Shadows in the Starlight, page 11
A mottled flush crept up Walsh’s face. “Listen, Gellman, when you’re not on the job, you can’t see the whole picture. Look what happened when you butted in with the Cody girl.”
“I didn’t exactly crash the party. Meredith Cody’s mother hired me to find her missing daughter, and with good reason. The girl had been gone for four days.”
“And the kid would have been back at the end of those four days, if you hadn’t started nosing around.” The chief held up a hand to cut her off. “Ryan Cody filled me in on the details. After he brought me in, I insisted on it.”
“Did he also mention that he was working for a sleaze peddler, and that his daughter was snatched to keep him in line? But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? By that point you and Wallace Earl Edmonson were well acquainted, and I got the very distinct impression that you weren’t very happy about that relationship.”
His eyes narrowed. “Where is this going? All I know is Edmonson was Cody’s lawyer.”
“Edmonson owned Ryan Cody. I guess Cody figured it wouldn’t be too good for his career if it got around that he gets off on kiddy porn. I’ll bet a lot of people would love to hear what Edmonson’s holding over you.”
Walsh sent her a reptilian smile. “Don’t take up poker, Gellman, because you can’t bluff worth shit. If you had something, you would have put it on the table by now.”
“I’m working my way around to it. Tiger Leone was also reporting to Edmonson.”
“Yeah? That wasn’t in the reports you filed after the bust.”
“I didn’t know about it at the time. Since then I’ve learned all kinds of interesting things.”
“Like?”
Gwen suppressed a grim smile. Walsh usually wasn’t so transparent. He stopped by to lean on her a bit, hoping a few threats might persuade her to back off. Barring that, he wanted info. Fine. She couldn’t wait to see his reaction.
“Tiger Leone got a phone call the night Yoland and Moniz came to the club. An old friend, he said—someone who’d been busted by Yoland and Moniz. Someone who conveniently called when the cops were standing right there. That was Eddie Davis, wasn’t it?”
Walsh shifted one plaid-covered shoulder. “Might have been. Him and Leone came up together.”
“Davis got out just that day. You want to know why I know that? Because I’m looking into every case handled by Edmonson’s pet lawyers. Ryan Cody, of Simmons, Fletcher, and Rye, handled Davis, and Edmonson handled him. I figure you assigned me to Tiger before Edmonson sucked you in. You couldn’t pull me off the case or keep Yoland and Moniz from following their leads without raising questions, but you could set us up. You expected all three of us to die that night.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Maybe, but the truth frequently is.”
He shrugged, proving he was still cop enough to concede her logic in this matter. “Even if that was true, you couldn’t prove it and you’d sound crazy just saying it.”
“It’s amazing what people will believe. Like the IA buying your story about the Tiger Leone paperwork disappearing, along with the forms for the leave of absence I supposedly requested.”
Walsh shrugged again. “One of those regrettable errors known to occur in busy offices.”
Gwen leaned in close. “You’re an idiot, Walsh, and what’s worse, you’re a fucking dinosaur. You know those little beige boxes sitting on all the detectives’ desks? They’re called ‘computers.’ Tenacious little bastards. Once they’ve got hold of some information, they hang onto it.”
He had the sense to look wary. “What are you saying?”
“I sent you a preliminary report when you first assigned me to shadow Tiger Leone. It might have been deleted, but when my old computer was scrapped, the files were stripped off the hard drive.”
For a long moment Wash stood very still. Then his eyes cleared, and a smile crept over his face. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. That was just you covering your ass—”
He broke off and raked a scathing gaze over her outfit: good running shoes, a custom-made thigh holster with straps at the top and bottom to keep her gun from bouncing, and a black sports bra that matched her shorts.
“Covering your ass,” he repeated, his gaze fixed pointedly on that portion of her anatomy, “and, as usual, not doing a very good job of it. You didn’t send me this alleged report by e-mail, did you? If someone got into the guts of my computer, would they find a copy of that report?”
