Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“C'mon, Watts. I'm not going to take it home. You can even turn the pages, if you want. It'll be easier on everybody.”

Krantz checked his watch again and pushed up out of the chair.

“No book. We got a couple hundred people to interview, so this briefing is officially over. Here are the rules, Cole. As long as you're in this building, you're with Dolan. Anything you want, ask her. Any questions, ask her. If you gotta take a leak, she waits outside the door. You do anything without her, it violates the agreement we have with Montoya and you're history. You got it?”

“I still want to read the transcripts.”

Krantz waved at Dolan. “Dolan will take care of that.”

Dolan glanced at Watts. “I'm supposed to talk to the two uniforms who rolled out when her body was found.”

Krantz said, “Salerno can talk to the uniforms. You stay with Cole. You can handle that, can't you?”

“I'd rather work the case, Harvey.” She said his name like it was another word for “turd.”

“Your job is to do what I say.”

I cleared my throat. “What about the autopsy?”

“I said I'd find out about it, and I will. Jesus Christ, we're trying to catch a killer and I've got to babysit you.”

Krantz walked out without another word. Except for Dolan, his detectives went with him. Dolan stayed in her seat, looking angry and sullen.

I said, “Who'd you piss off to get stuck with me?”

Dolan walked away, leaving the door open for me to follow or not. Krantz didn't want me wandering around on my own, but I guess she didn't mind.

No one had touched the two typed pages with the information I'd brought, or even looked at them. I gathered them together, and caught up with her in the hall. “It won't be so bad, Dolan. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“Don't be an asshole.”

I spread my hands and followed, trying not to be an asshole.

When Dolan and I got back to the squad room, Krantz and Watts were talking with three men who looked like Cadillac salesmen after a bad month. One of the men was older, with a snow-white crew cut and sun-scorched skin. The other two gave me eye burn, then turned away, but the Buzz Cut stared like a worm was in my nose.

Dolan said, “Take this chair and put it over there.”

She shoved a little secretarial chair at me and pointed at the wall near her desk. Sitting against the wall, I would look like the class dunce.

“Can't I use a desk?”

“People work at their desks. You don't want to sit there, go home.”

She stalked the length of the squad room, taking hard fast strides saying that if you didn't get out of her way, she'd knock you on your ass. She stalked back with two files, and slapped them down onto the little chair. “The guys who found the vic are named Eugene Dersh and Riley Ward. We interviewed them last night. You want to read them, sit here and read them. Don't write on the pages.”

Dolan dropped into the seat behind her desk, unlocked the drawer, and took out her yellow pad. She was putting on quite a show.

Inside the envelopes were the transcribed interviews with Dersh and Ward, each being about ten pages long. I read the opening statements, then glanced at Dolan. She was still with the pad, her face gray with anger.

“Dolan?”

Her eyes came to me, but nothing else moved.

“As long as we're going to work together, we might as well be pleasant, don't you think?”

“We're not working together. You're here like one of the roaches that live under the coffee machine. The sooner you're gone, the faster I can go back to being a cop. We clear on that?”

“Come on, Dolan. I'm a nice guy. Want to hear my Boris Badenov impression?”

“Save it for someone who cares.”

I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “We can make faces at Krantz.”

“You don't want to read those things, you're wasting my time.”

She went back to the pad.

“Dolan?”

She looked up.

“You ever smile?”

Back to the pad.

“Guess not.”

A female Joe Pike.

I read both interviews twice. Eugene Dersh was a self-employed graphic designer who sometimes worked for Riley Ward. Ward owned a small advertising agency in West Los Angeles, and the two had met three years ago when Ward hired Dersh as a designer. They were also good friends, hiking or jogging together three times a week, usually in Griffith Park. Dersh was a regular at Lake Hollywood, had been up there the Saturday that Karen Garcia was killed, and had convinced Ward to join him Sunday, the day they discovered her body. As Dersh told it, they were following the trail just above the lake when they decided to venture down to the shoreline. Ward didn't like it much, and found the going hard. They were just about to climb back to the trail when they found the body. Neither man had seen anyone suspicious. Both men realized that they had disturbed the crime scene when they had searched Karen Garcia for identification, and both men agreed that Ward had told Dersh not to, but that Dersh had searched her anyway. After Dersh found her driver's license, they located a jogger with a cell phone, and called the police.

I said, “You guys ask Dersh about Saturday?”

“He went for his walk on the opposite side of the lake at a different time of the day. He didn't see anything.”

I didn't remember that in his interview, and flipped back through the pages. “None of that's in here. Just the part about him being up on Saturday.”

I held out the transcript for her to see, but she didn't take it.

“Watts covered it after we took over from Hollywood. You finished with those yet?” She held out her hand.

“No.”

I read the Dersh interview again, thinking that if Watts questioned Dersh about Saturday, he had probably written up notes. If Watts was keeping the murder book, he had probably put his notes there.

I looked around for Watts, but Watts had left. Krantz wasn't back yet, either.

“How long can it take to find out about the autopsy?”

“Krantz is lucky to find his ass. Relax.”

“Tell me something, Dolan. Can Krantz hack it?”

She didn't look up.

“I made a few calls, Dolan. I know you're a top cop. I know Watts is good. Krantz looks more like a politician, and he's nervous. Can he hack running the investigation, or is he in over his head?”

“He's the lead, Cole. Not me.”

“Is he going to follow up on Deege? Is he smart enough to ask Dersh about Saturday?”

She didn't say anything for a moment, but then she leaned toward me over the pad and pointed her pen at me.

“Don't worry about how we work this investigation. You wanna make conversation, make it to yourself. I'm not interested. We clear on that?”

She went back to the pad without waiting for me to answer.

“Clear.”

She nodded.

A muscular young guy in a bright yellow bowling shirt pushed a mail cart through the double doors and went to the Mr. Coffee. A clip-on security badge dangled from his belt, marking him as a civilian employee. Like most police departments, LAPD used civilians whenever they could to cut costs. Most of the slots were filled by young men who hoped the experience would help them get on the job. This guy probably spent his days answering phones, delivering interoffice memos, or, if he was lucky, helping out on door-to-door searches for missing children, which was probably as close as he would ever come to being a real cop.

I glanced over at Dolan. She was staring at me.

“Okay if I get a cup of coffee?”

“Help yourself.”

“You want one?”

“No. Leave the transcripts on the chair. Stay where I can see you.” Sieg heil!

I strolled over to the Mr. Coffee and smiled at the civilian. “How is it?”