol was a sharp operator,” Alice said.
I mused, “The only thing I don’t know is what she’s doing here instead of in Sacramento. With all the connections she’s supposed to have, why not go there? That’s where the money and power is.”
“I hear she was a black sheep even before she married Jerry. Never did what her people wanted. Wild child. Coke fiend. Seems to have settled down now.”
“Her people?”
“Marzettis. Got rich during the Gold Rush. Now they own agricultural land, trucking and shipping companies, Nevada casinos, paper mills, you name it.”
I put my back to a wall and after a moment Alice did the same. I said, “So maybe she’s trying to show them she can stand on her own two feet. Be a big fish in a small pond for a while. Start small, hone her craft…move up the food chain later. If Jerry really is a former mobster, I’m sure he has a wealth of knowledge on how to do things like this. Dirty tricks and so on.”
“Or maybe having a reformed criminal as a husband is too big a liability for the capital…at least for a while. Until she gets a solid track record under her, and more time passes.”
“Maybe you should run for city council. You seem to have a grasp of politics.”
Alice glanced at me sharply. “Enough of politics in business for me. I’d rather speak my piece and go home than play in that mud hole.”
All this time I’d been scanning the crowd, and my eyes came to rest on the man with the professional video setup. He seemed imperturbable, packing away his equipment as if nothing had happened.
“Talk to you later, Alice,” I said as I shoved off from the wall to walk over to the cameraman with my sexiest sway.
“Hi there,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m Cal Corwin.”
“Warren Pumpkin.” He shook my hand firmly.
I grinned at the name, but didn’t comment. He’d probably heard them all. “Did Carol hire you?”
“That’s right. What’s it to you?”
“I’m a friend of hers. I bet Deputy Davis already asked you to give him the video, right?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you should. It’s evidence.”
The man stared at nothing, absorbed in thought, apparently unswayed by my allure. “Okay. Have to take it to my studio to duplicate it.”
I looked around, but couldn’t see Davis anywhere. I had no power to compel the tape from Warren myself. “You should stay here until Davis can interview you.”
“Nope. Got to go. Got too much work to do.”
I hissed with frustration. “Where do you work from?”
“My home. 322 Aspen.”
“Here in town.”
“Yup.”
I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll send Mike by, if you can make that copy right away. In fact, please make two. He might need them.”
Finally, a smile. “Nothin’ to it, miss.” He picked up his hard cases and we walked toward the door.
That would have to do, unless I could get Davis to grab it from him before he left. After the incident with my recorder, I was leery of letting evidence wander away. I patted Warren and walked quickly ahead of him and out of the building to look for the deputy.
I spotted him looking at something on the ground out beyond the parking lot. It took me a while to walk across the wide expanse of asphalt in those increasingly painful heels, so I detoured to Thomas’ car and used the keys from his purse to open it and quick-change to boots. They didn’t quite go with my outfit, but what the hell.
“What is it?” I said to Davis as I approached.
“Stay back,” he said with an outstretched hand. “Tire marks. Witnesses say two vans pulled up right here. One of them put a wheel over the curb and into the soft ground.” He pointed.
“You have a camera in your cruiser?”
“Yeah.”
As we walked to his Crown Vic, I told him about the video.
Davis grunted. “We’ll swing by Warren’s later. He’s reliable, if cranky. What do you think we’ll see?”
“I have no idea,” I said, “but it all happened so fast. It would be nice to take our time and examine it.”
Once Davis took pictures of the tire tracks, he headed over to Warren's, and I followed. On the short drive, I phoned Meat. He told me they were behind the ambulance, almost to the ER, and no word on Thomas
.
I crammed my concern into a compartment and focused on the job in front of me. Nothing I did would change the outcome of my lover’s poisoning, so the best thing I could do was keep moving forward toward my goal of identifying who was behind all this.
When we reached Mr. Pumpkin’s basement studio at 322 Aspen, he greeted Davis absently and waved at two VHS tapes on a nearby table. “There you go.”
“I need the original too,” Davis said, picking up the tapes.
“Private property.”
“It’s evidence.”
