“The police already did that.”
“Now it’s our turn. C’mon.”
She was in his chair. Thing probably cost eight hundred bucks. I crouched down next to her and opened a drawer on the right while she opened the one in the middle. Peter watched for a moment, then said, “Hey, if you need anything.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jeri mumbled without looking up.
Peter shrugged, went out.
The drawer I’d opened contained a bunch of Sjorgen & Howard business forms, letterhead, general office memos, some of which were five years old. Jeri was into paperclips and old pens, a staple remover, rubber bands, scissors, seventeen cents in change.
A photograph on the desk caught my eye. Walnut frame, glass. Jonnie, twenty years ago, squinting into the sun on a beach somewhere. With him was a bony girl twelve or thirteen years old with Jonnie’s black hair, wearing a droopy green bikini, glasses, braces on her teeth. Rosalyn again. Had to be.
I’d never met her, but it was hard to imagine that gawky kid as Nicole’s dance instructor. The picture was probably taken about the time Nicole was born. Time marches on, carrying kids along with it into adulthood, adults into various kinds of oblivion.
“Find something?” Jeri asked.
“Nope.”
“Then keep looking.”
“That mean I’m on the payroll?”
“Keep looking, Mort.”
I made a show of it, but in my heart I knew it was hopeless. The desk had been sterilized. No way was it going to harbor a packet of death threats from a psycho written in a childlike scrawl, with inky fingerprints, DNA-laden drool, and a return address.
In time, even Jeri called it quits. Ignoring Amyee’s squawk of protest, I stuck my head into Peter Howard’s office unannounced and told him we were leaving. Having missed a putt, he wasn’t thrilled to see me, but he was elated to have us out of his building and out of his life. Me, especially. He might’ve put up with Jeri, one on one.
Outside, walking toward the car, Jeri said, “You’re like a rhino in a china shop, Mort.”
“You mean bull, don’t you?”
“No. Rhino suits you. You need to lighten up. Peter Howard might have told us something.”
“Yeah, well, he started it with that get-outta-here-and-don’t-bother-me attitude of his.”
“Oh, say, that’s an enormous help.”
“I didn’t like the look in his eyes, Jeri.” I had to hurry to keep up with her. Women and aerobics will be the death of tens of thousands of men in the U.S. in the coming years. In droves, we will have heart attacks trying to keep up.
“What look?” she demanded.
“Something squinty. Sneaky.”
“So, based on that, you think what? That he killed and beheaded Jonnie? And worse, used a sabre saw on him? That wimp?”
“I didn’t say that. I doubt if the useless prick knows what a sabre saw is. I think we ought to give him another look, that’s all.”
She stopped at the car and faced me, talking across the width of her Porsche. “Motive, Mort.”
“He wanted Jonnie’s office.”
“Try to get a grip.”
“In L.A. they’ll murder you for jogging shoes. An office with a view is better than shoes, especially if you think it would impress little Amyee darlings.”
“I said, try to get a grip. She’d be impressed with gum.” She got in behind the wheel.
I flung my hands in the air. “Motive? How would I know? Maybe Peter Howard’s got illegal land deals coming out his ass, and Jonnie found out and was about to blow the whistle. Or muscle in. We don’t know what’s going on in that place. And we don’t know how the business is set up, either. With Jonnie out of the picture, maybe it’ll just be Howard Title Company now.”
“Terrific, now work our dead district attorney into this surreal little theory of yours.”
I stared at her for several seconds. “It’s not a theory, it’s a possibility.”
“Technically, that would make it a hypothesis, and a weak one at that. Now get in. Or do you want to go back and paw through Jonnie’s desk for another hour or two?”
“Not on your life.” I hopped in, wedged into the seat like a two-hundred-pound woman into size seven panties, then stuck the moustache back on again.
Jeri fired up the engine and took off, looked over at me. “Offhand, I don’t see any compelling reason to uproot Sjorgen & Howard, Mort. We need a helluva lot more than squinty eyes and darling Amyee. Unless what you really want is her phone number.”
“Maybe I do. Gum’s a cheap date.”
She laughed, then snapped my head back shifting the Porsche into third.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JERI DROPPED ME off downtown at the corner of First and Virginia and sped away. I watched her go. I still hadn’t asked her about the judo, not that it mattered. I pretty much had the gist. She turned a corner, gone, and I headed up north on foot, through the heart of Reno’s gaming district.
The golf hat didn’t suit me, so I shoved it in a pocket and bought a cheap black cowboy hat at a tourist ripoff joint on the corner of Second and Virginia. Reno’s transient and tourist population is eclectic enough that you can get away with that wild west, drugstore cowboy look without drawing stares, even if this wild west is one of used car salesmen, crack dealers, fast food, and massage parlors.
It was nearing three o’clock when I got to the Golden Goose. O’Roarke was just coming on shift, tying on an apron. He stared wordlessly at the hat. I took it off, knowing by his smirk that buying it had been one more mistake in a long line. I set it on the stool next to mine, ordered a plain Coke.
“How ‘bout a sarsaparilla, pardner?” he drawled. “Cuts trail dust like nothin’ you ever saw.”
“Aaaaand, there goes your tip, smart ass.” I stuck my moustache on a jar of beer nuts again. Made it look like Groucho, or Hitler.
“You haven’t tipped me in two years, Angel.” He slid a Coke in front of me.
“Not true. February I told you tomato paste gets
