Cold Shoulder (22 page)

Bean deflated Rooney by reminding him that Hastings was found in male clothes, so that theory was out of the window.

‘Maybe he knew him? Maybe they dressed up together?’

They were going down the maybe road again, but at least they now had a road. All Hastings’s friends would be requestioned.

‘What was the photographer like?’ Bean asked.

Rooney picked at his nose. ‘Campy, queer, probably a cross-dresser too. Best get him back in, you have a talk to him. I got so excited when he showed the photos I might have missed something.’

‘Fellows was right, wasn’t he?’ Bean mumbled. They had begun walking towards the exit when he stopped. ‘Bill, what if Helen Murphy is or was not the woman who had been attacked? Maybe we should have another interview with that woman Laura Bradley, go over everythin’ again.’

‘What did you say?’ Rooney snapped. ‘The last thing, Laura Bradley?’

Bean explained again about the two uniformed guys who had interviewed a woman at the address where the cab driver thought he had dropped off the injured woman.

‘Laura Bradley? That her name?’ Rooney stood in the corridor, blinking. He could picture that little girl, see rookie Lorraine Page’s face. ‘Check her out.’

Lorraine told Jake and Rosie the entire Art, Nula and Didi story, and described her visit to Mike. She felt drained, by them, by everything.

Jake gently touched her head, fixing a stray strand of hair. ‘You gonna come clean about that time you got a crack over the back of the head? You had money that night, too.’

‘You really are grilling me tonight, Jake, what’s with you?’

‘I just know it helps to talk things over. You still want to slit your wrists?’

She smiled. ‘Maybe not quite so much.’

‘Good. So, how did you get that crack on the back of your head?’

Lorraine yawned. ‘Well, you know the grocery store? At the end of the road? The crossroads just at the side of it? I walked across there, up along the road, and you know the traffic lights at the end of that block?’

‘Yes,’ Rosie and Jake said together.

‘That’s where I tripped and fell.’

Their faces made Lorraine giggle and suddenly they broke into laughter too. They were all laughing when they heard the footsteps coming up the wooden staircase. Rosie looked out of the window.

‘It’s the cops.’

Jake caught Lorraine’s expression. She was drained of any colour.

L
ORRAINE DIDN’T panic. She calmly picked up her cigarette pack and headed for the bedroom.

‘Jake, if they ask for a Laura Bradley, she’s not here. She stayed a while and then left.’

‘They coming for you?’ Rosie asked.

‘Yeah, but I swear I’ve done nothing wrong. I just got a lot of outstanding violations, and—’

Jake took her by the elbow, pushing her even further into the safety of the bedroom. ‘Why Laura Bradley?’

‘Because they came here, that friend of mine must have told them where they could find me. Please, Jake, get them off my back and I swear I won’t kill myself!’

‘It’s a deal,’ Jake said as he closed the door.

Rosie hardly said a word, just gave her name. Jake did the rest, smooth-talking, open and friendly. Sorry he couldn’t help them, but Laura Bradley had left. The young uniformed cop smiled, tipped his hat: with his shades and suntan he could have come straight out of a movie. He returned to his partner, waiting below in the car, and Rosie watched them draw away.

The cop car cruised one block up and parked. The cab driver had said a short dark-haired guy and a fat woman had helped the injured woman, so they radioed in for further instructions.

In some ways Lorraine knew they’d be back — even wished she hadn’t played games and had come forward, rather than involving Jake and Rosie. They heard the cops returning, and Lorraine gave a long sigh. ‘Okay. Remember that night I cracked my head? Just tell them we were all at an AA meeting, agreed? That’s what you say and you stick to it.’

‘Why do we have to lie?’ Rosie gasped, the footsteps almost at the screen door.

‘So I don’t get arrested for non-appearance in court. I got traffic violations. I also blackmailed Art Mathews, and you, Rosie, spent the dough — you need any more reasons?’

There was a rap on the door and Lorraine opened it. She’d got her jacket and purse and cigarettes, and made a joke of it. ‘Okay, guys, I’m Laura Bradley.’

