No Immunity

see back then.
    First Street slithered up the hillside, a two-lane main j drag largely unchanged in the hundred years since prospectors and thieves shot it out in the muddy road and died on the covered wooden sidewalks. The wind and dirt had § turned painted facades gray. The Gattozzi Saloon—Rooms by the Night, Week, Month—was a tall-windowed Victorian that must have outlasted its paint job by seventy years. Across the street a one-pump gas station beckoned drivers with promises of water, soda, sanitary supplies. Under the covered walkway signs in windows announced! Sam’s Supplies, Masting’s Hardware, The 47th Street Deli. Kiernan smiled appreciatively as she pulled in by the red-and-white oilcloth-covered tables of the whimsically a named cafe, walked back down past the Tin Nugget Bar to the door stenciled Jeffrey Tremaine, M.D.
    She stopped outside, taken aback by the poverty’ of this weathered storefront. Was this the venerable practice he had taken over from his father? She had pictured it operated out of a venerable dwelling of the saloon’s vintage. Blit this was a spot available to anyone with a hundred dollars and a load of collectibles on the back of the truck. How little she really knew of Jeff Tremaine. Even her assumptions were turning out to be wrong.
    The dry wind strafed her cheeks and she could smell the dirt and dust in it, unforgiving of those who stood too long waiting to decide. The November sun pricked weakly at her shoulders. She had to shove hard to open Tremaine’s door, and nearly leap out of the way as the wind thudded it closed behind her.
    A woodstove crackled in the far corner, and a woman and child, both in jeans, sat on the nearest seats, across the room from the receptionist’s counter.
    “You Dr. O’Shea?” the gray-haired receptionist asked.
    “O’Shaughnessy.”
    “Dr. Tremaine may be at lunch. The mortuary’ll be unlocked. Autopsy room’s in the back.”
    “Customers aren’t likely to walk out, huh?”
    Outside, the wind seemed stronger, and winter had settled in under the sidewalk awning. Between her death-ridden nightmares and Tchernak’s quitting she had forgotten about winter. La Jolla winters merely meant more tourists on the beach. She pulled her brown bouclé jacket tighter around her ribs, but she didn’t feel any warmer. The jacket, black shirt, and brown pants made up her “every possibility” suit, created by her dressmaker to suit her five-foot frame. Her running shoes pretty much destroyed the image, but Jeff Tremaine hadn’t called her for herimage.
    The Constant Mortuary was one storefront wide, like Jeff’s office. Trade might be constant, but it was clearly not lucrative. Indeed the door was open. She stepped into a paneled room with a riser at one side. The viewing room had no one on view. “Jeff?” she called, pushing open the door to the back.
    No answer. She considered and immediately discarded; the idea of tracking Tremaine down at lunch. Not with the body so close, and the chance that one glance would prove Jeff had overreacted—again. She tried one door, then the next, and walked into a small, close room unbrightened by its one window a few feet from the next storefront. The air was close, and the grit on the window lock suggested it hadn’t been opened in years. The body would be in the fridge.

CHAPTER 6

    The receiver was slippery in Brad Tchernak’s hand. He’d been up all night pacing back and forth across his studio, around the chest press and stationary bike, from the kitchen to the garage door, and for a two-hour stretch he strode along the beach. Kiernan couldn’t be bothered with the Adcock case; and she couldn’t be bothered with him. A perfect match. He’d come to that conclusion a dozen times in the last few hours. Her ethical standards were too pure to take on Adcock? On the gridiron he’d faced off against plenty worse than whatever Adcock was. No problem. Still, now he could hear the crack in his voice as he said to Adcock, “I knew Grady Hummacher—”
    “O’Shaughnessy’s the one I want. She charges a bundle, I know that. I’ll pay it, but I’m paying for the best. I don’t deal with underlings.”
    Sweat was running down his back Christ, he had bent over at the line of scrimmage when the disks in his back were bulging so bad the fans in the stands must have seen them, and he hadn’t sweated like this. And as for Adcock, had the guy forgotten Kiernan blew him off? Was Adcock arrogant, or an