I sighed. “Or someone else who’s got it in for Dale.”
“Doesn’t seem like he’s got any enemies in the cop shop,” Alex said. “I got to all the guys he gave as possible alibi witnesses, and they gave me more cops to talk to. No one had a bad thing to say about him.”
I thought about that. If it wasn’t professional, maybe it was personal. “Michelle, can you get me the contact information for Dale’s exes?” A cop’s ex-wife might know whom to bribe and how to get to them.
If I could prove an ex-wife with a vendetta was going after Dale, I might be able to garner a little sympathy for him. Unless it turned out he’d been beating her every day. In which case I’d forget I ever met her.
I thought about Lane Ockman again, how Michy had been so excited that we were getting another paying customer, and shook my head. “Ockman was supposed to be the new client who’d help keep us in the black. And he turns out to be Scarface-”
Michelle looked furious. “Worse. At least Scarface paid his lawyers.”
Alex gave an ironic, half twist of a smile. “Well, I’m sure Ockman has money.”
I nodded. “Guess I should’ve given him my card.”
THIRTY-NINE
“So what are we going to do with the Jaylene angle?” Alex asked.
I wasn’t about to let Ockman shut down a viable straw man. “Do what you can to check out her alibi without getting caught.” No reason to risk life and limb if she was reading to blind orphans the night of the murders. I looked at my watch. “Oh jeez, I’ve got to move.” I picked up my purse and blazer. “I need to see how Dale’s doing.”
Michelle sighed and went back to her desk.
It took less time to drive downtown than it did to get through security. I was relieved to see that Dale was already looking better. And he said they’d had a guard posted by his bed all night.
“Did he stay awake?”
Dale smiled. “Mostly.”
After our visit, I went to the attorney room. I had to find out what I could do to beef up Dale’s security a little more.
When Tuck Rosenberg walked into the attorney room, his wide mouth spread into a smile. He was a Viking-size man, and he filled the little cubicle. The phone looked like a Barbie-doll toy in his hand. “How you doin’, Counselor?”
“I’m good. How’re they treating you?”
“I got no complaints. It’s good to be among friends.”
Meaning: he’d hooked up with some Aryan Brotherhood clique. Which I expected and hoped would come in handy right now. “I need to ask a favor.”
“You kidding? Anything you want, just name it.”
“I have a client who had some… trouble with someone here.” I gave him Dale’s name and told him about the stabbing.
“That the cop who’s in for murder?” I nodded. “Where is he?”
“In maximum. And this is what I know about the guy who set it up.” I told him about Ockman-according to Alex, real name Glen Ricker-and his visit to my office, then held up my cell phone and showed him a still shot I’d made from the video. “He talked like he had a big dope operation. It might be true; it might be bullshit. But he’s threatening to sic his dog on Dale again, and I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Tuck stared at the photo for a few seconds, then nodded. “I don’t know the guy, but I can ask around. See if I can find out who he’s got in here.”
“In the meantime, do you have anyone in maximum?” Tuck had a short-term sentence. He was in the general population.
Tuck thought for a moment. “I think I do. Want someone to keep an eye on your man?”
“If you could.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks, Tuck. I owe you. And if you happen to run into the jerk who did the stabbing…” The chances of that were slimmer than my bank account, but you never can tell. Stranger things have happened.
Tuck smiled. “I’ll be sure to tell him you said hello.”
“That’ll work.”
FORTY
I’d planned to check in on Dale every day, but with the trial getting closer by the minute, I had less and less time to spare. Alex had taken over the visitation duty for me.
And as usual, now that I was pressed for time, no one had time for me. During the next three weeks, Michelle tried to track down Dale’s second ex-wife, Bobbi, and Russell Kitson, that photographer friend of Paige’s.
According to his assistant, Russell was booked solid and wouldn’t have a day off for at least a month. Bobbi was no easier.
I didn’t make Dale’s first ex-wife, Tracy, as someone who’d go to the trouble of leaking the Jenny story to hurt him. From all I’d heard and seen, they were getting along just fine. Besides, they had a child together, Lisa. The last thing Tracy would want to do was ruin Lisa’s father.
His second wife, Bobbi, however, checked all the boxes. They’d been married nine and a half years-plenty of time to rack up all kinds of grudges. But more important, Bobbi had been a 9-1-1 dispatcher. She was an insider. She could’ve found a way to get her hands on Dale’s personnel records.
At first, Bobbi seemed willing to meet. I’d thought maybe my suspicion about her was wrong. But after she made and broke four appointments, I was starting to believe I’d found the leaker.
And then, with just one week to go before the trial started, Bobbi finally agreed to see me. She suggested a Denny’s near her house. I’d been so wrapped up in the case, I hadn’t thought about whether I was personally curious to see what kind of woman Dale had married. But now, waiting for her in that diner, I realized I was.
I recognized her the moment she walked in the door. Bobbi was a little shorter than I was-and curvier, with a golden tan, shoulder-length blonde hair, and blue eyes that smiled when she did.
Dale definitely had a type. If you took away the warmth of that smile, she could’ve been my mother.
But there was something shadowed about Bobbi’s expression, and there was a nervousness in the way she looked around the diner. I decided to edge in slowly with her, so I started with general questions about how long she and Dale had been married, how they’d met (at a retirement party for her boss), and where they’d lived (Granada Hills-another bedroom community in the North Valley).
Finally, I asked whether they were still on speaking terms.
She looked surprised. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”
Too stunned to come up with a lie, I stammered out the truth. “I-I… Dale told me that… you wouldn’t have anything good to say.” Now that I’d gone this far, I might as well tell her the rest. “He doesn’t know I’m meeting with you.”
Bobbi looked perplexed at first, then she nodded and gave me a sad little smile. “Can I trust you to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself?”
“If you’re sure that won’t screw Dale.”
She looked into my eyes for a long moment. “It won’t screw Dale. First, let me assure you, there’s no bad blood between us. None whatsoever. Our marriage broke up because he was married to the job, and I desperately wanted out of mine.” Bobbi stared out the window for a long moment. “9-1-1 is a twenty-four-hour line of death and ruination and misery. Some people can take it, even thrive on it. I wasn’t one of them. Over time, it wore me down. I was depressed all day and up all night with gruesome nightmares. And finally, the constant fatigue and stress caught up with me. I blew a domestic-violence call. The woman landed in the hospital with four gunshot wounds.” Bobbi swallowed. “She didn’t make it. Dale kept telling me it wasn’t my fault, that there was no way anyone could’ve gotten to her in time. Her ex-husband was holding the gun on her when she called. But I still think that if I’d acted faster…” Bobbie swallowed again.
“So you had to get away from law enforcement? And that included Dale?”
“Not law enforcement. Crime. All those victims. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” She looked at me. “I still loved him, but I had to get away. I quit my job and moved out. Six months later, I had a nervous breakdown.”