Rosie and Jake were driven off in one squad car, while Lorraine travelled solo with two officers in another. She was taken straight in to see Josh Bean, and admitted straight away that she had lied, that she was Lorraine Page. He seemed to accept her excuse that she didn’t want to get involved, because — as she presumed he already knew — she was an ex-cop. As they spoke, from the corner of her eye, she could see her details rolling off the fax machine. But she was relieved that Captain Rooney was not around. Just being inside the station had brought her out in a cold sweat.

Bean elaborated as to why they had asked her to accompany the officers. He told her they were investigating a murder and asked where she was on the night of the seventeenth of last month.

Lorraine said she was at an AA meeting and gave the address. Bean was quiet, almost too friendly and apologetic for any inconvenience they had caused. ‘You see we’re searching for a witness, a woman we believe is a very valuable witness.’

Even as he spoke she could see him scrutinizing her, and it was obvious he doubted that she could be the same woman as described — she had all her own teeth, for a start. Lorraine remained in control, smiled and joked. ‘Well, we sure get a lot of riff-raff in the street. Only the other night there was some drunken woman out there, screaming the place down.’

Rosie and Jake kept to the AA meeting story. Rosie told how she had met Lorraine in hospital, how long she had been staying. When they were asked if they had assisted a woman from a taxi on the night of the seventeenth, a woman with injuries to her head and face, both repeated that they were not at home that evening. But they kept glancing nervously at each other.

‘You ever see a blue Sedan parked in your street, like this one?’

They were shown a photograph of Hastings’s car.

‘No, not that I can recall.’ Rosie peered at the picture. ‘This has been on the TV, hasn’t it?’

‘Do you know or did you know a Mr Norman Hastings?’ Rosie shook her head.

‘He was the guy that was murdered, right?’ Jake asked.

‘I didn’t know him,’ Rosie said, ‘but I seen all the papers. What’s this got to do with us?’

Rosie and Jake were released, but were told that they should inform the police of any change of address in case they were required for further questioning. Jake asked if Lorraine was also free to go, and was told that she was still being questioned.

‘We’ll wait.’

They huddled together to review the officers’ questions. They were confused. It seemed a lot more serious than traffic violations but they were in too deep and the spacious waiting room made both feel small and conspicuous. It was to be a long wait.

Four hours after Lorraine had entered the station she was led into a line-up. She had remained calm, accepting a tepid coffee and an extra packet of cigarettes. When she heard that her friends were waiting for her, she asked for someone to tell them they could go home unless they were required for the line-up. They were not: to arrange for a line-up with twelve fat women, and twelve short, squat men in one afternoon was too much to hope for. So Rosie and Jake left the station. They had no idea why Lorraine was still being detained. But Jake had been around too many cops, in too many stations not to know that this was something a lot heavier than traffic violations.

Lorraine knew the procedure backwards, and made it clear she was more than willing to co-operate. She waited patiently, knowing what a runaround would be going on behind the scenes. Captain Rooney had still not made an appearance and for that she was grateful.

The line-up corridor annex was like all the others she had dealt with years before, but larger and with better equipment. The more she looked around the Pasadena station the more impressed she was with the massive building. She wondered how Rooney fitted in, his squalid old office, his grimy-walled, smoke-stained room far removed from the white, neon-lit, airy offices with the red ‘no smoking’ signs on every door.

She chose place number seven, for no particular reason except to avoid being dead centre or at either end, which were not good positions. The other eleven women carried in their cards and lined up on the small, narrow platform. Some were prisoners, and others Lorraine could not imagine where they had been dragged in from. Probably a couple of hookers, housewives or canteen workers, who were always willing to make a few bucks.

When Mr and Mrs Summers arrived, Bean told them to take their time, to look at each subject closely, without making contact. If they recognized the woman they should walk out and give the number. If they wished her to speak they must ask the officer at their side to repeat whatever they wanted the prisoner to say.

Mr Summers walked slowly down the line first, staring at each woman in turn. Then he left the room. Next came his wife. She, too, took her time, but she was confused as she and her husband were sure they had already identified the woman. They also felt slightly guilty. Had they made a mistake earlier? Both had been so certain that the deceased Helen Murphy was the woman they had seen in the parking lot.

‘Could they all smile?’ Mrs Summers asked nervously. ‘I want to see their teeth.’

