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  She looked at him. He wasn't her kind of guy, but he was okay—decent looking, clean, more or less the overgrown boy most men seemed to be. "Why her, Spartas? If that was your first time paying for it?"

  He looked at Merci, then down into his drink. His face had flushed pink.

  "She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life. She was just absolutely beautiful. When she said I could own her for a thousand dollars and a good bottle of wine, I took it."

  "Own her."

  "That's what she said."

  "She proposed?"

  "Well, yeah. I thought she was a marketing consultant, whatever that is. I didn't realize she was a professional until I had the credit card out. By then, it didn't matter. Man, I wish I could just go back and have it all to not do over again. I feel like I've been touched by Satan."

  "You feel anything for her, or just yourself?"

  He gave her an odd look then, something she couldn't read. His voice was a whisper. "I feel like if her soul goes to hell, I had something to do with it. Like I should have done something to help her."

  She studied him hard. Beyond the selfishness and fear and guilt was a decent man. Or at least a decent boy. With a bad conscience and a sheen of sweat on his face.

  Merci slid off the stool, dropped a couple of bucks on the bar.

  "Thanks. Lance, keep the gun in the box and the dong in your pants.

  You don't know what you're doing with either of them."

  • • •

  Bob del Viggio greeted her at his job site with a handshake and an appraising eye. He had a crafty smile, broad shoulders, black curly hair.

  Mid-forties, she guessed, heavy and strong, a big solid ass he was proud of. Chinos, a blue work shirt, construction boots.

  He led her into an on-site trailer, threw out his super and motioned for Merci to sit in front of a table littered with blueprints and ashtrays, He poured coffee into a foam cup; Merci declined. She could see the big blades outside, stalled by the rain, brown water standing on the building pads.

  She got right to the point—del Viggio's recent credit-card charge by Epicure.

  "Yeah, that was me," he said.

  "Who was the girl?"

  "She called herself Gayla. You know, it's all first names. All made up. I recognized her in the paper. Aubrey something, it said. That sounds made up, too."

  "Tell me about it."

  "Not much to tell. I went through Epicure, the girl met me down at the Ritz. Two hours later she left. Pretty much by the book."

  Del Viggio appraised Merci from the other side of the makeshift desk. He sipped the coffee, looked out a dusty window, then back

  "I donated big to Brighton's campaign last time. Part of his Gold Circle Club."

  "Who cares?"

  He shrugged, big shoulders tightening the fabric of his work shirt. His forearms were thick and tanned. "Brighton, hopefully."

  "If you think a few thousand bucks to a campaign chest lets you do whatever you want, you've got another thing coming."

  "That's not what I meant. What I meant was, I'm a law-respecting guy, I try to play by the rules, I try to help out good people. And he’s one of them—that's all."

  "So much for the rules when you called Epicure for a girl."

  He nodded. "Yeah. Look, Sergeant, I shouldn't have done that. I got caught. You can wreck my marriage, my family, a big part of my business. I'm asking you not to. Don't, because I didn't hurt her. I sure didn't kill her Tuesday night, assuming that's why you're here. I…I did what I did, tipped her way too much and off she went. I bought a whore. I didn't kill her. I can account for my whereabouts."

  Del Viggio held her gaze across the desk.

  "First time with her?"

  "Yeah."

  "But not with Epicure."

  "No."

  "How many?"

  "Twenty, thirty."

  "Before Epicure?"

  "Yeah, others. I'm that way."

  "Married and all. Two children, high-school age."

  He nodded, leaned to his left.

  "Show me their pictures and I'll arrest you right now."

  He leaned back. "I'm asking you to let it slide, Sergeant. I don't deserve it. But I'm asking anyway. I'll do anything I can to help you. You can name it. But don't wreck me."

  His plea seemed genuine, though Merci detected nothing desperate in it. Del Viggio was a man used to accommodation.

  "It's ..." His voice trailed off.

  "It's what? A tragedy? A shame? Terrible what happened?"

  "It's the way I am," he said. "I don't like it. I don't respect it. But I can't change it."

