Nemesis (14 page)

Big money the bitch didn't need, probably didn't even want. She wasn't playing this liar's game for fun, but out of pure malice.

For three or four minutes Tamara stalked the office until her fury cooled and she could think clearly again. Then she took half a dozen deep breaths, picked up the phone, and called Bill.

*   *   *

Charles Kayabalian's large private office in Embarcadero Center was decorated with Persian rugs, one big red-and-black one on the floor, a couple of small ones hanging on the walls. He collected Orientals, Bill had told her, and was an expert on antique Kashan and Sarouk carpets. All that meant to Tamara was that he had plenty of money, which made him a top-line attorney, which meant they were in good legal hands.

Man looked and acted successful, too. Kind of person who inspired confidence. Strong face, strong voice, smooth manner, dapper in an expensive three-piece blue suit. And calm, a lot calmer than Tamara felt. Bill was there, too, of course. And Jake. The smiley-face process server had caught him Monday evening, yesterday, at his apartment. Daniels was looking to nail him for only $100,000 in damages.
Only.

Kayabalian had agreed to represent them as soon as Bill got in touch with him. Favor for past favors, but also because he didn't like frivolous lawsuits and enjoyed facing off against attorneys who indulged in them. He knew Philip Hansen, not personally but by reputation. Wouldn't say much against the man—professional ethics—but what he did say implied that Hansen was just what Tamara figured he was, a shyster who'd take on any kind of case on a contingency basis if the potential payoff was large enough.

“The reason for this conference,” Kayabalian said when they were all seated, him behind a big mahogany desk with his hands steepled under his chin, the rest of them in facing chairs, “is to keep you informed now that I've had the chance to review both suits and the case file Ms. Corbin provided, and spoken at length with Thomas Dragovich and Ms. Daniels's attorney.”

“How does our position look?” Bill asked.

“I don't have to tell you that the outcome of any civil lawsuit is difficult to predict, the more so when a jury is involved. And Hansen indicated to me that he and his client intend to request a jury trial. Nevertheless, as you indicated when we spoke on the phone, the suit against your detective agency is shaky. It would be extremely difficult for the plaintiff to prove incompetence and negligence, given your long-standing record to the contrary. We can and will call any number of witnesses to support your professional integrity.”

Bill nodded and smeared a hand over his face. It had been awhile since Tamara had seen him and the way he looked worried her. Older, kind of shrunk-hunched, as if he'd aged five years in the past few months. The lines around his eyes and mouth made longer, deeper by stress. He'd lost weight, too. As thin now as he'd been since she'd known him.

“And the suit against Jake?” he asked.

“Somewhat stronger,” Kayabalian said, “if the assault charge stands up. If it collapses under police investigation, or if we can prove Ms. Daniels sought your services under false pretenses, the foundations for both suits also collapse and any competent judge will toss them. In which event we can demand recompense for harassment.”

“No countersuit. All we want is to get out from under.”

Tamara wasn't sure she agreed with that. Why not sue the ass off Daniels for all the trouble she'd caused? But she didn't say anything. Bill was probably right; he usually was.

Kayabalian said, “If the police fail to disprove the assault charge, we'll have to hope Dragovich is able to get it dismissed at the preliminary hearing. Failing that, rely on him for an acquittal when the case comes to trial. A dismissal would certainly work in our favor; it might even convince Ms. Daniels to drop the suits. An acquittal is to our advantage only if a criminal trial were to preceed the civil.”

No way she drops the suits, Tamara thought, no matter what happens with the phony rape. If she can't get Jake one way, it'll make her even more determined to do it the other.

“What are the chances of dismissal?” Bill asked.

“Dragovich is a fine criminal attorney, but … fairly slim, I'm afraid, despite Mr. Runyon's impeccable record for honesty. It's Ms. Daniels's word against Mr. Runyon's, and what little evidence there is supports her account of what happened that evening.”

