“I think I broke your guitar,” I said, noticing a crack across the base of the old instrument’s neck.
“That doesn’t matter. We’re done with her now.”
I set the guitar down, leaning it against the table.
“Are you saying you got what you were looking for?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I think.”
That didn’t strike me as extremely encouraging, but at the same time I recognized the distant sound of his reply. He was sitting right there, but he was far away from me, his mind racing through fields of data that would make sense only to him and Carmelita.
“I take it you’re done with me then?”
“Si, si,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“Guillermo?” I asked, raising my voice a little to break through the wall of his concentration.
He hesitated a moment and then turned toward me, his expression inquisitive but a little impatient.
“Is there any chance I can leave the kid with you for a couple hours? I need to go do a few things, and I really can’t have him along.”
“Oh, sure. It’s fine.”
“You’re not just saying that?” I asked. “You’re not going to let Osvaldo show him how to build a bomb or anything?”
He laughed. “No, lobo. It’s fine. You go.”
“I’m serious,” I said as I got up. “If anything happens to that kid, O’Neal’s likely to kill me.”
“He’ll be fine. I promise.”
It surprised me how relieved I felt at the prospect of being untethered for a couple of hours. “All right,” I said. “Thanks, Guillermo.”
“Lobo?”
“Yeah?”
“Leave me your hat.”
“What do you need my hat for?”
“So I can fix things for you. I can use a sombrero instead if you want.”
“No,” I said. “This will be fine.”
I took off my hat and left it on the table.
Knowing it would be wrong to skulk out the back door without letting the kid know I was going, I went into the front room instead. Jack and Osvaldo were sitting across from each other, Guillermo’s little coffee table between them. On the table was a much more complete version of the light wand, transformed during the time I’d been in the kitchen with Guillermo. Osvaldo touched a button, and the blue lights switched on and off in a quick pattern. Then Jack pushed another button and the green lights did the same.
“You two are getting along swell,” I said.
Neither looked up at me.
That was my cue to go.
Chapter Three
I pulled over at a burger stand at the edge of Angelino Heights and called Sherise at the Hollywood Hotel where she’d been holed up since Andrik Hennigar had gotten into her apartment and left his threatening note.
“Hello?” she answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Sherise.”
“Jed!” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“How are you two holding up?”
“Well…I’m doing fine. I want to go home, but it’s almost deadline day, right?”
“I’d rather you not call it that, but yeah. You just said you were doing fine. Does that mean Carmelita’s not doing as well?”
She let out a little laugh. “She’s fine. It’s just that she took you pretty seriously when you told her to keep an eye on me. I just about have to wrestle the door shut when I want to use the bathroom.”
I laughed with her, and it felt good. “Sorry about that. I’ll tell her to dial it back a little.”
“Please.”
“Did you talk to Chick Higgins?” I asked.
She sighed and said, “Yes, but it’s a no go.”
“Why not?” I asked, not caring if my frustration came across.
“He said he doesn’t do radio gimmicks.”
“Has he heard himself?” I asked, incredulous.
She laughed at this. “Actually, I doubt it. But still, he was firm.”
“You told him I’d pay for the air time? And the phone number wouldn’t be routed through the station?”
“I told him all of that, Jed. Just like you asked. But he still wouldn’t go for it.”
With a sigh, I pulled out the sheet I’d been scribbling on the night before. On it, I’d scratched the outline for the radio spot I’d planned, one inspired by the trick Elsa had pulled to determine if there was a version of Guillermo living in Jetpack Jed’s world. “Wanted: Elsa Schwartz,” it read. “Not just any Elsa Schwartz but a very specific Elsa Schwartz. Scientist by trade. German accent. One-thousand-dollar prize for producing this long-sought woman.” Followed by my office phone number. Peggy would have hated it, but it wouldn’t have lasted long. And it would draw Andrik Hennigar out of the woodwork. I knew that if I could get him on the phone and convince him to meet me early, I’d be able to subdue him and be done with the threat he posed to Sherise. That way, I could capture Elsa on my own terms and at my own pace without having to worry about Hennigar’s deadline or his threats.
I crumpled the paper and tossed it into a trashcan a few feet away from the phone booth.
“Well, thanks for trying,” I said.
“Do you want me to try a different station?”
“No. Higgins’ show is the most popular one in the city. Anything else isn’t going to have the traction we need. I don’t expect Hennigar’s sitting around listening to some rattling old radio. But if we could have gotten Higgins, it would have sent enough shockwaves out that Hennigar would have picked up on it and put in the call, if only to tell me to knock off the stunt.”
“All right,” Sherise said. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. And it’s all right. We’ll get through this. I’ve still got a few other sticks in the fire.”
Momentary silence on the line told me she didn’t like the sound of that, and when she said, “You’ll be careful?” I knew I’d read things right.
“I promise. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
“I’ve heard that before, Jed.”
I cleared my throat and said, “Well, I do have a little complication I needed to tell you about.”
