But Galloway is not impressed with my beliefs.
“They brought in the big gun from Washington, let him handle it.” He’s standing up again, arm around my shoulder as he walks me to the door. “You did a good job with what you had.”
“Okay, you don’t like the morals clause—” I ball it up and toss it into the trash and flourish the printout under his nose. “How about this: new lead. Jayne Mason’s driver was busted for trading in stolen goods when he was a state cop.”
Galloway raises his eyebrows. “Stop the presses.”
“We know Mason is an abuser. I’m going to squeeze this guy and find out the real supplier, then I’m going to bust her for possession.”
“Holy shit.”
Galloway’s hand flies off my shoulder like it was a red hot frying pan.
“Ana, we’re getting off the track.”
“What if I can prove possession and trading in illegal substances on the part of Jayne Mason?”
Exasperated, “That is not the direction
“I know, but—”
Galloway stops me with a finger to his lips. He speaks softly and slowly, bouncing the finger to the rhythm of his words like a nursery rhyme: “Let us remember the suspect in this investigation is still
“Maybe it clears him,” I say.
• • •
It turns out that, despite whatever trouble “in the castle” between Tom Pauley and Maureen, during off- hours they have been living together in her rented apartment in Pacific Palisades, a comfortable suburban townlet just across the canyon from Santa Monica. Despite the mini-mailing of the main drag, it still feels like the fifties up here — families and ranch houses — which is why Maureen’s place is so unusual.
The house is on a winding street, behind a large sliding gate. I walk down stone steps to the sound of trickling water; an artificial stream pools in a stone basin covered by water lilies and populated by real live burping frogs. Straight ahead is a small wooden deck overgrown with magenta bougainvillea, a white wrought-iron table, and chairs overlooking the misty curve of Will Rogers Beach, the bluish mountains, and the silver ocean all the way out to Point Dume. The vista is priceless.
Although there are houses cheek to jowl along the street, in this glorious spot there is nothing but silence and wind through the flowers. It makes you hunger for Cheddar cheese and salty crackers and bourbon, watching the sunset on the deck. Turning back toward the house the view is equally charmed: gabled roofs, gingerbread trim, a Hansel and Gretel hideaway.
The door, carved of soft wood with Balinese figures entwined in dance, is slightly open. I knock, get no response, and walk inside.
“Hello? Tom? It’s Ana Grey.”
Nothing.
I pass a bedroom with rumpled sheets on a four-poster bed and clothes strewn over a worn Oriental rug. The air smells of sandalwood and sex. There is a dressing table loaded with antique perfume bottles, half of them knocked over and smashed. The closets are open and so are the drawers. Straw hats, dolls, and shawls are scattered everywhere as if picked up and tossed off their window seat. It looks like Tom and Maureen were robbed.
I become more certain when I enter the ransacked kitchen. A pot is turning scorched and black, all the water boiled away, the burner still lit. I turn off the flame, crunching over a box of dried spaghetti spilled across the floor. Someone hurtled a bottle of apple juice against the wall. Someone else was throwing cans. I hear a soft moan coming from another room. The adrenaline goes up, weapon comes out.
I move quietly down a hall that is decorated with ominous looking African masks to a living room with two windows of diamond-patterned glass opening to an ocean view. There are more masks, dolls with staring eyes and perfect china faces, secondhand sofas stuffed with pillows covered with chintz. A mobile of glass prisms in the window catches the sharp afternoon sun, spinning bars of colors over everything.
And in the middle of the dizzying rainbows, planted stock-still on those bowed naked sunburned legs, is Tom Pauley, wearing nothing but a white T-shirt, slowly masturbating.
He rolls his eyes toward me, red-rimmed. I catch the sheen of white stubble along an unshaven jaw.
“Ana,” he mumbles mournfully, “help me out.”
His thumb and forefinger move down the enlarged red-blue penis with a glistening drop of semen at the head. I reach over and grab a woolly afghan off a rocking chair and toss it to him.
“Jesus, Tom, cover it up.”
He holds the blanket in front of himself, sinks bare-assed onto the sofa, and starts to cry.
“What went on here?”
“We had a fight.”
“Where is Maureen?”
“Gone.”
Tom is bent over double, holding his head in his hands.
“Is she okay?”
He nods.
“You didn’t sock her black and blue, throw her over the cliff?”
“I wouldn’t do that. I love her, Ana.” He lifts his face to me. The puffy features are melted together, streaming with self-pity. “God, I’m a fat old fart.”
I holster the weapon and sit down to give him time to compose himself. The sofa is hard as a rock. It must be stuffed with horsehair or some other perverse material.
“Interesting house.”
“It was built in the sixties by a movie set designer.”
He takes a big breath, draws his thumbs across his eyes.
“Any connection to Jayne Mason?”
“No, Maureen’s been living here for years, long before she met Jayne.”
“How is Jayne? She must be busy, running from one talk show to another defending victims’ rights.”
“I couldn’t care less about Jayne Mason right now.”
“She cares a lot about you and Maureen. She was worried something like this might happen. She told me that night on our date.”
“Jayne tries, but she could never understand my feelings for Maureen.”
“Let’s talk about you. Want a glass of water?”
He shakes his head.
“Okay, let’s have a conversation about truck drivers who are allegedly robbed in remote areas of the California desert and a state cop who shows up on the scene and fakes a report so the goods can be fenced and resold, what do you think?”
He wipes his nose with the bottom of his T-shirt. “In the past.”
“Does Jayne know about your past?”
“Jayne thinks I’m the greatest thing since chocolate syrup.”
“Where does she get her drugs, Tom?”
He stands up, holding the blanket around his waist.
“No way, Ana.”
“Jayne thinks you’re a chocolate ice cream soda, but Maureen thinks you’re a big pile of shit.”
Getting upset again, “Leave me alone.”
I stand also. “Not a problem. I’ll ask your young friend for her opinion, which at this moment is not very high. I can see why you like little girls but, no offense, Tom, what do they see in you?”
A blush is growing beneath the white stubble.
