High-Caliber Concealer (29 page)

Nikki sat in the car, finishing her
sandwich, waiting for Jane to finish parking. She stared at the
auto body shop. The open sign hung jauntily in the window but she
couldn’t see inside the office due to the glare of sun off the
glass. She rolled down the window as Jane approached and sneezed,
tasting the acrid tang of wildfire smoke in the air.

“So what’s our plan?” asked Jane. “Go in
there and rough them up?” she smacked a fist into her palm.

“We’re going to go ask some questions,” said
Nikki. “Ninety percent of finding things out is having the balls to
ask questions. People are usually so surprised that they
answer.”

“That’s not as exciting as I was hoping
for,” said Jane.

“Well, this isn’t exactly Al-Qaeda. It’s a
middle-aged body / fender guy.”

“Who might have killed someone.”

“I don’t think he did. I think it was the
boss.”

“But you don’t know for sure. We should beat
the truth out of him.”

Nikki sighed. “We’ll keep that as a plan B.”
She stood, picked up her purse, and then decided against it,
tucking it under the seat. Jane only ever carried a messenger bag
that could fit her computer and a myriad of other gadgets.
Functionally, it was exactly the same as a purse, but when it came
to questioning people it had the advantage. It’s hard to take
someone as a serious threat when they walk in with an adorable
little Kate Spade.

Nikki swung open the door to the shop and
the bells tied to the handle didn’t so much jingle as clank
annoyingly against the door.

“Be with you in a second,” someone yelled
through the door from the garage side.

“This is awkward,” said Jane. “I’m fairly
certain that when coming to question people, you’re not supposed to
be kept waiting.”

“You’ll have to call ahead and make an
appointment next time then,” said Nikki.

“That doesn’t seem practical,” said Jane as
Kristine Pims came into the office.

“What are you doing here?” demanded
Kristine, and Nikki frowned. Kristine’s eyes were red and her face
was blotchy, and her blonde hair, usually curled and styled, had
been shoved into a messy ponytail.

“I need to see your dad,” said Nikki.

“Go to hell,” said Kristine. “You’re the
last thing he needs to see.”

“Oh, good grief! Kristine, I don’t know what
your problem is, but get over it. I have never done anything to
you. Other than the little incident the other night, I don’t know
why you’re mad at me. Frankly, I don’t know why you even care about
me at all.”

“You don’t know…” Kristine’s face flushed
red. “This is your fault. This is all your fault!”

“What is my fault? You living in Kaniksu
Falls and working at your dad’s shop? That is not my fault. If
you’re unhappy with your life, then leave. Nothing in your life is
my fault!”

“It’s your fault Ylina’s dead. If it hadn’t
been for you interfering at the Kessel Run she probably would have
just gotten beat up a little. But oh no, you had to swoop in like a
big hero.”

“That is not—” began Nikki, but once started
Kristine couldn’t seem to stop.

“You always swan around like you’re so
perfect and the rest of us are nothing, but your dad is the one
that started this and it’s your fault!” Kristine burst into tears
and dropped onto the chair behind the desk as if her knees had
given out.

“It’s OK,” said Jane, whipping a Kleenex out
of her bag. “We all like to hate the way Nikki swans
sometimes.”

“What?”

“You do swan sometimes. I mean, not a lot.
And usually it’s for work. Also, not as much as Jenny. But
sometimes there’s swanning. It makes the rest of us ducklings feel
ugly.”

“Yes!” wailed Kristine from inside the
Kleenex.

“I don’t even know how to swan! And that’s
not the point. Jane, this is the last time I take you to question
someone. You can’t be on their side the moment they start to
cry.”

“But she’s crying for a real reason,” said
Jane, patting Kristine soothingly. “Ylina’s dead and her dad’s in
trouble.”

“Yes,” said Kristine. Well, it might have
been ‘yes.’ It was hard to hear through the burbling sobs and snot
noises.

“Stop crying,” said Nikki. “Seriously.
Nothing ever gets solved by crying and I don’t have time for
this.”

“Nikki,” said Jane, “be nicer.”

“I don’t want to be,” said Nikki.

Jane frowned at her.

