See you later.”
“Will you be visiting again?” Kenney asked.
“You did a good job of finding out about me this time,” I said, smiling at him as I walked away. “Keep on detecting.”
ELEVEN
I gave the driver directions back to the offices of Gill and Gill.
The detective’s surprise visit rattled me. I was pretty sure he saw it, too. Probably what he was hoping for. I knew that Kenney’s case was most likely more complicated than what he had told me. For him to hang on to it like he was doing meant that it had hung on to him.
The cab dropped me off at the same spot outside the old building. Miranda looked more frazzled this time.
“Did she call you?” she asked as I came through the door.
“No. You?”
“No.” She gnawed on a black fingernail. “Man, she never goes this long without checking in. And I can’t believe she would let you talk to him without being around.”
“You know a cop named Kenney?”
She let go of the fingernail. “Yeah. How do you know about him?”
“He was waiting for me when I came out of the prison.”
She scowled. “Figures. Even more reason Darcy should’ve been with you. You tell him anything?”
“Nothing to tell. He was basically just letting me know he doesn’t care for Simington.”
“He’s still pissy about striking out on him years ago,” she said. “Probably has front-row reservations for the execution.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why does he care so much?”
Miranda sighed. “Simington killed Kenney’s nephew. Went ballistic, I guess, when he got off. I wasn’t around, but Darcy told me about it.”
“Did Simington kill the kid?”
“Definitely,” Miranda said. “But the evidence they had was for shit so he skipped. Kenney couldn’t work it and Simington did a good enough job covering it up that the cops who did pull it couldn’t do a thing with it. Kenney’s been sour since.”
I was trying to equate the image of a cold-blooded killer with the man I’d just met inside the prison. I was having a hard time getting the two to mesh.
“Kenney’s apparently followed his case since he was convicted five years ago. When Simington’s number came up on the row a year and a half ago, Kenney made contact with us. He’s been by several times to see Darcy, to try to intimidate her and get her to back off, I guess.”
“Hard to do,” I said.
Miranda’s black lips curled into a smile. “She lets him do his thing, talk up all the ways he can end her career and all that. Then when he’s done, she opens up the door and waves him out without saying a word.” Miranda laughed to herself. “You can almost see his aorta explode.”
If Kenney was certain Simington had killed his nephew, I had a hard time blaming him for his stance. Opponents of the death penalty were fond of saying that you can’t make the crime personal. The problem was, murder was always personal for someone. Murder left a trail of victims in its wake. In this case, Kenney was one of the victims.
The amusement died on Miranda’s face, replaced with concern. “Where the hell is she?”
“I don’t know,” I said, heading for the door, irritated by the entire situation. “But when you find her, tell her to call me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to San Diego.”
“You’re going home?” she asked, incredulous. “You just got here.” “I did what Darcy asked,” I said. “She wants to know what he said, she knows where to find me.”
TWELVE
My return flight wasn’t until the following morning. I tried to change it and was informed it would cost me two hundred bucks, so I spent fifty on a crappy airport motel room instead. I got back to the airport in time for my flight the next morning, my mind swimming with images of Simington’s face and voice.
As we descended into San Diego, the clouds were playing tag in the sky, waiting to see which one dropped the first bucket of rain on the ground. I drove to my place, my thoughts bouncing between Darcy, Kenney, and Simington but never coming together to give me an answer about anything.
I shoved my key in my front door to unlock the deadbolt and twisted. There was no resistance, which told me it hadn’t been locked to begin with.
I took my hand off the keys, letting them hang in the lock, and listened. If Carter was in there, the TV would be blaring or the stereo rattling the walls.
Nothing.
