Burn (12 page)

Nobody did.

As the group rose from their chairs, Timms added, “Aaron. Hang back a minute.”

Keene looked over his shoulder. Drea glanced at Timms, eyebrows raised. Timms shook his head slightly, cueing her to go on ahead.

She did.

Parker Center had a nickname in other divisions of the LAPD: the glass house. The tag had more to do with culture than architecture.

Timms had been recruited from outside the department on the sponsorship of a retiring Robbery-Homicide vet named Hart, an old friend and long-ago
mentor with whom he'd shared a squad car during his patrol days as a rookie with the Santa Monica Police Department. He'd finally traded his tenure as a Detective Supervisor with SMPD for a Detective-2 position in the Homicide Special Section of the notoriously elite RHD bullpen five years ago. In that time, he'd come across two kinds of detectives: those who worked the job, and those like Aaron Keene.

Since his recent promotion to Detective-3 Supervisor, Timms swore he'd been running into Keene more and more.

“You look like you've got something on your mind, ” he said when they were alone. “You on board with this, Aaron?”

“Why not?” Keene still hadn't lost the smirk. “It's your funeral.”

“Funny you say that, ” Timms said. “I was watching you at your desk earlier. You must have gone through today's paper three times. Looking for something in particular?”

“Getting at something in particular?”

Timms shrugged.

Keene waited.

“Melanie Roth, ” Timms finally said. “Good reporter. She started working the crime beat right about the same time I came on LAPD.”

“Fascinating, ” Keene said.

“What fascinates me, ” Timms said, “is how few really good reporters you find these days. Most of these young kids out of school, you know these hacks, they'll run with anything that comes their way. Not Mel Roth. She double, triple-checks her leads.” Timms grinned a little. “Real bulldog that way, long as I've known her. We go back a few years. I don't know if you knew that.”

Keene was starting to look bored.

“So Mel Roth calls me this morning, ” Timms went on. “Just to get my okay before she went to print with the evidence on David Lomax. Seems she already got a tip from somebody on the investigation. Don't think I probably need to tell you whose name came up.”

Now Keene stiffened his shoulders. He still said nothing.

“Don't get me wrong, ” Timms said. “I was ten years younger and had better luck with women, I might be trying to get in her pants, too.” He sat back in his chair. “I mean, I figure it's gotta be something like that. Because I know you wouldn't be trying to cowboy this investigation. Only an asshole would buck for D-3 that way.”

Keene worked a muscle in his jaw. After a long moment, he said, “I'll do us both a favor and pretend we never had this conversation.”

“So you're saying I'm barking up the wrong tree on this. I just want to be clear.”

“You can bark up any tree you feel like, ” Keene said. “You're King Shit on this case. I get it.”

“I know you think chasing down that letter was a bullshit waste of time. Maybe it was. Maybe not. Call 'em how you see 'em, Aaron. You're part of this investigation, you've got a right.” Timms folded his hands in his lap. “What you don't have is the right to backdoor the rest of the team. That shit ends up getting people hurt.”

“Thanks for the words of wisdom.”

“Anytime.” Timms took his boot off his knee but did not stand. “As long as I'm giving 'em out, here's a few more. You don't have to like me, Keene. You don't even have to respect me. But don't fuck with me.”

Keene looked at him for a long, silent moment.
He finally said, “Is that all you had to get off your chest?”

“I feel much better.”

“You know, ” Keene said, “I'm going to enjoy watching you take the heat that's coming your way on this thing.”

Timms offered him a friendly parting smile. “I'd be careful not to hold the match too long, if I were you.”

ANDREW
didn't know what kind of car he'd expected a guy like Travis Plum to drive.

An ailing beater, maybe. Something the guy couldn't afford to fix or get rid of because he spent all his income on expensive camera equipment and laughable disguises. Or maybe just the opposite: something sporty and ridiculous that made him feel like Magnum P.I. tooling around town.

When Plum finally pulled into the parking lot of the Chevron station in a garden-variety beige Toyota Camry Andrew felt his confidence rise. Here was the sort of car he imagined a good private snoop ought to drive: reliable, common as a parking meter, inconspicuous. Maybe there was hope after all.

As Andrew let himself in the passenger side, Plum looked over and asked, “Is there a reason why you couldn't just come by my office like a regular person?”

Gone, Andrew noted, were the goofy shorts and nightmarish luau shirt from yesterday. Today, Plum seemed to favor basic Gap wear. Khakis. A short-sleeved plaid button-down. Brown leather sandals.

“I could have met you at your office, ” Andrew told him. “But I figured it wasn't apt to do either of us any good if the cops followed me to your place of business.”

Plum had the windows up and the air-conditioning blasting. It felt glorious. Briefly. As soon as Andrew pulled the passenger door shut, Plum switched off the ignition, removed his sunglasses, and turned in the driver's seat.

“About that, ” he said.

“Long story.”

“I've got time.”

“That makes one of us, ” Andrew said. He held up the envelope he'd brought along. “I'd just as soon start the meter.”

Plum seemed to recognize the envelope. He looked at Andrew.

“Working for hire is one thing, ” he said. “Aiding and abetting is another. Maybe it's a fine line sometimes. But I'm not in the business of crossing it.”

“Then you can relax, ” Andrew told him. “This is strictly an aiding type of deal.”

“I presume you won't take offense, ” Plum said, “if I'm not entirely comfortable taking your word on that.”

