Tom’s red Porsche 911 was outside his office.
Maria pulled into the parking lot and parked next to it. Eyed the building. The office was in a legal center, the kind of place where a bunch of attorneys shared a receptionist and had their own separate offices. The receptionist was still at her desk even though it was late. Tom’s office was lower right. The window that corresponded with his personal office was lit, but the front area where he’d greet clients was dark. Tom was working late but not expecting visitors.
Maria got out of the car and walked over to look through the window. Saw Tom with his head down, going over something. He seemed to be alone.
Maria ran over what she wanted to ask him. Dillon Mathers. Les. His lies. Tom would keep lying, and the truth was, she didn’t have a pressure point except for the notation. She’d have to lie and say the notation spelled Tom out explicitly. Any good attorney could run circles around a single “T,” and, if nothing else, Tom was an excellent attorney. But even being listed in a notebook, it probably wouldn’t be enough to make him crack. She’d need to come up with something, and relatively quickly because she was running out of time. The seed of an idea came into her head.
Maria went to the front door and walked inside.
The receptionist was standing behind the desk, looking around, her purse already slung over her shoulder.
“Don’t worry about me,” Maria said.
“Do you have an appointment?” the woman said.
“I don’t need one.” Maria flashed her badge and went towards Tom’s office.
The door was unlocked, and Maria walked into the waiting area. The lights had a motion sensor and clicked on. The room was all wood and comfortable chairs. Against the far wall was the door to Tom’s inner office.
Behind her the receptionist was making a call. The phone on the other side of the door rang.
A few seconds later, the door opened. Tom glared at her.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Maria brushed past him and settled into a chair in front of his desk. She checked the time on her phone. Wondered if Carla was still alive and then pushed the thought from her head.
Tom sighed. Closed the door and walked around the desk.
“I repeat, what do you want?” Tom said.
“I want to know why you lied to me, and this time, Tom, you have definite liability for obstruction of justice, so I’d get real forthcoming, real quick, if I were you,” Maria said.
Tom laughed. Rolled his eyes.
“I’m sure that stern voice works amazingly with the idiots you deal with daily. Seriously, how dumb would you say your average suspect is? Do they even get to monkey levels of intelligence?” Tom said.
“You were the one who hired Les to go after Patrick Miller,” Maria said.
“Even if that was true, which I’m not saying it is, but even if it was true, so what?” Tom said.
“You lied to me,” Maria said.
“I don’t have an obligation to be honest with you, Detective Varela,” Tom said.
“You do when I’m asking questions related to a homicide investigation,” Maria said.
“Do you suspect Patrick Miller of killing Les?” Tom said.
“I don’t know,” Maria said.
“Doesn’t sound like much of an investigation to be obstructing. You don’t even know who your suspect is. And to be clear, I never obstructed any investigation,” Tom said.
“You told me, no one was paying Les to do the current investigation, but I have notations in his handwriting stating that he needs to send you some receipts for reimbursement,” Maria said.
“Reimbursing someone for expenses and paying someone to perform an investigation are two different things. Really, sometimes I wonder if the police and criminals have the same level of intelligence,” Tom said.
“Sounds like a distinction without a point,” Maria said.
“Then you don’t understand the meaning of the word, distinction,” Tom said.
He picked up a tablet from his desk and put it into a briefcase.
“If there’s nothing else, I need to get going,” Tom said.
“Oh Tom, we’re just getting started,” Maria said.
“Am I being detained? Because if I am, I will be invoking my right to counsel,” Tom said.
“Did you hear about what happened to Ariella Matos?” Maria asked.
“I don’t know who that is,” Tom said.
“She was kidnapped and chained to a chair and watched via livestream,” Maria said.
“Sounds delightfully kinky,” Tom said.
“I’m still not sure why. At first, I thought it was tied to her father. He’s a Bangladeshi gangster who apparently was deeply involved with arms smuggling that involves members of the US military,” Maria said.
“Am I supposed to care about any of this?” Tom said.
“So I found her in a shack in California handcuffed to the chair, and as I was freeing her, someone shot her through the head from long range with a sniper rifle and then lit up the shack trying to kill me,” Maria said.
“I’m so happy they missed. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you boring me to tears with these increasingly inane conversations we’re starting to have rather regularly,” Tom said.
