by Robert Crais
He wheeled just far enough around to see his housekeeper. “Maria, take her back to Karen's room, por favor.”
I was following Dolan when Frank said, “I want to see you guys for a minute.”
He waited until Dolan disappeared through the big doorway, then lowered his voice. “She knows more than she's telling, and I'll bet my last tortilla those people she asked about aren't what she said. Keep an eye on her back there. See if you can't get her to let on what she's really after.”
I guess a man doesn't go from being a stonemason to a multimillionaire by being an idiot.
Joe stayed with Frank, but I followed the hall until I came to Maria, waiting for me outside a door.
“Gracias, Maria. We'll be fine.”
I stepped into what had been Karen's room, and in a way still was. A teenager's furniture froze the room in time. Books and stuffed animals and posters of bands that hadn't existed for a dozen years made the door a time portal taking me into the past. A Flock of Seagulls. Jesus.
Dolan was thorough. Except for old clothes and the knickknacks young women collect, there wasn't much left in the room, but we spent almost three hours going through high school and college notebooks, high school yearbooks, and the bits of a life that accumulate in the shadows of a child's room. Other than clothes, the closet was a floor-to-ceiling wall of board games. Parcheesi, Monopoly, Clue, Life. We opened every box.
Maria brought Mexican iced tea at one point, sweet with lime and mint. We found more boxes under the bed. Most of them held clothes, but one was filled with notes and letters from a pen pal named Vicki Quesada that Karen had had during her first two years at UCLA. We skimmed every letter, looking for the four names, but found none of them. I felt a kind of distance, reading the letters, until one of them mentioned Joe. The date put it about the time Karen was a sophomore. Vicki had written that Joe sounded really hot, and she wanted Karen to send a picture. I smiled. “That Joe.”
“What's that?”
“Nothing.”
Dolan frowned and touched her waist. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I'm being paged. Goddamnit, it's Krantz. I'll be right back.”
Dolan took her purse and left the room.
I finished going through the letters, and found six more references to Joe, the next being that Joe was “soooo cute”(she'd gotten the picture). The letters were organized by date, so were easy to follow, but most of the references were questions: What's it like dating a policeman? Aren't your friends nervous around him? Does he take you for rides in the car? The first two or three references made me smile, but the last references didn't. Vicki wrote that she was sorry things weren't working out with Joe, but that men were bastards and always wanted what they couldn't have. In the last letter that mentioned him, she wrote, “Why do you think he loves someone else?”
I felt awkward and ashamed, as if I had peeped through a keyhole into a part of Joe's life that he had not shared with me. I put the letters back in the box, and the boxes under the bed.
Dolan came back, looking irritated. “You find anything?”
“No.”
“I've got some good news for the old man. We're releasing the girl's body. He can have her buried, at least.”
“Yeah. He'll appreciate that.” I was still thinking about Joe.
“Here's the bad news: Krantz isn't going to stake the funeral.”
That stopped me. “Come on, Dolan. Staking the funeral is a no-brainer.” Killers will sometimes attend their victims' burials. Sometimes they'll even give themselves away.
“I know that, Cole, but it isn't up to me. Krantz is scared of putting in for so much overtime when he's got a twenty-four/seven on Dersh. He says how can he justify the other when we already know who did it.”
“He doesn't have squat on Dersh. Barney Fife would stake that funeral.”
Her mouth hardened until white dots appeared at either corner. “We'll deal with it, World's Greatest, okay? I'm going to attend. I can probably scare up a couple of the other guys to come in off the clock. I hate to ask this, considering, but you think you could help out?”
I told her that I would.
“What about Deege? Did anyone ever follow up on him, or is that too much overtime?”
“You're a real shit, you know that?”
“I know it's not you, Dolan. I'm sorry.”
She shook her head then, and raised her hands. Suddenly tired with it all.
“I told you the uniforms are keeping an eye out. He hasn't turned up yet, is all. Okay?”
