by Stalker
Decker tried to settle comfortably into the booth, but the stuffing was sparse and his butt kept feeling springs. He said, “Beaudry and Bederman…you think they did something dirty.”
“It crossed my mind.”
Decker nodded. “If that’s the case, I’d say that Bederman wasn’t giving Cindy a friendly tip. Nor was he trying to get into her pants. By telling her not to fuck around with married men, the implicit message was don’t fuck with me. Then the next question would be, why would he say that to her? The logical answer? He must think that Cindy knows something about him. He thinks Cindy has dirt on him.”
“What kind of dirt?”
“I don’t know, Oliver, you’re the one she talks to.” Decker looked at the ceiling. “Let’s say for a moment that I could be objective on this. If she was a stranger to me, the first question I’d ask her is do you have dirt on him, and judge her reaction.”
“She told me she’s barely talked to the guy…”
“Okay.” Decker bit his lip. “Do you think she was telling the truth?”
Oliver stared at him. “Decker, we’re talking about your daughter—”
“I know that!” Decker snapped back. “Answer the damn question! The one thing you are is a perceptive cop.”
The one thing! “Yes, I think she was telling the truth. I don’t think she has a notion as to why this asshole was talking to her like that.” Oliver was appalled. “I can’t believe what you just asked me! You’re one lucky motherfucker that I’m trustworthy.”
“Why do you think I asked you?” Decker shifted his position again. “It still doesn’t mean I like you, only that I trust your integrity as a cop.”
Oliver didn’t respond. In his screwy way, he knew Decker was complimenting him. “Unless she’s one great liar, I think she’s clueless.”
“So you know what that says to me? It says to me that Bederman thinks she knows the dirt on him. What kind of dirt and where would she find it out?”
“Possibly from Beaudry,” Oliver answered. “Just because Bederman says they’re still friends doesn’t make it so. It’s tied into the Crayton case, Deck. Bederman was listening in when Cindy spoke about Armand being her workout buddy. Maybe Bederman had his paws in that case and thinks Cindy knows something. Someone did take potshots at her.”
“That was a while ago.”
“Yeah, Decker, but we just started messing with the case again. First we interview Lark Crayton, then Stacy Mills gets jacked. Then Marge talks to Bartholomew, and Cindy’s apartment gets trashed. Not to mention someone following her in a Camry that was conveniently pushed off a mountain sort of like the way that Crayton died. You see a pattern here?”
“How does Bederman fit in?”
“Lark mentioned that she had someone with clout as an ace in the hole. How about a cop and how about Bederman? Didn’t you say we should think cop in Stacy Mills’s carjacking?”
“I suggested it,” Decker said.
“Lark wanted Armand to have an accident. She needed a pro to arrange things and Bederman was the man.”
“So get me something to tie Lark to Bederman.”
“Elizabeth Tarkum’s jacking took place in Hollywood. Bederman works in Hollywood. Maybe Dex approached Bederman to do his wife’s jacking and Lark happened to overhear—”
“You just don’t happen to overhear something like that, Scott. Besides, Tarkum happened after Crayton.”
“So maybe Dex arranged both of them,” Oliver said. “It brings us back to the theory that Dex’s wife and Armand were having an affair. Bartholomew wanted to teach them a lesson.”
“You think Dex contracted Crayton’s murder,” Decker whispered. “Just a little while ago, you thought that Lark contracted her own husband’s murder.”
“She and Dex were in it together.”
Decker said, “I could understand Dex contracting Crayton’s murder. I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to draw attention to himself by contracting his own wife’s carjacking. Someone would put two and two together just like we’re trying to do.”
Oliver said, “Stupid yes, but Dex is one arrogant alpha dog. Marge said the guy is off the scale when it comes to self-importance.” He swallowed the dregs of the coffee, then made a face. “Where is Margie, by the way? She should be here with us, thrashing this case around.”
“She and Vega are at the park with Rina and Hannah.”
