Spider Season (15 page)

“It’s going through channels,” he said, already busy with something else.

I raised my voice. “That’s what you told me last time.”

He looked up from what he was doing and a moment passed while his eyes did that cop thing—sizing me up fast, calculating how best to deal with me.

Then he said evenly, “You’ll have to be patient, Mr. Justice. We’re a busy department.”

“I’m being stalked,” I said. “Someone’s dismantling my life, piece by piece.” I slammed the flat of my hand on the counter. “I want that damn report!”

“You need to relax, Mr. Justice.”

A sergeant appeared through a rear door to address the deputy, but he had his eyes on me. “Is there a problem out here?”

“It’s Benjamin Justice,” the deputy said, as if my name was well-known around the station.

“Yes, I know,” the sergeant said.

“No offense,” I said, “but you don’t know crap.”

“You need to calm down,” the sergeant said.

“You’ve been talking to Haukness, haven’t you? Before he got reassigned, he warned you guys about me. That I’m a hothead, with a troubled past. Something like that?”

“He showed us a certain video.” The sergeant spoke without a trace of judgment or feeling, which infuriated me even more.

I started to say something I would have regretted, suggesting an orifice where he could shove the item in question. Instead, I said quietly, “I have a right to see that report. And I need to file a complaint about the vandalism to my car.”

“We can certainly help you with that,” the deputy said, sounding like an overly polite actor in a sheriff’s academy training film. “Why don’t you go home, get all your evidence in order, and a deputy will call to arrange a time to come by. If you wish, you can mention this other harassment at the same time.”

“I’ll do that.”

As I turned away, I caught the deputy and his sergeant exchanging a look but decided to keep my mouth shut. I stepped outside to the sound of traffic on nearby Santa Monica Boulevard, embarrassed that I’d behaved like a jackass but still simmering. Not because of the two cops but because someone out there knew how to rattle my cage and was doing a very good job of it.

*   *   *

As I strode up Hilldale, I kept thinking about something the anonymous caller had said late in the night after my reading at A Different Light:
I’ve killed before, just like you. So, you see, we have more in common than you might realize.

At the time, I’d assumed it was a hollow boast designed to pique my interest for some reason, or simply trouble or confuse me. A taunt by some nutcase who’d gotten Maurice’s phone number and had known about the party. Maybe someone who hadn’t been invited and was unhappy about it. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

By the time I got home, my brain was churning with possibilities. I called Templeton and told her I needed to meet with Lawrence Kase, that I wanted to look at some LAPD documents going back eleven years and that Kase was the only person I knew who might have access. I figured he’d fight me on it, I said, so I didn’t want to ask him over the phone, which would make it too easy for him to brush me off. I added that it would be nice if she could be there, to temper the situation. She said they were both on tight schedules—the actual phrase she used was “terribly busy”—with her book due out shortly and their wedding coming up.

“You haven’t got five minutes for an old friend?”

She was silent a moment while the guilt sank in. Then she said, “Come by for lunch. But no promises regarding Larry. He still thinks you’re a loose cannon.”

With the Mustang trashed, I borrowed Maurice’s vintage Nash Metropolitan, which had been sitting in the garage for years, rarely used because of his diminished eyesight and reflexes. It wasn’t exactly my style—a turquoise and white subcompact convertible that looked more like a kiddie car than an automobile—but I was happy to have wheels just then. I got the engine to kick over by pushing the Metropolitan out the drive, down the street, and then down Hilldale, jumping in to pop the clutch as it picked up speed. It hiccupped a few times, but the engine turned over and ten minutes later I was cruising out Third Street with the top down, on my way to Hancock Park.

Like Templeton, Kase came from money, although his was older. He owned a big place on South Muirfield in the area where the wealthiest Angelenos had started building their homes in the 1920s. It was just up the street from the stately house the popular singer Nat King Cole had lived in with his family in the late forties, when someone had burned the word
nigger
in their front lawn. The Kase house was one of those brick-and-timber English-style structures with a pitched roof, dormer windows on the second floor, two tall English chimneys, and formal gardens in the front and back. If you wanted to own a home that looked down its nose at the rest of the world without seeming too ostentatious about it, the Kase place would have been a good choice.

