He looked at her. “And one more thing.”
She waited.
“That book you’re reading. Edna St. Vincent Millay. My wife had one poetry book. She read it a lot. It was a collection. By Millay.”
“Oh,” Wendy said, looking at the floorboard.
“So yeah, it hit me back there.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Not your fault. But now you know. It’s still hard.”
She nodded.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have come along.”
“Wish I hadn’t?”
He didn’t know what he wished, or would wish, or would want in the next ten minutes. “No,” he said.
Chapter 34
“Good morning,” Stan said to the smiling woman who came through the door.
She took a flyer and thanked him.
A nice old man with a walker with green tennis balls on it came in next, and Stan held out a flyer but the man waved it off. He didn’t seem in the mood to talk to anybody. Stan said, “Have a nice day,” and the old man grunted. Sometimes that’s all people did, and now he knew it wasn’t because of him, because he had done something wrong. It was because people could be having all sorts of bad things going on, maybe even their house had burned down.
He hoped not. Having a house burn down was a very sad thing, because then you had to live in a motel.
The next person to come in was Mr. Hunt.
“Hello Stan.”
“Hi Mr. Hunt!”
Stan liked Mr. Hunt a lot. He was a good strong man who gave Chuck a job at his school when Chuck really needed it. He was always very nice, too.
“You’re looking sharp as ever,” Mr. Hunt said.
“Guess what? We have cling peaches on special today, and I know you like peaches.”
“How did you know that?”
Stan smiled. “Remember that day when Chuck brought me to the school, before he started, and you gave us a tour of the school, and we went into the cafeteria and there was a can of Del Monte peaches on the counter? And you tapped it once on the top of the can and said, 'Love those peaches.’ Remember?”
Mr. Hunt’s mouth hung open just a little bit. “You are amazing, Stan. Just amazing. I think you should go on Jeopardy.”
“Oh no,” Stan said. “I’d be too nervous. Alex Trebek makes me very nervous.”
“All right, son. No Jeopardy. So how are you making out in your new digs?”
“You mean the motel?”
“Right. Which one is it again?”
“The Outside Inn, right across the street.”
“You have a nice room there?”
“It’s okay. Number 207.”
“Only okay?”
“I don’t want to live in a motel. I want to live in a house.”
“Of course you do,” Mr. Hunt said, then his eyes sort of drifted to another part of the store.
Stan thought he might be confused about something.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Hunt?”
“What?”
“Do you need something?”
“Oh yes, sure, that’s why I came in. I’m looking for the salad dressing. I wanted some Newman’s Own Italian.”
“Newman’s Own is good. It’s named for Paul Newman, who was the star of many movies, including The Hustler and Cool Hand Luke and The Sting.”
“He’s the one all right.”
“Aisle six, Mr. Hunt. That’s where you’ll find it.”
“Aisle six, huh? Well, thanks Stan, thanks a lot. Nice to see you. Remember, if you need anything, anything at all, you call on me. You and your brother. You can call on me anytime.”
That was nice. That was a very nice thing. To be able to call on Mr. Hunt. Nice people are what make the world a good place, Stan thought. Mean people suck.
Chapter 35
The stench of late morning beer was heavy in The Tall T. Chuck felt a momentary pang of regret for bringing Wendy in with him. This wasn’t the place for an outdoor person. It was old school, functional only, a place for people to come, sit, and drink, and little else. Dark inside, with haphazard light-boxes on the walls advertising various beers, Coors having the most prominent position behind the bar, over the booze rack.
Two old guys sat at the far end of the bar, engrossed in a discussion. The bartender, a wiry guy in a blue tee-shirt, made his way down to Chuck and Wendy.
“Hi folks,” he said. He had a small hoop earring in his left ear, and a genial smile under cautious eyes. “Get you something?”
“My name’s Chuck Samson, and I’m here on business. I’ll skip the beer and just leave a tip, in exchange for some information.”
The bartender did a little hitch with his face, shifting into doubt territory.
“Let me be real clear with you,” Chuck said. “I’m not a cop or a criminal. I’m a school teacher and I have a colleague with me who will vouch for that. I’m the guy whose wife was killed up here last March, by the drunk driving the truck. You remember that?”
The bartender shook his head.
“The guy was actually in here that night. A bartender named Renner was working. Know him?”
The bartender tapped his upper teeth on his bottom lip.
“So when does he come in?” Chuck said.
“I just serve drinks.”
“Do you know?”
“That’s all I do, okay?”
Chuck didn’t realize he’d taken a step forward until he felt Wendy’s hand on his arm.
Now what? Toss a few chairs? Break the mirror like in an old Western? Who was he kidding, playing PI up here in this stupid town where the ghosts were all in his head?
But ghosts there were. Julia had been here. And for reasons he didn’t yet know.
“You say that was your wife?” a voice said.
Chuck whipped around and saw one of the old guys, now on his feet, heading toward him.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, glancing at the bartender, who was full on biting his lips now, and didn’t look pleased. The bartender took out a cell phone and walked to the other end of the bar.
