Langton shrugged again. “I don’t have to respond to that,” he said.
Nick picked up his notepad, drew a large question mark on the open page. Flipped the cover down and slipped it into his pocket.
“You’re not calling all the plays anymore, Howard. You’re a schoolteacher and a coach. So the next time I ask you a question, tell me the truth.”
“Sorry, Nick. It’s been difficult.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“She came nightclubbing up in Hollywood last month with me and some friends. Did the Whiskey and the Rainbow.”
“But I don’t need to talk to Linda about that.”
“I told her it was an offensive coordinator’s convention in Long Beach,” said Langton.
“What did you do that night? I’m talking about October the first. That’s the night Janelle was killed. Think about it if you have to because I want the truth the first time.”
Langton stood. “Home. All night. If you don’t believe it, call my wife.”
AT ELEVEN that morning Nick met Sharon Santos at Prentice Park in Santa Ana. It was a quiet little park down off First Street, not a place they’d see anyone they knew. They stood in front of the golden eagle cage, Sharon’s hair up in a scarf and her eyes hidden by dark glasses.
Nick told her they’d have to break it off. She said she understood but would miss him. Said don’t change your mind about this because I can’t go off and on like a faucet.
Nick wanted to thank her for everything but it seemed like a lousy thing to say. Wanted to say he was sorry but that was worse.
He tried to kiss her goodbye but she turned away and walked back toward her car.
JUST BEFORE lunch Nick stopped off at Representative Roger Stoltz’s office in Tustin. It was less than a mile from the SunBlesst orange packinghouse. Nick knew from yesterday’s paper that the congressman was in Washington. But Nick wanted his business card to be in Stoltz’s secretary’s hand when she called him on the phone to say that homicide detective Nick Becker had come to see him.
“May I tell him what this is about?” she asked.
“Janelle Vonn,” said Nick.
“Oh. Would you like to make an appointment? He’ll be in this office Friday afternoon, day after tomorrow.”
“Let’s do that.”
She swung open an appointment calendar, ran her pencil to the eighteenth.
Nick’s eyes went straight to the box for Tuesday, October first. Couldn’t make out the writing.
“How’s four o’clock, Mr. Becker?”
NICK SAT with Terry Neemal while the former Wolfman ate his lunch. Green bean gravy and red gelatin caught in the big mustache. Neemal avoided looking at Nick for a long time. Then he fixed Nick with tan blankness.
“What if I did it?”
Nick shrugged.
“What if I confessed?”
“Well, then you could either ask for a trial or waive your right,” said Nick. “If you waived the judge would sentence you. You’d probably get life. Maybe they’d commit you again. Talk to me, Terry.”
“Would I be a big story?”
“For the trial or sentencing, yeah. Then everybody would forget about you.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“You don’t confess for attention, Terry.”
“Who said anything about that?”
“You did. Between the lines.”
Neemal turned his face back to the tray and didn’t look up again for a long minute or two. “Your brother says God will forgive me if I just ask.”
“Forgive you for what?”
“Whatever I’ve done,” said Neemal. “Anything.”
“That’s a good deal for you, then, Terry.”
“He’s a fucked-up guy.”
“David or God?”
Neemal laughed. Tan eyes and teeth gleaming like a wet savanna, thought Nick.
“Your brother.”
“Oh yeah?”
Neemal nodded. “He’s close to God because he prays all the time. But you have to prove to me that that’s good. You get too close to some things, it’s bad. Fire. God.”
“Maybe being far away is worse.”
“God used to talk to me a lot,” said Neemal. “Directly to me. I knew His voice. Told me to do things. Told me to walk across Arizona and I did. On the highways, I mean. Not the desert. That’s a shitty way to live, God telling you what to do all the time. You’re better off far away. Where you can have your own thoughts. Your brother listens to God too much. Got to stand on your own two feet.”
“Maybe there’s some truth to that.”
“I masturbated on her. Whatever you found on her, that was mine.”
Nick said nothing for a beat. He lit two smokes, handed one to Neemal.
“Tell me about that,” said Nick.
“I just did.”
Nick studied him. “It pisses me off when you hold out on me.”
Neemal nodded without looking at Nick. He explained that his sexual desires overwhelmed him. Hadn’t happened since he was young. Had to do with the fires he set. Hoped Nick would forgive him for not bringing it up right away.
Nick listened. Remembered the half-burned pile of newspaper in the slanting packinghouse light. The smell of it. “You want to get something off your conscience?”
“I’m going to hold for right now.”
“We’re not playing blackjack. What happened to the saw blade?”
“No idea. I’m good for now. I’m done talking for now, Nick. Let me finish this Jell-O in privacy, will you?”
“Terry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you dick with me I can’t help you.”
“I understand.”
“You’d better.”
BACK AT HIS DESK Nick returned a call from Laguna Beach PD detective Don Rae. Rae said they still hadn’t seen Bonnett, and one of his snitches was telling him Bonnett had split for Ensenada, down in Baja. Bonnett had a place down there. Rae had a friend on the Ensenada PD who was going to check it out. But another snitch said Bonnett was still around, looking to “punish” whoever killed his friend Janelle. Rae told Nick to be careful with Bonnett-the gun, the knife, and the temper.
“Big guy,” said Rae. “Just be careful.”
“Is his Cessna at Orange County?”
“No. And no flight plan filed, either.”
Nick thanked him and hung up. Wondered if he could handle a twenty-two-year-old six-foot-four-inch 245-pound ex-athlete bent on shooting, stabbing, or kicking the shit out of him. Nick had eight more years of wear and tear. He was four inches shorter. Got dizzy sometimes from the Vonns and that stupid rumble, what, fourteen years ago? And he was only twenty pounds over his high school playing weight of 175, which still left him fifty pounds short if it came to a fight. Some of it was flab, too, with the booze and lousy food and long hours. At least he’d pretty much quit the smokes. Getting old stank. And it still pissed him off that Bonnett’s IQ was the same as his own. Like Bonnett had stolen it or something. Dumb to think that way, he knew. It didn’t make sense.
Nick took a few minutes to compare Howard Langton’s fingerprints with the partial print on the packinghouse lock. Langton’s ten-set was on file with the California Department of Justice, along with those of every credentialed schoolteacher in the state.
Nothing close enough to work with. Nick examined all ten prints but nothing popped.
He called Linda Langton. Said he was just making sure he had the facts right, checking some things that Howard had told him about the night Janelle was murdered. He lobbed her a few easy ones, then got to the only one that mattered.
She told him that her husband had been home all night. Why wouldn’t he be? They had dinner and watched TV. Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton. Later a James Garner movie.
Her voice sounded hostile but she offered nothing at all about a canceled dinner date with Janelle Vonn.
Lobdell called a minute later, said he’d stopped off in Laguna to talk to Price Herald. Herald said he was at home with friends the night Janelle got it. The friends said the same thing. Scared but telling the truth, said Lobdell. All of them more worried about the Boom Boom Bungalow murder. Lobdell doubted that the sour old queen had raped, murdered, and mutilated a nineteen-year-old girl.