'Did he see the driver?'
'Nothing we can use,' High said. 'Back of a head through tinted windows. But he did get a partial on the plate. He says it caught his eye because his name is Joe, and it was a vanity plate that started with JO.'
'It started with JO,' I repeated, and Terry's eyebrows went up.
'Right. And there's only one car in the state that's a match. It's registered to our boy Tony Dominguez's wife, Marisol.'
'Chris, that's damn good police work. Why do you say it may be nothing?'
'As I recall from our little go-around on Monday, Tony's wife works with Nora Bannister. One writes the books, the other sells the houses. So it wouldn't be unusual for Marisol to be parked outside Bannister's house.'
'Except for one thing,' I said. 'She just told us she was at the flip house all day. You just put her at the victim's house at the time of the murders.'
'Well, then, I guess you were right, mate,' Chris said. 'It looks like I have been doing some damn good police work.'
I hung up. 'You get all that?' I said to Terry.
'Yup,' he said. 'It's a two-way street, mate. She doesn't trust us. And now we don't trust her.'
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was almost midnight by the time we got back to Terry's house. As the car pulled into the driveway, Emily came running out the front door, followed by Sarah and three barking dogs. The girls threw their arms around their mother, and Terry quickly ushered them into the house, stopping in the doorway just long enough to shake hands with Big Jim.
Jett followed the family inside. Houdini, the black Shepherd, and Skunkie, the shaggy-haired mutt, stood at the front door waiting for a cue from Big Jim.
'Dad, I'll be right there,' I said. Then I went over to the squad car that was parked in front of the house.
There were two young white male patrol officers in the front seat. Emphasis on young. My guess was that I was as old as the two of them put together. 'You guys here for the night?' I asked.
'All night, all day, twenty-four seven, sir,' the one on the passenger side said. 'There's a team covering your wife till the shooter is caught.'
'I'm Detective Lomax,' I said. 'My partner, Detective Biggs, lives here. It's his wife you're protecting.'
'Is that her over there?' he said, pointing toward Diana.
'That's my girlfriend. We're staying with Detective Biggs and his wife. They're the ones who went inside.'
'No problem, sir,' the cop said. 'We've got your back. Have a good night.'
'Thanks, boys,' I said. That's pretty much what they were. Boys. Young, eager, and relatively inexperienced. They were here to serve and protect, but they weren't even sure who they were protecting. I was beginning to wonder if Marisol was right. Putting some cop in front of my house isn't going to do shit.
I put my arm around Diana, and we went inside. Jim locked the door behind us.
I gave Angel a hug and thanked Dennis for his help. I could feel Big Jim looming behind me.
I turned around. 'What?'
'Don't shoot the messenger,' he said, 'but your contractor quit.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Hal Hooper, your contractor - his wife called here.'
'She called Terry's home phone?'
'She couldn't find any of your numbers,' Jim explained, 'but Hooper told her you were staying with Mr and Mrs Biggs in Sherman Oaks, so she dialled information, got Terry's number, and called here.'
'And you answered Terry's home phone?'
'Of course I answered. I was on guard duty.'
'IPB, Dad. Improper Personal Boundaries. Why would you answer Terry's home phone?'
'It was for you, numb nuts. Talk about improper personal boundaries. Why would you get a call on Terry's home phone?'
'I live here, dammit.'
'So I answered a phone call for my own son. Is that crossing a boundary? Do you want the message or not?'
I was tired and cranky. But Diana was sitting back on the sofa, enjoying the show. Laughing, actually. 'He can't wait for the message, Jim. Give it to him.'
'Hal Hooper fell off the roof and broke his leg. He's out of commission for at least eight weeks.'
'You've gotta be kidding me,' I said.
'So first you don't want me taking your messages, and now you don't think I can get them right.'
'Hooper fell off my roof? Did his wife threaten to sue?'
He dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. 'Don't worry, he can't sue you.'
'How can you be so sure?'
'He fell off somebody else's roof.'
