T. Parker - Laguna Heat

“Not now. But you did a job, Jimbo, a real good job.”

“Yeah, sure.” Hylkama turned to his wife. “I’ll take over, Dot. Here, let me...” He was moving toward the ironing board as Shephard left.

In the middle of the courtyard he stopped and considered Jimmy Hylkama’s unfettered view of cottage five. Hylkama seemed like the sort to notice anyone leaving a cottage from a front door, he thought. The image of the screenless window fluttered into his mind, and he walked around the cottages to the back.

The back windows of the first four units were screened and curtained. A grizzled face stared at him through one as he worked his way past trashcans, litter, decrepit furniture, spare tires, and old newspapers of the kind that fill the backlots of the poor. At the last cottage he found the window screen flat against the earth.

Wonderfully preserved in the damp ground, a set of bootprints began just below the window and continued around the cottage. The triangular divot in the right heel was unmistakable. Shephard followed them until they disappeared at the stairway that led down through the iceplant to Coast Highway. Must have snuck out the back when he saw Stett coming, he thought. Good friends.

He took the stairs to the sidewalk and headed north to the pay phone at the Standard Station, where he dialed Michael Stett’s number.

“Zero-five-five-zero,” a woman’s voice snapped.

“Tidy Didy Diapers?” Shephard asked nasally.

“You have the wrong number.” She hung up.

Shephard waited a minute and dialed again. Same woman. “Tidy Didy Diaper Service?”

“You have the wrong number, sir, this is the number for South Coast Investigators.”

He apologized, then called the station, where he requested a check on Edward Steinhelper of Fallbrook Street in Sacramento, and asked Carl Pavlik to get to the Hotel Sebastian as soon as he could. Pavlik was delighted. A few minutes later Shephard dialed South Coast Investigators.

“Zero-five-five-zero,” she said again.

“Michael Stett, please.”

“What is this regarding?”

“Estate work.”

“Mr. Stett is not in. This is just the service. By whom were you referred?”

“I was led to believe this would be a confidential—”

“We are paid to screen the calls. We need a name and number where you can be reached.”

“Randy Cox,” Shephard said, and gave the number off the pay phone.

“I’ll have Mr. Stett return your call when he arrives.”

“You’ve been very kind,” Shephard answered, but she had already hung up.

Pavlik arrived ten minutes later, standing in the doorway of cottage five, weighted down with his forensic suitcase. In his wrinkled and ill-tailored suit, he looked to Shephard like a forlorn salesman making his last call of the day.

“Carlos, buddy, partner, chum.” Shephard felt a nervous voltage roaming his body. “There’s a wallet and a can of turpentine in the nightstand. You may have some luck with the kitchen window. Get a sample of the water under the drain plug; it looks like blood. Try the pillow for hairs. Try the foot of the bed for soil trace. Whoever checked in here washed his hands and laid down a while. When you’re done, give the manager his key back. Arrange a stakeout for the next twenty-four hours. Get it done fast, leave no trace, and put everything back the way you found it. After that, book Hylkama and his wife for an hour session with the artist, Slobin. I want to know what this guy looks like.” Shephard paused, running down his mental checklist. He carefully slipped the license back in the wallet. “And call the San Onofre nuclear power plant. See if they’ve got an Ed Stein-helper on the payroll.”

“Sounds like you’re in a hurry, Shephard. Anything exciting?”

“Just something I’d rather was over with.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Getting my sanity back. Officially. If Steinhelper checks in, arrest him for murder. And shoot the bootprints; I think they’ll match the ones at the stables.” He tossed Pavlik the key on his way out.

“This stuff won’t help us without a warrant, Tom.”

“Carl, buddy. It already has.”

Shephard arrived at the Los Angeles County Medical Center to find that his psychiatrist had resigned shortly after lunch. He stood awkwardly over the receptionist’s desk and tried to explain his predicament.

“This was my last session,” he said quietly. He was particularly sensitive about mental health. “I’d like to get it out of the way.”

“Last session? Name?”

“Shephard, Tom. I’m in the police program, for—”

“Oh, officer-involved shootings,” she said cheerfully and much too loudly. Shephard imagined the other people in the waiting room staring at him. “Of course. Maybe Dr. Zahara can check you out. I mean, take over the check-out session.” She giggled and dialed.

Dr. Zahara was a conspicuously pretty woman in her early forties, Shephard guessed, who was behind a large desk when he walked in. The room was comfortable and lit by a lamp that rested on the desk. Dr. Zahara smiled and slipped a pair of glasses over her green eyes.

“Sit down, Tom. Be comfortable.”

Shephard sat and searched for a cigarette.

“Of all the damn things, our Dr. Abrams quitting like that,” she said, shaking a shock of black hair and lighting a cigarette of her own. “I apologize. I’ll be glad to administer this last session if you don’t mind.”

“I’m eager to be finished, doc.” He felt slightly ungrateful.

“Counseling not to your liking?”

“Not really. Not this in particular, I mean. Just any.” He finally found the cigarette.

She opened a manila folder and scanned the contents. “You’ve been with us for nearly a year. Thirty-two years old, born in Laguna Beach, graduated near the top of the Academy. Youngest officer to work detectives here, very impressive. Mayor’s Plaque, Outstanding Rookie, Officer of the Year, City Council Commendation. Married at nineteen to Louise Childress, divorced at thirty-one.” She lifted the cigarette to her lips and continued to read. “June of last year, Tom, you shot a man in the line of duty. A boy, to be precise, Morris Mumford, age sixteen. Resigned LAPD November, headed back to the hometown, and took work just about two months ago. Well, how do you like it?”

Shephard’s mind flitted back to that drizzly summer night in Los Angeles, and to the face of the young man he’d killed.

“Oh. It was too quiet for a while. Today we had a homicide. I look forward to working it.” Looking forward was excessive, he knew. Having to do it, the forced activity of a job was all it was. Still, he needed it.

“Why is that?”

“It’s what I do best. ‘Bathe oneself in the healing waters of action,’ someone once said.”

“That’s true. You find your work rewarding?”

“It keeps me busy.”

“Then what you find isn’t necessarily more important than what it keeps you from looking at?”

Shephard searched her face as she searched his. “Keep reading,” he said. “Abrams told me more than once that obsession with work is nothing more than ‘an elaborate network of action to divert oneself from the pain of self-awareness.’ ”

“You’ve got a good memory. And what is it that you think needs healing?”

Here it goes again, he thought. Probing with their well-trained shovels. She put out her cigarette and folded her hands under her chin. Shephard took a final drag and crunched his out, chasing the last of the embers around the ashtray.

“I think the healing is more metaphorical than literal, doc,” he said. Play the game, he thought, you’re almost done with it.

Dr. Zahara smiled. “Why immerse yourself in work merely to ‘keep busy’? A nice-looking young man like you must require a little more from his life than business. Metaphorical or not, it was your phrase.”