“Snell. He heard this one guy say, ‘Snell, c’mon.’ If your name was Snell, I wasn’t going to let you in. Listen, man, I gotta pack. Please. Rachel is coming.”
Scott looked at the pouch. It was lavender velvet, closed by a drawstring, with a dark discoloration. Scott opened it, and poured seven gray rocks into his palm. Maggie raised her nose, curious about the pouch because Scott was curious. This was something he had learned about her. If he focused on something, she was interested. Scott poured the stones back into the pouch, and slipped the pouch into his pocket.
“When will Rachel be here?”
“Now. Any second.”
“Pack. I’ll help carry your stuff.”
She was ready to go when Rachel arrived. Scott carried the Samsonite and the garbage bag stuffed with clothes. Amelia carried the little girl and a pillow, and Rachel carried everything else. Scott unclipped Maggie, and let her follow off-leash. At Scott’s request, Amelia left her apartment unlocked.
When everything was in the car, Scott asked for her and Rachel’s cell numbers, and took Amelia aside.
“Don’t tell anyone you’re with Rachel. Don’t tell anyone what you think happened to Daryl, or what Daryl saw that night.”
“Can’t a policeman stay with me? Like in witness protection?”
Scott ignored the question.
“You hear about Marshall? He’s in Men’s Central Jail?”
“Uh-uh. I didn’t know.”
Scott repeated it.
“Men’s Central Jail. I’m going to call you in two days, okay? But if you don’t hear from me, on the third day, I want you to go see Marshall. Tell him what you told me.”
“Marshall don’t like me.”
“Bring Gina. Tell him what Daryl saw. Tell him everything just like you told me.”
She was scared and confused, and Scott thought she might get in the car and tell Rachel to never stop driving, but she looked at Maggie.
“I get a big enough place, I want a dog.”
Then she got into Rachel’s car and they left.
Scott let Maggie pee, then picked up his dive bag, and lugged it up to Amelia’s apartment. He found a large pot in the kitchen, filled it with water, and set the pot on the floor.
“This is yours. We may be here a few days.”
Maggie sniffed at the water, and walked away to explore the apartment.
Scott sat with the dive bag on Amelia’s couch in Amelia’s living room in Amelia’s apartment, and stared at the wall. He felt tired, and wished he were living on the far side of the world under an assumed name, with a head that wasn’t filled with anger and fear.
Scott opened the velvet pouch and poured out the pebbles. He was pretty sure the seven little rocks were uncut diamonds. Each was about the size of his fingernail, translucent, and gray. They looked like crystal meth, and the irony made him smile.
He poured them back into the pouch, and the smile went with them.
Interpol had supposedly connected Beloit to a French diamond fence, which led Melon and Stengler to speculate that Beloit had smuggled diamonds into the country for delivery, or had come to the U.S. to pick up diamonds the fence purchased. Either way, the bandits learned of the plan, followed Beloit’s movements, and murdered Beloit and Pahlasian during the robbery. Melon and Stengler used these assumptions to drive the case until the same person who tipped them to Beloit’s diamond connection later told them Beloit had no such involvement.
The I-Man. Ian Mills.
Scott thought it through. Melon and Stengler knew nothing of Beloit’s diamond connection until Mills brought it to their attention. Why bring it up, and later discredit it? Either Mills had bad information when he cleared Beloit and made an honest mistake, or he lied to turn the investigation. Scott wondered how Mills knew about the connection, and why he later changed his mind.
Scott searched his dive bag for the clippings he collected during the early weeks of the investigation. Melon still ran the case at that time, and had given Scott a card with his home phone and cell number written on the back, saying Scott could call him anytime. That was before they reached the point Melon stopped returning his calls.
Scott stared at Melon’s number, trying to figure out what to say. Some calls were more difficult than others.
Maggie came out of the bedroom. She studied Scott for a moment, then went to the open window. He figured she was charting the scents of their new world.
Scott dialed the number. If his call went to Melon’s voice mail, he planned to hang up, but Melon answered on the fourth ring.
“Detective Melon, this is Scott James. I hope you don’t mind I called.”
There was a long silence before Melon answered.
“Guess it depends. How’re you doing?”
“I’d like to come see you, if it’s okay?”
“Uh-huh. And why is that?”
“I want to apologize. Face-to-face.”
Melon chuckled, and Scott felt a wave of relief.
“I’m retired, partner. If you want to drive all the way out here, come ahead.”
Scott copied Melon’s address, clipped Maggie’s lead, and drove up to the Simi Valley.
33.
Melon tipped his lawn chair back, and gazed up into the leaves.
“You see this tree? This tree wasn’t eight feet tall when my wife and I bought this place.”
Scott and Melon sat beneath the broad spread of an avocado tree in Melon’s backyard, sipping Diet Cokes with lemon wedges. Rotting avocados dotted the ground like poop, drawing clouds of swirling gnats. A few gnats circled Maggie, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Scott admired the tree.
“All the guac you can eat, forever. I love it.”
“I’ll tell you, some years, the best avocados you could want. Other years, they have these little threads all through them. I have to figure that out.”
Melon was a big fleshy man with thinning gray hair and wrinkled, sun-dark skin. He and his wife owned a small ranch house on an acre of land in the Santa Susana foothills, so far from Los Angeles they were west of the San Fernando Valley. It was a long commute to downtown L.A., but the affordable home prices and small-town lifestyle more than made up for the drive. A lot of police officers lived there.
Melon had answered the door wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a faded Harley-Davidson T-shirt. He was friendly, and told Scott to take Maggie around the side of the house, and he would meet them in back. When Melon joined them a few minutes later, he brought Diet Cokes and a tennis ball. He showed Scott to the chairs, waved the ball in Maggie’s face, and sidearmed it across his yard.
Maggie ignored it.
Scott said, “She doesn’t chase balls.”
Melon looked disappointed.
“That’s a shame. I had a Lab, man, she’d chase balls all day. You like K-9?”
“I like it a lot.”
“Good. I know you had your heart set on SWAT. It’s good you found something else.”
As they settled under the tree, Scott remembered a joke Leland loved to tell.
“There’s only one difference between SWAT and K-9. Dogs don’t negotiate.”
Melon burst out laughing. When his laughter faded, Scott faced him.
