Coffee & Crime (31 page)

I flapped my hand right back at him. "Don't pish me. You could've been killed, Joe."

Joe grinned at Zelda, made a yapping motion with his hand and pointed at me. Zelda laughed and snorted. Those two slayed me. Just the day before Joe'd lectured us for treating it like a game. Yet he and Zelda yucked it up like we'd won a tournament at a paintball convention.

I squinted at Zelda. "By the way, when the hell did you get your window fixed?"

Zelda and Joe stopped talking and swapped a look. I sat up in my chair. "What?"

Zelda fluttered her wrist. "Nothing. I took it to a place." She stammered. "This morning while you were pretending to be asleep."

I sneered at her. "Is that right? What place might that be?"

Zelda threw up her arms. "What difference does it make? It’s fixed. End of story. Why are you making a big deal out of nothing?"

I sighed, leaned my head back and closed my eyes — too weary to argue. I was pretty sure the place was Ted's shop but she'd never admit it. They yakked while I listened to the crickets outside, joyous over the rainless night.

Joe said it was time to strap on the feedbag, and Zelda thought that was a good idea because she always thinks food is a good idea. But my plans were to stay exactly where I was
—
if they wanted my company, they'd have to carry me.

Someone knocked at the door and Joe yelled for them to come in. I expected it was Eric and I hoped he brought a pizza, but when I opened my eyes I saw Peggy enter with a banker box in her hands. I sat up in my chair. "Peggy?"

Peggy gasped and giggled. "Scotti. Zelda. How are you?" She walked into the room and set the box on Joe's desk. "These are the files Dan wanted you to have."

Joe smiled and nodded his head as if to some inner music. "So, Dan took you on? Well ain't that a little ray of sunshine?"

Zelda was all ears. "Who's Dan?"

Peggy had taken my advice and called Joe. He referred her to a lawyer friend, who hired her on the spot. It explained her cheerful mood and why she seemed happy to see us.

"What's in the box?" I asked.

Joe tossed me a sidelong glance. "A case I'm working on for Dan. You ain't the only game in town." Joe clapped his hands together. "Time for vittles."

Peggy couldn't thank us enough for leading her to a new job and promised to take us all out for lobster with her first paycheck, but in the meantime, we ordered Chinese and she picked up the tab. We gathered around the banquette, eating like starving orphans.

I eyed the banker box on Joe's desk. "Who is this Dan guy?"

Joe looked up from his chop suey. "Daniel J. Parker, Esquire. Criminal lawyer extraordinaire." He wiped his greasy hands with a napkin. "I knew him back in my cop days. When he retired, he came out here, got himself admitted to the California courts and hung out his shingle."

"No problem with the references?" I asked Peggy.

Peggy shrugged. "Joe vouched for me and that was good enough for Dan. And since Dan knows Jake, a recommendation from him wouldn't have worked in my favor anyway."

That got my attention. "Why's that?"

Peggy's cheerfulness faded and she took a sip of wine. "Never mind, I shouldn't have mentioned it."

I nudged her with a chopstick. "Oh come on Peggy, we’re all friends here, right?"

Peggy picked up her fortune cookie and broke it into little pieces, then wiped up the crumbs with her hand. "Dan doesn’t like him." She twitched – just a little. "Which is fine with me, that means he’s out of my life. Frankly, it’s a relief."

Zelda laughed. "Why, is Jake a psycho?"

Peggy's look cut Zelda's laugh short. "I don't know if I’d go that far. But he’s not the kind of man you want to cross. He's connected."

A flutter rose from my gut. "Like how? Could he get the cops to follow somebody? Or to detain them?"

Peggy went pale and lowered her chopsticks. "Are the cops following you?" She refilled her wine glass and took a healthy gulp. "You're not kidding me, are you?"

I was tired of walking on egg shells with her and said, "Peggy what's the deal? Should we be afraid of him? Come on, out with it. What aren't you telling us?"

