Текст книги "The Hell Yo "
Автор книги: Josh lanyon
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drop were in the top drawer of my desk.
My cell phone was ringing. I glanced at the number display. Jake. I smiled sourly. Kind
of late, in my opinion, to worry about his calls being traced.
I pressed the button.
“Can you talk?” he asked brusquely.
“What did you need?” I was equally curt.
There was a pause. He said mildly, “You want to fill me in on the Savant situation?”
It was hard to believe that I hadn’t found time in a week to tell him about Savant and
his weird behavior. I had planned to, but it had never seemed quite the right moment. Or
maybe I just hadn’t been in a rush to get my ass chewed for tracking mud through Jake’s
murder investigation.
Not that I had ever intended to wander into Jake’s case. I had wanted to find out who
had vandalized my store and sent Angus running for cover. But that wasn’t going to cut any
ice. From the start, Jake had believed that these events were connected – irritatingly
enough, he appeared to have been right.
So I told him then about the missing disk, the warning about Blade Sable, all of it. I
filled him in on Bob Friedlander’s erratic behavior this afternoon. I figured Friedlander
might make good on his threat to turn me into the cops. It might defuse the situation if I
came clean first.
He listened without comment until I wound to a stop.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“When did I have a chance?”
Silence.
“Did you find the disk?”
“No. I did look. Maybe not as carefully as I should have.”
Another silence.
“The cult thing is far-fetched.”
“You’re the one who first came up with the cult theory. Remember?”
Crackling noises.
He said finally, “You’re sure the girl you saw in the hotel was the same one who came
into the store with the murder vic?”
“Yes.”
“Assuming you’re not mistaken, she could have been there visiting a guest. Or maybe
she works there. She could be staying there herself.”
Satan would have to give these kids a mighty generous allowance to afford rooms at the
Biltmore, but I kept my mouth shut.
“And you think Friedlander is lying about the last time he saw this missing literary
genius?”
I answered indirectly. “I don’t know what Savant’s net worth is. He seems like a guy
who might have trouble hanging onto money. I think it would be helpful to find out who
inherits his literary estate.”
“You mean the rights to his books?”
“That’s part of it.”
“You think they’re queers?”
“Uh, no,” I bit out. “I don’t. But I think something’s queer. Friedlander suggested that
the police might be involved. He seems genuinely frightened, but he’s also hiding
something.”
“Gee, hard to believe,” Jake drawled.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t trust a cop.”
The silence lasted so long I thought he might have lost signal. The physical one. Clearly
he’d lost the other long ago.
I said into the crackling void, “I’m sure they weren’t lovers, but their relationship was
more than a publisher’s representative and a favored client.”
“Look, I’ve got to go.”
I said, trying to sound indifferent, “Later.”
I waited for the click that didn’t come. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” he
asked through another surge of static.
I laughed.
“Yeah. Whatever,” said Jake and rang off.
* * * * *
Lisa had also called. I discovered her message on the answering machine when I went
upstairs to get a beer.
“I realize that you’re under a great deal of strain, Adrien, but your behavior today was
extremely hurtful. I hope you will try to see this from my perspective. Your welfare is my
first and foremost concern in life.”
I sighed and erased the message. I wasn’t sure why I had lost my temper with her. It’s
not like Lisa had wavered one centimeter from her fondly held position that I was a semi–
invalid child (with slightly embarrassing sexual inclinations) who needed to be protected
from his own self-destructive impulses. Getting mad at her was like getting mad at the Great
Wall of China for not welcoming the Mongol hordes.
I wasn’t sure it was such a great idea to help Angus pay for his legal defense. I felt like I
should be doing something. I guess my fear was that a portion of this was my fault. Would it
have made a difference if I hadn’t given Angus money and sent him out of town? In fact,
wasn’t that one of the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth? Do not give opinions or advice
unless you are asked . Not only had I opened my trap, I had put my money where my mouth
was.
I spent the next hour zoned out in front of the television set watching the first half of
Captain Blood. The last time I’d seen it had been with Jake in a funky theater up north in the
Mother Lode country. Seemed like a lifetime ago.
I tried to make sense of the last forty-eight hours.
Never mind the last forty-eight hours, how about my entire life? I remember reading
once that one of the officers of the Titanic survived three shipwrecks. Even taking into
account his profession, that seemed excessive. Apparently, once that cosmic target was
pinned to your back, the arrows kept flying. In my case the arrows seemed to be
involvement in murder cases.