Gwen’s stomach suddenly took a nose dive in the general direction of her Reeboks.
“There didn’t seem to be a point,” she said dully. “You never read e-mail. I printed a copy and put it under your door.”
“Then there’s no record you actually sent that report.” Walsh winked at her. “Sometimes it pays to be a fucking dinosaur.”
He swung his considerable bulk into the car and gunned the engine. As she watched him spin triumphantly off, Gwen thought about Ian’s claim that she had some sort of ability to cause rain. Too bad that talent didn’t extend to meteor showers. If ever a dinosaur deserved to have his ass bombed into fossil fuel, it was Walsh.
Two hours later, Gwen flicked on her computer and waited impatiently for the files she’d stolen from Ryan Cody’s computer to upload. They formed the basis for a growing database into the activities of Simmons, Fletcher, and Rye, the law firm that Edmonson owned—
No, that she owned. She was, after all, Edmonson’s heir.
This had possibilities. She quickly dialed Cody’s private line. He picked up on the second ring.
“It’s Gwen Gellman,” she told him. “I’m looking for some information on Kate Myers. There might be a connection between her and Edmonson. She’s not the drugs and dancing type, so I thought I’d start with his law firm.”
The only sound for several moments was a faint static. “You were a police officer. I shouldn’t have to remind you about client privilege.”
“But you could confirm whether or not she was ever a client?”
“I suppose,” he said cautiously.
“How long would that take?”
“About fifteen seconds. The law firm has a searchable database. Spell that last name?”
Gwen gave him the spelling and listened to the faint, rapid clatter of computer keys.
“Kate Myers wouldn’t by any chance be related to Sergeant Brendan Myers, Providence city police?”
“Probably. She mentioned her father was a cop, killed in the line of duty.”
“About twenty-five years ago, yes. His daughter Katherine received a full scholarship through college and medical school.”
“From the law firm?”
“That’s right. Over the years, Simmons, Fletcher, and Rye has assisted several promising students.”
“Interesting. Survivor benefits to off-the-books employees? Or maybe an investment in the future?”
Cody sighed heavily. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. But since Myers’s name only appears in the scholarship fund, I couldn’t tell you what business Edmonson might have had with the sergeant or his daughter.”
“You’re being unusually candid. Thinking of moving on?”
“If I could, I’d quit tomorrow,” he said bluntly. “You know I can’t.”
Gwen knew. Cody had been recruited by Simmons, Fletcher, and Rye because his personal flaws gave Edmonson a means of control. When that failed, Edmonson had Cody’s fourteen-year-old daughter snatched to remind the attorney who held his leash.
“How is Meredith?”
“She’s taking some time off from school. We felt she needed a change of scenery. Dianne took the children to visit friends.”
In other words, his family was gone. “Your choice or hers?”
“Does it matter?”
As a matter of fact, it did. If Dianne Cody wanted to dump her husband because he was a sleaze, Gwen had no arguments. If the family was trying to put things back together, that was another story. Her gut told her Cody genuinely wanted change. He’d outgrown his hobby when he started realizing that the hot young things he’d been watching onstage were kids, not much older than his own daughter. To his credit, that had proved to be a major buzz kill. But when he tried to leave the corrupt law firm, his daughter paid the price for his rebellion. As long as Cody thought Edmonson had a hold over him, he wouldn’t do anything that might put his family at risk again. Knowing that Edmonson was dead could make all the difference in the world to the Cody family.
On the other hand, Gwen had no reason to trust Ryan Cody. For now, a bit of cautious optimism was the best she could offer.
“I’m working on something that might have an impact on your career plans. If it pans out, I’ll let you know.”
Several beats of silence passed as he processed the possibilities. “If you require representation, I’d be happy to recommend another attorney,” he said softly.
Another criminal attorney, Gwen noted, reading between the lines to the phishing expedition. Cody suspected that she was taking a less-than-legal approach to the problem of Edmonson, and his faintly eager tone suggested that he more than approved.
