CHAPTER FIVE
“So,” Cliff said, flopping an arm around Keith’s shoulder. “How you feeling, Papa Bear?”
Cliff’s breath was hot and boozy on the side of Keith’s face as he broke the silence. A few feet away, Mac was standing next to Veronica’s door, trying to eavesdrop. Weevil stood at her side, also making periodic efforts to snoop but clearly finding more entertainment value in the Keith-Cliff conversation.
Keith raised his eyebrows. “Papa Bear? Is this a new thing we’re doing, or only when you’ve had the better part of a bottle of Scotch?”
“You know what I mean,” Cliff said. He glanced around the room as if waiting for someone else to chime in. “We all just saw that, right? Like a Mamet play. The new hotshot taking the tired old man’s accounts?” He took Keith’s glass out of his hand. “Scotch is for closers.”
Keith smiled.
“We took the training wheels off Veronica a long time ago. She’s had some high-profile cases and done brilliant work on them. I’m proud, not surprised.”
Mac chose that moment to dive in. “Me too. And just getting it out there, I’m always totally up for supporting either of you guys, playing no favorites, regardless of which…”
Veronica’s door suddenly opened and she emerged, speedwalking across the room and past the conversation group on her way to the reception desk.
“…Death Proof—okay, whatever, pat yourself on the back,” Mac improvised as Veronica opened a desk drawer and retrieved a folder. “But nowhere else can you say my boy’s just ‘making movies about movies.’ It’s more like a, a—what’s that word?”
“Motif,” Keith said.
“Yes! Thank you. A motif running through his body of work,” Mac said, glancing up at Veronica, who’d paused by the sofa and was scanning the group with a baffled expression. “Oh hey, Veronica, just a little movie chat going on here.”
“?’kay. Sorry to interrupt.” Veronica threw them a final quizzical side-eye before hustling back into her office and closing the door behind her.
Unflustered, Keith picked up the thread right where it had been dropped. He leaned back against the sofa and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Like I was saying: No, I don’t resent any of the attention or responsibility Veronica’s been getting. Frankly, she’s welcome to it. I’m ready for a few weeks in my hammock.”
“Like an old busted mule, out to pasture,” Cliff said.
“Or maybe,” Keith said, a slight edge to his voice, “like a guy who’s literally been run over by a truck after spending months crawling through the open sewers of Neptune politics—and is about ready for a goddamn vacation.”
He’d spent much of the last few months trying to verify the claims of planted evidence that had sprung up during the nearly four years of Lamb’s term. It hadn’t been easy. The department picked its victims deliberately; many of them had priors and none could afford long legal battles. A few were people Keith had busted back in his old days as sheriff—petty criminals and bottom-echelon dealers. He’d haunted dive bars, dingy tenements, crusty punk camps, trying to earn the trust of people who had no good reason to trust anyone. Some had been eager to tell their stories and had heard that Keith Mars was one of the few people interested in helping people like them. But more than a few had been scared to talk—scared of what would happen to them or their families if they did. Keith couldn’t exactly blame them. He still had a dull ache in his back from the accident that’d almost killed him. And every time he got in his car there was a moment—just a split second—when he felt his heart fall out of rhythm and flutter against his chest.
For the past few weeks, Keith had been feeling edgy and burned out, unfocused in a way he hadn’t experienced since right after the accident. He’d been busting his hump in the ultimately wasted effort to gather evidence against Lamb. What he’d just said to Cliff wasn’t just spin. He truly was ready to disengage from the madness and catch his breath.
So, fine. Veronica’s star was rising. No surprise there; she’d gotten a lot of media coverage in the wake of the Dewalt-Scott case. Before that she’d solved the murder of one of the biggest pop stars in the country, resulting in a short profile about her in Vanity Fair. In his twelve years as a PI, he’d ridden similar waves a few times. No VF profiles though. He definitely was not an adorable twenty-nine-year-old blonde.
Veronica’s door opened again. The suit emerged first, his mouth and eyebrows set in parallel lines across his face. Veronica followed, notepad in hand.
Hickman headed straight for the office’s side exit, pausing in the doorway. “There are several boxes of evidence. We’ll send them tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Sounds good,” Veronica said. “Thanks for coming by.”
He gave her a brusque nod and closed the door.
Veronica latched the deadbolt, then turned and scanned the room, a wry smile on her lips. Keith couldn’t help but notice she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Wow, it’s sure quiet out here. I hope all that eavesdropping didn’t interrupt the party too much,” she said.
“No one was eavesdropping,” Mac said.
“Yeah,” said Weevil. “We gave up when we realized the door was too thick.”
Keith watched as Veronica made her way to the reception desk and perched on the edge. He had a killer poker face, affectless as an Area 51 alien’s. It came in handy whenever he wanted to observe, to learn without overtly prying. His daughter knew better than to trust it, but at the moment she still wasn’t looking at him.
“So are you going to tell us what that was about?” Mac asked, opening her hands wide in a shrug.
