“May I help you?”
A bald man shaped like a pear had stepped into the courtyard. He was wearing oversize shorts and a baggy undershirt and holding a cocktail glass. A small sign beside his door identified him as the manager.
“I’m here to see Ms. Casik.”
He shook the glass. The courtyard magnified the tinkling ice.
“She isn’t home. Your knocking is quite loud, you know. You don’t have to knock so loud.”
He tinkled the ice again.
“Sorry. I’ll leave a note.”
I took out a card and held it against the building to write a note asking Ivy to call.
The man said, “Is this about the police? They were loud, too.”
I stopped writing to look at him. When I looked, he tinkled the ice, then sipped his drink.
“Was that Detective Bastilla?”
“I don’t know her name.”
Her. I put my hand at Bastilla’s height.
“This tall. Forties. Latina.”
“That’s right. This morning.”
Another sip. Tinkle.
“You know if they spoke with her?”
“Ivy wasn’t home.”
He reached out his hand for the note.
“If you’d like, I’ll make sure she gets it.”
“Thanks anyway. I’ll leave it in her box.”
I dropped the card in Ivy’s mailbox, then wound my way down out of the hills toward home. The drive home seemed long, maybe because there was so much to think about, and so little that made any sense.
I put the car in the carport, let myself into the kitchen, then drank a bottle of water. I had parked in the carport and opened the kitchen door and drank the same bottle of water ten thousand times. The cat wasn’t home, but I put out new food for him exactly as I had another ten thousand times. Ten thousand fresh bowls of water. The patterns were reassuring.
I stripped off my shoes and clothes in the kitchen, threw them into the laundry room, then went upstairs to shower, which is what I did every time I came home after being with a body. My patterns continued, but Angel Tomaso did not have the same luxury. His pattern was a single event that could not be washed away.
I did my best in the shower, then put on fresh clothes, went downstairs, and found Pike in the living room. He was holding the cat in his arms like someone cradling a baby. The cat’s eyes were closed. All four of his feet were straight up in the air as if he was drunk.
I said, “I’m going to cook. You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
I took two beers from the fridge, set them on the counter, then told him about Angel Tomaso.
“An anonymous caller tipped the police, and the cops arrived while I was with him.”
“Think they set you up?”
“They couldn’t know I would find him. They couldn’t know I was at his house.”
“Someone watching the body would know.”
I drank more of the beer, then went through the rest.
“They sweated me for a couple of hours, then Marx told me if I didn’t back off he would bring Lou up on charges for disobeying his orders. He would ruin Lou’s career.”
“He threatened Poitras.”
“Yeah. For letting me into Byrd’s house.”
“He actually made the threat.”
“Yes.”
The corner of Pike’s mouth twitched and he leaned against the counter.
“What did he mean, back off?”
I described how Marx was involved with Leverage Associates.
“Marx ran interference for Leverage during the original investigation into the Repko murder. He shut out Darcy and Maddux weeks before Byrd’s body was discovered, and those guys never knew he was involved. Darcy also turned up a security vid made in the alley where Repko was murdered. SID couldn’t do anything with it, so Darcy sent the disk to a CGI house. Thing is, when Byrd turned up, the task force sucked up the disk before the CGI house finished their work. Now nobody knows what happened to it.”
“You think Marx is sitting on it?”
“I don’t know what to think. If it showed Byrd committing the murder, Marx would have used it. If it was garbage, why make it disappear?”
“Maybe it showed someone else.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Pike took a careful sip of his beer.
“You’re not just talking about Marx, Elvis. You’re talking about an entire task force. Someone would be talking about it. You can’t keep secrets like that.”
“Lindo told me the task force was vertically integrated. Only the people at the top knew the full picture, what Lindo called the inner circle. He said the guys on his team even used to joke about it. Secrets are a lot easier to keep when people don’t know what’s going on.”
“Who ran the show?”
“Marx on top with Bastilla and a dick named Munson. Lindo heard Marx and Munson have some kind of history together.”
Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike’s arms like molasses and puddled at his feet.
“If Marx is shading the case, Bastilla and Munson would have to go along.”
“He’s a deputy chief, Joe. He can make their careers before he retires.”
The cat peeled himself off the floor. He gazed at Pike, then came over and head-bumped my leg. I poured some of my beer in his beer dish, and watched him lap it.
Pike said, “So what are you going to do?”
“Dig into Leverage. It’s all about Leverage and Marx. While I’m doing that, maybe you can try to dig up something on Munson and Bastilla. Dirty cops leave a dirty trail.”
Pike grunted.
“Have you told Lou?”
I finished the rest of the beer.
“You know Lou. If I tell him, he’ll jump in Marx’s face.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have to keep him as far from Marx as I can, but I can’t drop this thing now and walk away.”
I glanced at Pike, but Pike was impenetrable.
“You understand what I’m talking about?”
“I understand.”
“If Marx is so worried about something he’s willing to threaten Lou, if I can find that something then I take away his power to threaten.”
Pike nodded.
“Do you think I should tell Lou anyway?”
“No.”
“Let him decide for himself?”
“Telling him takes the responsibility off you and puts it on him. But you already know that.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been thinking about it.”
“You’re going to move forward anyway. We always drive forward.”
“That’s right.”
Pike watched me for a while through the quiet dark glasses, then squeezed my trapezius muscle.
“Lou wouldn’t want you to stop. He would think less of you if you did.”
I nodded. Sometimes it helps to hear it.
Pike said, “What do you want me to do?”
“You’re doing it.”
We cooked, and drank more beer, and ate in silence as we watched an ESPN sports recap. Sometime after Pike left, the coyotes began to sing.
I was getting ready for bed when I remembered Pat Kyle. Angel’s agent would be questioned the next day. He would almost certainly tell the police Pat had been looking for Tomaso, after which the police would call her. Crimmens would likely be the caller. I didn’t like calling so late and didn’t want to tell her this would be waiting for her tomorrow, and I didn’t like knowing my call would upset her and cost her a miserable night. I didn’t want to call, but I did. She needed to hear it from me so she would be prepared. Pat Kyle was my friend. You have to take care of your friends.
25
JOE’S SUGGESTION that someone had been watching Angel Tomaso’s guesthouse left me with a wakeful paranoia the rest of the night. An opossum foraging on the deck became a home invasion crew. The soft clicking of the cat door was a lip gloss tube being readied to write. I loved u. I locked the doors and windows before shutting off the lights, but woke to check them twice, as if I had only imagined locking them in an earlier dream. The second time up I carried the Dan Wesson, but told myself I was being silly. I covered my head with a pillow. The ostrich approach.