“A few minutes. We're trying to locate your ex-husband.”
“You got nerve coming around here.” She scowled, hoisting two bags in her arms.
“We're just checking all the possibilities,” Jacobi said.
She snapped back, “Like I told his parole officer, I haven't heard a word from him since he got out.”
“He hasn't been to see you?”
“Once, when he got out. He came by to pick up some personal stuff he thought I had held for him. I told him I threw it all out.” “What kind of stuff?” I asked.
“Useless letters, newspaper articles on the trial. Probably the old guns he kept around. Frank was always into guns. Stuff only a man with nothing to show for his life would find value in.”
Jacobi nodded. “So what'd he do then?”
“What'd he do?” Ingrid Thiasson snorted. “He left without a word about what life had been like for us for the past twenty years. Without a word about me or his son. You believe that?”
“And you have no idea where we could contact him?”
“None. That man was poison. I found someone who's treated me with respect. Who's been a father to my boy. I don't want to see Frank Coombs again.” I asked, “You have any idea if he might be in touch with your son?”
“No way. I always kept them apart. My son doesn't have any links to his father. And don't go buzzing around him. He's in college at Stanford.”
I stepped forward. “Anyone who might know where he is, Ms. Thiasson, it would be a help to us. This is a murder case.”
I saw the slightest sign of hesitation. “I've lived a good life for twenty years. We're a family now. I don't want anyone knowing this came from me.”
I nodded. I felt the blood rushing to my head.
“Frank kept up with Tom Keating. Even when he was locked away. Anyone knows where he is, it'd be him.”
Tom Keating. I knew the name.
He was a retired cop.
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 78
LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, Jacobi and I pulled up in front of condo 3A at the Blakesly Residential Community down the coast in Half Moon Bay.
Keating's name had stuck in my mind from when I was a kid. He'd been a regular at the Alibi after the nine-to- four shift, where many afternoons I'd been hoisted up on a bar stool by my father. In my mind, Keating had a ruddy complexion and a shock of prematurely white hair. God, I thought, that was almost thirty years ago.
We knocked on the door of Keating's modest slatted-wood condo. A trim, pleasant-looking woman with gray hair answered.
“Mrs. Keating? I'm Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Homicide detail. This is Inspector Jacobi. Is your husband at home?” “Homicide...?” she said, surprised.
“Just an old case,” I said with a smile.
A voice called from inside, “Helen, I can't find the damned clicker anywhere.” “just a minute, Tom. He's in the back,” she said as she motioned us into the house.
We walked through the sparsely decorated house and into a sun room overlooking a small patio. There were several framed police photos on the wall. Keating was as I remembered him, just thirty years older. Gaunt, white hair thinning, but with that same ruddy complexion.
He sat watching an afternoon news show with the stock market tape streaming by. I realized he was sitting in a wheelchair.
Helen Keating introduced us, then, finding the clicker, put the TV volume down. Keating seemed pleased to have visitors from the force.
“I don't get to many functions since my legs went. Arthritis, they tell me. Brought on by a bullet to lumbar four. Can't play golf anymore.” He chuckled. “But I can still watch the old pension grow.”
I saw him studying my face. “You're Marty Boxer's little girl, aren't you?” I smiled. “The Alibi... A couple of five-oh-ones, right, Tom?” A 5-0-1 was the call for backup, and how they used to call a favorite drink, an Irish whiskey with a beer chaser.
“I heard you were quite the big shot these days.” Keating nodded with a toothy smile. “So, what brings you two honchos down to talk to an old street cop?”
“Frank Coombs,” I said.
Keating's features suddenly turned hard. “What about Frank?” “We're trying to find him, Tom. I was told you might know where he is.”
“Why don't you call his parole officer? That wouldn't be me.”
