Page 23 of The Devil's Advocate

‘Almost a week ago. It’s not like Cody to go away and not tell me. He doesn’t have family – never married. He’s all about the job, you know. And art. He collects paintings. That’s his life. I thought maybe he had gone to see someone or lost his cell phone. He’s been missing over a week. The last I heard from him was a text. He sent me a message to ask if the lettersF Cmeant anything to me.’

‘What is that about?’

‘I don’t know, and no, it didn’t mean anything to me at the time. Still doesn’t.’

‘Does Cody live locally?’

‘Sure, I’ve been to the house. When I pulled into the driveway his car was gone. No one in the house. I tried him on his cell – nothing. I got worried, called the police.’

‘Were they able to pin-point his cell phone?’

Betty paused, frowned and said, ‘Honey, the Sheriff’s Department won’t lift a finger. They talk a good talk, but they won’t do shit, pardon my French.’

Her bottom lip began to tremble, she took a huge breath, and wiped delicately at her eyes with long fingernails. They were painted bright yellow, with a different colored stone in the center of each nail, and a pattern of smaller stones around them.

‘Do you think Cody’s disappearance has anything to do with the Dubois case?’

‘I can’t say for sure. Cody didn’t have enemies. The only people who disliked him were the law, and the DA, of course. A tall drink of piss, that one – oh, pardon my—’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, and took another sip of sweet tea. I could feel it stripping the enamel from my teeth.

‘I’ll do what I can to find Cody. But I need to get up to speed on the Dubois case. Did Cody have any theories, any prep work I could look at?’

‘Our case files were in his trunk. He always took that file home to work on at night. The only thing I might have would be our expert’s report.’

‘Cody had an expert lined up?’

‘Just one, an independent medical examiner.’

‘That’s unusual.’

‘Not for Cody. Doc Farnesworth used to be the medical examiner for the next county over, now retired. Cody always got his own autopsy of the victim in every murder case. Farnesworth is an honest man, I can’t say the same for our county medical examiner.’

‘Why?’

‘Cause the county medical examiner sometimes misses things. Things that might be useful for the defense. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Doc Farnesworth. I know Cody tried to talk to him. I don’t know if he spoke to him or not before he went missing. I’ve got a copy of our autopsy on email. I can print that out for you now.’

‘Actually, Betty, there’s somewhere I have to be, and I don’t want to take important papers with me right now. Thank you for the tea. Would it be okay if my colleague, Harry Ford, collected them later?’ I asked, getting to my feet.

‘Why sure, honey,’ she said. ‘Where are you going all of a sudden?’

‘I’m going to get arrested,’ I said.

Outside, it felt like the devil had thrown a few thousand more souls on the fire. I stayed close to the buildings, hugging every available inch of shadow as I made my way back to the Sheriff’s Office. Ten feet from the entrance I stopped and called Harry.

‘I’ll bring back some fried egg sandwiches and coffee. Just getting the tires now,’ he said.

‘Don’t bother about me. I need to go see Andy and they’re not letting me in. I have to do it the hard way. Two things I need you to do for me. When you get back to town, pick up a report from Cody Warren’s office. I talked to his office manager, Betty. She’s helpful. Tell me this, do the letters F and C have any significance for you?’

‘No, not off the top of my head. What’s that about?’

‘Before Cody Warren went missing he texted Betty, asked if the letters F C meant anything to her. She said they didn’t ring any bells. Don’t worry about it for now, the last thing I need you to do is very important – whatever happens,don’tbail me out immediately. Give me a few hours.’

‘Bail? Eddie, I know you haven’t had coffee yet, but what the hell are you talking—’

I ended the call, threw open the doors of the Sheriff’s Department and walked straight through the waiting area, past the yelling Leonard tostop right there. I pushed through the swing doors.

A buzzer must’ve been attached to the doors, to let cops know someone had come through. There were three deputies in the office, all behind their desks, all with stupid expressions on their faces as I made my way through the clutter of desks toward the holding cells.