Guilt

CHAPTER 32

We lingered outside the door Jack Weathers had just shut. Conversational noise began filtering through the wood: Daisy Weathers’s higher-pitched voice, plaintive, then demanding. No response from Jack. Daisy, again, louder. A bark from her husband that silenced her.

Several seconds later his voice resumed, softer, less staccato. A long string of sentences.

Milo whispered, “On the phone, now it’s a lawyer game.”

We left the building.

Milo drove a block, U-turned, found the farthest spot that afforded a view of the marble-clad building. Red zone but until a B.H. parking Nazi showed up, the perfect vantage point.

I said, “Waiting for Jack to leave?”

“Maybe I stirred up enough for him to meet with legal counsel. I tail him, find out who I’ll be dealing with. Without that I can’t approach him.”

“No warrant party with BHPD?”

“Yeah, right. On what grounds?”

“Jack’s demeanor.”

“He got agitated? To a psychologist, that’s grounds. To a judge, you know what it is.” He stretched, knuckled an eyelid. “Any way it shakes out, he’s toast. Runs a business based on image and trust and hires one woman with a police record, another who ends up getting killed. And who was referred by the bad girl. Screening my ass.”

I said, “Maybe it goes beyond that. Weathers bills himself as a Hollywood insider so maybe he also placed Wedd. At the same client who employed Qeesha and Adriana. Someone powerful enough to shelter income in the Caymans and to scare Weathers straight to legal counsel.”

“CAPD,” he said.

“Let’s try to find out who they are.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Maybe not.”

I pulled out my cell, punched my #1 preset.

Robin said, “Hi, hon, what’s up?”

“Got a spare minute for some research?”

“About what?”

“Ever hear of CAPD?”

“Nope.”

“Who would you call if you needed info on a big-time showbiztype?”

“What’s this about, Alex?”

I told her.

She said, “Interesting. I’ll see what I can do.”

Most of Robin’s guitars and mandolins are commissioned by professional musicians and collectors who play seriously. A few end up stashed in the vaults of rich men seeking trophies-lucky-sperm recipients, real estate tycoons, Aspergian algorithmers, movie stars.

Plus the lampreys who get rich off movie stars. I rarely think of my girl as a Hollywood type but she’s the one who gets invited to all the parties we seldom attend.

Six minutes later, that paid off. “Got what you need.”

“That was quick.”

“I looped in Brent Dorf.”

Dorf was a luminary at a major talent agency. I’d met him last year when he picked up a replica of an eighteenth-century parlor guitar that would end up hanging on a wall. When he found out what I did for a living, he reminisced about being a psych major at Yale, regretted that he hadn’t pursued it because his “primary passion” was helping people. My experience is people who talk about being passionate seldom are.

Brent had impressed me as the perfect political type-a mile wide and an inch deep, programmed to banter on cue. His jokes were clever, his attention span brief. Whatever charm he managed to project was diluted by the flat eyes and sanguinary grin of a monitor lizard. At least he paid his bills on time.

I said, “Dorf knew about CAPD?”

“Boy did he, honey. Unfortunately, Big Guy’s life is going to get really complicated.”

She explained why.

I told Milo.

He said, “Oh.”

Then he swore.