Ortega had been in the office since seven-fifteen, studying the witness statements, the autopsy reports and any and all court records involving the victims. It was eleven-thirty when she came across it: Rigby had represented Ernest Norwin when his ex-wife tried to garnish his wages over delinquent child support payments. It wasn’t much, but it was a direct link between suspect and victim and it supported Imhoff’s claim of seeing them together, and if the captain would just okay a few days of digging, she might have enough to take the county attorney.
The captain waved her in without speaking and indicated the chair across from his desk. His vitreous were red and she had an idea he might be hungover, and when he leaned back he folded his arms across his chest in a manner that did not inspire confidence in his open-mindedness or good cheer.
“I’ve got something on the Knox-Norwin-Schuller case.”
He closed his eyes and pressed the tips of his fingers to their inner corners, and when he spoke he sounded physically pained. “The case is closed, Lieutenant. The county’s official position is that Ernie Norwin killed his two friends and at some later date killed himself at the same locale.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He leaned forward and opened his eyes. “I’m not sure I do, but barring some spectacular revelation I’m not inclined to waste any more man-hours on it.”
“I have a witness.”
He raised an eyebrow. “To the murders?”
“Okay, no, but he saw my suspect with Ernie Norwin at the Shanty, and earlier he’d heard Billy Knox talking about a lawyer who’d busted his jaw over a debt.”
The captain was giving her the look he gave cops he considered to be wasting his or the department’s time, a dubious half-smirk with his left eye asquint. “Heard a dead man talking about a lawyer. That’ll be a fun moment at trial, when the whole defense table jumps up at once and yells, ‘Objection!’”
“This lawyer also represented Ernie Norwin on a child support beef.”
The captain shook his head and let loose with a nasty rasp of a chuckle. “Ortega, you know better than this. If these people were upstanding, taxpaying citizens and there was any sort of pressure whatsoever, I’d say sure, look into this lawyer. Or if you had something more solid to show.”
Heading down the corridor toward the garage, it felt as though the only thing that would make her feel better was the opportunity to punch someone in the face. She’d skipped breakfast, and if she didn’t get some food into her soon she was liable to do just that, so she drove downtown and sat at the counter at the coffee shop outside the Best Western. The Santa Barbara NBC affiliate’s noon newscast was just coming on as her BLT arrived, the anchor breathlessly promising something that would turn the community on its ear. murder in montecito, read the graphic over an image of a stately, early-twentieth-century mansion. She had just taken her first bite and was only three bites in when she almost inhaled it at the sight of the presumed perpetrator being led away from the house in cuffs.
Sullen and cunning, he looked like he’d kill for the price of a pack of cigarettes. ventura attorney held without bail, the next caption read, and Rigby’s face was replaced by that of a humorless thirtyish woman.
nina nordmann, witness
“I heard noises, something like a struggle, and then it stopped, and when I looked out the window I saw Mr. Rigby leaving out the front door. Then this morning I found Mr. Haskill. We all thought it was a heart attack, he was ninety-six, but then I saw the mustache print on the pillow and I knew he’d been smothered. That’s when I called the sheriff’s department.”
A short montage of old TV shows replaced the woman, and Ortega resumed chewing. Fucking Santa Barbara got him. No point pursuing any of this anyway, but at least she could hold it over the captain that she’d been right about this character.