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:
“We have the video of you finding his hidden camera,” I said.
Then a small smile. “Oh, that. Garrett was trying to implicate me in some sort of pandering and prostitution conspiracy. I thought a trick like that was below him. That was the new Garrett.”
“New?” I asked.
“He changed when Samantha died. That’s what death does, isn’t it? It changes the people who are left behind. After she died, Garrett seemed to become... what’s the word? He became supercharged. He became driven. He became a... crusader. The casual, nice-looking young man was gone. He hardly ever smiled. He looked at you like he was booking you. I’ll bet if you asked him why, he’d say it was a way of doing something for his daughter. And maybe doing something for his own guilt at what happened. Anyhow, I’m not sure what the hidden camera was supposed to catch, but I couldn’t resist busting Garrett for his bad manners.”
“He’s got videos of your girls with all kinds of customers.”
She looked at me with mild irritation. “They are not my girls. What makes you believe they’re my girls?”
Three red squares slipped from Jordan Sheehan’s mouth, betraying her lie.
“I know some of them,” I said. “They talk.”
“I’ve heard that from other people, you know. Everyone knows one of my girls. And yet not a single one of these girls has come forward and accused me. Or charged me. Or presented evidence against me. Why don’t you just get them to file a complaint or whatever you call it, and be rid of me?”
“Because they’re breaking the law and they know it,” I said.
“Because of Chupa Junior,” said McKenzie.
“Because of those sharp lawyers you provide,” I said.
“Because they’re afraid,” said McKenzie. “And they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.”
Jordan nodded along. “Well, those are all valid reasons. But if I’m taking such good care of my alleged employees, maybe you should quit harassing me. Maybe you should go out there and do something about the crime rate in this city. There was a big Union-Tribune article about that in the paper just yesterday. The violent crime rate is up three percent.”
“Chupa Junior doesn’t take good care of people,” said McKenzie.
“I’m thirty-percent owner of a San Diego nightclub called Indigo,” said Sheehan. “Peter Avalos, which is his real name, does security work for me there occasionally. He is not a chupacabra. He is not a goatsucker. He’s honest and operates within his own moral code. He is a bouncer. And by the way, we were working at Indigo the night Garrett was killed, so you can scratch both of us off your list.”
No red squares.
“Neat moral code that allows for car theft and cockfighting,” said McKenzie. “You ever seen what those birds do to each other?”
Jordan looked at me. “We’ve all done things we regret. For instance, Vic Malic regrets throwing you from the Las Palmas. He did that. It is a known fact. Now he’s written a book about it, so other people—”
“Please, Ms. Sheehan,” I said, “spare us the condescending nonsense, will you? We know you’re running fifty or sixty girls around town in their cute little convertibles and pretty clothes. We know you charge a nice meet tax and you’ve got a bunch of spot callers to make the arrangements. Garrett had videodiscs of men buying sex from these young women. Some of these men are in positions of power. One of them is a Vice captain who gets his fun for free, and maybe that’s why Vice hasn’t shut you down. For now, that’s between you and Vice. What we’re interested in here is murder. We need to know if any of those men on Garrett’s video knew what was happening. If they ever said anything about being recorded or blackmailed or harassed. We want to know who was onto Garrett, and we think you’re in a good position to know.”
Sheehan set her drink on the table. “Detectives, I have heard nothing of the sort. I have no idea what kind of smut Garrett had in his possession. And no idea how he got it. Why should I? I’m an investor and an investment adviser.”
A few more red squares slipped from between her lips.
McKenzie shook her head and looked around the bright, pretty room. “That’s how you got all this? A tax cheat giving investment advice?”
“People change. Or are you too jaded in your line of work to understand that? I have a license to run my business and a small clientele that is prosperous and satisfied with my service. I’m honest and I work hard. I make good money. Not a fortune, but I live well and set my own hours. I rent this house, because tax cheats don’t get mortgage loans. I drive a late-model Porsche but my payments are substantial. I’m doing okay for myself. I’ve socialized with the chief of police and several high-ranking officers, Director Kaven of Ethics, most of the city council, and dozens of the business leaders of this city — from Abel Sarvonola on down. Prostitution? I don’t have time to run a prostitution ring because I’m too busy working. And I can promise you, I’ll never go back to lockup as long as I live.”
The air was suddenly bobbing with red squares. They jostled each other, corners tipping against other corners, and made interesting geometric patterns against the white polka dots of her red dress.
I opened the briefcase and arranged my laptop on the table. I booted up and retrieved the eight-second video of Jordan and Garrett. Then I pointed the screen toward Jordan and hit “play.”
Jordan watched the clip with a grin on her face. I replayed it and stopped when she’d smoothed back her hair and revealed the earring. She held the iced-tea glass close to her lips but didn’t drink. After her last line, she looked up and smiled at me.
“I should have been in pictures,” she said.
“You’ll be TV-movie material when Vice gets done with you,” said McKenzie.
“Can I please cast you as the beautiful detective?” asked Jordan. “And you, Robbie, as the intelligent, honorable man who finds out that the Squeaky Clean Madam really isn’t a madam after all?”
“I’ll talk to my agent,” I said. Then I pulled out a copy of the crime-lab photo of the inside of Garrett’s car and set it on the table beside the laptop, facing Jordan.
She leaned forward, smoothed her hair behind her ear just like she was doing on Garrett’s unhidden video. She looked at me to see if I’d caught the coincidence, smiling when she saw that I had. Her smile was inclusive and playful.
“This is the inside of Garrett’s Explorer four to seven hours after he was shot,” I said. “The dark liquid you see so much of is his blood. The pink and yellow tags were put there by the CSIs, to mark where certain pieces of evidence were located.”
Jordan set her drink down, leaned back, and fixed me with a very cool stare. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes,” I said. “See this arrow here? The perspective is foreshortened, but it indicates the space between the driver’s seat and the console. Well, you can’t see the yellow tag, but it was put there to mark where they found this.”
Next to the Explorer picture, I set a digital photo of the crescent-moon earring with the sapphire in the curve and the misshapen backing.
I watched her closely. She looked from the picture to the screen of the laptop, then back to the picture.
“That’s funny,” she said.
“I missed the joke,” I said.
“No, no,” she said quietly. “I meant no disrespect to Garrett. What I meant was, I lost that earring — or one just like it — at a party in San Diego back in January. I didn’t notice until I got home that night.”