“I know it's not you.”
“Yeah. Right.”
She frowned at the room like maybe we'd forgotten the one place to look that would give us what we need. Finally, she said, “I guess we're done here, Cole. Hell, it's after six. You want to grab a drink or something?”
“I'm having dinner with my girlfriend.”
“Oh. Right.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned at the room again. “Listen, thanks for the help. I appreciate you getting me in here.”
“No problemo.”
She walked out ahead of me. When Dolan was gone, Frank said, “She didn't take anything, did she?”
“No, Frank.”
He hunched in his chair, scowling. “You find out what she wanted?”
“Just what she said. She was looking for names.”
“That bitch was lying.”
Joe and I walked out of his house feeling like dogs.
When we got to the cars, I said, “When we were going through her room we found some letters in a box under the bed. Some of them mentioned you. I had to read them.”
Pike took that in.
“I'm sorry it didn't work out, Joe. You and Karen. She seemed like a nice girl.”
Pike looked up into the elm trees. Their leaves were a light green canopy. As still as if they were a painting.
“What did the letters say?”
I told him some of it.
“That's all?” Like he knew what was there and wanted me to say it.
I told him about the one that said he loved someone else.
“They say who?”
“No. It's none of my business.”
Rampart Division Family Day … June, fourteen years earlier
The tail car was a brown Caprice, floating four cars behind in the light Sunday morning traffic, two white guys with Internal Affairs Group crew cuts and sunglasses. CIA wannabes.
They were pretty good, but Pike was better. He made them on his way to pick up Karen.
When Pike walked her out to the truck, he could not see them, but as he settled into a groove on the Hollywood Freeway, they were with him again. He wondered if they knew where he was going and thought they must. If they didn't, they were in for a surprise. Karen said, “Do I look okay?”
“Better than okay.” He'd been watching the rearview.
Now she gave him the little look out the corner of her eye. “How much better?”
He held up his thumb and forefinger, maybe a quarter inch apart.
She slapped his leg.
He spread his fingers as wide as they would go.
“Better.”
She slid across the Ford Ranger's bench seat and snuggled into him, oblivious to the car or the men in the car or what might happen because of that car. She was wearing a bright yellow sundress and sandals, the yellow going well with her golden skin and white smile. Her black hair glistened in the late morning sun and smelled of lavender. She was a lovely young woman, bright and funny, and Pike enjoyed her company.
When he took the Stadium Way exit off the Golden State Freeway, the tail car left him. That meant they knew where he was going, and either were content to break off the surveillance or had someone assigned to pick him up inside.
He followed Stadium Way through the manicured green lawns of Elysian Park to Academy Road, saw that cars were already parking along the road just up from the gate to Dodger Stadium, and pulled the Ranger to the curb. Karen
said, “Look at all these cars. How many people will be here?”
“Five or six hundred, I guess.” Wozniak would be here. Along with his wife and daughter. Pike wondered again if the IAG spooks would have a man out.
Pike walked around the front of the truck and helped her out. Wilt Deedle, a Rampart bunco detective who weighed almost three hundred pounds, pulled in behind the Ranger and nodded. Joe nodded back. They didn't really know each other, but they were familiar enough to nod. Deedle's wife and four kids were wedged into his car. Deedle, his wife, and three of the kids were wearing matching Hawaiian shirts. The fourth kid, a teenaged girl, was wearing a black tee shirt and looked sullen.
Families and couples were leaving their cars and walking up a little road into the canyon. Pike took Karen's hand, and the two of them followed. Karen said, “It doesn't look anything like I expected. It almost looks like a resort.”
Pike let his mouth twitch, as much for the little girl's wonder in her eyes as the notion of the Los Angeles Police Academy as a resort. “Not much of a resort when it's a hundred degrees and you're running the obstacle course. You never been here before?”
“I knew it was here, but the closest I've been is Dodger Stadium. It's pretty.”
