Mr. Kiss and Tell (24 page)

Pan Valley was, like Neptune, a small town in unincorporated Balboa County. The similarities ended there. Fifteen miles inland, Pan Valley had no beachfront property, no tourist industry, no movie star residents, and no booming tech company to put it on the map. It was a blue-collar enclave, a dusty stretch of modest houses and postage-stamp yards.

Jade Navarro’s mother, Rita, was a retired schoolteacher who lived in a neat yellow rambler near Pan High. An avid gardener, she filled her yard with lilac bushes and clusters of black-eyed Susans. Finches and swallows splashed and primped in a stone birdbath, and a pair of plastic rabbits wearing sun hats looked out from the shade of a honeysuckle bush.

Veronica pulled up in front of the house on Thursday morning, the day after the settlement was announced. She knew immediately that Weevil was there; his motorcycle was parked in the driveway. For a moment she sat in the car and watched.

What’s the plan here, Veronica? You can’t just charge into his mother-in-law’s house and tear him a new one, however much you’d like to. Besides, it’s not like you can change his mind. The papers have already been signed.

But she wanted answers. He owed her that much, at least, after everything they’d been through together. She got out of her car and shut the door.

Weevil appeared on the front porch. His shoulders had a sheepish curve, his hands buried in the pockets of his jeans. He met her at the foot of the steps.

“Whatever you got to say to me, I don’t want Valentina to hear it. So can we please do this out here?”

Veronica’s lips twisted downward. “What, you don’t want your daughter to find out you’re a sellout? You’re not
ashamed
, are you, Weevil?” He looked down, but she continued, relentless. “I mean, it’s not like you’d want her to believe in justice in a town like Neptune. Better that she finds out how things really work early on. Everything’s for sale, right? Everything’s got a price.”

“You wanna get off your high horse for a minute?” Weevil’s eyes sparked angrily. “I get it, okay? Sorry I can’t live up to your high moral standard. But I didn’t have much choice.”

“You always have a choice,” she spat. “You fight until you see you’re beaten, and then you keep on fighting.”

“I hate to tell you, but I ain’t in on your crusade, okay? What I wanted all along was to get my life back. To get my family back. You know what it’s like to have people counting on you and to let them down?” He stared her hard in the face. “Well, maybe you don’t. So let me tell you. You feel helpless. Lower than dirt. I can’t stand that, okay? I can’t stand knowing someone else is paying for my daughter’s clothes because I can’t. I’d rather get shot again than feel that way.”

“The money you would have won at trial…”

“There wasn’t gonna
be
any money from that trial.” Weevil ran his hand over his head. “Be real, V—Lamb and his cronies are buddy-buddy with every judge in this town. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“We had your back, Weevil! Me and my dad. Cliff. Lisa. And we had Lamb on his heels. He was scared, for good reason. Those judges you talk about—it’s not Lamb they’re obedient to, it’s power. And he was losing it with every embarrassing news story, every witness we turned up, every voter who suddenly felt like they had a real shot at booting him out of office.”

His eyes flickered back to the ground. “I know. And I’m sorry. I really am. Especially for letting your dad down. He’s been better to me than I deserve, and I gotta live with that. But that trial could’ve stretched on for months—months that would have taken me out of work.” He looked up again, a pleading expression in his eyes. “Now I can buy Jade a house. I can pay off my debts, maybe seed a new garage or something. Get my life back on track.”

Veronica didn’t answer. Anger still stiffened her spine, and her blood felt hot and heavy in her body. There didn’t seem anything more to say.

Suddenly, Valentina appeared on the porch behind Weevil. She wore a purple sweat suit with puppies printed across the front.

“
Ponies
is starting, Daddy! C’mon, you’re gonna miss the song!” she said imperiously. Then she saw Veronica and went suddenly shy, popping her index finger in her mouth and huddling behind her father’s legs. Veronica tried to smile at her. Valentina just stared.

“I’ll be right there, baby. Go back inside and sing it for me real loud.” Weevil didn’t break eye contact with Veronica as he said it. Valentina hesitated, then ran back to the door.

“We done? I got to see a toddler about a talking unicorn,” he said.

