Playing Dead

Goose.”

“I’ll be miserable the entire hour you’re late, but I’ll manage as long as you don’t cancel on me altogether.”

“No chance. I missed you this morning.”

“Ditto. Coffee doesn’t taste the same without you.”

She laughed. “I highly doubt that. So nine is okay?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

She hung up, a rush of anticipation running through her veins. She considered leaving now and catching up with Mitch before he left his house, but decided against it. She’d been practically ignoring Dave and his friends since she’d been seeing Mitch, and Dave would be ticked if she bailed earlier than she planned. Plus she had to make it up to him for jumping down his throat earlier.

The timer went off and she took out the garlic bread. She decided one beer was plenty, and started a pot of coffee. That’s what it was: She was worn down from today and the stress of the confrontation with her father. A cup of coffee or three and she’d be back to her old self and ready for a night of dancing.

Dave walked into the room. “I’m sorry,” Claire said to him, glad they were alone for a minute.

“It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

Dave walked up to her, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Yes. But I could tell something was bothering you from the minute you drove up. Want to talk about it?”

She glanced at the doorway. Everyone was in the great room, the television loud enough to drown out their conversation.

“Do you remember a few months ago, before the earthquake”-she preferred to say “earthquake” rather than “when my father escaped from Quentin”-“when we had dinner with your dad, and I told him about my conversation with the law student Oliver Maddox?”

Dave tensed and straightened. He went from friend to cop in a split second. “Yes. Dad had a visit from Maddox as well.”

“Right. And I was too angry and upset to listen to him.”

“I remember that, too.”

“But I need to know what they talked about.”

“Why now?”

“I-” She couldn’t tell him about her father. Not yet. “I found his card in my desk this morning and it’s been on my mind. He told me he was close to finding proof that my father is innocent. I didn’t believe anything he said then, especially when I found out he lied about who he worked for. But now-”

“Now what?”

She said, “I just need to know what he meant; if there’s anything he found out that might, I don’t know, confirm my father’s guilt or give me something new to look at, maybe-”

“Are you buying into Maddox’s theory?”

“I don’t even know what his theory is, not completely, which is why I wanted to talk to Bill.”

Dave stared at her flatly. “A bulletin came into the station today from the sheriff’s department. Oliver Maddox is dead. His body was found this morning in the Sacramento River near Isleton.”

Claire couldn’t have heard that right. “Dead?” she whispered.

“His identity hasn’t been confirmed, but it was his car and a body in the driver’s seat, badly decomposed, but it’s likely Oliver Maddox.” Dave watched her closely, too closely, like a cop viewing a suspect. “So I ask you again, Claire, why are you interested in Oliver Maddox now?”

“I haven’t been able to sleep,” she said, not completely lying. She’d had problems sleeping ever since her mother was killed. “It’s been worse since the earthquake.” Again, the truth. “And I’ve been thinking about what Maddox said, and wondering if I should have listened to him. If maybe he knew something that. . that proved my father is innocent. What if it’s the truth? What if I ignored Maddox because of my own guilt?”

“Guilt? For what?”

She laughed without humor. “What? You know damn well that I called my dad that day and told him about the man in bed with my mother. I set in motion the entire chain of events. For fifteen years I’ve believed that I ignited my father’s fuse. He may have pulled the trigger, but I baited him. What if I’m innocent?”

“Claire, you are innocent. What your father did had nothing to do with you-”

She interrupted. “It had everything to do with me. And my dad. And my mother. But if my dad has been telling the truth all along, no matter how crazy it sounds, it means that someone else did kill my mom and that prosecutor. And Oliver Maddox was onto it. He must have known something, otherwise why would he come to me-and your dad-” She paused. “How did he die?”

“I don’t know,” Dave said. “The autopsy is tomorrow and the investigation is ongoing. I heard the FBI is involved, but this isn’t a Sac PD case. I don’t have any details.”

She looked him in the eye, asking without words.

He nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out.” He took both of her hands in his and squeezed, his face stern. “Don’t get your hopes up, Claire. This probably doesn’t mean anything. Your father was convicted. The evidence was solid.”

“It was largely circumstantial.”

“He had a half-dozen appeals, every one of them a failure. No one thinks he’s innocent. And”-Dave implored her with his expression-“I don’t want you throwing away your life helping him.”

Tom sat in the park across the street and watched Claire’s house.

She wasn’t home, but he had no idea what her schedule was. In the few days he’d been back in Sacramento, he’d only learned that she had no regular habits except hitting Starbucks every morning.

She could be home any minute, or not for hours.

He should have listened to Nelia and not come here. He’d seen Special Agent Bianchi twice; he was obviously watching Claire at least periodically. But Bianchi didn’t appear to be anywhere nearby now, and Tom wore a fairly decent disguise. He’d been using a rinse to hide the silver, making his hair browner than its natural black. He also took Nelia’s suggestion and didn’t crop it short as he’d worn it both before and after going to prison. She’d trimmed it into what she called a conservative businessman’s cut. The day’s growth of beard-though coming in threaded with silver-helped hide the shape of his face. And Nelia had bought him a pair of gold rimmed glasses to wear. He had a newspaper under his arm, and wore sneakers, jeans, and a black polo shirt. At first glance, no one would suspect that he was Tom O’Brien, the last fugitive from San Quentin. But if Claire or a cop saw him, the disguise wouldn’t buy him much time.

He sat on the bench and watched. Nelia would have woken up by now and be worried about him. Or be angry. Probably both. He didn’t want to upset her, but he’d already decided that if she were caught helping him, he would tell the authorities that he’d threatened her. Forced her to help. Confuse them enough that maybe they wouldn’t push it. It also might help that Nelia was on decent terms with her ex, a district attorney in San Diego.

The park closed at sunset, and Tom didn’t want to chance hanging out there long after. Patrols increased in the evenings, primarily as a deterrent to juvenile crimes like vandalism and graffiti and petty theft.

Being back in Sacramento had shoved the past right under his nose. He’d brought Claire to this very park when she was not even three, an inquisitive toddler who enjoyed feeding the ducks. He remembered when one of the mallards had nipped her finger. Instead of crying or chasing the bird, she’d lectured him, pointing that hurt finger at the duck.

“That was not nice. I fed you already, let the other ducks have a turn.”

While in prison, Tom tried to remember the good times, but inevitably he’d see Claire’s young, stricken face when she cast her eyes on Lydia’s dead body.

Traffic in the area diminished as the commute ended. Claire still hadn’t returned home.

Tom didn’t need a lot of time. Go in, leave the letter, get out. Hell, he could leave the letter in her mailbox. It would be safer that way.

But the truth was he wanted to see how she was doing, and a person’s house said a lot about how they lived. Five minutes. Go in, put the letter on her refrigerator, glance around, leave. The dogs might bark, but he