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Oliver griped. “She used to be a workaholic.”
Decker smiled. “She found a life—”
“Loo,” Oliver said, “a life is being in love with some stud muffin. A life is flying down to Vegas to catch a show and throw some dice. A life is partying till dawn. What kind of life is that? Taking a kid to the park, getting dust in your lungs and dog crap on your shoes ’cause some jerk doesn’t believe in curbing his animal!”
“Getting feisty, Oliver?” Decker smiled. “Maybe it’s lack of sleep.”
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been busy baby-sitting.” Oliver tapped the table. “Okay. Suppose Stacy Mills was telling the truth…which is a stretch. Suppose Lark was stupid enough to try to murder her husband. First time out, she gets someone to fire a few potshots at him and his chippy, but that doesn’t work.”
“Cindy wasn’t having an affair with him.”
“But what if Lark thought they were having an affair? Maybe Stacy Mills—who knew that Cindy was Armand’s workout partner—was feeding Lark incorrect info to keep herself in Lark’s good graces. Anyway, the upshot is that now Lark knows who Cindy is. She keeps that info on the back burner. Now flash forward. Armand is becoming even more of a liability. She knows she needs help from a professional. She talks to Stacy again. After all, Stacy has been spying for her. So maybe she can get her a hit man. That doesn’t pan out. Stacy may know how to gossip, but she doesn’t know diddly about hiring a professional popper. So Lark talks to Dex, who decides to give her a couple of names because he doesn’t like Armand. You like it so far?”
“It’s interesting.” Decker consulted his notes. “So Lark is talking to Dex, who’s giving her some names of hit men. Then what?”
Oliver regarded him with awe. “You wrote all that down?”
“It’s all in the key words. You want to finish up?”
“Okay. Lark asked Dex for a little help and Dex gave her Bederman.”
“Why would Dex help her out?”
“’Cause he was pissed at Armand for screwing his wife,” Oliver answered. “Then, on her own, Lark decides to get Tarkum and uses her same contact—Bederman. Great, now things are going along fine for a couple months, half a year, more. Then we get a rash of carjackings and start looking in other areas. And I happen to come across Tarkum in Hollywood and start asking questions. To see if I can’t tie it into these recent jackings. And, of course, I can’t because Tarkum is probably unrelated to Devonshire’s jackings. You said that yourself.”
“I said it might be unrelated,” Decker said.
Oliver said, “So now I come across Tarkum, and you think of Crayton because the two jackings both involve rich people with fancy cars instead of hapless mothers and children in beaten-up cars. Then I tell Osmondson that Tarkum reminds me of Crayton. And Osmondson starts talking about it, and Bederman finds out. He gets a little nervous. First thing he does is contact Lark. She admits to him that she had a bad case of little loose lips with Stacy Mills, and tells Bederman to scare her into silence. Which of course makes us even more curious because now instead of just two similars we have three similars. But Lark doesn’t bother to think about that. She just wants Stacy out of the picture.”
Decker said, “Why would Bederman agree to do it?”
“To save his skin.”
“He’s a cop, Scott. He’d have to know that it would pique our curiosity.”
“So maybe Bederman is stupid.”
“Or maybe…” Decker thought a moment. “Maybe Bederman thought he could stuff the Mills jacking in with the others
in Devonshire. Then I get into the act, and start reinvestigating Crayton. Bederman gets nervous because Cindy is not only my daughter but also knew Crayton.”
“And then Bederman starts thinking that maybe he didn’t plug as many holes as he thought,” Oliver said. “So he gets a little more nervous. He has to know how much Cindy knows. How does he find that out?”
“Through Beaudry,” Decker said. “Bederman can’t pump Cindy, because he’s afraid that she might talk to me, and then he’d be in real trouble. So what does he do? He asks his ex-partner to do him a favor and pump her for him. So why would Beaudry agree to something like that?”