Templeton greeted me at the front door and whisked me quickly through the house and into a rear garden. Kase joined us a minute later, moments before a live-in cook began serving lunch. They weren’t wasting any time.

“My mother’s coming by at two,” Templeton explained. “We’re going shopping for my wedding gown.”

“I’ll get right to the point then,” I said.

“Alex tells me you need some kind of documents,” Kase said, doing it for me.

He had an excellent record as a prosecutor—extremely high conviction rate, no malfeasance that he’d been caught at—and had once been thought of as a potential candidate for the elected position of top D.A., and maybe higher office after that. But the political winds had blown another direction and now he was apparently content to marry a gorgeous woman fifteen years his junior, start a second family after an earlier divorce, and retire as soon as possible. I admired the fact that he had the balls to marry a black woman, given his uppity white background and breeding, but beyond that I didn’t like him very much, and it pained me to have to ask a favor of him.

“I’ve been having a problem with a certain individual,” I said, “and I’d like to know as much about him and his past as possible.”

Without naming Jason Holt, I explained the onslaught of harassment that had been directed at me since late June—the ominous phone call, the hate mail, the messages to book critics, the vandalism to my Mustang.

“I’ve also been having some problems with a skinhead,” I said, “a Marine vet who rides a big chopper. Maybe he’s involved in some way, maybe not. Either way, I need to get to the bottom of it, starting with what I already know.”

Unsurprisingly, Kase suggested I contact the police. I told him I’d already done that but that I wanted to do some investigating on my own.

He paused as his gleaming gold fork hovered above his Waldorf salad.

“What exactly is it that you want from me?”

“I’d like to see the police files from the investigation into the death of Silvio Galiano in 1997.”

“That name sounds vaguely familiar,” Templeton said.

“You were a cub reporter at the
Sun,
” I said. “It wasn’t too long after Harry had introduced us. Galiano was a hotshot interior designer, had a lot of celebrity clients.”

Kase looked over as he speared some salad, sounding mildly interested. “This was a homicide?”

“It was apparently ruled an accidental fall. There were no arrests or charges, not that I found in old news accounts.”

“But you have some suspicions.”

“I’m curious to know more.”

He dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin.

“May I be frank with you, Justice?”

“Please.”

“You have a reputation for trouble. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.”

“I’ve kept my nose clean for several years now.”

He glanced over at Templeton. They exchanged a look.

“Except for that incident that was caught on video,” I added, “which I imagine you’ve seen, or at least heard about.”

“I’ve seen it,” Kase said. “I’m surprised you weren’t charged with assault.”

“You checked to see if I was arrested?”

“Alex asked me to make an inquiry.”

“For your sake, Benjamin,” Templeton said quickly. “In case you needed our help.” Then, to Kase, she said, “You could pull the initial police report and the final detective’s report, Larry. That wouldn’t be too much trouble, would it?”

She reached over and laid her slender hand on his big paw. It seemed to have a transforming effect on him. He smiled at her touch, and I saw his tension ebb a little. He cleared his throat, then sipped some iced tea.

“I suppose I could have someone in my office pull the file. Discreetly, of course.”

“And if Benjamin turns up something,” Templeton went on, her voice as smooth and sweet as warm syrup, “I’m sure he’d let you know. You could have the case reactivated. Who knows? It might be a nice investigation to retire on, a final feather in your cap.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kase said, without quite looking at me.

“I’d appreciate it,” I said, and reached for my salad fork.

*   *   *

On my way home, I stopped by Buff for a workout, concentrating on my lats and pecs. After that, I dropped into Capitol Drugs to pick up my HIV meds, along with a renewed prescription of testosterone. From there, I hit Boy Meets Grill for a burger to supplement the light lunch I’d eaten at Templeton’s and pack in more protein after my workout. By the time I got back to the house, dusk was settling over Norma Place.

