Last Looks_A Novel

by Howard Michael Gould

  Except. The cops she rode with seemed to have mixed feelings about her, and the book was that in risky situations she tended to hesitate just long enough that her partner would invariably go through the door first; maybe no one actually asked to be reassigned another partner, but no one asked to be teamed with her, either. One partner got hit with a brutality accusation that proved false but that scrambled his life for a year; after he was cleared he grumbled that it would have happened faster if Tanaka hadn’t played it safe with Internal Affairs instead of standing up strong for him. And one Friday night when she wasn’t around, after more than the usual number of beers, a couple of female sergeants surprised Waldo with the ferocity of their resentment—they talked about cold shoulders in the ladies’ room, subtle disrespect to her female superiors, lack of support for younger women coming into the division behind her, years of tiny slights that had piled up into full-grown beefs. Waldo first wrote it off as jealousy—neither of these women, much as he liked them, were blessed with anything like Pam Tanaka’s looks or résumé or future—but he himself noticed, as the years went by and they rose through the ranks, that that effortless charm of hers indeed shined upward a lot more brightly than downward, and he came to distrust her. Still, there had never been an unpleasant moment between Charlie Waldo and Pam Tanaka, even at the end, and that made her one of very few.

  “Waldo,” she said.

  “Hey, Pam.” He nodded to her shoulder. “Star, huh.”

  “Division commander now. Maybe you heard.”

  He hadn’t but wasn’t surprised. “Nice.”

  “Problem?”

  A few more uniforms and a couple of plainclothes had wandered out from the squad room—there were more than a dozen now—to see for themselves the legend in the lobby, back from the dead and raising hell.

  “Just looking for some information. I’m working on the Alastair Pinch case.”

  “It’s been on the news,” she said. “We can’t help you, though. I’m sure you understand the position I’m in.”

  “Cut me a break, huh, Pam? We both want the same thing.”

  “Do we?”

  “We want to make sure this gets hung on the right guy.”

  “Already done. Your guy is the right guy.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Sorry, Waldo. I’d love to help you but I can’t. Good to see you, though.” She said it warmly but it was a dismissal.

  Waldo, though, had no intention of leaving. He looked past her to the pack of uniforms. “Who were the first officers on the scene? I’ll start there.”

  Tanaka turned stern. “Nobody gives him anything.”

  The policemen looked at Waldo with open hostility, especially the ones he knew. He stared each of them in the eye, one at a time—Lemons, Ricketts, Oh, Cuevas—and the newcomers, too.

  One young patrolman avoided Waldo’s gaze and that was enough. Waldo walked right to him, checked his name tag, and read it aloud. “Annis?” He pronounced it anus.

  “Annis,” the patrolman corrected, with a softer A.

  “Goddamn,” Waldo said, “high school must’ve sucked.”

  Annis nodded.

  Pam Tanaka said, “Don’t talk to him, Annis.”

  Waldo said to Annis, “You were at the Pinch house.”

  Annis didn’t respond.

  Waldo pressed. “You were the first ones? You and your partner?”

  Tanaka said, “Annis . . .”

  Waldo said, “Officer Annis, do you know who Fontella Davis is?”

  Annis gave a small nod.

  “Do you want her on TV every night, making this case about you?”

  Annis shook his head.

  Waldo asked, “Was the door dead bolted when you got there?”

  Annis nodded.

  Tanaka said, “That’s enough, Annis.”

  Waldo asked Annis, “You sure? It’s solid oak, no windows. You couldn’t see him unlock it. You heard it that clearly?”

  “The alarm was definitely on. We saw him disarm it.”

  “Annis!”

  Waldo pressed. “Yes, but the real killer—if it wasn’t Pinch, that is—the real killer could’ve set the alarm on the way out. If the door wasn’t dead bolted. Right?”

  Cuevas, one of the plainclothes Waldo knew, said, “Don’t let him spin you, Annis.”