  "You own a sidearm?"

  "I've got a Smith revolver under the bed. A trap gun I never use."

  Merci studied him for a long moment. "Tuesday night," she said finally.

  Del Viggio sighed and shook his head. "Cindy. Talk to Goren Moladan."

  "Why not Gayla?"

  "Unavailable."

  On her way back to headquarters she stopped by Seashell Cleaners and picked up Aubrey's clothes: four dresses, two suits, three pairs of jeans, two sweaters.

  The clerk looked at her with uncertainty but said nothing besides "Sixty-two fifty, please."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Brighton held open the door to his office, shut it when she was in.

  "Listen to that," he said.

  She heard the rain roaring down outside. It took quite a storm to announce itself through the thick county building walls. The windows were vertical slits and through them Merci could see the water pouring down. Six hours early, she noted, according to the news.

  "Sit, please," the sheriff said. He sprawled back into the chair behind his desk and locked his fingers behind his head. Brighton was a big man, Merci thought he looked like a farmer: ruddy complexion, veinous hands, pale and sun-beaten eyes. He was getting near the end of his career and talking to the press about retirement again.

  He'd talked about it near the end of last year, too, and the year before that. The reporters always wanted to know who the next sheriff would be. The editorials were a little stronger this year, she had noted. The papers thought maybe it was time for Brighton to endorse the young blood he would leave behind.

  Merci had always hoped that the young blood would include hers. A chance to move up. There would be a big shuffle—-some up, some down, some sideways, some out. It had always been her personal plan to run the Homicide Detail by the time she was forty, run the Crimes Against Persons Section by fifty, be elected sheriff by fifty-eight. Fourteen years ago, when she'd first been sworn and hatched her timetable, it had seemed possible if unlikely.

  But things change. Tim Hess, her old partner, had been killed in the line of duty by a murderer called the Purse Snatcher. Merci had dispatched that monster, and she'd gotten decorated for it. But the sworn men and women of the department knew the truth: Hess had saved her ass in the eleventh hour, and it was her gun that had been used to kill him. You didn't run Homicide Detail—let alone the whole Sheriff Department—unless you had the respect of your people. Even now, at times, two plus years and a thousand prayers of forgiveness later, Merci Rayborn still wasn't sure if she respected herself.

  But Merci now had something that seemed far more important than running the Crimes Against Persons Section by fifty: She had her son. He was beautiful and bright and precious and possessed an infinity of potential. It was her job to let it happen for him. She could never have predicted such a change in herself, and she'd had little time to prepare for such a change. She'd made love to Hess just once, back when she'd believed in the power of her own will, thinking it might save his life. Instead, they had created one.

  "I heard about Mike and the girl," said Brighton.

  "Sir, I apologize if I got in Gilliam's way. I wanted to talk to Mike first. See if there was some simple—"

  "No, not that," he said, waving a hand. "That's fine. I called you in here because I was thinking more along the lines of what in hell hap
pened."

  "I believe that he was developing feelings for her."

  Merci heard her own voice as if it were someone else's. It sounded strange to her: automatic, prepared. Developing feelings. Hell. Like she was Wally the Weasel in Public Information, doing a press briefing.

  "Whittaker was one of the Epicure girls vice was working," she continued. "Mike recruited her. She invited him for dinner. He went. Later that night she was murdered."

  She compared her mechanical voice to the sinking, humiliating anger in her heart, and she understood what she was doing.

  Brighton understood it, too. "You don't have to do PR for the stupid sonofabitch."

  "No. Thank you, sir." She felt the anger draining out of her, the disappointment pouring in to replace it. She felt like a complete sucker, a dupe, a punching bag. Brighton had always been in favor of Mike and Merci together. He'd mentioned it. He'd approved. That had meant a lot within the department.

  He watched her like a farmer watching wheat. "Look, I'm going have to let this slide around here. Mike had the sweets for a whore, went to her house. That accounts for his fingerprints all over the damned place. Okay. These things happen. In vice, these things happen more than they should. My official line is a slap on the wrist for McNally, but really no big deal. You're going to have to deal with your end Merci. I can't stand up and bark just because Mike acted stupid. I’m sorry."