I guess if I didn’t enjoy the puzzle aspects of crime, I wouldn’t have opened a mystery
bookstore, but there’s a serious difference between an intellectual puzzle and having people
you know arrested for murder – or killed.
Obviously there were healthier ways I could spend my time – I wasn’t thinking so
much about the potential physical danger as the fact that I was so busy running around
sticking my nose in other people’s business that I hadn’t made a bank drop or bought
groceries for over a week. I was dangerously low on Lean Cuisines – and totally out of Tab.
Sipping my beer, eyes getting heavier, I watched the black-and-white images on the
screen “celebrating in pirate fashion,” when it dawned on me that in a little over a week I
would be celebrating Christmas with four strangers for whom I hadn’t bought Christmas
presents.
I swore. Sat up. So much for my plans for an early night.
I went downstairs, turning on the lights to the ground level. The shelves threw oblong
shadows in the dim lights. The skull paperweight on the counter grinned hollow-eyed at me.
On impulse, I went over to the shelves near where Gabe Savant had sat the night of his
signing. I lifted the books in sections, sat down, flipped through them. Nothing. No sign of
any disk.
I got on my hands and knees to inspect under the writing table where he had sat.
Nothing. Well, nothing of interest. I made a mental note to ask Velvet to vacuum more
thoroughly.
I had trouble with the whole lost disk bit. Accepting that there had been a disk, why
would Savant have carried it around with him? And if he had been nuts enough to carry it
around, how could he have lost track of it? Wasn’t the most likely scenario that he had
mislaid it before he ever got to Cloak and Dagger?
He had been late arriving that night, I remembered. And he had arrived with a posse.
How well had he known the women with him? Were they friends, acquaintances, or just
chicks he’d picked up along the way? Would Bob know? Would Bob tell me if he knew?
Would Bob shoot me for asking?
About then I remembered that I had come downstairs for a non-crime-related purpose.
I picked myself off the carpet, stretched, reflected that another thing I had been
neglecting was my tai chi. I wandered into the stock room, where I sat stiffly at the desk,
signed onto the computer.
I don’t have a problem with shopping. I don’t have a problem with malls at Christmas.
But shopping in the malls at Christmas – yes, that I do have a problem with. I shop online.
I surfed the ’Net for a while, trying to come up with ideas. When you’re a guy, you get
extra credit for any sign of thoughtfulness, and I’ve earned a lot of mileage out of chocolates,
flowers, and gift certificates. But buying for one’s new supplementary family members
seemed to require more effort. I reconnoitered for a moment, then recalled one of those
universal truths about chicks of a certain age: anything vaguely reminiscent of Audrey
Hepburn is going to be a hit.
I browsed a few pages further, then settled on a retro designer silk scarf for Natasha
and a cloisonne compact mirror for Lauren. Emma was easy: five 1946 blue board editions of
Nancy Drew novels. And for Dauten, a silver whisky flask. True, he didn’t strike me as a
whisky flask kind of guy, but after months of living with Lisa, he might discover the comfort
of always having a drink close at hand.
I pressed yes for gift wrap, yes for second-day shipping, and sat back feeling self–
congratulatory.
Smothering a jaw-cracking yawn, I clicked to open my e-mail. Nothing particularly
interesting. I yawned again, reviewed blackster21’s e-mail.
What do you know? Along with the usual offers of home loans, university degrees, and
penis enlargement, was an e-mail with the cryptic header: Your Question.
I studied it warily. No sign of an attachment. It had been sent by
I clicked. Immediately my entire screen went red.
“Shit!”
I hit alt+control+delete and jumped about a foot as someone right next to me screamed.
Heart hammering, I absorbed the fact that the scream came from my computer. As I stared,
the screen filled with an ominous Grim Reaper figure. Scythe in one skeleton hand,
hourglass in the other, it drifted slowly toward me, the hooded skull filling the monitor
screen. Then it disappeared. Ghostly shrieks of laughter vibrated my modem. My entire
screen went black. The computer turned off.
* * * * *
I was brushing my teeth when I heard Jake’s key in the lock.
Like I hadn’t enough excitement for one night. I scowled at my reflection. Foaming at
the mouth. How appropriate.
Then the front door slammed. It was like one of those goofy campfire tales: I’m on the
first step …
I bent over the sink, rinsed my mouth, and spat. I wiped my face on the towel draped
around my shoulders.
