"I let Walsh down," Jimmy said. "Seven years he sat in prison, thinking he had murdered a high-school girl. Murdered his future too. I think about what it must have felt like to read that letter from the wife after all that time inside, after all the things he had seen. Just the chance that he hadn't really killed Heather Grimm-that he could reclaim everything that had been taken from him, everything, Jane."
Holt wanted to smooth the pain from Jimmy's face, but she didn't make a move, still angry at him for implicating her in the suppression of evidence.
"Walsh was a mess the night I met him, so loaded he could hardly stand, but he sized me up right away. I was on a scavenger hunt, but so was Walsh. He was looking for someone to change his luck, to turn the tables on the man who had put him away. Walsh had a con's instincts: Seize the advantage-that's how you survive in the joint, you don't waste any opportunity, you take your best shot because you might not get another. That's why he told me about the letter. He thought I was going to help him." Jimmy looked like he wanted to hit somebody. "I guess he was a bad judge of character."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"I didn't do anything."
"If the coroner's report rules Walsh's death a homicide, you have to tell Katz."
"Katz could get the wife killed. Cops don't have to move quietly, they just have to get results. Katz will elbow her way into people's lives, hauling them in for questioning, insisting on answers. Me, I'll move light and easy."
"Tell her what you know, Jimmy. If you don't, I will."
Jimmy looked into her eyes, slowly shook his head.
Chapter 8
"Filet mignon, bloody, baked potato with the works, asparagus tips," ordered Detective Helen Katz, the waiter scribbling to keep up. She shoved her empty cocktail glass across the white linen tablecloth. "Another double bourbon too. One cube."
"I'll have the tuna," said Jimmy. "Rare, please."
"Must be nice to have an expense account-go anyplace you want, order anything you want, and stick somebody else with the bill," said Katz. "I always wanted to eat here"-she watched the waiter hurry off-"but they don't give a police discount, and the steak costs more than a tank of gas."
"What's the ME's report going to say about cause of death?"
"Hold your horses, Pancho. You don't want to rush a lady."
Jimmy started to laugh but then thought better of it. Katz was wearing a blue suit and white dress shirt, her necktie the height of cop chic with a pistols-and-handcuffs pattern, her dirty-blond hair swept back into a ducktail. For all he knew, she considered this a working date.
"You going to finish your appetizer?" Katz grabbed the rest of his onion soup before he could answer. "You bring Holt here sometimes?" Strings of mozzarella hung from her spoon. "Special occasions?"
"No."
"What's the matter, her ladyship not a meat eater?"
Jimmy wished Katz would have just told him the results of the autopsy over the phone, but she had insisted on giving him the news here. He hated the Grove. The food was overpriced, the menu was geared to induce coronary thrombosis, and the decor was Hollywood circa the time when Buddy Hackett was considered funny. At least the ancient tuxedoed waiters didn't introduce themselves. Lately the Grove had made a retro-chic comeback, frequented now by twenty-something hipsters and bitter, retired executives chewing unlit cigars and talking about how good things used to be and how lousy they were now.
"I'm just giving you shit about Holt," said Katz, picking at her teeth with a fingernail. "She's a good cop. Not my kind of cop, but a good cop just the same."
"I'll tell her she has your seal of approval."
"That supposed to be put-down?"
"Yeah, that's what it was."
Katz grinned again. "See, just when I'm ready to write you off as a scumbag with gainful employment, you go ahead and give me an honest answer. Makes me almost like you." She looked around the dark, wood-paneled restaurant from the shelter of their rolled red leather booth, her head bobbing in approval.
"So… what did the ME decide?"
"That's right, I almost forgot what we were here for." Katz slurped the last of the soup. "The ME said that person or persons unknown shoved something long and sharp through Walsh's ear canal." The spoon banged against the bottom of the bowl as Katz chased the last drop. "Doc almost didn't catch it." She ran a thick finger around the rim of the bowl and put it in her mouth. "You don't look surprised." Jimmy didn't respond, but it didn't seem to bother her. "Me, I was surprised, I admit it, but I'm just a big dumb cop." She barely covered a belch. "So, who do you think did it?"
"I don't know."
"I think you got an idea." Katz gently swirled her double bourbon, the single ice cube clinking against the heavy crystal as she waited for an answer.
"Walsh was afraid of someone, I know that much. When I met him at the trailer, he was jumping out of his skin, but I thought he was just hustling me for some ink."
"Guess we were both wrong." Katz looked around for the waiter.
Jimmy rearranged his silverware, not sure of how much to reveal. Maybe Jane was right. Katz was working the case as a homicide now, so there was no reason to keep information from her. No reason except he liked having an edge, liked having room to maneuver. "Walsh said he got a letter in prison. The writer suggested that Walsh didn't really kill Heather Grimm. That he had been set up."
Katz laughed. "Manson has pen pals too, all of them convinced he's innocent."
"Walsh took this letter seriously. Maybe he wanted to believe. He confessed to killing Heather Grimm, but he didn't remember doing it, so after he got the letter, he was determined to prove his innocence. He didn't really know how to do it, but he was making all the right noises. The screenplay he was working on was going to lay it all out. That's what he said, anyway."
Katz idly stirred her drink with a forefinger.
"Walsh's lawyers hired a private investigator to do a background on Heather Grimm, but his plea bargain stopped all that. Walsh had a copy of the raw notes-he was hoping to use them to find out the truth. I already contacted the attorney. They won't even acknowledge that the file exists, but if you got a subpoena-"
"I didn't find any notes," said Katz, still stirring her drink.
"Neither did I."
"A letter, raw files." Katz flicked her finger and sprayed him with bourbon. "Why didn't you tell me all this at the crime scene?"
Jimmy wiped his face. "I have a hard time sharing my toys. It's a personality defect, but I'm working on it."
"I got a few personality defects myself, but I'm not touching them-why mess with success?" Katz waited in vain for him to disagree with her. "Who wrote this letter to Walsh?"
"I don't know." There was no reason for Jimmy to keep the existence of the good wife from Katz, no reason other than the fact that he wanted to find her first. Jane said he liked saving the damsel in distress, liked playing the hero, but Jimmy knew better. "I asked Walsh, but he wouldn't give it up."
"How convenient." Katz drained her drink, banged it onto the white linen tablecloth. "Well, I searched the trailer myself, and I didn't find anything. No letter. No notes. No screenplay. Poof, disappeared. I did find nine empty prescription bottles of assorted painkillers. Found a quarter-ounce of crank taped under the bathroom sink too, but you probably don't care about that."
Jimmy leaned forward over the table. "Walsh wasn't murdered over a dope deal. If you want to find out who killed him, find out who set him up for killing Heather Grimm."
The white-haired waiter appeared at their table, and Jimmy sat back as the man laid another double bourbon and steak in front of Katz. The man moved so precisely that he didn't disturb the air molecules. He set down Jimmy's plate next, shaking out his napkin before handing it to Jimmy.