  Tanaka said, “Don’t answer him, Annis.”

  Waldo asked Annis, “How about the murder weapon? The earthenware vase? Was it you, gathered up the pieces?”

  Tanaka answered for him, “Yes, he got all the pieces of the murder weapon. Conady supervised. Now I’d like you to leave. I’m asking you as a friend.”

  Waldo said, “The earthenware vase.”

  Tanaka said, “Yes, the earthenware vase. We have the murder weapon. All of it.”

  Waldo said, “Good. Only the earthenware vase wasn’t the murder weapon. Not if Alastair Pinch killed her. Earthenware that size, that had to weigh almost thirty pounds, and it came down over the victim’s right eye. Have to be one strong lefty to take a killer swing with that thing. Not a drunken righty.” Before she could respond, he said, “Yeah, Pam, Pinch is a righty. I’ve watched him pour.” Waldo reached into his pocket and pulled out the Architectural Digest, rolled up. He opened it to the page with the photos of the room and showed it to Annis. “See that statue? That’s an Olivier Award, for acting in England. Ever see it before?” Annis studied the picture but didn’t respond. “No? Of course not. Because it’s missing. That was the murder weapon. Three and a half pounds. The earthenware vase—the victim hit that on the way down.”

  Annis looked over at Tanaka.

  Waldo said, “Don’t look at her, Annis—this comes out the wrong time, believe me, she’s going to let you get fucked on this. Remember—I used to work here.” He didn’t know how long this young cop had been at North Hollywood, but he figured the griping about Tanaka wouldn’t have eased up since she got the big job. He was burning the relationship, or whatever may have been left of it, but he was used to that, and if this kid already didn’t trust her, maybe he’d catch a break.

  Tanaka said, “Waldo, I’ll give you ten seconds to get out of here on your own; then—”

  Annis blurted, “It sounded like Pinch fumbled with the dead bolt when he opened the door. He was still kinda drunk. We didn’t know for sure it was bolted.”

  “Really,” Waldo said, and looked at Pam Tanaka.

  But before he could press the moment, Big Jim Cuppy burst through the squad room door. “Fuck are you doing here, Waldo?!”

  One of the plainclothes muttered to Cuppy, “Annis is talking to him.”

  Cuppy exploded, “Shut the fuck up, Anus!” Cuppy glared at Pam Tanaka and said, “Everybody shuts up—now! Pinch’s side wants anything, let ’em subpoena through the DA—but nobody says another word to this scum sack. He’s a person of interest in two homicide investigations.”

  Waldo scoffed, said, “What bullshit is that?”

  “For anyone who hasn’t heard,” Cuppy announced to the room, “the body of one Eladio Reynoso was found in Idyllwild, on Mr. Waldo’s property. Presumably he was killed at the behest of his rival Don Q, with whom we have reason to believe Mr. Waldo has been associating.”

  Well, at least they’d ID’d the body and linked it to Q, and hopefully that meant Waldo wouldn’t have any more problems with the locals in Riverside County. But what else were they hanging on him? “Associating, yeah, if you mean letting his gorilla work me like a heavy bag. What’s the second homicide?”

  Cuppy gave it a beat for effect and then said, “Lorena Nascimento.”

  Waldo felt his heart stop.

  Cuppy continued: “She borrowed her husband’s car. They found it on fire off the freeway up by Magic Mountain, with the body inside. Here: worth a thousand words.” H
e handed Waldo a photo: the burned-out Porsche with what was left of Lorena in the driver’s seat, no skin, not even patches of red, just gray-black char in the shape of an openmouthed skull. Waldo gagged. Cuppy leaned in close and spoke quietly, enjoying it. “Somebody wanted to make sure she wasn’t pretty anymore.”

  Waldo couldn’t look away from the picture. What had he done? What had he not done? The little he’d eaten today was heading back up.

