Little Dog Laughed (12 page)

“It crossed my mind,” Dave said.

“But wasn’t he trying to get Underhill off?” Leppard sat on a chair and pulled on blue socks. The television newscast ran on without sound. He eyed it for a minute. “And if he did that, wouldn’t we start looking for somebody else? And why wouldn’t it be him?”

“That too crossed my mind. But add this into the equation. Someone used wire cutters on a fence back of Streeter’s condominium—on the night he was killed. Someone who came by water. And I’ve found only one set of wire cutters. In Fleur’s potting shed. Right under Hunsinger’s hand.”

“Hunsinger?” Leppard studied jackets and slacks on his poles. He turned to blink at Dave. “The hippie who thinks it’s still the sixties, the dude who rented the house to Underhill on his back lot? The so-called psychologist?”

“That’s the one,” Dave said. “He either wanted the bucks Streeter was going to leave to Fleur, or he really did love her and want to marry her. Or both. You can ask him. He claims to have hated Streeter for abusing the girl. And I doubt he can account for his whereabouts the night Streeter died.”

“Did he own a Desert Eagle .357 Magnum?”

“Streeter had that in his possession, a drawer in his workroom. Maybe he tried to defend himself with it, and Hunsinger got it away from him and shot him.”

“And he got in by cutting that fence and climbing over those condominium roofs?” Leppard looked scornful, and turned back to take down a pair of gray-blue linen slacks and unfasten them carefully from their wooden hanger. He clicked the hanger back on the pole. “That’s movietime shit.” He held the trousers and, teetering on one leg, then the other, kicked into them. “I told you before.”

“It had to be that way,” Dave said. “Nobody passed the gate. I asked the security guard, and I believe her.”

“Yeah, well”—Leppard zipped the beautiful trousers—“you believed Hunsinger about the commandos too.” From a peg by a closet door, Leppard took down a slim alligator belt, and threaded it through the loops of the slacks. “Hunsinger does dope. Maybe he believes that was what he saw. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.”

“The woman on the gate doesn’t do dope,” Dave said.

Leppard laughed. “You never know. These little old ladies can fool you. Don’t buy a used car from her. She may drag race up on Mulholland Drive on her nights off.”

“I had a teenage boy climb over those roofs for me,” Dave said. “He did it with ease. From the rear, where the fence was cut. It took him only a few minutes to drop down onto the balcony outside Streeter’s workroom.”

“Like the captain said—you’re thorough.” Leppard chose alligator shoes from a rack on the floor and sat in the chair again to put them on. “But I still say it was Underhill. In my book, a hundred thousand large bills beats a piece of ass any time as a motive. Plus, he bought the airline ticket. The commandos didn’t plant it on him.” Leppard opened a closet and studied neckties arrayed on a wire inside the door. His shirt was electric blue. He took down a tie just a shade or two lighter, edged it under the collar, stood at the Murphy bed door mirrors to give it a big loose knot. “The commandos were a druggie’s dream.”

On the television set, footage shot from a helicopter showed the white wreckage of a small plane in mountain wilderness, a steep canyon, rocks, pines. Dave bent and turned up the sound. The voice-over spoke of winds, horseback rescue teams, rugged country, delays because of darkness. “The pilot, George McGregor, was wanted for questioning by Los Angeles police in the shooting death of journalist Adam Streeter.” Dave felt Leppard come up behind him to stand watching. “McGregor regularly ferried passengers and freight in and out of Mexico and Central America, and figured in two important drug smuggling trials in recent years. The plane carried no passengers, but rescue teams found luggage containing about two hundred fifty thousand dollars in U.S. currency. McGregor’s body was—” Leppard switched off the set.

Dave said, “It was true about the deal to buy the Cessna. McGregor told me himself. Came to Underhill’s house to get the money while I was there, the other morning.”

Leppard went to get a baby-blue jacket off the pole. “But Underhill didn’t complete the deal.” He put the jacket on.

“You arrested him too soon,” Dave said. “Experts will be examining that plane to find out the cause of the crash. Talk to them. You’ll find it wasn’t an accident.”

“Oh, please.” Leppard picked up wallet, keys, change from the coffee table, and pushed these into pockets. His Omega was gold, with a gold bracelet. He slipped it onto a thick wrist. “McGregor flew every day of his life. Flying’s not like laying in bed, you know. It’s risky. The law of averages caught up with him, that’s all.”

“McGregor was Underhill’s only alibi for why he had that money,” Dave said. “Whoever framed him for Streeter’s murder had to get McGregor out of the way. Surely that’s obvious.”

