Reilly 12 - Show No Fear (16 page)

O
N THE COAST, MORNING HOVERS OVERHEAD LIKE A DAMP
gray hat.

Nina sat on her porch the day after Thanksgiving, book propped on a scratched wooden table beside her chair, waiting for sun but prepared against the cool, with a wool blanket over her jeans. Determined to study and spend some more time with Bob, she had taken the day off. Now she found her mind drifting away from the words on the page like the fog drifting up the street from the ocean. Inside the house, Bob sang loudly along to a tape,
Wee Sing Silly Songs.
The tune was from the stately and dignified “Battle Hymn of the Republic” but the words were nonsensical, and naturally Bob loved that.

She felt, oddly, happy. Again she focused her eyes on the page and watched the words fade. Again she looked down the street. This time, she saw Paul’s car approaching.

She assessed herself quickly, wishing she had paid a little more attention to her mirror earlier, then shrugged. She had decided against Paul. Something about him scared her and she had had enough of that with Richard. Maybe at another time in her life she would welcome the pull she felt in his direction, but for now, she had achieved a welcome measure of stability. She wasn’t willing to let him rock that.

He pulled up to the curb and slammed the car door behind him. She removed the blanket from her legs and stood up.

“Hey, you,” Nina said as he walked up the steps to the porch.

“Hello, Nina.” He put out a hand and touched her arm, then listened for a moment, head tipped slightly. “He sings really well, doesn’t he?”

“He does, dang it. Just what the world needs, another boy who grows up wanting to be a rock star.” She smiled but Paul didn’t smile back at her.

“Nina, sit down, okay? I’m here on official business.”

“What? Is something wrong?”

He took her arm again, and sat her down gently. “It’s Richard Filsen. He’s been killed.”

The news surged through her like a bullet, ripping and tearing everything in its path, and for a moment, the shock stopped her from breathing. While Paul went on, giving her some details about what they knew so far, she hardly heard him. Richard, dead. Murdered!

He was not old enough to die, was her first thought. Then she pictured him as she first saw him, confident, vibrating with energy, so attractive she couldn’t resist.

“We’ve talked with neighbors and have a few leads…the body will be autopsied…” Paul droned on.

Every word stung. Such things did not happen to people you knew. Such things happened to others, distant people. Who would kill Richard?

Reason resumed. Many people might want to kill Richard.

“We’ll need to talk with your mother,” she suddenly heard emerge out of the buzzing.

“What? Why?”

“We have a few questions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Just a few things we need to clarify…”

“My mother is sick. She has plenty to worry about without a bunch of cops coming around to intimidate and scare her. You know her condition. This is outrageous!” She knew how she sounded, how disparaging. At that moment, she didn’t care.

“Me, Nina,” he said. “One cop coming around, and I promise I will do my level best not to intimidate or scare her, okay? Look, I know this has been very hard news to hear but…”

“She’s the last person on earth you should talk to. Many people had what they thought were good reasons to hate Richard, including me. You saw what he was like.”

He nodded, and she saw impassivity mixed with curiosity in his hazel eyes, which jarred her. She had been right to fear him. He had the rock-hard soul of a cop.

“Did you know the firm declined to take my mother’s malpractice case?”

“I didn’t know.”

“That really upset her. Please don’t bother her, Paul.” Her mother would be horrified to hear of such a thing happening so close to home. And of course, knowing Richard’s relationship to Bob—

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Bob.”

“Does he know?”

“He doesn’t know Richard was trying to get custody, of course not. He doesn’t even know—” she gulped, and could not speak.

She put her face in her hands. She felt for the man she had once loved, however briefly, for his terrible end, and she wept out of pure guilt at the vastness of her relief.

Richard was out of their lives for good.

Paul waited until she finished, wiping her nose on a handkerchief he handed her.

“Nina, I have to ask you a few questions…”

The acupuncturist, Dr. Albert Wu, came into the station the next day, on Friday, November 23, after a summons from Armano. He sat serenely on the bench outside Paul’s cubicle for half an hour while Paul reviewed Susan Misumi’s autopsy report and preliminary lab results. No surprises there. Nothing to do with long, thin needles, anyway.

