Playing Dead pb-3 Read online

  “And you came home to be a beach bum?”

  “I considered it. But I ended up going to college. Travis got tired of traipsing across the planet, so he joined me. We got a place on the beach and spent a lot of time on the waves, and a little time in class.”

  “How’d you end up becoming a writer?”

  Now they were getting into the lies. It had felt so good to tell Claire the truth about himself that he dreaded the next sentence that came out of his mouth.

  “I worked on the campus newspaper. I liked it, and when I graduated I took a job on a paper in the south. Then moved my way up the Eastern Seaboard. Came back to California when my mom died. When my grandmother passed a year later and I had a bit of money, I decided that if I was ever going to do something big, I needed to try now. So I’m trying to write the Great American Novel.”

  The lies came off his tongue effortlessly, but he wished his heart wasn’t so twisted. He wanted to tell Claire everything-how he joined the FBI because he thought that would have pleased his father, the man he had fought with only days before he died. How his mom had blamed him for his dad’s early death.

  Instead, he created a fictional past for Claire and hated himself for it. He couldn’t tell her he thought her father was innocent, or that he had intentionally befriended her in order to capture Tom O’Brien.

  Claire took his hand and kissed it. “You’ll have to teach me to surf someday.”

  “There’re no beaches in Sacramento.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Guess we’ll have to head to the coast for a weekend sometime.”

  His heart did a flip and his hand tightened within her grasp.

  “Guess we’ll have to,” he said thickly.

  Instruments were being tuned in the bar, and Claire smiled. “That’s Finnegan’s Wake.”

  “What?”

  “The band. Named after the classic Irish folk song. A homage of sorts. This is their first time here.”

  “I thought this was a British pub.” He pointed to the British flag hanging on the interior glass windows of the converted warehouse. “And isn’t that Queen Elizabeth?” he said, gesturing toward a mural.

  She laughed. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  Mitch had seen Claire dance before, but not when they’d been together. When he’d been watching her, following her.

  Her body moved erotically back and forth to the fluid tempo of music as he danced with her. Seeing her so free was a treat. Every morning when they talked she was on guard and cautious. Now. . was this the real Claire? Was this the woman she’d have been had her life not been turned upside down when she was fourteen? Or was this the woman she’d become because of the murders? She danced for herself, no one else. Tonight, she seemed relaxed. Almost. . happy. Happy with him.

  She couldn’t possibly know how her movement affected him. Her eyes closed and she wore that half smile Mitch loved so much. At this moment, her entire demeanor said “peace,” when usually Claire seemed to struggle so.

  She opened her eyes, looking right at him, all her beauty and charm and those seductive bright blue eyes focused on him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and closed her eyes again. The music had changed to something more folksy. Whatever it was, she liked it and moved accordingly.

  “I love. .”

  “What?” he said, unable to hear her over the noise.

  She stood on her tiptoes and leaned against him until her lips practically touched his ear. Her warm breath had him holding his. “I love this song.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight against him. The dance floor wasn’t large, about ten feet square, and more people joined them, pushing them closer. She kissed the side of his neck and Mitch held her tighter, one hand on the small of her back, the other on her neck.

  Throughout the evening they danced, they drank a bit, and Mitch wanted to be nowhere else in the world but with Claire.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist at the end of the evening and said, “That was fun.”

  “I agree.”

  They walked out to the parking lot, arm in arm. Mitch unlocked the passenger door for Claire. He’d taken out everything that might identify him as an FBI agent. His gun was in his trunk. He felt naked without it, but Claire would have been able to see-or feel-the piece on him.

  “Wow, chivalry,” she said and turned to face him.

  She kissed him. Everything about Claire was larger than life, and her kiss was nothing less. Her mouth parted and her tongue found his. She tasted of hops and peppermint. Her hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him down to her, her fingers rubbing his muscles, his hair, his shoulders. Her lithe body molded to his and all Mitch wanted to do was take her to his bed, right now.

  His mouth opened to suggest it, but he stopped himself. He was staying at Nolan’s house. Nolan had a damn congressional medal of honor on his wall with the salutation “Special Agent Nolan Cassidy” plus a bunch of news articles in his den, extra guns in his bedroom. Damn.

  “Come home with me,” Claire murmured.

  Was she drunk or just tipsy? What was he thinking? It didn’t matter! She was Tom O’Brien’s daughter. He couldn’t sleep with her, no matter how much he wanted to.

  He was about to protest, but instead pinned her to his car and kissed her as hard as she’d kissed him. Their bodies were as close as possible while still being fully clothed. He held her chin, kissing her repeatedly, not wanting to give up this moment.

  Reluctantly, he pulled himself away. Her blue eyes looked black in the yellow light of the parking lot. Her skin was flushed, breathing heavy, lips red and lush.

  “I want to.” He swallowed. “But-”

  She put her finger to his lips. He kissed it and she smiled. “No buts. No promises. I want to, you want to.” She gave him a feather of a kiss that was as erotic as the deep kiss a moment before.

  “Claire.”

  He wanted her.

  He couldn’t have her.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said.

