grotesque the death, the more likely the jokes; you had to watch your tongue when a friend had a family member die.
'We used to go fishing for carp, man, can you believe that?' Del turned so he could lean against the window box. Thinking about yesterdays. His bearded face drawn long and solemn, like an ancient photo of James Longstreet after Gettysburg, Lucas thought. 'Down by the Ford dam, just a couple blocks from your place. Tree branches for fishing poles. Braided nylon line, with dough balls for bait. She fell off a rock, slipped on the moss, big splash…'
'Gotta be careful…'
'She was, like, fifteen, wearing a T-shirt, no bra,' Del said. 'It was plastered to her. I said, 'Well, I can see it all, you might as well take it off.' I was kidding, but she did. She had nipples the color of wild roses, man, you know? That real light pink. I had a hard-on for two months. Stephanie was her name.'
Lucas didn't say anything for a moment, watching the other man's face, then, 'You're not working it?'
'Nah. I'm no good at that shit, figuring stuff out,' Del said. He flipped his hands palm out, a gesture of helplessness. 'I spent the day with my aunt and uncle. They're all fucked up. They don't understand why I can't do something.'
'What do they want you to do?' Lucas asked.
'Arrest her husband. He's a doctor over at the U, a pathologist,' Del said. He took a hit of his beer. 'Michael Bekker.'
'Stephanie Bekker?' Lucas asked, his forehead wrinkling. 'Sounds familiar.'
'Yeah, she used to run around with the political crowd. You might even have met her-she was on the study group for that civilian review board a couple of years ago. But the thing is, when she was killed, her old man was in San Francisco.'
'So he's out,' Lucas said.
'Unless he hired it done.' Del leaned forward now, his eyes open again. 'That alibi is a little too convenient. I personally think he's got a loose screw.'
'What're you telling me?'
'Bekker feels wrong. I'm not sure he killed her, but I think he might've,' Del said. A man in a T-shirt dashed to the bar with a handful of bills, slapped them on the bar, said, 'Catch us later,' and ran three beers back to the TV set.
'Would he have a motive?' Lucas asked.
Del shrugged. 'The usual. Money. He thinks he's better than anyone else and can't figure out why he's poor.'
'Poor? He's a doctor…'
'You know what I mean. He's a doctor, he oughta be rich, and here he is working at the U for seventy, eighty grand. He's a pathologist, and there ain't no big demand for pathology in the civilian world…'
'Hmph.'
Out on the sidewalk, on the other side of the one-way window, a couple shared an umbrella and, assuming privacy, slowed to light a joint. The woman was wearing a short white skirt and a black leather jacket. Lucas' Porsche was parked next to the curb, and as they walked by it, the man stopped to look, passing the joint to the girl. She took a hit, narrowed her eyes as she choked down the smoke and passed the joint back.
'Gotta get your vitamins,' Del said, watching them. He reached forward and quickly traced a smiley face in the condensation on the window.
'I heard in the office… there was a guy with her? With your cousin?'
'We don't know what that is,' Del admitted, his forehead wrinkling. 'Somebody was there with her. They'd had intercourse, we know that from the M.E., and it wasn't rape. And a guy called in the report…'
'Lover's quarrel?'
'I don't think so. The killer apparently came in through the back, killed her and ran out the same way. She was working at the sink, there were still bubbles on the dishwater when the squad got there, and she had soap on her hands. There wasn't any sign of a fight, there wasn't any sign that she had a chance to resist. She was washing dishes, and pow.'
'Doesn't sound like a lover's quarrel…'
'No. And one of the crime-scene guys was wondering how the killer got so close to her, assuming it wasn't Loverboy who did it-how he could get so close without her hearing him coming. They checked the door and found out the hinges had just been oiled. Like in the past couple of weeks, probably.'
'Ah. Bekker.'
'Yeah, but it's not much…'
Lucas thought it over again. A gust of rain brought a quick, furious drumming on the window, which just as quickly stopped. A woman with a red golf umbrella went by.
'Listen,' Del said. 'I'm not just sitting here bullshitting… I was hoping you'd take a look at it.'
'Ah, man… I hate murders. And I haven't been operating so good…' Lucas gestured helplessly.
'That's another thing. You need an interesting case,' Del said, poking an index finger at Lucas' face. 'You're more fucked up than I am, and I'm a goddamned train wreck.'
'Thanks…' Lucas opened his mouth to ask another question, but two pedestrians were drifting along the length of the window. One was a very light-skinned black woman, with a tan trench coat and a wide-brimmed cotton hat that matched the coat. The other was a tall, cadaverous white boy wearing a narrow-brimmed alpine hat with a small feather.
Lucas sat up. 'Randy.'
Del looked out at the street, then reached across the table and took Lucas' arm and said, 'Take it easy, huh?'
'She was my best snitch, man,' Lucas said, in a voice like a gravel road. 'She was almost a friend.'
'Bullfuck. Take it easy.'
'Let him get all the way inside… You go first, cover me, he knows my face…'
Randy came in first, his hands in his coat pockets. He posed for a moment, but nobody noticed. With twelve seconds left in the NBA game, the Celtics were one point down with a man at the line, shooting two. Everybody but the drunk hooker and the bitter old man who was talking into his overcoat was facing the tube.
A woman came in behind Randy and pulled the door shut.
Lucas came out of the booth a step behind Del. She's beautiful, he thought, looking at the woman past Del's shoulder; then he put his head down. Why would she hang with a dipshit like Randy?
Randy Whitcomb was seventeen and a fancy man, with a gun and a knife and sometimes a blackthorn walking stick with a gold knob on the end of it. He had a long freckled face, coarse red hair and two middle teeth that pointed in slightly different directions. He shook himself like a dog, flicking water spray off his tweed coat. He was too young for a tweed coat and too thin and too crazy for the quality of it. He walked down the bar toward the drunk hooker, stopped, posed again, waiting to be seen. The hooker didn't look up until he took a hand out of his coat and slid a church key down the bar, where it knocked a couple of quarters off her stack of change.
'Marie,' Randy crooned. The bartender caught the tone and looked at him. Del and Lucas were closing, but Randy paid them no attention. He was focused on Marie like fire: 'Marie, baby,' he warbled. 'I hear you been talking to the cops…'
Marie tried to climb off the stool, looking around wildly for Lucas. The stool tipped backward and she reached out to catch herself on the bar, teetering. Randy slid around the corner of the bar, going for her, but Lucas was there, behind him. He put a hand in the middle of the boy's back and pushed him, hard, into the bar.
The bartender hollered, 'Hey,' and Del had his badge out as Marie hit the floor, her glass shattering.
'Police. Everybody sit still,' Del shouted. He slipped a short black revolver out of a hip holster and held it vertically in front of his face, where everybody in the bar could see it.
'Randy Ernest Whitcomb, dickweed,' Lucas began, pushing Randy in the center of his back, looping his foot in front of the boy's ankles. 'You are under…'
He had Randy leaning forward, his feet back, one arm held tight, the other going into his pocket for cuffs, when Randy screamed, 'No,' and levered himself belly-down onto the bar.
Lucas grabbed for one of his legs, but Randy kicked, thrashed. One foot caught Lucas on the side of the face, a glancing impact, but it hurt and knocked him back.
