Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“I'm going back for the last of it.”

“Do you need money?”

“I'm fine.”

Evelyn Wozniak stalked on through the living room and slammed the door. Again.

Paulette Renfro's jaw knotted. “Do you have children, Mr. Cole?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You're lucky. I really do have to be going now. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.”

“Could I call you again if I think of something to ask?”

“I don't think I'll be any more help then than now.”

She walked me to the door, and I went back out into the heat. She didn't come out with me.

Evelyn was waiting by her Beetle. She'd put on little sunglasses, but she was still squinting from the glare. Waiting for me in this insane heat. The boxes and hangers were in her car.

“She wouldn't talk about him, would she? My father.”

“Not very much.”

“She won't talk about that day. She never would, except to defend that guy.”

“Joe?”

Evie glanced toward the windmills, but shrugged without seeing them.

“Can you imagine? The bastard kills her husband, and she keeps that goddamned picture. I used to draw on it. I've broken that goddamned thing so many times I can't count.”

I didn't say anything, and she looked back at me.

“You're his friend, aren't you? You came out here trying to help him.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that they were investigating my father? The Internal Affairs?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“She tried to keep it from me. And so did Daddy.” Daddy. Like she was still ten years old. “Men came to the house and questioned her, and I heard. I heard her screaming at my father about it. Can you imagine what that's like when you're a child?”

I thought that I could, but I didn't say anything.

“She just won't talk about it. She'll talk about anything else, but not that, and that's the most important thing that's ever happened to me. It ruined my whole fucking life.”

Standing on the cement drive was like standing on a bright white beach. The heat baked up through my shoes. I wanted to move, but she seemed about to say something that wasn't easy for her to say, and I thought that if I moved it would break her resolve.

“I want to tell you something, you're his friend. That man killed my father. It was like my world ended, I loved my father so much, and there is nothing I would love more than to hurt the goddamned awful man who took him from me.”

Pike.

“But there's something I want more.”

I waited.

“She's got all Daddy's things in storage somewhere. You know, one of those rental places.”

“You know where?”

“I'll have to find out. I don't know if there's anything there that will help, but you're trying to find out what happened back then, right?”

I told her that I was, but that I also wanted other things. I said, “I'm trying to help Joe Pike. I want you to know that, Evelyn.”

“I don't care about that. I just want to know the truth about my father.”

“What if it's bad?”

“I want to know. I guess I even expect that it is, but I just want to know why he died. I've spent my whole goddamned life wanting to know. Maybe that's why I'm so fucked up.”

I didn't know what to say.

“I don't think it was an accident. I think your friend murdered him.”

Exactly what Krantz had thought.

“If I help you, and you find out, will you tell me?”

“If you want to know, I'll tell you.”

“You'll tell me the truth? No matter what?”

“If that's what you want.”

She wiped at her nose. “It's like if I just knew, then I could go on, you know?”

We stood there for a time, and then I held her. We had been in the sun for so long that when my hands touched her back it felt as if I'd gripped a hot coal.

I watched the windmills stretching across the plain of the desert, turning in the never-ending wind.

After a time, Evie Wozniak stepped back. She wiped her nose again. “This is silly. I don't even know you, and here I am telling you my life's secrets.”

“It works like that sometimes, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. I guess you'd better give me your phone number.”

I gave her the card.

“I'll call you.”

“Okay.”

“You can't tell her, all right? If she knew, she wouldn't allow it.”

“I won't tell.”

“Our little secret.”

“That's right, Evie. Our little secret.”

I drove back down off the mountain, Palm Springs far in the distance, shimmering in the heat like a place that did not exist.

Man of Action

The cell was four feet wide by eight feet long by eight feet high. A seatless toilet and a lavatory stuck out from the cement wall like ceramic goiters, almost hidden behind the single bunk. Overhead, bright fluorescent lamps were secured behind steel grids so the suicidal couldn't electrocute themselves. The mattress was a special rayon material that could not be cut or torn, and the bed frame and mattress rack were spot-welded together. No screws, no bolts, no way to take anything apart. The single bunk made this cell the Presidential Suite of the Parker Center jail, reserved for Hollywood celebrities, members of the media, and former police officers who had found their way to the wrong side of the bars.

Joe Pike lay on the bunk, waiting to be transferred to the Men's Central Jail, a facility ten minutes away that housed twenty-two thousand inmates. His hair was still damp from the lavatory bath he'd given himself after exercising, but he was thinking that he wanted to run, to feel the sun on his face and the movement of air and the sweat race down his chest. He wanted the peace of the effort, and the certain knowledge that it was a good thing to be doing. Not all acts brought with them the certainty of goodness, but running did.

The security gate at the end of the hall opened, and Krantz appeared on the other side of the bars. He was holding something.

Krantz stared at Pike for a long time before saying, “I'm not here to question you. Don't worry about your lawyer.”

Pike wasn't worried.

“I've waited a long time for this, Joe. I'm enjoying it.” Joe. Like they were friends.

“You look bad, being wrong about Dersh.”

Pike spoke softly, forcing Krantz to come closer.

“I know. I feel bad about Dersh, but I've got the Feebs to share the blame. You hear Dersh's family already filed suit? Two brothers, his mother, and some sister he hadn't seen in twenty years. Bellying up to the trough.”

Pike wondered what was with Krantz, coming here to gloat.

“They're suing the city, the department, everybody. Bishop and the chief can't fire me without it looking like an admission that the department did something wrong, so they're saying we just followed the FBI's lead.”

“They should win, Krantz. You're responsible.”

“Maybe so, but they're suing you, too. You pulled the trigger.”

Pike didn't answer that.

Krantz shrugged. “But you're right. I look bad. A year from now when everything's calmed down, that's it for me. They'll ship me out to one of the divisions. That's okay. I've got the twenty-five in. I might even make thirty if I can't scare up something better.”

“Why are you here, Krantz? Because I humiliated you?”

Krantz turned red. Pike could tell that he was trying not to, but there it was.

“I didn't ruin you, Krantz. You took care of that yourself. People like you never understand that.”

Krantz seemed to think about that, then shrugged. “For the humiliation, yes, but also because you deserve to be here. You murdered Wozniak and got away with it. But now you're here, and I like seeing it.”

Pike sat up. “I didn't murder Woz.”

“You were right in with him on the burglaries. You knew I was going to nail him, and you knew I would get you, too. You were a chickenshit, Pike, and you decided to take out Wozniak because you're an amoral, homicidal lunatic who doesn't think twice about snuffing out a human life. Which is about as much thought as you gave to Dersh.”