“OK, fine,” said Nikki. “Kristine, I’m sorry
I swanned. I didn’t mean to swan. But for the record, using racial
slurs is still not cool.”

There was another sob and an emphatic hand
wave.

“I don’t know what that meant,” said Jane,
“But I think it was apologetic.”

“I said, I didn’t mean it,” said Kristine
surfacing, and sniffing fiercely. Jane offered her another tissue.
“I just wanted to make you mad. It was the first thing I thought
of.”

“Well, the fact that you went first to a
racial slur still shows an implicit bias,” said Jane. “You may want
to do some serious thinking about your own ingrained racism.”

Kristine looked at Nikki in disbelief, who
shrugged. “Sorry I called you fat,” said Nikki. “I was embarrassed
about my outfit and I wanted you to go away.”

Kristine shrugged herself and blotted her
face with the tissue. “I was being kind of bitchy.”

The door from the garage banged open and
Bill Pims came in with a spark plug in one hand. “Krissy, I’m going
to need you to order - what the hell is going on in here? Bill
looked at his daughter’s red face and the crumpled tissues in her
hand and a panic began to suffuse his face.

“You’ve been smuggling pot for the last
decade, that’s what’s going on,” said Nikki.

Bill’s eyes widened. They went from Nikki to
Jane to Kristine, then back to Nikki. “No, I haven’t.”

“Least convincing lie ever,” said Jane.

“You started smuggling with my dad for a
cut, right?”

“It was a straight fee,” said Bill, his
shoulders sagging. “We both had kids. It was a simple little plan.
And it was just pot. I didn’t think it would lead to all this.” He
sat down on the bench by the door, dropping the spark plug on a
pile of magazines, and began to clean his fingers with a blue shop
cloth.

“And then Merv Smalls arrested my dad, but
the smuggling wasn’t over, was it?”

Bill shook his head. “It quadrupled in the
first five years. Doubled again after that. We had to cut back a
bit when the century flipped. The DEA has been all over our
ass.”

“Because Merv started using illegal aliens
to be the drivers.”

“Wait, Merv? Isn’t he the sheriff?” demanded
Jane.

“He is now. Probably financed that campaign
with drug money.”

Bill nodded in confirmation.

“He took over my dad’s operation.”

“And expanded it,” said Bill. “Once he
figured out that he could use the Mexicans to drive, it was fat
city. I’d modify a car every weekend in the nineties. If they got
caught, he didn’t care because they’d get deported.

“Wasn’t he concerned that they’d talk?” Jane
was reaching for her computer.

Bill shook his head. “He picked the ones who
had family here. If they talked he’d make sure their family was
dead by the time anyone came for him. But the DREAM act put a real
crimp in his recruiting practices. Now it’s a lot safer for them to
admit they’re illegal and go to the authorities. So he’s shifting
business models again.”

“What do you mean? Shifting business models
how?”

Bill mopped his forehead with the shop rag
leaving streaks of black. “Well, with pot being legal in Washington
now, he doesn’t see any reason to keep smuggling from Canada. He’s
recruited one of the botanists from up there and he’s planning on
starting his own pot farm. I mean, he’ll probably use someone else
to run it because he has to be anti-drug when it comes to running
for sheriff, but that’s his plan.”

“I thought the farms were going to be
limited in size,” said Jane. “How’s he planning on growing enough
to maintain his supply? Or is he really going straight?”

“That man is so crooked he could fit around
a corkscrew without trying,” said Kristine. “Besides out here, who
do you think they’re going to call to investigate the size of a
farm?”

“That’s a good point,” said Jane,
nodding.

“The problem is that if he’s not smuggling
out of Canada anymore, does he really need you?” asked Nikki.
“Either of you.”

“Why do you think I’ve been sweating it so
hard,” said Bill. “I keep telling Kristine we’ve got to get out of
town.”

“He’d only have his friends take care of us
somewhere else,” said Kristine. “What’s the point?”

“Would you testify against him?” asked
Nikki.

“Yeah, right. We’re going to walk into the
police station and someone is going to believe us,” said Bill.
“Don’t be crazy.”

“If he was arrested first,” said Nikki.
“Would you testify then?”

Bill and Kristine exchanged a long
stare.

