T. Parker - Laguna Heat

Stett could be of help. “One o’clock this afternoon,” she concluded. “Cheerio.”

A collection of notes from Pavlik awaited him on the desk. The handwriting, like the man, was not much to look at but thorough and to the point.

Robbins matched the hairs; same man at stables and hotel. Nothing new on first samples.

No one came to cottage five last night. Chief implied stakeout to end midnight tonight Flair for the dramatic as always. How’s the head?

And the last, written at 8 A.M., when Pavlik was on his way home after twenty-four hours of work:

Called Steinhelper’s wife again. He showed up late last night Said he was mugged and spent a few days with friends. She said he looked it. Was drinking with a guy up in a Sacramento bar called O’Malley’s on the twenty-third, he says. Offered him a lift home and got conked. Beat him to the punch, probably. Cops on the follow, but story tracks. It looks like Hylkama was right Steinhelper isn’t our man.

Slobin did the Identikit sketch, attached.

Shephard cleared the notes away from the Identikit sketch and positioned it squarely in front of him. The face looking up at him was taut and slender, eyes wideset and intense, nose thin, mouth full and upturned at the corners into an inadvertent, wry look of superiority. The beard was trimmed back, framing the hard face. The hair was straight and fell onto the forehead from a center part. Overall, a haughty expression, a handsome face.

It had the quality of all Identikit sketches, Shephard thought, as his mind wandered and searched backward for connections: it could be anybody and it could be nobody. No one looks like a killer, or does everyone?

South Coast Investigators was located in Newport Center, a sprawling commercial complex marked by buildings that looked distinguished and trees that looked planted. The English receptionist was fair-haired and freckled, welcoming Shephard, a.k.a. Cox, with a warmly professional smile. Her name was Marla Collins, and she told him she was only temporary until fall, when she would be back in school. Shephard took a seat on a black leather sofa and awaited Michael Stett.

Half an hour later he was shown into a roomy office. The man who looked up from the desk, then stood to offer his hand, was tall and muscular as Hylkama had described, an athletic-looking man with dark curly hair and brown eyes. His face was deeply tanned, deeply lined. The nameplate on his desk said BRUCE HARMON. He grabbed Shephard’s fingers rather than hand and pumped a punishing hello.

“Sit down, Mr. Cox,” he said curtly. “Estate work?”

“I requested Mr. Stett,” he protested meekly.

“Not available, but I own this joint and I’ll be of help if I can.”

“I was told Mr. Stett was very good.”

“He’s no longer with us, I’m afraid. Now, I understand you had an Uncle Lawrence of some means who left you a settlement that your sister believes should go to her. Let me get the ground rules straight, Mr. Cox, South Coast Investigators is a licensed and certified company working on a straight thirty percent commission of all settlements made to its clients. We don’t involve ourselves in estates under ten thousand dollars, although we are engageable to determine the size of an estate. That can be quite a costly and time-consuming venture. People aren’t always completely, well, up-front. Are those terms agreeable to you?”

“They sound all right.”

Harmon was the right size, Shephard thought, and he had the right attitude for breaking heads and dogs. Even money he’s got a Michael Stett card collection somewhere.

“How much, roughly, do you think you have coming to you?” Harmon set his elbows on the desk and leaned forward onto his knuckles. His forearms were thick and his neck massive, exaggerated by the tight polo shirt he was packed into.

“Oh, about nothing,” Shephard said.

Harmon’s eyes narrowed angrily before he had the chance to reinstate his professional manner. He smiled. “Nothing?”

“I don’t have a rich Uncle Larry, and if I had a sister, she could have anything she wanted. What I do have is an interest in the murder of Tim Algernon.”

Harmon leaned back and pulled a cigarette from the pack on the desk. “And I suppose you’re not Randy Cox either,” he said.

“Shephard, Laguna Beach Police.” He produced his badge. Harmon didn’t look at it.

“Well, shit, Shepard, why didn’t you just say so? I’m a private eye, not Jesse James. I help you guys any chance I get. Why all the drama?” Harmon smiled.

“Cops are usually bottom of the list on a businessman’s calendar, especially a man in your business. I figured a little bait might get me in here sooner.”

Harmon laughed heartily, but his eyes said I’d like to break your neck. “Somebody conk you?”

“Somebody conked me outside the Hotel Sebastian.”

“Well, what can I help you with? I’ll tell you right now I don’t know a damn thing about this Algernon guy except what I read in the papers.”

“Algernon was killed about six o’clock Wednesday morning. The man who did it left the scene on foot and made it to the Hotel Sebastian by seven. He left less than two hours later. He got two visitors, one was me and the other was you. I want to know why you were looking for him.”

Harmon shifted heavily in the chair. “How do you know all that?”

“Hylkama told me a friend of his new tenant showed up a half hour before I did. He had Michael Stett’s card and your face.”

Harmon reached into a desk drawer and brought out a tape recorder. He turned it on, tested the microphone, and set it at the end of the desk closest to Shephard.

“Don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“Now, you say I was at the Hotel Sebastian on Monday morning, looking for your suspect, I take it. Can you substantiate that?”

“I could by bringing Hylkama down here, but that’s not what I’m after. You’d be making a lot of dumb trouble by trying to tell me this isn’t your card.” He placed Michael Stett’s business card on the desk. Harmon glanced at it and nodded.

“I cover when I can. Yeah, it’s my card and there isn’t any Michael Stett.”

“Then what’s up, Bruce, buddy?” Shephard put the card back in his pocket and lit a cigarette.

Harmon leaned forward again on his massive arms. “What’s up isn’t for me to know, Tom, buddy. I’ve been retained by an attorney to locate Ed Steinhelper. Since he’s my client, we enjoy a legally confidential relationship, which means I don’t have to tell you shit about him and he doesn’t have to tell you shit about me. And as employees of his client we all three share the same confidential relationship. What it all boils down to, Shephard, and I give you all that legal crap for the record only, is that I don’t know why I was hired and I don’t care. As far as you’re concerned, I’d like to help, but I can’t give you much. I didn’t find him, if that helps.”

“What did you find?”

“Same thing you did. Nothing.”

“I’d hate to think you found what you needed and locked it up in that safe in the corner,” Shephard said.

Harmon looked at the safe, then back to the detective. “And I know you can get a warrant and have it opened. But I’ll save you the trouble by telling you there isn’t anything in it.”

“And if there was you’d move it by the time I got back here.”

Harmon smiled and nodded. “Hell, wouldn’t you?”

Shephard knew that getting such a warrant would be impossible. He also saw that the man sitting across from him knew the law as well as he did. Probably an ex-cop, he thought. He would get nothing from Harmon. But the next best thing was to try for a glimpse of what it was he wouldn’t get.