Once again I reported to the assistant principal. Mrs. Durand surprised me by acting as if she was glad to see me, but the presence of Sirius had something to do with that. Without my partner at my side, people don’t recognize me. I am Frick without Frack.
“I kept thinking there was something about you that was familiar,” she said. “You’re the policeman that captured the Weatherman.”
“Two officers made the arrest,” I said. “Meet Sirius.”
On cue the mutt wagged his tail and the assistant principal suddenly acted starstruck. Long ago I had gotten used to having third billing behind Ellis Haines and Sirius. One of the secretaries in Media Relations had once told me that there had been more than a thousand requests for “signed” pictures of Sirius, which was about a thousand more than there’d been for signed pictures of me. What the public doesn’t know is that the department used some other dog’s paw to ink the pictures. They better hope that news doesn’t leak out. When baseball fans learned that most of Mickey Mantle’s autographs were forged by the Yankees’ clubhouse trainer, they were ready to riot. It was blackmail I was holding over Sirius. Say it ain’t so, Joe.
“I was hoping you could send for Jason Davis,” I said, “and that the two of us could chat in the conference room.”
Instead of raising objections, Mrs. Durand said that would be no problem and then asked if Sirius needed a water bowl. I considered saying my partner preferred coffee but swallowed my sour grapes and told her that would be nice. What can I say? I was second fiddle but I still had my part to play.
When Jason Davis appeared five minutes later, he looked none too pleased to see either Nero or me. He sat in a chair across from me, slouched down, and waited for me to speak. I decided to get his attention.
“Jason Davis,” I said, “you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you desire, the court will appoint you an attorney at no cost. Do you understand those rights?”
My words had made Davis sit up straight. His eyes were wide, and his response was high-pitched and incredulous: “Are you arresting me?”
“That depends.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Believe it.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’ve obstructed justice. You purposely didn’t tell the full story of Klein’s bullying. Maybe that’s understandable because you were part of his gang and didn’t want to look bad yourself.”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it is. Like I told you, we never were a gang. Our group might have said a few things to a few people, but that’s all.”
“You threatened violence and you committed vandalism.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you remember your trip to Palos Verdes? What was the Agency trying to do, pay homage to a KKK cross burning?”
Davis raised both his hands and started waving them as if trying to push away my words. “It wasn’t anything like that. It was a surfboard, and that was Paul’s thing. If you don’t believe me, ask David Popkin or Cody Schwartz. All we did was drive with Paul.”
“I will ask them. Everything you say I am going to personally check out. And that’s why if you don’t tell me the complete truth you will have reason to regret it.”
Davis started wringing his hands and nodded. For the moment at least he’d lost his teenage insouciance and looked like a scared kid.
“How long has the bullying been going on?”
He sank back down in his chair and said, “I don’t know. I guess maybe since junior high.”
I pushed a piece of paper his way. “I’ll need you to make a list of your favorite targets over those years.”
“How do you expect me to remember everybody?”
“If you want, I can put you in a cell so that you can have as much time as you need to think about it.”
“Look, I’ll do my best.”
“You better. I don’t care how long it takes you-I want a complete list.”
Davis took up the pen and started writing. I sat there staring at him. It took him about fifteen minutes, but he came up with eleven names. Klein and the Agency had been busy. Seven of the names on his list looked to be Persian.
“There are a lot of Persians on your list.”
“There are a lot of Persians in Beverly Hills.”
“They seem to have been singled out.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“You just went along with whatever Paul wanted?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You ever heard the word ‘Brownie’?”
“Look, it’s not like I’m a practicing Jew.”
“But you’ve heard the word directed at Persian Jews?”
He nodded.
“Did Paul or your group commit any hate crimes?”
“We didn’t do anything besides hassle a few kids.”
“We know that Paul took out Troy Vincent on the lacrosse field. Did he commit any other acts of violence?”
Davis shook his head.
“Someone murdered Paul and then crucified him. That’s not a crime of passion. That’s something premeditated. Who could have hated Paul that much?”
“I don’t know.”
I studied him, hoping he was lying, but he seemed to be telling the truth.
CHAPTER 12:
The shadows were already coming home to roost when I took my leave of Gump and Martinez. The two detectives would be making calls and trying to connect dots until well into the evening. No one had said it, but our efforts were beginning to feel like busy-work. The three of us had even resorted to sifting through the so-called leads called into Adam Klein’s reward hotline. We needed a break-or divine intervention. Such were my thoughts as I set out for the monastery.
The sun was low on the horizon and looked ready to beat a hasty retreat to the encroaching dusk. That’s the way it is in January, even in California. The Golden State doesn’t have such a golden luster. It was two years ago in January that Sirius and I suffered our burns, but even before our encounter with fire I had never liked the month. Maybe it was seasonal affective disorder on my part; maybe it was creeping postholiday depression. T. S. Eliot was wrong about April being the cruelest month: it’s January.
My partner whined. He was probably catching the vibe from my dark mood. “It’s all right,” I told him.
He didn’t believe me. As we drew nearer to the Monastery of the Angels, Sirius started pacing the backseat. When his Geiger counter goes off, I’m usually sensitive to it, but this time I figured I was the cause and told him to shut up.
“You were dropped on your head as a puppy,” I said.
He ignored me and continued pacing.
My cell rang, and a bit of my mood came through in my voice as I answered. The caller asked, “Detective Gideon?”
