for her wealth.
But that’s all supposition, because on the drive back to Fontanelle’s court I was stopped by the police. The uniforms detained me until two plainclothes cops arrived.
There was a portly man in a green suit with a snaky little partner who wore a houndstooth jacket and coal-gray pants.
“Paris Minton?” the snaky cop asked.
I held out my wrists and they obliged without even a kick or slap to show who was in charge.
I expected the charges to be conspiracy, theft, maybe breaking and entering, and certainly murder. And so I was surprised down at the precinct at Seventy-seventh Street to hear, “You are being held because we suspect you for the arson of your landlord’s property.”
I used my one phone call to ring Charlotte.
“They got me in the can, baby,” I told her. “But the charges are wrong, and I can prove it, I think.” I asked her to call Milo and tell him. I knew that he’d tell Fearless. That was everyone who mattered.
The county jail was full, so they transferred me to a facility down around Redondo Beach. I had a cell that looked over the ocean and chess partners that could beat me now and then.
There was even a small library. It was like visiting a spa after what I had been through.
They brought me before a public defender who told me that the owner of the store I rented caused such a stink that they were leaning on me.
“They want you on an insurance angle,” the milky-faced kid told me.
“But I didn’t have insurance,” I said.
“They think somebody hired you to set the fire,” he said.
“But how could that be?”
“It happens all the time,” he assured me.
“But, Mr. Defender. You sayin’ that the owner is puttin’ on the pressure, and so they brace me ’cause they think somebody paid me to set the fire for the insurance.”
“I don’t get your meaning,” the kid said.
I knew I was in trouble then.
He didn’t stay long. He resented having to come down to Redondo. The cops didn’t like the drive either. So between the lag in visits and the lack of interest in their own case, I spent six weeks in the can. There was some mixup in the transfer records, so even Milo couldn’t find me.
Finally I was brought back to Los Angeles for a meeting with the prosecutor. It seems that my lawyer, whose name I don’t think I ever knew, had decided I was guilty and that, because my record was clean, I could probably get some kind of reduced sentence.
The prosecutor was young too but she had a little more on the ball.
“But he doesn’t have insurance,” the chubby prosecutor said, trying to understand what she was reading while my lawyer talked deal. I remember that she wore a navy jacket and skirt with a brilliant white blouse and string tie like the cowboys wear.
“It’s the owner,” my lawyer offered as if their roles were reversed.
“But,” the prosecutor said, now talking to herself, “then why aren’t we trying him?”
My lawyer wasn’t smart enough to supply an answer.
They drove me back out to Redondo, where I sat in a cell with a man dying from TB. That was another three weeks. Then they let me go on the streets of Redondo.
“Can I have bus fare?” I asked the guard who was giving me my clothes back.
He handed me a dime.
“I have to call L.A.,” I said, thinking he’d take pity and give me enough for the station-to-station call.
He was not so inclined.
WHEN MILO ANSWERED the phone my heart sank.
“Collect call to anyone from Paris Minton,” the operator said sternly. I was hoping for Loretta to answer. She, I knew, would at least accept the call.
“Of course,” Milo said jovially.
“Do you accept the charges, sir?” the woman asked.