“The thing is Tom, now the person who kidnapped Ariella and killed her has kidnapped my girlfriend. He chained her to a chair and sent me a picture, so if you don’t think I’ll break every fucking bone in your body until you tell me what I want to know, you are deluded,” Maria said.
“That’s a dangerously illegal comment, Detective,” Tom said.
“Ask me if I give a fuck,” Maria said. She stood up from her chair and pulled the baton off of her waist and extended it.
Tom went white.
“Now, am I kicking your ass or are you going to start telling me the truth?” Maria said.
The thing was, the rumors about Patrick Miller being in bed with developers weren’t true. At least not anymore. When he’d started campaigning, he’d made a big deal of how much he cared about development and clearing red tape and annoying environmental reviews. He would be an obvious upgrade over the current governor who seemed to actually be concerned about water conservation, but then Patrick had changed his tune. He wouldn’t even meet with any developers anymore. He even returned their money. So, the developers were doing everything they could to stop Patrick from winning the governorship.
Which was where Les came in.
“It’s tricky, writing an article about a politician,” Tom said.
“I see them all the time. It’s like you can say whatever you want because they’re public figures,” Maria said.
“Yes, and no. A true reporter can, but if it came out that Les was being paid for the reporting, well, you could run into some serious problems with federal laws,” Tom said, so Les was doing the investigation on his own. Tom was reimbursing for some extra expenses, but the final work product had to be a regular news article. Later on, after the furor died down, Les would be hired to do some puff pieces, profiles, stuff like that, for a substantially higher pay than normal.
“What does Ariella Matos have to do with all of this?” Maria said.
“I don’t even know who the hell that is,” Tom said.
“I don’t have time for evasions,” Maria said.
“I’m not evading anything. I had to be well away from this investigation. I had no knowledge of how he was going about it. The last time I saw him and his assistant, they told me everything was on track. They’d found something suspicious about Patrick Miller. Something unexpected but they needed confirmation,” Tom said.
“And you didn’t press for more information?” Maria said.
“I didn’t want to know. I wanted to be able to say that I had no knowledge when it came out,” Tom said.
“His assistant? Nancy?” Maria said.
Tom wrinkled his nose. He’d never heard of Nancy.
“Who was Les’s assistant then?” Maria said.
“Some guy. I think his name started with a P. Maybe Pablo. Or Paulo,” Tom said.
“Pedro?” Maria said.
“Yeah, that’s it. You know him?” Tom said.
“Yeah, another liar, just like you,” Maria said.
Maria turned. Started to head for the door.
“Detective, were you really going to strike me with that baton?” Tom said.
“Is there anyone in this world that you truly love?” Maria asked.
“Of course,” Tom said.
“If that person was in danger and the person in front of you could help you but was refusing to, what would you do to that person to get the information that you needed?” Maria said.
“And the thing about your girlfriend, that’s the truth?” Tom said.
“Did I look like I was making it up?” Maria said.
“The editor-in-chief of the newspaper,” Tom said.
“Jessica Pool? What about her?”
“Les kept her in the loop about everything he had going on, and she always got a piece of the action at the end,” Tom said.
“Does anybody tell the truth around here?” Maria said.
“This city was built on the lie of beating the house. You’d think you would be used to it,” Tom said.
Outside, Maria found Michael leaning against the car. He tried to force a smile across his face, but it was a wasted effort. Today wasn’t a day for smiling.
“Shouldn’t you be on the couch?” Maria said.
“Your mother called me,” Michael said.
“How did she get your number?”
“Beats the shit out of me, but she’s worried about you,” Michael said.
“I don’t have time for my mother’s concerns right now.”
“Millie called me too.”
“Another person I don’t have time for at the moment. You should go home and rest. I have a lot to do, and I don’t have time for chitchat,” Maria said.
“I can drive, and I can shoot,” Michael said.
“You’ve been out of the hospital for like a week,” Maria said.
Michael reached his hand out.
“You going to hand over the keys or are we going to go back and forth for another five minutes,” he said.
Maria could feel the tears building in her eyes. She blinked. Fought them back. Searching for Carla was hard enough. Doing it alone had been borderline unbearable.
“I’m still kicking your ass later for letting her go out the door,” Maria said.
“I’ve been kicking my own ass plenty for that. Now let’s get to work,” Michael said.