She gave him another long, disgusted look. “Oh, we’re done. Have a great morning, Weevil. I’ll see you around.”

He seemed about to say something else. Then he gave a little shrug, and turned his back on her. A moment later he was gone.

She got in her car and slammed the door, seething. Excuses. Everyone always had so many
excuses
. And yet she’d been the one who’d told him he had to go back to Jade, had to take care of his kid.

What would you have done, Veronica? Would you have taken the money, for your family, for the people you loved? Or would you have kept on fighting, even when losing seemed more and more likely? Even if it meant hurting people who relied on you?

She didn’t want to think about it. There was no answer that didn’t make her feel like an asshole.

Veronica suddenly felt her phone vibrating in her pocket and pulled it out. She didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?” She leaned back against the driver’s seat, the key dangling in the ignition.

The voice on the other end was high, babyish, and shot up at the end in a superfluous questioning tone. She thought for a moment it belonged to an actual child.

“Um…hi. My name’s Rachel. Rachel Fahy. I’m trying to get in touch with Veronica Mars?”

“This is Veronica.”

“Oh. Oh, um, hi. You sent me an e-mail. About the guy who raped me?”

Not a child
.
A victim
. Veronica’s fingers went slack for a split second, and she fumbled the phone. Grabbing it, she clutched it hard in her hand.

“Are you Tonya? Tonya Vahn?”

“Um, yes. That was my working name. One of them, anyway.”

Tonya Vahn. The girl from Los Angeles, the fifth low-rated escort from Bellamy’s reviews. The one who “looked nothing like her picture.”

“You said this guy raped you?” Veronica said, keeping her voice low. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The girl’s voice caught on the other end of the line.

“Sorry. It’s still really hard to talk about this.”

“That’s okay. Take your time.”

“I’ve been in therapy for the better part of a year, trying to sort this all out. My therapist said I should call you. She said it might help.”

Veronica didn’t say anything. She just waited.

“It was in October of last year…”

The story Rachel Fahy told her was by now familiar. She’d gotten the call late in the evening. She’d agreed to a last-minute, unscreened date for an extra two hundred more than her usual fee. He’d asked her, as usual, to be “demure.” He wanted her to serve him, to keep her eyes down, and speak in a whisper. She worked incall, from a small studio apartment in Hollywood that she used for clients, and he arrived precisely on time. Rachel described a “middle-aged man, white, thin on top, very tall, and kind of heavy.” According to her, he didn’t seem happy to see her. “The first thing he said was that I was ‘fatter’ than I looked in the pictures,” she said. Here, for the first time, a note of anger entered her voice. “I’d gained a few pounds I guess, but it wasn’t a big deal.”

It would have been a big deal to a guy looking for any excuse to hurt someone,
Veronica thought.
It would have been a big deal to a guy who, by that time, had a ritual he had to see through.

At first, Rachel had tried to placate him. She’d tried to stay in character, contritely apologizing for her appearance, begging him to forgive her. But when he didn’t stop the verbal abuse, she had the temerity to suggest he find a different girl.

Veronica tried to conjure up an image of Rachel. Like Grace’s, her website had been taken down; but the cached site Mac found had shown a young woman with a ballerina’s build—long legs, prominent clavicle, all willowy, delicate lines. She imagined that body slightly rounder, fuller. She imagined that body taking a step backward, moving back toward the door, fed up with this man and his surly, domineering attitude.

That was when his meaty hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat.

From there it was the same story as Bethany Rose’s and Grace Manning’s. He choked her, raped her, and beat her. Then he left her there, alone and bleeding on the floor of her apartment.

“I couldn’t walk for three days. I just pulled myself into the bed and curled up in a ball and stayed there until I felt like I could move again.”

“You didn’t call anyone? The cops, the hospital?”

“No.”

Veronica felt a pang of disappointment. Of course she hadn’t reported it. If she had, Bellamy’s DNA would’ve been in the system and pinged as a match for the swab Veronica took.

“But you remember his face clearly? You could ID him?”

“Yeah. I could. The picture you sent, that was him. I’ll never forget.”

Veronica closed her eyes. The car was starting to get warm, the sun cutting straight through the windshield. Did this change anything? Another working girl, this one with no DNA evidence, no documented physical evidence at all, wouldn’t win a case. But it might be enough to get a search warrant.

