Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

  Cold Justice

  A Kali O’Brien Novel of Legal Suspense

  Jonnie Jacobs

  Copyright 2002; Digital Edition 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  PROLOGUE

  A new year. A fresh start. Although the holiday season was exciting, Anne Bailey preferred January. It was a month of possibilities. A perch from which to relish the wide expanse of one’s future.

  Not that any year in recent memory had lived up to its promise. Nonetheless, Anne remained an optimist. She had a bumper sticker on her new Lexus—This is the first day of the rest of your life. A collection of similarly sunny sentiments papered the front of her fridge, and a few had even made their way onto her desk at work.

  Her friend Kali thought she went overboard on the positive stuff. Said it made more sense to brace yourself for the bumps and disappointments in life than to hold out hope they’d somehow vanish. That was one of the ways she and Kali were different. One of the many ways. But Anne knew that deep down, where it mattered, they thought alike.

  Mindful of new beginnings, Anne set her purchases on the sales counter. Toothpaste, shampoo, and a home pregnancy test. She didn’t really need the toothpaste or shampoo, but they somehow made the other purchase—the one she’d come for—seem less significant. Like it was no big deal. Like she was simply picking up everyday toiletries.

  Anne wasn’t sure whom she was trying to fool—herself or the pimply faced salesclerk. She’d apparently succeeded in the latter if not the former. The young man slid her purchases across the scanner and into a plastic bag without so much as raising his eyes. But Anne’s heart raced as she handed over her money.

  What would she do if the test was positive? She wouldn’t have an abortion; she knew that. No matter what Jerry said. But would she stay married to him? The timing couldn’t be worse.

  Anne pushed the thought away, as if the very act of thinking about a baby might make it a reality. But the alternative was just as bleak. Her heart had already opened to the child she imagined growing inside her.

  Plastic sack in hand, Anne walked through the dimly lit parking lot to her car. It was drizzling out, and dark. She almost wished she weren’t meeting Kali for dinner. It would be a good night to curl up with a book. Except that Jerry would no doubt call. Or worse, show up at her doorstep drunk. And they’d fight.

  Again.

  Then he’d try to persuade her to let him move back home.

  I need you, honey; you’re the only woman in the world I care about. I swear on my mother’s grave, it won’t happen again.

  Sometimes she believed him. Other times she was certain the best course would be to file for divorce.

  And now? Anne didn’t want to think about that just yet.

  As she approached her car, she saw that a panel truck had pulled in next to her, leaving only a narrow space between vehicles. In a parking spot designated for compacts, no less. And the lot wasn’t even full. People could be so thoughtless.

  Anne was reaching into her purse for her keys when she caught a blur of movement near the other side of the truck. An instinctive stab of fear sent her heart racing. Before she had time to react, she felt warm breath on her neck and a hand at her throat. Her last conscious thought was of the package she let fall to the ground.

  She’d never know if she might have been a mother.

  CHAPTER 1

  With an apology for her late arrival already on the tip of her tongue, Kali O’Brien stepped from the cold, wet January night into the warmth and bustle of Shooters. Her eyes scanned the crowded bar and the cluster of tables surrounding it.

  No Anne.

  Kali checked her watch. She’d only been delayed fifteen minutes. Surely Anne wouldn’t have given up on her already. Especially after enticing her with the promise of “some interesting news.” Kali let the mental reel of apology wind down. It would be a nice change to have Anne be the one proffering excuses for being late.

  She ordered a glass of white wine from the bar, then found an empty table near the door where she’d be sure to see Anne when she arrived. Kali pulled out a pen and the small notebook where she’d written a list of issues to be resolved if she and Anne were going to share an office, as they were talking about doing.

  Anne Bailey was a friend from Kali’s days in the DA’s office. They’d both signed on right out of law school, then moved into other areas of practice in the years that followed. Now they were thinking of joining forces again, if the logistics and finances worked.

  Joining forces, ironically, right when Dwayne Arnold Davis was once again headline news.

  The Davis trial had been what brought Anne and Kali together initially. Fresh and eager, both of them. Burning the midnight oil for truth and justice. And the thrill of working with Owen Nelson, one of Alameda County’s most accomplished prosecutors. Now, with Owen making a bid for the governor’s office, the grisly details of the Bayside Strangler murders and Davis’s execution were somehow deemed freshly newsworthy.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a scruffy, large-bellied man approach her table. He’d been sitting at the bar with friends and giving her what she supposed were come-hither looks for the last ten minutes. As he slid into the seat opposite her, she caught a whiff of his stench—an unpleasant mixture of body odor, grease and beer.

  “Buy you a drink?” Only it came out so slurred, it took her a minute to decipher. The man had obviously had too many himself already.

  “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “You can still drink, can’t you?” He laughed uproariously, banging the table with his hand. His fingernails were blackened with grime. “Hey, bartender. Give us a couple of beers.”

  Kali eyed him levelly. “Please leave.”

  “Please,” he mimicked.