Wu agreed to be taped and to sign a statement when it was typed up. He expressed regret and polite dismay at Mr. Filsen’s death. He
explained that Mr. Filsen had been representing him in a professional matter. He had seen him on Monday. Mr. Filsen looked all right, if a little tired. He just wanted to clear up some facts and had nothing new on the case. No, Wu didn’t have any record of the conversation. Yes, they had been alone. Mr. Filsen bragged about keeping everything in his head and so did Wu.

Paul didn’t believe much of it.

“Why did you hire Mr. Filsen?”

Wu launched into his own version of the events involving Virginia Reilly that Jack had already told Paul about at Pinnacles.

“I’m curious about why you chose him specifically.”

“He helped me several years ago on an unrelated matter. I did try Henton Jones Horvath, but the attorney there was not interested when I told him I don’t carry malpractice insurance.”

“Acupuncturists don’t carry such insurance?”

“It’s not required. Mr. van Wagoner, my profession has an honorable history in Asia and we are considered health providers here. But I could find no company willing to provide malpractice insurance at a reasonable rate.”

“Well, you stick needles in people.”

“Very fine, thin needles. Superficial. Almost entirely painless. This treatment is not dangerous.”

Armano laughed. “That’s why this lady, Virginia Reilly, went after you? You didn’t stick ’em in far enough?”

Dr. Wu stared at him, his face giving nothing away.

“Did you have any social contact with this woman, Mrs. Reilly?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Did you ever talk to her after you removed the needles from her hands?” Paul asked.

“I never met with that woman in person. She did leave several messages at my office. The last one came on Thanksgiving. I can’t say what time, the machine picked up. She seemed furious. Delusional. She threatened me. She said some very sad things, for instance that I wouldn’t get away with”—Wu blew out air—“‘maiming’ her. That poor woman. She needs psychological help.”

The way Wu said it, with a comma punctuating both sides of his mouth, reminded Paul of those two-faced drama masks, one happy, one miserable.

“Do you have the tape of that call?” Paul asked.

“Yes.” Wu dug into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then handed Paul a microcassette. “It should be here. I erased all other messages, so you need to listen for it to come up about midway through the recording.”

“Did Mr. Filsen do a good job for you?”

“As far as I know.” Wu glanced down at a solid-gold watch. He smoothed his tie, a muted dark blue silk print.

“Do you know how Ginny Reilly or any member of her family reacted when Mr. Filsen became your attorney in this matter?”

Wu looked interested in the question but said only, “I have no idea.”

“Where were you yesterday morning at six a.m.?”

“At home. Asleep with my wife. She’s right outside. You can check with her.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all,” Paul said. “Unless you decide to tell me how your conversations with Richard Filsen really went.”

Wu smiled slightly and turned to go.

“Oh, one more thing,” Paul said. “Did you or did you not treat Virginia Reilly by inserting acupuncture needles into her fingertips?”

“Detective, you surprise me.”

“Just tell me,” Paul said quietly.

“She broke her appointment. I never treated her.”

“So Ginny Reilly is insane. Why else would she lie about such a thing?”

“Not insane, ill. She could not make peace with her ailments. She looked for someone to blame. She picked me as her persecutor. In your business, you see how people lie, not just to you, but to themselves? Delusions, Detective. Delusions.”

As Wu walked away, Armano murmured, “Easy for you to say, ya fuckin’ liar.”

“He’s ashamed he hurt her, and now he’s defending himself,” Paul said. “Add that to the idea that he’s not happy she could ruin him.”

Paul tried to reach Perry Tompkins, but got only a message machine. Then he tried Remy. Armano hadn’t arrived at the firm yet, presumably held up by Rubén Blades.

“Ooh,” Remy said. “Hello, Paul.”

He hated the way she said that, so seductively. He wondered if her law clients heard the things in her voice he heard. He knew Jack did, and the thought made blood rush into his cheeks.

“You hear about Richard Filsen?”

“Yes.”

She revealed no emotion at the news. Well, Filsen was her adversary, and almost no one who knew him well seemed to like him. “Does this mean the end of any legal issues regarding Dr. Wu?”

“There’s something else going on here, Paul, a coincidence. I had just informed Mrs. Reilly our firm could not go forward with her case.”