“I think I might know,” Oliver asked. “Cindy told me that Beaudry has a rep of being slow physically. Maybe Bederman’s pulled him out of a couple of tight squeezes, and he figured it was time for Beaudry to pay the piper. The problem is that it hasn’t been Beaudry who’s doing the pumping, it’s been more like Hayley. I still can’t figure out whose side she’s on.”
Decker paused, then said, “Has Beaudry pumped Cindy for information about Crayton?”
Oliver said, “I’ll ask her. Or you can ask her. Somebody should ask her.”
“It’s a nice theory,” Decker said. “Of course, I’d like it a lot better if we found something that ties Bederman into the case.”
Oliver said, “I’ll start looking.” He paused. “Be nice if I had my partner—”
“Leave Marge alone. She’s waited a long time for this.”
“I know. I wish her well. Hope she knows what she’d doing. I sure didn’t.”
“No one does. That’s the marvelous thing about parenthood. There are no formal rules.”
28
It was a suspension bridge fashioned from slats of gray oak and held together by bolts of some kind of superstrength steel. The construction had to be superstrength to weather the abuse given to it: hour after hour, day after day, and year after year of jackhammer jumping.
Rina’s voice could barely be heard above the school-age squeals. “Hannah, stop running! That little girl is trying to get across.”
Miraculously, Hannah halted in her tracks, put her hand to her missing-a-front-tooth mouth, and giggled. “Sorry.” She went over to the tot of around two and held out her hand. She spoke in an exaggeratedly maternal tone, making the pitch of her child-soprano range even higher. It was a wonder the dogs didn’t start howling. “You want some help, sweetie?”
The girl of two stuck her thumb in her mouth. Hannah took the other hand and walked her across the wobbly bridge. Once the tot was safe on the other side, Hannah resumed her wild play. Marge was watching her in awe.
Rina said, “I know. She’s hyperactive in the sense that she never stops.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“I would be if I didn’t say to myself it’s the last time and it goes so quickly…which it does.” Rina looked around. The park was relatively quiet, the usual crowd sleeping in because it was Sunday. It was a nice park, meaning it was small enough for Rina to keep her eye on Hannah. There was a fenced-off region that contained lots of play equipment—climbing apparatus, monkey bars, swings, and slides, some of them with loads of twists and turns and tubes that could rival theme parks. The majority of the recreational zone was devoted to a block-long grassy section big enough for football and baseball—there was a backstop and one set of splintered, paint-peeling bleachers—with room left over for picnic benches and built-in barbecues. The curb abutting the park had filled up with cars, but there were plenty of spaces across the street.
“Where’s Vega?” Rina asked.
Marge pointed to a far bench near the diamond’s backstop. Vega was curled up, her eyes buried in a book. “I brought her here to teach her how to ride a bike. Nobody can say I’m not trying.”
Rina was puzzled. “Trying to do what?”
Marge frowned. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“I’m trying to make her…no, that’s not the right word.” Marge gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m trying to help her catch up on the childhood she missed. You know, do things like…like ride a bike or skate or listen to music I can’t stand or jeez, even watch TV.”
Rina held back a smile. “You want her to watch TV?”
“Not be glued to the TV!” Marge gave up. “I know I must sound like an idiot. My kid reads all the time! Such problems. But it’s to the exclusion of everything else. It isn’t healthy.”
“Probably not healthy for her eyes. But it’s great for the brain—”
“You don’t understand.”
Rina shrugged philosophically. “Maybe not.”
Now Marge felt doubly stupid. She had just told a mother of three, who had been raising kids for nearly twenty years, that she didn’t understand child rearing. And here was Marge, the expert, having had custody of one teenaged girl for eight months. She tapped her foot. “You don’t think it’s a problem? That she reads all day?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong. But I don’t think you’re concerned about her reading, you’re concerned about her ability to integrate socially.”
Marge was quiet. “So what do I do?”
