CHAPTER THREE
“Congratulations!”
Cindy “Mac” Mackenzie met them at the door of Mars Investigations, her elfin face stretched in a smile.
Veronica threw her purse down on an end table. “Free man, coming through. Stand back, everybody!”
Behind her, Keith and Cliff filed in. Weevil brought up the rear, looking dazed.
The Mars Investigations office was dim and cool, a relief from the sweltering heat outside. Dust motes glittered in the bars of light falling through the blinds. The rented space looked and felt industrial, more in terms of its original function—brewing enormous vats of lager—than any conscious design mode. It had twenty-foot ceilings and stained concrete floors. The rooms were so big they were hard to light, and deep shadows pooled in the corners. The one part of the room you might call “sleek and modern” was Mac’s desk, laden with computer equipment. Some clients wondered why a receptionist needed five different monitors. More observant ones realized Mac probably wasn’t just answering phones.
“Cleared of all charges?” Mac asked now, looking at Weevil.
“Every last one.” Weevil grinned. He shed his suit coat and unbuttoned his pressed blue button-down, revealing a white tank top underneath.
From the far side of the room, Cliff’s two-fingered newsie whistle silenced the crowd. “Attention, please!” he shouted. “If I could just have everyone’s attention. The bar is officially open. And for this special occasion I brought the middle-shelf Scotch. None of that rotgut swill we usually drink.” Cliff held the bottle aloft.
“Today, we are victors, and to the victors goes the Johnnie Walker Red Label.” Keith went to the kitchenette in the corner and started pulling down glasses.
“Cliff seems pretty jazzed,” Mac said to Veronica.
“He should be. Mr. McCormack was great,” Veronica said, raising her voice so Cliff could hear. “By the time he finished proving reasonable doubt I wasn’t even sure Weevil actually existed.”
“Thank you, Veronica,” Cliff said. “Coming from an almost-lawyer, that praise means a lot to me.” He accepted a glass from Keith. “Truth be told, we really lucked out. If that informant hadn’t retracted his story, this could have been a whole different show.”
Keith gave Veronica a knowing look. “Yeah. Lucky, that.”
She pretended not to notice. Okay, so she’d been the one to tell Weevil about that snitch. It wasn’t like she’d encouraged him to track the guy down and…do whatever he’d done to invoke his better angels.
She brushed the train of thought aside. It didn’t matter now. The important thing was that Weevil’s name was clear. Cliff was right; if that stoolie had still been willing to talk when they went to trial, the prosecution might have won and Weevil would be doing time for a crime he didn’t commit.
Cliff held up his glass, half full of warm-amber liquid. “What should we drink to? The best defense lawyer taxpayer money can buy?”
“Hey!” Veronica frowned. Cliff, Keith, and Weevil all had cups. Keith hadn’t brought one for her or Mac. “What is this, Sterling Cooper 1963? Where’s mine?”
“What, you drink Scotch now?” Keith raised an eyebrow.
“I drink victory Scotch!” Veronica said over her shoulder as she ducked into the kitchen to fetch some glasses.
“For the record,” Mac said, “I also drink Scotch. But I’m not picky. I’ll take the victory Scotch, or the Scotch of defeat. Or the rotgut swill.”
Veronica returned with two glasses. She thrust one at Mac, grabbed the bottle from Cliff, and poured a couple of Big Gulp–sized drinks, ignoring Keith’s amused look.
“As I was saying,” Cliff continued. “To…me. And to everyone else who helped a little bit too.”
They all lifted their glasses, clinking them gently together.
Veronica took a small sip—the Scotch seared her throat, and she swallowed a mangled cough along with the booze. Mac smirked, taking a long pull from her own glass without flinching.
“Lamb didn’t look happy, did he?” Cliff said, his eyes twinkling over the top of his glass.
“I watched the press conference before you got here,” Mac said, sitting on the edge of her desk, legs crossed. “Lamb said he’s doing ‘a fine-tooth investigation in the department’; he’s ‘redoubling his efforts to find the stolen evidence.’ Blah, blah, blah. The same brain-dead derp our local media normally feast on like starving goldfish. Only this time they didn’t. They were, like, grilling the dude. Seriously. I thought he might cry when Martina Vasquez asked him if there was ‘a fundamental problem with leadership in the Sheriff’s Department.’?”
As drink refills continued, the debriefing maintained a steady if increasingly ragged energy. The group kept up their Lamb-basting exercise a while longer, then moved on to Celeste Kane, the prosecuting attorney, and the population of Neptune at large. Keith and Cliff huddled, reminiscing about cases from their shared past, Cliff listing ever more to starboard as the Scotch supply dwindled. Mac leaned over her computer, futzing with a nineties rap playlist. Veronica watched Weevil for a moment as he stood looking out the window. Outside, people were heading toward their cars from the offices and warehouses up and down the street, clothed in the transitional neighborhood’s mix of paint-spattered coveralls and business casual. She suddenly realized it wasn’t the street life Weevil was watching; it was his own reflection, faint in the glass. She walked over to him and set her empty glass on the windowsill.