Peggy drained her wine glass then refilled it again. "I’d stay clear of him if I were you."

Three sets of eyes and ears watched and waited. She took another sip of wine, blotted her lips with a napkin and sighed. "We had a client a few years ago who owed us money and he refused to pay. Next thing we hear is that his son was arrested on drug charges. Then the County Assessor slapped him with a huge fine for outstanding property taxes..."

I knitted my brows and shook my head. "You’re not saying Jake made that happen?"

Peggy shrugged. "Suddenly the client had no problem paying his bill." She snapped her fingers. "Then poof, all the man's troubles went away."

Zelda gave her a surly look. "Why didn't you tell us this the other day?"

Peggy squirmed and her eyes darted to the door. "I didn't know whose side you were on then." Her voice cracked. "You were so focused on that stupid video with the brownies...and I was in a bad place."

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "Peggy, if you know something, you need to tell us."

She trembled and the blood drained from her face. "If Jake ever discovered that I told you anything, I don't know what he'd do." She whispered, "He really scares me, Scotti."

Considering what we'd been through the last couple of days I didn’t feel particularly sympathetic and shrugged. Finally Peggy said, "They fought the day George died." Tears welled in her eyes. "Funds were missing from the client trust fund
—
again."

Zelda smirked and pointed a chopstick at me. "And no scapegoat around like Sally Goss to blame it on this time, eh?"

Peggy nodded. "George always knew who took the money.” She grimaced. "He knew when they blamed it on Sally. All of us knew Jake was skimming from the trust fund."

My mouth dropped open. "A few hundred thousand is more than skimming. Why didn't George report him or fire him?"

Peggy daubed her eyes with a paper napkin. "Because it wouldn't have done any good. Jake is tight with the Police Commissioner and half the cops in town. That's what I mean by connected. Why do you think George partnered with Jake? It wasn't because they were friends or even liked each other."

Zelda and I swapped a look. "Was George afraid of Jake?"

Peggy stared at her plate of food. "George knew that if he confronted Jake, he'd have to be absolutely sure and have solid proof. And he didn't have the proof he needed." She looked up at us. "That's why we set up the nanny cam. George hoped he could catch Jake in the act."

Zelda slammed the table, sloshing everybody's wine. "You knew about the nanny cam? So your freak-out about that video was all bullshit?"

I kicked Zelda under the table and frowned her into silence.

Peggy pursed her lips then shrugged. "We looked for an IT guy who we could trust, who could get into his records." She threw up her hands. "Anyway, it was a mess. We could never catch Jake. George decided the solution was to leave the firm and start his own practice."

I cocked my head, sure she was still holding back. "Why didn't he use the guy who did all the security stuff for his phone and computers?"

"George didn't want to use anyone Jake might know."

Zelda frowned and shook her head. “But you said you didn’t even know the guy, how would Jake know him?”

Peggy bit her lip. "I don’t know…"

"Who knew that George was planning to start up his own firm?" Joe asked.

"No one. Me and George. I don't think he even told Maggie or Lauren."

"Is that what the fight was about?" Zelda asked. "George told Jake he wanted out?"

Peggy shrugged and shook her head. "I never got the chance to talk to George afterwards. What I told you about prepping for the trial was true
—
we were all crazed trying to everything done. By the time the dust settled, George had left the office."

Joe stroked his chin. "But George died in his office."

Peggy puckered her lips and nodded. "I know. And that bothered me too. Everything was ready and there was nothing in his calendar, so I don’t why he went back to the office." But she avoided looking at me or Zelda and smiled weakly at Joe. "Maybe he forgot something?"

Joe opened his notebook. "This evidence that George was trying to get on Jake
—
who was he planning on giving it to?"

She shrugged and again avoided my eyes. "The feds?"

Joe's pen poised over his pad. "FBI?"

Peggy shrugged. "He never named the agency."