  Cuppy said, “Look here, asshole—that item Lorena gave you? I can put your friend Don Q away for so long you’ll both die of old age before he’s a problem again. So why don’t you give it to me, before the man goes all cherries jubilee on you, too.”

  Waldo ran out of the station house, the photo still in his hand. He doubled over, steadied himself with a forearm against the brick wall and vomited until he had nothing left inside him but regret.

  SEVENTEEN

  The dry heaves finally stopped. He noticed flecks on his shoes, found a leaf on the ground that looked fresh and wiped off what he could. He checked the rest of his clothes for puke; given his limited wardrobe and his daily wear-one, wash-the-other routine, he was grateful not to find any more. Still shaking, he unlocked his bike, but he couldn’t pull it out of the rack: someone else’s U-lock tethered it to a second bicycle beside it. He looked around for the biker who’d carelessly jammed him up, and when he saw no one nearby, Waldo lost it.

  He cursed, every foul word he knew or could remember plus some he made up. He kicked the other bike, football-style, then stomped on it over and over until he’d bent its gear mechanism so badly that the chain dropped off. The bike ravaged, he focused his wrath on a metal trash can, hurling it against the side of the building and scattering garbage across the asphalt. Then he picked it up with both hands and smashed it against the brick wall again and again and again and again.

  Spent, he propped himself with his backside against the wall and his hands on his knees. He spit a few times to rid the foul taste from his mouth, then wiped his face with his sleeve. He took some deep breaths and began counting slowly, actually whispering the numbers aloud. By fourteen or fifteen he had calmed himself, and at twenty he stood, focused on the ground between his feet, and exhaled.

  When he looked up, there was the blue Cadillac.

  It was parked on the far side of the small lot, facing away from Waldo, and the man was getting out and heading in Waldo’s direction. He was indeed middle-aged and ordinary-looking and wore a nondescript brown suit. “Excuse me,” he said. “I had my bike on that rack next to yours, and I must have left—”

  “Bullshit!” Waldo stormed at him. “You’ve been following me all day! Now, get that lock off my goddamn bike before I—”

  The man held up his hands in front of him. “If you’re thinking about doing me bodily harm, you should know that I am an attorney specializing in personal injury, and I will seek damages.” The man walked past Waldo and squatted by the rack, inspecting the busted-up bike. He said, “Speaking of damage.”

  Waldo seethed. “Just get the lock off.”

  The man took his bike chain in hand but stopped himself before opening the lock and looked up at Waldo. “You’re a private eye?” Waldo waited for the man to open the lock. The man waited for Waldo to answer.

  “Yeah,” Waldo said to move things along, “I’m a private eye. Now, get—”

  “Big mistake,” the man interrupted. He dropped the chain and stood. “You’ve just committed a felony, presenting yourself as a private investigator in the state of California when in fact you’re unlicensed.”

  “I’m acting as an operative under a fully licensed investigator.”

  “Who’s the investigator?”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “You’ll have to answer the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services’ questions, and I hope your boss can provide documentation to them. Otherwise you could be looking at a ten-thousand-dollar fine and/or one year in prison.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be back home long before that becomes an issue.”

  “To that house in the woods.”

  This guy knew too much about him and Waldo didn’t like it. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Do you have running water up there?”

  “I have a well.”

  “That must really cut down on waste.”

  “It does.”

  “Admirable. Did you happen to file a well completion report with the Department of Water Resources?”

  Waldo hadn’t even heard of a well completion report. He’d ordered the cabin and everything possible prefabricated, and the rest he had taught himself with online research and laborious trial and error.

  The lawyer said, “You’re not going to get a permit without a C-57 Well Drilling Contractor’s License. And I sincerely hope you don’t have a composting toilet.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “A client of mine is curious why you’d involve yourself with a murderer like Alastair Pinch.”

  “One of your personal injury clients.”

  “A legal client.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Let’s just say a gentleman of resources who wonders why you’d get entangled with this, when you’ve had such a peaceful life in Idyllwild, undisturbed by the government or lawsuits from your neighbors.”

