Murder in the River City(31)

“Are you trying to depress me?”

“You came back for that redhead.”

Manny was partly right, but Sam came back as much to fix things with Shauna as to take back his life and former career in Sac PD. Yet, he’d spent half the night wondering if Shauna had been playing a game with him last night or if it her flirting was innocuous. He had the distinct impression she was trying to make a point, but he hadn’t been thinking with his head.

“Tell that girl you love her already.”

“It’s complicated.”

“It’s not. You fucked up, admit it, fix it.”

“Manny, you know Shauna.”

“I do. That’s why you have to tell her it was all your fault, you were an idiot, you weren’t thinking straight, you never thought of her as a sister, and you’re scared to death you’re going to screw it up again.”

“You want me to be that honest?”

Manny shot him a look that, if Sam didn’t know him, would have looked murderous. Six feet of solid Cuban muscle with a long-faded scar on his jawline, Manny looked like a bouncer or an enforcer. When he’d been a cop in Vice, Manny had infiltrated some of the most violent gangs in Sacramento. Sam had known him long enough to know he could act exactly how he looked. He’d gotten out of law enforcement because he feared what he was becoming. He thought it would save his relationship with his girlfriend. It hadn’t. She’d left him. But he still hadn’t returned. Yet this office, this life, had done him well. Manny was a lot calmer and seemed happier than two years ago.

“Sammy, you’ve had a hard on for that chick since forever. Emma was a bitch. You know I couldn’t stand her, but you set up that marriage to fail because you were in love with another woman. Girls know these things. Emma knew it and used it to hurt you.”

“There was never anything between Shauna and me.”

Manny laughed a deep, guttural roar. “Just because you haven’t had sex?” He laughed again. “Sam, you’re right. We should never be partners, if you’re so fucking blind.”

“I thought you were giving up swearing.”

“So sue me.” Manny gave the boring square office a shake. “Now, tell me why you came by? You’re obviously working.”

“What do you know about Coresco & Hunt? Lawyers.”

Manny leaned back in his chair, but his body wasn’t relaxed. “I won’t be taking any business from them, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I don’t—the name came up in a double homicide Black and I are working. Mack Duncan, Dooley’s bartender, was killed at the pub Sunday night. A former employee, female, was killed an hour later at Discovery Park. We have evidence she may have been at the bar, or know the people who were.”

“I’ll preface this to say that I don’t know a lot about all the people working for the firm, but the head honcho, Jimmy Coresco, has ties to what passes as the mafia in Sacramento.”

“They’re not criminal defense.”

“No. They’re worse. If everything I’ve heard is true—and I don’t know anything first hand—Coresco helps criminals launder their money. Sets them up in tax shelters, helps keep their businesses squeaky, knows all the ins and outs of tax law and banking law and corporate law. Very high-end stuff.”

“Do you know any of their clients?”

“I don’t know names. Well, there was this one case, a bust I made a few years ago. There was this homeless shelter for teens. The shelter was run by Mika, a former nun, who alerted us to possible sex trafficking. Some pimp was recruiting girls from the shelter. They were being sent to someplace called Mary Magdalene’s Home for Girls.” Manny cringed. “Taking a religion icon and perverting it, I wanted to string them up.”

“What happened?”

“We shut down the trafficking—they’d been prostituting the girls, and some were being transported across state lines, essentially sold to other prostitution rings. But the Home for Girls had retained Coresco & Hunt. They had all their paperwork in order, were completely legit according to the D.A.”

“But?” Sam stopped in the shade of the porch.

“But I don’t buy it. Coresco didn’t defend them in court, but he convinced the D.A. the home was simply being used by a criminal, that the services they offered were being abused. Thing is—that guy, who I busted, ended up dead in prison before his trial. I was in the game a long time, Sammy. I know something was fishy.”

Sam wasn’t certain Manny was right, but he had been in Vice long enough that Sam had to trust his instincts. Enough to dig deeper.