The Murder Book (36 page)

“Like I said, we want to maintain your privacy.”

Melinda Waters laughed. “Thanks for the thought.”

M
ilo asked her a few more questions — more gently,
unproductively — then we left her sitting at her desk looking dazed. As I drove out of the lot, the smoke from the Italian restaurant’s chimney caught my eye.

“Want lunch?” I said.

“I guess… yeah, why not.”

“No fast food, though. Let’s aim high. We deserve it.”

“For what?”

“Making some progress.”

“You think so?”

The taverna across the street was divided into four small, whitewashed rooms, each warmed by a beehive-shaped fireplace and topped by low ceilings striped with rough-hewn logs. We ordered beer, a mixed antipasto, spaghetti with capers and olives and garlic, and osso bucco from a lithe, young woman who seemed genuinely happy to serve us.

When she left, Milo said, “Progress.”

“We can place Janie with Willie Burns and Caroline Cossack the night of the murder. You don’t have doubts she was the dumpy girl, do you?”

He shook his head.

I said, “Melinda’s story also supplies a possible motive: jealousy. Caroline had a thing for Burns, thought Janie was moving in on her territory.”

“The eternal triangle leading to
that
?”

“The eternal triangle combined with dope and psychopathology and a low-inhibition party scene and Janie’s racism. No shortage of triggers. And something else fits: Janie’s murder presented as a sadistic sex killing and we’ve been wondering why other victims haven’t shown up. Because cold, sexual sadists don’t quit. But if the murder resulted from a passion-of-the-moment flare-up, a sole victim would make sense.”

“Janie in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Melinda’s description of Janie makes her the perfect victim: drugged-out, not too bright, prone to fantasy, a tendency to irritate people, a history of sexual abuse. Throw enough ingredients into the stew, toss in a few careless ‘niggers,’ and who knows.”

“What do you think about Janie’s blasé reaction to the downtown rape?”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “People expect rape victims to react the way they do on TV. And sometimes that happens. But pseudocalm is pretty common. Protective numbness. Given Janie’s victimization by her father, it makes perfect sense.”

“For her it woulda been more of the same,” he said. “Poor kid.”

He picked at his food, slid his plate away. “There’s a discrepancy between Janie’s description of the rape as Melinda remembers it and what Schwinn told me. According to Melinda, the rapist dropped Janie off a couple of miles from her home. Schwinn’s informant told
him
Janie’d been dumped in an alley and found unconscious by some wino.”

“That could’ve been Janie prettying up the picture,” I said. “Grasping for a shred of dignity.”

“Pathetic,” he said.

“Any idea who Schwinn’s informant was?”

“Nope. He never gave me a single bit of insider info. I kept waiting for him to clue me in, to help me learn the ropes, but we just went from call to call and when the time came for paperwork, he went home. And now here he is, pulling strings from the grave.… If Janie made up the part about walking home, maybe the young guy in a Jag was bogus, too. Her not wanting to admit he was a drooling, scabby hunchback in a jalopy? The alleged wino.”

“Could be. But if she was being truthful, the Jag story’s interesting. A young guy with hot wheels checking into a fleabag hotel wouldn’t be safe. Unless he had connections. As in Daddy owns the place. And Janie told Melinda the clerk seemed to know the guy. It might be interesting to know who held the deed on fleabag hotels twenty years ago.”

“You’re thinking some real estate honcho. The Cossacks. Or Larner.” He told me about Playa del Sol, rubbed his face. “I remember a few of the hotels down there. The scuzziest ones were on or near Main, between Third and Seventh. SRO flops, full of winos. The Exeter, the Columbus — there must’ve been a good half dozen, mostly propped up by Federal subsidies… so now I’m supposed to solve a twenty-year-old rape with no victim as well as a murder. Don’t think so, Alex.”

“Just tossing out suggestions,” I said. “Isn’t that what you pay me for?”

He forced a smile. “Sorry. I’m feeling hemmed in. Unable to do my usual investigative thing because it puts me in the crosshairs.”

“Paris Bartlett and the call from Personnel.”

