“What did he look like, aside from his underwear?” Rosario said.
“Hispanic, twenty-two, five-ten, 220. Big tattoo of the Virgin on his chest. Gang tat on his neck. Girl’s name. Esmeralda.”
“Not every young Latino with a neck tattoo is a gangster, Mr. Logan.”
“Agreed, but this guy was definitely playing the part. He wasn’t real keen on me being here, either.”
“You talked to him?” Lawless asked.
“Tried. He wasn’t too chatty. Made a few choice observations about my ancestry, I think.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Could be he thought I was one of you guys.”
Rosario smiled. “We seem to have that effect on a lot of people.”
She asked for my cell phone number, thanked me for my cooperation, gave me her card, and told me to keep in touch.
“If you do happen to come up with anything else while you’re looking into this Dorian Munz guy,” Rosario said, “I’d appreciate the assist. We can use all the help we can get these days. Department keeps cutting back on our overtime. Never know. Might be a tie-in somewhere.”
“I’ll keep you posted.”
She shook my hand and told Lawless she was going off to canvass the neighborhood for possible witnesses. Lawless said he’d join her in a minute. He waited until Rosario walked off, then turned back to me and peered at me with one eyebrow cocked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Logan,” he said, “but I got a bad feeling about you.”
I smiled and said, “Take a number.”
Six
If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear that there was some kind of cosmic force field buffering La Jolla and the people who live there from the blight and turmoil afflicting many of San Diego’s other, lesser neighborhoods.
La Jollans are inordinately tan and fit. They spend their days seemingly unfettered by the economic constraints that bind the rest of us to our workaday worlds. They play golf and tennis and squash when they’re not out sailing, and would never, ever, even think to uncork a Chardonnay that scored anything less than a 90 from Wine Spectator. They eat organic. They wear Tom Ford and Jimmy Choo. Rarely do they hack each other to death.
At first blush, a plainspoken son of the South like Hub Walker would have seemed the unlikeliest resident of La Jolla, among the swankiest enclaves on the Left Coast. But as I rapped the antique brass knocker bolted to the towering front door of his 4,000-square foot Spanish-style hacienda on Hillside Drive, taking in its moonlit tropical landscaping and bazillion-dollar ocean view, it was easy to fathom how he, or anyone, for that matter, would’ve wanted to live there. The place was paradise.
“Where’d you come in?” Walker asked, gripping my hand.
“Montgomery Airport.”
“Figured you would. Montgomery’s where I keep my airplane.”
He insisted on commandeering my duffel bag and ushered me inside. The living room was bathed in the golden hue of antique wall sconces and original Tiffany lamps. Oil paintings from impressionists I would’ve been impressed by had I known the first thing about fine art hung in gilded frames on coved, whitewashed walls. The furnishings were Mission style. Elegant didn’t come close to describing the place.
“Nice crib.”
“Crissy has an eye for all this. Loves going first class. I guess when you grow up dirt poor like she did, all this stuff takes on added significance.”
His wife, Walker said, was on her way home from the gym and a Humane Society board meeting.
“How ’bout a beer — oh, that’s right, you don’t drink. What about some chow? You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Let’s get you fixed up.”
He led me into a kitchen nearly as big as my apartment. The fixtures were top of the line, stainless steel, industrial strength. A frail-looking girl of about ten wearing thick black-frame glasses and a Beauty and the Beast nightgown was perched on a stool at the granite-topped breakfast bar, absorbed in a laptop computer. She had curly blonde hair and a complexion so pallid as to be almost translucent.
“Ryder, can you say hello to Mr. Logan? He’ll be staying with us for a few days.”
She peered intently at the computer screen, acknowledging my presence not at all.
“My granddaughter, Ruthie’s little girl,” Walker explained, lowering his voice. “We assumed guardianship after her mama…”
I pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes. He shook his head and walked to the refrigerator.
The computer made noises like farm animals.
“What’re you playing, Ryder?”
Ryder said nothing, tapping computer keys. The blue veins under the pale skin of her temples looked like freeways on a road map.
“Mr. Logan asked you a question, Ryder.”
“A game.”
“What kind of game?” I asked.
“A game.”
“Ryder, how ’bout you go up and play in your room awhile, so Grampa and Mr. Logan can talk a spell, OK?”
She hopped down from the stool, grabbed the computer, and walked past me toward the stairs.
“Nice meeting you, Ryder.”
No response.
Walker waited until his granddaughter left the room. “She never says hardly a word to anybody. They diagnosed her borderline autistic when she was three. All kinds of health issues. Poor kid. Seems like all we do is take her from one doctor to the next.”
“Kids outgrow a lot of things.”
“I surely hope so.” Walker gazed at the floor, then brightened. “Anyway, what can I get you to drink?”
“Water’s good.”
“Water it is.”
He dispensed ice cubes and chilled water from the refrigerator.
“Larry got your airplane working OK?”
“Better than new,” Walker said, handing me the glass. “Home in time for lunch. He’s a good mechanic.”
“Snappy dresser, too.”
I parked myself on a stool at the breakfast bar and watched Walker dig turkey cold cuts from a Tupperware container. He laid them on a stoneware plate between two slices of fresh sourdough.
“Mayo?”
“Mustard if you’ve got it.”
“A mustard man,” Walker said approvingly. He fetched a small ceramic crock from a cupboard, uncorked it, and meticulously painted each square centimeter of bread with a butter knife. “Bought this stuff at the duty-free last time I was in Paris. It’s the horseradish. Knock your socks off.”
I told him I’d gone to see Munz’s lawyer, Charles Dowd.
“He do you any good?”
“He told me to read the file in court if I wanted any information on the case. Then his investigator told me to back off — I’m pretty sure it was his investigator, anyway. He accused me of stirring up trouble.”
Walker set the sandwich in front of me.
“Thanks.”
“I’m surprised Dowd reacted that way. He told me outside the courtroom one day how sorry he was for my loss, that he was only doing his job. Said he was angry he ever agreed to represent Dorian Munz in the first place, but that Munz’s parents paid him to do it.”
“Nobody likes a loser.”
“You got that right.”
I took a bite of the sandwich while Walker went to wipe down the counter with a sponge.
“I also went to see Janet Bollinger,” I said.
“How’s Janet doing?”
“Not too well. She was stabbed this afternoon. She may not make it.”
Walker paused from his labors and looked back at me.
“Janet Bollinger was stabbed?”
I nodded and kept eating.
“Where was this?”
“In her apartment.”
Walker turned away once more and stared down at his hands, spread flat on the counter. “Who would do such a thing?”