“What is it?” she said, sounding a bit alarmed.
“Nothing bad. It’s just…O’Neal called in a favor, and it’s kind of a big one. She’s got a witness that needs protecting, and I didn’t see that I had much choice.”
“Does this mean you won’t be able to see me at the club tonight? You can bring your witness along, you know.”
“Mmm…I don’t know about that. He’s a little underage.”
There was a long pause, after which she said. “How underage, Jed?”
“Pretty far.”
“This is a little kid we’re talking about?”
“Yeah. I’m going to see if I can drop in on O’Neal in a minute and see how long she thinks this is going to last.”
“All right,” she said. “Well…Let me know?”
“I will.”
“I’ve got some business to go over with you. It shouldn’t wait long.”
“For ‘The Last Lie You’ll Tell’?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m on the verge of getting a distributor. If you’re interested.”
“I’m interested, and you know it.”
“Well, then, we need to get together. In more ways than one, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.” I said. Her suggestion recalled my vision, which I tried to push out of my mind. “We’ll have to send Carmelita out for an ice cream cone or something.”
“She doesn’t eat.”
“The movies, then.”
“We’ll see,” she said, a teasing tone in her voice.
We hung up after a bit more banter and I popped another nickel into the slot, dialing O’Neal’s direct line. She answered before the first ring had ended.
“O’Neal,” she said, all business.
“It’s Jed.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “
If you’re calling about Hennigar, I’ve got nothing, Jed.”
This was not what I’d expected her to say.
Before I could respond, she jumped back in. “Or are you calling about my dog?”
Now I understood.
“Yes,” I said. “Your dog.”
“Is he behaving himself?”
“Absolutely.”
“And he’s all right? Eating?”
“Yes,” I said. “All normal.”
“Good. Was there something more specific you wanted to ask about him?”
“A few things. His pedigree, for one thing.”
“Well…that’s tricky.”
“I understand,” I said. “But…it would help me take care of him if I had a better idea of where he came from.”
She sighed. “It’s not like I know everything. You know how dogs are.”
“Yes, I do. But at the same time, anything you can give me would help.”
“I get it, Jed. But that’s not the kind of thing I should be spending department time on. Maybe I can drop by tonight.”
“I was hoping we could talk right now. I left…your dog with a friend.”
Sounding alarmed, she asked, “A friend?”
“Yes, but it’s fine. I promise. My friend is good with dogs. And there’s another…sort of…dog that he can play with. He’s fine. Really.”
“Jed, if something happens to this dog…”
“Nothing is going to happen, Detective. I promise.”
She sighed again, sounding more resigned than irritated. Then she said, “I’ll tell you what. Can you meet me at the Echo Park lake in half an hour? On the side closest to where you live?”
“I can.”
“All right. Good. We can talk then.”
She hung up without saying anything else.
I grabbed a burger and a cup of coffee before going back to my car. When I got to Echo Park, I pulled to the curb near the north end of the lake. It was early on a summer afternoon, which meant the park was crowded with locals—parents and kids, strolling couples, dog walkers and picnickers. On the water, there were about a dozen pedalboats being steered around by playful adventurers who had found a temporary refuge from the struggles and disappointments of life in the city.
I had picked up on O’Neal’s caginess about where we were to meet. She hadn’t wanted to mention the north end of the lake specifically. Combined with her shifting into coded language about her “dog” rather than say anything about Jack, I took her hesitancy to pinpoint our meeting place as indication that she was worried her phone had been tapped. Whatever had happened the night before with the crime the boy had witnessed, it looked like things had only heated up today.
The detective was nowhere in sight, so I walked down to the edge of the lake. The sun was high and I was without my fedora, so the heat beat down on my head, making me start sweating almost right away. There was a little breeze, and it was cooler by the water, so I didn’t mind waiting there. Even so, I felt relieved when I saw O’Neal approaching along one of the footpaths that flanked the eastern side of the lake. She wore a simple hat and a dark suit with a skirt; she was finishing a cigarette as she got within a few feet of me.
“Anybody follow you?” she asked instead of offering a greeting.
I looked around for a moment and then said, “No. You?”
Her condescending smile was her only answer. She nodded toward the pedalboat rental stand and said, “Let’s talk on the water.”
I raised an eyebrow at this. “You’re that worried?”
“I’m not worried, Jed. I’m careful. Come on.”
A chivalrous fellow would have offered to pay for the rental, which was partly why I hung back and let her take care of the formalities. We were assigned a bright red boat, the use of which struck me as more conspicuous than if we had huddled together in conversation somewhere out of earshot of all the picnickers and dogwalkers. Still, it was her show. I was just part of the cast.
She climbed in without needing to hold anyone’s hand to steady her, and she made it look easy even in her knee-length skirt. Soon, we were pedaling our way out onto the lake. I let her steer. When we were far from shore and nowhere near other boaters, she stopped pedaling, and I followed suit.