“Could Hunsinger do it? Does he know aircraft?”

“I don’t know, but he was away from home all day after you arrested Underhill. He could have driven down the coast and tampered with the plane while McGregor was up here looking for Underhill in Venice.”

“Not in that van,” Leppard said, “not with those tires. How did he know about McGregor and the Cessna deal, anyway?”

“Why didn’t Fleur whisper it in his ear? After Streeter whispered it in hers. In the dark. In the very same bed.”

“You’ve got quite a mind.” Leppard gave his head a wondering shake, and went around the apartment shutting and locking windows. He opened the front door. “You want to let me go and pick up my lady now?” He switched off the lights.

“McGregor’s plane was sabotaged.” Dave stepped outside, where not much daylight was left now. Lamps on old-fashioned bronze standards lit the staircase at yellow intervals below. “You can bet the farm on it.”

“Not me.” Leppard pulled the door shut and used a key to double-lock it. “All I own is clothes.”

I
T WAS MIDNIGHT. DAVE
sat at his desk in the rear building, no light on in the long, raftered room except here. A mug stood at his elbow. When he tasted the coffee in the mug, it was cold. Cigarette smoke hung in the lamplight. The thick black book lay open in front of him. He had pushed maybe halfway through it, reading each passage Adam Streeter had highlighted in yellow pen, and reading whole pages where the only marker was a slip of paper. He felt gloomy. Reading the sad, bloody history of Los Inocentes would depress anyone, the grisly catalog of butchers like Cortez-Ortiz who had held power there almost from the start. Dave closed the book, rose stiffly from the desk, stretched. The canyon night was quiet. The jangle of the telephone was loud.

“That was a cold lady,” Leppard said in his ear. “So I had time on my hands all by myself. And I drove around to talk to Hunsinger, and he wasn’t home.”

“Did his dog bark at you?”

“Dog wasn’t home, either. Big white dog, right?”

“Snowy by name. And not friendly.”

“I saw the dog dish in the kitchen,” Leppard said, “an empty dog food can in the sink, dog bed in a corner of the bedroom, matted with white hair. Warm day. House was shut up. Smelled of dog, but there wasn’t any dog.”

“You went through the house,” Dave said.

“Like you went through Underhill’s,” Leppard said. “I’m learning things from you, Mr. Brandstetter. That man is a reading fool. Books stacked all over. Also a writing fool. Never saw so much typing paper with typing already on it.”

“Is he writing a book?”

“More like twenty books, it looks like. He’s got this theory about why people do what they do. It isn’t why they think. They don’t know themselves at all. He is into getting us all to know ourselves. When we do that, the world will be paradise, no greed, no crime, nobody seeking power over anyone else, pure water, pure air, love, peace, joy, and vegetarianism. Save the whales, save the muskrats—”

“I wonder you could tear yourself away.” Dave turned to look at the bar in deep shadow under the new wing of the sleeping loft. He would like a drink to go with this conversation. Leppard was lonely. Who knew how long he would talk? “Did you learn anything else?”

“That his closet was empty,” Leppard said. “He took his clothes and his dog and left. Also twenty-four tea bags—herb tea. The empty box was on a kitchen counter. With the cellophane the box was wrapped in.”

“Is marijuana an herb?” Dave said.

“You got me,” Leppard said. “So I thought about what you said about that busy bed. The one that belongs to the Cambodian lady. Fleur? And I checked the Yellow Pages and drove by her place. She keeps lights on in the yard, but the house was dark. I pictured her and Hunsinger humping in that bed together, and after what I went through tonight, it put me in a bad mood. I stomped up on that porch and kicked that door. I really wanted to interruptus their coitus.”

“When I did that,” Dave said, “Hunsinger was not philosophical about it. Did he like it better this time?”

“He wasn’t there,” Leppard said. “His junky old VW bus was in her driveway, but he wasn’t there.”

“She’s paying for a beautiful lavender van,” Dave said, “so new it still has its paper license plates.”

“It wasn’t there,” Leppard said. “She wasn’t there. I went inside. Her clothes are missing too. They took the best vehicle, didn’t they, and left together?”

“It’s a little early to be sure,” Dave said. “But it’s interesting. She has ten thousand dollars coming from Adam Streeter’s will—so his lawyer tells me.”

“Which means you scared her very much,” Leppard said.

