Nemesis (12 page)

How about the affair with Vincent Canaday? Anything there?

She started a backgrounder on Canaday. In the middle of it the phone rang. Joe DeFalco, an old newshound bud of Bill's who worked at the
Chronicle
. What was the skinny on Jake Runyon's arrest? Skinny. Man! Tamara restrained herself, told him tersely but quietly that there wasn't a damn bit of truth in the attempted rape charge, that it was nothing but payback by a disgruntled client. DeFalco wanted details; she put him off and he went away. No way to stop him from calling Bill, which she was sure he'd do next, but it'd get him the same answers and no more. Friggin' media vultures. There'd be others sniffing around Daniels, and she'd give them an earful, all right. But the story wasn't big enough or unique enough to make a media splash, not the way she was telling it.

Back to Vincent Canaday. Born Boise, Idaho, forty-two years ago. Graduated from Eastern Washington University with a business degree. Worked for Pacific Rim Insurance in Seattle for twelve years; promoted to a minor administrative position with the company in San Francisco. Left Pacific Rim six years ago to buy Gateway Insurance—not a very wise move, judging from his and Gateway's financial standing. Married to the same woman for fifteen years, one daughter, the three of them living in a mortgaged home in Lafayette. Member of the Lafayette and Martinez Chambers of Commerce, the Kiwanis Club, and the Republican Party. No criminal record, no blemishes of any kind; man had never even had a parking ticket. No known ties to Verity Daniels beyond the fact that she'd worked for him the past two years.

In short, nothing. Canaday was the kind of pillar of the community whose public image is sacred to him, and so makes damn sure any double dealings and extramarital affairs are kept under wraps.

Tamara already had what was available on Daniels's relationships with Scott Ostrander and the Avery family. None of them seemed any more willing to provide details than Vincent Canaday; Jake's interviews bore that out. Even if she'd been inclined to go against Bill's advice, and she wasn't, sending Alex out on a field investigation would probably be a waste of time.

Reluctantly, she abandoned the notion of doing any more digging. All it would buy her was more frustration. She added the information she'd learned from Dr. Zinberg to the case file, along with a few other notes and observations, and e-mailed the file to Thomas Dragovich's law office.

 

11

Tamara was at her desk at eight-thirty Wednesday morning. Coming in earlier and earlier, leaving later and later—putting in ten, eleven, twelve hours six days a week now. No use fooling herself that it was just because she loved the work so much. Did love it, running a detective agency was the perfect job for her (who'd've figured?), but the reason for all the overtime was that she didn't have much of a life outside the office anymore.

Sad. Wild-ass party animal had become a workaholic and reclusive couch potato. Friendships starting to slide away because she didn't have the time or the interest in partying, making the club scene. Finally grown up, responsible, mature … that was what Pop and sister Claudia were saying, and maybe they were right up to a point. But there was a hollowness in her, as if parts of the old Tamara had been scooped out like the seeds and pulp from a melon, and she didn't know how to fill the void.

Vonda, her best friend since high school, said what she needed was to hook up with a quality dude—somebody like Vonda's man Ben—that'd snap her out of her funk. Yeah, sure. As if quality dudes ran in packs and all you had to do was take your pick. She'd had lousy luck with men all her life anyway—the gangsta types in high school, Horace, that asshole crook Antoine Delman. Besides, getting laid didn't seem to be as important to her as it once had. Now and then she'd feel horny, but it didn't last long, wasn't as intense like back in the day when she was horny
all
the time. Mostly she didn't even think about sex. Even the batteries in old Mr. V were dead and he was gathering dust in the drawer of her bedroom nightstand.

Sometimes she wondered if the way things were now were how they'd be for the rest of her life. All work and damn little play. Mixed feelings about that. When she was home alone, listening to music, trying to unwind with two or three glasses of wine, the idea of thirty or forty years of the same routine scared the hell out of her. But when she was in the office, doing what she did best, facing new challenges, making sure everything ran smoothly, it didn't seem like such a bad deal at all. Bill had grown old doing detective work … well, sixties old … and look at him. Satisfied, content with his lot. Or he had been before Kerry got caught in all that crazy shit in Green Valley.

