small and greasy, and I wanted to tell her it had all been a mistake and leave, but you don't learn things by leaving. Even when the staying smells bad.
She said, 'He's been out of his mind ever since that guy died. The past couple of years have been tough, but since then has been the worst. That's when he went back to the bottle.'
I nodded like I knew what she was saying.
'He was in AA before that, and he was getting better, too. He'd come over sometimes, we'd have dinner, like that.'
'But then the guy died?'
She rolled her eyes. 'Well, everyone's still thinking about Rodney King and this black guy dies when they're trying to arrest him and then the family files a lawsuit and it was awful. Floyd started drinking worse than ever. He was angry all the time, and he'd blow up over the tiniest thing. They told me it was a stress reaction.'
'About how long ago was that?'
She gestured with the cigarette. 'What was it? Three or four months?'
I nodded. 'Did Floyd feel responsible?'
She laughed. 'Floyd doesn't feel responsible for hitting the bowl in the morning. I thought he was worried about the suit, but then the suit went away and I thought he'd relax. You know those suits cost a fortune. But he still stayed drunk all the time. Eric would call and check on him to make sure he was holding it together. Things like that. Eric was a godsend.' Eric Dees.
I nodded.
'Floyd hasn't been acting right since then. If he's gotten himself mixed up in something, I'll bet that's why. I'll bet it's all part of the stress reaction.'
'Maybe so.'
'That should qualify for disability, shouldn't it?'
There were about ten million questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn't ask them without tipping her that I wasn't from LAPD. I patted her hand and tried to look reassuring. 'That'll be fine, Ms. Riggens. You've been a big help, and that will be in the record.'
'Why don't you people make him go back to AA? When he was in AA he was doing a lot better.'
'Let's just keep this our little secret, all right, Ms. Riggens? That way it looks better for you all the way around.'
She crushed out the cigarette into the over-full ashtray and pushed ashes out onto the table. 'Look, I don't know what Floyd's mixed up with, and I don't want to know. I'm not aiding and abetting anything. I got enough to worry about.'
'Sure. Thank you for your time.'
I got up and went to the door. Margaret Riggens stayed at the table and lit another Marlboro and drew the smoke deep off the match and stared out through the windows into her shabby backyard. You could hear the kids screaming over the loud bass throbbing of the music and I imagined that it went on without end, and that her living hell wasn't a whole lot different from Floyd's.
Out in the living room there was an upright Yamaha piano that looked like it hadn't been played in a long time. A schoolbag was sitting on one end of it, and half a dozen wilting yellow roses were floating in a glass jar on the other end. Between the two was a framed picture of Floyd and Margaret Riggens standing together at his police academy graduation. They were fifteen years younger, and they were smiling. It was a photograph very much like the one that Jennifer Sheridan had, only Jennifer and Mark still looked like the people in their picture, and Floyd and Margaret didn't.
I guess romance isn't for everyone.
When I pulled away from the house that Floyd Riggens once shared with his wife and children, the sun was low in the west and the ridgeline along the Verdugo Mountains was touched with orange and pink. I worked my way across the valley, letting the rush hour traffic push me along, and enjoyed the darkening sky. I wondered if Margaret Riggens found much in the mountains or the sky to enjoy, but perhaps those things were too far away for her to see. When you're hurting, you tend to fix your eyes closer to home.
I cut across the northern edge of Burbank and Pacoima, and then dropped down Coldwater to a little place I know called Mazzarino's that makes the very best pizza in Los Angeles. I got a vegetarian with a side of anchovies to go and, when I pulled into my carport fifteen minutes later, the pizza was still warm.
I opened a Falstaff and put out the pizza for me and the anchovies for the cat, only the cat wasn't around. I called him, and waited, but he still didn't come. Off doing cat things, no doubt.
I ate the pizza and I drank the beer and I tried watching the TV, but I kept thinking about Margaret Riggens and that maybe I had come at all of this from the wrong direction. You think crime, and then you think money, but maybe that wasn't it. Maybe Mark Thurman had gotten himself involved in another type of crime. And maybe it wasn't Mark alone. Maybe it was Mark and Floyd. Maybe it was the entire REACT team. For all I knew, it was the full and complete population of the state of California, and I was the only guy left out of the loop. Me and Jennifer Sheridan. I was still thinking about that when I fell asleep.
At ten oh-six the next morning I called this cop I know who works in North Hollywood. A voice answered the phone with, 'Detectives.'
'Is that you, Griggs?' It was this other cop I know, Charlie Griggs.
'Who's this?'
'Guess.'
