Locked In - [McCone 29]

by Marcia Muller

  “And you? How’re you holding up?”

  “Oh ...” She made a dismissive gesture. “I have my diversions. I ride and I consult with our accounting personnel and I look after Thomas.”

  And who looks after you?

  Julia bit back the question, asked, “Could I take another look at the money and the bag that it was in?”

  “Oh, dear. You came all the way up here for that?”

  “Yes. Is there a problem?”

  “Well, the money is still in the safe, but the bag—Thomas disposed of it.”

  “Why? It was evidence!”

  “Evidence of our son’s wrongdoing, Thomas said. He didn’t want it in the house.”

  “Mierda!”

  Mrs. Peeples looked conflicted. After several seconds she said, “It’s true that the bag isn’t in the house any more. But I removed it from the trash and put it back where he found it, under the floor of the tack room. It’s evidence, but I don’t care what my son did. I just want to know what happened to him.”

  They went into the tack room and Julia pried up the floorboard. The bag was newish black leather with a plaid lining. No initials, nothing distinctive.

  “Mrs. Peeples, had you ever seen this bag before your husband found it?”

  “No, never.”

  “Has he?”

  “I don’t think so.” But doubt flickered in her eyes, indicating the opposite.

  “Can I take it with me? A laboratory my agency uses might be able to tell me more about it.”

  “Please, take it. I want it out of here. It’s been on my conscience, going against my husband’s wishes.”

  Julia drove back to the city, the duffel bag a silent passenger beside her.

  * * * *

  RAE KELLEHER

  H

  ot Shots was located in a former auto-body shop on Howard Street near the Highway 101 on-ramp. Its facade still bore the weathered name—Don’s Fix It—but the overhead doors had been boarded up. A small entry opened off the space between the building and the one adjacent to the south. It was blocked by a grille, an intercom beside it.

  On the way Rae had debated what approach would most likely get the people there to volunteer information. She put the one she’d decided on into operation as soon as a male voice responded to her ring.

  “Hi, I’m Rae Kelleher. My husband, Ricky Savage, and his partners own Zenith Records.”

  “Yes?” the voice said.

  “We’ve seen some of your films, and we’re interested in speaking with one of the directors.”

  “Wait a minute—Zenith Records. What’s that got to do with our films?”

  “We’re diversifying. Are you interested?”

  Long pause. “Call back tomorrow.”

  “Onetime offer. Are you interested?”

  “... Come on in.”

  * * * *

  “Nick Carson,” the slender, trendily dressed man said, holding out his hand. He looked like an Internet entrepreneur, not a porn-flick maker.

  She shook the hand. “Rae Kelleher.”

  “We can talk in my office.” He motioned to a short hallway.

  Rae looked around. A pair of closed doors, red lights burning above them.

  “Shooting today?”

  “Yes.” Tersely.

  Carson led her down the hallway to an office that might have housed a busy accountant—spreadsheets on the desk, an adding machine, a computer. The computer was on, but Carson blocked her view of it and closed the file displayed there. He motioned toward a straight-backed chair, sat in an upholstered one behind the desk. Eyed her keenly. His eyes were blue, his features regular, his dark hair slicked back into a short ponytail.

  “So Zenith Records wants to go into the porn business,” he said.

  “Not exactly. We’re interested in the film industry—as I said, one of your directors.”

  “His name?”

  “I don’t know. He did some work for the Pro Terra Party.”

  Understanding came into Carson’s eyes. “And you and Mr. Savage just happened to see his work where?”

  “Pirated copies of DVDs that a friend loaned us. We’re ... into that sort of thing.”

  “Like to watch, do you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “And what makes this director so special?”

  Rae shrugged. “I don’t know. My husband asked me to find out who he was.”

  “I see. Why didn’t he do it himself?” There was a silver letter opener on the desk; Carson toyed with it.

  “I’m better than my husband at locating people.”

  “You know what? I don’t believe your story.”

  “Why not?”

  “Zenith Records is not going into film. You’re interested in this director because you want to make your own film. You like to watch, so why not watch yourselves? Right?”

  “Okay, you’ve caught me out. So can you put me in touch with him?”

  “Yes, I can. But she’s a woman—Laura Logan. I’ll call her, ask her to get in touch with you.” His smile showed small, pointed teeth. “That way she’ll be sure to give me the twenty percent I get for throwing jobs her way.”

  * * * *

  CRAIG MORLAND

  B

  y two-fifty he was airborne again. Going back to SF with a briefcase full of photos and enough information to shake city and state government to its foundations.

  After takeoff, he tilted his seat back and thought about the prints Daniel had made for him from the videos.

