Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“What you got there?”

The something moved.

“I think I'm going to fix these tiles. You want to help?”

The cat took the something back out again. He'd seen me attempt repairs before.

By twenty minutes before five I had chipped up four of the tiles, covering the floor with little bits of cement. I turned on the TV again, figuring to let the news play while I worked on the tile, but Eugene Dersh was standing outside his house while a dozen cops carried evidence boxes past the camera. He looked scared. I switched channels and found a taped report of Dersh being interviewed at his front door, peeking out through a two-inch crack, saying, “I don't understand any of this. All I did was find that poor girl's body. I didn't kill anyone.” I switched channels again, and found Krantz surrounded by reporters. Every time a reporter asked a question, Krantz answered, “No comment.”

I turned off the set. “Krantz. You prick.”

At six-twenty, I was back to fixing the tiles when Lucy let herself in carrying a large white bag filled with Chinese food. “I tried calling to warn you that the story was breaking.”

“I know. I was at Forest Lawn.”

She put the bag on the counter. “What's all this on the floor?”

“I'm fixing the tiles.”

“Oh.”

She sounded as impressed as that cat.

“Elvis, do you think it's him?” Dersh was already “him.”

“I don't know, Luce. I don't think so. Krantz wants to believe it's Dersh, and he thinks the way to prove it is to put on so much pressure that Dersh breaks. Everything we're seeing now is being fed by Krantz. He was already planning it when I left Parker Center. These reporters are saying just what Krantz wants them to say, that Dersh is guilty because it says so in the profile.”

“Waitaminute. They don't have anything specific that ties Dersh to these crimes?”

“Nothing.”

I sat in the cement dust on my floor and told her everything I knew, starting with Jerry Swetaggen but not naming him. I went through the forensics reports and the autopsy results, and every detail of the case that I remembered from Dolan's brief. As I talked, she took off her shoes and her jacket, and sat with me in the dust. Wearing a six-hundred-dollar pants suit, and she sat with me in the dust. Love.

When I finished, Lucy said, “Did I wake up in Nazi Germany?”

“It gets better.”

“What?”

“Frank fired us.”

She gave me a look of infinite care, and touched my head. “It's been a rotten day, hasn't it?”

“The pits.”

“Would you like a hug?”

“What are my other choices?”

“Whatever you want.”

Even when I'm feeling bad, she can make me smile.

After I vacuumed the kitchen, Lucy put Jim Brickman on the stereo as I made drinks, the two of us setting the containers of food in the oven to warm. We were doing that when the doorbell rang.

Samantha Dolan was standing there.

“Hope you don't mind my coming by like this.”

“Not at all.”

She was wearing jeans and a man's white shirt with the tail out. Her eyes glistened, but not from crying. She didn't look too steady.

When Dolan walked in, she saw Lucy, still in the kitchen, and plucked at my arm. “I guess that's the girlfriend.”

She'd had a couple, all right.

Dolan followed me into the kitchen, where I introduced them. “Lucy, this is Samantha Dolan. Dolan, this is Lucy Chenier.”

“You don't have to call me Dolan, for Christ's sake.” She put out her hand and Lucy took it.

Lucy said, “Pleasure to meet you. I understand you're with the police.”

Dolan held on to her hand. “So far.” Then Dolan saw our drinks. “Oh, you're drinking. Don't mind if I do.”

She'd had more than a couple.

I said, “Gin and tonic okay?”

“You got any tequila?” Call it three or four.

As I made Dolan a drink, she squinted at the tiles. “What's up with the floor?”

“Home repairs.”

“First time, huh?”

Everyone has something to say.

Lucy said, “We were just about to eat Chinese food. Would you like to stay?”

Dolan smiled at Lucy. “That's some accent. Where you from?”

Lucy smiled back nicely. “Louisiana. And you?”

“Bakersfield.”

“They raise cows there, don't they?”

I handed Dolan the tequila. “So what's up, Dolan?”

“Krantz busted me off the Task Force.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Not your fault. I didn't have to play it the way I did, and I don't believe it was you who ratted to the press.” She tipped her drink toward Lucy. “Not even with your friend here being one of them. Anyway, I don't blame you, and I wanted you to know.”

“So what're you going to do?”

She laughed, but it's the kind of laugh you give when your only other choice is to cry. “Nothing I can do. Bishop put me back on the table, but he won't let it go. He says he's going to take a few days to cool off, then he's going to talk it over with the assistant chiefs and figure out the appropriate action. He's thinking about transferring me out.”

Lucy said, “Just because you confirmed what Elvis already knew?”

“They're serious about their secrets downtown, Counselor. It's called compromising an investigation, and that's what they think I did. If I'm a good enough girl and kiss Bishop's ass, maybe he'll keep me around.”

Lucy frowned. “If this becomes a gender-bias issue, you could have legal recourse.”

Dolan laughed. “Honey, gender bias is the only reason I'm still there. Look, that's not why I came.” She glanced back at me. “I agree with you about Dersh. That poor bastard is getting railroaded, but there isn't much I can do about it right now without tanking what little career I have left.”

“Okay.”

“Krantz is right about one thing in all this. Dersh and Ward are lying about something. I was behind the two-way glass when Watts interviewed them. You can see it a little bit in the transcript, but you could see it for sure in the room. That's why Krantz is so convinced.”

“I'm listening. What are they lying about?”

“I don't have a clue, but I'm sure Ward is scared. He knows something that he doesn't want to talk about. I'm not in a position to do anything about it, World's Greatest, but you could.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Maybe I could.”

Dolan finished the drink, and put it down. It hadn't lasted long. “I'd better go. Sorry to barge in.”

“Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay for dinner?”

Dolan went to the door, then gazed back at Lucy.

“Thanks, anyway, but there probably wouldn't be enough for both of us.”

Lucy smiled the nice smile again. “No. There isn't.”

When I got back to the kitchen, Lucy had the containers out of the oven and was opening them.

“She likes you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don't think she came here just to talk about Eugene Dersh, do you? She likes you.”

I didn't say anything.

“Bitch.”

“Are you jealous?”

Lucy turned the sweet smile on me.

“If I were jealous, she'd be getting stitches.”

There isn't much you can say to that.

When Lucy spoke again, her voice was soft. “So, are you going to do it?”

“What?”

“Try to help Dersh.”

I thought about it, and then I nodded. “I don't think he's the shooter, Lucille. And if he isn't, then he's just some guy out there all alone with the weight of a city on him.”

Lucy came close and put her arms around me.

“I guess that's you, lover boy. The last white knight.”

That's me.

Lake Hollywood was quiet the next morning, the air cool in the early hour. I went up just after sunrise, hoping to get the jump on newspeople and the morbidly curious, and I had. Walkers and joggers once more looped the four-mile circumference of the lake, but none of them gawked at the murder site, or even seemed aware of it.