L.A. Requiem

by Robert Crais

  Stan Watts and Jerome Williams were on the other side of the door, looking like they'd been up a while. Watts was chewing a breath mint.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  They stepped in without answering. When they did, the cat arched his back and hissed.

  Williams said, “Hey, that's some cat.”

  “Better watch it. He bites.”

  Williams went over to the cat. “Hell, cats like me. You'll see.”

  Williams put out his hand. The cat's fur stood up and the growl got as loud as a police siren. Williams stepped back fast.

  “He got some kinda thing with black people?”

  “He's got a thing with everybody. It's seven in the morning, Watts. Did Dersh confess? You guys ID the shooter?”

  Watts sucked at the mint. “Wondering where you were last night, is all. Got a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  “About where you were.”

  I glanced at Williams again, and now Williams was watching me.

  “I was here, Watts. What's going on?”

  “Can you prove it?”

  Lucy said, “Yes, he can. But he doesn't have to.”

  The three of us looked up. Lucy was standing at the loft's rail, wearing my big white terry-cloth robe.

  I said, “Lucille Chenier. Detectives Watts and Williams.”

  Watts said, “You here with him?”

  Lucy smiled. Sweetly. “I don't think I have to answer that.”

  Watts held up his badge.

  “Now I know I don't have to answer that.”

  Williams said, “Man. First this cat.”

  Watts shrugged. “We were hoping to be nice.”

  Lucy's smile dropped away. “You'll be nice whether you want to be or not, and unless you have a warrant, we can and will ask you to leave.”

  Williams said, “Well, for Christ's sake.”

  “Lucy's an attorney, Watts, so don't get cute on us. I was here. Lucy and I went down to the Ralph's for some things, and made dinner. The receipt's probably in the trash. We rented a movie from Blockbuster. It's over there on the VCR.”

  “How about your buddy Pike? When was the last time you saw him?”

  Lucy had come down the stairs and was standing next to me with her arms crossed. She said, “Don't answer him until he tells you why, and maybe not even then. Don't answer any more of his questions.” She faced me and her eyes were serious. “This is the lawyer talking, do you understand?”

  I spread my hands. “You heard her, Watts. So either tell me what's going on or hit the road.”

  “Eugene Dersh was shot to death last night. We picked up Joe Pike for it.”

  I stared at him. I glanced at Williams.

  “Are you guys joking?”

  They weren't joking.

  “Is Krantz running a number on Joe? Is that what this is?”

  “Eyewitness saw him going into the house. We've got him downtown now to run a lineup.”

  “That's bullshit. Pike didn't kill anyone.” I was getting excited. Lucy touched my back.

  Watts spoke quietly. “Are you saying he was here at the house with you two?”

  Lucy stepped directly in front of me. “Are you arresting Mr. Cole?”

  “No, ma'am.”

  “Are you exercising any warrants at this time?” Her voice was all business.

  “We just wanted to talk, is all.” He looked at me past her. “We don't think you're good for it. We just wanted to see what you knew.”

  Lucy shook her head. “This interview is at an end. If you are not prepared to arrest him, or me, please leave.”

  The phone rang even as I locked the door.

  Lucy answered, scooping up the phone before I could get there. “Who's calling, please?”

  She was in full-blown protectress mode, still my girlfriend and the woman I loved, but now as focused as a female tiger protecting her mate; face down, concentrating on what was being said.

  Finally, she held out the phone. “It's someone named Charlie Bauman. He says he's a criminal attorney representing Joe.”

  “Yeah.”

  Charlie Bauman had been a United States attorney prosecuting federal cases until he decided to make five times the money defending the same guys he'd once tried to put behind bars. He had an office in Santa Monica, three ex-wives, and, at last count, eight children among them. He paid more in child support than I earned in a good year, and he'd represented Joe and me before.

  He said, “Who in hell is that woman?”

  “Lucy Chenier. She's a friend of mine. She's also a lawyer.”

  “Christ, what a ball-buster. You hear about Joe?”