Diana was now laughing out loud. I, on the other hand, was not amused. 'That son of a bitch. He's supposed to be at our place. He was working at someone else's house?'
Jim shrugged. 'Lucky for you. If he fell off your roof, he'd be suing your ass.'
'This is bullshit,' I said. 'I don't believe he fell off anything. It's just another excuse to delay the job for a couple of months.'
'That's what I thought,' Jim said. 'So I told Mrs Hooper we want to send him flowers. I asked her what hospital he's in. She said Good Samaritan on West Sixth.'
Diana got up from the sofa. 'Good Sam? I can check it out.' She looked at her watch. 'In fact, I have a friend who works the night shift in the ER. I'll call her.'
I put my arm around Jim and did my best to direct his massive body toward the front door. 'Dad, it's after midnight, and I've been going since dawn. Thanks for watching out for Emily and Sarah. Now take Angel and Dennis and the dogs and go home.'
'No problem,' he said. 'You tell Marilyn if she doesn't feel safe with those two kiddy cops out there watching her house, I'll get some teamsters up here. A lot of them got licenses to carry.'
'Truck drivers with guns,' I said. 'It doesn't get any more reassuring than that. I'll tell her.'
I said good night to Dennis and Angel, and a minute later, the entire Lomax Security Force piled into the limo.
Terry came from the kitchen carrying two beers. He offered me one.
'No thanks. I'm going to bed.'
It was the first time we'd been alone since Doughboys.
'So Marisol was spotted pulling out of Nora's driveway around the time of the murders,' Terry said. 'I guess she was so busy getting the flip house ready, she forgot all about it.'
'Should we remind her?' I said.
'Why bother? She'll just have some lame excuse for being there. She's not going to say, "Oh, silly me, I did go over to Nora's house this afternoon, and I shot her and her daughter. It completely slipped my mind." Let's give her a little more rope and see if she hangs herself.'
Diana came back in, even more bubbly than when she left. 'I just spoke to my friend Nina Bernard. She's a nurse at Good Sam. You're going to love this.'
'Oh, God, I need something good tonight,' I said. 'Lay it on me.'
'Hal Hooper is a patient. He came into ER this afternoon. Nina read me his entire chart.'
She was beaming. I was beginning to believe that I might actually enjoy what she had to say.
'You realise that telling you what's on a patient's chart is a violation of some kind of privacy act,' I said.
'That's the problem with Nina,' Diana said. 'Pretty face, beautiful figure, fantastic personality, and yet she has this glaring character defect. She will actually seek out private information about contractors from hell, and pass it on to those of us who hate them.'
'I'm sure there's a twelve-step program for that,' I said. 'So, did Mr Hooper really break his leg?'
'In six places,' she said.
'And did he fall off a roof?'
'Two stories.'
'So now I don't have a contractor,' I said. 'How is this supposed to bring me joy?'
Her eyes were dancing now. 'Ask me how he fell off the roof.'
'Consider it asked.'
'He shot himself with a nail gun. He screamed in pain and went crashing to the ground.'
'It couldn't happen to a bigger asshole,' Terry said.
'I'd guess his brain, but he doesn't have one.'
'Go lower,' she said.
'His stomach?'
'Lower.'
'His thigh?' I said.
'Go higher.'
I was all smiles myself now. It was too much to hope for. 'His...'
'Yes, yes, yes,' she screamed. 'Hal Hooper shot himself in the dick with a nail gun and fell off the roof.'
'There is a God,' I said. I checked my watch. 'It's too late to call Kemp, but I'll call him first thing in the morning.'
Kemp Loekle is a good friend who gave up being a carpenter in LA to pan for gold in Oregon. He had e-mailed me to let me know that after six months of eating freeze-dried beef stew, shitting in a spackle can, and sleeping on a cot with a .44 magnum at his side, he was ready to come back home and start swinging a hammer.
'Even if we lose a couple of grand from the advance we gave Hooper, it'll be worth it,' I said.