  The woman with the long blonde hair: no clue as to her identity.

  The same for the dark-haired woman in bed with her.

  But the men: top city hall figures and state officials, including Jim Yatz, the mayor’s closest associate.

  Craig looked out the window at Phoenix’s receding smog-shrouded skyline, making connections.

  Okay, somebody was trying to gain control over the city hall crowd, as well as minor state officials. They couldn’t entice the mayor or Amanda Teller, so they did their best to fake it.

  Teller had had a hold over State Representative Paul Janssen. Forced him to sign a document.

  Their deaths had been arranged to look like a murder-suicide pact, and someone had taken the document.

  So how did all of this pertain to the attack on Shar?

  Still unclear.

  He thought of the call he’d received from Mick before he boarded his flight: “We’ve got an imposter in the office. Diane D’Angelo is really Susan Angelo, a small-time investigator from DC—and a close friend of Jim Yatz.”

  So Yatz had probably hired her to find out what was in the agency files about the city hall investigation. But she had free run of the office and its computer system. Why would she have gone there at night to retrieve information and end up shooting Shar?

  Whatever, Diane and Yatz were dirty, and they were going down. A large number of state and city officials as well. And the mayor, whom Craig liked, would have a hell of a time extricating himself from this one.

  No worries. He’d done it before. The mayor was one slick, smart bastard.

  * * * *

  HY RIPINSKY

  I

  t was after four in the afternoon when Ben Travers came out and told him the news—the good news. McCone was awake and responsive—not locked in any more. He could see her briefly.

  “Don’t expect too much,” Travers told him as they took the elevator to intensive care. “We don’t yet know what damage the pressure on her brain stem did. Even if it’s not severe, she’s still got a long way to go—therapy, relearning skills she’s lost.”

  “But she’ll be all right?”

  “Ultimately that’s what we’re hoping for. The important thing is that she’s alive and cognizant.”

  Hy leaned heavily against the elevator wall. “I don’t care how long it takes for her to recover. Just so she does.”

  Travers looked as if he wanted to say more, but the elevator door opened. He led Hy thro
ugh a large circular area of rooms arranged around a central nurses’ station. Each room had a window and its door was open—so the nurses could monitor the patients from the desk, Hy supposed.

  Shar’s head was swathed in bandages and she was hooked up to monitors that kept blinking on and off, providing running strips of information. Her eyes were open, and they lighted up when she saw him.

  Hy kissed her cheek. “Welcome back. You’ll be all the way back in time.”

  Doubtful look.

  “Don’t try to talk now. You need your rest.”

  Hy studied her face. The skin below her eyes looked bruised and her complexion was sallow. There were lines around her mouth that he hadn’t noticed before. But she was alive, and that was everything to him—everything.

  She regarded him with a long, intense stare.

  “They removed a blood clot and some bone and bullet fragments. No more pressure on your brain stem now.”

  Still she stared at him.

  “Dr. Travers, your surgeon, will explain more fully later on.”

  Still staring.

  “You want to knew about the investigation. Is that it?”

  Blink.

  “You’re insatiable.”

  He explained that everybody was working 24/7, gathering data. Once they had all they could get, they’d pool their information and present it to her. Another eyeblink. Then her lids closed and stayed that way.

  Hy kissed her again and slipped out of the room. In the corridor he faltered and steadied himself on a railing. The constant emotional highs and lows had left him exhausted-—but he wasn’t ready to give in to it yet. He’d go back to the waiting room and talk with Elwood. Then he’d begin to make phone calls.

  * * * *

  “Now you realize her strength, Son.”

  Nobody had called him “Son” since his daddy tangled with those high-tension wires in his beat-up old crop duster. He guessed he’d qualified as family with Elwood.

  * * * *

  “Oh, Hy! My baby’s all right! Did you hear that, Saskia—our baby’s all right!”

  Kay started wailing. Why the hell hadn’t Saskia or Melvin answered the phone?

  * * * *

  “You know what I’m gonna do tonight? Clean this house. We can’t have Shar coming home to a dirty place.”

  Well, maybe John would finally get rid of the empty beer bottles.

  * * * *

  “You’ve reached Charlene and Vic ...”

  “Patsy and Evans are heading for the Bay Area. If this is about restaurant business, please call 801-2345 and speak with Nora.”

  “Rae Kelleher. Please leave a message.”

  “This is Julia Rafael. I’m sorry I can’t answer the phone ...”

  “This is Ann-Marie. I’m not available ...”

  “Hank Zahn here. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”

  Dammit, people had cell phones so they could keep connected. Then they turned them off at a critical moment.