  “Listen, asshole, I’ve had a lot scarier than you trying to muscle me off this case—”

  “You misunderstand, Mr. Waldo. I’ve made no threats whatsoever, and none are intended.” He knelt again to fiddle with his U-lock and this time opened it, releasing both bicycles. He started back toward his Cadillac with the lock, leaving the busted bike in the rack.

  Waldo said, “Aren’t you going to take your bike?”

  “Now that I looked closer, that bike might not have been mine after all.” More shit: thanks to this prick, Waldo had just stomped somebody else’s bike to pieces. As the lawyer got to his car he called back, “You know, Mr. Waldo, it’s my hope—and my client’s—that you enjoy your retirement to the fullest and that this pleasant, happenstantial conversation is the last dealing you and I ever have.” He pointed to the bikes, said, “Sorry for the inconvenience,” and got into his car. Waldo heard the electronic snap of the door locks, but the lawyer didn’t start the ignition right away; it looked like he was making a phone call first.

  From the bike rack, Waldo watched the back of the man’s head and tried to make sense of the confrontation. This was the second time he had been warned to stay off the Pinch case. Either someone other than Alastair had killed his wife, or the Pinches had been involved in something else that some third party didn’t want uncovered, something they thought the police less likely than Waldo to notice, or at least less likely than Waldo to reveal or exploit. The people who’d tried to intimidate Waldo—the would-be gangbangers and now this nuisance-suit lawyer—were mismatched, too. He wanted to know more about this guy and he wanted to know whom he was talking to.

  The lawyer was deep in conversation. Leaving his bike in the rack, Waldo swung wide out of his view and, crouching, approached the rear of the Cadillac from the side. He knelt behind it, keeping low enough so the lawyer couldn’t spot him in the rearview. Then he waited.

  A couple of minutes later the engine turned over and red brake lights went on. Waldo braced himself, and as soon as the car moved a few inches he reached up and slapped the top of the trunk hard while letting the car tap him and knock him down.

  The car stopped and the driver killed the engine. Waldo stayed on the ground, curled and facing the passenger side. The lawyer got out and rushed over, not asking if Waldo was all right, but launching straight into a self-protective spiel, delivered to the back of Waldo’s head. “There is no liability on my part here. I don’t know what mischief you were up to at the rear of my car, but I checked the mi
rrors carefully and you were deliberately below the sight line.”

  But Waldo didn’t answer. He was sobbing, his body racking.

  “Mr. Waldo?” the lawyer said, thrown. “Mr. Waldo?”

  “They killed her,” Waldo got out between gasps.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s m-my fault. If—if I had just helped her in the first place . . .”

  The lawyer, softening, came around to Waldo’s other side. “Let me help you up.” He reached out to him, offering a hand.

  Waldo didn’t take it. “It’s my fault . . .”

  “Mr. Waldo, are you injured?”

  “No.”

  Again the lawyer said, “Let me help you up,” and this time Waldo let the lawyer pull him to his feet.

  Tears streaming down his face, he reached into his pocket and took out the gruesome photo of Lorena’s incinerated body. He showed it to the lawyer while he blubbered some more. “I’m sorry . . . this has been . . . three years . . . not even talking to anyone . . . and then . . . Lorena . . .” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he said, “this is embarrassing.”

  “Yeah,” the lawyer said, for lack of anything better.

  “You’ve got one of those watches,” Waldo said, noticing a Kudoke Skeleton, like Sikorsky’s, the one Alastair coveted, and he felt the anger rising in his blood again. “Why do you need it?”

  “What?” the lawyer said, again for lack of anything better.

  “You have a phone. You know how many people you could feed with what that watch cost—” He stopped himself. There was just too much else wrong in the world, wrong in his world. He looked the lawyer in the eye. “I’m going back to my mountain. I’m done.”

  The lawyer looked surprised, then pleased. “It’s the right decision. You don’t need any more trouble.”