Gone, No Forwarding

Twenty-Three

“I have to assume Heslip isn’t going to come up with Verna Rounds,” Tranquillini told them before the Thursday morning session. “Until Simson, the State had no direct evidence to prove or support their charges. Just hearsay. Now they have a witness whose testimony expands the State’s case at every point. There is only one way to keep that letter he swears Kathy signed from being admitted into evidence — which would mean your license would be taken away.”

“What’s that?” asked Kearny levelly.

“I have to prove he’s a perjurer.”

When Corinne Jones let herself into the office, her phone was ringing. She picked up.

“Good morning, Far Flung Travel.”

“Listen, baby, now don’t hang up on me—”

She hung up on him. And burst into tears.

Jeffrey L. Simson did not look ready to burst into tears. He looked cool and calm and collected — and well briefed. Tranquillini hoped he’d been briefed against delaying tactics, not a try for the jugular.

“Now, Mr. Simson, you testified yesterday that you were a collector at Kearny Associates. What were your duties?”

“To call the debtors on the phone and pressure them into paying the money that they owed.”

“And you worked there for how long?”

Today, Simson was ready for it. “I started work at the DKA Oakland office on October eleventh, last year, and quit on February thirteenth this year.”

“Quit?”

He looked quickly at Delaney. “Was... um... terminated.”

“That was approximately four months. How many people would you say you called up during the average working day?”

“Mmmm... I would think about twenty-five.”

“It is a pleasure to interrogate a well-schooled witness.” Before an objection could be made, Tranquillini went on, “Now tell me, on the first day you worked for Kearny Associates, that would be October eleventh, what was the name of the first person you called?”

Delaney was on his feet. “Mr. Hearing Officer, the name of the first person he called has no relevancy to this case.”

“If Your Honor please, I am testing the man’s recollection.”

“The witness doesn’t have to attest to his memory, for God sake!” exclaimed Delaney. “He doesn’t remember, how could he? You’re just harassing him for no reason.”

Tranquillini did his Al Capone jaw-thrust number for the first time during the hearing.

“I will decide what I shall ask him, and the Hearing Officer will decide whether or not I have the right to ask it. He talks to twenty-five people a day, and then claims he can’t...”

“The objection is overruled,” said the Hearing Officer.

Tranquillini went after him. “Mr. Simson, what was the name of the party to whom you made your first phone call on October eleventh?”

“I... do not recall.”

“Do you recall the name of any person that you telephoned during the entire month of October, your first in DKA’s employ?”

“Ah... no sir.”

“You were terminated for cause on February thirteenth of this year. What was the name of the last person you telephoned while in the employ of Daniel Kearny Associates...”

Toni put her hand over the mouthpiece and caught Corinne’s eyes. “Bart Heslip.”

Corinne shook her head violently. “Hang up on him.”

Toni would have loved nothing better, but there’d been an extraordinary note of desperation in Heslip’s voice. And she could see that Corinne was really hurting, too.

“He says it’s really, really important.”

“I... oh, damn him, I’ll take it.” She snatched up her phone. Her heart was beating so wildly she was afraid it was going to jump right up in her throat. “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Where did you hear about Fleur?” His voice sounded icy.

“Do you have to speak her name?”

“Where? From Giselle?”

“Giselle knew about you and that bitch?”

Toni got up hurriedly and went out to get a drink of water from the fountain across the corridor.

“So it wasn’t from DKA. Who from?”

She hesitated for the first time. “A...voice on the phone.”

“An anonymous voice?”

For the first time since those dreadful midnight moments, she felt a stab of uncertainty.

“At first I thought it was an... obscene call. A... you know, what they call a breather.”

“And you believed...” A hurt note had softened his voice. “When did you get that call?”

“I think... yes, yesterday afternoon.”

Laughter suddenly entered his voice. “Fleur is skinny, has light skin and freckles, orange hair, and a face like those Capuchin monkeys we like to watch out at Fleishhacker Zoo.”

“Orange hair? Now I believe you didn’t have anything to do with her.” Bart hated any sort of hair-dyeing. Toni had slipped back in. A great angry tide was receding inside Corinne, leaving only puzzlement behind. “But then why the phone call to me?”

“Can only mean one thing. They wanted me to make all my calls through DKA about Verna, rather than through you. Now, I want you to get right over to that hearing room...”

“Excuse me,” said Simson. He was sweating, although the temperature had not changed. “I was thinking of the previous month.”

“So when you say you did all your collection business over the phone, that was a deliberate...” Delaney started to object, so Tranquillini finished, “Deliberately loose way of speaking.”

“Um... yes, sir.”

“So in reality, three or four parties a week came up to the office to pay in person. Can you give me the name of any of them, anyone at all, besides Mr. Pivarski?”

Simson cleared his throat. “I... um...”

“Now, you testified that Mr. Pivarski came in on November fifth. That was the first time you had seen him?”

“Yes, sir, it was.”

“Very good.” Tranquillini, from the corner of his eye, saw a truly striking black woman enter the hearing room and head for the DKA contingent. “Was Mr. Pivarski ever in the office again?”

“Not while I was there.”

“How old a man was he, would you say?”

“Um... late thirties or early forties?”

“I sense indecision. How tall a man?”

“Average.”

“Weight?”

“Average.”

“What was the color of his hair?”

Simson cleared his throat. In the spectator section, Dan Kearny was on his feet and leaving with the black woman.

“I... don’t recall the color of his hair.”

“Clothing?”

“Just...” He cleared his throat. “This I don’t recall.”

“But he was clothed? He wasn’t naked? Wasn’t wearing a lamp shade on his head, or a swimming suit, or—”

“Oh no,” Simson chuckled. “A suit, I guess, colored shirt, tie — like that.”

Tranquillini turned to the bench. “Your Honor, I had hoped to be finished with this witness during this morning’s session, as he is missing law classes in Southern California. But...”

“Yes, I see we are only five minutes short of the noon recess. All parties will return at two P.M.”

It was more like a council of war than lunch, held at the Doggy Diner on Van Ness.

“All right, what has happened?” asked Tranquillini. “You go tearing off with this utterly charming young lady...”

“Hector Tranquillini. Corinne Jones.”

They shook hands above the table, awkwardly to keep coat sleeves out of the half-squeezed plastic tubes of mustard.

Kearny said, “Corinne came to tell me Bart is in Boston and that someone else is trying to tail him, to get at Verna through him. Someone picked up his trail through the messages he’s been leaving on the DKA answering machine in my office.”

“A phone tap?” asked Tranquillini, truly surprised.

Corinne did not mention the ugly phone call or her reaction to it. She was ashamed of both. “Bart thinks they picked him up yesterday morning, from the message he left on the machine about a topless dancer named Fleur who works at the Iberville Caberet.”

“Do you need me at the hearing this afternoon, Hec?” asked Kearny.

“To testify? No.”

“Okay, then I’m going to get hold of O’B and we’ll sweep the office for bugs. What I’m afraid of is a butterfly mike — that would have picked up not just phone conversations, but things like Benny Nicoletti telling me about his witness to the Fazzino hit.”

Giselle was lost. “But if Pivarski isn’t the hit man...”

“This guy saw somebody,” said Kearny bleakly. “He can identify the killer whoever it might be. Which means they still might want to try and hit him.”

“Are you going to call Nicoletti?” asked Tranquillini.

“Not until we’re sure.”

Tranquillini nodded and stood up. “I leave it to you. Time for me to get back to work. Thanks for a superb lunch.”

“Hell, I thought you were paying,” said Kearny.