  * * * *

  “McCone Investigations, Ted Smalley speaking.”

  Finally—a real voice again.

  “It’s Hy. Shar’s awake, not locked in any more. They think she’ll eventually be okay.”

  “I knew it! I just knew it!”

  “I’ve been trying to tell everybody, but most’ve them are unavailable. Is anybody else there?”

  “Craig and Mick are, and if you can leave Shar, I think you ought to get over here. Something ugly’s about to go down.”

  * * * *

  SHARON McCONE

  I

  ’m still alive! And I’m not going to be a vegetable after all. Just days ago, the future looked so bleak, but now...

  Tears again. One thing that hadn’t changed was the roller-coaster ride of emotions.

  I could see nurses moving around hurriedly, checking on other patients, carrying medicines. No downtime on the floor of an ICU. Nurses—I’d never before had so much respect for individuals in any single profession. Well, except for doctors or cops or firemen or, come to think of it, anybody who put it all on the line for others.

  Hy had been here. I could see the relief and happiness in his eyes. Now maybe he wouldn’t do anything crazy.

  Yeah, right...

  I looked around. The lights were low, but my monitors flashed in a hypnotic rhythm. Blip, blip, blip . .. My throat felt raw from the breathing tube.

  I’d sustained a lot of damage, the doctor told me. I was going to have to work hard at therapy. Well, I could do that. Given what I’d already been through, I could do anything.

  I knew I shouldn’t be worrying about a triviality at a time like this, but they had had to shave my head—twice. Would my hair grow back right?

  Did it matter?

  A nurse popped in, checked the monitors. Went away, leaving me alone.

  Fuck the hair. I’m still here. Probably bald as the proverbial egg, but I’m still here!

  * * * *

  HY RIPINSKY

  T

  he scene he walked into in Shar’s office at the pier was tense in the extreme. Mick sat in Shar’s desk chair, and Craig leaned against a file cabinet—positions of power. Diane D’Angelo was in one of the clients’ chairs; from the way she clutched its arms, and from her tightly crossed ankles, she looked as if an invisible rope bound her there.

  Craig said, “Join us, Hy. We’ve been having a very interesting conversation with Diane. I mean Susan. Susan Angelo, an investigator formerly of New York City, and a good friend of Jim Yatz.”

  “Susan was just telling us that Yatz hired her to infiltrate our offices,” Mick added. “Seems he was concerned about an investigation Shar conducted for Amanda Teller last year. And there were problems at city hall that he wanted to put a good spin on by coming up clean in an additional investigation by us.”

  Hy looked at the woman he’d known as Diane D’Angelo. She kept her eyes down.

  He said, “I’ve read that file. Background checks on the Pro Terra Party, its chairman, Lee Summers, and State Representative Paul Janssen. Nothing incriminating, as far as I could tell.”

  “But Yatz didn’t know that until Diane—Susan—delivered it to him. She deleted it from the agency files, but kept a copy in her own blocked files.”

  Hy said, “Diane, Susan, whatever—why did you stay on here after you turned over the information on the Teller investigation to Yatz?”

  Silence. Then, “Jim told me there was a potential scandal brewing at city hall, and that he might need me here. Besides, the pay and benefits were better than what I was getting in New York.”

  “How the hell did you get around the agency’s background checks?”

  No reply.

  Mick said, “Shar hired her provisionally, because Thelia was totally swamped at the time, and Jim Yatz had highly recommended her. She asked Derek for a check, but the request never got to him. Someone”—he glared at Susan Angelo—”intercepted it, and wrote Shar an excellent report.”

  Hy thought about that; his wife pretty much accepted her operatives’ reports at face value because she knew and trusted them. Angelo must’ve accessed some of Derek’s other background checks and copied his style.

  He raised an eyebrow at Craig. “This city hall investigation— you put her on it?”

  “Right. And she turned up nothing. Couldn’t’ve, because Yatz set up a smoke screen involving disappearing files and memos. But in reality, there was only one memo that went away—from Amanda Teller to the mayor.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Sit down, Ripinsky, and I’ll tell you what the boys and girls at city hall have been up to.”

  * * * *

  MICK SAVAGE

  H

  e and Craig and Hy debated what to do about Susan Angelo.

  She was being cooperative—obviously all her loyalty to her friend Yatz had evaporated upon her being found out—but her cooperation would only last so long. There wasn’t anything they could have her arrested for except pre
senting false credentials, and even a bad public defender could get her out on bail in hours on such a charge. Then, to save her ass, she’d either take off or, more likely, sell her story to the press. And all hell would break loose.