“I’m heading up the Purse Snatcher investigation, lady, and it’s still no comment.”
Hess shook his head, mostly to himself. He saw the shooter getting all this down, wondered if Merci was even aware of him.
“Then what is it in connection with?”
Hess could feel the heat emanating from right beside him. It was like walking next to a solar panel. She was about to speak but he beat her to it.
“Routine parole stuff, Lauren,” said Hess. “That’s all.”
“Is Colesceau a suspect?”
Hess fixed a look on her, hooked his thumb back toward the crowd. “Pretty good alibi.”
“Miss Rayborn, can you tell us something about your sexual harassment suit?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Lieutenant Kemp has denied all the charges.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Five other female deputies have come forward since you did. Phil Kemp is a twenty-five-year employee of the department with a clean record. Why all of this, so suddenly?”
Merci whirled and pressed her face into that of Lauren Diamond. “Buzz off, lady.”
Lauren Diamond slowed, then stopped, but the shooter kept up behind them. Hess turned, gave him a little wave, tried to make things look casual, and kept going. Merci was half a step ahead of him now as they headed toward the car.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Do not tell me I should have felt what she was feeling, or thought what she was thinking.”
“Oh hell, no. She’s just an ambitious young reporter who might be happy to help you someday. It would have taken about thirty seconds of your time to be civil.”
“So I screwed up again.”
“Why be a bitch all the time?”
“I’ll get the hang of good manners sooner or later.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t want to.”
“Now you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
When they got into the car Merci exhaled and looked at Hess.
“I’ll tell you something, partner — bringing that suit was the dumbest goddamned thing I’ve ever done in my life. How can I get out of it now, after I’ve started all this?”
Thirty
Hess lied to his partner then, excusing himself for an oncologist appointment. He was puzzled by this Colesceau, no matter what Merci thought, and he was going to ride that feeling for a couple more hours, before they headed up to Sacramento and the state Morticians’ Licensing Board. He was tiring of watching Rayborn start fights wherever she went. He felt like a nanny for the neighborhood bully.
First he went by Pratt Automotive and had a talk with Marvis Pratt, his wife, Lydia, and an employee named Garry Leonard. They told him Colesceau did his job okay, though Pratt didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. He hired guys like Colesceau because he thought people deserved a second chance, and because Holtz was a friend.
They showed him through the place — the front shop and office area, the high bay in back with the beautiful yellow and black Shelby Cobra that Hess just stood and stared at. It was the most beautiful car he ever seen.
“Four hundred fifty horse,” said Pratt.
“That’s a car and a half.”
“We’ve done a lot of restorations. They come here dogs and leave here dolls.”
“How much?”
“One eighty. Firm.”
“Colesceau ever drive a different vehicle to work here, not that old red Datsun?”
“No, just the truck.”
Hess looked at the expansive bay, the clean racks, the orderly tools, the rafters catching the late morning light through high windows. In dogs and out dolls, he thought. Paradise, for a car nut.
They went back to the office. “Does he call in sick, miss work, spend time on the phone?”
“No. He’s good about being here. It’s easy work. Mainly what he does is sits on that stool, helps some customers and wiggles his tits around every once in a while.”
“They hurt, Pratt,” said Lydia.
“Whatever. I gave him his walking papers. I can’t have a crowd demonstrating outside the place. Jesus, it’s hard enough to make a living anymore.”
Hess knew from LaLonde’s statement that “Bill” had computer printout sheets containing nine different car manufacturers’ specs on the alarm system frequencies. He noted the computer and monitor on the office desk, and a similar one behind the counter in the front store.
“The computers replace those old catalogs?”
Pratt said they did that, but lots more: he got daily updates, changes, recalls and corrections right from the factories. They’d get information on new models coming out, incentives going to dealers, even newsletters from different plants around the world.
Hess asked him to print out repair/replacement data on the 1998 Infiniti Q45 and 1996 BMW 525 antitheft systems. Lydia sat down and two minutes later Hess had eight pages of specs and exploded drawings.
“You can go on and on with this stuff,” she said.
“Colesceau know how to work the computer?”
“Sure. That’s part of his job,” said Lydia. She looked at Hess with a dark expression, then away. “I think it’s lousy what you guys did to him. Getting his neighbors all riled up for nothing. He’s a lamb, really. Mixed up, but a lamb.”
“I hope you’re right,” he answered mildly.
Hess then showed them the drawing of the Purse Snatcher and gave all three his work and pager numbers. Per usual, he got a home number from them, just in case. You never know.
In the office of Quail Creek Apartment Homes, the middle-aged and overweight supervisor, Art Ledbetter, told Hess that Colesceau had never complained or been the subject of a complaint until now. He assumed Colesceau paid his rent on time, but rent checks went to corporate up in Newport. Ledbetter did light security and scheduled maintenance work, took applications, fielded questions and complaints. But they had no choice but to evict. Thirty-day notice already served. What could you do with protesters camped out around the clock?
Hess stood and looked at a model of the complex, which hung from one wall. The aerial view was interesting. He saw that the complex was actually an enormous circle, and the quadrants of apartments were designed in perfect symmetry with each other. He noted the way that the developers were packing them in these days: each snaking row of units had a front facing one street and a front facing another, but shared a common rear wall. Thus, the illusion of privacy without real privacy at all.
“Ever see any unusual activity around his unit?”
“None at all. No complaints, like I said.”
“What about his hours? Come and go all the time, late at night, maybe?”
“I ride that little golf cart around ’til ten some nights. I’ve never seen him out and about at that hour. But, you know, one of the nice things here is you can use the remote, open your garage door and drive in without hardly disturbing anyone. Walk right into your unit from the garage. That’s the idea, keep things quiet, private.”
“Do you know most of the tenants?”
Ledbetter shook his head. “Some. There’s a batch of ghost people I never see. Maybe they work nights and sleep all day, never use the pool, I don’t know. Some fly in for business, stay a month, fly back out. But they pay rent every month, or corporate would serve them.”
“How about visitors to Colesceau’s?”
“His mother. And a couple — man and a woman. Twice, maybe. Not often.”
Hess asked him to describe them and he did: Holtz and Fontana, right down to Holtz’s Corrections Ford. Ledbetter was good with cars, like a lot of men are.