Tamara leaned forward in her chair. “What about all the evidence we've got that says she's a compulsive liar, that the extortion business was made up?”

“It's not conclusive and might be ruled inadmissible, depending on the judge. And proving the hoax won't be easy without some sort of corroborating evidence. Particularly in view of the fact that she now has alleged proof that an extortion attempt has been and is still being made.”

“What proof?”

“A tape recording of the extortionist's most recent telephone call. Her attorney played it for me. Two minutes of a male voice demanding twenty thousand dollars and obscenely threatening her life if she doesn't comply, and her frightened replies.”

“It's a fake. A damn fake.”

“Got the idea from the recordings I tried to set up,” Jake said grimly. “Bought herself a recorder and a telephone interface and paid somebody to make the call.”

“I don't doubt it,” Kayabalian said. “But the recording exists nonetheless, and her explanation as to why neither of the two previous calls were recorded is plausible enough. A judge may or may not rule her recording admissible—I'll certainly make every attempt to see that it doesn't happen—but you can be certain her attorney will find a way to mention its existence.”

Bill said, “How much time are we looking at here before court dates are set?”

“If the assault charge stands through the preliminary hearing, a minimum of six weeks for the trial and likely much longer, given the backlog of cases on the court docket. The same applies to the civil suits.”

“So we could be looking at, what, three to six months before any of this is resolved?”

“It could be that long, yes.”

“And there's nothing we can do in the meantime? I mean Tamara, Jake, and me.”

“No. I strongly advise all of you to have nothing whatsoever to do with Ms. Daniels or her attorney, or to conduct any sort of sub rosa investigation.”

“Take the moral high road, in other words.”

“Yes. Moral and legal both.”

*   *   *

So it was back to business as usual, Tamara and Jake dealing with their shares of the agency's caseload, Bill back home to be with Kerry. But it wasn't the same business as usual for her—it was like living and working in a kind of limbo. Jake must have felt the same, but he didn't say anything about it and neither did she. You couldn't tell how he was feeling; he had that stoic way about him, like he was living behind a private wall. He seemed okay, though. Whatever was going on inside his head, it didn't affect his work; he was as efficient as always, in the office and out in the field.

Bill didn't want to talk about Daniels or the lawsuits, either. She told Alex what the situation was; as a full-time operative now, he had a right to know. But that was the only time either of them mentioned it.

The rest of the week passed with no word from the cops or anybody else involved. No news meant bad on the one hand, good on the other. And that was probably how it would play out for the duration, however many weeks or months that'd be.

Hard enough to deal with now, and it wouldn't get any easier. The camaraderie, the usual ease in the agency routine were already missing. She was tense during the workdays, and now and then some little thing would trigger her tamped-down anger and she'd growl at a client or contact, throw or beat on something in what Claudia would've called a hissy fit. The nights weren't a whole lot better. She didn't sleep well, and once she dreamed that she came home and Horace was sitting on the couch with his arm around Verity Daniels, both of them grinning at her like a couple of Cheshire cats—an ugly dream that woke her up in a sweat. It was as if a cloud of gloom hung over her like invisible smoke.

She kept telling herself that it would all work out okay. Charles Kayabalian was a good lawyer, one of the best; they couldn't be in better legal hands. And there wasn't anything more that could go wrong between now and the court dates. The worst had already happened.

Well, hadn't it?

 

14

Like hell it had.

The worst happened sometime Saturday night and then on Sunday afternoon.

*   *   *

Tamara was lounging in bed, watching a crappy movie on TV because she had nothing better to do, when the call came in. She glowered at the phone, then at the bedside clock. Not quite two-fifteen. Better not be Horace, she thought. I'll tear him a new one if it is.

It wasn't. It was Thomas Dragovich, calling from the Hall of Justice.

He told her that in grave tones, and then he said, “I'm afraid I'm the bearer of bad news, Ms. Corbin. Jake Runyon was arrested again early this morning at his apartment.”

