No Immunity

could find. “So if Grady Hummacher is really missing, as opposed to merely having skipped a meeting with you, he’s been gone less than a day, right?”
    Adcock’s voice was now just a mite sharper and she could tell he was restraining the urge to snap. He was not a man who restrained himself often. “It wasn’t just any meeting Grady missed. That meeting was key, for me, and especially for him. If it were anything less, I wouldn’t be calling a detective.”
    “An out-of-state detective whose fees are substantial.”
    “Right,” he said without pause.
    Tchernak put down his fork and shifted his head in front of her. Grady Hummacher? he mouthed.
    Adcock’s office was in Las Vegas . It would be an easy stop on the way back from Jeff Tremaine. An easy fee to justify the trip, she thought. But no; she definitely did not need a fee that badly. “Mr. Adcock, since you called me at home at dinnertime, I’m sure you’ll understand if I seem abrupt. Clearly you are not looking for a standard straightforward missing-person’s investigation or you would have gotten someone locally who would know the possibilities for mishap much better than I. Your need is more complicated than that, and more immediate. I have a pressing commitment, so there is no way I can help you.” Tchernak cleared his throat.
    “I don’t want someone else. I need the best.”
    “I can’t be in two places at once.”
    “Grady Hummacher’s missing! He could be lying dead somewhere. Look, I’m asking for your help.”
    Tchernak pointed his finger at himself.
    She hesitated, then said to Adcock, “You and I have different standards. People are too expendable to you. I’m not going to endanger my agency working for you again.” Before he could start another round, she hung up.
    “Me!” Tchernak shouted. His wiry hair bristled. He looked like he’d stuck a finger in the socket. “Grady Hum-macher, right?”
    “So?”
    “I know a Grady Hummacher. How many can there be?”
    “In the oil industry?”
    “I think so.”
    “You think so? Just how well do you know Hummacher?”
    “He was at State with me, a dorm counselor my freshman year.”
    “Your counselor?”
    “On the floor above me.”
    “So it’s more like you knew of him than actually knew him?”
    “No, I knew him all right. And I ran into him in the airport a month or so ago and we caught up.”
    “And did he say he was planning to skip a meeting with Reston Adcock?”
    “Grady’s missing, huh? You know, Kiernan, this is a perfect case for me. I mean, I know the guy. I—”
    “Tchernak! I’ve already turned down the case.”
    “We can—”
    “If Adcock’s really worried, he’ll be on the horn to someone local by now.”
    “I can—”
    “Tchernak—”
    “I’m good at detecting, you know that.”
    He had handled each job she’d grudgingly allowed him, and better than she had imagined. He could get anyone within a hundred miles of San Diego to open up. Women found him adorable, like the biggest puppy in the litter. For men, they remembered the offensive lineman who tossed Kevin Greene on his butt three times in one quarter. He was the all-pro lineman with the good instincts. Get over your need to be the boss, Kiernan. Take him and give thanks.
    Her throat squeezed in so hard she could barely force words out. “That’s not the problem, Tchernak.”
    “What is the problem, then?”
    She took a breath. “I worked in the coroner’s office. I don’t do well in bureaucracy. I don’t like to take orders—” Tchernak grinned. “Yeah, right. You like to give them.” She nodded, took a longer breath. She expected Tchernak to go into a riff on her love of command, but he didn’t. He loomed silent, waiting. The air in the room seemed to thicken and everything slowed. Ezra let out a moan, but neither of them looked at him. “The thing is, Tchernak, I don’t like to share. I wasn’t one of those kids j who got a strawberry ice cream and said to all my friends, ‘You want a lick?’ I like—I need—to have things be just mine. This is my agency. It and what it’s gotten me are all I have. I can’t give it up. Or share it.”
    Tchernak started to speak, but she stopped him.
    “Don’t tell me you’ll always take orders, you’ll be just an employee. As it is, I’m afraid if I forget to check the letterhead each morning, I’ll find ‘O’Shaughnessy Investigations’ has been replaced with ‘O’Shaughnessy and Tchernak.’ Or more likely