LA Requiem

'DeVille's file isn't here.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'Where is it?'

Rogin waved his hand. 'Some other dick probably checked it out. You want me to look it up?'

I said, 'If you don't mind. Maybe I can call the guy and get what we need.'

We followed him back to the counter and waited while he

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fingered through a box of little index cards. He scratched his head, checked some numbers he'd written on a little pad, then frowned. 'Hell, it ain't here. If it was signed out, I woulda had the log-out card in here, but it ain't.'

'Any way to tell how long it's been gone?'

'Not without the card. Ain't this the shits?'

Dolan glanced at me again, then pulled at my arm.

'Maybe you just misfiled it, Sid. It's no big deal.'

When we were on our way out to her car, she said, 'I don't believe in coincidences.'

'You thinking someone ripped off that file?'

'I'm thinking I don't believe in coincidences. But we can still get a copy. The district attorney's office keeps a record of all their case files in their own storage facility. I can order up theirs.'

'How long will that take?'

'A couple of days. Don't be peevish, World's Greatest. What'dyouget?'

'I got some names, and his collar jacket, but something else, too.' I told her about the disciplinary notation showing Wozniak had been the subject of an investigation, and that Krantz was the investigating officer.

Dolan made a hissing sound. 'That's IAG, man. You can't just ask Krantz.'

We got into her car. The leather was so hot it burned through my pants. Dolan lifted her butt off the seat.

'I never should've got black.'

She started the engine and turned on the air conditioner, but didn't put the car in gear.

I took out the pages and looked at them again. I skimmed over the arrest pages, but ended up back with the disciplinary sheet and the two meetings with Krantz. The dates were there. 'If I can't get the files, and I can't ask Krantz, maybe there's someone else I can ask.'

She held out her hand for the sheet. 'This doesn't say shit.'

'No. It doesn't.'

'It doesn't say if he was the subject, or if they wanted to question him about someone else.'

'Nope.'

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ROBERT CRAIS

She handed the sheet back, thinking, then took out her cell phone and punched a number.

'Hang on.'

She made three phone calls and spoke for almost twenty minutes, twice writing in a notepad. 'This guy might be able to help you. He was an IA supervisor when Krantz was there.'

'Who is he?'

She handed me the sheet. 'Mike McConnell. He's retired now, living out in Sierra Madre. That's his number. He owns a sod farm.'

'Sod.'

'He grows grass.'

'I know what it means.'

'I wasn't sure. Sometimes you're stupid.'

She floored the gas, spun her tires, and brought me back to my car.

28

Sierra Madre is a relaxed community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to the east of Los Angeles. Mature green trees line the streets and kids still ride bikes without worrying about getting shot in a drive-by. The town has a peaceful, rural feel that Los Angeles lost when the developers took over city hall. It is also where Don Siegel filmed the exterior locations of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I haven't yet seen a pod person there, though I keep looking. Farther west, L.A. is filled with them.

Mike McConnell's sod farm was on a broad flat plain near the Eaton Canyon Reservoir. The reservoir has been dry

f

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for years, and the property beneath it has been leased to farmers and nurseries who've put it to good use. Model airplane builders come fly their tiny machines out of the unused land, which is scrubby and dead, but the irrigated parcels are brightly alive with acre after acre of flowers and yearling plants, and sod.

I turned off the paved street and followed a gravel road between flat green fields of buffalo grass, Bahia grass, St. Augustine and Bermuda grasses, and others I didn't recognize. Rainbirds dotted the fields like Erector Set scarecrows, spraying water, and the air smelled of fertilizer. I was hoping to find a field of pulsating pods, but instead I came to a service area where a trailer and a large metal shed sat surrounded by spindly eucalyptus trees. Live in hope.

Three Hispanic guys were sitting in the bed of a Ford pickup, eating sandwiches and laughing. They were soiled from working in the sod fields, and burned deep umber by the sun. They smiled politely as I pulled up and got out of my car. A thin brown dog was lying beneath the pickup's gate. He looked at me, too.

I said, 'Senor McConnell?'

The youngest guy nodded toward the trailer. A late-model Cadillac Eldorado was parked next to it between the trees. 'He's inside. You want me to get him for you?'

'That's okay. Thanks.'

McConnell came out as I was crunching across the gravel. He was in his sixties, with a large gut hanging over khaki trousers and Banner work boots. An unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt let the gut show like he was proud of it. He held a Negro Modelo beer in the dark bottle, but he offered his free hand. 'Mike McConnell. You Mr. Cole?'

'Yes, sir. Please, call me Elvis.'

He laughed. 'Bon't know as I could do that with a straight face.'

What do you say to something like that?

'I'd invite you in, but it's hotter in there than out here. You want a beer? All I got is this Mexican shit. Fresh out of American.'

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'No, sir. But thanks.'

A slim Chicana who couldn't have been more than twenty appeared in the trailer's door and frowned out at him. Somebody had sprayed a thin cotton print dress over her body, and she was barefoot. Hot in there, all right.

She said, 'No me hagas esperar. No megusta estar sola.'

McConnell looked scandalized. 'Quidado con lo que dices o te regreso a Sonom.'