So what was the answer? No answer, that was the answer. You couldn't predict the future, couldn't even predict tomorrow or the rest of today. Like they always said: take it one day at a time. The future'd get here fast enough that way and then you'd know what it held for you.

The coffee she'd started on the hot plate was ready. She poured herself a cup, put one of the stale doughnuts she'd brought from home on a plate, went back to her desk, and replanted her butt in the chair. First thing to do: print out reports on a couple of completed investigations and get the invoices ready to go with them.

Just finishing that up when she heard the outer door open. Prospective client, maybe. Alex and Deron Stewart weren't due to check in in person this morning. Her office door was partly open, but she couldn't see all the way into the anteroom until she got up and went over there and pushed it open all the way.

Surprise, the nasty kind. And along with it, a sharp jolt of outraged anger.

The woman standing there, dressed in a four-figure Donna Karan suit like she'd just stepped out of a
Vogue
ad, was Verity Daniels.

No mistake: Tamara's Net searches had pulled up a couple of photographs of the woman. The anger was like a thickening weight inside her as she stepped into the anteroom. Daniels stood at ease, bright red mouth not quite smiling, watching her out of eyes black-rimmed with too much mascara and Latisse-lengthened lashes. The lashes looked like a couple of spiders clinging to purple-rouged lids.

They stood there measuring each other, Tamara telling herself to stay cool, stay cool, let Daniels snap the silence and don't say anything to provoke her.

After about ten seconds: “You're Tamara Corbin?”

“That's right.”

“I didn't know you were black. Or that you were so young.”

Two remarks that Tamara didn't much like hearing from anybody. Coming from this nutcase, they were a plain damn insult. She said, “So what?” in a voice sharper and more combative than she'd intended.

“Nothing, I suppose. It's just that you're not what I expected.”

“You're what I expected.”

“Really? And what would that be?”

It was on the tip of Tamara's tongue to tell her. She managed to curb the impulse, said instead, “What do you want here, Ms. Daniels?”

“Oh, so you know who I am.”

“Who you are, and what you are.”

“Well, so you're going to be nasty. I was hoping we could have a reasonable discussion.”

“Reasonable. After what you did to Jake Runyon?”

“I didn't do anything to him, except call the police after he tried to attack me—”

“Bullshit.”

One corner of Daniels's mouth turned down. “Vulgar,” she said. “Well, that's typical, isn't it.”

“Of what? An uppity young black woman?”

“You said it, I didn't. I'm not a bigot.”

The rage was starting to choke Tamara. She felt herself giving in to it, couldn't keep from saying, “No, just a liar, a fraud, a crazy who gets her kicks making up stories about extortionists and guys with knives and attempted rapes that never happened.”

“I'm none of those things, Ms. Corbin. And I resent being told I'm crazy. I'm as sane as you are.”

“Like hell. You belong in a wack shack.”

Daniels drew herself up. Indignant now, or pretending to be, but still with her cool in check. Cool? Dry ice was more like it. The kind of female that eats her young. You couldn't shake her with hard truths any more than you could reason with her. The protective force field she'd built up around that private world she lived in was too thick.

“I hired your agency,” she said, “because I was terrified of the person who keeps harassing me, demanding money and making terrible threats. I still am, whether you believe it or not. For your information, he called again last night.”

“More bullshit. Nobody called you, not last night, not ever. Nobody's after you. H-o-a-x, hoax.”

“You're just like Runyon, aren't you? Only pretending to be on my side. Neither of you really cares about helping someone in trouble, you're just out for all you can get. Sex, money, whatever. Well, you won't get away with it any more than he will.”

“You threatening me now?”

“I came here thinking you might be decent enough to apologize—”

“Sure you did.”

“—but you've been as crude and ugly to me as he was. You don't leave me any choice, Ms. Corbin.”

“Let me guess. Suing us for damages.”

“Yes. You deserve it, both of you.”

“That the truth or another one of your lies?”