The old guy was slim and balding, with the upholstered skin of the inveterate smoker. He motioned for Chuck to follow him outside.
In the light of day and scent of pines, the old guy pulled out a mashed pack of Camels, drew one out with his mouth and lit up with a Bic. “I knew the guy what hit her,” he said after his first cloud of smoke issued through his nose. “Used to come in here alla time.”
“You know about the accident?”
“Everybody knows about that. Bad thing that happened. Sorry about your wife.”
Chuck nodded.
“My name’s Ezra, like Ezra Pound, the poet?”
“Sure.”
“And who’s your friend?”
“I’d rather keep her name out of it.”
Ezra’s fluffy white eyebrows went up. “Sounds kind of mysterious.” He took a long drag on his unfiltered cig. The acrid smoke of it wrestled with the pine tree scent, and won.
“I want to know everything you know,” Chuck said. “I want to know what happened.”
“I didn’t see it, of course.”
“Did you see Ed Hillary the night it happened?”
Ezra nodded. “He was here all right.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I did, but I can’t remember all we talked about. One night kind of melts into another, if you know what I mean. I used to be an electrician, but that’s not a job you want to have if you like to drink. It can be a—”
“Think,” Chuck said. “What did Hillary seem like? Was he drunk?”
“Nah, Hillary wasn’t a real heavy drinker. He nursed. Usually a beer or two, and then he went home. I was kind of surprised when they said he was so loaded he hit a gal. He must’ve got a bottle or something after, cause he wasn’t reelin’ when he left here.”
“The bartender that night was named Renner.”
“Biff Renner, sure.”
; “He still work here?”
“Yeah, comes in the afternoon. You won’t get much out of him. He told the police same thing I told you. Hillary had a couple beers and left, and that’s the last we knew.”
Chuck looked at Wendy, feeling like he was coming up quickly to a dead end. She seemed to pick that up.
To Ezra she said, “Did you ever see the woman who was hit?”
Ezra shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”
“She might have been with a guy on a motorcycle,” Wendy said.
“We get a lot of those around here.” He took another deep drag on his Camel.
“Hey!” A short man with olive skin, a smooth pate and bushy black mustache was coming out of the front of the Tall T. “You need to get going.” He waved his arms like he was shooing away flies.
“They’re just friendly folks,” Ezra said to the man.
“I don’t care,” the mustache said. “You’re trespassing. Go on.”
“This is Bashmajian,” Ezra said. “Owns the place.”
Chuck said, “My wife was the one who—”
“I know all about it,” Bashmajian said. “You looking for a lawsuit or something?”
“No.”
“It don’t matter. You don’t drink, you’re trespassing. You want maybe a sheriff to talk to?”
“If that’s all that’s bothering you, I’ll buy a drink.”
Bashmajian shook his head. “I got a right to refuse service. And that’s what I’m doing. So go.”
“What’s your problem?” Wendy said.
“And take your girlfriend with you!”
“She asked you a question,” Chuck said.
“Get going.”
Chuck stuck his face in Bashmajian’s. “You hard of hearing? Somebody asks a question—”
The bartender shot out to join them.
He was holding a shotgun in one hand.
Chuck looked at him. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Bashmajian backed away from Chuck. “Now you go.”
This was crazy. This was Twilight Zone crazy, paranoid central. Little town and a bartender with a gun? On him?
Wendy pulled at Chuck’s arm. “Let’s go,” she said.
Chuck didn’t move. No way the guy would shoot him over this. No way . . . unless there was more, a lot more.
Maybe he could make a quick move, grab the slimy little owner and use him as a shield.
Sure, and his real name was Jet Li.
Wendy pulled on his arm again.
He let her. He started walking toward his car.
“Come back anytime,” Ezra said.
You can bet on it, old man.
Chapter 36
After sixteen years on the force, six as a detective, Sandy Epperson knew what made a good homicide cop. Three unalterable things.
First, the determination of a pit bull.
Second, attention to details, especially the little ones.
And third, the ability to get complete strangers to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets.
It was about those three things, and those three things only. Not the posturing you see from TV and movie cops. And it drove her crazy every time one of these slapped cuffs on a suspect and immediately Mirandized them. You never did that. You want the arrestees to run off at the mouth, and it’s all admissible if you don’t question them. Give them the standard warning up front, and they could clam.
The real cop world was so much different, but it all came down to that trio of attributes.
Sandy Epperson knew she had them, and that’s why she knew she was going to keep on the trail, wherever the evidence in the Nunn case led.
Even if it led her to Kern County.
At her desk in the squad room, she opened up the murder book, the blue binder system she still favored. The goal was to get everything in one of the smaller binders. This one, though, was the larger size. Because this case wasn’t going to be open and shut.