  If she was hurt by his rejection, she didn’t show it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He wanted to make love to her.

  But not like this. Not with lies between them.

  He drove the short distance to her house.

  “Thanks,” she said, making a move to open the door.

  “Claire-” He took her arm, pulled her across the middle seat, and kissed her. Long and hard, showing her his feelings when he couldn’t speak the whole truth.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?” he whispered as his lips pulled back, lightly touching hers, teasing both of them.

  “Okay.” Her voice was hoarse.

  “Good night.”

  “ ’Night.”

  He watched her walk into her house alone, and he prayed he had the willpower to resist her next time they went out.

  And he knew the only way he’d be able to resist her would be if he never saw her again.

  But that wouldn’t happen.

  ELEVEN

  Steve walked through the door of the Fox amp; Goose at seven thirty. Mitch had to get him out of there before Claire showed. He doubted Claire would be early, but he wanted Steve gone by eight thirty.

  “You started without me.” Steve slid into the chair next to him and motioned to the waitress to get him what Mitch was drinking.

  “You’re late.”

  “Got a lead on the Pinter case, but it didn’t pan out. Arrested one of his minions, though, practically a kid-but with two hundred counterfeited credit cards in his possession.”

  “No shit.”

  “Credit-card fraud is out of control, and until we get the big players like Pinter we’ll never even make a dent.” He shook his head. “Here we are, at one of Claire O’Brien’s favorite hangouts. But of course you already knew that.”

  Mitch said nothing. What could he say?

  “If Meg finds out about your off-duty investigation of Tom O�
�Brien, that’s one thing. You get a slap on the wrist. But if you’re involved with Claire, that’s a whole different ball game.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “So what the fuck is it like?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Steve sipped his beer. “Dammit, Bianchi, I went to bat for you today with Meg. I told her I needed you as a partner, that you are invaluable to the squad. So no more bullshit.”

  “I wouldn’t put you at risk, Steve.”

  “Why are you obsessed with Tom O’Brien? Just because he saved your life three months ago? Or is there something else you’re not telling me?”

  Mitch didn’t want to talk about his own father railroading another innocent guy into prison. It still burned him and he hated that he came from the same gene pool as Rod Bianchi. But Steve was smart, maybe he’d see the same problems with the O’Brien conviction that Mitch saw. That while Mitch couldn’t right the wrongs committed by his father long ago, he could help another wrongfully convicted man find justice and exoneration.

  “Let me lay out what I know,” Mitch said. “The fact that Oliver Maddox is dead makes it even more suspicious.” Mitch filled Steve in on Maddox looking into an appeal of O’Brien’s death sentence. “What if Maddox had real information?”

  “And the real killer didn’t want it to get out?” Steve shook his head. “This is a wild-goose chase. Maddox’s death was probably an accident. Dozens of people drown in the Delta every year. Most are accidents.”

  “Convenient accident,” Mitch said.

  “Could have been suicide.”

  “By drowning? Rare. Let’s wait until the autopsy tomorrow. And we have the meeting with the detective in Davis. But look at the facts. Maddox disappeared two days before O’Brien was moved into the general prison population. He was actively looking into the O’Brien case, had met with O’Brien at Quentin, and phoned him six times after that meeting. There was a meeting scheduled on the books for the Monday after Maddox disappeared.”

  “How’d you find that? I didn’t see it in the file from Quentin.”

  “It wasn’t, but when I interviewed the warden and the head guard of North Seg, I got a copy of the schedule. It wasn’t in the file because Maddox never showed up. He was already dead.”

  “You’re certain it’s murder.”

  Mitch nodded. “Steve, I’m sure as hell not perfect, but you know I’m a good cop. I smelled murder the minute I saw the body.”

  “I’m not going to doubt your instincts, Mitch. They’ve been right on the money in the past. But this time you’re too close to it.”

  “Maybe, but there’s more than Maddox being dead.”

  “What? Just because O’Brien helped capture the Goethe gang, that psycho up in Montana, and a bunch of other prisoners, he’s redeemed from a double-murder charge?”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say, but now that you mention it, I think those actions say a lot about his character.”

  “What it says is O’Brien isn’t a repeat offender. He killed in a crime of passion. Most spouses who off their unfaithful wives aren’t out to kill a half-dozen other people.”

  “He risked himself-his freedom and his life-staying close to San Francisco to set up Goethe’s gang.”

  “But he’s a dead man, Mitch. His date with the executioner is only weeks away. Maybe he wanted to do something noble to go out in a blaze of glory or whatever.” Steve shook his head in disbelief and drank some beer.

  “Put that aside for now and look at the facts of his case. O’Brien was convicted solely on circumstantial evidence.”

  “He had motive and opportunity,” Steve countered. “That isn’t circumstantial.”

  “Bullshit. A lot of people have the motive and opportunity to kill and they don’t do it. Why use his personal weapon?”

  “Crimes of passion aren’t well thought out.”

  “Did you look at the crime scene photos?”

