J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone 10)

“By who?”

“I don’t know. The chief? The CIA? The FBI?”

“No way. I never heard of that. The guy’s been retired for over a year. We got a budget barely pays for the paper clips. Where’s he getting his funds? Believe me, Santa Teresa Police Department isn’t going to spend money chasing after some guy who might have been guilty of a crime five or six years back. If he showed up, we’d chat with him, but nobody’s going to put in a lot of time on it. Who cares about Jaffe? There was never even a warrant out for his arrest.”

“Guess again. There’s a warrant out now,” I said tartly.

“This is probably just something Brown is doing on his own.”

“You’d still have to wonder where he gets his information.”

“Might have been the same guy told California Fidelity. Maybe the two of ‘em know each other.”

That sparked a response. “You mean Dick Mills? Well, that’s true. If he knew Brown was interested, he might have mentioned it. I’ll see if I can get a line on it from that end. That’s a good suggestion.”

“Let me know what you find out. I’d like to hear what’s going on.”

As soon as he hung up, I put a call through to California Fidelity and asked for Mac Voorhies. While I was waiting for him to free up from another call, I had a chance to reflect on the wickedness of my lying ways. I didn’t actually repent, but I had to consider all the tricky repercussions. For example. I was going to have to tell Mac something about my encounter with Harris Brown down in Viento Negro, but how could I do that without confessing my sins? Mac knows me well enough to realize that I bend the rules on occasion, but he doesn’t like to be confronted with any instances thereof. Like most of us, he enjoys the colorful aspects of other people’s natures as long as he doesn’t have to deal with any consequences.

“Mac Voorhies,” he said.

I hadn’t quite made up my cover story at that point, which meant I was going to have to fall back on that old hoary ruse of telling some, but not all, of the truth as I knew it. The best strategy here is to conjure up strong feelings of honesty and virtue even if you don’t have the goods to back ‘em up. I’ve noticed, too, that if you pretend to confide in others, they tend to accord great truth value to the contents of the revelation.

“Hi, Mac. This is Kinsey. We’ve had an interesting development I thought you ought to be aware of. Apparently, five years ago when Wendell’s disappearance first came to light, an STPD fraud detective named Harris Brown was assigned to the case.”

“Name sounds familiar. I must have dealt with him once or twice,” Mac put in. “You having trouble with the guy?”

“Not in the way you might think,” I said. “I called him a couple days ago and he was very cooperative. We were supposed to meet for lunch today, but when I got there, I took one look at the man and realized I’d seen him in Viento Negro, staying in the same hotel as Wendell Jaffe.”

“Doing what?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said. “I’m not a big fan of coincidence. The minute I realized it was the same guy, I backed out of the restaurant and bagged the appointment. I managed to cover myself so I didn’t blow the contact. Meantime, I asked a cop I know to check it out in the department, and he tells me Brown lost a bundle when Wendell’s financial scheme collapsed.”

Mac said, “Huhn.”

“The cop suggested Brown and Dick Mills might have a prior relationship. If Dick knew Harris Brown had some kind of ax to grind, he might have told him about Wendell the same time he told you.”

“I can ask Dick.”

“Would you do that? I’d really appreciate it, if you don’t mind,” I said. “I really don’t know the guy. He’s probably more likely to ‘fess up to you.”

“No problem. Fine with me. What about Wendell? You got a line on him yet?”

“I’m getting closer,” I said. “I know where Renata is, and he can’t be that far off.”

“You heard the latest on the kid, I guess.”

“You mean Brian? I haven’t heard a thing.”

“Oh, yeah. You’ll love this. I caught it in the car coming back from lunch. There was a computer glitch at the Perdido County Jail. Brian Jaffe was released this morning and nobody’s seen him since.”

18

I hit the road again. I was beginning to think the real definition of Hell was this endless loop between Santa Teresa and Perdido. As I came around the corner into Dana Jaffe’s neighborhood, I spotted a Perdido County Sheriff’s Department car parked in front of her house. I parked across the street and down a few houses, watching the front porch for signs of life. I’d probably been sitting there for ten minutes or so when I caught sight of Dana’s neighbor, Jerry Irwin, returning from his afternoon jog. He ran on the balls of his feet, almost on tippy-toe, with the same stooped posture he favored in his leisure moments. He was wearing plaid Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt, black socks, and running shoes. His color was high and his gray hair was matted with sweat, his glasses secured with a length of rubber tubing that made a circular indentation. He finished the last half a block with a little burst of speed, his gait the mincing, irregular hopping of someone running barefoot over hot concrete. I leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side.