  "I know, sir. I didn't expect anything like that."

  "When things cool off, a month or so, I'll move him out of vice. He seems to understand the feelings of dogs quite well."

  Brighton smiled and Merci joined him. He told her he had Gilliam and Coiner under penalty of death if this got out to the press. Same with her. She smiled bitterly and looked away.

  "What's it look like so far? The Whittaker thing?"

  "Someone she knew. He knocked. She had a peephole. The porch light was on. She knew him, or thought she could trust him. One shot in the heart with a silenced forty-five, the second she opened the door. After he shot her, he was inside for at least ten minutes. He left wads of cash in her purse. Didn't take a thing we know of yet. It's Strange, sir. Clean and cold, like a contract killing. Up close and personal, like a love thing gone bad. I've got a list of johns and a call-out sheet coming the phone company. We've got plenty to work with. There's motivation all over the place, if she was thinking blackmail."

  Brighton considered. "Any prints besides hers and McNally's?

  She told him about the latents not good enough to send through or CAL-ID. She told him they hoped for a DrugFire hit on the brass casing. She told him about the hair and fiber and shoeprint, if they could eliminate Aubrey's own clothes and those, possibly, of Mike McNally.

  Brighton listened passively. He wasn't a guy who filled up silences. "And how's Miss Patti Bailey?"

  "I've barely scratched it, sir."

  "I don't expect you to kill yourself on it," he said. "I give those out to clean the files. If we solve one, fine."

  "I understand."

  "Bailey was a prostitute, too," he said. "I'm sure you figured out that much by now. I remember she was mixed in with the narcotics suppliers back then. You know, that was nineteen sixty-nine. Supposed to be free love and cheap highs and bell-bottoms. A lot of it was. But the speed racket guys weren't giving it away. Neither were the heroin sellers. And we had lots of professional girls out on Harbor Boulevard, servicing the guys who weren't getting it for free. Lots of conventioneers. Tourists."

  "Like now."

  "Exactly." Brighton swiveled in his chair and looked out one of the vertical windows. "That was a long time ago. I was forty years old that year. A captain. Two years later, they asked me to be the sheriff. Thirty years of that. It seems like about fifteen minutes."

  "You've done well, sir."

  He swung back, a dry smile in place. "Time to think about stepping aside."

  "You've said that every year, sir. For the last few, anyway."

  He smiled but his eyes narrowed. "That's the perception?"

  "Just mine," Merci said quietly. Even at thirty-six, her talent for saying the wrong thing was undiminished.

  "I appreciate your candor, Sergeant. Give me some more of it now: How would you feel about Nelson Neal as sheriff?"

  Watch it now, she thought. "Fine. Not inspirational."

  Brighton nodded. "Craig Braga?"

  "Yes."

  "Mel Glandis?"

  "Same as Nelson."

  "How about Vince Abelera, over in the Marshal's Department? He wants it. He's got some rank-and-file P.D. support, a good face for the cameras."

  Merci had heard Abelera's spiel on the TV news: If he was sheriff, he'd trim the fat and hire more deputies, he'd franchise some of the inmate population into private "jails," the public would become his "customers," law enforcement was a "marketplace." He said the Sheriff Department should be run like any corporation. He was handsome, dressed well and had good teeth.

  "I think he's telling people what they want to hear. Everybody wants to save money. Everybody wants more cops."

  Brighton nodded again. His eyes were small and bright in his craggy face.

  "You still have your eyes on the Crimes Against Persons Section?”

  "It seems years away."

  "And someone's got to be running Homicide Detail when I retires. That's early next year."

  "I'd love to get my hands on it. But you need the respect. I'm thirty-six and I'm a woman. I'm a mom. There was Hess. I'd need ... respect."

  Brighton listened, cocked his head to the rain, then looked back at her. "You have mine. Sorry about your boyfriend."

  "I'd rather you didn't call him that."

  "Noted. I'm sorry the dumb prick didn't exhibit better sense this girl. We're all going to suffer for his antics now."