  “No. Why would I have? I’m not obsessed with this case.” Steve motioned for the waitress to bring two more pints. Mitch stole a glance at his watch. 8:10. He needed to wrap this up within thirty minutes and get Steve out of here before Claire walked in and saw them talking like they were best friends. Mitch didn’t want to confirm Steve’s suspicions that his feelings for Claire went beyond his need to prove O’Brien innocent.

  “The bodies were in bed. Taverton on top of Mrs. O’Brien. The killer walked in and shot them without hesitation. Without Taverton even having a chance to move or defend himself. That, to me, says cold-blooded premeditation.”

  “And a betrayed husband could have planned it just like that. What if he knew about the affair for a while? Fumed over it? Then his daughter calls and she’s upset because she walked in and heard her mom in bed with a stranger. It set him off. He might have been thinking about it, maybe planning it, and now he just goes and does it.”

  “No rage? No yelling and fighting?”

  Steve shrugged, sipped the new pint the waitress brought. Mitch tossed a twenty and a five on the tray and thanked her.

  “What I’m saying,” Mitch continued, “is that the police never investigated Chase Taverton’s life, not in any depth. He was a prosecutor. He must have racked up a long list of enemies, and to not even walk down that road-if only to check it off the damn list-seems not only irresponsible, but flat-out wrong. It’s like they saw what they wanted to see-crime of passion-arrested the husband, and tossed away the key.”

  “Usually the most obvious suspect is the killer,” Steve said.

  “And sometimes the obvious suspect is innocent.”

  “He was convicted by a jury.”

  “You know as well as I do that jury instructions and what is admissible and inadmissible in court holds a lot of sway over what the jury hears and thinks about a case.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a bleeding heart.”

  “It has nothing to do with that, it has to do with due process. So yes, I think O’Brien is innocent.” It was the first time Mitch had admitted it aloud.

  “Well.”

  Mitch said nothing for a long moment. “We know that Oliver Maddox was digging around in the events of fifteen years ago. And he disappeared at the same time O’Brien was moved from the safer North Seg to Section B. That tells me that someone wanted O’Brien dead, and it was only a matter of time before word that he had been a cop leaked out. A couple other facts: There were three separate attacks on O’Brien at Folsom Prison the first year he was there, even when he was in a secure section of the prison. I’ve asked for the records on those attacks, but so far I’ve been stonewalled by bureaucrats who say they don’t know where they are.”

  “Could be the truth.”

  “O’Brien has never wavered from his version of the events. And one more thing: The court records are a mess. There’re missing documents, missing witness statements, missing evidence.”

  “O’Brien had several appeals. The documents could have been misfiled or lost.”

  “True. But there’s one thing that’s very interesting.”

  “Shoot. You’ve piqued my interest.”

  “The call to the police about shots fired wasn’t made to 911.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Someone called the Sacramento PD phone number, not 911. There’s no trace or tape on the main number. It goes to the receptionist. All 911 calls are automatically taped and located.”

  Steve thought on that. “Unusual.”

  “The police canvassed the neighborhood and found no one who had made the call.”

  “Was any of that brought up at trial?”

  “No. But the defense had to have known it. I’d think a cop like O’Brien would question it. His counsel sucked.”

  “By that, do you mean corrupt or incompetent?”

  “I have no idea, but there were other minor problems. The call to the station is the biggie, though, in my mind. Steve, it’s not just one thing. It’s a series of problems with this case.
I couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t do everything I could to make sure an innocent man doesn’t die.”

  Anyone can convict a guilty man; it takes a brilliant prosecutor to convict an innocent man.

  The voice of Mitch’s father came back and Mitch swallowed the anger and disgust that arose every time he thought back to the files he’d found in his father’s office after he died.

  Steve stared at Mitch, his dark eyes unreadable. “Okay. You’ve convinced me, not of his innocence, but that maybe there’s something here worth looking into. But I want your assurance that you’re going to be a cop first. You see Tom O’Brien, you don’t let him go.”

  “Of course. In fact, I want to find him first. I’m worried when he’s in police custody he’ll end up dead. If we have him, we can protect him until we find out what Maddox had uncovered.”

  “And if it doesn’t have anything to do with O’Brien?”

  “I’ll live with it.”

  “Good.” Steve leaned back, crossed his legs. “You know, before you came to Sac two years ago you had a reputation for being a hard-ass, but you’re a softie at heart, Mitch. Hell, you and I both know that guys like O’Brien can crack and take the whole family with them.”

  “But it wasn’t a murder-suicide. It was a double homicide with the daughter just down the street.”

  “O’Brien had a history,” Steve reminded Mitch. “Written up several times, probation twice.”

  “For roughing up suspects.”

  “And that justifies it?”

  “No, but the first suspect was a child molester, and the second suspect had beaten his wife to a pulp. Kicked her with steel-toed boots. She had a miscarriage and nearly died.”

  “So he’s known to snap. What’s the difference when he sees his wife in bed with another man? He snaps, has his service pistol on, shoots them.”

  “Without a fight or confrontation? And he didn’t use his service weapon. It was his personal firearm. And it was left on the nightstand. And according to his report, the gun was found on his wife’s side of the bed next to an open window.”