Ernie Rowan was a good cop and a good investigator, adept at dealing with wealthy Marinites over the years who felt they — and especially their children — were not bound by the same rules as, say, Latinos from the Canal District. But right now his face wore a barely concealed look of savage frustration.
He let his eyes sweep over the witnesses assembled in his rather plush office: the three Rochemonts, wealthy and powerful in the community, their chauffeur, and as if that wasn’t enough, a trio of goddam private eyes from across the bridge.
He said, with great control, “I’m having a little trouble here getting a picture of what happened last night.”
Paul snarled in his Bogart voice, “What’re you birds suckin’ around here for? Tell me or get out!”
Rowan cleared his throat. Old man Rochemont had owned half of Larkspur when the flats where the freeway now was had been grazing land for herds of fat Jerseys and Guernseys. Moo.
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “I don’t quite know” — his face darkened, his voice deepened as he almost lost it — “what the fu — pardon me, what the hell you’re talking about.”
The tall elegant blond P.I. said with great precision, as if reading a report, “Mr. Warren and I had been assigned security detail at the Rochemont home after the vandalism of Mr. Paul Rochemont’s automobile. We set up our post in the living room. We checked the door and windows after midnight. At two A.M. we heard screams. When we arrived upstairs, we saw an assailant going out the second-floor window of Mr. Rochemont’s bedroom.”
“Get a good look at the guy?”
“No.”
Rowan switched his piercing eyes on Ken Warren. “You?”
Warren shook his head without answering. Rowan could have stuck his thumb into the big guy’s eye without repercussion, the man was in a low income bracket, but what was the use? He hadn’t been that kind of cop for a lot of years; indeed, it was to stop being that sort of cop that he had moved to the suburbs after his first kid had been born.
So he said mildly, “What happened to all the electronic security at the estate? I understood it is state-of-the-art.”
Paul’s imitation Bogart voice said, “Well, I know where I stand now. Sorry I got up on my hind legs, boys, but you fellows tryin’ to rope me made me nervous...”
It seemed to have made Inga nervous also. She surged to her feet. “Can I go now? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Indeed you have,” said Rowan in sugary tones. “You have identified the assailant as your husband’s business partner, Frank Nugent. We’ve got Mr. Nugent in the computer and on the air right now.” When she didn’t react, he waved a gentle hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Rochemont. You may go now.”
The elegant blonde was on her feet also.
“Until Nugent is found, we’ll still be on security at the estate. You can reach me there when you have my statement printed up ready for signature.”
Rowan wished he had one of those in his office. He wiped his brow with a Kleenex from the box on the desk and looked at Ken. “You haven’t done too much talking, Mr. Warren. In fact, you haven’t uttered a single goddam word. How about—”
“Mr. Warren is acting as my personal security while this madman is loose,” said Bernardine. She was busy gathering gloves and hat. “You need no statement from me, since I entered my son’s bedroom after Nugent had already gone out the window, therefore you need no statement from Mr. Warren.” She gestured at Warren, said, “Come, Kenny,” and swept out of the office.
Ken waited for the cop to say something, and when Rowan didn’t, got to his feet, shambled bearlike toward the door, then stopped in front of Kearny, staring down at him. Dan nodded.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “You aren’t going to be put out to stud, not even for old DK and A.”
“Enhackly,” said Ken with force, and went out the door.
There was a poignant moment of silence after he was gone, then Rowan said, “I didn’t quite get that.”
“He said, ‘Exactly.’”
Rowan nodded. “Speech impediment?”
“Best goddam carhawk in the business.”
“He’s got the build for it,” sighed Rowan. It was being a long morning. He looked at Paul. “I’d like a statement from you, but I guess you got other things on your mind, right?”
“I was asleep,” said Paul in a startlingly normal voice. “I didn’t see anything except that ax or whatever it was coming down at me. I was so scared I wet myself. After that I just kept my eyes shut and kept peeing until Inga quit screaming.”
Rowan nodded, said brightly, “Then I guess that just about covers it, doesn’t it?” He gestured at the door. “Why don’t you wait out in the squad room, Mr. Rochemont, while I have a word with Mr. Kearny?”
“Boss,” said Paul, and departed.
Rowan and Kearny stared at one another across the chief’s desk. Kearny clapped a few times, softly, in acknowledgment of the chief’s forbearance. Rowan chuckled, shook his head. “What the hell ever happened to good old police brutality?”
“I can remember when the Yankees used to win the pennant all the time, too.”
Rowan gestured at the door. “I think young Master Paul maybe needs his brakes relined.”
“What he’s got in his head is worth half a billion bucks to somebody,” said Kearny.
“Maybe that’s my point.” Rowan bit the end off a cigar, held it up with raised eyebrows. Kearny shook his head. Rowan lit up. “Against the law in public buildings these days,” he said as he turned the cigar to get it burning properly, and puffed out fragrant clouds of smoke. “I take certain liberties.” He leaned back in his chair and waved a hand. “As one professional to another, why don’t you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Kearny lit up, and, as one professional to another, told Rowan what sounded like the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if Rowan believed that, Kearny had this wonderful building site a few miles west of the Golden Gate...
Chapter Thirteen
Trucker’s Best Eats had chrome and vinyl stools at a counter that went down to the left and around a corner. Plenty of six-person booths and at least a dozen tables. O’B found a seat halfway down the counter, where he could see the rest of the room. The place was still half-full with tourists and truckers just passing through, and locals dawdling over that last cup of coffee before getting back to work.
Nordstrom was in the furthest booth, the one closest to the hallway to the rest rooms and the side door; he could see his truck-trailer rig by just looking out his window. He wasn’t looking, instead was tucking into a platter of hot, steaming biscuits, a chicken-fried steak big as a manhole cover, and a mound of mashed potatoes the size of a small van drowned in a lake of thick pale gravy. Truck drivers’ health food.
O’B thought he could maybe manage black coffee and a glass of tepid water to wash down his aspirin.
Hovering near Nordstrom was a straw-blond waitress barely out of her teens — in fact, she was standing across from him with one knee on the red vinyl seat, laughing at something he was rumbling at her. The breasts beneath her trim waitress uniform were too heavy for her narrow hips and thin thighs.
She had a long pretty horse face and a wide mouth full of very white teeth and very pink bubble gum. Bazooka, probably; did they still have the god-awful little comic strip wrapped around the pink gum dusty with confectioners’ sugar? Periodically she stopped laughing to blow a bubble, snap it with her teeth, chomp it back into her mouth.
“What’ll it be, Red?”
O’B turned to the wide, grinning waitress who was pouring hot coffee into his cup from the other side of the counter. Her hair, piled up on top of her head with a little starched waitress cap perched atop it, was the flame-red color O’B’s had been before he’d started going gray.