Dead Ringer (27 page)

After she’d showered and changed into a pair of the Levi’s and a sweatshirt she’d heisted from Nick’s apartment, she went to the living room, where she found Gordon sitting on the sofa, reading the Los Angeles Times. He lowered the paper as she came into the room.

“
It’s a new day,” he said. “I’ve made coffee.”

“
You look like you’re about to give me the third degree.” She saw a steaming cup on the coffee table. She picked it up, smelled the aroma. It was just what she needed.

“
I am. You told me most of it last night, but now I want to hear it again. I want you to take it slow, leave nothing out, no matter how insignificant you think it is.”

She sat in one of the rattan chairs, sipped at the coffee, then started to talk. She told him everything, from when she ran into Nighthyde in the Safeway, to when she faced down the gangbangers last night in the warehouse complex.

“
Now you know everything I do,” she said when she’d finished.

“
So,” he said, “the Chicano cop Alvarez gets a long sought after transfer to London. The next day Norton’s mother commits suicide in Catalina and he quits the Frankie Fujimori case.” Gordon spoke in a quiet voice. “Two cops taken off the case. It’s almost as if somebody wanted it to fall through the cracks.”

“
Maybe you could look at it that way,” Maggie said. “But even with Norton and Alvarez gone, it wouldn’t fall thorough the cracks, as you say. Norton was going to give the case to someone who would follow up on it. A Lt. Wolfe.”

“
Wolfe?” Gordon got up, went to the kitchen.

“
What?” Maggie said, following.

“
I had a late cup of coffee with him the night before last. He’s the cop in charge of solving your murder.” He told her about how he was one of the first on the scene when Margo’s body was discovered and about his conversation with the detective.

The phone was wall mounted, next to the refrigerator. Gordon picked it up. “Wolfe gave me his home number and said to call anytime.” Gordon pushed buttons. “Hello, my name is Gordon Takoda. Can I speak to Lt. Wolfe?” he said into the phone. Then, after a few seconds, “I’m so sorry, I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. Please give him my condolences.” He hung up.

“
That was his mother.” Gordon was barely breathing. “Lt. Wolfe and his wife were separated. Marriage problems, that’s what she said.”

“
Go on.”

“
Last night his two-year-old son somehow climbed out on the balcony at the Oceanview Towers where he was living with his mother. He supposedly climbed the rail and fell seventeen stories to his death. It happened sometime around midnight. The boy’s screams on the way down woke the neighbors. They woke the mother. She took her life before the police arrived. Shot herself.”

“
Oh, my God.” She followed him back to the living room, sat in one of the rattan chairs.

“
After losing his wife and son, I doubt he’ll be doing much police work.” Gordon sat in the other. Then, “It’s too much coincidence. Someone wants the police off the Fujimori case, somebody with a lot of connections.”

“
They’ll just give it to someone else.” Maggie gripped her hands together, squeezed tightly. “That’s what Norton said.”

“
What else did he say?” Gordon was looking at her with an intense look she’d never seen before.

“
He said it would be given a low priority. As far as they’re concerned, Frankie Fujimori got what was coming to him. Wolfe would’ve tried to sort it out, but no one else will. He was clear about that.”

“
It’s incredible,” Gordon said. “Somebody wants a detective taken off a case, so he kills a family member and the cop takes time off. Not once, but twice, if it works with Wolfe.”

“
We don’t know for sure that’s what happened.” Maggie didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. “Besides, they couldn’t be sure it would work. And even if Norton or Wolfe took leave, they might come back and pick up where they left off.”

“
Maybe, but probably not,” he said. “People get murdered all the time. A homicide detective takes a couple weeks away from his desk and a whole new batch of murders are waiting for him when he gets back.”

“
But it’s so uncertain, why not just kill the cops if you want them off the case?” Maggie said.

“
Killing cops is a big no no,” Gordon said. “Police get very upset about that. But an old woman commits suicide, who knows why, maybe she was depressed. A kid falls off a balcony, a tragic accident. His mother kills herself, more tragedy. But not crimes, nothing for the police to look into.”

“
This is crazy talk,” Maggie said. “You’re making this sound like some kind of conspiracy or something.”

“
It sounds like one to me,” he said.

“
Come on, listen to yourself. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen!”

“
I spent twenty years in the FBI and I’m here to say that it has and it does,” Gordon said.

Maggie didn’t answer.

“
I spent a good part of my life wondering who killed Kennedy,” he went on. “I believe in conspiracies.”

“
I don’t. I can’t,” she whispered.

“
Maggie,” he said, “you were followed from the store, chased on the beach, followed from the police station by the black BMW, your car was run into the bay, this Nighthyde character came at you with a gun and the black BMW came after us again last night. Add all that to the fact Margo was killed and her body dumped behind a bar you’d left only a couple hours before and that ought to tell you the person after you is a little more connected than some crazy who walked into a convenience store and blew away a little shit like Frankie Fujimori.”

He got out of the chair, stood over her.

“
And you put all that together with the one cop’s transfer and the bad things that happened to the families of the other two and you have a serious looking conspiracy.”

“
Then we should call the FBI,” Maggie said. “They’d put a stop to this right away.”

“
Yes, they would,” Gordon said. “If they believed you.”

“
Why wouldn’t they?”

“
Who’d go to the FBI, Maggie Nesbitt or Margo Kenyon?” he said.

“
Oh.”

“
Yeah.” He sat back down. “You’d have to come clean. And that means you go back to being Maggie Nesbitt and that little girl goes to live with her father and you said you didn’t want that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they found some way to implicate you in Margo’s murder.”

“
How could they?”