Captain Rooney walked into the viewing room. There was Lorraine, at number seven, taller than any of the others. It was strange to see her, chin up, holding the card in front of her, her face expressionless. He moved closer to the glass and stared at the deep scar running down her cheek. She looked different, meaner, harder and yet there was still an attractiveness about her. Her clear eyes seemed to stare back at him, through the one-way glass, almost as if she knew he was there.

The third person to be led across the line-up was the cab driver, unshaven, having been ordered out of bed as he was now working night shifts. He was bad-tempered, asking over and over if he was getting paid for all the time they had used up. He had already identified the woman, hadn’t he? In some ways he’d half expected a row of corpses.

Rooney turned to Bean. ‘Anything?’

‘Yeah. The Summerses both said it could be number four — she’s from Records! And the cab driver said it was the skinny woman, number two. She’s a hooker, but she was banged up on the seventeenth for breaking into a car.’

‘Great.’ Rooney sighed.

Lorraine was asked to wait in reception. She had stood upright in the line-up — that was another little tip: never slouch, makes you look guilty, always meet their eyes. Never smile, just look. They can’t deal with a straight confrontation.

Rooney sat at his desk, swivelling his chair from side to side.

Bean was looking over Lorraine’s charge sheet. ‘We can hold her if you want. You had a look at this? Vagrancy, prostitution — she’s got twenty-five traffic violations, five non-appearances for court hearings…’

‘Yeah, I know,’ muttered Rooney.

‘She said she was at an AA meeting, so did her friends. We can check it if you want.’

Rooney shrugged. Lorraine didn’t fit their description, she looked to him to be doing okay for herself — and she was sober. ‘I can understand why she didn’t want to be brought in.’ He held out his hand for the sheets. ‘I’ll talk to her, you can take yourself off home. Get some rest while you can, this is gettin’ out of control an’ you got no leave until we get results.’

As Lorraine was led along the corridor towards him, Rooney leaned against the wall. He gave a noncommittal nod and held the door wider for her to pass into his office. She sat in the chair opposite his, and waited. Rooney walked slowly round to his chair, sank into it heavily, then rested his elbows on the table.

‘Laura Bradley.’

She smiled. ‘Yeah. I dunno why I said it, just came into my head. Maybe the little kid’s always there, I don’t know… I’m sorry I wasted your time.’

He stared at her charge sheets.

‘I guess whoever you were looking for must have used my address — old ploy. You tried the apartments either side? There’s a lot of oddballs live around that street, and then there’s the liquor store on the corner—’

Rooney interrupted, ‘I know the area. How long have you been sober?’

‘A year,’ she lied.

Rooney sighed. He hadn’t revealed to Bean why he’d not been around when they’d brought in Lorraine. He’d been with Chief Michael Berillo and he’d been hauled over the carpet… ‘I’m being really pushed on this one. Chief inferred I’d be off it if I didn’t get a result soon.’

‘What’s the case?’ Lorraine asked.

‘Seven hookers cracked over the skull with a claw hammer. One of ’em’s only seventeen, rest are real dogs.’ Rooney smirked. ‘Maybe some of ’em are your friends. You want to take a look?’

‘Cunt.’

‘What are you doing now?’

‘Work in an art gallery, go see my kids — pretty boring but it keeps me. Can I go?’

‘No. I need someone to talk to. What do you think of the new station — well, be about five years old now. It wasn’t built when you left, was it?’

She lit a cigarette, and was surprised when he slumped forward, clasping his head in his hands. ‘I’m fucking coming up for retirement, and what happens? I get a case that’s… I keep on going up one blind alley after another. Nothing makes sense.’

He suddenly looked up, and then got to his feet. ‘Come on, take a look, maybe you did know one of these whores.’

She glared at him, and he laughed. ‘Hey! You be nice to me. I could have you locked up. You know how many violations you got outstanding? Twenty-five, sweetheart, so move your butt.’

Lorraine followed Rooney into the incident room. The officers in there turned and stared. Rooney announced loudly that she was an ex-cop, and there followed a few strange glances and a whispered exchange between two females who knew that she’d been in the line-up. She lit a cigarette from the butt and heard someone say it was a no-smoking zone. She paid no attention.