“I would,” said Kristine quietly. “He killed
Ylina. We may not have been best friends, but I always liked her.
He shouldn’t get away with it.”

“I guess I would,” said Bill after a long
moment. “But I don’t see how you’re going to get him arrested with
no evidence.”

“We’ll find something,” said Jane, with
confidence that Nikki thought was just slightly misplaced. “Let us
worry about that.”

“Ylina said she had an insurance policy that
she was going to cash in,” said Nikki. “Do either of you know what
she meant?”

Bill shook his head, but Kristine bit her
lip thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, what?”

“I don’t know for sure, but one time I used
her phone. She had an auto-record app open on it. One of those
sound activated ones, so someone just had to start talking and it
would start recording. She kind of flipped out when she saw me
using her phone.”

“Recordings of the sheriff? That’s a
worthwhile insurance policy. I didn’t see a computer at her place
though.”

“I don’t think she had one,” said Kristine
with a shrug.

“You think she kept the recordings on her
phone then? That doesn’t sound smart.” Jane frowned at the sloppy
technology use. “She should have made a back-up. What if her phone
crashed?”

“I don’t know,” said Kristine with a shrug.
“I don’t even know that she actually made recordings.”

“That’s fine,” said Nikki. “We can take it
from here.”

“We can?” Jane looked surprised.

“What are you going to do?” asked Bill.
“Whatever it is, we can’t be involved.”

“Then you don’t want to know what I’m going
to do, do you? Just keep your heads down and don’t say anything to
anyone. Donny Fernandez will let you know when it’s safe to
talk.”

“The little Fernandez kid?” Bill looked
unconvinced.

“You mean, the three-times decorated,
undercover narcotics cop? Yeah, that’s who I mean.”

“Oh. I guess I’m just used to thinking of
him as a kid.”

“Well, we all grow up sooner or later,” said
Nikki. “You probably ought to adjust your thinking.”

The sky was a hazardous yellow and the sun a
bright copper disk in the sky. The air was so thick with the fog of
fires that it was almost possible to stare straight at the sun
without sunglasses. There was a dark cloud on the horizon, drifting
steadily south and for a moment Nikki felt a surge of hope that
rain was on the horizon, but realized almost immediately that those
weren’t rain clouds. It was an immense and billowing nebula of
smoke from the forest fire. Nikki rubbed her arm uneasily,
discharging static electricity, and told herself that the Columbia
was a wide river; there was no way the fire could span that
distance. She checked the sky again and hoped she was right.

“So what’s the next step?” asked Jane,
settling her messenger bag on her hip. “Do you think the sheriff
already found Ylina’s insurance policy?”

“No, I think he was searching her room when
we got to the hotel.”

“How are we going to find it then? I mean,
as a police officer he’s got free rein to search anywhere.”

“I don’t think it’s in her room,” said
Nikki.

“Then where?”

“Well, when I saw her last, she was fishing
something out of a junker car on Crazy Cooter’s back lot. And you
said she actually worked for Crazy Cooter, right?”

“Yeah, as administrative assistant.”

“I think she left it there. I think she went
to get it, ran into me, saw the police cars coming to put the
kibosh on Donny’s party and panicked. I bet she left her insurance
policy—whatever it is—at work and tried to take off.”

“Why wouldn’t she take it with her?” asked
Jane.

“I don’t know,” said Nikki. “Maybe she did.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the sheriff has the recordings already and
we’re screwed. But I think it’s worth taking a look, don’t
you?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Jane surveyed the
street. “I have to say, I’m really enjoying this in-person
investigation stuff. Usually I’m stuck behind a computer.”

“Well, after you took the agent competency
course, I thought you’d rotate out, honestly,” said Nikki. “You
seemed kind of into it.”

“Yeah, so did I, but I talked to Mrs.
Merrivel and in order to do more field work I’d have to leave the
team.”

Nikki’s hand hovered over the car door
handle. “I didn’t know you’d talked to Mrs. Merrivel.”

“Yeah, she thought it was great that I
passed the competency course and that I’m a great back-up for you
guys in case of emergency, but she said that the team needed a tech
person. Which is true. You would be screwed without me. But if I
really want more field work, I would have to get reassigned. So,
you know ...” Jane shrugged to fill in the rest of the
sentence.