  “Two cops were just here. All I know is they said Dersh was murdered, and they've got an eyewitness who puts Joe at the scene. What in hell is going on?”

  “You know anything about it?”

  “No, I do not know anything about it.” Irritated that he would ask.

  “Okay, okay. Watch out, dickhead! Christ!” Horns blew. Charlie was on his car phone. “I'm on my way down to Parker Center now. They're waiting for the lineup to book him.”

  “I want to be there.”

  “Forget it. They'll never let you.”

  “I'm coming down there, Charlie. I'm going to be there. I mean it.”

  I hung up without another word. Lucy was watching me, her face grave.

  “Elvis?”

  I've been in war. I've faced men with guns, and dangerous stronger men who were doing their best to hurt me, but I could not recall a time when I was more afraid. My hands trembled.

  Lucy said, “Elvis? Is this man good?”

  “Charlie's good.”

  She still watched me, as if she was searching for something.

  I said, “Joe didn't do this.”

  She nodded.

  “Joe didn't do this. Dersh didn't kill Karen. Joe knows it. He wouldn't kill Dersh.”

  Lucy kissed my cheek. There was a kindness in her eyes that bothered me.

  “Call me when you know more. Give Joe my best.”

  She went up the stairs, and I watched her go.

  * * *

  Parker Center uses the ground floor for booking and processing suspects. A few minutes after I checked in, Charlie hurried out a gray metal door.

  “You just made it. Another five minutes, you'd've missed it.” Charlie Bauman is several inches shorter than me, with a lean pockmarked face and intense eyes. He smells like cigarettes.

  “Can I see Joe?”

  “Not till after. We get in the room, there's gonna be the witness. She's some little old lady. You let the cops do all the talking, doesn't matter what she says.”

  “I know that, Charlie.”

  “I'm just telling you. No matter what she says, you don't say anything. Me and you, we can't talk to her, we can't ask her any questions, we can't make any comments, okay?”

  “I got it.” Charlie seemed nervous, and I didn't like that.

  I followed him back along a tile hall as we spoke. The hall opened into a wide room that looked like any other corporate workplace, except this one had posters about drunk-driving fatalities.

  “Have you had a chance to talk to him?”

  “Enough to get the gist. We'll talk more, after.”

  I stopped him. Behind us, two detectives I didn't know were positioning a black guy in front of a camera like they use to take driver's license pictures, only this guy wasn't up for renewal. His hands were cuffed, and his eyes were wide and afraid. He was saying, “THIS IS BULLSHIT. THIS THREE STRIKE CRAP IS BULLSHIT.”

  “Charlie, do these guys have anything?”

  “If the witness makes a positive ID and they write the paper, then we'll see. She's old, and when they're old they get confused. If we're lucky, she'll pick the wrong guy and we can all go home early.”

  He wasn't answering me.

  “Do they have anything?”

  “They've already got a prosecutor coming down. He'll lay it out fo
r us when he gets here. I don't know what they have, but they wouldn't've called him down if they didn't think they have a case.”

  Krantz and Stan Watts came out of an adjoining hall. Krantz was holding a cup of coffee, Watts was holding two.

  Charlie said, “Okay, Krantz. Whenever you're ready.”

  I looked at Krantz. “What are you pulling on Joe?”

  Krantz appeared more calm than I'd ever seen him. As if he was at peace. “I can show you Dersh's body, if you want.”

  “I don't know what happened to Dersh. What I'm saying is that Joe didn't do it.”

  Krantz raised his eyebrows and looked at Watts. “Stan here told me that you were at home with a woman last night. Was he wrong about that?” He looked back at me. “Were you with Pike?”

  “You know what I'm saying.”

  Krantz blew on his coffee, then sipped. “No, Cole, I don't know that. But here's what I do know: At three-fifteen this morning a man matching Pike's description was seen entering Eugene Dersh's backyard. A few moments after that, Dersh was shot to death by one shot to the head with a .357 magnum. Could be a .38, but judging from the way the head blew apart, I'm betting .357. We've already recovered the bullet. We'll see what it tells us.”