“It’s no big deal. Petra Landros referred him to me because of the work I did on the Dewalt case,” Veronica said. “Okay, so do you guys remember anything about a sexual assault back in March? A girl left for dead in a field on the edge of town? I don’t remember it hitting the local news.”
And there it was: The reason Keith didn’t want her here, in spite of everything. Because imagining her anywhere near a case like that gave him a knee-jerk spasm of terror. He focused on breathing slowly and carefully, his fingers curling around the glass of Scotch.
It was Cliff who answered. “I remember that. It was in the blotter. That was the week before Hayley Dewalt went missing, so the story probably got lost in the circus.” He leaned back into the sofa and looked up at Veronica. “I remember there being some question whether the cases were linked. The victim was the same age as Hayley and Aurora, but the cops ruled out any connection pretty fast. And then I didn’t hear anything else about it.”
“Well, the case is still open apparently,” Veronica said. “They never figured out what happened. Or maybe they didn’t try very hard. The version I got might have been…biased.”
“Was that guy her lawyer?” Mac asked. “Are we going after the rapist?”
Veronica hesitated, and in that single beat of silence Keith saw her blush very slightly.
“He was an insurance adjustor. But he does want to find out who did it.” Her eyes flickered toward Keith and away as quickly. “We’re not being asked to determine liability, just help the hotel’s legal staff do it. But, you know, there’s a chance that finding the rapist could be a by-product of this noble mission.”
“Well, that’s—depressing,” Mac said finally, her chin sinking heavily on her hand. “?‘Hey! Sorry the actual criminal justice system couldn’t get the job done, but maybe if you threaten someone’s bank account we’ll be able to help you.’?”
Weevil just smirked. “Congratulations, you live in Neptune.”
Veronica grabbed the neck of one of the few remaining Scotch bottles with a couple of swigs left in it. “Excuse me for troubling your Capraesque lives with this first-ever note of moral unclarity.” She poured a dram into her glass and set the bottle back down with a loud clunk.
Keith laughed. “Fair enough.” There was always plenty of Monday-morning quarterbacking in their field, and he’d certainly had his share of successes, noble failures, and outright fiascos. He drained the final mouthful of booze from his glass, put his feet up on an ottoman, and drifted back into his own thoughts.
Then, out of left field:
“?‘But maybe if you threaten someone’s bank account…’?”
“Say what?” Cliff said.
“Oh, just what Mac said a minute ago. It touched off something in my mind.”
“About what Veronica’s doing?” Cliff said, still scrambling.
“No, about us. And Lamb. Innovative cat-skinning solutions for a changing world.”
Cliff’s face lit up as understanding hit. “For a busted old mule, you’re pretty fucking smart. What can I do to help?”
“Well, for starters, who do you know in civil?” Keith leaned forward to the edge of the couch, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Horowitz is good but he’s got a full caseload these days.” Cliff was pulling file folders and stacks of paperwork out of his briefcase. “Jarvis and Associates have a good team. Choi’s an up-and-comer—I’m pretty sure she’d take it just for the publicity.”
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Veronica. She held her glass halfway to her lips, glancing back and forth between them.
Instead of answering, Keith and Cliff both turned to face Weevil.
“Eli,” said Keith. “What do you think about bringing a lawsuit against the Balboa County Sheriff’s Department?”
Weevil gave a little start, blinking rapidly.
“I don’t know if you realize, but I just got out of a lawsuit with them. I’m kind of happy it’s over, you know?”
“This would be different,” Cliff said. “We’d be on the offense this time. We’d be looking to prove that the deputy who arrived on the scene planted that gun on you.”
Veronica drew in a breath. “You could use all the evidence the judge threw out. All those other people who claim evidence was planted? You could publicly rake Lamb over the coals. If we do this right, the worst-case scenario is that his career is over.”
“And what’s the best case?” Weevil asked, smiling as he anticipated her reply.
“The civil case leads to a criminal one, and Dan Lamb goes to prison for five, maybe up to ten years.”
The energy in the room surged. Keith let himself imagine the look on Lamb’s face as he sat on the stand, proof of his own corruption on public display.
“This would help recoup at least some of what you’ve lost, Eli,” Cliff said. “At risk of sounding like a daytime-TV commercial, you could claim medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering. And I wouldn’t be shocked if it opened the door for other individual lawsuits. Your kid could grow up in a very different Neptune than you did.”
Weevil leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He was starting to look excited. “You really think we’d have a shot?”
Keith grinned. “I’ve already done most of the dirty work. We’ve got almost thirty witnesses who claim the Sheriff’s Department has planted evidence. Some of them might even get their records expunged if Lamb gets enough of a black eye on this.”
“And the media is already hammering Lamb with questions about that disappearing Glock,” Cliff added. “We just have to make sure they don’t let it drop.”
Eli looked down at his feet, motionless for a few long seconds. When he finally looked up, it was with a crooked grin.
“All right,” he said. “I’m in.”