“I’m going to guess you’ve already read the papers,” she said.
“I have.”
“So, you’ve got a guess as to what’s going on.”
“The Wheatley murder?”
“The one.”
“Jack is Wheatley’s son,” I said.
“Right again.”
“And he saw his parents killed?”
“Potentially. He hasn’t said anything to you, has he?”
“Not really. He had a nightmare early this morning. Woke up pretty upset. I calmed him down and he was sobbing the word ‘miscarry’.”
She turned her head and gave me a sharp look. “When were you planning on telling me this?”
“When we were on the phone this morning. But then I figured if you were so worried about your line being tapped, it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense for me to tell you that your dog had a nightmare and was saying that word over and over again. You think I called that one all right?”
She shook her head and said, “You’re right. Sorry. Did he say anything else?”
“Nope. Not a peep. Any idea what he meant by it?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “Not exactly. I haven’t gotten any information to show that Mrs. Wheatley was expecting or that she’d lost a baby recently. Even if she had, it’s not the kind of word you feed to your seven-year-old, is it?”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe he overheard his parents talking, though. If the wife was distraught over something like that…”
“She’d kill her husband? Doubtful.”
“What if he wasn’t the father? What if it wasn’t a miscarriage but something else?”
“An abortion?”
I shrugged.
“Who knows?” she said. “It’s an angle to explore at least. To the degree that I even can explore.”
“Can you tell me about that?” I asked. “Why do you think your phone’s been tapped?”
“Well…Let me tell you what I know about last night. Then you tell me if I should be worried or not.”
“Go ahead. I’m your captive audience out here.”
“Seth Wheatley’s neighbor called the police a little after ten last night, said he’d heard gunshots. A patrol car was nearby and got the radio call. They rolled up on the house, found the front door unlocked and the Wheatleys inside.”
“The newspaper played the murder/suicide angle.”
She nodded. “That’s what it looks like. Wheatley got it between the eyes. The missus in the temple. The gun in her hand. No sign of a break-in.”
“The paper didn’t mention anything about children.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I thought that was odd. Someone on the scene fed the reporter way more information than should have gone out, but held back on that detail.”
“Any idea who?”
She shrugged. “No way to know for certain. About an hour after the call came in, an order came down from Buckman himself that finding the boy was priority one for the entire department.”
“He’s the chief of police, right?”
“The one. And freshly minted candidate for governor.”
“He must be liking the publicity on this one. Catch a high-profile killer like this. It’ll raise his stock with the voters, I suppose.”
“Especially the ones up north who don’t know him,” O’Neal said. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. What you should know, though, is that while all of this was going on, my friend Wanda was out with her brother. He’s also on the force.”
“Was on the force,” I said, correcting her. “I read that story, too.”
Some of the color went out of her face as I said this, and I was sorry I’d been so casual about Officer Dietrich’s death.
“Well. Yes,” she said. “Wanda and Wayne were very close. They’d gone to a movie together, and then they were going to get something to eat. But as they were driving along Hyperion, they spotted the boy walking along on the sidewalk. This was close to eleven. They pulled over and got the kid into their car. Wanda’s good with kids.”
She gave me quizzical glance as she said this and then, maybe getting the response she’d wanted, continued.
“He wouldn’t talk last night either. But Wanda thought to look inside his coat and found a little patch of fabric sewed into it with his name on it. Jack Wheatley. She and Wayne hadn’t heard about the murder/suicide yet, and they hadn’t heard the chief’s order on reporting directly to him with news on the kid. They just figured they had a lost little boy on their hands, maybe a runaway.”
A green pedalboat was approaching us from the right, a father and his little girl pretending to fight over who was steering as they pedaled and laughed. O’Neal nodded, and we started pedaling to get out of their way. When we were isolated on the water again, she went on.
“They drove to a coffeeshop in Atwater Village. There’s a payphone outside, and Wayne went over to call in to headquarters to see if there was a report on the kid. Wanda took the kid into the coffeeshop to get him a hot cocoa. She said Wayne told her he was going to wait in the car for someone from headquarters to come collect the kid. The coffeeshop was crowded. Wanda and the kid had to sit in the back. It was maybe ten minutes later that she heard the gunshots out front. The crowd rushed outside. It took her several minutes before she could even get out the door. By then, everyone was saying there was a dead man in the car at the curb. A few people sitting by the window had seen the whole thing and were talking loudly about it—a dark car drove up to Wayne’s car, a man got out and then shots. The witnesses said the killer looked in Wayne’s car for several seconds—down in the backseat—and then jumped in his car and was gone.”
“And Wanda didn’t go check on her brother herself?” I asked.
“Not with the boy. She knew. It was a hit. But her brother wasn’t the target. She didn’t want anyone knowing she’d been there. Not with the boy. She got him out the back door of the coffeeshop and down to the next street. That’s where she found another payphone and called me. I brought her back home and—”
The Fedora Fandango: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 5) Page 4