  "I do appreciate your saying that."

  "It'll blow over. Unless it leaks all over the department and the reporters get it." Brighton seemed to consider this possibility, then he blinked and shook away the vision. "Look, tomorrow's Friday. You could use a day away from here. Do what you can with the Bailey case. But Rayborn—don't kill yourself over this one. Nineteen sixty-nine a bad year then, and it's a bad year still. Bring me the guy who shot Whittaker. That's who I want."

  "You'll have him, sir. I promise that."

  • •

  Zamorra was at his desk when Merci walked back into the pen. His face looked tired but his eyes were oddly hopeful.

  "Moladan checks out at the Bay Club," he said. "Pond scum sticks together."

  "McNally went to dinner that night. Friends. They'd become best of friends."

  Zamorra looked at her, shaking his head. There was lipstick on the collar of his white shirt.

  "How is she?" asked Merci.

  "Tomorrow's the day. Tomorrow morning, at six."

  "I'll say a prayer then, Paul."

  "There's a chance it could work."

  The prayer or the "experiment," Merci wondered. Whatever that was. If Paul wasn't going to talk, she wasn't going to pry.

  She sat down and glanced at the list of johns that Moladan had given them. More names for Gary Brice to run, she thought. She looked for a note from Coiner or O'Brien, hoping they'd lucked out with AFIS or CAL-ID on one of the latents. It would be nice to know somebody else had been to Aubrey Whittaker's home, other than her own alleged boyfriend. Boyfriend. She'd always hated the word. Ex-boyfriend sounded even more preposterous. What in hell was he? Ex-something. At any rate, no note.

  "I'm going to make another pass through Whittaker's place," she said. "Check the closets and dry cleaning against the fibers Gilliam found."

  "I'm in."

  Merci was happy for that. For one thing, she thought partners came up with more than singles. Two pair of eyes, two minds, all that. Two guns, if it went that way.

  But more, she hated the idea of being alone, especially in a place that wasn't hers. She had felt this way ever since the Purse Snatcher had fooled her. In the end, she'd
taken his life, and he'd taken her courage. She could always feel the fear inside, humming along her nerves, a simmering anxiety that could rise to panic in a couple of beats of her heart. The panic brought coldness to her bones, weight to her muscles, a haze to her vision. It made her feel slow and helpless.

  It was tripped by things that would have embarrassed her if she'd told anyone about them—dark rooms, elevators, parking structures. Cars at night or early morning. Baths. Using the bathroom. Bathroom fans that whirred on when you hit the light switch. Showers. The walk from her bedroom to Tim's room late at night. The walk back. The ocean. Trees without leaves.

  Anything she did alone, or anything she looked at that made her feel alone.

  She had plenty of antidotes: security lights in the yards; double-checking the car before getting in; a gun hidden safely in every room; one .32 backup strapped to her ankle and another under the seat of the Impala and her own Trans Am; nightly courtesy patrols of her by Sheriff Department deputies; an expensive alarm system installed in her old orange grove house; more hours on the range with the nine jumping in her hands, again and again and again.

  Having her father move in was partially an antidote.

  Seeing Mike had been partially an antidote.

  Socializing after work once a month on Thursdays was an antidote.

  None of them worked. It was still there inside, ready to flare up, like a gastric virus picked up on some exotic vacation. Much worse that, actually. More like a freezing river that would take you with it, shut you down, sweep you under forever where it was too cold and dark to breathe.

  She called Roy Thornton up in Arrowhead. Personnel had dug up the number for her. He said he'd talk tomorrow if she wanted to, gave her directions, told her to bring her snow chains. They already gotten feet, much more to come.

  He also asked her to bring the old file to help refresh him, to jar the memories "out of this tired old gourd."

  Then she called her father to say she'd be home late.

  "SUDS Club?"

  "Yeah."

  The Sheriff's Unsocial Deputies Society—named by Evan O'Brien, who had an eye for a good acronym—met on the second Thursday each month, 7 p.m. at Cancun Restaurant.