Sorry to spoil your day, Herbert.
“Okay,” said Petra. “Anything else?”
“That's it,” said Ramsey. “Who knew.”
She closed the pad and they hiked back to the front door.
“How're the cars?” she said, passing the glass wall.
“Haven't thought about them much.”
Petra stopped and peered through the black glass. Was the Mercedes parked in its allotted space? Without light, visibility was zero.
Ramsey flicked a switch. And there it was. A big sedan, gunmetal gray.
“Toys,” said Ramsey, turning off the light.
He walked her to the Ford, and when she got behind the wheel, he said, “Give my regards to Greg.”
Petra's turn to stare. He gave her a small, sad smile. An old man's smile.
“I know you'll be verifying the alibi,” he said. “Just routine.”
30
Feeling guilty and useless but making sure to look calm and sharp, Stu tightened his tie and put on his suit jacket. Five hours of phone calls; no cases resembling Lisa Ramsey's. Or Ilse Eggermann's.
He didn't know what to make of the German girl's murder; wasn't getting any help from the Austrian police or Interpol or the airlines. Tomorrow he'd try U.S. customs and passport control. Asking them what? To keep an eye out for Lauch? Good luck. He stared at the Viennese mug shot. A conspicuous-looking guy, but it was beyond needle-in-the-haystack.
Maybe Petra was having some luck with Ramsey.
Maybe not. It was hard to care… he cleared his desk and locked it, walked across the squad room. Wilson Fournier was on the phone, but just as Stu passed, the black detective hung up scowling and reached for his own jacket. Fournier's partner, Cal Baumlitz, was out, recuperating from knee surgery, and Fournier had been working alone for days and showing the strain.
“New call?” said Stu, forcing himself to be social.
“Poor excuse for one.” Fournier was average-size and slim, had a shaved head and a bushy mustache that reminded Stu of one of the actors he'd seen on Sesame Street back when he'd worked nights, had mornings to spend with his kids.
Fournier hitched his holster and collected his gear, and the two walked out together. “Life sucks, Ken. You and Barbie get Lisa Ramsey, celebrities up the ying, and I get an end-of-shift, maybe-prowler/rapist/burglar gig with stupid overtones.”
“You want Ramsey?”
Fournier laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know fame has its price.”
“What kind of a maybe-prowler/rapist?”
Fournier shook his head. “The rapist thing is crap-'scuse me, deacon, manure. We're supposed to be working homicide, for God's sake, and on this one, no one got hurt, let alone dead, so why's it my business? Meanwhile, I've got four open 187's and pressure from the boss. Goddamn brain-dead chief and his community policing manure.”
A few steps later, just to be polite, Stu said, “What exactly happened, Wil?”
“House on North Gardner, two lesbians come home from a week in Big Sur, find someone's been in their kitchen, scarfed food, used the shower. They walk in on it- the shower's still going- freak, run screaming out the front door, and the perp rabbits out the back.”
“What was burgled?”
“Food. Part of a pineapple, bologna, some soda. Big bad burglary, huh?”
“So where's the rape?”
“Exactly.” Fournier gave a disgusted look. “Lesbians. A big pile of mail at the front door. Gone an entire week, do they think of putting a stop on it? Or leaving some lights on? Or getting an alarm or a Rottweiler or a poison snake or an AK-47? Man, Ken, what kind of folks still think they can count on us to do a damn thing about crime?”
31
Routine. Am I a suspect?
Was he playing with her?
She called Stu at the station. He'd checked out an hour ago, and when she tried his house, she got no answer. Out with Kathy and the kids? Must be nice to have a life.
Back in L.A., she bought some salads at a mom-and-pop grocery on Fairfax, ate them at home while watching the news- no Ramsey info. She tried Stu again. Still no answer.
Time to simulate a life for herself.
Changing into acrylic-spattered sweats, she put on Mozart and squeezed paint onto her palette. Hunched on a stool, she worked till midnight. First the landscape, which was responding a bit, she felt in the groove, that hypnotic time contraction. Then another canvas, larger, blank and inviting. She laid on two coats of white primer, followed by a luxuriant layer of Mars black, and, when that dried, began a series of hastily brushed-in gray ovals that became faces.
No composition, just faces, scores of them, some overlapping, like fruit dangling from an invisible tree. Some with mouths parted innocently, all with pupilless black eyes that could have been empty sockets, ghostly discs, each one portraying a variant of confusion.
Each face younger than the last, a reverse aging, until she was painting nothing but children.
Perplexed children, growing on an invisible child tree… her hand cramped and she dropped the brush. Rather than get psychological about that, she laughed out loud, switched off the music, snatched the canvas off the easel, and placed it on the floor, face to the wall. Stripping naked and tossing her clothes on the floor, she took a long shower and got into bed. The moment the lights were off, she was playing back the interview with Ramsey.
Almost positive the guy was manipulating.
Not knowing what to do about it.
She woke up Wednesday morning still thinking about it. The way he'd flicked on the garage light, showing her the Mercedes, as if daring her to probe further. All those sympathy ploys- blood sugar, cataracts. Not much night driving.
Poor old guy, falling apart. But there was one health problem he'd never bring up.
One that could motivate some serious rage.
And still no lawyer, at least not out in the open. Some kind of double bluff? Ask the wrong question and in come the mouthpieces?
Or was he just feeling confident, because he had the perfect alibi?
Don't get sucked into it, no frontal assault. Go for the flanks. The underlings. Find Estrella Flores, have a chat with the charter pilot, though that wouldn't prove anything- there'd been plenty of time to get home, leave, pick up Lisa, kill her. Last but not least, Greg Balch, faithful lackey and likely perjurer. Petra was certain Ramsey had phoned the business manager the minute she drove off, but sometimes underlings harbored deep resentment- Petra remembered the way Ramsey had turned on Balch during the notification call. Balch standing there and taking it. Used to being a whipping boy? Put a little pressure on, ignite some long-buried anger, and sometimes the little people turned.
She reached her desk at 8 A.M., found a note from Stu saying he'd be in late, probably the afternoon.
No reason given.
She felt her face go hot; crumpled the note and tossed it.
The flight manager at Westward Charter confirmed Ramsey and Balch's Tahoe trip and the 8:30 P.M. Burbank arrival. Ed Marionfeldt, the pilot, happened to be in and she spoke to him. Pleasant, mellow, he'd done tons of trips with The Adjustor, no problems, nothing different this time. Petra didn't want to ask too many questions for fear of making Ramsey the prime suspect. Even though he was. She could imagine some defense attorney using Marionfeldt's testimony to illustrate Ramsey's normal mood that day. If it ever got to a trial- dream on.
A phone call to Social Security verified that Estrella Flores was indeed legal, her only registered address Ramsey's Calabasas house.