Gwen made some noncommittal noises and ended the call, glad she’d gone with her instincts about passing along information on Edmonson. Maybe Cody had changed his mind about kiddy porn, but he was still a sleaze.
Shortly after noon, Gwen walked up the stairs of a state-run nursing home, wearing a ball cap embossed with the name of
a made-up florist and carrying a cheap floral arrangement she’d purchased at the nearest grocery store.
She stopped at the front desk, a battered wooden relic heaped with medical charts. A thin, tired-looking woman in an old-fashioned white uniform was working her way through the stack. Gwen got the nurse’s attention and asked for Irma Williams.
The woman’s ferret-eyed gaze took in the flowers. “Hmmph. About damn time, is all I got to say.”
Gwen blinked in feigned surprise. “Delivery was guaranteed by end of the day. I’m actually a little earlier than I expected.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you, honey. It’s that son of Irma’s. Son of a bitch is more like it, no reflection on poor Irma. Haven’t seen him around here in maybe two, three years.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Be nice to your kids, I always say,” the nurse went on. “Not that you’re old enough to have kids just yet, and don’t you be in any hurry. Just remember, someday those kids will decide where you end your days. Not that there’s anything wrong with this place,” she added hastily.
Gwen managed a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“No, you won’t,” the nurse retorted. “You kids all think you’re immortal.”
“Not me,” Gwen said fervently. “What could be more depressing than knowing you were going to live forever?”
The nurse snorted in agreement and gestured toward her littered desk. “You might as well take those flowers right down to Irma. God knows there’s no place to put them here.”
Gwen got the room number and general directions, and set off down a series of halls floored in cracked, yellowed linoleum. The walls were long overdue for painting, and many of the rooms she passed were still the shade of institutional green that was considered soothing fifteen or twenty years back. The unsavory scent of lunch—liver and onions with a side of broccoli would be Gwen’s guess—competed with a strong undercurrent of unwashed bodies and unchanged Depends.
Gwen couldn’t help wondering what happened to her kind of people when they got old—or for that matter, if they got old. She couldn’t see the Elder Races warehousing their oldest members. In her more facetious moments, Sister Tamar claimed the Canadian government could afford a uniform health-care system because they set their elderly adrift on ice floes. From what Gwen had seen of the Elder Races so far, she suspected they’d employ some similar method.
She found room 321 and tapped on the open door. A tiny woman with skin like thin, crumpled brown parchment was seated by the window. She regarded Gwen with bird-bright eyes.
“Yes, dear?”
“Are you Mrs. Williams?”
The woman looked puzzled for a moment. Her expression cleared and her eyes lit up. “Yes, that’s me! Lord, I haven’t heard that name in years. The people around here are ‘Irma this, Irma that.’ Talking to me like I was a child. I’m not, you know. I’m a married woman.”
Gwen responded with a noncommittal hmm. “Where would you like me to put your flowers?”
Irma Williams flashed a radiant, toothless smile and held out her arms for the flowers. “Those would be from my Henry. He never forgets an anniversary. We’ve been married for some time, you know.”
Thanks to the report Gwen had received that morning from her information broker, she knew that Henry had been Roy Williams’s father. Roy had told Shawna O’Riley half the truth: his father was long dead. His mother was alive, but when her mind faltered under the weight of her years, she’d forgotten him and he’d apparently decided to return the favor.
She placed the flowers on the peeling windowsill, right next to Mrs. Williams.
“Enjoy them,” she said as she backed out of the room. She swiftly retraced her steps down the depressing halls, knowing that she’d completed the job Damian had asked her to do: she’d found a reason for the vague unease the cop had felt around Roy Williams.
Gwen had a fairly good idea how Shawna O’Riley would react to this news. Knowing he’d warehoused his mother would be a deal-breaker.