The Academy was snuggled between two ridges in the foothills of Elysian Park, a point-blank pistol shot north of Dodger Stadium. The buildings were Spanish and laid out beneath mature red pines and eucalyptus trees. You could stand in the Academy parking lot and see across acres of stadium parking past the bleachers and into the first-base seats. That close. The Ramparts Division Events Officer had wisely made sure that the Dodgers were out of town before booking the Academy on this particular Sunday for the Family Day Picnic. They wouldn't have to worry about game traffic, but the police were making plenty of their own. A burglary detective named Warren Steiner and one of the senior Rampart uniforms, Captain Dennis O'Halloran, were trying to pick the lock to the Dodgers' gate so the arriving families could use the ball club's parking lot. They weren't having much luck with it.
Pike led Karen uphill past the guard shack and the armory, along a little tarmac road that ran between the pines to the target range and the Recruit Training Center. A couple of hundred people were already spread around the track field, some already having staked out positions with spread blankets, others tossing Frisbees or Nerf balls, most just standing around because they hadn't yet had enough beer to loosen up. Three long barbecue grills were set up at the far end of the field by the picnic tables, clouding the trees with smoke and the smell of burning chicken. Rampart Homicide had drawn chef duty this year, and wore matching tee shirts that said Don't ask where we got the meat.
Cop humor.
Karen said, “Do you see anyone you know?”
“Know most of them.”
“Who are your friends?”
Joe didn't know what to say to that. He was looking for Wozniak and for faces he had seen downtown at Parker Center. He thought it possible that IAG might've worked through Rampart command for an officer to continue the surveillance, but he didn't think so. Wozniak had a lot of years on the job, and IAG wouldn't be certain where the Rampart commander's loyalties would lie.
Karen tugged at his arm and grinned at him. “We can't just stand here. Come on!”
The Division had set up a soft-drink table in front of a cement wall painted with the Academy symbol and the LAPD's motto, To Protect and to Serve. When Pike was a recruit, his class had been doing physical training on the track field one hot winter afternoon as their PT instructor shouted that unless they got the lead out of their asses they wouldn't be fit to protect dog shit or serve hot beer. A black kid named Elihu Gimble cracked that he'd be happy to serve, but only after coffee and donuts, and the entire class had had to run an extra five miles. Five months later, when Gimble was a probationary officer on patrol in East L.A., he'd been shot in the back by an unknown assailant while responding to a see-the-woman call. The shooter was never identified.
Pike led Karen to the table, and together they stood in line for their drinks. Karen kept her arm looped in his, and before long she was chatting with everyone around them. Pike admired her. Whereas he rarely spoke, she spoke constantly. Whereas he felt obvious, and apart from others, she fit easily with an openness that was quickly returned. By the time they had their sodas, she had found another couple with whom to sit, a pale woman with twin boys whose husband was a uniformed officer named Casey. Casey worked the evening shift, and Pike had never met him.
They were spreading their blankets when Paulette Wozniak appeared behind them. “Hello, Joe. Is this the young lady we've heard so much about?”
Karen flashed the wide, friendly smile and put out her hand. “Karen Garcia. And I can't imagine Joe saying very much about anything, but if he's been talking about me, I'm glad. That's a good sign.”
The two women shook, Paulette returning her own smile, which was slow and real and pure in a way that made Pike think of a clean, deep pool. “Paulette Wozniak. I'm married to Joe's partner, Abel. Everyone calls him Woz.” She pointed across the field to the trees beyond where Homicide was burning the mystery meat. Abel Wozniak and a little girl were just coming through the trees. Pike guessed that Woz had been showing his daughter the obstacle course. “That's him with the bow legs and the girl.”
Paulette was eight years older than Joe, with short light brown hair and soft brown eyes and even teeth. Her fair skin was beginning to line around the eyes and the corners of her mouth. She didn't seem bothered by the lines, and Pike liked that. She rarely wore makeup, and Pike liked that, too. The lines made her face interesting and knowing.