“So what’s next for you, now that you’ve got your life back?” Veronica asked, trying to keep her voice cheerful.
Weevil glanced at her, then turned back to the window. “If this is getting my life back, we set the bar way too low.” He studied the liquid in his glass, swirling it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled not to be headed off to prison. But I lost my business. I’m only working half-time at the garage—and even if they wanted to offer me more hours I couldn’t take them, because my rotator cuff is perma-fucked. I still got medical bills piling up, and still I gotta pay you guys and Cliff…”
“No, you don’t,” she said quickly. “We didn’t really do anything.”
Weevil shook his head. “Man, I know you guys tracked down all those poor chumps who got busted with planted evidence. You did the work, even if we didn’t get to use it.”
“Forget it.” She waved a hand.
“I always pay my debts, V. You know that.”
Veronica let it drop. She could argue with him, try to get him to let her work pro bono, but what was the point? She knew better. Because in some ways, she and Weevil were the same kind of animal. Prideful, independent, and prickly.
Weevil startled her with a rueful laugh. “Go ahead and say it, Veronica: ‘Shut the fuck up, Navarro, at least your brown ass ain’t headed to Chino next week.’?”
Veronica smiled. “Consider it said. Seriously, your luck is way overdue for a turnaround. And for now, Jade must be thrilled. Where is she, anyway? I’d have expected her to be ready for a drink too.”
His flinch was almost imperceptible, a downward flicker of his eyelashes. Veronica’s stomach dropped.
“I, uh…I told her I’d meet up with her later.” He sighed. “Truth is, me and Jade…we haven’t been so good these last couple months. She’s…uh…been living with her mom out in Pan Valley.”
“Weevil…” Veronica murmured, thrown for a loop. Weevil’s lips tightened.
“It just makes more sense, you know? Rita can watch Valentina during the day. I’ve been so busy with Cliff, gettin’ ready for the trial and all, and Jade’s had to pick up more hours since I lost the garage.”
“Plus, I bet she’s not so into you being back on the bike,” Veronica said, sensing an apt time to broach this touchy subject. Or into your boys dragging you out at all hours to do God knows what.
“Yeah, well. There’s a lot about my life—and about me—that she’s not into these days.” He ran his hand over the back of his head. “And I ain’t saying I blame her. She grew up with someone looking out for her. She never had to make a choice between breaking the law or sleeping in a drainage ditch.” He shrugged. “With any luck, neither will Valentina.”
Her eyes narrowed. Before the night of the attack, she’d seen how happy he was—how he loved his wife and doted on his little girl. She’d seen pictures of him cradling Valentina as a baby, of the two of them playing on the beach, of trick-or-treating with her dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and him as the Big Bad Wolf. And now he was trying to tell her it was okay if he lost his family, that it was somehow for the best? She’d been left by a parent who couldn’t take the heat. She’d been left, and it had taken over a decade to forgive her mom for what she’d done.
But before she could say anything, a dry male voice came from the doorway.
“Excuse me?”
They all looked up to see a man standing just inside the propped-open door. His suit was charcoal gray, and he held a black leather briefcase in one hand. He glanced around the room with an expression of mild irritation.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, loud enough to cut through the Missy Elliott. “This is Mars Investigations, isn’t it?”
The room was silent for a few lingering seconds. Mac cut the music, then Keith stood up from the sofa and stepped toward him, his hand outstretched. “Yes, it is. Please excuse the noise. We just wrapped on a case and we’re taking a little time to celebrate. I’m Keith Mars.”
The man took Keith’s hand, giving it a perfunctory pump.
“My name is Joe Hickman. I’m a claims adjustor with the Preuss Insurance Company. We have a rather delicate problem I’d like to discuss. At your earliest convenience.” His eyes swept around the room, taking in the shabby furniture, the tipsy lawyer on the sofa, and the tattooed biker by the window.
Keith gestured toward his open office door. “If you’d like to step into my office we can speak more privately…”
Hickman’s expression didn’t alter. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mars, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I was hoping to hire Veronica. Petra Landros from the Neptune Grand Hotel referred us to her.”
The room was suddenly intensely quiet, all eyes turning toward Veronica. Mac gave her a helpless shrug. Veronica couldn’t quite bring herself to look at her dad.
The tension was broken by the sound of pouring. Veronica looked to the sofa, where Cliff was refreshing his drink. He noticed everyone looking at him, and arched an eyebrow.
“What? Do you know how rarely I win criminal cases? I’m not done celebrating, even if things did just get awkward.”
Veronica sprang into action, as much to escape the tense moment as to impress Hickman with her eagerness. She stepped past Keith and opened her office door.
“Please,” she said. “This way.”
Hickman followed her through to her inner office. Just before she shut the door behind him, she caught a glimpse of Cliff topping off her father’s drink.