“Do you know Randall Ramsdale?” Mike asked.
“Not well. He’s something of a neighborhood character. More money than brains.” He tapped the card and smiled. “But obviously fine taste. I haven’t seen him around for a while. Maybe a couple of months. He was supposed to have gone off to Europe with a waitress from the bar across the street. Something must have happened, though, because she was in here shortly after he bought the ring, trying to sell it back to me.”
“You wouldn’t know her name, would you?” Mike asked. “Oh, sure. Lacy. I see her all the time. She still works over there.”
I asked, “Was the diamond an engagement ring?”
“Maybe a premature one. Randy already has a wife.”
“What about Hillary?” I asked. “What can you tell us about her?”
He frowned as he thought about it. “To be honest, I can’t answer that with any certainty. The Shore is a fairly close-knit community. A lot of kids hang out on Second Street. I don’t have the sort of store they cruise through, but after a while you come to recognize faces. You see the same ones in the ice cream stores, or looking around in The Gap, renting tapes at the Wherehouse. I might recognize Hillary Ramsdale as a familiar face, but I’m sure I couldn’t point out a girl on the street and say that’s her, that’s Hillary.”
Mike took out the Polaroid of Pisces that had been made in the morgue. I stayed his hand before he could turn it over. It didn’t seem right to me that this nice man should be exposed to her dead face. Not that the picture was especially grim: she had been hosed down, and her hair combed back from her face. The slash across her neck looked like no more than a thin black cord. I guess I thought that showing her face in death was an invasion of both her privacy and his peace.
“I can make a better still from the videotape,” I said. “Can’t it wait?”
Mike looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
I said, “Lyle sent the tape. It should be delivered first thing tomorrow. As soon as it comes, I’ll take it over to Guido’s and get some nice full-face prints made.”
“I don’t get you, Maggie,” Mike said. “We’re here now.”
“Please,” I said, looking up into his eyes. That was taking cruel advantage. Every time I looked up into Mike’s eyes his jaw sort of went slack and his cheeks took on a glow.
“I don’t mind taking a look,” Dennis said. In fact, he seemed eager. I backed off and Mike showed him the picture.
Dennis studied the pale, scrubbed face, then shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe with her hair done…”
“We’ll bring you a better picture later,” Mike said, sounding a bit grumpy. And sarcastic. “A nice still made before she got all mussed.”
I patted his arm.
“What about Mrs. Ramsdale?” I asked Dennis. “Hillary’s mother, that is.”
Dennis shook his head. “Again, I’ve seen her around. The Ramsdales are part of the yacht-club set. You might ask over there.”
“Do you know the Metrano family?” Mike asked.
He thought that one over, too.
“Amy Elizabeth Metrano,” I said.
“Ahh.” He nodded. “I haven’t heard that name for a long time. And the answer to your question is no. That I would have remembered.”
“Thanks for your help.” Mike extended his hand to the jeweler. “We may be back.”
“Anytime.” Dennis smiled at me. “Next time, come during business hours so I can show you my work. I’m especially proud of my rings.”
“Bye,” I said. I wouldn’t even look at Mike. I have a good nose for danger zones, and we were fast approaching one. Things had been going so well between us. Why mess it up with the old argument? I walked straight to the door and waited for it to be unlocked.
When we were back outside, Mike caught my arm and turned me to face him. “He mentions rings, you get all panicked. You have a phobia maybe? Ringaphobia? How about bellsaphobia?”
“How about shut up?” I said.
“I like this.” He grinned. “It’s like finding a new tickle spot.”
I glared at him. “Are we going to try to talk to this Lacy person now?”
“Yeah. You going to let me show her the picture?”
“Of course. I’m sorry about that, Mike. What can I say?”
“Forget it.”
We elbowed through the crowd on the sidewalk around the sports bar and made our way inside. The bar was dark, noisy, and full of cigarette smoke. A baseball-game replay ran on several large screens, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to it. The clientele was a mix of singles on the make, heavy-duty drinkers, casually dressed couples out for the evening.
“Need a bullhorn to talk to anyone in here,” Mike yelled in my direction. He signaled to a passing waitress, a young, buff blond dressed like a basketball referee.
“What can I get you?” she asked. She had to shout.
Mike showed her his police ID. “Is Lacy working tonight?”
“No, sorry. She called in sick.”
“Know where I can find her?”
“The boss does. Is she in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
Mike pulled out the morgue Polaroid and handed it to her. She held it up to the light reflecting from the closest TV screen and looked at.
She looked up at Mike. “It’s Hilly. Is she back? My God, she looks sick.”
“Back from where?” he asked.
“Somewhere in Europe, I think. Ask Lacy.”
Mike put the picture back into his pocket. “Hilly is Hillary Ramsdale?”
“Yes.” The big smile was gone. “Is Hilly okay? God, she’s such a sweet kid.”
“Where’s the boss?” Mike asked.
She pointed toward the back of the bar.
Mike put his lips close to my ear. “Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
The waitress stayed with me.
“Where is Hilly?” she asked.
“How well do you know her?” I asked.
“Just through Lacy. Hilly used to drop in sometimes when she needed someone to talk to.”
“You’re close to Lacy?”
She raised a shoulder. “We work together, that’s all. She doesn’t party much.”
“I thought she partied with Randy Ramsdale.”
“I don’t know what was going on with those two. My guess is Lacy likes Hilly a whole lot more than her father. He can be a real dweeb. And he’s old. Forty at least.” She had to be at least twenty-one to serve beer. If I had been a cocktail waitress, I would have carded her. She asked, “Is he back, too?”
“I don’t know. No one answers the phone.”
“Well, if you see Hilly, say hi for me.” She was ready to go back to work. “Tell her to drop in.”
I put my hand on her arm. “Hillary died two days ago.”
“Died?” she gasped. I saw tears in her eyes before she lowered her head and ran off into the crowd.
The smoke and the happy din had become oppressive. I went out into the cool night to wait for Mike. I was standing beside his car, watching for red Corvettes, when he came out five minutes later.
“Did you call Lacy?” I asked.
“No one’s home.” He unlocked the car door for me. “No one seems to know where Ramsdale is, either. I called his ex-wife again and got the machine. I’ll do some checking around, come back later.” He nudged my shoulder. “When I have more socially acceptable photographs, right?”
“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.
“Too late to do anything more tonight. How about we go home?”
I didn’t argue. I sank into the car seat wearily, yawned when he yawned a few times.
Traffic headed north on the San Diego Freeway was heavy and slow, an endless river of taillights in front of us, headlights behind. Mike had a condo in Sherman Oaks, a relic from his second marriage. The decor was a little heavy on black lacquer and gray leather for my taste, but it was nice. I only wished it weren’t so far away. I was having trouble staying awake.
“You’d make a pretty good cop,” Mike said, startling me from a stupor. “Good police do more listening than talking.”