“I heard. Why not go forward?”

“Problems of proof. I can’t go into details. Attorney-client privilege. I very much doubt Filsen’s murder had anything to do with Mrs. Reilly.”

“Mrs. Reilly had some good reasons to hate him.”

“Jesus, Paul! She’s sick and has only one hand!”

“And she’s angry.” He had listened to Wu’s tape, heard the bitter mixture of rage and fear. He told Remy about Ginny’s phone message.

“She shouldn’t have done that. She must have called him right after we talked. She wasn’t happy about our withdrawal. I felt terrible about it myself.”

“What’s your take on what happened to Richard Filsen?”

“I barely knew him,” Remy said. “We attorneys make so many enemies. An ex-client, maybe.”

“You have enemies?”

“If you don’t make enemies, you don’t make it at all.”

Paul tried Perry Tompkins again and got the machine. He left a message.

They put a new tape into the remote recording system and asked Matthew Reilly to come in. Ginny Reilly’s twenty-one-year-old son seemed to have been sleeping in his clothes for the better part of a week. He had been picked up out in Cachagua, a remote valley in the hills where drugs devastated many a family.

The thing about crack—different from crank, which dissipated quickly—you could smell it on a user’s clothes, if you knew what to smell for.

“Crack?” Paul began conversationally.

The boy jerked as though Paul had pushed a cue stick at his solar plexus. “I stand on the Fifth. You’re supposed to be a friend of my sister.”

“That makes you a friend of mine? I’ve seen the counter where you work. Chore Boy metal-mesh scouring pads and those little single roses in those handy glass vials right at hand. You do it at work?”

“I don’t do anything.”

Underneath the grungy clothing was a blond kid with a narrow, suspicious, good-looking countenance. When he smiled, the face looked more elfin than evil. The kid looked all tired out. The legs of his jeans hung so low he was walking on them. Every once in a while Paul took in the acrid whiff from the clothing.

Paul looked down at his notebook. “Where were you Wednesday night, the twenty-first? And Thursday morning? Thanksgiving?”

“By the way, I’m taping this,” mocked Matt.

“I am taping this. Where were you?”

“Out and about,” Matt answered, scratching his head.

“Take him into the next room and let him think awhile,” Paul told Armano.

“Oh, no, Officer! Not the third degree!” Matt laughed.

Paul got up and stood over him saying calmly, “Talk to me now or you can sit around for a long time without any drugs before I get to you again.”

“Okay, okay. Whatever. Let’s make it snappy, though. I got to get to work.”

“You were where on Wednesday night?”

“I worked at the liquor store until nine thirty. Closed up about ten. Then I went home.”

“Spent the night alone?”

“No, I was hanging with my friend Zinnia until pretty late.”

“Zinnia who?”

“Zinnia—uh—Farr?”

Paul made a note. “Where does she live?”

“Salinas. With her mom and a bunch of other people near Hartnell College. Excellent old house. Big yard. Hot tub in back and lemon trees.”

“Address?”

“Marion Avenue. Sorry, I forget the number.”

“So how late did she ‘hang’ with you?”

“Don’t know. I was sleeping but I don’t remember her being around when I got up.”

“So how about Thanksgiving? What happened that morning?”

“Slept late. Watched the tube. Did an errand. Went over to Mom’s that afternoon. Mom, Nina, me, and Bob had a classic American family dinner. Mom made the best turkey ever. Did you know the cooked bird needs a rest before carving? Keeps the juices inside, Mom swears.”

“Can you swear Zinnia was still around that morning at, say, six?”

“Nope. Nina called me about seven, wanting to make sure I remembered to pick up this hairy, totally fattening pumpkin pie she had ordered. I promised I would. We talked a little, then I went back to sleep for another hour.” Looking more closely at the boy’s features, Paul could see that in spite of the greasy hair, torn jeans, and general air of disarray, the kid resembled Nina. They
both had a kind of bravado but Paul sensed that it masked vulnerability.

“Where was Zinnia?”

“Still sleeping on my couch? Home in Salinas, setting the table for her huge extended family? I can’t say for sure. Sorry.”

“What else did you and Nina talk about?”