Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

I smiled. Mr. Friendly.

“Well, I know, but after I read your statements I went up to the lake and walked through it with the police.”

Ward pursed his lips and glanced at his watch. “Holly, hasn't that damned attorney called yet?”

She called back, “Not yet, Riley.”

“I found the little tape they used to mark where you left the main trail. The underbrush was pretty dense right there.”

He crossed his arms and frowned harder, obviously uncomfortable. “I don't understand. These are things the family wants to know?”

“I'm just curious about why you left the trail where you did. There were easier places to walk down.”

Riley Ward stared at me for a full thirty seconds without moving. He wet his lips once, thinking so hard that you could almost see the wheels and gears turning in his head. “Well, we didn't discuss it. I mean, we didn't research what was the best way to get down. We just went .”

“Another ten yards the brush was a lot thinner.”

“We wanted to go down to the lake, we went down to the lake.” He suddenly stood, went to the door, and called to Holly again. “Would you try him for me, please. I can't stand this waiting.” He put his hands in his pockets, then took them out and waved at me. “Who cares why we left the trail right there? Can it possibly matter?”

“If you left because someone threatening scared you, then, yes, it could matter a great deal. That person could be the killer.”

Ward blinked at me, then suddenly relaxed. As if whatever was bothering him had receded to a far spot on the horizon. A smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “No, I'm sorry. No one scared us off the trail. We didn't see anyone.”

I pretended to write.

“So it was pretty much Gene saying let's go down to the lake right here, and you just went? That's all there was to it?”

“That's all. I wish I had seen someone up there, Mr. Cole. Especially now. I'm sorry about the girl. I wish I could help you, but I can't. I wish I could help Gene.”

I stared at the notebook as if I knew there was something missing. I tapped it with my pen. “Well, could there have been another reason?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“A reason you had for leaving the trail at that certain spot.” I looked at him. “Maybe to do something that you didn't want anyone else to see.”

Riley Ward turned white.

Holly appeared in the door. “Riley. Mr. Mikkleson is on.”

Ward lurched as if he'd been hit with a cattle prod. “Thank God! That's the attorney, Mr. Cole. I really do have to take this.” He went behind the plank desk and picked up the phone. Saved by the bell.

I put away my pad and joined Holly at the door.

“I appreciate your time, Mr. Ward. Thank you.”

He hesitated, his palm covering the phone.

“Mr. Cole. Please give the family my condolences. Gene did not harm that girl. He was only trying to help.”

“I'll tell them. Thanks.”

I followed Holly back out to the reception area to the front door. The reporters were still out there, clumped in the street. A fourth van had joined the others.

I said, “He seems like a nice man.”

“Oh, Riley's a peach.”

“Can't blame him for being nervous, I guess.”

Holly held the door for me, fighting a tiny smile. “Well, he's had to answer a lot of delicate questions.”

I looked at her. “What do you mean, delicate?”

“Riley and Gene are very close friends.”

She looked at me.

“ Very close.”

I stepped out onto the porch, but she stayed inside.

I said, “Closer than hiking buddies?”

She nodded.

“We're talking really close?”

She stepped out with me, closing the door behind her. “Riley doesn't think we know, but how can you hide it? Gene went head over heels for Riley the first time he came into the office, and chased him shamelessly.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Not long. Riley takes these walks with Gene three times a week, but we know.” She raised her eyebrows when she said it, then leaned back inside and glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one could hear. “I wish some good-looking guy would chase me like that.”

I gave her my very best smile. “I think some guy is going to knock himself out for you, Holly.”

She fluttered the big eyes at me. “Do you think?”

“Got a girlfriend, Holly. Sorry.”

“Well, if you ever decide to trade up.” She let it hang, gave me her nicest smile yet, and started back inside.

“Holly?”

She smiled at me.

“Don't tell anyone else what you just told me, okay?”

“It's just between us.” Then she shut the door and was gone.

I stepped off the porch of the pretty little Craftsman house, and crossed the street to my car, the reporters and camera people watching me. The surfer guy looked pissed. He called, “Hey, did Ward talk to you?”

“Nope. They let me use their bathroom.”

The reporters let out a collective sigh and relaxed. Feeling better about things.

I sat in my car, but did not start the engine. Working a case is like living a life. You could be going along with your head down, pulling the plow as best you can, but then something happens and the world isn't what you thought it was anymore. Suddenly, the way you see everything is different, as if the world has changed color, hiding things that were there before and revealing things you otherwise would not have seen.

I once was close to a man, a police officer with sixteen years on the job, who was and is a good and decent man, who had been married and faithful to his wife for all of those years, had three children with her and a cabin in Big Bear and a fine and happy life, until the day he left her and married another woman. When he told me the news, I said that I hadn't known he and his wife were having problems, and he said that he hadn't known, either. His wife was devastated, and my friend was horribly guilty. I asked him, the way friends will, what happened. His answer was both simple and terrible. He said, “I fell in love.” He had met a woman while in line at their bank and in the course of a single conversation his world turned upside down and would never be the same. Blindsided by love.

I thought about Riley Ward, and the woman and two children in the pictures in his office. I thought that maybe he had been blindsided, too, and suddenly the inconsistencies in his and Dersh's version of events at the lake, and why Riley Ward seemed evasive and defensive in his interview, made all the sense in the world, and none of it mattered a damn with the theories of cops and private operators with too much time on their hands.

Dersh and Ward had left the trail in thick cover to be hidden from other hikers. They had not wanted to see; they had wanted to be unseen.

They went down to the water's edge because of its impassable nature, never guessing that Karen Garcia's body was waiting in a manner that would force them to cook up a story to explain how they had come to be in such an unlikely place. They had lied to protect the worlds each had built, but now a greater lie had come to feed on their fear.

I sat in my car, feeling bad for Riley Ward with his wife and two kids and secret gay lover, and then I left to call Samantha Dolan.

The office was filled with a golden light when Dolan returned my call. I didn't mind. I was on my second can of Falstaff, and already thinking about the third. I had spent most of the day answering mail, paying bills, and talking to the Pinocchio clock. It hadn't answered yet, but maybe with another few beers.

Dolan said, “She sounds like Scarlett O'Hara, for Christ's sake. How can you stand it?”