the guy and I don’t want even a hint that he’s a suspect.”
“What about getting hold of that TV tape?”
“Not even that yet, because it would show clear signs of suspicion.”
“Come on. It’s public domain,” said Petra.
Stu shrugged.
Petra said, “When do we get to detect?”
“When we know more.”
“But we’re not allowed to look for more.”
Stu gave a tight smile.
Petra said, “All this smoke because Ramsey’s VIP?”
“Welcome to Locustland. I love my job.”
Till recently he had. What was going on?
He entered the freeway heading north. A mile later, Petra said, “What about the book and that food wrapper? Potential witness?”
“If whoever was eating and/or reading just happened to be there when Lisa was killed. My religion tells me to believe in miracles, but
…”
“And/or?”
“Could be two separate guys. Even if it’s one, the scene spells homeless guy, or woman. Lau said the body impression was small.”
“A bag lady,” said Petra.
“Whoever it was didn’t call 911, so if he/she was there, it shows a certain lack of civic responsibility. Don’t hold your breath waiting for someone to come forward.”
“So many bag ladies are schizophrenic,” said Petra. “Witnessing a murder would be terrifying to anyone, but someone already over the edge…”
Stu didn’t answer. Petra let him drive awhile before she said, “I was also thinking-I know it’s remote-what if whoever was behind the rock killed Lisa?”
He thought about that, then rattled off the same objections Petra had come up with.
“Plus,” he added, “I agree with your first impression: All that facial damage, the overkill, implies passion, someone she knew. If what Susie Shutterbug said about Ramsey beating up Lisa is true, he sure fits that bill.”
“But we can’t treat him like a suspect.”
“But we can psych him out while playing sympathetic public servant during the notification. Which is why I’m glad you’re here. He’s an actor-a bad one, but even bad ones are better at hiding their feelings than the average person.”
“What does that have to do with me?” said Petra.
“You’re good at reading people.”
Not at reading you, she thought.
Soon after they got on the 134 West, they got stuck in traffic.
Common enough situation, and whenever Petra found herself in a jam she fantasized about flying cars of the future-those VW-with-propeller gizmos predicted in Dad’s old Popular Mechanics.
Just sitting there drove her crazy and both of them knew it. Stu was a calm driver, sometimes maddeningly so.
“We could take the shoulder,” she said.
He’d heard it a hundred times before and smiled wearily.
“We could at least put on the lights and the howler,” she added.
“Sure,” he said, shifting the car into park and gunning the engine. “Let’s use our guns, too, shoot our way out… so what approach should we take with Ramsey?”
“Sympathetic, like you said. Be there with tissues for his crocodile tears.”
“Crocodile,” he said. “So you’ve decided hedunit.”
“If Mormons gambled, where would you put your money?”
He nodded, turned his head in order to suppress a yawn, and they crawled a quarter mile, then stopped again. Rubbing her eyelids, Petra created twin kaleidoscopes behind the thin flesh. A headache was coming on. She had to learn to deal better with frustration.
“All these years working Hollywood,” Stu said, “and I never had a celebrity murder. Closest I came was this old guy, Alphonse Dortmund. German emigre character actor, used to play nazis in World War II movies. Got strangled in his apartment on Gower. Real dump. He hadn’t worked in years, drank, let himself go. Uniforms responding to a bad odor call found him all tied up in his bed-hog-tied with the rope around his neck, complicated knots.”
“Sexual asphyxia?”
“That was my first impression, but I was wrong. He didn’t do it to himself. Turns out he picked up a fifteen- year-old on the Boulevard, showed the kid how to truss him, then the kid decided to take it further, choked him out, ransacked the apartment.”
“How’d you catch the kid?”
“What do you think?”
“He bragged.”
“To anyone he could find. My partner at the time-Chick Reilly-and I went to all the usual places, talked to all the usual people, and everyone knew what had happened. It made us feel like rubes just off the farm.” He laughed. “Thank God most of them are idiots.”
“Wonder how smart Ramsey is,” said Petra. “Any particular reason he wouldn’t be in his office?”
“You’re thinking he rabbited already? No, we can’t assume that. He’s not filming. All this year’s shows are already in the can.”
“His show specifically, or all of the shows?”
“All the main ones,” said Stu. “He could be playing tennis, soaking in the Jacuzzi. Or on a chartered jet to the south of France.”
“Wouldn’t that be inopportune.”
“Indeed. Hey, maybe we should shoot our way out of this.”
Forty-five minutes later, they got off the freeway at Calabasas Road and took a curving road north, into the Santa Susanna Mountains. Smooth, rolling slopes sported groves of live oaks that had survived progress. The trees were acutely sensitive to overwatering, and irrigation had killed hundreds of them before someone had caught on and designated them protected.
Fires had fun out here, too, Petra knew, racing through dry brush and chaparral, devouring the big vanilla retro-Spanish houses that seemed to be the thing in upscale, West Valley neighborhoods. No matter how much money went into them, they never looked anything but retro.
They passed several tracts of vanilla now, some behind gates. Twin-paddock horse setups, small corrals alongside tennis courts, and stone-and-waterfall swimming pools. The air was good, the lots were generous, and once you got away from the freeway, it was quiet. But Petra knew it wasn’t for her. Too far from bookstores, theaters, museums, L.A.’s meager cultural mix. Too calm, also. Cut off from the pulse.
Not to mention the commute-two hours of your life each day spent studying the white lines on the 134, wondering if this was success.
Calabasas was popular with what Petra, secretly a snob, thought of as the nonthinking rich: athletes, rock stars, overnight entrepreneurs, actors like Ramsey. People with long blocks of leisure and a melanoma-be-damned view of sunshine.
Petra suspected the free time caused problems. A recent Parker Center memo had warned of white Valley teenagers starting to emulate the inner-city gangbangers. What did kids do out here except get into trouble?
Back in her artist days, she’d sometimes fantasized about what her life would be if she ever made it big- twenty thousand a canvas, no need for commercial jobs. Half the year in L.A., half in London. It had never come to that, of course. She’d sketched and T-squared twelve hours a day just to pretend she was contributing financially to the marriage, telling Nick what he earned was his. How noble. How stupid.
“Here we are,” said Stu.