  “You got any fingerprints? You got any physical evidence that it was Joe, or is this another investigation like you ran with Dersh, you just working off an urge?”

  “I'm going to let the prosecutor explain our case to Pike's lawyer. You're just here on a pass, Cole. Please remember that.”

  Behind us, Williams appeared, saying that everything was good to go.

  Krantz nodded at me. Confident. “Let's see what the witness says.”

  They led us past six holding cells into a dim room where a uniformed cop and two detectives were waiting with a shrunken woman in her late seventies. Watts gave her the second cup of coffee. She sipped at it and made a face.

  Charlie whispered. “Amanda Kimmel. She's the wit.”

  Krantz said, “You okay, Mrs. Kimmel? You want to sit?”

  She frowned at him. “I wanna get this done and get the hell outta here. I don't like to move my bowels in a strange place.”

  The wall in front of us was a large glass double-paned window that looked into a narrow room lit so brightly that it glowed. Krantz picked up a phone, and thirty seconds later a door on the right side of the room opened. A black cop with bodybuilder muscles led in six men. Joe Pike was the third. Of the remaining five, three were white and two were Hispanic. Four of the men were Joe's height or shorter, and one was taller. Only one of the other men wore jeans and a sleeveless sweatshirt like Joe, and that was a short Hispanic guy with skinny arms. The other three wore a mix of chinos or dungarees or coveralls, and long-sleeved sweatshirts or short-sleeved tees, and all six were wearing sunglasses. Every man in the room except Joe was a cop.

  I bent to Charlie's ear. “I thought they had to be dressed like Joe.”

  “Law says it only has to be similar, whatever the hell that means. Let's see. Maybe this works for us.”

  When all six men were lined along the stage, Krantz said, “Nobody on that side of the glass can see in here, Mrs. Kimmel. Don't you worry about that. You're perfectly safe.”

  “I don't give a rat's ass if they can see me or not.”

  “Is one of the men in there the same man you saw going into Eugene Dersh's yard?”

  Amanda Kimmel said, “Him.”

  “Which one, Mrs. Kimmel?”

  “The third one.”

  She pointed at Joe Pike.

  “You're sure, Mrs. Kimmel? Take a careful look.”

  “That's him right there. I know what I saw.”

  Charlie whispered, “Shit.”

  Krantz glanced at Charlie now, but Charlie was watching Mrs. Kimmel.

  Krantz said, “Okay, but I'm going to ask you again. You're saying you saw that man, number three, walk down the alley beside your house and go into Eugene Dersh's backyard?”

  “Damned right. You can't miss a face like that. You can't miss those arms.”

  “And when the officers took your statement, that is the man you described?”

  “Hell, yes. I saw him real good. Look at those damned tattoos.”

  “All right, Mrs. Kimmel. Detective Watts is going to take you up to my office now. Thank you.”

  Krantz didn't look at her when he said it; he was staring at Joe. He did not look at me or Charlie or Williams or anyone else in the room. He did not watch Mrs. Kimmel leave. He kept his eyes on Pike, and picked up the phone.

  “Cuff the suspect and bring him in, please.”

  Suspect.

  The big cop handcuffed Joe, then brought him into the observation room.

  Krantz watched Pike being cuffed, watched as he was brought in. When Pike was finally with us, Krantz took off Joe's glasses, folded them, and dropped them into his own pocket. For Krantz, no one else was in that room except him and Joe. No one else was alive, or mattered, or even meant a damn. What was about to happen meant everything. Was the only thing.

  He said, “Joe Pike, you're under arrest for the murder of Eugene Dersh.”

  23

  • • •

  Krantz handled the booking himself, taking Joe's fingerprints and snapping his booking photo and typing the forms. Hollywood Homicide raised a stink, trying to keep jurisdiction of Dersh's murder since it fell in their area, but Krantz sucked it into the Robbery-Homicide black hole. Related to the Dersh investigation, he said. Overlapping cases, he said. He wanted Pike.