He was pouring himself a brandy from the liquor cabinet. He had discarded his jacket,
but he was still wearing his shoulder holster.
“Hey,” I said, leaning against the door frame leading into the bedroom.
“Hey.” He knocked back the brandy. Bared his teeth. He set the glass down, advancing
on me.
I held my ground. Studied him quizzically. I wasn’t sure what he had in mind, his
expression was kind of grim for romance. He reached me, his fingers digging into my
shoulders.
Pain is not my scene. I tried to slip out from under his grip. He pushed me back toward
the bed. I lost my balance, exclaiming, “Jeez, Jake –!”
He went low for a tackle, hoisting me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, surprising
a laugh out of me.
“D’you mind, asshole?” I protested, upside down.
No reply. We got to the bed in about three steps, and he flung me down. The pillows
bounced, the mattress springs squeaked in maidenly alarm. Jake’s hand went to his belt
buckle.
“Whoa. You mind disarming first, cowpoke?” I sat up, reached for the fastening on his
shoulder holster.
His eyes met mine. There was something unfamiliar there. I felt a prickle across my
scalp.
He yanked off his trousers and shorts, and pounced, pushing me back into the pillows.
His mouth covered mine hungrily. Toothpaste and brandy. I gave up on the holster,
preparing to give as good as I got.
What I got was a fast, fierce, mindless fuck: sweaty, bruising, and a little weird. I don’t
mean that in a bad way – I enjoy sex for sex’s sake as much as the next guy – but I can’t say
that it was exactly Chicken Soup for the Gay Man’s Soul, either.
We wrestled around some, Jake not hurting me, but not holding back either. He
flipped me over without much of a tussle, pinned me, pushed my legs apart and up, and then
shoved two slick fingers inside me. I jerked with surprise more than pain. He worked my
prostate with ruthless efficiency, taking my breath away, even if I’d wanted to protest, which
I didn’t particularly. I grunted in helpless, mindless response, and he withdrew his hand and
crammed his cock in my ass.
I rammed him, giving into the aggression and hunger – his and mine – and he shoved
back. We pushed each other, each time a little harder and a little further. It could have been
play, or it could have been the prelude to a brawl. He pounded into me, and I drove right
back at him.
The hardest part was the silence. Not just the lack of words, because Jake
communicated a lot of the time simply through touch. But tonight the touch felt distant,
almost impersonal. He brought me swiftly and adeptly to orgasm, and that I did resent a
little – as much as you can resent that kind of teeth-rattling sensation – and then he yelled
and came himself, in fierce surges of ropy semen.
When it was over, Jake sprawled on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling.
I studied his profile. I knew it so well: that unyielding jaw, the hard sensual line of his
mouth, the faint laugh lines spreading out from his eyes – not that he laughed a lot.
How’s Kate? I wondered. How’s that pregnancy thing going? Does she have any idea
what you do on Monday and Wednesday nights?
When is this going to end?
Filled with sudden, overwhelming lassitude, I closed my eyes.
Next I knew, the bed springs were pinging again. I opened my eyes. Jake sat on the
edge of the bed, his back to me, head in his hands.
The white bandages taping his ribs were stark against his skin. The last hours couldn’t
have done him much good, but I didn’t think his pain was physical.
I waited for him to get up and walk out, but the next moment the light snapped out. He
flopped back.
Within a minute, his snores were gently ruffling my hair.
Chapter Fourteen
“You feel okay?” Showered and dressed, Jake stood at the stove, turning bacon with a
spatula when I walked into the kitchen the next morning.
I shrugged the rest of the way into my shirt. “Fine. Why?” He’d set a clean mug out for
me on the counter, and I poured coffee from the machine.
I glanced his way. He turned down the gas on the stove. He looked more relaxed than
he had the night before – maybe it was the absence of firearms.
“You were restless last night. Tossing and turning. Talking in your sleep.”
I sat down with my coffee. “I hope I didn’t spill my girlish secrets.”
“Your girlish secrets are safe with me.”
That kind of line works better with a smile, but Jake was not amused by references to
my feminine side. He set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”
“I feel fine,” I said, irritably this time.
Jake had this Nero Wolfe-ian attitude about food. He thought a growling stomach
signaled serious illness. In less than a year, I’d had more lectures from him on the importance
of breakfast than I had from Lisa during my entire childhood.
He piled his own plate from the pan on the stove, sat across from me, leaning on his
elbows the better to intimidate his food.
We ate to the homely sounds of the dishwasher running and coffee machine
percolating.
