LA Requiem

'Christ, what a ball-buster. You hear about Joe? '

'Two cops were just here. All I know is they said Dersh was murdered, and they've got an eyewitness who puts Joe at the scene. What in hell is going on?'

'You know anything about it?'

'No, I do not know anything about it.' Irritated that he would ask.

'Okay, okay. Watch out, dickhead! Christ!' Horns blew. Charlie was on his car phone. 'I'm on my way down to Parker Center now. They're waiting for the lineup to book him.'

'I want to be there.'

'Forget it. They'll never let you.'

'I'm coming down there, Charlie. I'm going to be there. I mean it.'

I hung up without another word. Lucy was watching me, her face grave.

'Elvis?'

I've been in war. I've faced men with guns, and dangerous stronger men who were doing their best to hurt me, but I could not recall a time when I was more afraid. My hands trembled.

Lucy said, 'Elvis? Is this man good?'

'Charlie's good.'

She still watched me, as if she was searching for something.

I said, 'Joe didn't do this.'

She nodded.

'Joe didn't do this. Dersh didn't kill Karen. Joe knows it. He wouldn't kill Dersh.'

Lucy kissed my cheek. There was a kindness in her eyes that bothered rne.

'Call me when you know more. Give Joe my best.'

She went up the stairs, and I watched her go.

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Parker Center uses the ground floor for booking and processing suspects. A few minutes after I checked in, Charlie hurried out a gray metal door.

'You just made it. Another five minutes, you'd've missed it.' Charlie Bauman is several inches shorter than me, with a lean pockmarked face and intense eyes. He smells like cigarettes.

'Can I see Joe?'

'Not till after. We get in the room, there's gonna be the witness. She's some little old lady. You let the cops do all the talking, doesn't matter what she says.'

'I know that, Charlie.'

'I'm just telling you. No matter what she says, you don't say anything. Me and you, we can't talk to her, we can't ask her any questions, we can't make any comments, okay?'

'I got it.' Charlie seemed nervous, and I didn't like that.

I followed him back along a tile hall as we spoke. The hall opened into a wide room that looked like any other corporate workplace, except this one had posters about drunk-driving fatalities.

'Have you had a chance to talk to him?'

'Enough to get the gist. We'll talk more, after.'

I stopped him. Behind us, two detectives I didn't know were positioning a black guy in front of a camera like they use to take driver's license pictures, only this guy wasn't up for renewal. His hands were cuffed, and his eyes were wide and afraid. He was saying, 'THIS IS BULLSHIT. THIS THREE STRIKE CRAP IS BULLSHIT'

'Charlie, do these guys have anything?'

'If the witness makes a positive ID and they write the paper, then we'll see. She's old, and when they're old they get confused. If we're lucky, she'll pick the wrong guy and we can all go home early.'

He wasn't answering me.

'Do they have anything?'

'They've already got a prosecutor coming down. He'll lay it out for us when he gets here. I don't know what they have,

216 ROBERT CRAIS

but they wouldn't've called him down if they didn't think they have a case.'

Krantz and Stan Watts came out of an adjoining hall. Krantz was holding a cup of coffee, Watts was holding two.

Charlie said, 'Okay, Krantz. Whenever you're ready.'

I looked at Krantz. 'What are you pulling on Joe?'

Krantz appeared more calm than I'd ever seen him. As if he was at peace. 'I can show you Dersh's body, if you want.'

'I don't know what happened to Dersh. What I'm saying is that Joe didn't do it.'

Krantz raised his eyebrows and looked at Watts. 'Stan here told me that you were at home with a woman last night. Was he wrong about that?' He looked back at me. 'Were you with Pike?'

'You know what I'm saying.'

Krantz blew on his coffee, then sipped. 'No, Cole, I don't know that. But here's what I do know: At three-fifteen this morning a man matching Pike's description was seen entering Eugene Dersh's backyard. A few moments after that, Dersh was shot to death by one shot to the head with a .357 magnum. Could be a .38, but judging from the way the head blew apart, I'm betting .357. We've already recovered the bullet. We'll see what it tells us.'

'You got any fingerprints? You got any physical evidence that it was Joe, or is this another investigation like you ran with Dersh, you just working off an urge?'

'I'm going to let the prosecutor explain our case to Pike's lawyer. You're just here on a pass, Cole. Please remember that.'

Behind us, Williams appeared, saying that everything was good to go.

Krantz nodded at me. Confident. 'Let's see what the witness says.'

They led us past six holding cells into a dim room where a uniformed cop and two detectives were waiting with a shrunken woman in her late seventies. Watts gave her the second cup of coffee. She sipped at it and made a face.

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Charlie whispered. 'Amanda Kimmel. She's the wit.'

Krantz said, 'You okay, Mrs. Kimmel? You want to sit?'

She frowned at him. 'I wanna get this done and get the hell outta here. I don't like to move my bowels in a strange place.'

The wall in front of us was a large glass double-paned window that looked into a narrow room lit so brightly that it glowed. Krantz picked up a phone, and thirty seconds later a door on the right side of the room opened. A black cop with bodybuilder muscles led in six men. Joe Pike was the third. Of the remaining five, three were white and two were Hispanic. Four of the men were Joe's height or shorter, and one was taller. Only one of the other men wore jeans and a sleeveless sweatshirt like Joe, and that was a short Hispanic guy with skinny arms. The other three wore a mix of chinos or dungarees or coveralls, and long-sleeved sweatshirts or short-sleeved tees, and all six were wearing sunglasses. Every man in the room except Joe was a cop.

I bent to Charlie's ear. 'I thought they had to be dressed like Joe.'

'Law says it only has to be similar, whatever the hell that means. Let's see. Maybe this works for us.'

When all six men were lined along the stage, Krantz said, 'Nobody on that side of the glass can see in here, Mrs. Kimmel. Don't you worry about that. You're perfectly safe.'

'I don't give a rat's ass if they can see me or not.'

'Is one of the men in there the same man you saw going into Eugene Dersh's yard?'

Amanda Kimmel said, 'Him.'