“Would you be willing to testify that this guy assaulted you, Rachel?”

There was a short pause before the girl spoke again. “I don’t know. I, uh, didn’t report it because I didn’t want everyone to know what I was doing. I don’t want to embarrass my family. They don’t know. They still don’t know. But that guy—what he did to me…”

The girl’s voice dissolved into tears. Veronica’s throat tightened in sympathy. She bit hard on the inside of her cheek, trying to keep steady. Something in her gut told her it was best to stay silent, that this girl was working through what she needed to on her own time.

Minutes passed. Rachel Fahy took several deep, gulping breaths. She was still crying, but she finally was able to speak through it.

“He ruined my life. I can barely leave my apartment, I’m scared of everything and everyone. I had to drop out of school. I was taking these pills for a while, and they helped, until they didn’t, and then they made everything worse. I’m used up. I’m twenty-three and I’m all used up.” She gasped as if in pain. “Yeah, okay. I’ll testify. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

Veronica straightened her spine almost unconsciously, squaring off her shoulders. She talked a few more minutes with Rachel, arranging the details. Then she hung up the phone and sat for a moment, collecting herself before picking up the phone one more time and calling Leo.

He didn’t even say hello. “Let me guess—you need a favor.”

“Is that any way to talk to an old friend who’s about to set you up for the collar of your life?”

“Hm, I feel like I’ve heard that promise before. I think I’m still chafed from that last once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Veronica moved the phone to her other ear. “I just heard from another one of Bellamy’s victims. She’s going to make a statement with LAPD tomorrow morning. You think that might be enough to get a warrant?”

“Yeah, it should be. This one actually remembers the attack?”

“Vividly. She’s willing to ID Bellamy.”

“I’ll put in a call, see if LAPD can expedite the paperwork. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

“You’re the best, Leo.”

She hung up the phone again. Then, finally, she started the car, and pulled away from the curb.

It’s probably too much to hope that Bellamy kept mementos of his attacks, but maybe there’s something on his computer, in his phone. Maybe there’s something that’ll help us connect the dots.

But that would take some luck. And so far at least, luck hadn’t been on their side.

“So we’ve got this kid running all over the boat asking everyone he meets for ‘relative bearing grease.’ And of course everyone knows what that means—I mean, it’s one of the oldest gags in the book—so they’re all just stringing him along, telling him stuff like, ‘Oh, yeah, I think they have some over in Maintenance.’ ‘Oh, sorry, we’re out, so you’ll have to go down to Supplies.’ ”

It was Friday, a week since Veronica had gotten the call from Rachel Fahy, and she sat at her kitchen counter, Skyping with Logan. It was early evening, and she had the windows propped open so she could hear the low thrum of the ocean a quarter mile away. Pony—now as tall as Veronica’s knee—was sitting at her feet, looking alert and excited at the sound of Logan’s voice. Table lamps gently lit the room and Neko Case streamed at low volume from the iPod dock.

It was just after six a.m. in the Persian Gulf, and Logan had already been awake for a few hours. He was wearing workout gear; after he logged off he was going to the gym to do a few miles on the treadmill before his shift started. Veronica took in his face greedily. It had been hard to find times when both of them could talk in the weeks since he’d left. She felt awkward, almost shy, for the first few minutes of every call, almost like their patter had to warm up for a few minutes before they found the right rhythms.

“Anyway, he spends half his shift looking for the stuff, and he comes back up to the flight deck all excited, and he says to Shepard, ‘This boat needs some organization. You ever think about alphabetizing the different kinds of grease, so it’s easier to find?’ I’d just taken a swig of water. Sprayed it right out my nose.”

Veronica smiled. “Ah, classic. What will you young comic prodigies think of next? Have you tried calling the kitchen and asking if their refrigerator’s running?”

“First of all, it’s called the
galley
, and second of all, you don’t want to mess with the cooks. They’re already crazy.” He gave a lopsided grin. “Anyway, we’ve all been through it. It’s a rite of passage.”

“I’m glad it’s not just frat boys and Hell’s Angels that get all the fun of hazing,” she said.