I was deep in thought when Jake’s voice yanked me back to awareness.
“So what’s on your mind? You’re usually chirping and chattering around here in the
morning.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the flattering comparison to Tweety Bird.” I
forked in a mouthful of fluffy, scrambled eggs. He was a good cook, and I did appreciate the
fact that he fixed me breakfast and did my dirty dishes – and saved my skin on occasion.
I said, “To start with, I think your new partner Rossini smells a rat.”
“Let me worry about Rossini.”
“Happy to.”
“What else?”
“Oh, so we’re talking about this now?”
“We’re talking about whatever is freaking you out.”
“Freaking me out?” I murmured politely.
“You know what I mean.”
Well, actually…no .
But in the interests of keeping it civil, I said, “Okay. What does Angus say?”
“I didn’t interrogate Angus – and we’re not discussing the case except as it directly
affects you.”
“What does Angus say?” I repeated.
Grudgingly, he replied, “He says he didn’t do it.”
“Do you believe him?”
“We’re investigating his story.”
“No, I mean do you personally believe him?”
“Don’t be naive. My personal feelings have nothing to do with it.”
“Come off it, Jake. You’re always talking about a cop’s instinct. You know Angus. What
does your gut tell you?”
“Nobody ever really knows anybody,” Jake said.
“You’d be the expert on that,” I said shortly. “I still think you can know people well
enough to tell whether they’re homicidal maniacs.”
“Tell that to the neighbors of the serial killer of your choice.”
“Does he have an alibi?”
“We’re checking into it.”
“Did he –”
Jake cut across. “Let’s cut to the chase. He hasn’t said anything about any cult or coven.
In fact, he clammed up at the suggestion.”
“What does that tell you?”
“That he decided not to waste his breath and our time.”
I nodded. Speared a bit of bacon.
“I suppose it’s occurred to you that he’s not likely to back our story of casual
acquaintances?”
He didn’t respond.
“Okay, answer me this. If she was killed between six and ten o’clock, how would
Angus have got back to Lake Tahoe in time to call me at eleven-thirty?”
Jake took a long, deliberate drink of coffee, set down his cup without haste. “Have you
ever known me not to do my job?”
I flashed onto the memory of him wiping the doorknob at Angus’s rental. Did that
count?
“Well…not exactly.”
“Then chill. Have a little faith in the system. If he’s innocent, it’ll come out. If he isn’t
innocent, he deserves to fry.”
“He deserves to fry? Welcome to the Age of Enlightenment. Happily, we gas them here
in the Golden State, remember?”
Jake shook his head, not bothering to reply to this old argument between us.
I said, “How much of a fair trial is he going to get with the cops already convinced he’s
the man and a public defender straight out of law school?”
Jake raised his brows. “For your information, he doesn’t have a public defender. Martin
Grosser has officially taken his case.”
“Martin Grosser, the major league media lawyer?”
“You got it.”
“Pro bono?”
“I guess. I wouldn’t know.” Jake added grimly, “I’m on the other team.”
I chewed this over. After a time I noticed Jake watching me with that sardonic
expression.
I pointed out, “You were the one with the theory that Angus was on the fringe of
something bigger. A coven would have thirteen members. Maybe that doesn’t qualify as an
actual cult, but –”
“The unofficial view is that Angus and his girlfriend acted on their own in the killings
of Kinsey Perone, Tony Zellig, and Karen Holtzer.”
Like Daniel and Manuela Ruda, a husband-wife team in Germany who stabbed their
best friend sixty-six times, then drank his blood – claiming the Devil made them do it. But
even the Rudas appeared to have connections to underground occult groups in Britain.
“Does that mean you have a different take on it?”
He rose, dumped his dishes into the sink, ran water. A well-trained and completely
house-broken male: La Cage aux Folles meets Leave It to Beaver.
He turned and faced me. “Look, I’m not discussing the case with you. You’re a witness,
remember? A hostile witness at that.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me with a quick, rough kiss that tasted of
coffee and bacon.
“Stay out of trouble,” he said.
A moment later, I heard the front door slam.
*****
“Someone doesn’t like you, Adrien,” Ted Finch muttered, tapping away at my
computer keyboard.
Like the majority of writers I knew, published and unpublished, Ted has a day job. He
works as a computer programmer and freelance web designer. I pay him a nominal fee to
maintain the Cloak and Dagger Web site – and to bail me out of disasters like the present
one.
“How bad is it?”