“And the level of the players. That dinner with Obey, I don’t imagine they were convening to crochet samplers. Bacilla and Horne live for graft, and if Walt Obey’s involved in something, it has lots of zeros attached to it. Broussard wasn’t at the restaurant, but his hand’s been in this right from the beginning. He’s Obey’s neighbor, and Obey was one of his biggest supporters. All that makes me a
flea
. And guess what: A rumor’s circulating around the department about an HIV-positive detective about to retire soon. ‘Stay healthy,’ huh?”

“Oh my,” I said. “Subtle.”

“Cop’s subtlety. We train with nightsticks, not scalpels. Looks like I couldn’t have picked a worse time to stir the ashes, Alex. The hell of it is I’ve accomplished nothing… you finished? Let’s get back to the smog. This city’s too damn pretty.”

During the drive back to Albuquerque, he was glum and unreachable. The taverna’s food had been excellent, but I’d finished more of my plate than he had, and that was a first.

He spent the flight to L.A. dozing. When we were back in the Seville, he said, “Finding Melinda was progress in terms of motive, means, and opportunity. But what the hell’s all that worth when I have no idea where my suspects are? If I had to bet, my money would be on Willie Burns in some unmarked grave. The money folks behind Caroline would have seen him as a threat, and even if they never got to him, there was his heroin habit. Crazy Caroline, who could also be dead, or anywhere from the Bahamas to Belize. Even if I found her, what could I prove? They’d bring in one of your colleagues, and she’d go right back to some plush-padded room.”

“Sounds bleak,” I said.

“Some therapist you are.”

“Reality therapy.”

“Reality is the curse of the sane.”

I took Sepulveda to Venice, got onto Motor Avenue going south, drove past Achievement House.

“Talk about subtle,” he said.

“It’s a shortcut.”

“There are no shortcuts. Life is tedious and brutish… it can’t hurt to look into those SROs. Something I can do without attracting attention. But don’t expect anything. And don’t get
yourself
in trouble thinking you can fight my battles.”

“Trouble, as in?”

“As in anything.”

Robin had left a message on my machine, sounding hurried and detached. The tour had moved on to Vancouver and she was staying at the Pacific Lodge Hotel. I called the number and connected to her room. A happy male voice answered.

“Sheridan,” I said.

“Yes?”

“It’s Alex Delaware.”

“Oh. Hi. I’ll go get Robin.”

“Where is she?”

“In the bathroom.”

“How’s my dog?”

“Uh… great—”

“The reason I’m asking is because you seemed pretty in tune with him. Showing up prepared with a Milk-Bone. Very intuitive.”

“He — I like dogs.”

“Do you?” I said.

“Well, yeah.”

“Well, good for you.”

Silence. “Let me tell Robin you’re on the phone.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, but he’d put down the receiver, and I was talking to dead air.

She came on the line a few moments later. “Alex?”

“Hi,” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“With what?”

“Sheridan said you sounded upset.”

“Sheridan would know,” I said. “Being a sensitive guy and all that.”

Silence. “What’s going on, Alex?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” she said. “Every time I call you’re more…”

“Insensitive?” I said. “As opposed to you-know-who?”

Longer silence. “You can’t be serious.”

“About what?”

“About
him
.” She laughed.

“Glad to amuse you.”

“Alex,” she said, “if you only knew — I can’t believe this. What’s gotten into you?”

“Tough times bring out the best in me.”

“Why in the world would you even think that?” She laughed again, and that was probably what set me off.

“The guy shows up with a damned dog biscuit,” I said. “Let me tell you, hon, men are pigs. Altruism like that always comes with strings—”

“You are being totally
ridiculous
—”

“Am I? Each time I call your room, he’s right there—”

“Alex, this is
absurd
!”

“Okay, then. Sorry.” But there was nothing remorseful in my tone, and she knew it.

“What’s gotten into you, Alex?”

I thought about that. Then a rush of anger clogged my throat, and out it came: “I suppose I can be forgiven a bit of absurdity. The last time you left me didn’t turn out so great.”

Silence.

“Oh… Alex.” Her voice broke on my name.

My jaw locked.

She said, “I can’t do this.”

Then she hung up.

I sat there, perversely satisfied, with a dead brain and a mouth full of bile. Then that sinking feeling set in:
Idiot idiot!
I redialed her room. No answer. Tried the hotel operator again, was informed that Ms. Castagna had gone out.

