Day Shift
Page 19

“You sound real certain.”
“I am real certain. By the way, I’ve called Jess Barnwell in Fort Worth. He’s represented me before.”
“Good,” Arthur said. “You need a lawyer. I’ve heard good things about Jess Barnwell. If something about Barnwell doesn’t work out, you can try Magdalena Orta Powell in Davy.”
“Lot of name,” Manfred said, smiling.
“Lot of lawyer.”
They both stood up. “Can you get rid of these people?” Manfred asked, his head jerking to the door.
“I can try,” Arthur said, without much optimism. “I’ll tell them they have to stay out of the yard.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Manfred said, and opened the door just enough for the sheriff to exit, his hat firmly in place on his head. Manfred tried not to listen to the questions the reporters were shouting.
Lucky I work at home, he thought. He glanced at his cell phone, which had not rung yet. He was uneasy. He’d expected to hear from Barnwell before now. He called the law office again. This time the secretary told him, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bernardo, but Mr. Barnwell says you need to seek other representation. He has done work for the Goldthorpe family before, and late yesterday he was engaged by Mr. Goldthorpe.”
“But Morton Goldthorpe is dead.”
“Mr. Lewis Goldthorpe.” The voice was carefully neutral. Then she said, “I really am sorry,” and hung up.
The next phone call Manfred made was to Magdalena Orta Powell. He was beginning to feel like a rabbit trying to find a safe place to hide from the crazy fox.
He spent a certain amount of time talking to her assistant, a man named Phil Van Zandt . . . not a name you’d soon forget. From Van Zandt’s voice, Manfred believed he was talking to a man in his early twenties like Manfred himself, a man who was not from “these parts.”
“Could you be here tomorrow at four, Mr. Bernardo?” Van Zandt asked, in the abstracted tone of someone looking at a schedule book and a computer screen. “She should be out of court by then.”
“Phil, here’s my situation. I live in Midnight, and I’ve got reporters camped outside my door. I can’t get out of my house without running the gauntlet. If I have to, I have to, but I really don’t want to do that. Is there any way Ms. Powell can come to my place?”
“I can just catch her. Hold on.” There was an electronic buzz. Then some music kicked on. It didn’t suck.
Phil was back in less than two minutes. “She can come to you on Monday at eleven,” he said. “Before you get all excited, let me tell you her fee.”
After a very practical discussion, finally Manfred understood his compulsion to work hard and save money, a compulsion that had driven him for the past few months.
It was so he could pay Magdalena Orta Powell.
7
Olivia needed to get groceries. She didn’t do a lot of cooking in her little apartment—microwaving was more her speed—but she was out of Windex and close to being out of toilet paper, and she’d gotten up with a hankering for a sliced apple and vanilla fruit dip. With no idea that anything odd was going on, she stepped out the side door of the pawnshop to get in her car, only to see a small crowd hovering outside Manfred’s place. The sheriff’s car was there, too.
She ducked right back inside. She stood fuming for a moment. Then she swiveled on her heel and went through the pawnshop door. Bobo was reading in his favorite chair, a veritable poor man’s throne upholstered in velvet. He was using his e-reader today, so she knew he was following his current program of reading one hundred great mystery and suspense novels. Olivia did not know who had created the list and how the selections had been picked, but she did admire Bobo’s faithfulness to his agenda.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked, jerking her thumb toward the rental house.
“Good morning to you,” Bobo said, putting his e-reader down reluctantly. “I’m on number twenty-seven, which happens to be Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.”
Olivia was not in the mood for Bobo’s cleverness. “What. Is. Going. On?” she demanded.
“Yes,” said Joe, coming in the front door just in time to hear her question. “What?”
“I stood out there and listened for a minute. Manfred’s been accused of being a jewel thief, and it’s been hinted that he killed the old lady,” Bobo said. “You should know more about it than I do, since I hear you were on the spot.” He gave Olivia a very level look.
“I had nothing to do with Manfred’s situation,” she said immediately. “Who’s accused him? Of stealing what?”
Bobo said, “I only know what I overheard the reporters saying when I put my trash can out at the curb. And I’ve told you that.”
Joe said, “I don’t believe it for a second. Manfred? Nahhh.”
Olivia fumed, though she kept it under a tight lid. She was smart enough about herself to know that she felt strongest and most effective in situations in which she could take control and take action. Not always the same thing . . . but often enough. “He didn’t do it,” she said.
“I agree with both of you,” Bobo said. “He’s an honest man in a charlatan’s job. I don’t think he had any more to do with that than he did the murder/suicide the same weekend. In the same hotel.”
There was a substantial silence.