As I reached the top of the drive, adjacent to the rear patio, I saw Fred dozing in his chair. In the same instant, I became aware of a commotion across the yard and sensed instinctively what was happening. I dashed across the lawn, clapping my hands and chasing away the black cat. The baby dove sat hunched and motionless on the grass at the edge of the shrubs. I bent to pick it up and could see that it was still alive, without any visible wounds. But it didn’t resist or try to get away, either, and I knew I was too late.

I lifted the little bird in the palm of my hand. It looked up at me with its dark, round eyes, and blinked once. Then its small, beaked head fell forward on a limp neck to rest against its chest. It didn’t move again. I’m sure that had I looked, I could have found puncture marks deep in its feathers, where the cat had crushed it in its jaws, but I didn’t bother. I was more concerned with breaking the news to Maurice and Fred.

Fred woke as I was laying the dead bird on the bench, where I felt we should leave it for an evening or two, so the mother could find it and understand that she didn’t need to keep returning night after night. Maurice saw me from the kitchen window and came out, helping Fred cross the lawn to join me. I told them what had happened and that I wished I’d arrived home a minute or two earlier.

“If only the little fellow had found the courage to fly when it was time,” Maurice said.

The feral cat crept back into view on the back fence, watching us closely. I turned on the hose and gave him a good squirt, sending him scurrying, and figured we wouldn’t see him again.

The mother dove returned after dark, bringing more food. She settled in a flutter of wings on the bench beside her chick and attempted to push seeds into its closed beak. After a while, she gave up trying to feed it and simply sat there, patient and watchful and probably confused. Hour after hour she maintained her vigil, never budging, waiting for some sign of life from her chick. Finally, late that night, I heard the squeaking of her wings as she flew off. There would be no more doves in the nest that summer, as if word had gotten out that this place was no longer the safe haven it once had been.

*   *   *

Maurice and Fred buried the baby dove in the morning, in the shade of a hydrangea abloom with globular blue flowers.

I watched from my upstairs kitchen window as they kneeled in the soil, using a hand spade to dig the hole, lay the chick gently in, then cover the grave back up. When they were done, Maurice put an arm around Fred, their heads bowed together, touching at the temples.

I could see their shoulders shaking and suspected they were weeping for more than just that little bird.

SEVENTEEN

My final reading was scheduled for that night at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, on a trendy, bustling stretch of North Vermont Avenue. Ismael was going to be there and we’d planned on dinner afterward, which would be our first real date.

I drove over in Maurice’s little Metro and circled the neighborhood a few times before a space opened up in a public lot behind the Los Feliz 3, a venerable neighborhood theater that had gone multiplex to survive. According to the old deco marquee, the theater was featuring a Todd Haynes revival that included a double bill of
Poison
and
Far from Heaven,
films that couldn’t be more different in style yet seemed like ideal, if unsettling, companion pieces. Along the sidewalk, animated young people in couples or small groups were noshing or sipping coffee while others sat alone, looking like they wished they weren’t. Seeing the self-conscious loners with their faces buried in books or copies of
LA Weekly,
sneaking furtive but hopeful glances at passing strangers, made me glad I wasn’t in my twenties anymore.

Judith Zeitler met me in front of the bookstore, took me inside, and introduced me to Noel Alumit, a young novelist with handsome, bronze Filipino looks, who was also Skylight’s events planner. I looked around but didn’t see Ismael. Alumit and I chatted a bit and I purchased a copy of his latest novel,
Talking to the Moon.
Zeitler had suggested I buy a book wherever I was invited to read to show my support for the bookseller, but Alumit’s bedroom eyes probably had something to do with it too. He signed the title page, asked me to sign a copy of
Deep Background
for him, and introduced me to a decent crowd of about fifteen people. I scanned the rows of folding chairs but couldn’t find Ismael.

For my final scheduled reading, I’d selected a particularly pungent passage from the epilogue, but I was no longer sure it was the right choice. It detailed the turning point between Templeton and me twelve years ago as she’d laid out her theory about why I’d self-destructed as a journalist. She’d forced me to finally face the truth that day, not just about the Pulitzer mess but about its connection to Jacques as well.