  “Or I’ll ask that you be thrown out.”

  “Feisty, huh? I like that in a woman.” The man made no move to leave. Instead, he rocked back in his chair and again hollered to the bartender.

  While Kali debated her best move, another man—clean cut and dressed in a sports jacket and tie—stepped in.

  “Hi,” he said to Kali, as if they were old friends. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” To the man seated opposite her, he said, “Sorry, pal. Time to move on.”

  The drunk looked him over for a minute, then rose and lurched back to his place at the bar, where he and his companions had a good laugh.

  “Thanks,” Kali said, though she bristled slightly at the notion of rescue by male gallantry.

  “No problem.” Her knight had blue eyes and a friendly smile. Pleasantly attractive, though not someone you’d notice in a crowded room. “Guess I’d better stay for a bit,” he added, “or your buddy there will come right back.”

  “I’m meeting someone,” Kali said. There were different ways of hitting on a woman, and she wasn’t in the mood for any of them.

  The man smiled. “I figured as much. You don’t look like the type to be hanging out in a bar alone. My name’s Nathan Sloane.”

  “Kali,” she said, omitting a last name.

  Sloane sat down, folded his hands on the table.

  Kali glanced at her watch again. It was half an hour after she and Anne had agreed to meet. Unusual for Anne to be late at all.

  “I’m going to call my friend,” Kali said. Rather than use her cell phone, she headed for the relative privacy of the pay phone near the restrooms. She called Anne’s office and got nothing but the answering machine. Same result when she tried the house and Anne’s cell.

&nbs
p; The tiny niggle of anxiety in Kali’s chest tightened. Traffic accident? Another round with Jerry? Or maybe it was just the wet weather making it difficult to get across town.

  When she returned to the table, she found that Sloane had procured a glass of wine for himself as well as a fresh glass for her, and a plate of potato skins. A part of her longed for the drunk, whom she wouldn’t care about offending.

  Well, she’d give it another fifteen minutes. Time enough for Anne to show, if she was going to. Time enough for half a glass of wine and polite conversation with Nathan Sloane. Dues paid.

  “Did you reach your friend?” Sloane asked.

  “She’s on her way.” Purposely vague.

  He took a sip of wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. “Guess I must seem kind of pushy, huh? I elbowed aside the other guy who was bothering you, then moved in myself. It’s just that I was watching from that table over there”—he waved in the direction of the back wall—”and it seemed like maybe I could help.”

  “I could probably have managed, but thanks.”

  “Now I’ve insulted you.” Nathan had thick brown hair that kept falling forward over one eye. He brushed it back with his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m new to the Bay Area. Guess maybe I’m desperate for a friendly face. I mean, not that anyone would have to be desperate to spend time with you.”

  He looked embarrassed, and Kali sought to help him out. She owed him that much at least. “Where’d you move from?”

  “Boston. I’m with Global Investment. Financial planning and management. How about you, you lived here long?”

  “Since college.” No point going into her life history. Some days she thought the three years in Silver Creek were best forgotten anyway.

  Nathan regaled her with stories about apartment hunting in a strange city his new boss, his many travels. He had a way of making even the mundane sound amusing, and in spite of her earlier misgivings, she was grateful for the company. But after twenty minutes, she began gathering her things to leave.

  “You’re not going, are you?”

  “Afraid so. Thanks again.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “She said not to wait more than fifteen minutes.”

  “I thought she was on her way.”

  A bit pushy, Kali thought. “She wasn’t sure she’d be able to get away.”

  “No need to rush off. We’ve got a whole plate of food left.”

  “Sorry, I do need to go.”

  Nathan stood when she did. “Maybe I could call you some time.”

  “Probably not such a great idea. But I enjoyed talking with you.”

  His features pulled into a scowl. “Why not? You seeing someone?”

  “Sort of.” A total lie, but sometimes that was the easiest course.

  “It doesn’t have to be a date. I mean, we could just—”

  “I don’t think so.” She smiled and extended her hand. “But thanks for the drink and the company.”

  She was almost to her car when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Nathan not more than ten feet behind her. “You forgot your book,” he said, and handed her the Day Timer she carried in her briefcase.

  “How’d you get this?”

  “It was on the floor by your chair. I noticed it after you’d left.”

  “Thanks.” Kali took the book and shoved it back into her briefcase. It must have fallen out when she’d knocked the briefcase over on her way to phone Anne. She gave herself a silent reprimand. What a mess she’d be in if she lost the thing.

  “Take care,” Nathan said.

  She could feel him watching while she got in the car and drove away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rainy nights were the worst, Abe thought. Worse even than bitter cold. Cold you could curl away from, layer on the coats and cardboard. But rain was wet and relentless. Doorways weren’t much good against rain. Neither were trees or kiosks. BART stations worked, if you could stay clear of security, but they closed up at midnight. And just try getting into a shelter when the weather turned. You might as well hope to win the lottery.

