CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“What do you think? More cheese? Less cheese? Different cheese?”
Keith held up a measuring cup of shredded mozzarella and looked inquiringly at Veronica across the kitchen island. She was slicing tomatoes but paused mid chop to look up with one raised brow.
“When is the answer ever less cheese?”
“Fair point.” He dumped the entire cup into the mixing bowl and started to stir.
It was Wednesday night, the first “Daddy-Daughter Dinner” since Logan’s departure a week earlier. Keith hadn’t seen Veronica much in the past week. Ostensibly, she’d been out of the office, busy with a few minor cases, but Keith knew she was struggling to keep her feelings about Logan hidden and controlled.
She’d always thought she was good at that. He never had the heart to tell her he could see right through it.
At least there was plenty to keep her busy. She’d started on a few new cases, picking up the slack so he could focus on Eli’s upcoming trial. Now Keith’s part in the preparations was more or less over. He’d found all the witnesses he could and convinced several to testify, looking into their cases to select the most credible for the witness stand. In the meantime, he’d put security measures in place, installing cameras and panic buttons at both Eli’s and Lisa’s places, showing them what to inspect on their cars before getting in, in case of sabotage. Lisa had been unfazed by the entire process but Eli was openly unnerved.
“For real? You think someone might try to take me out?”
Keith had held out his scarred arms at his sides as if to say, “Exhibit A.” “Do you really think a meth head hit Sacks’s car in January?”
The trial was three weeks away now, and Keith’s nerves were on edge. He realized he was waiting for some shoe to drop—but how? Lamb probably wouldn’t have the stones to do anything overtly violent given all the publicity, but he wasn’t about to roll over and give up. The thought made him uneasy.
Keith refocused his attention on the lasagna. With artful delicacy he sprinkled the last bit of mozzarella over the lasagna pan and looked at his work. An odd little flicker moved in his chest. “Your grandma made the best lasagna. I’ve never been able to get the sauce quite right.”
Veronica put down the knife and rested her chin against her fist. “You know, you’ve been weirdly nostalgic lately. Is this just the ravages of time at work, or is something wrong?”
“Hey, a grown man can miss his mommy without shame.”
“Yeah, he can, but it’s not just Grandma. You’ve been talking about high school and racing your ’78 GTO in the streets of Omaha. I’m just waiting for the day you pull a Werther’s Original out of your pocket and try to give it to Pony.”
Keith put on a Grandpa Simpson voice and bent over. “That reminds me of the time I went to Hampton, which is what they called Hampstead in those days, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time….”
She threw a towel at him. “All right, wise guy, deflect away. Just remember, I was a psych major. I can see right through your emotional repression.”
Then that makes two of us, doesn’t it? The thought made him smile. Mars and Mars, always trying to believe they’re the best spy in the room, when they know each other’s tells by heart.
“Okay, Dr. Mars. Maybe I have been waxing a little nostalgic.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s partly seeing Marcia again. Most of the people I knew back then have moved on. Both my parents are dead. Not a lot of people to talk with about ye olden days.”
“So were you guys friends?” She took a carrot from the veggie platter and crunched it between her teeth. “I mean, it’s kind of funny. You both ended up cops, and you lived, what, three houses from each other?”
He hesitated. Friends. He’d been expecting a question like that for a while, but he still didn’t know how to answer it. To buy a little time, he scooped up Pony, who’d gotten so big he had to bend his knees to lift her.
“No,” he finally said. “Not friends. But I liked her. She wasn’t exactly a laugh riot, but she had a very dry wit. She was a little bit prickly and didn’t take any crap.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Veronica said.
Somehow, the idea made his jaw tighten. It wasn’t a bad comparison, really; Marcia had been smart, driven, and ambitious. All the things he’d loved in his daughter. All the things he’d tried to raise her to be. But he shook his head.
“She could also be uncompromising and a little judgmental. But that was thirty-five years ago. We were both kids. I don’t really know what she’s like now, other than that she’s got a glorious military record and talks a great game on the stump.”
“You think she’ll do a good job?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s been in CID for a long time and that’s a tough gig, so I’m sure she can handle herself. And she can’t possibly do any worse than Lamb.”
“True dat.”
He was bent over the oven, about to slide the lasagna in, when both of their phones chimed at once. Veronica grabbed hers first.
“It’s Cliff,” she said. He shut the oven door and straightened up to see her frown. “He says, ‘Channel Four, stat.’?”
The vague paranoia that’d been lingering inside him for weeks suddenly spiked into full-blown anxiety. He lunged for the remote and turned on the little kitchen set. Visions of car crashes or “accidental” falls darted through his head, Lisa or Eli lying in pools of blood.
But when the picture appeared on Channel Four, his heart seemed to calcify in his chest.
Weevil stood at a podium in front of the courthouse, wearing the slacks and jacket Keith had bought him. Camera flashes lit his face in erratic bursts. He leaned forward to speak into the microphone in a serious tone.
“You know, I’m just a regular guy, and all these fancy lawyers had me all turned around. This lawsuit-crazy society we’re living in makes us think we can solve all our problems by suing somebody instead of just sitting down and talking it out, you know?”
Keith groaned out loud and plunked down into a chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Veronica doing likewise on one of the island stools. He stared at the screen, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing and hearing.
“I mean, the truth of the matter is that mistakes were made in my case. But after talking at great length with Sheriff Lamb, I just don’t believe that’s evidence of some kind of institutional problem,” Weevil said. “I’m satisfied that the sheriff is gonna make this right so that no one has to go through this again.”
“You fucking weasel,” Veronica hissed.
“Mr. Navarro, how much are you settling for?” a reporter shouted.
He leaned in. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss the terms.”
That was when Keith remembered the remote in his hand, and turned off the TV.
“That fucking weasel!” Veronica repeated. “After everything we’ve done for him. After everything we’ve been through to get him out of this mess…”
“Language,” Keith said. His voice sounded faraway to him, muted and strange. He turned to look at her.
“But, Dad, he…we…” she sputtered. “You almost died trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Weevil. You’ve spent months building this case. You of all people should be furious.”
“And I am. Believe me, I am,” he said, speaking with controlled intensity. “But there’s nothing we can do about it right now, Veronica. So we might as well sit down and have a nice dinner, the way we planned. We’re not going to strike any blows against Lamb by starving ourselves.”
“Against Lamb? Oh, no. When I get my hands on Weevil…”
He took a deep breath. “Honey, let’s just drop it. We’ve barely seen each other in weeks. There’s half a season of True Detective on the DVR for us to get through, and in forty minutes we’ve got six thousand calories of molten cheese and Italian sausage coming out of the oven.” He put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s Daddy-Daughter Dinner night. I don’t want these people to take that away from us too.”
Keith tried to sound gentle, but he couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. Because he’d been waiting, braced for a dirty fight, but he’d never expected this. Never expected Eli Navarro to bail. A dull, sick feeling was spreading through him. Veronica looked up at her father, her eyes still fierce, but when she saw his face she softened, clearly worried.
“Okay. Come on, let’s go sit down.”
She led him toward the door to the living room. Then she paused, Pony bumping into her shins.
“You know, I’ve always thought your sauce was about perfect,” she said. She squeezed him around the waist, and then held open the door for him to pass.