Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(24)

“You sound like you don’t approve.”

Another pause, like she was censoring herself. “There are rumors Barrera and Barrow got their results by doing what the cops couldn’t. They bent rules, used bribery, threats, whatever it took.”

“But the case stood up in court.”

“Stirman was scum. The jury would’ve handed him a death sentence if that was an option.”

“What about the arrest itself?” I asked. “Fred Barrow’s notes on the case—he makes it sound like he apprehended Stirman personal y.”

“He did. Would’ve been late April ’95. Wil Stirman got tipped off things were going against him. He made plans to flee the country. Barrow and Barrera got word of this, like, the night he was planning to leave.

Instead of tel ing the police, the two of them decide to play cowboy and show up at Stirman’s apartment with guns blazing. Just the kind of cool, methodical detective work you’d appreciate. A woman was kil ed in the crossfire—one of Stirman’s prostitutes. Stirman was critical y wounded. He just about bled to death before the police and paramedics arrived. There were some other . . . irregularities about that night.”

“Irregularities.”

“That’s al you get for free,” she told me. “How do you know Stirman is in town?”

I didn’t answer.

“Look, Tres—I get the revenge angle. The Task Force has considered it. I know SAPD cal ed Erainya and Sam Barrera, along with the attorneys who prosecuted the Stirman case. They were al offered protection.”

“They were?”

“And they declined. The point is—Stirman isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t hang around here. Unless you have evidence that would change my mind . . .”

I stared at Sam Barrera’s yel ow BMW. “Can I come by tonight?”

“I’l be at the office until six. Or you can come by the house.”

“I can make the office by six.”

An uneasy pause, the wipers going back and forth across my windshield. Ana said, “Ralph would love to see you, Tres.”

“Same,” I said. “It’s just . . . I don’t want to barge in, with the baby and al .”

“You wouldn’t be barging in.”

I said nothing.

“Okay then,” she said. “So . . .”

“By six,” I told her. “Count on it.”

I folded up the phone.

I waited for a break in the rain before gathering Jem in my arms and carrying him to the front door.

Inside, the television was going. Live footage of drizzle, as if there wasn’t enough of it right outside. The weatherman warned that three area dams were already over capacity.

A leather briefcase sat next to Erainya’s living room couch. Spread out on the coffee table was a picnic lunch—a checkered cloth, bouquet of wildflowers, bottle of wine, cheese, baguette, kalamata olives.

Erainya’s boyfriend was a few steps down the hal way, his ear pressed to the door of Erainya’s study.

“Hear anything good?” I asked.

He straightened, faced me with as much dignity as a caught snoop could.

He was a gray-haired Latino, trim, chocolate eyes, a pencil mustache and impeccable taste in clothes.

Early sixties, but he could’ve passed for ten years younger. He would’ve been the heartthrob of any retirement community.

He held a finger to his lips, pointed to the heavy sleeping bundle in my arms.

I carried Jem past him, down the hal way to the bedroom.

Jem mumbled something about goalie position as I laid him on his bed and tugged off his soccer cleats.

On his TV, a video game character was suspended mid-jump over an exploding barrel, probably paused since Jem had left that morning. The video system was a duplicate of the one Jem lost in the flooded van. A gift, Jem had told me earlier, from the nice doctor.

I turned off the monitor.

On the way back down the hal , I heard voices coming from behind the study door, where Dr. Dreamboat had been eavesdropping.

Erainya yel ed, “Goddamn it, Barrera!”

Sam Barrera said something I couldn’t quite make out.

I was tempted to eavesdrop myself, but the doctor was watching me, so I joined him in the living room.

He poured a glass of merlot from the tabletop picnic. “Tres, may I offer you some?”

I shook my head. “How long has she been in there?”

“About twenty minutes. I was hoping to surprise her with lunch, as you can see.”

“Inconvenient.”

He set down the wine bottle. “You know this man Barrera?”

I nodded. “An old rival.”

“They were shouting. I was concerned. That’s why I was at the door.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Doctor.”

He studied me as if I were a patient, as if he were scanning for al ergies lurking behind my eyes. “Would it hurt to cal me J.P.?”

“Yeah. Probably would.”

He managed a smile. “From Jem, I expected resentment. But from you? Give me a chance, Tres.”

The problem was: He was right. Erainya was crazy about this guy. Jem thought he was right up there with fruit rol ups. And I resented him why—because he was too old for Erainya? Because he lavished Jem with presents? Maybe I feared he was after the tens of dol ars in Erainya’s bank account.