“I just provided you the evidence. You got a warrant to confiscate my property?”
Davis sighed. “Okay. Just don’t let anyone else see it.”
“Mrs. Conrad paid for it. It’s hers.”
“It needs to remain confidential.”
Pumpkin shrugged. “Not my problem. Now unless you got that warrant, I’d appreciate your leaving my property.” He stared pointedly at Davis.
“Okay, Warren. No need to be ornery.”
“How come whenever someone stands on their rights, they get called ornery?”
“Not someone, Warren. Just you, you ornery cuss.” Davis pushed his hat onto his head and turned to go. “Come on, Cal.”
Outside, Davis said, “Let’s go over to my house. I got a VCR there.”
“Give me one of those tapes.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Now who’s being ornery? Better that we each have one, in case Bartlett decides to confiscate the evidence and make it disappear like my recorder.”
Davis hesitated, and then handed me a tape. I slipped it under the seat of the car as I followed the deputy to his house.
Going inside with Davis brought back memories of when I’d been forced to shoot his daughter Linda, but I pushed that aside too, a cop’s response. Compartmentalize, compartmentalize. It was the only way to get through an ugly job in an ugly world.
Davis set his hat carefully on top of a tall hutch, and then popped the tape in the VCR next to his TV, an old Panasonic. Fast-forwarding through the preliminaries, he reached the moment when Carol Conrad took the stage. The camera zoomed slightly to frame her from the waist up, top of the podium included.
The tape had audio as well, and we could hear the applause. When it died down, Carol opened her mouth to speak, and then came the bangs of the doors being thrown open. People yelled and screamed, but the camera stayed pointing at the stage. I guess Warren was no newsman. If he had been, he’d have instinctively turned to shoot the action. Instead, the frame remained rock-steady throughout the thirty seconds or so of the raid.
“Notice anything?” I said.
“Carol didn’t move, just watched calmly.”
“You’d have thought she’d show more surprise and speak into the microphone, or at least flinch, move back or something, when it all started.”
Davis stroked his chin. “She expected it.”
“I think so.”
“What’s that mean?”
I turned to him, taking a deep breath. “It means she’s a politician, Mike, married to a former mobster. No matter how she plays the upstanding citizen, she’s just as slimy as the rest of them, willing to pull a dirty trick like this to make sure she achieves her goals. That’s who you’ll be working for.”
“You think I should turn down the job?”
“Chief of Police? No. If you don’t do it, someone dirty will. You just need to know who you’re dealing with. And here’s something else to think about. If those guys were bikers from the Forty-Niners, and they’re in Bartlett’s pocket, what does that say about Carol, who supposedly opposes Bartlett?”
“Things aren’t as they seem.”
“They never are, Mike.” I held up a hand as my phone beeped. “Yeah?”
“Your friend is in the ER,” Meat said. “They want to know about his insurance, but he ain’t got no ID on him. What should I tell them?”
“Tell them you don’t know, and I’ll come by in an hour to two. Worst case, they can do a transfer to County later. You guys stay there.”
“You got it.”
I slipped the phone into my purse as I rose from Davis’ sofa. “I have to get to the hospital. I think the Old Maid tried to kill me and poisoned a friend of mine instead.”
“That woman you were with?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t set him straight.
“I guess I’ll be interviewing people all evening.”
“Have fun with that.” I clapped him on the shoulder and left, hand on my purse gun as I walked to the car. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility the Old Maid had watched for my departure and followed me.
I did a slow walk around the car, looking for anything out of place, and then slipped on nitrile gloves just in case my stalker had sprayed something on the door handles. I drove off, windows down, senses alert, but spotted no one. Maybe she thought she’d succeeded.
Half an hour of extralegal driving later I arrived at Emmanuel Medical Center’s ER and engaged the bureaucracy. “No, I have no idea what his last name is,” I told the woman behind the desk. “We had a gig up in the hills; him and hers twins.” I told this lie to protect us both. They were obligated to treat him as long as his condition was life-threatening, and then they could transfer him to County, the taxpayer-funded public hospital up in Modesto.
