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accuse me of dealing drugs. Really. I think we’re done here.”
Irritated, Yoshi felt AJ rise to her feet. She did the same. On the way
down in the elevator, she examined her reasons for bringing AJ along
to the meeting. She wanted the security of a police officer, and one who
looked sufficiently frightening that Yoshi felt safe in her company. She
also wanted to see how AJ conducted herself in an interview. She had
a lot to learn about when to apply pressure and when to sit back and
listen. Even being fed phony information could reveal something about
the truth it was designed to hide. They might have gotten that far with
Devlin if they’d handled the meeting more delicately.
AJ said what Yoshi was already thinking. “He played us.”
Yoshi nodded. Devlin had learned exactly what he had hoped
to by agreeing to their interview, and more to the point, he had fed
them exactly the information he had intended to. What was he hiding?
She was almost positive he was afflicted with hidden perversions that
drove him to devote so much energy to his new porn company. Had
Jeff somehow threatened Devlin’s dream of a porn empire and paid
for it with his life? Did Devlin kill Jeff in order to have Tyrone to
himself? It was certainly creepy how Devlin referred to Tyrone as “my
Tyrone.” That spoke to just the kind of controlling relationship Tyrone
had alluded to.
Yoshi did not know what flavor Devlin’s perversions were
and whether they, or his obsessive relationship with Tyrone, lay
behind Jeff’s death. This meeting, however, more than anything else
they’d learned so far, suggested that Jeff had died under suspicious
circumstances. And those circumstances had Chase Devlin prints all
over them.
• 163 •
DIANE AND JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL
At the Blind Eye Detective Agency, Tucker stared at her cell
phone, urging it to ring. Three luminescent bars taunted her, proving
the problem wasn’t a lack of service. She dialed her mailbox. Still no
new messages. Just like the last time she checked, five minutes ago.
Maybe she should call and leave another message. Just because Velvet
didn’t want to be bothered didn’t necessarily mean that she wouldn’t
appreciate Tucker checking in, did it?
They hadn’t gone this long without speaking since before the
Rosemary Finney case. They always called each other at work at least
once during the day, just to say hi or leave a message full of innuendo.
Tucker punched in seven numbers and hit Send. A moment later
she heard the phone in Yoshi’s office ringing, and the light for the
extension throbbed red. She ended her call and Yoshi’s phone went
silent. That proves it. There’s nothing wrong with my phone. So why
hadn’t Velvet called?
Tucker could tell Velvet’s home phone was still working because
she’d gotten Velvet’s answering machine each of the fifty times she’d
dialed. That probably just meant Velvet wasn’t home. But not being
home didn’t explain why Velvet hadn’t answered her work line or her
cell phone, nor called Tucker back in response to the many messages.
Tucker was beginning to get really worried. But she was in a bind.
Was it better to give Velvet the space she said she wanted or invade
that space to ensure she was okay? Maybe she should she call the
police. She could pretend Velvet was her frail grandmother who might
have fallen and ask them to do a welfare check by driving over to the
house.
But what if Velvet wasn’t home and was lying in a ditch
someplace? Should she pretend Velvet’s car got stolen so the police
would go out looking for it? That option seemed to be the kind of thing
that would land Tucker in hot water. With Velvet and the police. She
put away her phone, reasoning with herself that Velvet would be fine.
This was Velvet Erickson, intrepid grrl reporter, after all, not some
anxious country girl afraid of the city’s dark corners. Velvet was just
taking time to grieve in her own way. Her not answering the phone
didn’t mean anything.
Later, when Tucker got off work, she could catch BART to
Sixteenth Street and flatfoot it to Bernal Heights. If she came bearing
gifts, Velvet would be glad to see her. Tucker would just pop in,
make sure she was okay and didn’t need anything, and then go spend
• 164 •
BLIND LEAP
the night at her basement apartment in Oakland and let Velvet sleep
alone.
Tucker forced thoughts of Velvet out of her mind and focused
on the digital photographs Bud had taken of Jeff’s office. They didn’t
seem to tell her anything more than being in Jeff’s office had. Just the
same meticulously organized desk and alphabetized books on the big
bookshelves.
Tucker opened another image of two gray file cabinets. The Drew
Carey–like Jennifer Morris had said one held paperwork about each of
the films that had played Frameline’s festival over the years. The other
cabinet, which was locked, apparently held more sensitive material
like employee files, fiscal records, and information about Frameline’s
financial supporters. Tucker had thought the contents of that cabinet
would be of most interest to an intruder, but Morris assured them that
the file lock had not been tampered with and nothing was missing.
Tucker wasn’t sure if that was really proof of anything. Couldn’t
someone have forced Jeff to open the file cabinet and photocopy
material they were interested in? Bud hadn’t insisted on Morris opening
the locked drawers, so Tucker couldn’t even look at file names on the
chance one would be a clue. In her PI course, she’d learned that the
odds of solving a crime reduce dramatically after the first forty-eight
hours. She could see why. The more time passed, the more evidence
would be lost and people forgot things. Even now, the POIs they were
interviewing had to think back more than a month, and it wasn’t as if [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]