Paulette touched Joe's arm. “Could I borrow you for a minute, Joe?” She put the smile on Karen. “I won't keep him long.”
Karen said, “I'll finish spreading the blanket.”
Joe followed Paulette onto the track, and noticed that she stood so that she could see her husband. Her smile was gone, and her brow knitted into a tight line. Woz had stopped to speak with a black couple. She said, “Joe, is something going on with Woz?”
Pike didn't answer.
“Why is he working so many extra shifts?”
Pike shook his head, and felt himself falling inward.
She frowned at him, and he thought that he might do anything to stop that frown, but he didn't know what to do. He didn't think it his place to tell her things that Woz should tell her. She said, “Please don't play the voiceless man with me, Joe. I'm scared, and I'm worried about him.”
“I don't know what to tell you.” Not a lie. He didn't.
Her eyes went back to her husband, and she crossed her arms. “I think he has a girlfriend.” She looked back at Joe again, and there was a lot of strength in her now. The strength made him want to hold her, but as soon as he realized that, he took a half-step away. She didn't notice. “I want to know if he has someone.”
“I don't know anything about a girlfriend, Paulette.”
“Even when he doesn't work an extra shift, he leaves the house. When he's home, he's always pissed off. That isn't like him.”
Pike glanced over at Woz, and saw that he was looking at them. The black couple moved on, but Wozniak stood there. He wasn't smiling. Pike glanced over at the drink tables again, and saw two men he didn't recognize speaking with the Division commander. Behind them, another man was aiming a long-lens camera at them. The camera might've been pointing at the DC and the two strangers, but Pike knew it was pointing at him. Getting a shot of him speaking with Wozniak's wife. Even here at the Division picnic, they were watching.
Joe said, “Would you like me to speak with him? I'll talk to him if you want.”
Paulette didn't say anything for a time, and then she shook her head. When she touched Joe's arm again, he felt something electrical tingle through his arms and legs, and he forced himself deeper into the pool. Even more calm. More still. She said, “Thank you, Joe, but no. This is mine to deal with. Please don't tell him that I mentioned this to you.”
“I won't.”
“He's coming now. I'll tell him that I was inviting you and your girlfriend to the house. Is that all right?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, it's true. Because you are invited.”
Paulette Wozniak squeezed his arm, her hand lingering dry and warm, and then she walked across the field to meet her husband.
Joe Pike stood on the track, watching her walk away, and wished that the secrets they had weren't about this.
Karen smoothed the edges of the blanket, and listened to Marybeth Casey carry on about her twins (one of whom was a bed wetter), her husband, Walter (who didn't enjoy being an officer, but night school was just too much for them right now), and how these Division picnics were always such fun because you got to meet new people.
As Marybeth went on to describe the fibroid tumors in her left breast, Karen found that she was no longer listening. She was watching Joe and Paulette Wozniak, together on the running track. Karen told herself that she was being entirely too Latin at the flush of fear that surged through her when Paulette put her hand on Joe's arm. They were friends. She was married to Joe's partner, and she was so much older than Joe.
Karen stared at Joe so intently that her vision seemed to telescope, zooming close to his face, so that every pore seemed to stand out, every nuance exaggerated. Joe was the most difficult man to read she'd ever known. He was so enclosed that she thought he must've put himself in some small secret box that he kept deep within himself. That was part of why she was attracted to him, she knew. She'd read enough psychology texts to know that much. That she was drawn by the mystery, that some great and needing part of her wanted to open that box, to find his secret self.
She loved him. She'd even told her friends that she loved him, though she hadn't yet told Joe. He was so silent, she was afraid that he wouldn't respond in kind. He was so contained that she couldn't be sure.
Karen watched them talk, and felt the flush of jealousy when Paulette Wozniak touched him, but Joe was as unreadable with Paulette as he was with her. “You're being silly,” she thought. “He is like that with everyone.”