Marisol took her time. Examined the shelves of canned foods, bottles of liquor and wine. Found a door with a rusted iron frame, and vertical bars. Through the bars, nothing but darkness, and air as cool as in a mine shaft. An antique padlock fastened the door to its frame.
Marisol did not ask Jacqueline about the door or where it led. She didn't have to. Two days earlier, Marisol had been carrying a tray of clean glasses to the room called the "library," but really it was a bar. The bartender, a man in his fifties, was talking to a customer, saying that his grandfather had worked for Mr. Rutledge's grandfather.
"In those days, half the Legislature drove down here on weekends. Told their wives they had meetings at the Valley Improvement Society. That's the empty building next door. They'd play billiards and drink whiskey and take bribes to divvy up land and water for the big growers. Then the old tomcats would sneak through a tunnel right into our basement and up the stairs. All of 'em sniffing after pussy!"
The customer laughed, and the bartender joined in. Barely noticing Marisol stacking glasses on the shelves.
Now she planned her escape. The rusted iron door in the basement must lead to the tunnel. The tunnel led to the building next door. The road was just beyond. That would be her route. She prayed that the tunnel would not collapse and bury her with the other corpses, cold and forgotten belowground.
She knew there was a chance the guard would catch her. But she vowed to fight until one of them was dead. With that thought, she tucked the pruning shears into her apron, her fingers caressing the cool steel blade.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Chief Javier Cardenas felt powerless. An L.A.P.D. detective was roaming his office like a jungle cat.
Just how much does Detective Eugene Rigney know?
Cardenas had never faced anything like this. He could scarcely remember a time he hadn't been taking orders from Uncle Sim. They had an unspoken arrangement. If Cardenas did what he was told, Simeon would boost his career, make his life more comfortable, and protect him.
Neither man had ever used the word "bribe." Not even "gift" or "present." Sometimes, Simeon would say, "I'm sending over a little something for the fridge." Slabs of freshly butchered ribs would arrive on ice, a stack of cold cash bagged separately. Other times, a Rutledge truck would deliver cartons of vegetables, Ben Franklin's quizzical face peering out from beneath the lettuce leaves.
Whenever Cardenas had a problem, Simeon was there to help. Except today. Hell, Uncle Sim's to blame for the spot I'm in.
Cardenas put on his friendly smile and leaned back in his ergonomically correct chair. His desk was an asymmetrical glass slab mounted on blocks of blue glass that resembled chunks of glacial ice. Outside, the thermometer on the Rutledge State Bank read 110. Inside the police station, the smooth, silent flow of the A/C kept the temperature a brisk 72.
So why am I sweating?
Maybe because at this moment, a swinging dick from L.A. was inspecting the office as if it were a crime scene.
"Never saw a cop shop like this." Detective Rigney stared at a lionfish darting in and out of a coral house in the chief's aquarium. "Must have cost a fortune."
"Private donations." He chose not to say that the donations all came from Simeon Rutledge. From the high-tech communications gear to the cushy leather chairs and sofas, it was all Uncle Sim's doing.
"Looks like a sports bar," Rigney said, checking out the five LCD monitors on the chief's back wall. It was the only wall not made of glass. The aquarium, six feet wide and twenty feet long, formed the wall with the bullpen. Glass block walls on either side separated the chief's quarters from adjacent offices.
The glass blocks multiplied the images on the other side. Cardenas often wondered if Uncle Sim was sending him a message there. Things are not always what they seem. Or, Someone's always watching. Or maybe, People in glass houses shouldn't peer too deeply into other people's lives.
Not that the place reflected Uncle Sim's taste. He did his business at his grandfather's rolltop desk with its hundred nooks and crannies, a piece of furniture as bulky as a battleship. For the Rutledge Municipal Building, Simeon hired a San Francisco designer, a noodle-necked young man who blew into town in black leather pants and a red silk scarf. By the time he left, Cardenas had an office where he couldn't scratch his nuts without being observed by meter maids crossing the bullpen to grab a demitasse from the gleaming titanium espresso machine.
That, too, hadn't escaped Rigney's notice. "You running a police station or a Starbucks here?" Sarcasm steaming like milk in a latte.
"We find that a pleasant atmosphere helps morale."
Cardenas nearly biting his tongue, thinking he sounded like one of those dweebs in Human Resources.
Rigney scanned the office as if he wanted to take prints off the artwork, starting with the granite sculpture of a horse pulling a plow.
Just what was the detective thinking? Cardenas wondered. The chief knew Rigney was a cop in deep trouble. A blown sting operation. A judge's suicide. Jimmy Payne's escape.
Rigney studied the chief through weary cop eyes. "So I'm still trying to figure out why you called L.A.P.D., asking about Payne."
"I had a report about this lawyer causing a scene over at the Rutledge corporate office. I ran his name, found the outstanding warrants. I called."
"But you ended up talking to Homicide, not Warrants."
"The call was misdirected. Maybe that's why the detective seemed so confused."
"Lou Parell may be fat and lazy, but he's not stupid. He says you never mentioned Payne was up here."
"Your detective is mistaken. Why else would I have called?"
"You tell me, Chief. Driving up here today, I kept asking myself: Why's this small-town cop mixed up with an asshole like Royal Payne?"
"All I know, Mr. Payne became agitated when he couldn't locate a woman he thought was working at Rutledge Farms."
"Where'd he pop up next?"
"He didn't. Hasn't been seen since he left the Rutledge office a couple days ago."
"So you never met him."
"Afraid not." Cardenas met Rigney's gaze. Turning away or blinking would make the lie too obvious. The less said, the better the chance the L.A. cop would leave town.
"Then you just dropped it? Never followed up, even though you knew about those warrants."
"Not my jurisdiction, and it's been busy up here."
"I'll bet."
Cardenas cursed himself for having made the call to the L.A.P.D. He needed Rigney here like a farmer needs a February freeze. But Uncle Sim had ordered him to do it. Charlie Whitehurst was right.
The old man's losing it.
"If Payne's still looking for that woman," the chief said, "he's probably checking out other growers. It's a big valley."
"And filled with a lot of horseshit." Rigney dropped into one of the soft leather chairs. He didn't seem in any hurry. "I pictured your office like something out of a black-and-white movie. Paddle fans, an old sergeant pecking away at a manual typewriter, a holding cell for the town drunk. But the place looks like Mission Control."
"I'm not following you, Detective."
"I'm just wondering, if the Attorney General started poking around in Hell's Little Oven here, what would he find?"
"An efficient police department, I suspect." Cardenas got up and walked to his glass-doored mini-fridge. He took out a pitcher. "Lemonade, Detective? Made from Rutledge lemons."
"No lemonade. No sarsaparilla. No peeing on my leg and calling it champagne."
Cardenas poured two glasses, anyway. "Seems like you're under some stress, Detective."
"No shit."
Another friendly smile. The lies weren't working; the chief decided to change his approach. He remembered some advice Simeon had dished out years ago, when he was still sharp as a cactus.