Rina put her arm around Marge’s waist. She would have looped it around her shoulder, except that Marge was too tall. “Personally, I think you’re doing great. She seems very happy—”
“She’s so quiet. Except with you! Man, she talks to you. Maybe I’m just not the right—”
“Stop it.”
“Okay, okay.” Marge made a face. “Look, I know she went through an ordeal! I know she grew up in an isolated, weird environment. But she’s not in that environment anymore. There’s an entire world out there.”
Rina smiled. There were things she could tell her friend, but she refrained from giving lots of advice because it usually backfired. “I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“Really?”
Rina nodded, then yelled, “Hannah, stop screaming!” Softly, she said, “I swear that child is going to give herself throat polyps.”
“See, you worry, too!” Marge pointed out.
“Pardon?”
“You worry about Hannah getting throat polyps!”
Rina laughed. “Yes, I worry. I worry whether Sammy will be safe in Israel. I worry about Jacob, and wonder if he’ll ever survive adolescence. I worry about Hannah. She’s so little and vulnerable. I worry about Peter every single day he straps on his gun and goes to work. But no matter how much I worry, how much I fret, how much I wring my hands and pound my forehead, I know that my getting an ulcer is not going to help. More likely, it’ll probably hurt because I won’t be in good shape when my family really needs me. So my credo is to bury my head in the sand and don’t think about the bad until it smacks me in the face. Crises happen to everyone sooner or later. Why anticipate them?”
Immediately, Marge felt her stomach turn over. Rina spoke from experience—widowed at twenty-four, raising two small boys by herself, a victim of crime at twenty-six, hysterectomy at thirty. And here was Marge, complaining because her adopted daughter read too much.
Rina went on. “Vega’s a lovely girl, Marge. You’re giving her lots of emotional sunshine. You watch. She’ll bloom beautifully.”
“What wouldn’t I give for your attitude!”
“It’s because of your profession. All you ever see is the bad people and people in distress. You wonder how I’m so calm as a mother, I wonder how you and Peter and Scott and the lot of you go out there every day.”
Marge chuckled. “You’re trying to shut me up with flattery.”
“Maybe.”
They both laughed. At that moment, Hannah lost her footing on one of the ladders and fell to the ground, landing on her rear. “Oh dear!” Rina ran to her, picking up the tearful little girl. “What happened, sweetie?”
“I fell down and hurt myself!” A wail. “Oh, look! I’m bleeding!”
Sure enough, a trickle of blood was leaking from her left kne
ecap. The right one fared better, but was still scraped raw. “Oh my!” Rina brushed off the seat of Hannah’s dress. “Maybe we should go to the bathroom and wash that off—”
“I want to go home!” she screeched.
Rina looked at her watch. It was a little after twelve. They had been there almost two hours. On top of being mortally wounded, the child was probably tired and hungry. She threw her bony arms around her mother’s neck. “Are you tired?”
“I’m not tired!” Hannah said, between sobs. “See!” She scrambled down from her mother’s grip and did ten jumping jacks, her standard act that served to contradict her parents whenever they claimed she was tired. “I just hurt myself!”
More sobbing.
“Okay.” Rina picked her up again. “How about we go home and get some lunch?”
Hannah nodded and sniffed. Marge was at their side. “What’s the verdict?”
“I think she’s had enough.”
“Good going, Hannah,” Marge said. “I’ve had enough, too. Next time I take Vega out, I’ll take her to the library. At least I’ll be off my feet!”
“Marge—”
“I’m kidding.” She stared at Vega. “If I shout from here, do you think she’ll hear me?”
Rina picked up a bag filled with sand toys and snacks. “Let’s just walk over there. My vocal cords have had it.”
“Here!” Marge took the bag. “I’ll get it.”
They had made it about halfway across the lawn when Marge’s nose started twitching. A telltale raw odor that came from an animal’s excrement. “You smell something?”
“I do.” Rina put Hannah down and checked her shoes. “I hate to add to your already jolly mood, but it isn’t coming from me.”
Marge checked the bottoms of her sneakers. “Oh God!”