"You are taking the Bible?" asked Serena, as Jimmy turned toward the door. "What do I do if Mr. Harlen comes back for his drugs?"
"Harlen Shafer isn't coming back."
"I do not want Mr. Harlen to think I am a thief."
"Shafer isn't coming back." Jimmy fumbled in his wallet and handed her his business card. "If anyone comes around asking about him, tell them to call me." Serena was still staring at the business card as Jimmy closed the door behind him.
Chapter 18
Helen Katz was on one knee by the curb, lifting the sheet that draped a body. The draping was unusual for the big rawboned detective, who didn't care enough about spectators to shield them from the sight of death. A bicycle lay in the street near the body, a new red mountain bike with a bent front rim. Bright yellow police tape ringed the crime scene. Two units had blocked off the street, light bars flashing, one of the uniforms redirecting traffic. "Just another drive-by," the dispatcher had told Jimmy when he called looking for Katz. Another drive-by, not even worth a TV news crew.
Jimmy inched his way through the crowd of onlookers to the edge of the crime scene tape, surrounded by tourists on their way to the nearby entrance to Disneyland, and locals caught up with curiosity. A fat man with mouse ears had a camcorder out, documenting the moment, whispering commentary into the built-in microphone. Closer now, Jimmy could see that the victim was a Hispanic boy with the top of his head torn away, his shiny black hair matted with brain tissue. He watched Katz work, noticed the care with which she examined the body, her pink surgical glove flecked with blood. She glanced at the street, then at the surrounding apartments, trying to gauge where the shooter had been and who in the vicinity would have had a clear line of sight from the front window. She was good.
Katz looked even angrier than usual. Her face was flushed, and her thick jaw clenched whenever she spied the two women across the street: an older Hispanic woman wearing a supermarket clerk's uniform, and a teenager in orange soccer shorts and a white jersey, the two of them clutching each other. Standing on the grass behind them was a huge glowering young man, his arms folded across his chest. He wore knee-length cutoffs and a buttoned-up Pendleton, his neck and forearms laced with tattoos.
Jimmy had decided to find Katz as soon as he left the Starlight Arms Motel, sitting in his car, working it out. Time to call in the professional. Shafer had probably been used as a stalking horse, a decoy to gain access to Walsh. The two of them would have been murdered shortly thereafter, Shafer's body dumped somewhere like a bag of rotten oranges. A murder to cover up a murder, to cover up a murder- an infinite series, backward in time. Perhaps forward too. Jimmy was going to keep looking for the good wife, but he needed Katz's help. Somebody had to find her before she disappeared too or drowned in her bathtub.
Katz stood up, peeled off her gloves, and tucked them into the back pocket of her trousers. She beckoned over the photographer and directed him to take pictures, barking out which shots and angles she wanted. Her short dirty-blond hair was limp from the heat. She caught sight of Jimmy on the fringe of the crowd and brightened, then walked over to him. The people beside Jimmy took a step backward as Katz ducked under the police tape, and he knew just how they felt. "Glad to see you," Katz growled. "A stringer from the Times showed up, took a look around, and drove off. How did you catch the call?"
"I need to talk with you."
Katz noticed the tourist with the mouse ears videotaping their confrontation. "Excuse me, sir," she said to him, "but if you don't cease your taping, I'm going to have to confiscate your equipment as potential evidence. It should be returned to you in three or four months."
The tourist gulped, put the camera down, and retreated back into the crowd.
Katz took Jimmy by the elbow and led him back under the tape, the two of them walking toward the body.
Jimmy's whole arm was numb in her grip. "Ouch," he said quietly.
Katz looked at her hand as though she hadn't realized her own strength. "Sorry," she said, releasing him. "I'm in a bad mood. I knew this kid."
A uniform walked up to Katz, a full-gutted veteran keeping his head tilted so he didn't have to look at her directly. "Beaners don't know nothing," he said, jerking a hand toward the nearby apartments. "Ten to a room, but they don't see nothing, they don't hear nothing. 'No hablamos ingles,'" he singsonged.
"I wouldn't talk to a puto like you either," Katz said. "Relieve Simmons on traffic control, and send him over to talk to me. He's better looking than you, and he doesn't slur the people he's asking for help."
"Hey, detective," sputtered the uniform. "I know my job better-"
"You don't know shit, Wallis. That's why I just told you to send Simmons over."
Wallis slunk off, cursing softly. Dyke, cunt, bitch floated on the breeze like dandelion seeds.
Katz bent down beside the body again. "Take a look, Jimmy."
"I think there's a misunderstanding." Jimmy bent down beside her. This close he could see a single gold hoop in the boy's ear, the earring gleaming in the sunlight; it made him seem even more innocent. "I'm not here because of-"
"Meet Luis Cortez." Katz gently closed the boy's eyes, her fingers lingering on his smooth brown skin. "Luis was thirteen years old. Good kid, never in trouble, a solid student. He played third base on the Boys Club team. Lousy player, but he loved the game. He just… loved it." She glanced over at the bike lying broken a few yards away. "Police Athletic League bought him that bike not a month ago. You should have seen his face." She chewed on her lower lip. "He hardly got a chance to break it in." She looked at Jimmy. "You put that in your article. He hardly got a chance."
"I'm sorry."
Katz glared at the sullen homeboy watching them from across the street, arms crossed. "That's his big brother, Paulo." She gently pulled the sheet over the boy's head. "Killing Luis was supposed to send a message to Paulo. If you ask me, they should have delivered it direct and smoked his gangbanging ass." She stood up, and Jimmy stood up with her. "You know the thing I hate the most about my job? The wrong people die."
Jimmy looked in her eyes. "That's what I hate about my job too."
"Why aren't you writing this down?"
"Detective?" A young uniform hustled over. "You wanted to see me?"
"Go ring some doorbells, Simmons," said Katz. "They've already been asked once, so try it with a smile. And take off your hat when you talk to the senoras."
"Yes, detective."
"Wipe you feet before you walk inside," she called as Simmons took off at a dogtrot. She stared off into the distance. The tip of Disneyland's Matterhorn ride was visible over the jacaranda trees, the mountain's fake snow glistening in the heat. "The happiest place on earth, my ass."
"Detective, I'm not here to write a story about Luis."
Katz turned to him, her face frozen.
"You told me at the restaurant that you had pulled Harlen Shafer's prints off Walsh's trailer. I followed up on him."
"Luis Cortez isn't worth your time, but Garrett Walsh is?" Katz scowled. "A thirteen-year-old kid gets blown away riding his bike, and it's who-gives-a-shit. A convicted killer drowns in a fishpond, and you treat it like the Kennedy assassination."
It was a good question, but Jimmy didn't have an answer. Instead, he pulled the Gideon Bible out of his jacket and offered it to her.
Katz didn't touch the book. "It's a little late in the game for me to get religion."
"Take it."
Katz took the Bible and flipped it open. One of her eyebrows raised.