“Not her.” Dave lifted his head. Cecil’s van rumbled off Horseshoe Canyon Trail into the brick yard of the front building. Dave told Leppard, “When I asked if they owned wire cutters, Hunsinger jumped to deny it. Fleur just told me calmly where to find them. If he murdered Streeter, I don’t think she knows it.”

“Then why run away with him?” Leppard said.

“Because she’d believe any excuse he gave her,” Dave said. “She’s a type you run into sometimes.” He saw again the soft change in Fleur’s eyes the other morning in Hunsinger’s overgrown driveway when Dave had offered to get her the name of Streeter’s lawyer from Underhill. “Any man who’ll do a kindness for her, she’s ready to melt in his arms.”

Leppard grunted. “Type you may run into sometimes. Type I run into hates the color blue, and has no use for a man who pays too much attention to his appearance. Man like that is vain and selfish, and probably impotent.”

“She didn’t want to investigate that?” Dave said.

“No way.” Leppard laughed bleakly. “Shit.”

“You putting out an APB on Hunsinger and Fleur?”

Cecil came in. Dave raised a hand to him and smiled.

Leppard said, “I’ll talk it over with the DA in the morning. Maybe he’ll want to link them up with Underhill—part of a conspiracy. What do you think?”

“I think Hunsinger cut that fence, which is destruction of private property. There must be a law against that.”

“I’m still in Santa Monica,” Leppard said. “Don’t feel like going home yet. Not far from you. Come out, meet me, and I’ll buy you a drink. We can talk it over.”

“Sorry,” Dave said. “It’s past my bedtime.”

“Yeah.” Leppard sighed. “Sleep well.” He hung up.

Cecil cocked an eyebrow and passed the desk, making for the bar. “Somebody trying to date you behind my back?” Dave laughed. The door of the bar refrigerator slapped. A bottle cap was pried off. Cecil emerged from the shadows with a Heineken and a glass. “I’m sorry I was out when you came by the station. I got a mysterious phone call and went to check on it.” He stopped beside the desk and looked at Dave. “Oh, excuse me. I thought you already had a drink.”

“I’ll get it, thanks.” Dave went into the shadows and the fresh lumber smell that fell to the bar from the planks above. He rummaged up ice cubes, a glass, the Glenlivet. “How mysterious?” He uncorked the bottle. “Why mysterious?”

“For three reasons.” Cecil switched on a lamp at the near end of the long corduroy couch. “First, the caller spoke English so badly I was surprised the switchboard knew who to put the call through to.” He sat on the raised hearth, leaned forward, poured the glass full of suds and beer. “Second, he said he had seen me at San Feliz the other night asking who shot the kid in the irrigation ditch.” The bottle clinked on the hearth stone. “And third, he could give me the answer.”

Dave poured whiskey over the ice cubes and recorked the bottle. “And you had to go to him, because he didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”

“I told you they were scared to death down there.”

“I remember.” Dave sipped the whiskey, went to the desk to snap off the lamp and pick up cigarettes and lighter. He carried these to the couch and sat down facing Cecil. “And I don’t think you should have gone. To answer this call, I mean. Not without taking me with you.”

“You worry too much.” Cecil drank some beer. “I’m only a reporter. We don’t threaten anybody.”

“The truth about a murder does,” Dave said. “Where did he say to meet him?”

“A bar called El Borracho. Brooklyn Avenue. The east side. You know the kind of place, blind dirty white stucco front with graffiti, half the letters on the neon sign out of gas, a door that looks like nobody passes through without kicking it a few times first. Greasy curtains inside the door. Bad lighting, air full of smoke and beer fumes, disinfectant smell blowing in from the back hall, the restrooms. Jukebox turned up loud with mariachi music, everybody yelling his head off to be heard over it, laughter, arguments, breaking bottles.”

“The Polo Lounge,” Dave said.

Cecil grinned. “Something like that.”

“I shouldn’t joke.” Dave lit a cigarette. “You were foolish to go to a place like that alone. Don’t do it again, all right?” He waited for Cecil to nod. Cecil didn’t nod. He looked stubborn. Dave said, “Was he there?”

“He must have been waiting outside someplace, watching for me to show up. He came in afterward. He knew who to look for. I didn’t. I was standing, wondering how to get through the crowd to the bar when he bumped me, and when I looked at him he smiled. Now, there were only men in this place, but it was no gay bar. So I figured this must be him, little guy, brown leathery skin, gray hair, bad teeth, funny pale blue eyes. He knew how to get to the bar, and he brought back draft beers and led me out back to the alley.