I pictured her running through the lobby, tear-streaked. What was the weather in Vancouver? Had she remembered her coat? Had Sheridan followed, ever ready with consolation?

“Sir?” said the operator. “
Would
you like her voice mail?”

“Uh… sure, why not.”

I was connected, listened to Robin’s voice deliver a canned message. Waited for the beep.

Chose my words carefully, but ended up choking and letting the phone drop from my hand.

I moved to my office, drew the drapes, sat in gray-brown darkness, listened to the throbbing in my head.

A fine fix you’ve gotten yourself into, Alexander… the hell of it was Bert Harrison had warned me.

Bert was a wise man, why hadn’t I listened?

What to do… send flowers? No, that would insult Robin’s intelligence, make matters worse.

Two tickets to Paris…

It took a long time before I was able to shove my feelings somewhere south of my ankles, turn suitably numb.

I stared at the wall, visualized myself as a speck of dirt, worked hard at disappearing.

I booted up the computer and downloaded
Google
, because that search engine could locate a hamburger joint on Pluto.

“Walter Obey” pulled up three hundred and some-odd hits, 90 percent of them pertaining to the billionaire, with a quarter of those repetitive. Most were newspaper and business journal articles, about evenly divided between coverage of Obey’s philanthropic activities and his financial dealings.

Walter and Barbara Obey had contributed to the Philharmonic, the Music Center, Planned Parenthood, the Santa Monica Mountains Convervancy, the Humane Society, shelters for homeless youth, a slew of foundations raging battle against tragic diseases. The Sierra Club, too, which I found interesting for a developer.

I came up with no connection to organized sports nor to any link between any of the aborted plans to bring sports teams to L.A. In none of the articles was Obey’s name mentioned alongside those of the Cossack brothers or the Larners. He and his wife socialized very little and lived an understated life — for billionaires. A single, albeit baronial, residence in Hancock Park, no live-in help, off-the-rack clothing, no expensive hobbies. Barbara drove a Volvo and volunteered at her church. If the press could be believed, both Obeys were as wholesome as milk.

One item, a year-old
Wall Street Journal
piece, did catch my eye: One of Obey’s development companies, a privately held corporation named Advent Builders, had invested in a huge parcel of land south of the L.A. city limits — an unincorporated county area where the developer planned to build an entire community, complete with ethnically diverse, low-to-middle-income housing, public schools, well-landscaped commercial districts and industrial parks, “comprehensive recreational facilities.”

Obey had taken ten years to accumulate fifteen thousand acres of contiguous lots and had spent millions to rid the earth of toxic waste left behind by a long-defunct county power depot. Unlike other empire-builders, he’d considered the environmental impact of his projects from the beginning, was out to crown his career with something culturally significant.

The new city was to be named Esperanza — Spanish for “hope.”

I combined “Esperanza” with each of the Cossack brothers’ names and the Larners but came up with nothing. Tossing John G. Broussard into the mix proved no more fruitful. I tried “Advent Properties” and “Advent.” Still nothing on the Cossacks and the Larners, but a back-page construction journal article informed me that L.A.’s police chief had been hired as a security consultant to the Esperanza project. Broussard, hamstrung by city regulations, was working for free, but private shares in Advent had been gifted to the chief’s wife and his only child, daughter, Joelle, a corporate attorney with a white-shoe downtown firm.

Broussard hadn’t shown up at the private dinner but Milo’s hunch was right on: The chief’s hand was in everything.

The bitter aftertaste of my bad behavior with Robin kept rising like vomitus as I worked hard at concentrating on Obey and Broussard and the others and wondering what it could possibly mean.

“Comprehensive recreational facilities,” could mean playgrounds for kids, or it was a buzzword for bringing pro football back to the L.A. environs.

Billionaire with a big dream — I could see that being the crowning glory of Obey’s long career. And it made good sense to place the top cop on your masthead.

But if the PR about Obey’s righteous mien and the size of his personal fortune was accurate, why would he waste time with the Cossacks, who alienated their neighbors and couldn’t seem to get any projects off the ground? And in the case of the Larners, the association would be even more hazardous — they were outright hustlers tainted by the Playa del Sol debacle.