She could picture Shawna’s stunned indignation, but she couldn’t understand it. Yes, Roy Williams had dumped his mother in a state-run home, to an unknown fate at the hands of strangers. That was no different from what had been done to her, and Gwen couldn’t manage to summon the same level of indignation. What she had was questions. Lots of them.
She’d only recently learned that James and Ruby Avalon, not David and Regina Gellman, were her real parents.
When her parents died in a car crash, another baby girl had been strapped in Gwen’s car seat—or whatever people used thirty-four years ago when they traveled with small children. They’d taken that little girl from her crib and left Gwen in her place. Apparently this was standard practice among her kind. What had prompted her parents to do this, and what did it say about them?
It wasn’t a pretty picture from any angle. At the very least, James and Ruby Avalon had put another child at risk to save their own daughter’s life. According to Edmonson, they had brutally slaughtered the girls’ parents and left their own daughter, a changeling child, to be raised by the state.
And why were her parents running? What did they have that Wallace Edmonson wanted? Was it just the blue crystal he’d shown Gwen, or something more?
Over the years, Gwen had never given much thought to her family. During her childhood, practical matters—such as survival—had taken most of her focus, and she’d never seen much sense in dwelling on the past. But all of a sudden family was very, very important. There was no getting around it: to understand what she was, she had to know more about where she’d come from.
Even if—no, especially if—those answers were hard to face.
CHAPTER Nine
The scent of cinnamon greeted Gwen when she walked into The Green Man later that afternoon. Alice Powers hastened over, a steaming mug in hand.
“Any word of Erin?” she demanded before Gwen could speak.
“Nothing yet. In fact, I have a few more questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Would you like some tea while we talk? It’s the same kind you had the other day, only with a bit of cider and cinnamon added.”
It sounded like one of the concoctions Trudy routinely made. She was always drinking some sort of green-smelling brew laced with juice and spices and god-only-knows what else. And she wasn’t alone in this. You could actually buy the stuff in bottles at otherwise respectable coffeehouses.
“No, thanks. I’m a degenerate coffee fiend, myself.”
Alice clicked her tongue reprovingly. “A good herbal tea is much healthier, not to mention far more soothing.”
Who wanted soothing? Gwen was used to being tense and saw no reason to change.
On the other hand, Trudy would probably love this stuff, and considering their last exchange, perhaps a keep-the-peace offering was in order. Gwen picked up a box that had a label similar to the shop’s sign. “Is this it?”
“Yes. Those are loose tea leaves. It also comes in a condensed syrup that’s very convenient for making fruit-blend teas, warm or iced.”
“I’ll take one of each.”
Alice’s appraising gaze slid down Gwen, taking in her ancient leather jacket, the dozen or so cheap silver rings on her hands, and the boots from Payless, buy one pair get the second pair half-off.
“This particular tea isn’t inexpensive.”
What the hell, thought Gwen—it was on Kyle’s dime. “In that case,” she said dryly, “I’ll take two of each.”
The woman gave her an uncertain smile, but she rang up the sale and led Gwen into the tearoom. Alice sat down and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater in a getting-down-to-business gesture not usually associated with lavender cashmere.
“Now, what can I tell you?” she asked briskly.
“Anything you can think of. Any names Erin might have mentioned—friends, babysitters, her kid’s friends, whatever. Any people who came here to see her recently.”
Alice shrugged. “We’re seldom in the shop on the same day. When we are together, Erin is pleasant, but very private. She really doesn’t share much. Funny,” she mused, “but I’ve never really noticed that before.”
Apparently sharing wasn’t something Erin did. Kyle gave her a generous household allowance, but he had no idea what she spent the money on. At Gwen’s request, he’d sent a disc containing a record of their household bills, which he had scanned into a computer file and meticulously organized. Odd, that someone who was that particular about his finances would let huge chunks of cash go unaccounted for. Erin used one of Kyle’s debit cards for mundane purchases—gas, groceries, clothing, and so on—but apparently she paid cash for anything that might leave a clue to her habits.