He chuckled. “Not that bad, just mean. Very mean.” He swiveled in the chair. “It’s a
freeware prank program. It automatically launched when you opened the e-mail. Do you
know who sent it?”
I shook my head.
Ted made tsking sounds. “You should never open e-mail from an unknown address.”
I didn’t bother to reply. Half the e-mail I got was from customers whose e-mail
addresses I didn’t recognize.
“So we saw on the news that Angus was arrested for that coed’s murder.” He shook his
head. “I bet you saw that coming.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re kidding. Jean and I were saying this morning that you’re probably the one who
tipped the police off.”
“Why would you say that?” I can’t say I was thrilled at the notion of me as the local
stool pigeon.
“It was in the papers. Your friend, that cop. He was the one who found the body, right?
Someone called and tipped him off. We thought it must be you.” He turned back to my
computer, began clicking away again, fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Oh, man, I bet you laid an egg when you saw your screen go black!”
What was with the bird references today?
Grinning in geek delight, Ted added, “Of course, we always knew there was something
wrong with that kid.”
I said dryly, “Did you?”
“The Barbies are back,” Velvet announced, poking her head in the office.
I glanced up. “Who?”
“Your friends from yesterday. The fluffragettes.”
I muttered something un-familial under my breath and went out.
Lauren, carrying a Gap Kids shopping bag, greeted me. “Natalie and I were in the area,
so we thought we’d nail down the details on the party – if you’ve got a free minute.”
Natalie? I thought the middle sib was named Natasha. I tried to remember if I had
addressed her as Natasha. I glanced at her, and she was beaming at me in that eerily
affectionate way.
Didn’t these women have jobs? Didn’t they have other interests besides this bloody
wedding?
Velvet approached, phone in hand. “Did you want to make a holiday donation to the
American Family Association?”
The AFA? The people who define a family as one man, one woman, and two-point-
three properly baptized biological offspring – no exceptions?
“I think not,” I said.
Velvet moved off to convey my regrets. I watched the Dautens sizing her up with what
seemed to be professional interest and felt unexpectedly protective of her brown ordinariness
in the face of their air-brushed perfection.
The blue eyes swiveled back my way.
“Maybe we could run out and grab a cup of coffee?” Natalie suggested.
“Great idea!” Lauren chimed in – as though they hadn’t run through their lines on the
way over. “There’s a Starbucks a few doors down.”
“I really can’t…” My voice trailed in the face of their dismay.
“No prob,” said Velvet, from behind the counter. “I’ve got it.”
I gave her an ungrateful look.
“Great!” said Lauren.
The three of us marched out, passing Ted’s red Corolla parked on the street. Memory of
the red Corolla from the day before niggled at me. The next instant the feeling was gone,
Lauren and Natalie nattering happily – about what, I have no idea.
We reached Starbucks, I took their orders for coffee-laced whipped cream, and got into
line while Lauren sat and pulled out her Palm Pilot.
“Christmas Night in Harlem” was playing on the loudspeaker as I carried our drinks
back to the circle of chairs, picking my way through their scattered shopping bags.
“This is so perfect!” Natalie announced, taking her nonfat mocha Frappaccino with a
shot of sugar-free mint and extra whipped cream. “Thank you!”
Coffee-by-the-numbers. Myself, I prefer to patronize the independents, but with one
on every corner, Starbucks lays a mean caffeine ambush.
“So…what are Lisa’s favorite songs from the ’40s?” asked Lauren, fixing me with those
china doll-blue eyes, one finger poised to type.
Did she have favorite songs from the ’40s? She was born in the ’40s. Did toddlers have
favorite tunes?
“I don’t know.”
They looked nonplussed. “Well, what songs were special to her parents?” Lauren
prodded helpfully.
This was awkward. Lisa never spoke of her family. I had no idea if she even had family
living. I knew my maternal grandparents were dead, but that was all I knew. The few times I
had pushed for information, Lisa had been deliberately vague – even for her. I had grown up
accepting that this was simply the way it was, but I could see it would seem a little weird to
outsiders.
“I think she’ll be happy with…uh…the classics.”
“English classics or American classics?”
For Chrissake.
“Both.”
Incredibly, they looked satisfied with that. Lauren keyed into the Palm Pilot.
“I can’t see how you’re going to put all this together in…”
“Ten days,” said Brigadier General Lauren crisply.
“Right.”
“It’s not easy,” Natalie confided, adding reassuringly, “But the hard part’s done.”
