To keep from getting soaked I said, “It’s ah...unique.” Hondo was in the corner of my vision and I saw him shake his head in slow motion.
We’d left then, but not before Mickey gave me a hug and big kiss on the cheek, her private cell phone number, her home phone number, office and home e-mail, and her address. Hondo asked her if the Lincoln was her only vehicle and she said no, she also had a Volkswagen Bug, one of the new ones, and oh, Bob had had his artist paint it with tiny cactus and coyotes, too, so they would match. She squirmed as she talked, like she had to go to the bathroom. “Bob had Valdar paint Indian maidens instead of the warriors. Wasn’t that just the most thoughtful, darling thing?”
We got the license number to go with the description of the paint job.
As we left Mickey and drove out the gate I said, “Looks like she’s in love with her boss.”
Hondo nodded, “Yep.”
“So, Landman was having an affair with Bond and Mickey.”
“This is LA,” Hondo said, “Happens all the time. But maybe it’s just infatuation on Mickey’s part. Maybe there’s nothing going on.”
“She does lean toward melodrama, I noticed that.”
“Did you notice the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“Mickey is a man.”
CHAPTER TWO
I looked at him.
Hondo held his thumb against his throat and made a half-inch space between it and his forefinger. “Adam’s apple.”
I was silent for a moment before saying, “I didn’t catch that.”
Hondo glanced at me as he turned on Sunset. “I figured all you could see was the top of her hair. Between that and worrying about all that mascara getting on your windbreaker, you were a little preoccupied. By the way, your jacket looks like one of those tee-shirts that kids wore years ago, the ones that had big black and red splotches on them and below that it said ‘I ran into Tammye Faye at the mall’, you remember.”
I tried to clean the windbreaker with my handkerchief, but it only smeared. I gave up and said, “At least Mickey seemed capable, and with the cell numbers it’ll be easy to check since we know the time and date of the call.”
“Mucho simple since all those phones are with the same company.”
“He does their commercials and gets them for free.”
Hondo slipped around a red Ferrari and got us to the office in record time.
**
It was an hour before my friend at the Sheriff’s office called back. He said there was no record of any of the phone numbers I’d given him making a call at that time. I hung up and looked at Hondo, who was sharpening his Black Ops folding knife, the same one he’d carried when we were in Afghanistan.
“No record of any calls.”
Hondo tested the blade by running it across his forearm. Hair rolled up like a military barber working the heads of new recruits. He folded it and put it in his pocket. “We need to double check the office phone. Maybe for some reason, Mickey’s light to that line didn’t work.”
“Yeah or maybe she’s lying.”
“Or maybe Bob was arguing with ghosts.”
I got back on the phone and said to Hondo while I re-dialed my friend at the Sheriff’s office, “Let’s check the office phone first, see if he used it. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll call a medium.”
“And if that doesn’t work, we need to go back to square one.”
I nodded as I asked my friend for another favor and Hondo grinned as he heard the tinny yell come out of the receiver and into my ear.
**