Sunset Beach(63)

“Fine,” Drue said, feeling grateful and encouraged. “That’s good to know.”

Zee cleared his throat. “If it’s all right with you, we’re gonna type up our notes about our conversation today. Like an affidavit. Would you be willing to sign that?”

“I reckon so. If it’s the truth like I told you.”

Drue smiled broadly. “Okay, I think that’s all the questions I have for now, Mrs. Estes. I want to thank you so much for talking to us today.”

“That’s okay. I try to be a good Christian, you know?”

Mrs. Estes pushed the screen door open to let her visitors pass. “Which law firm did y’all say you work for again?”

Zee passed her a business card. The older woman pushed her glasses down on her nose and studied it. “Oh yes. Campbell, Coxe and Kramner. You told me that earlier. I seen y’all’s billboards and television commercials. Let me ask you something. That man on the billboards, Brice Campbell, is he really a lawyer? Or just some actor?”

“He’s really a lawyer,” Drue assured her.

“Well, he’s got some real pretty hair on him,” Delores Estes said. “You think that’s a wig?”

“It’s absolutely a wig,” Zee said, his face solemn.



* * *



“High five,” Zee said, when they were both inside the pickup truck. He held his hand up, palm out, and Drue slapped it.

“The client didn’t even slip on the Smirnoff,” Drue exclaimed. “It was the ice cream. And the clerk should have cleaned it up. That’s negligence, right?”

“Should be,” Zee said. “Good work back there. I’d be very surprised if the insurance company doesn’t make us a very nice offer once they hear what Delores Estes has to say.”

“Really?” Drue’s face flushed with excitement. “Wow. I had no idea things could happen so fast. I mean, the Gulf Vista case, it took nearly two years to settle, and in that one the victim was murdered.”

Zee frowned. “You’re comparing apples to oranges. We had no witnesses to the hotel murder. No evidence that could show the victim wasn’t on the clock. This 7-Eleven thing is totally different. We should hear something back today about the client from our neurologist.” He picked up his phone and examined it.

“I’m kind of surprised Brice hasn’t already texted or called to fill me in.”

“You two really work closely together, don’t you?”

“We make a damn good team,” Zee said. He pulled the pickup into traffic and headed south, toward downtown. “Been like that since before you were born. We went through the police academy together, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” Drue admitted.

“I was best man when he married your mom. He stood up for me when I got married.”

“Was that to…?”

“Frannie,” Zee said. His face softened. “She was a piece of work, my Frannie. I used to call her Big Red. She had a temper to go along with the hair.”

Drue had foggy memories of a diminutive redhead sitting at the kitchen table with Zee and her parents, doling spaghetti out of an enormous pot. She remembered the table littered with beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays, and the sounds of raucous laughter after she’d been put to bed and the adults started one of their marathon card games.

“I remember Frannie,” she said now. “She used to bring me these little Italian cookies with powdered sugar.”

“Wedding cookies. They were her specialty.”

Drue glanced over at Zee. “I take it you guys split up?”

“Years and years ago. I was too damn dumb to know a good thing when I had it.” He ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Geez, I haven’t thought about Frannie in years. Funny, I just realized, your dad and me, we’ve been together longer than any of our marriages.”

“What’s the secret?”

“To the partnership? We don’t sleep with each other.” He laughed at his own joke. “Your old man knows how to make things happen. Always has. That’s the secret to his success.”

“And what’s the secret to yours?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Always sweat the small shit. The nitpicky details. Ask the extra questions. Make that last phone call. And that’s why Brice and me work so well together. He’s the big-picture guy. Always had a vision of what success looks like. Like going to law school. He was only a beat cop for maybe five or six years, and he already knew he wanted something bigger. Then he was in a general practice with old man Coxe for a few years, until he figured out personal injury was where the big paydays were. He went looking for those cases, and eventually, when he started getting big settlements, I went ahead and retired from the force and came to work for him as an investigator. That’s been, what? Twelve years? I lose track.”

Drue studied her father’s friend’s profile. He was jowly, with ruddy skin that already showed five-o’clock shadow. “Dad said he never made detective when he was on the force. But you did, right?”

“Sure. I retired as a captain.”

“Did you ever work on the case involving that missing woman? Colleen Boardman Hicks?”

Zee’s jaws worked furiously at the gum but he kept his eyes on the road. “What makes you ask about her? You weren’t even born when all that happened.”