'We're not losing anything,' Diana said. 'Tomorrow morning while you're calling Kemp, I'll be calling my friend Liz Corrado. She's a lawyer. And if Hooper is lucky, he'll only wind up with one nail in his dick.'
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Before he became a cop, Charlie Knoll was a crook. He grew up in foster care, and by the time he was fourteen, he'd been arrested for shoplifting, vandalism, and breaking and entering. One night he decided to swipe a couple of bottles of sacramental wine from the storage room of a Catholic church.
Luckily, the priest who caught him believed in redemption and gave Charlie a chance to do penance. But instead of giving him an Our Father to say, the priest gave him a bucket and a bottle of Mr Clean. Charlie spent the next six months cleaning up the floors, the toilets, and his act. His juvey records were sealed, and eventually, his benefactor, Father Bill Leydon, gave him the reference he needed to get into the Police Academy.
After a few years as a beat cop, Charlie made detective. Once again he gravitated to robbery, only this time he wasn't the perp.
Terry and I were in an elevator at Cedars-Sinai on our way up to interview him.
'This is not going to be fun,' Terry said.
'It's a homicide investigation,' I said. 'Where is it written that we get to have fun?'
'And yet, we so often do.' Terry said. 'But this is different. The poor bastard's wife and his multimillionaire mother-in-law got iced. If he didn't do it, he's probably devastated. If he did do it, we have to nail one of our own. Either way, where's the fun?'
'I'm sure you'll come up with something,' I said.
The door to Charlie's room was closed. I knocked. No answer.
I opened it, took one look, then closed it again.
'Are visiting hours over already?' Biggs said.
'Father Bill is in there with him. They're praying.'
'Maybe he's confessing. If you open the door a smidge, we might be able to hear him. It would save a lot of time.'
'I know you're determined to have fun, but the guy's wife just got murdered. Give it a rest.'
Much to my surprise, he actually did. We waited in silence for five minutes. Then the door opened, and the priest came out. Father Bill is short, white-haired, with a cherubic face and rimless glasses. If someone called central casting and said, 'Send over a guy to play a priest,' he'd be perfect.
'Mike, Terry,' he said, shaking our hands. 'It's been too long. Charlie said you'd be coming. I guess we're both here under the worst of circumstances.'
'How's he holding up, Father?' I said.
'It's one of those times when someone asks me to explain God's will, and all I can say is don't try to understand the ways of the Lord; just accept it. We were praying for that strength.'
'Charlie's a trooper, Father. I know he'll get through this, especially with you praying for him.'
'I'll be praying for you boys too. I hope you find the bastard who did this.'
'We'll do our best, Father,' I said, and Terry and I stepped into Charlie's room. There were two beds. Charlie was in one. The other was vacant.
'How you doing?' I said.
Charlie shrugged, then coughed up a half-hearted laugh.
'We're really sorry about your loss,' I said.
Terry nodded. 'We both are.'
'Thanks,' Charlie said.
'How are the chest pains?' I said.
'They gave me some pills. Come on, Mike, cut the crap. This ain't a social call. You're here on business. Ask me what you've got to ask.'
'Where were you yesterday afternoon, say from around four until Sergeant Bethge called you at six forty-five?'
'I was having a few drinks.'
'At the book launch party?'
'Come on, guys. By now you talked to half the people who were there. You know I never made it to the party. I was with a friend.'
'What's her name?' I said.
'None of your business,' he said.
'Actually, it is our business,' I said.
'Why? Do I need an alibi? Are you charging me?'
'Take it easy,' Terry said.
'Don't tell me to take it easy. I'm taking it hard. I loved Julia. And her mother. What I've never loved are those big splashy parties where Queen Nora is the centre of attention, and everyone knows she's making a mint, and they all come up to me and tell me I stepped in shit when I married Julia. Like maybe I'm getting a piece of every book she sells. I wasn't looking forward to the party, so I drowned my sorrows with a very understanding, very sympathetic, very compassionate friend.' is she a cop?' Terry said.