A man walked up and introduced himself as Doctor Shardan, apparently vectored to me by the staff.
“You got the dart from the paramedics?” I asked.
“We did. It’s being tested now.”
“What’s his condition?”
“Critical but stable. It’s definitely some kind of neurotoxin. The good news is, if he survives the night, he’ll likely make a complete recovery. Be glad it’s not one of the fungal poisons that destroy the liver and kidneys. Nothing short of transplants can save you from those.”
I shivered. “Thanks. Can I look in on him?”
“Sure.” He led me to the glass wall of the ICU.
Thomas lay propped, his face covered in medical machinery.
“He’s on life support for now. If he can start breathing on his own, he’ll make it,” Shardan said
“And if not?”
His face was sympathetic. “He stays on a ventilator until he can.”
“Or until he…”
“Yeah. Are you the sister?”
I looked sharply at him. “No. Why?”
“His sister called. I told her the same thing I told you.”
“I don’t think he has a sister. Listen, Doc, this poisoning might have been intentional, so please make sure nobody but your staff gets near him. Someone might try to finish the job.”
His eyebrows rose. “Should I call the police?”
I gave him a hard look. “No need. I’ll call the chief of police, Elle St. John, directly. She’s a friend of mine.” Better that she hear it from me.
I left Shardan to his duties and phoned Elle. I gave her the bare bones of the situation and made a promise to fill her in later. She sent a uniform as a guard. When the officer arrived, the M&Ms and I skated out quietly. It was the best I could do right now.
“Follow me all the way to my office,” I told them, and we left. On the road, I called Mickey.
“I got a pretty good workup on Carol Conrad now,” he said. “Interesting stuff.”
“Give me the highlights.”
“Okay, well, her family name is Marzetti. Her grandfather Bradan is ancient, but still rules the clan with an iron fist. His sons and daughters are all bigwigs in business or government, and his grandkids, like Carol, are too. Judges, lawyers, VPs in his companies, a state legislator, several bureaucrats in state and Sacramento municipal government...”
“And they all answer to Grandpa.”
“Seems that way. Except Carol. She had a string of shady boyfriends starting in college, the 80s – drug dealers, mob guys, music biz coke fiends, stuff like that. From what I can tell, the family didn’t like it mu
ch. They have a lot of influence, but it’s legit. She was bringing heat down on them. I got a dozen articles from the Sacramento Bee and a couple from the Chronicle detailing her getting arrested for possession, simple assault, disturbing the peace, brandishing a weapon…. The stories make a big deal about how she could be the next Patty Hearst.”
“When did those stories taper off?”
“The last one was in 1991, said she pleaded out a cocaine charge and went into Betty Ford down in Rancho Mirage. I guess it took, because there’s nothing public until her 2002 wedding announcement in the Bee.”
“And less public?” I said.
“Graduated pre-law from Sac State in 1994, law degree by correspondence from No-Cal University School of Law in 1997.”
“Correspondence? Where was she living?”
“No way to be sure, but she passed the Illinois State Bar in 1998.”
That was interesting. In fact, it was all fascinating. I thought my subconscious was putting together some pieces, but it wasn’t ready to come out yet. “Anything else?”
“Those were the highlights.”
“Okay, I’ll be at the office in about an hour.”
When I arrived, I waved at the M&Ms and went inside. Mickey’s eyes popped. “Wow, boss, you look hot. I never seen you in a dress, with makeup. And wicked boots. You have a date?”
I pulled off the wig. “I have a client. The one that’s paying for your work.”
“Can you put that back on so I can take a picture?” He picked up his phone, one of the new ones with a camera in it.
“Oh, hell no. Give me the dossier.”
Mickey handed me a thick stack of printouts. I climbed the stairs to my office and dropped them on my desk. Before I got into them, I tried Mom’s landline again, hearing the answering machine activate. “Mom, call me when you get in,” I said to it.
I almost hung up when I heard someone pick up the other end. “Ms. Corwin?”
Slipknot: A Private Investigator Crime and Suspense Mystery Thriller (California Corwin P. I. Mystery Series Book 3) Page 14