“
Lots of motive,” he said. “Margo’s money for example.”

“
And I get to keep the baby,” she said.

“
What baby?” Gordon said.

Maggie told him. It had been the one part of the story she’d left out.

“
I had no idea.” He picked up his cup from the coffee table, took a deep drink. “So, I guess we have to solve this ourselves if you’re going to keep on being Margo.”

“
I guess.”

“
The first thing we have to do is find somewhere else for you to live in case this guy Nighthyde comes after you again.”

“
He’s not going to come,” Maggie said. “I shot him, remember?”

“
Let me call Nick and find out about that.” Gordon got out of his chair again.

“
No,” Maggie said. “I don’t want to involve him.”

“
Okay, I got a friend who’s a cop in Long Beach. I’ll call him.”

She followed him back to the kitchen, back to the phone. She listened while he called the Long Beach Police Department, asked for his friend, then identified himself. He lied, saying he was away last night and when he returned home one of his neighbors had told him there was a shooting. He listened for about a minute, thanked his friend and hung up.

“
You did shoot someone,” he told Maggie.

“
Of course I did.”

“
But you didn’t kill him. The police rolled on a shots fired complaint. When they got to the duplex, the neighbors were up, but nobody knew where the shots had come from. When Nick came home, he saw the blood and called the police. There was no body, so whoever you shot either got up and walked away or somebody carried him.”

“
I fired off seven rounds at him,” Maggie said.

“
So, you’re not a very good shot.”

“
I am a good shot. Besides, I saw blood.”

“
That doesn’t mean he’s dead.” Gordon set his coffee down. “I’m going to see an old friend and find out what I can about Congressman Nishikawa. I’ll be back before noon. Till then I want you to stay inside with the door locked. Shoot anyone who tries to break in or pick the lock.” He was serious.

“
You won’t get an argument out of me on that,” she said.

“
I mean it,” he said.

“
What kind of friend?”

“
One who won’t talk in front of you, otherwise I’d bring you along.”

“
He got up, started for the door, opened it, turned back toward her. “When I get back, we’ll have to find someplace for Jasmine to stay till this is over.”

“
What about me? I thought you wanted me to move out, too.”

“
I changed my mind. You’re staying here.”

“
Why? I don’t get it.”

“
We’re after a big fish. We need bait.”

“
I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“
I hate it,” he said. “But we don’t have much choice if we want to put an end to this without involving the police.” And all of a sudden, Maggie knew what Gordon was going to do.

“
You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

“
Yes I am.” Then Gordon closed the door and she was alone.

* * *

Horace went straight to the motel, got his gun, then drove to the Taco Bell on Fourth Street. Coffee and toast didn’t cut it for breakfast. He ordered five tacos and a large coke, then went to the pay phone in the back to call Striker. He dropped a quarter into the phone.

“
Did you mean what you said yesterday?” he said when Striker picked up.

“
If I said it, I meant it, but what specifically are you talking about?”

“
Having more money than I can count.” Horace felt his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. He relaxed his hand.

“
Maybe not more than you can count, but you do the woman before tomorrow at this time and I’ll have a briefcase for you with a hundred and fifty large in it. Twenty-five for the woman in Catalina, twenty-five for the kid and a hundred for the Kenyon woman.”

“
I already did the Kenyon woman.”

“
She’s still walking around.”

“
She won’t be tomorrow.” Horace grit his teeth. Striker was paying a lot, but it wasn’t right about the bitch in the alley. He’d done the job, he deserved to be paid. Besides, he didn’t like thinking Virgil died for nothing.

“
That’s what I wanted to hear.” Striker sounded smug.

“
I might wanna take a vacation after.”

“
I understand,” Striker said.

“
Anything I should know?”

“
They haven’t pulled her car out of the bay yet, so the cops don’t know it was hers.”

“
She didn’t call ’em?” Horace tightened his grip on the phone again.

“
No.”

“
What’s that tell you?” Horace said.

“
She knows someone’s coming for her and she doesn’t want the police involved. She’s not afraid.”

“
She’s gonna to be ready. That what you’re saying?”

“
Maybe,” Striker said.

“
Shit.”

“
Exactly.”

“
That’s why you’re paying so much?”

“
If it was easy, I wouldn’t need you.”

“
Okay, but I want twenty-five extra for the bitch in the alley,” Horace said. “Fair’s fair.”

“
Deal, but I want the Kenyon woman dead by tomorrow.”

“
She’ll be dead.” Horace hung up and went to get his tacos.

* * *

Maggie took her coffee to the kitchen, washed the cups. She went to the refrigerator to get some ice and saw the Winnie the Pooh magnet for the first time. There were three yellow Post It notes under it.

She lifted the magnet and pulled the notes off the door. The top one was a reminder for Margo to pick up the cleaning from the Main Street Cleaners on Monday. Yesterday, Maggie thought. The second was to remind her to take the car in for a five thousand mile check up. Maggie laughed, she wouldn’t be doing that. Mom’s new address was scrawled across the top of the last one, followed by an address on Balboa Island.

She went to the bedroom, picked up Margo’s purse, then stopped herself. It was way too dressy for faded Levi’s and a sweatshirt. She grabbed the backpack, dumped out the school books, then dumped the contents of the purse into the pack. She reached under the pillow, pulled out the Sigma, put it in the pack, too.

Yes, she’d promised Gordon she’d stay inside with the door locked, but Balboa was a straight shot down Pacific Coast Highway on the bus. She could get there, talk to Margo’s mother and be back way before Gordon.

She jogged up to the guard shack, returned the guard’s wave, then saw a bus glide into the bus stop.