Veronica Mars by Rob Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

inept, a bureaucratic tool, and Dan wasn’t much better. He allied himself with the powerful and preyed upon the weak. She had reason to believe he was strategically redistributing evidence—just two months earlier a Glock 9 mm had been planted on her friend Weevil Navarro’s unconscious body after Duncan’s mom, Celeste, shot him, and while she couldn’t prove it yet, she was almost certain the sheriff—or one of his cronies—had planted it on him. And according to public defender Cliff McCormack, Weevil wasn’t alone. If there was a dollar to be made, the Sheriff’s Department happily bent the law for the highest bidder.
    “Close the door, please, Ms. Mars.” Petra Landros gestured for her to come in. Veronica shut the door and sat down at a second chair across from Lamb. His eyes tracked her closely. She kept her movements casual, almost dismissive, but she felt the tension in her arms and legs, like bent springs poised to snap.
    Petra turned to look at Lamb. “The Chamber of Commerce has decided to hire Ms. Mars to work the Hayley Dewalt case. I’d like for you to catch her up on any details you have so she can get started.”
    “You have got to be kidding me.” An ugly flush swept through his cheeks. “Ms. Landros, there’s no need—”
    “I’ve already made up my mind on this, Lamb.” Petra’s face was cool, her voice firm. Her smile widened slightly.“Come on, Dan. With the upcoming election, don’t you think you’ve got your hands full enough already? The Chamber is invested in another Lamb administration in the Sheriff’s Department. We need you to focus on doing what you do best—keeping the town clean and the riffraff off the streets.”
    The subtext was so obvious even Lamb couldn’t miss it.
If you want to keep your funding and your endorsement, you’ll play nice
. Veronica wished she had a camera to capture the particular shade of violet Lamb’s cheeks were turning.
    His eyes flashed toward Veronica with unadulterated loathing, his mouth twisting wildly as if he was fighting to keep it shut. After a long moment, he grabbed a thin manila file folder and thrust it across the desk at her.
    “Let’s get one thing straight,” Lamb said as she opened the file. “You’re here to assist in an investigation. Not to run it. You’re in my house now, Mars. I set the rules.”
    She flipped through the folder. There was nothing other than the initial missing person’s report filed by Hayley’s friends two days after the party. No notes, no transcripts, no records.
    She looked up with a raised eyebrow. “This is it? Is one of your rules to
not
interview people?”
    Lamb gave her a condescending sneer. “What else do you want, a
Family Circus
–style map retracing her steps? We took her friends’ statement and logged it in the system. There wasn’t anything else
to
do. There’s absolutely no evidence that anyone took Hayley anywhere against her will. If there were, we would have followed it.”
    “Did you check out the house she disappeared from?”
    Lamb flicked his hair back. “First of all, just because thatwas the last place her friends saw her doesn’t mean she disappeared from that house.”
    She stared at him incredulously. “So your argument for not checking the last place she was seen is that it’s just the last place she was
seen
? Nice. Very thorough.”
    Something flitted across Lamb’s face and was gone. Then he shrugged. “My people are already spread thin. I’ve got most of my guys down by the boardwalks making sure kids don’t drown in their own puke. We don’t have the manpower to look under rocks for drunken sorority girls.”
    Veronica gave him a withering look but didn’t say anything. She could ask for more—for the rental agreement for the house where Hayley went missing, for information on the owners, for the deed—but it’d be just as easy for Mac to access that. Not to mention faster, and one less time she’d have to talk to Lamb. All kinds of