She flipped past the cover page to the chronolog, the time-line record of her and Mooney’s activity on the case. She always put her notes in contemporaneously, unlike some of the younger detectives who waited until they got back to the station. Too many of them would get fuzzy on what they’d done, and have to reconstruct by memory.
Mooney was like that, only he kept little notes on his Blackberry. Sandy had to remind him he better print out and keep all those notes, as they were discoverable by the defense in a criminal case. The last thing you wanted in court was some lawyer claiming the police destroyed electronic jottings, without backup.
Sandy turned next to the link chart. The computer analysis company the LAPD contracted with had just provided the report that linked Grant Nunn’s cell phone to recently called numbers. With a search warrant, easy enough to secure in a murder case like this, Sandy would be able to get the phone company records for each of those numbers. Then it would be a matter of shoe leather. Knocking on doors and finding out what connection these people had with Nunn.
That was another thing about real detective work. Some of the new school kids thought you could sit at a computer all day and solve cases. No way. You had to get face time. And you had to get it fast. People were much more likely to talk when the killing was “hot.” The longer you waited, the more memories got fuzzy, naturally or for some other reason, like self-protection.
Yet somehow Sandy was convinced the real connection in this homicide was not going to be there, in that web of numbers.
The details of the killing kept moving around in her mind, begging to be brought into some sort of pattern. She was doing her best, but doubts kept blowing the details around like dry leaves.
For one thing, the time and location was odd. Nunn was killed sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m. in the back of the Target parking lot. There were actually two large lots, one on either side of Target. On the north side, the lot stretched all the way to Vanowen Street, and was utilized by those going to the 24 Hour Fitness next to the store.
South of Target was another lot that went to Victory Boulevard. The west end of the lot backed up against a cinderblock wall and oleander plants, and was well removed from store fronts and backs.
It was here by the wall that Nunn was found in his car dead of a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.
What was he doing sitting in this location at that time? And after calling 911 and supposedly being on his way to work?
Something, or someone, had convinced him to drive there. And park.
To get popped?
Which would bring it right back to something connected with Charles Samson and the guy who pulled the knife on him.
Sandy scribbled a note on the legal pad she’d laid out next to the murder book. At the top she wrote Samson then drew a two inch line and wrote guy w/knife, connecting them. She drew a small line sideways from the knife guy and wrote black Escalade, no plate.
In the middle of the page she wrote Nunn without any connecting lines.
On the left side of the sheet, in the margin, she wrote down times with notations.
6:30––?
6:35—approximate time of knife incident
6:42—Nunn’s 911 call; Samson leaves scene in car (arrives Ralphs approx. 10 minutes later)
7:00—Nunn drives to Target
7:15—approximate time Nunn shot
7:30—?
4:00––Samson’s house on fire (Samson and brother at work)
The timeline didn’t make any sense. The Escalade was gone, Samson was off to drop his brother at Ralphs. Nunn was supposed to be on his way to work. But instead he went the opposite direction, almost immediately after calling 911.
The house fire was a wild card. Sandy drew a line from Chuck’s name to a ? she put on the page. From the question mark she drew spokes pointing to these terms: Samson drugs, landlord, arson/set-up. From arson/set-up she drew a dotted line, indicating weak but possible link, back to guy w/knife.
Finally, at the bottom of the page, she wro
te the name Raymond Hunt and drew a line to Samson’s name.
Then she leaned back and looked at the page. It was something she did well. Like at a scene. So many detectives depended on what SID told them, but never bothered to do the most important thing––step back and ask, What is this scene telling me?
As she did now.
Until her cell buzzed.
Chapter 37
Chuck said, “It’s Chuck Samson, I’m driving back from Beaman.”
“What were you doing up there?” Detective Epperson said.
“I went with a witness, a teacher I work with.”
“What is it you want to tell me?”
She sounded guarded but open. Chuck said, “We went into the bar where Ed Hillary was last seen, before the accident. They clearly did not want to talk to me, except an older guy who said Hillary wasn’t drunk when he left. Which leaves open that question, doesn’t it?”
“Did you get the man’s name you spoke to?”
“Ezra. That’s all I got. But he’s a regular there. The owner of the place chased us off. May be worried about a lawsuit, or he may be worried about something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Hiding something. But I just thought you should know.”
After a short pause, Epperson said, “You’re playing detective now, Mr. Samson. I don’t think you should do that.”
Chuck heard a beep on his phone. Another call coming in.
“I’ll call you later,” Chuck said. “Can I?”
“Talk to your lawyer first,” Epperson said.
Chuck switched the call.
“Yeah?”
“Samson?” It was a man’s voice, one Chuck didn’t recognize.
“That’s right,” Chuck said.
“Want some info?”
“Who is this?”
“Let me rephrase. I know you need some information. About your wife. And that guy on the motorcycle.”
Chuck tensed, saw Wendy looking at him with concern.
“Interested?” the voice said.
“I want to know who this is.”
“Not on the phone, man.”
“Where then?”
“You know Lazy J Park in West Hills?”
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