Chapter 91
MY IRISH LUCK that two of my favorite LAPD detectives were sent to investigate what had happened in front of Justine’s house. Lieutenant Mitch Tandy and Detective Len Ziegler were the same duo who had attempted to railroad me for my old girlfriend’s murder. I kept things professional, answered every question straight, told them I’d been with the mayor and Chief Fescoe that morning, that I’d driven to Justine’s to check on her, and what had happened during the attack.
“He said he was hired?” asked Lieutenant Tandy, a tough little guy in love with tanning beds.
“He said it was a job,” I replied. “I asked who hired him. He died.”
We were standing in Justine’s driveway. She stood off to the side, holding Joy and Luck on leashes, taking in the swarm of crime scene investigators and patrol officers who’d taken over her neighborhood.
“Convenient, he croaks like that,” said Detective Ziegler, a former swimmer gone to pot, with big shoulders and a Milwaukee tumor where his waistline should have been. He looked more and more like a walrus every time I saw him.
“For who?” I asked, already knowing where this was leading.
“You,” said Ziegler, who also seemed to approach everything in life through the prism of conspiracy theories that crystallized out of his head in all sorts of illogical shapes and sizes.
“You know, Len, for once I agree with you,” I said. “It was extremely convenient for me that he died and I didn’t. Sorry if I don’t apologize for that.”
Tandy gave a flick of his hand, calling off the conspiracy walrus. “Any idea who’d want you dead, Jack?”
I was unnerved to come up with multiple possibilities, Carmine Noccia, No Prisoners, whoever took the Harlows, and my own brother among them. But what good would telling these guys do? I’d just be asking them to stick their nose in affairs I’d rather keep quiet.
“No,” I said at last. “I’ve been doing nothing lately but spreading good cheer and doing good deeds. Ask anyone.”
“Right,” Ziegler said. “You’re a regular Thom Harlow.”
I ignored him, talked to Tandy. “You’ll tell me who he is?”
“I think you know who he is,” Ziegler said.
I did, actually. I’d searched the car and found a wallet and ID: Vladimir Karenoff, thirty-seven, resident alien currently living in Brighton Beach, New York. The car was registered in New York as well. I’d taken photos of all his documents and returned them before the police arrived.
Looking at Ziegler placidly, I said, “And I think you know I know who he is.”
“What?” Ziegler said, confused.
“I’m walking away now,” I said. “You’re sworn to uphold the law, so go find whoever tried to kill me.”
I went toward Justine and the dogs. We hadn’t had time to say much to each other since she’d called 911.
“Want some coffee?” she asked, looking anxious, sad, and wan in a way I’d never seen before.
“I’d love some.”
Inside the bungalow she had the blinds drawn, but the windows behind them were open and you could hear the vague rumor of the ongoing crime scene investigation. Every once in a while one or the other of the dogs would start growling at the noise, and Justine would hush her. My mind was clanging, and my hand was trembling at the memories of the attack. If I hadn’t gotten my foot on the pedal, who knows?
Justine came over, poured me coffee. I studied her as a way to escape my own thoughts, and as she turned, it struck me that she was carrying some heavy burden. Her not-so-perfect lover?
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just a little green around the gills. I’m not used to drinking that much on an empty stomach.”
I said nothing as she sat on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, stirring her coffee and finding it terribly interesting.
“How do you deal with it?” she asked at last.
“What are we talking about?”
“Violence,” she said. “You seem at ease during times of violence.”
“I wouldn’t say at ease,” I replied. “I was just taught to be resourceful when things get chaotic.”
“You either have the capacity for it or you don’t, I suppose,” she said.
“What’s this all …?”
She shook her head. “We’ve got more important things on our plate. I’ve been looking into Sharing Hands.”
I still wanted to know what was going on with her, but I could tell she was in no mood to go there. So I said, “The orphans’ charity?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s quite a remarkable operation.”
Justine showed me the Sharing Hands website, summarized the reviews the organization had received from various philanthropy watchdogs that cited the Harlows’ commitment and the charity’s foresight in building an endowment.
“Makes them sound like saints,” I said.
“It does,” Justine said. “Then again, how many family-values congressmen get caught with mistresses?”
“More than a few. Let’s keep digging.”
We scrolled through a dozen or more references to Sharing Hands’s good deeds before spotting an aberration in the comments section below an article about the charity that had run in the London Times two months before.
The comment was signed, “A. Aboubacar.”
Mr. Aboubacar claimed to be from Nigeria.
“They promised us an orphanage and a school,” Aboubacar wrote. “They say they have built several in my country. But ignore the Harlows’ glamour. Come here and look for yourself. There are none that I can find.”
Justine said, “He’s probably just a kook, don’t you think?”
The rest of the testimonials we’d looked at had been so uniformly full of praise that I was about to agree with her. But then I noticed something that had been staring us in the face all along.
Doors began to open in my mind, and through them I saw dimensions we’d never considered before when it came to Thom and Jennifer Harlow.
“What?” Justine said, seeing something in my expression. “You believe him?”
“We have a bunch of things to check out before I’ll say that,” I replied. “And then we’re going to have a face-to-face chat with the friendly crew over at Harlow-Quinn.”