Even missing Logan as much as she did, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. She was expecting a call from Leo. He’d promised to give her an update. The San Diego cops had gotten a warrant to search Bellamy’s place on Tuesday, but it took time to process a crime scene, especially if there was a computer involved. She tried to stay focused.
There’s time to worry about the case later. You don’t know when you’ll talk to Logan again.

“How’s Po?” Logan craned his neck, making as if he were straining to see her. “I thought she’d be wearing a saddle by now.”

Veronica picked up the laptop and angled it down so that he could see the puppy. He cooed her name, and she turned in excited circles.

“Sit,” he said.

Pony sat.

“Damn! I still haven’t been able to convince her that I wield the same authority you do,” Veronica complained. “Pony, sit.”

Pony barked, wiggled her butt, and ran around the living room. Veronica gave Logan an exasperated look.

“You see? Without you, it’s chaos around here.”

“It’s the delicious, fetishistic thrill of military discipline,” he said. “Isn’t it, Pony…isn’t it, my sweet little kinkster?”

The little dog frolicked toward his voice, whining softly. He smiled.

“Hey, listen, I gotta go in a second here,” he said. “My time’s almost up. You sure everything’s okay?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem a little out of it.”

She felt her cheeks get warm. “Sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, I guess. Maybe I need some of that
severe
military discipline too.” She tried to make it sound light and flirty, but the words fell flat.

He gave her a worried look, but before he could say anything else, the screen went dark. They’d lost their connection.

She sat numbly in front of the computer for another few moments. Sometimes this happened, and he was able to get right back on and call her again just to say good-bye. Sometimes he wasn’t. It was always jarring, frustrating, even scary. It was just one more thing she had to live with if they were going to make it.

She stood up and stretched. Then she looked down at Pony, who seemed to be waiting for more commands.

“Sit,” she said. Pony wagged, her butt nowhere near the earth. Veronica sighed and knelt to pet her.

“I miss him too,” she said.

She sighed again and glanced at her phone. Still blank. Impulsively, she pulled up Leo’s contact info and hit Call.

“Hey. Sorry, I know you’ve probably been waiting to hear from me,” Leo said when he picked up.

“With bated breath,” she said. It was strange how much easier it was to talk to Leo than Logan right now.
Is it, though? We’re working this case together. That’s all it is.
Still, her voice got a little jauntier as she realized it. “What you got for me, D’Amato?”

“Sorry, Veronica, but we’re coming up empty. There wasn’t any evidence in that house—that we could find anyway.”

The news stung. She drew in her breath a little. “There had to be
something
.”

“I don’t think so. That house was clean. Bellamy didn’t even have any garden-variety pervert stuff around—no porn, no weird toys, no squicky pictures. And I just got the report back from the computer guy. He hasn’t been able to turn up anything incriminating on Bellamy’s hard drive.”

She closed her eyes. The search warrant had been her last big shot. If they didn’t have any physical evidence it was literally Bellamy’s word—the word of a well-known, well-liked college basketball coach—against those of a handful of prostitutes who’d either lied to or avoided the cops entirely.

He’s going to get away with it. Unless…

“Veronica? What are you thinking?” Leo asked. He sounded slightly worried.

“I’ve got to go. I’ve got some work to do,” she said vaguely. “Call you tomorrow, Leo. I might very well need your help.”

“With what? Veronica, what’s—”

“See you, buddy. I owe you one.” She hung up before he could say anything else.

Veronica sat for a moment, staring out into mid-distance. Then she pulled up the Pacific Southwest basketball schedule and skimmed over the upcoming games:
Seattle
,
Eugene
,
Las Vegas
…And there it was.

The scrap of paper was still tucked into her wallet, slightly crumpled but still legible. She grabbed one of her burner phones out of her bag—she always kept one or two handy, just in case—and dialed.

It only rang once before the baritone voice answered. “Yeah?”

“Sweet Pea. This is Veronica. The woman who was asking about Madelyn.”

“I remember,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I’ve got some information for you.”

“Yeah?”

Her fingers tightened around the phone. She took a deep breath.

“Yeah. It looks like the man you asked me about is going to be in Vegas again in a few weeks. And I know exactly where he’ll be.”