relationship than in a parking lot?”
“The perfect L.A. couple… good point. I like that.” He put his hands on the steering wheel. He’d shaved carelessly, missing a tiny waffle of blond hair below his right ear. “Be interesting to know if any Adjustor episodes match the murder.”
“Life imitating bad TV?” said Petra.
“These people have no imagination. Getting the actual scripts would take time, but I can scan a few years’ worth of TV Guide s, see what comes up in the plot summaries.”
“Fine,” said Petra. More busywork. He looked grateful to do it.
Fournier entered the squad room, picked up a stack of message slips, and came over. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” said Stu. Nothing on his face to indicate this wasn’t just another day.
Fournier waved the stack. “Took the liberty of burglarizing your desktop, Barbie.”
“I’ll pay you later,” she said. “Anything new?”
“Still nothing on the kid from shelters, do-gooders, or Juvey, but he didn’t just blow into town. I’ve got one nice lead-Korean guy runs the Oki-Rama on Western, says the kid bought food from him once in a while over a three-, four-month period. Always at night, he noticed, because the kid looked young to be alone at that hour, never talked except to order, never made eye contact, real careful about counting his change, every penny. ‘A little banker,’ the Korean guy called him. Said the kid also came by and swiped ketchup, mustard, mayo, thought he never noticed. And guess what: Last time the kid came in was Sunday night around nine. Bought a chili- burger.”
“There you go,” said Petra, thinking about the boy on his own for three months. Managing his finances. Where’d he get the money? Where did he come from? “Let’s check the national runaway lines.”
“Already faxed the picture,” said Fournier. “They’ve got tons of files, it’ll take time. Meanwhile, the Korean wants the reward.” He laughed. “Along with everyone else. Along with the greedy types are a few just plain wackos. I got an alleged clair voyant from Chula Vista claiming some satanic cult murdered Lisa for her thymus gland. Seems there’s a new rage for thymus glands among the horned crowd.”
“Lisa’s thymus was intact at the time of autopsy,” said Petra.
“I told the lady she hadn’t won the jackpot. Didn’t know clairvoyants could cuss like that. One last thing: Schoelkopf blew in. They’re leaning on him from the top, and we are instructed to inform him immediately about anything remotely resembling a lead. Do we have one?”
Stu told him the rumor about Ramsey’s show filming in Griffith.
Fournier thought. “Nah, he can’t take that to the press.”
“He actually made it to the squad room?” said Petra. “Among the great unwashed?”
“For a whole five minutes, Barb. Turn up the heat and the grease spatters.”
CHAPTER
44
A witness.
How was it possible?
He’d awoken this morning feeling pretty good about things. Stretched, yawned, made coffee, poured some juice. Opened the paper.
And there it was.
His bowels started churning.
A kid?
The article said maybe he’d been there; the police were developing other leads.
Meaning the police didn’t know a damn thing or they were double bluffing, trying to draw him out.
He didn’t do well with uncertainty.
A kid? In the park at that hour?
Maybe it was a bogus clue, a plant to flush someone out.
No, not with a reward. If a false clue got some innocent kid picked up by some money-hungry idiot and the parents sued, there’d be big-time legal problems.
So probably a real lead… but how would anyone know about the kid if he hadn’t come forward?
Unless… some sort of physical evidence… had he left something behind?
Funny thing was, after doing Lisa, he’d thought he heard something. Up behind those rocks. A rustle, a scraping, above the sound of his pumping arm.
He allowed himself a moment of bliss: the look on Lisa’s face. Even in the darkness, he’d seen it. Or maybe he’d just imagined it.
He’d convinced himself that he’d imagined the scraping. Had stopped, stood still, heard nothing, returned his attention to Lisa.
So nice and inert.
He had blood on his shirt but was careful to keep his shoes clean, because shoe prints could cause problems. Asphalt was good for that, too. Stay off the dirt. Before returning to the car, he took the shoes off.
So careful, and yet… a kid up there that late… it made no sense. He stared at the picture again. White, looked to be eleven or twelve. Could be any of a thousand kids. If he existed.
Even if they found him, what could he have seen in the darkness?
No way his face had been visible in the darkness.
Right?
What about the car? A flash of license plate… there were some lights on the edge of the lot. Had he passed under them?
He hadn’t worried about it, had assumed no one was there.
If the kid did exist, why hadn’t he come forward? So maybe it was bogus…
On the other hand, this could be a problem. Not a huge onecertainly nothing compared to Estrella, the evil- eyed bitch.
Throwaway people; L.A. was full of them.
A kid… consciously, he didn’t feel worried, but, Christ, his heart was hammering away like a bastard!
He ripped the page out of the paper, squeezed it into a tight sweaty ball. Thought better of it and unfolded the picture. Tried to drink coffee, but it wouldn’t go down.
Tried to cheer himself up by thinking of Lisa on the ground.
True love never dies, but she had.
So easily.
The best part had been her surprise.
Bygones be bygones, let’s hug. Then wham!
Something quite different from a hug.
“Quite different,” he said aloud, in a cultured British accent. David Niven voice-one of a thousand parts he’d never gotten to play.
No one appreciated his talent.
Lisa had, though, during the last second of her life. The look on her face: finally seeing him in a new light.
You’re capable of this?
He’d made sure to look in her eyes as he jammed the knife in and yanked up.
One of those beautiful moments when everything came together. Best role he’d ever played. Just the two of them, dancing in the dark.
The two of them and a kid?
What could he have done to avoid it? Gone traipsing up in those hills, scattering blood and who knew what other kinds of forensic evidence all over the place? Even the LAPD nitwits might have found something.
They’d found out about the kid. How?
