"I ran down Shafer to a motel off the Strip. He moved out just after Walsh died. Cleared out in the middle of the night and left the Bible behind."
Katz moved around the Baggies of pot and pills with a fingertip.
"You ever hear of a small-time dealer who loads up his shirts and underwear, his socks and toothbrush, but forgets to take his stash?"
Katz closed the Bible, her expression impenetrable.
"No one saw Shafer scoot," said Jimmy, standing close, not afraid of her. "The motel manager and he were friends. The man was disappointed that Shafer didn't stop by to say good-bye. Detective, I don't think Shafer cleaned out his room. I think he's dead, and whoever killed him wanted to make it look like he had run off."
Katz didn't answer, waiting for more. Like good reporters, good cops knew when to be quiet.
"Walsh was paranoid, listening for the sound of a car on the gravel road, but Shafer made regular visits to his trailer. Walsh wouldn't have thought twice seeing his Camaro driving up some evening. He would have figured the two of them were just going to sit around the koi pond getting loaded and talking about bad times in the joint. I think on that last visit Shafer had company. That's why the crime scene unit didn't find any tire tracks they couldn't account for."
Katz waved the first uniform over, tapping her feet as the paunchy sergeant took his time. "Make sure that Paulo doesn't leave the scene," she told him when he finally arrived. "I want to interview him after he's stewed a while, after he's gotten a chance to see his baby brother's blood leaking into the storm drain. Not yet, sergeant," she ordered, as the man turned to go. "Have someone bring the mother and sister a cold drink, a female officer. Tell Morales to drive to McDonald's, pick up some lemonades, then come back and hold their hands. Now you can go."
"Whoever killed Walsh used Shafer to help with the job," said Jimmy, trying to regain her attention. "Shafer got him so high he could hardly move. That's why the coroner didn't find any defensive wounds on Walsh's body, no signs of a struggle. Just dope and alcohol. Shafer probably thought he was saving his own life by cooperating, but all he was doing was buying a little time."
Katz checked her watch. "Maybe it was just Shafer and Walsh getting high that last night, so wasted they both passed out." She shook the Bible and set the pills rattling, "Only Shafer was lucky- he passed out in the dirt. Walsh stumbled into the koi pond and drowned."
"Walsh didn't drown."
"A few hours later Shafer wakes up, sees Walsh floating, and he panics," continued Katz, paying no attention to Jimmy's protests. "Shafer knows the drill-he's the one who supplied Walsh with the drugs, he's looking at manslaughter. So he drives back to the motel, grabs his gear, and splits. Unlike you, though, Shafer isn't a deep thinker. He forgets his dope, and by the time he remembers it, he's too scared to come back."
"Boone did the autopsy on Walsh. You told me you were going to make sure that Rabinowitz handled the job."
"Rabinowitz was on vacation when we brought in Walsh, not that it's any of your business." Katz patted him on the cheek; to a bystander it would have looked almost affectionate, but it rattled Jimmy's teeth. "Walsh was a rapist and a murderer, and he drowned with a mouth full of fish shit."
"Somebody took Walsh's screenplay," said Jimmy.
"Maybe Shafer took it."
"Shafer's dead."
Katz laughed.
"The letter Walsh got in prison," said Jimmy, wanting to convince her, needing to convince her, "it was from a woman he had been having an affair with when Heather Grimm was murdered. A married woman. She wrote him, said she had found out that her husband knew about the affair the whole time they were together. She suspected that her husband set Walsh up for the murder."
Katz shook her head. "Your story just keeps getting better and better."
"It's the truth."
"The truth is, we have a missing screenplay you never read. A missing letter you never saw. Written by a married woman whose name you don't know."
"I've got some possibilities on that."
"I'm sure you do." Katz patted his cheek again, and he tasted blood in his mouth. "I did a little follow-up myself after our lunch date. I called around to a few studios, and what do you know? Walsh had hit them all up about his new screenplay. He actually described it as 'the most dangerous screenplay in the world.' You believe that? I'm surprised the studio execs could keep a straight face. Strange thing, though-Walsh wouldn't let any of them read it, either. Not a word. Said it was a work in progress." She grinned those wide, flat horse teeth at him. "See where I'm heading?"
"I believed him."
"Of course you did-that's your job." Katz cocked her head, hearing a siren approaching. "So here's Walsh, getting nowhere with the studios, and suddenly you show up, and he pitches this wild story about a prison letter and a wife and a jealous husband, and you can see the headlines already. Walsh isn't a loser who murdered a young girl, he's an innocent artist wronged by the system. Too bad he died before you resurrected his career." She leaned closer. "The only thing I can't decide is whether he really fooled you, or if you knew it was a scam and were using him too."
A crime scene van approached, the siren turned off now as it moved past the police line.
"What are you afraid of?" Jimmy said quietly, so furious he didn't trust himself to raise his voice. "Did you get all weepy about Luis Cortez because he was an innocent kid, or because it's an easy case? Putting away gangbangers, how hard is that? They don't even try to hide what they've done. They brag about it."
Katz waved to the van. "Go home, Jimmy. Go home, get stoned, get laid, go do whatever it is you do when you're not playing boy detective."
"Whoever killed Walsh knew how to get away with it. He was smart enough to get away with killing Heather Grimm. Smart enough to-"
Katz jabbed him in the chest with a forefinger. "Shoo."
"I'll throw you another steak. Maybe that will get you to do your job."
Katz poked him with the Gideon Bible, poked him hard, a vial of pills falling out and rolling across the street. "We're done here."
"You are. I'm not."
Chapter 19
Jimmy climbed over the NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT PERMISSION gate, then started down yet another long dock at the Blue Water marina, checking names on the sterns of the boats parked there, past seventy-foot oceangoing yachts and four-masted schooners, and- fuck it, Jimmy didn't know what he was talking about. His knowledge of boats began with Captain Hook's pirate ship in Peter Pan and ended with the doomed fishing boat in A Perfect Storm. And, oh yeah, those fat rich guys who hired fit young guys to race their yachts every few years for the America's Cup, while sportscasters desperately tried to get the rest of the country to give a shit. All Jimmy knew was the marina was filled with boats, lots of boats, some with inboard engines, some with sails, but all of them big and beautiful and costing way too much money, even before you got to the tricked-out electronics sprouting from their rigging. If Detective Leonard Brimley really was living here, he had retired in style.
Jimmy had been walking up and down the docks for the last half hour looking for Brimley's boat, the Badge in a Drawer, without success. He had tried the main office, but according to a note taped on the door, the harbormaster was home sick with flu. Jimmy had stopped at two or three boats asking for directions, but he had gotten nothing but blank stares and misinformation.
Leonard Brimley had retired after twenty-five years on the Hermosa Beach PD, a mostly unremarkable career marked by a few commendations, a few community service awards, and not one civilian complaint. Not one. Brimley had evidently been a low-key cop who didn't go looking for trouble and kept his emotions in check. His most notable achievement in the twenty-five years was arresting Garrett Walsh for the murder of Heather Grimm, and even that had been mostly accidental. According to the news accounts, Brimley had been off duty, driving home from his shift, when he heard a call over the police band to investigate a disturbance at a beach cottage a few blocks away. The nearest cruiser reported they were already involved in something else, and Brimley, the good soldier, had broken in and offered to take the call. Like the queen of England said, better to be born lucky than smart.