“What! Don't tell me that Daniels woman trumped up some other charge against him—”

“Not this time. The charge is first-degree murder.”

“
Murder?
Of who?”

“Verity Daniels.”

“… My God, she's dead? When, how?”

“Sometime last night,” Dragovich said. “Beaten with a blunt instrument and strangled, her body dumped in Lake Merced. A jogger found it just past dawn.”

The news was like being smacked with something that made you woozy, muddied your thinking. It was a few seconds before Tamara was able to wrap her mind around it. “And the cops think Jake killed her? Why, because of that phony attempted rape charge?”

“That and the lawsuits, yes.”

“But that's just wacked. He wouldn't do a thing like that, not to her, not to anybody.”

“Of course he wouldn't. He maintains he's had nothing to do with the woman since the confrontation in her studio, and I believe him. But he can't account for his time over the past thirty-six hours—home alone after a Saturday road trip alone.”

“That's not enough to arrest him for murder!”

“No, it isn't. Not by itself. Unfortunately the police have a piece of physical evidence that directly links him to the crime, and that he can't explain to their satisfaction.”

“What piece of evidence?”

“A button,” Dragovich said, “clenched in the dead woman's hand. A button torn off the sleeve of a suit coat in his closet.”

 

Part Three

BILL

 

15

Kerry was still holed up in her office, where she'd been ever since breakfast. I knocked on the door, then put my head inside. She was at her computer, so intent on what she was doing that she didn't seem to know I was there. The room was as gloomy as a cave with the drapes drawn and the only light coming from the monitor screen and desk lamp. Her retreat, she called it. Seven-day retreat since coming home from the hospital, for hours on end—the only place where she seemed to feel completely safe when she was alone in the condo.

I watched her for a few seconds. Outwardly she did not appear to have changed much, except that she was too thin; her color was good and her auburn hair had the same bright luster as always in the spill of light from the lamp. But up close you could see what was missing—the animation, the zest for living that had been such a vital part of her personality. Signs of returning spirit were what I kept watching for, hoping for, because it was the only way I'd know for sure that the internal wounds she'd suffered were finally healing.

Just the opposite with me. Inside I was all right, coping, but the face I saw staring back at me from the bathroom mirror every morning resembled that of an old man who'd been on a protracted bender. Maybe not quite that bad, but bad enough to make me cringe, and to put sadness and sympathy in Emily's eyes. Crises and their aftermaths have different effects on different people, the victims and those close to them both.

I went in and shut the door behind me. The click of the latch got through Kerry's concentration, led her to lift and turn her head. I said, “I need to talk to you, babe.”

“I'm almost done here. Another few minutes.”

That could mean ten or fifteen, or it could mean an hour or more. She seemed to have little awareness of the passage of time since July.

“It's important,” I said.

“So is what I'm doing.”

“It's about Jake Runyon.”

“Well, what about him?”

“Bad news. Very bad. He's been arrested again. First-degree homicide charge, this time.”

She sat without moving for several seconds, her hands poised above the computer keyboard, as if she'd been flash-frozen in that position. Then she swiveled her chair so she was looking at me directly. “That's ridiculous,” she said. “Jake wouldn't kill anyone in cold blood.”

“I know it.”

“Who? Who is he supposed to have murdered?”

“The woman who brought the bogus assault charge against him. Verity Daniels.”

“My God. What happened?”

“I don't know all the details yet.” I told her what I did know, from Thomas Dragovich by way of Tamara. “It's a frame job, that much is clear. The button from Jake's coat was deliberately put in Daniels's hand to implicate him.”

“Who would want to do a thing like that?”

“No idea yet. Someone who hated Daniels enough to want her dead, who knew about the assault charge and figured Jake for a perfect fall guy.”

“But the button. How…?”

“Not stolen from his apartment—he told Dragovich he was certain there hadn't been a break-in. The only thing he can figure is that the button was torn off in his struggle with Daniels at her condo last week, that she found it or whoever killed her did.”