  I watched for a time, sitting with Stan Watts at an empty desk, wishing I could talk to Pike. One minute you're asleep in bed, the next you're watching your friend being booked for murder. You put your feelings away. You make yourself think. Amanda Kimmel had picked Joe out of a lineup, but what did that mean? It meant that she had seen someone who looked more like Joe than the other men in the lineup. I would learn more when I spoke with Joe. I would learn more when I heard the prosecutor's case. When I learned more, I could do something.

  I kept telling myself that because I needed to either believe it or scream.

  I said, “This is bullshit, Watts. You know that.”

  “Is it?”

  “Pike wouldn't kill this guy. Pike didn't think Dersh was good for those killings.”

  Watts just stared at me, as blank as a wall. He'd sat with a thousand people who had said they didn't do it when they had.

  “What's next, Stan? The serial killer's dead, so you guys are going to declare victory and head for the donuts?”

  Watts's expression never changed. “I realize you're upset because of your friend, but don't mistake me for Krantz. I'll slap your fucking teeth down your throat.”

  Finally, Watts took Charlie and me to an interview room where Joe was waiting. His jeans and sweatshirt had been replaced by blue LAPD JAIL coveralls. He sat with his fingers laced on the table, his eyes as calm as a mountain lake. It was odd to see him without his sunglasses. I could count on both hands the number of times I'd seen his eyes. Their blue is astonishing. He squinted, not used to the light.

  I sighed. “All the people in the world who need killing, and you've got to pick Dersh.”

  Pike looked at me. “Was that humor?”

  Inappropriate is my middle name.

  Charlie said, “Before we get started, you want something to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, here's what's going to happen. The ADA handling your case is a guy named Robby Branford. You know him?”

  Pike and I both shook our heads.

  “He's a square guy. A pit bull, but square. He'll be here soon, and we'll see what he's going to show the judge. The arraignment will be this afternoon over in Municipal Court. They'll keep you locked down here, then bring you over to the Criminal Court Building just before. Once we're there, it shouldn't take more than an hour or two. Branford will present the evidence, and the judge will decide if there's reasonable cause to believe you're the guy popped Dersh.
Now, if the judge binds you over, it doesn't mean there's proof of your guilt, just that he believes there's enough reason to go to trial. If that's the way it breaks, we'll argue for bail. Okay?”

  Pike nodded.

  “Did you kill Dersh?”

  “No.”

  When he said it, I let out my breath. Pike must've heard, because he looked at me. The edge of his mouth flickered.

  I said, “Okay, Joe.”

  Charlie didn't seem impressed, or moved. He'd heard it a million times, too. I'm innocent. “Dersh's next-door neighbor just picked you out of the lineup. She says she saw you going into Dersh's yard this morning just before he was killed.”

  “Wasn't me.”

  “You go over there last night?”

  “No.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Running.”

  “You were running in the middle of the goddamned night?”

  I said, “He does that.”

  Charlie frowned at me. “Did I ask you?” He opened a yellow legal pad to take notes. “Let's back up. Give me your whole evening, say from about seven on.”

  “I went by the store at seven. Stayed until a quarter to eight. Then went home and made dinner. I was home by eight. Alone.”

  Charlie wrote down the names of Joe's employees, and their home phone numbers. “Okay. You went home and made dinner. What'd you do after dinner?”

  “I went to bed at eleven-ten. I woke a little after two, and went for a run.”

  Charlie was scribbling. “Not so fast. What'd you do between eight and eleven-ten?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? You watch TV? You rent a movie?”

  “I showered.”

  “You didn't shower for three goddamned hours. You read a book? Maybe call a friend, someone call you? Did your laundry?”

  “No.”

  “You had to be doing something besides the goddamned shower. Think about it.”

  Pike thought.

  “I was being.”

  Charlie wrote on the pad. I could see his mouth move. BEING.

  “Okay. So you ate, took your shower, then sat around ‘being’ until you went to bed. Then you woke up a little after two and went for a run. Give us the route.”

  Joe described the route he followed, and now I was writing, too. I was going to retrace his route during the day, then again at the same time he'd run it, looking for anyone who might've seen him.