The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
Stella Asplundh came from the restaurant. She looked the same as the first time I’d met her — exceptionally beautiful and almost completely spent. There was something about her that made me think of my fall. She had fallen too, and I wondered if some important part of her had not survived. She acknowledged me with a small nod.
Van Flyke stood and pulled out a chair for her. I noted the attentiveness with which he pushed it in. Then he sat and regarded me from behind his sunglasses, red hair brushed back from his big face, arms crossed. He seemed annoyed.
I handed him the copies of the hard drive that McKenzie had run from Garrett’s laptop.
“Nice work, Brownlaw. Maybe I could tempt you with a job in Ethics Enforcement someday.”
“I doubt it. But like you said, everything in a person’s life can change in an instant.”
“I said that?”
Sam sipped from his beer.
“Why don’t you join us?” Stella asked.
Van Flyke turned his shaded gaze down the avenue.
“No thank you,” I said. “I’m going to have lunch with my wife.”
I headed up the avenue toward Salon Sultra. Even on Monday it’s open and busy.
I waited at the reception desk while Tammy talked on the phone. Gina was not there and her chair was empty. My stomach felt funny. Rachel saw me midclip, excused herself from her client and waved me outside.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“She left town, Robbie. She’s gone.”
It took me more than a second to believe that. But in my heart I knew it was true. I felt the anger gather inside me again. I was surprised how fast it could form.
“She said she wasn’t happy,” said Rachel. “She thinks there’s more.”
“More what?”
“I’m just telling you what she said.”
“You covering for her? Is there a guy?”
“There’s no other man. She wanted me to tell you that.”
I saw no sign of deception in her words.
“And what else did my wife want you to tell me about her?”
“Don’t get pissed at me, Robbie.”
“What else?”
“That was all, actually.”
I stood there for a moment, watching the cars go past in the sun. A warm wind had blown away the fog and a couple of poppies had opened in a planter along the sidewalk. But my heart was hard with anger and my hands felt heavy and thick.
“I want to talk to her.”
“I do, too. I think she’s making a terrible mistake.”
“Where did she go, Rachel? Don’t give me the bullshit you’re so good at giving. If she’d tell anybody, it would be you.”
“I thought so, too. I feel betrayed. I’m really sorry. But, Robbie? You’re going to be all right.”
The orange triangles of pity bounced into the air in front of her. She pressed her face through them and kissed me on the cheek. She looked into my eyes, kissed me on the other cheek, then turned and pushed through the mirrored salon door.
14
Jordan Sheehan was a tall, full-bodied, and very pretty woman. She looked like she could endorse a high-quality detergent or a tooth whitener.
She met us at the front door of her La Jolla home that afternoon and shook our hands and asked us in. She was wearing a sleeveless dress, red with big white polka dots. Around her waist was a shiny red belt. She was barefoot and her toenails were the same glistening red.
Her house was up on a hill overlooking the Pacific. It was not impressively large. The building looked somehow Castilian, a tall rectangle with wooden shutters and window planter boxes that dangled bright purple bougainvillea down the white plaster walls. Beyond the house the ocean was blue and casually vast. The garage had been converted into guest quarters. It was a miniature version of the house, nearly lost in a jungle of trumpet vine that made the air sweet. A light blue Porsche was parked in the driveway.
Inside, the house was sunny and simple. It had slate floors and honey-colored maple furniture and cabinetry and big, bright oil paintings on the walls.
“My office is distracting — all phones and files, so let’s just sit here in the living room,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
We both declined. I sat on a cushy white couch and set my briefcase on the floor.
The Squeaky Clean Madam walked barefoot to her kitchen and came back a moment later with a tray and three tall glasses.
“Do you like Arnold Palmers?” she asked with a smile. She set out decorative tile coasters, then drinks on the low table between us. “It’s sun tea, with lemonade made of lemons from my garden. Now, what can I do for you?”
“When was the last time you saw Garrett Asplundh?” I asked.
“I saw him a week before he died, out at the San Diego Yacht Club. It was a black-tie fund-raiser for the Cancer Society.”
“Did you talk?” asked McKenzie.
“Briefly. I’ve known him for years.”
“Tell us about that,” I said.
“He pulled me over for drunk driving fifteen years ago. I was in the midst of a bankruptcy filing and discovering that half of my employees had either lied to me or used fake papers to get their jobs. The IRS was crushing me. My boyfriend had made off with a lot of my money and my best girlfriend. I was twenty-five years old. So I went to the Hyatt, found myself a seat in the highest bar in the city and got myself more loaded than a girl should ever get. On my way home Garrett Asplundh pulled me over. I told him everything that was happening to me and he actually listened. He was so cute in that uniform and so seriously unhappy at all the bad luck I was having. I asked him to marry me and I really meant it, but he said I was too late and arrested me instead. A good thing. I was death on wheels that night.”
“He was a patrolman back then,” I said.
“And what were you, Detective Brownlaw, a freshman in high school?”
“Yes.”
She sipped her drink. “Anyway, as I’m sure you and everybody else in this town knows, I did a night in the drunk tank and a year in federal lockup for tax evasion. It was a vile place. It was filthy and cruel. But I studied investment strategy and got lots of exercise. Garrett visited me twice during that time. Brief visits. He was looking out for me. He liked me and I liked him. When I got out, I moved back to Iowa for a while to be with my family. I felt like I was a hundred years old but I was only twenty-seven. Got my B.A. in business from the state college. Got married and divorced. Made some money with tech investments. Actually, a lot of money, which wasn’t hard with the market going up twenty and thirty percent a year. But it wasn’t just luck and I knew I could help people do the same thing. I came back here in 2000 and hung my shingle. It said ‘Jordan Sheehan & Associates, Investments.’ I was not able to become certified as a financial adviser because of my felony convictions, but I started making good money for my people, very quickly. Word spreads when somebody can make money for someone else. I saw Garrett Asplundh around. San Diego’s a small town for being a big city. And we’d meet for coffee every few months. Just to keep in touch, you know? When I saw the news, I thought about him and I cried.”
She watched me.