“That's up to you.” Andrew placed the bundle on the fat padded armrest between them. “So. What's it going to be?”

Plum ignored the cash and spent a minute on Andrew's face. He drummed the steering wheel with his fingers. He checked his mirrors.

“One question, ” he said. “One time only.”

“Go for it.”

“David Lomax.” Plum watched Andrew closely. “Do you know anything about it, or don't you?”

Andrew took two fingers and made an X over his heart. “If David Lomax came up to this car right now with a rag and a squeegee, I wouldn't know to look twice.”

Plum clamped his sunglasses in his teeth and picked up the bundle. “For this kind of money, something tells me you protest too much.”

“Now
that's
what I should have told your man Benjy yesterday, ” Andrew said.

“Maybe instead of being a wiseass you should try harder to convince me why I'm worth five grand to you.”

“Maybe you're not, ” Andrew said. “Maybe I just don't happen to have anything better to do with it.”

Plum seemed to think about that.

Without another glance, he squeezed a latch, lifted the armrest, and dropped the bundle into the storage well beneath.

“That makes one of us, ” he said, and started the car.

Whatever else could be said for Travis Plum, a quarter pound of cash did wonders for his demeanor. By the time he'd pulled to a shady curb on a quiet street in a gated residential pocket of Beverly Hills, he'd grown downright chatty.

“Chez Lomax, ” he said, nodding toward a tall wrought-iron fence grown high with bougainvillea. “The girl's got her own place in Los Feliz. She's been living at home with Daddy and the hired help since her brother went Hoffa.”

“Heather Lomax. What's she like?”

“Rich, ” Plum said.

“See, the way I was hoping this might work was, you'd be able to tell me things I don't already know.”

“Never met her in person, ” Plum told him. “I dealt strictly through Corbin. If I had to make a guess, I'd guess the girl's not playing with a full bag of marbles.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Would
you
have hired me to follow a cop?”

It wasn't a bad point. Andrew resisted the urge to ask Plum about his own marbles for taking the job in the first place. After all, he'd taken this one.

“So does she work the family farm? Same as her brother?”

Plum seemed amused.

“What?”

“The family fat farm. That's good.”

Andrew tried to be patient.

“I don't expect Princess Lomax is especially intimate with the 40-hour workweek, ” Plum said. “She did have fifteen minutes a few years ago, played a role on a TV show. One of those sexy-wexy prime-time things.
Malibu Sunsets,
I think it was called.
Melrose Place
meets
Bay-watch
is the way I remembered it. Not that anybody remembers it.”

Andrew made a mental note to ask Caroline. His cousin was an unrepentant sucker for trashy television. She'd know.

“As I recall, Miss Lomax went on to do the whole flavor of the month, actresses-with-eating-disorders cover story thing, ” Plum said. “Showed up in the gossip columns for a while, dated a few movie stars, whatever. ‘Seen on the arm of stuff. At that point, I guess
she still rated as an appendage. Now she's hardly a footnote.”

“Is she older or younger?”

“Older or younger than what?”

“Than her brother.”

“They're twins, actually, ” Plum said. “Couldn't tell you who came out first.”

“I was only looking for a ballpark estimate, ” Andrew said. Twins. Of everything Plum had just told him, this was the only thing that struck him as particularly interesting. “So, thirty. Little old to be moving back home.”

At this comment, Plum seemed to take pause. He removed his sunglasses again and looked at Andrew carefully.

“That's a pretty tight ballpark, Kreskin. How would you know that? If you don't know David?”

“They gave his age in the newspaper.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Seriously, we're not going to keep doing this all day are we?”

“My apologies, ” Plum said. Then he sat up an inch. “Now isn't this lucky?”

Andrew followed the snoop's gaze. Down the street, between the twin bearded palm trees standing sentry, he saw the gates to the Lomax estate swinging open. A small, sporty yellow BMW convertible emerged, top folding back as the car rolled. As the driver hung an easy right and hummed away down the street, Andrew caught a glimpse of big black sunglasses, bare shoulders, and an ash-blond ponytail.

“Heather Lomax, I presume?”

Plum grinned. “Kinda cute, isn't she?”

“As a button. What are you waiting for?”

Plum had already put his shades back on and twisted
the ignition, but for some reason he now sat with his hands on the wheel.

“What?”

“Oh, come on, ” Plum said. “Let's hear you say it. You know you want to.”

Hopeless. The guy was hopeless.

Andrew sighed and said, “Follow that car.”

TODD
Todman tried never to think in terms of problems: only challenges and opportunities.

As director of corporate identity for Lomax Enterprises, he'd converted his share of one to the other. But in all his years with the Lomax family he'd never faced a challenge quite the likes of the one on its way through the door now.

“Sheri, ” he said, “I hate to run you out of your own house. But I'd like to speak with Rod alone for a few minutes. Would you mind?”

Todd spoke to Sheri Forman, general manager of Club Maximum's flagship location on Wilshire Boulevard. They'd been having a chat in her office above the club: Sheri in her chair, Todd holding down one corner of her desk. Behind him, a row of large windows overlooked the club's front lobby, where members in bright tight garb came in toting duffel bags, milled with nutrient
drinks in the common area, bellied up to the courtesy counter for fresh towels.

He was speaking, of course, about the inimitable Rod Marvalis, who had just slouched in reeking of cigarettes.

Without a word, Sheri vacated her position, rounded the corner of the desk opposite Todd, and brushed by Marvalis without looking at him. She closed the door to the office firmly on the way out.