I’d take her word for it. Lauren watched me keenly. “So you’re okay with this?”
I opened my mouth, but uncharacteristically, I failed to think of what to say. They
waited politely.
“Er…yeah, why not?”
Good question. Why not? I mean, I had spent most of my life trying to evade Lisa’s
overprotective clutches. This marriage was bound to give me breathing space.
“It’ll mean a lot to Lisa,” I said, trying not to sound as stiff as one of my unknown
British relatives.
They uttered cooing sounds and made fluttery motions like they were about to enfold
me in a group hug. Since this wasn’t physically possible given the seating arrangements, they
had to settle for smiling at me and reaching over to pat my arm and knee.
“I’m so glad we were able to talk,” Lauren said. She put the Palm Pilot away.
Apparently the emergency board meeting was over.
“Are you and Lisa still quarreling?” Natalie said sympathetically, as I held the glass door
for them on our way out.
“Quarreling?” What had Lisa told these people – these strangers? “Of course not.”
“Lisa didn’t say that,” Lauren said quickly with a quelling glance at her sister. “She only
said you were not very happy with her.”
They gave me twin looks of commiseration that still conveyed that I was so in the
wrong.
“She said you hate to be fussed over,” Natalie said. “But of course she can’t help it, can
she? That’s what mothers do.”
What in God’s name were they talking about?
Lauren looked serious. “It must have been such a shock that boy being arrested. Did
you have any idea he was capable of that?”
That Boy. Well, at least now I knew what they were talking about and where they got
their news bulletins.
“No.”
“It goes to show,” Natalie said.
We hugged on the sidewalk, then they departed for more shopping. I hot-footed it
back to the shop.
I stepped inside. Glanced around. A customer browsed the Gothic section. He smiled. I
smiled back. I didn’t see Velvet at the counter. I glanced down the aisle, spotted another
customer busily scanning the ending of a book.
I went to the office. Ted had packed and left. Velvet stood at my desk going through
the drawers.
I halted in the doorway.
She had all my stuff out on the desk top. She was holding the plastic vial of my digoxin
capsules, frowning at it.
“What are you doing?” I asked from behind her. She started.
Cheeks flaming, she stuttered, “I was tidying in here. I found these. They looked like
you might need them.”
Tidying up inside the desk? “Thanks,” I said, holding my hand out for the vial. I kept an
extra bottle in the desk in case I forgot the morning dose, although I didn’t plan on
explaining that to her. “You don’t need to worry about my stuff.”
“I don’t mind,” she said eagerly.
Was she truly that dense?
“Yeah, well, I’d prefer if you stayed out of here.”
She flinched as though I’d slapped her.
“Fine,” she said stiffly. She brushed past me into the shop.
I opened the desk drawers, swept everything in haphazardly. Then I locked the desk.
It seemed far-fetched to suspect her of being an agent in the Deviltry Network, but
then again, she hadn’t come through the temp service – and I hadn’t verified her references
yet.
I could practically hear Jake now.
I closed the office door, pulled her application out of the file cabinet, and spent the
next half hour calling her previous employers.
The two dress boutiques she had worked for would have hired her back in an instant.
She hadn’t worked long at the veterinary clinic, and they didn’t remember her well,
but as the director remarked, that might be a positive.
She checked out.
Chapter Fifteen
If it bleeds, it leads. By late afternoon I had declined an interview with one local news
station and three local papers.
What were they hoping to hear? How I’d always known from the way Angus mixed
Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters that one day he’d run amuck? That his bad habit of sticking
price tags smack center in the face of book covers would lead him to ruin?
I ate lunch in the stockroom, catching up on paperwork and listening to the radio. Jake
was correct. Angus’s court-appointed lawyer had been immediately replaced by Martin
Grosser. Grosser, a high-profile defense attorney, worked as a commentator for Court TV,
and pretty much reserved his services for the high and mighty. He did not typically work pro
bono, but there was no way Angus could afford his fees. Not that I got how it was in
Grosser’s interests to represent the latest pretender to Charlie Manson’s throne.
Angus had a bail hearing set for the following day. Personally, I thought he was
probably safer in jail, judging by the tenor of most of the news stories. There was a lot of crap
about Satanism on the air and the signs parents should watch for in their own children –
starting with an interest in heavy metal or New Age rock music and shimmy shimmy ko-ko
bopping right on down the line to drug use and burglary.
There was a startling amount of misinformation out there.