Terry must have hit it on the head, because Charlie's face went flush. 'Which part of none of your business didn't you understand?'
'OK,' I said. 'So you were having a drink with another woman at the same time your wife was murdered, which is not something you're anxious to share. And she's probably married, so you don't want to drag her in unless you're charged. Understood.'
'Thank you.'
'What time did you and this compassionate, sympathetic friend start drinking?'
'Five. Maybe a little before.'
'In a bar?'
'It was a little more private than that. Next question.'
'Where were you between four and five?'
'I left work at three, went home, put on my party clothes, drove to meet my friend.'
'Anybody see you?'
'Not between three and five,' he said. 'Did the crime lab establish the time of death?'
I nodded. 'Between four and six.'
He smiled. 'So even if I gave up my friend's name, I'd only have half an alibi.'
'Did you kill your wife and your mother-in-law?' I said.
'No.'
'Do you have any idea who did?'
'Not who, but maybe why.'
'You know something?' Terry said.
'Nothing specific,' he said. 'It's just my best take as a cop. Three women dead, all part of the same real estate venture. I didn't know much about who invested what, or what the details of the business deal were, but if I were working this case, I'd follow the money.'
'And where would we pick up the trail?' Terry said.
'Her publisher and her accountant will have all kinds of financial records, but nobody's going to just pop open their books unless you guys find a judge, get a warrant, the usual crap.'
'The Justice Prevention Department,' Terry said. 'We've been there.'
'Your best bet is to just ask Martin,' Charlie said. 'He'll know.'
'Martin Sorensen,' I said. 'Her assistant.'
Charlie nodded. 'He's a pretty OK guy once you get to know him.'
'You know him well?'
'We're not shopping for furniture together, but sometimes after one of those book parties, he and I would take it across the street and toss down a few beers. I gotta tell you, in another life, I wouldn't have wound up friendly with this guy, but we've got a common pain in the ass.'
'Nora,' I said.
'Yeah. I mean, she was kind o
f all right as a mother-in- law, but as a person, it was a whole other story. She's one of those people who knows it all and wants to make sure you know she knows it. You should hear Martin go off on her after he's had a couple of drinks. Poor guy, he was working for her, sleeping with her...'
'Maybe killed her?' I said.
Charlie laughed. 'Hey, you're thinking like a cop. I've been there, but no. If Nora was the only victim, I'd put him high on the list, but Jo, and...' He took in a breath and let it out slowly. His voice dropped and his eyes went to the ceiling. 'Could Nora have driven Martin to shoot her? Sure. But he never would have killed my wife, Reggie's wife...where's the upside? What's the motive? Like I said, if this was me on this case, I'd follow the money.'
'Does Martin have access to her financial records?' Terry said.
'Martin knows everything about Nora's business,' Charlie said. 'He was with her every day.' He paused. 'And a hell of a lot of nights.'
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We were on Wilshire, driving to Martin's apartment on South Cochran, about five minutes away.
'I'm confused,' I said.
'We could put in a call to Father Bill,' Terry said. 'He seems to do well with troubled cops.'
'I'm not troubled. I'm confused. I don't understand why these people are getting killed.'
Terry crossed himself, it's God's will, my son.'
'Quit dicking around. I'm serious. You heard what Marisol said last night. Nora's books are what's driving up the price of these houses. So even if it is about money, why kill the cash cow? Did Marisol hate her partners enough to kill off her own income stream? As for Charlie, I believe he loved Julia. So why would he kill her? Why would he kill Nora?'
'Money. It's your basic age-old motive. With Julia dead, maybe Charlie inherits Nora's estate.'
'Then why kill Jo Drabyak?'
Terry made the turn onto Cochran. 'Good question. Now I'm confused,' he said.
Martin's apartment was a lot like the man who lived there - neat, orderly, and efficient.
He greeted us at the door, a copy of the LA Times in his hand.
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