a nice little defense. And maybe the job you had Wentz or one of your other pals do on your face was part of the defense. Poor guy gets his nose smashed for sticking it in the wrong place. It doesn't get my sympathy vote, Mr. Pierce.'
Pierce stared at him, speechless. Everything that he had done or that had been done to him was being perceived by Renner from a completely opposite angle.
'Let me tell you a quick little story,' Renner said. 'I used to work up in the Valley and one time we had a missing girl. She was twelve years old, from a good home, and we knew she wasn't a runaway. Sometimes you just know. So we organized the neighbors and volunteers into a search party in the Encino Hills. And lo and behold, one of the neighbor boys finds her. Raped and strangled and stuffed into a culvert. It was a bad one.
And you know what, turned out that the boy who found her was the one who did the deed. Took us a while to circle back around to him but we did and he confessed. Being the one who found her like that? That's called the Good Samaritan complex. He who smelt it dealt it. Happens all the time. The doer likes getting close to the cops, likes helping out, makes him feel better than them and better about what he did.'
Pierce was having difficulty even fathoming how everything had turned on him.
'You're wrong,' he said quietly, his voice shaking. 'I didn't do it.'
'Yeah? Am I wrong? Well, let me tell you what I've got. I've got a missing woman and blood on the bed. I've got a bunch of your lies and a bunch of your fingerprints all over the woman's house and fuck pad.'
Pierce closed his eyes. He thought about the apartment off Speedway and the seagull house on Altair. He knew he had touched everything. He'd put his hands on everything.
Her perfume, her closets, her mail.
'No…'
It was all he could think to say.
'No, what?'
'This is all a mistake. All I did… I mean… I got her number. I just wanted to see… I wanted to help her… You see, it was my fault… and I thought if I…'
He didn't finish. The past and present were too close together. They were morphing together, one confusing the other. One moving in front of the other like an eclipse. He opened his eyes and looked at Renner.
'You thought what?' the detective asked.
'What?'
'Finish the line. You thought what?'
'I don't know. I don't want to talk about it.'
'Come on, kid. You started down the road. Finish the ride. It's good to unburden. Good for the soul. It's your fault Lilly's dead. What did you mean by that? It was an accident?
Tell me how it happened. Maybe I can live with that and we can go tell the DA together, work something out.'
Pierce felt fear and danger flooding his mind now. He could almost smell it coming off his skin. As if they were chemicals -compound elements sharing common molecules – rising to the surface to escape.
'What are you talking about? Lilly? It's not my fault. I didn't even know her. I tried to help her.'
'By strangling her? Cutting her throat? Or did you do the Jack the Ripper number on her?
I think they say the Ripper was a scientist. A doctor or something. You the new Ripper, Pierce? Is that your bag?'
'Get out of here. You're crazy.'
'I don't think I'm the crazy one. Why was it your fault?'
'What?'
'You said she was all your fault. Why? What did she do? Insult your manhood? You got a little pecker, Pierce? Is that it?'
Pierce shook his head emphatically, touching off a bout of dizziness. He closed his eyes.
'I didn't say that. It's not my fault.'
'You said it. I heard it.'
'No. You're putting words into my mouth. It's not my fault. I had nothing to do with it.'
He opened his eyes to see Renner reach into his coat pocket and pull out a tape recorder.
The red light was on. Pierce realized that it was a different recorder from the one that had been placed earlier on the food tray and then turned off. The detective had taped the whole conversation.
Renner clicked the rewind button for a few seconds and then jockeyed around with the recording until he found what he wanted and replayed what Pierce had said moments before.
'This is all a mistake. All I did… I mean… I got her number. I just wanted to see… I wanted to help her… You see, it was my fault… and I thought if I…'
The detective clicked off the recorder and looked at Pierce with a smug smile on his face.
Renner had him cornered. He had been tricked. All his legal instincts, as limited as they were, told him to not speak another word. But Pierce couldn't stop.
'No,' he said. 'I wasn't talking about her. About Lilly Quinlan. I was talking about my sister. I was -'
'We were talking about Lilly Quinlan and you said, 'It was my fault.' That is an admission, my friend.'
'No, I told you, I -'
'I know what you told me. It was a nice story.'
'It's no story.'
'Well, you know what? Story, no story, I figure as soon as I find the body I'll have the real story to tell. I'll have you in the bag and be home free.'
Renner leaned over the bed until his face was only inches from Pierce's.
'Where is she, Pierce? You know this is inevitable. We're going to find her. So let's get this over with now. Tell me what you did with her.'
Their eyes were locked. Pierce heard the click of the tape recorder being turned back on.
'Get out.'
'You'd better talk to me. You're running out of time. Once I take this in and it gets to the lawyers, I can't help you anymore. Talk to me, Henry. Come on. Unburden yourself.'
'I said get out. I want a lawyer.'
Renner straightened up and smiled in a knowing way. In an exaggerated fashion he held the tape recorder up and clicked it off.
'Of course you want a lawyer,' he said. 'And you're going to need one. I'm going to the DA, Pierce. I know I've already got you on obstruction and breaking and entering, for starters. Got you there cold. But all of that's bullshit. I want the big one.'
He proffered the tape recorder as though the words he had captured with it were the Holy Grail.
'As soon as that body turns up, it's game over.'
Pierce wasn't really listening anymore. He turned away from Renner and began staring into space, thinking about what was going to happen. All at once he realized he would lose everything. The company -everything. In a split second all the dominoes fell in his imagination, the last one being Goddard pulling out and taking his investment dollars somewhere else, to Bronson Tech or Midas Molecular or one of the other competitors.
Goddard would pull out and nobody would be willing to pull in. Not under the glare of a criminal investigation and possible trial. It would be over. He would be out of the race for good.
He looked back at Renner.
'I said I'm not talking to you anymore. I want you to leave. I want a lawyer.'
Renner nodded.
'My advice to you is, make it a good one.'
He reached over to a counter where medical supplies were displayed and picked up a hat Pierce hadn't seen before. It was a brown porkpie hat with the brim cocked down. Pierce thought nobody wore hats like that in L.A. anymore. Nobody. Renner left the room without another word.
23
