“What about Idabell Turner? She’s your friend, you’ve admitted that. She was at the school early on the morning that her brother-in-law was killed. She could have gotten access to keys to the gardens. Her husband was shot in her own home after she left the school. No forced entry there either.
“At that very house she hosted pot parties with people from your own school. Even one of your own janitors attended. And by the way, Miss Eng claims that you tried to get information out of her by saying that the police were looking into her relationship with Mrs. Turner—you didn’t tell old Sanchez about that.
“You’re the centerpiece, Easy.”
“How you figure?”
“We get a call. Man says that Easy Rawlins has been stealing from schools in the South Central School District. He even gives us an address up on Olympic where you store the stuff before you sell it. It’s just a shack but it’s got this trapdoor cellar where the stuff is hidden. Caller knows all about that.”
“And you think I hid it there?” I asked.
Arno smiled a second time. “No, I don’t think it’s you, Easy.”
“No?”
Lewis shook his head but instead of allaying my fears he just made me more wary. His head moving from side to side was less a gesture of human kindness and more like the sway of a cobra marking distance.
“It’s too easy,” he said. “Man gets killed and then out of thin air we get this call on you. Somebody’s trying to cover his tracks and he’s using you for the broom.”
“So if you think that then what am I doin’ here?”
“Sanchez wants you here, that’s why. He thinks he knows how to do things down here and doesn’t want to listen to old fools like me.”
For the first time I saw some light.
“I want to find the real crooks and put them in jail,” Lewis continued. “I want to stop gangsters from running the streets. And I want my precinct to belong to me, not to some snot-nosed goody-goody from a two-year college.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted. “So what could I do to help you?”
“I know that you’re not moving drugs, Ezekiel. I know because I haven’t seen you that you’re not trying to do okay. But you might have had a moment of passion….” He let those words hang in the air.
“No, sir,” I said. “All this is news to me. All of it. I know Mrs. Turner like I know any number of people up at the school. I asked after her when I heard that her dog got run over, but that’s it. And I don’t steal, man. You know that. Whoever called you just wants me to look bad, like you said.”
My explanation was lame in both legs. I knew it. Lewis knew it too.
“Some people think that you know more than you’ve said.”
“Do you?” I asked.
“Me? I don’t care. I don’t care if you go to work, go to jail, or go to your grave. None of that matters to me.”
“What does matter, lieutenant?”
“You like my office?” he asked.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I sit here next to the back door but I make sure that things happen. I keep up with all the goings-on. All the names and places. Captain Connery never has to worry because he has me and I have my ear to the ground. I don’t ever sneak over to the Hollywood division behind his back. I don’t try to make a big name for myself with some spectacular arrest. I just do my job.”
“I could look around,” I ventured. “Ask some questions if it could help.”
“You’d be doing us both a favor,” Arno said. “Because you know there are some people in this building who don’t feel kindly toward a man who wants to set things right in his life. Sanchez wants to see you go down, Easy. He wants you fired and he wants you in jail. Me, I don’t care. You seem to be trying to do okay. I believe in live and let live.”
“You want me to look around …” I began.
“… and bring what you find in through that back door right there.”
“Anything you wanna know in particular?”
“That’s right,” the lieutenant said. “I want to know anything you find.”
That got me to my feet.
“One thing, Rawlins,” Arno said before I could pick up speed.
“What’s that?”
“You know a woman name of Grace Phillips.” It was no question so I didn’t answer. “You might want to look into her a little bit.”
I was out of that jailhouse in sixty seconds flat.
I don’t know exactly why I returned to the school. Maybe I just felt comfortable there, heaven knows why.
Gladys Martinez told me that Vice Principal Preston had gone down to my office to wait for me.
On my way down the stairs I took the time to look out over the flat, pale asphalt streets of the neighborhood.
