“Looks like me. He wouldn’t fight with me. Seemed to know how I was gonna feel about him. I was too numb to take in anything else, really.” I paused. “And he had my name tattooed on his wrist.”
She didn’t say anything, waited for me to continue.
“He also gave me a name.”
“A name?”
“Landon Keene,” I said. “He said to start with that and see if I found anything.”
“Name doesn’t sound familiar,” she said. “I’ll run it and see if it pops.”
“I honestly don’t think he wants off death row,” I said. “He didn’t talk specifically about killing anyone, but he seemed at ease with what he’d done and where he is now.”
She nodded. We kept walking.
“I met a cop who doesn’t want him off, either,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow in question. I told her about Kenney and what Miranda had told me.
She didn’t seem surprised. “If he thinks Simington killed his nephew, it’s a wonder he didn’t just kill Simington himself.”
“Yep.”
“So that makes two then,” Liz said. “Two what?”
The breeze off the water ruffled through her hair. She pushed it away from her face.
“Two people who don’t want Russell Simington leaving San Quentin,” she said. “That cop and whoever killed Darcy Gill.”
SIXTEEN
We’d arrived at my place just as Carter came barreling down the boardwalk on an old beach cruiser. He hit the brakes and skidded to a halt next to the wall.
He looked at the house, then me. “They find the meth lab?”
“Yeah. The jig is up.”
Liz rolled her eyes. Carter smiled at her. They tolerated each other because of me. Being in the middle of them wasn’t always easy, but I was learning to manage it a little better than in the past.
“I’ll leave you two to … do whatever you do,” Liz said. She put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
“What the hell is all this?” Carter asked after she walked away.
“Remember the girl who came to see me?”
“Yeah.”
“Dead. Inside.”
He looked at me for a moment like he was trying to figure out if I was kidding. When he realized I wasn’t, he said, “You didn’t do it, did you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Where were you?”
I hesitated. “San Francisco.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Went to meet the guy she said was my father.” “He lives up there?”
I took a deep breath. Telling Carter the whole truth would be a welcome relief; I could have used his help carrying this burden. I should’ve told him right away.
“He’s a resident of San Quentin,” I said.
“You serious?”
“Unfortunately. He’s on death row.”
He dropped his bike to the sidewalk and sat down on the wall next to me. “Oh, man.”
I told him about my trip, and the end to any uncertainty that I was related to Russell Simington. I told him who Darcy was and why she’d come to see me. Something entered his expression halfway through my explanation, and I was pretty sure it was hurt. I was too chicken to address it.
“And now she’s dead?” he asked when I’d finished.
“Yeah.”
“Probably not a coincidence.”
“No.”
Out on the water, a couple of surfers were trying to make the small waves last a bit longer, bouncing and pivoting against the white water.
“How long have we been friends?” Carter asked. “A long time.”
“There’s not much I’ve ever not told you,” he said. “There’ve been some things you didn’t want to know, but other than that, I think you know more about me than any other person on the planet.”
I knew where he was heading, and I couldn’t hide from it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Carter asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know how to explain it, I guess.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, Noah. Shit like that won’t ever matter to me.”
The fact that he knew exactly why I hadn’t told him made me feel worse.
“I know,” I said. “It just caught me off guard, and I didn’t know how to handle it.”
He nodded slowly. “I could’ve gone with you or something. So you didn’t have to do it alone.”
“I needed to do it alone.”
“Sure. Okay. But you still could’ve told me. Man, I knew something was off with you.”
There weren’t many people in my life who mattered enough to me to make me apologize for much. But Carter was one of them. “I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t ready to tell anyone.” “You tell Liz?” he asked, glancing at me.
I didn’t say anything, wishing I could get the right thing to come out of my mouth.
“Figured,” he said, looking away.
The surfers who had been in the water were out of the ocean now, walking up the beach, the end of the day.
Carter stood, pulled his bike off the pavement, and swung a leg over the seat. “I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you, Noah. For any reason. There’s no one else I’d trust with that kind of thing.” He paused, lifting one of his massive feetonto the pedals. “We’ve never judged each other, dude. You really think I was gonna start now? Because some guy shares your DNA?” He shook his head, then shrugged. “If you want my help, let me know.”
He pedaled off.
SEVENTEEN
I hung out on the boardwalk for an hour, moping and worrying. I watched cops go in and out of my place. Occasionally, one of them would glance in my direction and give me a hard look, a silent warning that he knew what I’d done to Zanella.
I tried to look scared.
Klimes came out when they appeared to be shutting down for the night.
“Gonna have to keep you out tonight,” he said, huffing and puffing. “Should be able to let you back in tomorrow, though.” “Can I get my hands on my laptop?”
“No can do. Still gotta dust it, and the tech boys will probably have a peek at the hard drive.” “You already cleared me.”
“Not about you. Whoever offed the girl might’ve used the computer.
“Think they checked their email before shooting her?” “Or did some shopping on eBay. Who knows?” “Come on.”
He grinned. “I’m a thorough son of a bitch, Noah.”
I didn’t like it, but Klimes was being a good cop.
He asked, “What do you need it for?”
“Just wanted to run a name.”
He motioned to the alley. “Come on.”
I followed him to a brown Crown Victoria. He opened the passenger door and waved me in. He went around to the driver’s side.
He squeezed in behind the wheel and pointed to the laptop mounted on the dash. “That work for you?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Guy named Landon Keene. Can you look him up on Google?”
“Don’t talk dirty to me,” he said, smiling and navigating on the computer. He hit a few buttons, then shifted the screen in my direction. “There you go.”
Two items popped up under the name. One was a high school football roster in Florida, listing Landon Keene as a sophomore lineman. The other had Landon Keene as a hairstylist in Alabama. I guessed that neither of those two was the Landon Keene who Russell Simington had told me about.
I swiveled the screen back to Klimes. “Thanks.”
“Anything you wanna tell me about?”
“No,” I said, not wanting to get into it. “Another thing I’m working on.”
Klimes pursed his lips. “Alright. Ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“This girl. Gill. Was she tough?”
I thought of her approaching me in the water and tailing me up the beach. “Seemed like it.”
He thought about that, focusing on something over my shoulder.
“What?” I asked.
“ME didn’t see any sign of a struggle,” he said. “You think she got surprised?”
He rubbed a hand over his sweaty face. “That or she knew the cocksucker who shot her. Waits for her to turn around in conversation, then whammo. Maybe knocks her out, then does her with the gun.”