"Hey, gramps," said Katz. "Where's the Thousand Island dressing?"
The waiter acted like his pacemaker had just started sparking inside his chest. "The Grove asparagus spears are served only with soft-boiled eggs and lemon wedges, madame," he croaked. "It's one of our signature dishes."
"You ever hear the phrase 'The customer is always right'?" People at the surrounding tables glanced over, but Katz was oblivious. "Just bring me the Thousand." She shook her head as the waiter retreated, then sliced into her steak, the knife clicking on the thick china plate. "We dusted the trailer for prints, every inch of it." She brought the forkful of meat to her mouth, blood running down the tines. "Got some hits too."
"Yeah?" Jimmy forced himself to be careful. Something wasn't right.
"Yeah. Yours." Katz chewed with her mouth open. "Good cow," she pronounced, washing it down with a swallow of bourbon. She took the knife to the steak again. "Rollo's too. And Walsh's, of course." The fork was poised in front of her mouth. "Last but not least, Harlen Shafer, until recently a resident at one of our fine penal institutions. Mr. Walsh's alma mater, to be exact. Aren't you proud of me, Jimmy?" Katz was having way too good a time for Jimmy's taste.
"What was Shafer sent up for?"
The waiter returned and set a side dish of Thousand Island dressing in front of her, then sidled away as Katz ladled dressing onto the asparagus.
"Do you have an APB out for him?" Jimmy said.
"An APB?" Katz picked up three of the asparagus spears and waved them coquettishly at him. "I just love it when civilians use police lingo. I bet that gets Jane hot too."
Jimmy didn't answer. Anything he said was going to be used against him.
"Don't get your panties in a bunch. Shafer's just a small-time dope dealer." Katz bit off the heads of her asparagus. "I do have a confession to make, though." She hung her head for an instant, crossed herself, then looked up at him, showing off those big flat horse teeth of hers. "I haven't been completely honest with you, but then, you weren't completely honest with me. What goes around, comes around." She gulped down half her fresh drink and smacked her lips. "Nobody shoved anything in Walsh's ear, you silly bastard. He wasn't murdered. He died from drowning, with alcohol and drug intoxication as contributing factors." She batted her lashes at him, a little bleary now. "I do hope I haven't destroyed your faith in law enforcement."
"Walsh didn't drown."
"I'm afraid he did." Katz beamed.
"Walsh's body was too deteriorated for the ME to be sure of-"
"Deteriorated is too nice a word. Walsh looked like month-old cottage cheese." Katz wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Floating in the hot sun all that time, fish chewing at his fingers and toes, and the ravens-it was like that Hitchcock movie. Good thing we had Walsh's prison dental records, or we couldn't have made a positive ID."
"Walsh might have been strangled, and no one would know. Any ligature marks would have been eaten away."
"Ligature." Katz chuckled, then reached over and rapped Jimmy on the larynx, suddenly solemn as he jerked back, coughing. "That's your hyoid bone. Somebody chokes you to death, you're hyoid bone is going to show it even if the flesh is mushy. Walsh's hyoid-it was just fine."
Jimmy rubbed his throat.
"Then there's the blood chloride levels." Katz started in on the steak again, gleefully masticating her meat. "Blood chloride levels on the left and right chambers of Walsh's heart were equal." She finished off her bourbon and held her glass above her head. "Garcon!" She grinned at Jimmy. "I always wanted to say that."
"What does blood chloride have to do with it?"
Katz let him simmer, watching the waiter hustle toward the bar. "I barely passed chemistry myself, but Doc says that if the chloride levels are equal, it means that Walsh was still breathing when he went into the water." She stopped as the waiter came by with another drink, then sipped this one now, rolling it around in her mouth; Jimmy had watched Jane do the same thing with her first drink of the evening until she noticed him paying attention. She hid her pleasure now.
"So Walsh drowned. Maybe he had help."
Katz stuck the end of her napkin in her water glass and rubbed at the gob of Thousand Island dressing that had fallen on her necktie. "You hold somebody down, he's going to put up a fight, even somebody as drunk as Walsh was," she lectured. "Those rocks in the koi pond are rough, but Walsh's hands and knees-what was left of them anyway-there were no lacerations on them. His fingertips were gone, but the fish didn't touch his fingernails-none of them were broken off. Sorry to spoil your fantasy, but Walsh just fell down drunk and drowned. The ME's issuing the report tomorrow afternoon, so consider this your heads-up-I always keep my word."
"Somebody took the screenplay. It just didn't disappear."
"The screenplay may be missing, but that doesn't mean somebody took it." Katz inspected her tie, smoothed it flat. "I did my job. I even had the crime scene unit take tire impressions from the ground around the trailer; we haven't had rain in what-three months? CSI got a match on standard-issue tires from Walsh's Honda, your Saab, the Ford Escort driven by Mr. Ponytail, Rollo's VW van, and one more, origin unknown. I admit I got a little interested at that point, but then we determined that Goodyear 275 R15 radials were basic equipment on 1996 Camaros, like the one currently registered to the aforementioned Harlen Shafer, the dealer who makes house calls. That's it, Jimmy-those were the only tire treads up there. Give it a rest."
"Have you talked to Shafer?"
"About what? The case is closed. If you don't know what that means, ask Holt."
The waiter reappeared, nodded at Jimmy's untouched plate. "Is everything all right, sir?"
"Yes, fine." Jimmy looked at Katz. "You're wrong."
"Put my date's tuna into a doggie bag, gramps," Katz told the waiter. "And drop in a few of those dinner rolls." She pushed her plate away and leaned close to Jimmy. "Thanks for the chow and the laughs. I'll keep your number in my wallet. If I ever need somebody to track down the Easter Bunny, I just know you're the guy who can do it for me."
Chapter 9
"Just a minute," the man with the high cheekbones said to Jimmy, barely acknowledging him, too busy with the girl in the chair, a blond teenager clad in a pale blue shorty nightgown, the gauzy fabric spattered with fake blood. The man hovering over her was small and slight, wearing a black, full-cut shirt and matching jodhpurs, his dark hair sculpted high, his sideburns tapered to perfect points.
"Are you Martin?" Jimmy moved closer.
"I told you, just a minute," hissed the man, delicately applying a thin gel pack to the side of the blond girl's neck with gum adhesive. At a remote signal the pack would explode, sending fake blood spurting at the camera, one of the many money shots in Slumber Party Maniacs II. His black cowboy boots clicked as he walked around the makeup chair, checking his work. The boot heels must have been five inches high at least, but he moved smoothly, pivoting like a ballerina. "Yes… I think that will do."
The shooting location today was a large house in Santa Monica. A temporary makeup room had been set up in the servant's quarters off the squash court, a small room stacked with canned goods, the few items of furniture pushed into a corner.
"It's not going to hurt, right?" said the girl, reaching up to touch her neck. She looked like she belonged in a shampoo commercial, brushing out her long blond hair while she talked to the captain of the football team on the phone-one hundred strokes a night, and none for him. "When it goes off, I mean. It won't hurt, will it?"