'I don't know. I guess so. Maybe they were all doing it. A traveling gangbang.'
She looked at my glass.
'You're not drinking,' she said.
'I'm savoring it slowly,' I said. 'What is your husband's first name?'
'Ex-husband. I divorced him. The bastard didn't even show up to contest the divorce. I took him for everything he had, except he didn't have anything.'
She drank again.
'Movie producer,' she snorted.
'Sure.'
'And his first name?'
'Mark.'
I felt very still for a moment inside and then I took a stab at something.
'You happen to know anyone named Dean Walker?' I said.
''The cop? Yeah, used to live three houses up toward Montana. Moved away eight, nine years ago.'
'He a friend of the Buckmans?'
'I guess, yeah, he'd be at parties sometimes. Him and his wife.'
'You remember her name?'
'Judy, I think.'
'He have anything to do with Mrs. Buckman?'
'Dean? I don't know. She'd have been willing. She was like a bitch in heat. But Dean seemed sort of straightforward. If he was fucking her, I don't know about it.'
Each time she said fucking she said it with relish. As if she liked to say it, as if it were a counter-irritant. Like scratching an old itch. Forgive and forget didn't seem to work for her.
Chapter 26
SARA HUNTER LIVED in a faux Tudor three-unit condo in Westwood, a block below Wilshire. She was L.A. serious, which meant a loose-fitting, ankle-length flowered dress, some Native-American jewelry and dark leather sandals. Her blond hair was done in a single long braid that reached nearly to her waist. She wore no makeup and despite her best efforts, she was pretty good-looking.
When she opened the door she kept the chain bolt on. I gave her my card. I introduced myself. I explained what I wanted, and I smiled at her. None of it seemed to make her more welcoming.
'Why do you want to talk to me about Steve Buckman?' she said. 'He's just somebody I knew at work.'
'Well, that's why,' I said. 'I was hoping for some of your insights.'
She liked insights.
'Why do you want that?' she said.
There was never a good way to say it. I'd learned over the years to just say it. Which I did.
'Steve's been murdered.'
She looked at me as if I had commented on the dandiness of the weather.
'What?'
'We could talk out here on the porch,' I said, 'if you'd feel more secure.'
She didn't speak for a moment, then she closed the door, unchained it, opened it again and stepped out. She was careful to pull the door shut behind her. The porch extended along the front of her condo to form a little veranda and we sat on some wicker chairs out there. Across the street a couple of Mexicans were trimming a hedge, and on the sidewalk below the veranda, a shapeless middle-aged woman with bright red hair was walking a small, ugly, possum-y looking dog on a retractable leash.
'Tell me about Steve,' I said.
She leaned forward a little, resting her elbows on her thighs, and put her face into her hands.
I waited. She sat. Maybe overreaction was endemic. Or maybe she was a very dramatic person. Or maybe Steve was more than someone she knew at work.
After awhile I said, 'How you doing?'
Without taking her face from her hands, she shook her head.
'Take your time,' I said.
The lady walking her possum turned the corner at Wilshire and disappeared. One of the gardeners across the street was edging the grass now, with a noisy power trimmer.
'Did he suffer much?' Sara said finally.
'He was probably dead before he knew he'd been shot,' I said.
I didn't know that, but I saw no reason not to say it.