“I have every right to protect myself legally. I've already hired an attorney.”

“One of those sleazeball dudes who advertises on television, I'll bet. What's his name?”

“I don't have to tell you that now.”

“How much you after? Not that you'll ever see any of it.”

“Or that, either. You'll find out when the time comes.”

“Yeah. And that's the real reason you're here. Tell me to my face you're suing, whether it's true or not, and watch me squirm. Only you don't get the satisfaction because I don't squirm.”

“You will.” Smiling now, a red gash of a smile as if her mouth was filled with blood. “Oh, you
will
.”

“This how you get your jollies? Trying to ruin innocent people with all your goddamn lies? Sure it is. Better than fingering yourself under the bed covers.”

That got a reaction. Daniels's smile disappeared; her eyes sparked hot under those Latisse spiders, spots of color bloomed in her cheeks. “God, you're vulgar.”

“You already said that.”

“Vulgar and disgusting.”

“That's me, all right.” Tamara was so furious now she was shaking. “And if you don't haul that chubby ass of yours out of here in the next thirty seconds, you'll find out what else I can be.”

Daniels used up ten of the thirty seconds in a stone-cold glare, then turned on her spike heels and yanked open the door. Turned back again there, and showed what the thing that lived inside that closed-off universe of hers was really like, same as she had to Jake two nights ago. Said hard and fast through peeled back lips and clamped teeth, “Fucking bitch.”

“Right back at you.”

The door slammed on the last word, hard enough to have shattered glass.

Tamara stormed back into her office, sat down with her hands gripping her thighs. Sat like that for five minutes or so until she calmed down. Handled the woman all wrong, she thought then. Bill was always after her to keep her emotions under control, be professional no matter what the circumstances. She listened to him, she understood the need, but she couldn't seem to learn. Times like this, when she had somebody like Verity Daniels confronting her, ragging on her, the dark side of her nature took over and she just plain lost it.

Not that it made a whole lot of difference in this case. She could've been all sweetness and light, kissed Daniels's ass, and the result would've been the same. Another pack of lies … maybe. Some shyster lawyer already hired … maybe. Lawsuits in the works, the woman intending all along to play her malicious payback game to a different audience … maybe. How the hell could you tell ahead of time?

Well, whatever the loony was up to, she'd got a whole lot more than she bargained for walking in here today.

Now she had a pissed-off tiger by the tail.

*   *   *

Tamara didn't call Bill to report the confrontation with Daniels, and she didn't tell Jake about it when he checked in briefly in the late afternoon. Both of them had enough grief to deal with as it was. Why heap any more until it was necessary? There was still a chance the cops would expose Daniels for the sick liar she was, and Jake would be cleared and the whole miserable business would just fade away. If that didn't happen and Daniels went through with her lawsuit threat, there'd be time enough to plan strategy when her shyster crawled out of his hole.

Same went for hiring an attorney to represent Jake and the agency. Charles Kayabalian was one option; he and Bill were tight, had worked together on several cases. If he couldn't handle it himself, he'd recommend a legal pit bull with just as much bite. Claudia could probably recommend somebody, too, even though her specialty was corporate law, but Tamara didn't want to confide in big sister if she could help it. She'd get the usual lecture along with a list of names. Claudia was okay most of the time, but the two of them were polar opposites—Ms. Prim and Proper versus the Tiger Woman—and when it came to the old combination of Tamara and trouble, Claudia could be so tight-assed she squeaked.

Wait and see. That was the best approach right now.

*   *   *

Tamara stayed late again that night. What was the point of trading an empty office for an empty Potrero Hill crib? The only difference was, the flat had some food and a couple of bottles of Chardonnay chilling in the fridge. But if she got hungry or thirsty enough, she could always walk across the square to the South Park Café.

Quarter to seven when she finished the last of her work. Now she had the names of two civil rights attorneys, both of whom had won far more cases than they'd lost. Neither one came cheap, but money wasn't a consideration in something like this. You got what you paid for. And the stakes they'd be playing for here were bound to be high.