  Abe hadn’t even bothered trying for a bed since he’d discovered the alley a couple of weeks ago. It smelled, on account of the dumpster at the entrance, but there was a private parking structure in back with a ventilation shaft that offered easy access. Abe thought of it as his private retreat.

  The sky lit with a flash of lightning. Abe counted to nine before the thunder broke. He picked up his pace.

  The left wheel on his cart wobbled, making it difficult to steer, and the plastic garbage bag that served as a raincoat hindered his movement, but he’d managed most of the distance already. Which was good, because it was getting late and Abe liked to be settled at night.

  He passed a corner grocery. “Mom-and-Pops” they used to call them. Maybe they still did, though it was usually some foreigner behind the counter.

  Abe fondled the bills in his pocket. He’d done well today. One thing rain was good for was people’s guilt. They were freer with the handouts when it rained.

  He pushed his cart up next to the door and peered inside. The aisles were narrow, the shelves crammed. Everything from onions to mousetraps. And sure enough, a dark-skinned foreigner was at the register.

  And behind him were shelves lined with booze. Bottle after bottle of the stuff.

  The sky again flashed with lightning. A night for the comforts of home, Abe thought. He counted his bills. Barely enough. But he’d eaten well at lunch. Some weary-looking mother with a screaming kid had gotten angry and tossed a whole ten-pack of chicken nuggets into the trash. Fries too. Abe didn’t need dinner, really. Besides, the whisky would help him sleep.

  He shuffled inside and bought a bottle. And was jubilant to discover he had enough money left over for a Hershey bar. It was going to be a good night. He tucked the bottle into his cart and picked up his pace.

  As he neared the alley, he looked over his shoulder for a passing cop or some tender-hearted guy who felt he owed his dog a walk despite the weather. The path was clear. Abe ducked into the alley.

  Working in the dark, he pried the grill from the vent, crawled through to the garage interior, then spread out his thin bedroll and opened the bottle of whisky. Home sweet home.

  <><><>

  It was near daybreak when Abe awoke. The bottle beside him was empty, and his mouth was sour with the taste of having drunk too much. He groaned and tried to go back to sleep, but he knew he never would without taking a leak first.

  Some guys, they’d just unzip and aim for the corner. What did they care? Not Abe, though. He had his standards.

  He crawled out through the vent and took a couple of steps in the direction of the dumpster. He’d reached for the zipper of his fly when he saw what looked like someone slouched by the dumpster asleep.

  He blinked, and peered again through the murky half-light of early dawn. There was someone there. A woman.

  Abe thought of the garage as his place, and he wasn’t happy about sharing it. On the other hand, no one deserved to sleep out in the rain like that. Especially not a woman.

  He approached cautiously. He didn’t want to scare her. But as he got closer, it became clear to him that nothing would scare her anymore.

  She wasn’t sleeping. She was dead.

  CHAPTER 3

  Detective Lou Fortune reached his partner at home late Saturday afternoon. He could hear a female voice in the background, sultry and seductive. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what his call had interrupted. He wondered if the voice belonged to the young dispatcher who’d been panting after Keating for the last few months or to one of his weekend pickups. Lou experienced a momentary pang of loneliness. Not that he wanted what Keating had; what he wanted was Jan.

  “I don’t suppose you’re calling just to hear the sound of my voice?’ Keating said.

  “You suppose right.”

  “Happens every time, you know.”

  “What happens?�
�� Lou had been partnered with Bryce Keating for a little under six months now, and he still had trouble following the guy’s logic.

  “Every time we get called out on a weekend, I’m in the middle of something.”

  “As far as I can tell, Bryce, you’re always in the middle of something.” Lou was impatient to get to the crime scene before every bit of useful evidence was trampled by inexperienced investigators. It happened so often that he’d come to expect it. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen. That give you enough time to disentangle yourself gracefully?”

  “It’s not like I have a choice.”

  “Right. Keep an eye out. I’ll honk.”

  <><><>

  Lou pulled the unmarked sedan up to an alley near Oakland’s City Center and parked behind the coroner’s van.

  “Looks like the gang’s all here,” Keating said.

  “Looks like.”

  A uniformed officer Lou didn’t recognize was keeping watch on an area cordoned off by yellow police tape. They showed him their badges, passed under the tape and made their way down the alley to a dumpster, which seemed to be the center of activity. Cops, police photographers, evidence technicians—Lou couldn’t place half of them. It was getting so the rookies outnumbered everyone else.

  “Jesus, “ he said to the young uniformed cop standing at the entrance to the alleyway. “Think you have enough people tramping around? This is a crime scene, not a fucking photo shoot.”

  “Nobody’s touched a thing,” the cop said indignantly.

  That wasn’t true. Maybe nobody’d meant to touch things, but any activity at a crime scene altered the way it had been left. Lou wasn’t in the mood to explain. “What have we got?” he asked.

  “Female. Appears to be in her mid-thirties.”

  “Any ID?”

  “None obvious. She looks like a hooker.”

  Keating turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the wind. “Like someone asking to be killed, you mean?”