I squeezed her hand and made her look at me. "Who was his contact? Did he ever tell you a name?"

Peggy shook her head slowly. "That's all I can tell you." She lowered her voice like she was afraid someone might hear her. "Except, be very careful when dealing with Jake, he never let's go of a grudge."

Five days after Joe was released from the hospital, he was back to his cheerful ornery self, and we treated him to pie and coffee at Manny's. When Manny was in the back, we idled at the counter and whispered about the case. When Manny came out front, we pretended to do side work.

We'd retrieved the backup package from Marge and reconstructed our notes, but the knowledge that someone knew what we knew had me jumpy. And that fact made us second guess ourselves. Peggy's revelations about Jake confirmed he was more than a creep, but I knew she was still holding things back. I believed she was genuinely scared of Jake, so I let it slide and chalked it up to fear of payback.

I stared out the window at the gloomy gray day that mirrored my mood perfectly. My deadline was eleven days away, but the gnaw in my gut made me wonder if that would be the least of my worries. Everything felt off kilter
—
even Daniels and Davis hadn’t been around since the night we took Joe to the emergency room. I turned away from the window and whined. "What am I going to do once Maggie owns this place?"

Zelda smacked me with a bar towel. "Bite your tongue. Maggie's getting this place over my dead body." I groaned and put my head down on the counter. Zelda shoved me playfully. "Drama queen."

I raised my head. "
I'm
the drama queen in this cast of characters?"

Zelda refilled our coffee cups. "Relax, we'll figure it out. Eric thinks he's close to cracking those files. He got this new decryption software."

I flapped my hand at her. "Yada, yada
—
I don’t care. I just want to get to those files. My gut tells me it’s George’s proof against Jake. How Eric does it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me." I caught Manny peering out the pass-through at us. He grinned and pointed to his watch, then drew his index finger across his neck. "Look at him, he's enjoying taunting me."

Zelda flipped him off and he ducked out of view. "Screw him. We'll show him not to mess with us."

I smirked at her optimism. "You think so? Well seems to me Maggie Manston has got Manny in her pocket. So even if I'm only a minute late, he'll sell it to her." I sighed. "And everybody had a beef with George
—
any of them could've killed him." I got up and dumped my coffee in the bus tray. "Who killed George? Take a number and step in line." I frowned at her. "The only thing we're going to show Manny is our asses when he kicks us out."

Joe shook his head. "Ain't that bad. We learned a lot of things. The case could break any time now." He pointed to Zelda. "We just need Eric to get us into those files. There’s evidence on them all right, George wouldn't have locked them up so tight otherwise."

I wiped down an already clean counter. "But you forget that most of what we know the killer knows too."

Joe pointed a stern finger at me. "Now you ain't got any proof that the killer broke into my place."

Hands on my hips I said, "Or any proof that he didn't."

The door whooshed open and Zelda said, "Oh crap."

I looked up and saw Daniels and Davis at the front door. "Great, Bert and Ernie are back."

But they didn’t head for their usual booth, they walked straight to the counter
—
faces tight and unreadable. Sounding like a TV cop Daniels said, "Scotti Fitzgerald?"

"What is this — a joke? You know who I am."

They stepped behind the counter. "You're under arrest." Davis pulled my arms behind my back and snapped the cuffs on. Under her breath she said, "We tried to warn you."

Zelda held onto me, as though that would stop them from taking me. "For what?"

"The murder of George Manston." Daniels glared at Zelda. "And if you don't let go of her, we'll take you in for obstruction."

I nodded to Zelda and she released me. "Don't say anything, Scotti. Joe, call Dan."

Joe was dialing his cell phone. "Scotti, you hold on. Don't you tell them nothing."

It was like watching a movie of myself being escorted out of the building, while people stared. Manny yelled, but I couldn't hear what he said. Tongues clucked, mouths formed "ohs", and eyes stared, but nothing registered.