I was gratified that I could provide entertainment for so many. Regina and Martha watched all the activity from lounge chairs up on the Ramsdales’ terrace, baby-sitting the bottle of bourbon they had started at Martha’s house.
“So, I say it again,” Mike said. “I’m glad you weren’t in this thing when it went down.”
“Never happen.” I raised the Nikon 35mm I had dragged along and snapped a few frames of Mike holding up the ruins of the raft like a fisherman’s trophy. I needed the camera in front of my face so he couldn’t see the sweat on my brow.
“I look at this as the work of a coward,” I said. “If Regina and I had been out here, he wouldn’t have dared to shred the Zodiak.”
“Uh huh.” Mike dropped the flap of rubber. “Think about this: little Hillary got it with a razor in broad daylight, in a public place. Just like the raft.”
I had been thinking about little else for several hours. But, ever macho, I flexed my puny biceps for him. “Two competent women are hardly the same as a ninety-pound girl or a seagoing balloon.”
“You think you could scare him away?”
“Absolutely.”
Before I saw him coming, Mike somehow bumped his hip against me, grabbed me around the middle, and flipped me off my feet. If he had let go of me, I would have landed in the water. When my eyes stopped rattling, I was looking straight down at the lifeguard divers swimming around the dock pilings.
“Excuse me,” Mike said, setting me back upright. “What were you saying?”
“I don’t remember.” I gasped for air. “Was it ‘Fuck you’?”
He laughed. “The things that come out of your mouth.”
The camera, dangling from its strap, had banged into my shoulder when he flipped me. It hurt. While I didn’t want Mike to see me scared, I didn’t mind letting him know I was pissed. “Don’t do that again, Michael Flint.”
“Why? Because it shows you’re not so tough? You’ve been having a lot of fun, poking around, asking questions. But don’t forget for one little minute that someone is playing for keeps.”
“I am not poking around.”
“Call it what you like.” Mike kicked at the ruins. “Our friend is as cocky as he is nasty. You just stay the fuck away from him.”
“The things that come out of your mouth, Mike Flint.”
He glanced up, somewhere between sheepish and peevish. “I meant what I said.”
One of the divers bobbed up to toss another find onto the pile of deflated raft, bits of boats, and other interesting detritus he and his partner had recovered from the bottom of the canal.
“Found the outboard yet?” Mike asked him.
The diver cleared his mouthpiece. “Yeah. It’s down there, all right, but it’s fouled in a lot of crap. We’re going to set up a block and tackle, bring it up here in a few minutes.”
The second diver surfaced. He tossed a black wing-tip shoe, maybe a size twelve or thirteen, onto the heap.
“What’s the matter with these people, they don’t trust the city to haul away their trash?” he huffed. “Throw their shit into the canal. Must be a dozen bags of it down there.”
Mike picked up the wing tip by its shoestring. “You’re going to bring it all up, aren’t you?”
“If you want it.” The diver positioned his mask and pushed himself off the dock. His wrist light snaked down through the murky water like a dragon in a Chinese New Year parade.
I looked from the shoe to Mike’s foot. Mike is a slender six-two. The shoe he held would have been much too big for him. I called out to Martha, “Any idea how tall Randy Ramsdale is?”
“He’s tall.” She started for the dock. “Taller than your friend. And much stouter. What did they find?”
“A shoe.”
“A nice one?” she asked. “Randy likes nice things. Everything perfect.”
“It looks bankerish.” I leaned over for a closer look. “Mike, how long do you think it was in the water?”
He shrugged. “Bodies in water I know. Shoes I don’t. It’s in pretty good shape, though.”
“Regina and Cynthia said that Elizabeth Ramsdale tossed Randy’s things into the canal the night she tossed him out.”
“Sound like nice people.”
Martha made slow progress off the terrace, talking as she came. “Rather vain about his appearance, I always thought.”
A big, good-looking cop with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve overtook Martha just as she stepped into the bright circle made by the floodlights. The officer’s nameplate read Mahakian.
“You Flint?” he asked Mike.
“I am.” Mike set down the shoe and brushed his hands on his pants. “What’s up?”
“Where’s your witness?”
Mike nudged me forward. “Miz Maggie MacGowen here.” Mahakian seemed doubtful.
“Actually,” I said, “I didn’t see anything. I think I’m a victim, not a witness.”
Mahakian frowned some more. “No one answers at the house. We thought, after what Flint here told our detectives, that maybe we ought to go in, have a look around. But the judge is sticking about signing a warrant. He says anybody could have cut the raft, kids maybe. We have to show him some connection between the house and the raft, or some tie-in to your other case, or he’ll pass. If you can tell me you saw someone inside, and they’re not responding to the police, maybe I can talk the judge into a barricaded suspect.”
“All I saw was a curtain move,” I said. “Before Mrs. Szal and I went into the neighbor’s house, I thought that all of the Ramsdales’ windows were closed. When we came out again, one upstairs window was open. It could have been open all the time and I didn’t notice. This is a big house and there are lots of windows.”
“So you didn’t actually see anybody?”
“Right.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. But I’d be happy to make up something if it would help. I’m dying to see inside that place.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. “You a decorator or something?”
“Not hardly. I met the girl who was murdered. I would very much like to see her room.”
“Murdered,” Mahakian parroted. “God, you’d think just saying that much would be enough for this old creep to sign for us. Goddam Jerry Brown appointee.”
“Did you tell him the dead girl lived here?” I asked.
“He needs proof of ID.” Mahakian turned to Mike. “Is that what LAPD is doing down here, establishing ID?”
“Mas o menos,” Mike said, waffling his hand. “Most of the time I’m just trying to keep MacGowen here out of trouble. It’s a tough job, and I couldn’t get anyone else to do it.”
Mike thought he was funny, but I turned away. That’s when I saw the stricken expression on Martha’s face. I had forgotten she was there, had forgotten what she didn’t know about Hillary. Feeling that I had misspoken, I went over and put an arm around her.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook me off. “I knew it was something bad. But, oh, why did it have to be Hillary?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, at a loss for anything better. Mahakian came between us. “You the neighbor?” he asked Martha.
“I am,” she said briskly, tossing off her shock.
“I understand that Mr. Ramsdale is out of town. When was the last time you saw or spoke to Mrs. Ramsdale?”
“As I told Maggie, not since the boat sailed. Perhaps a week ago.”
Mahakian nodded as if that meant something to him. Something he wasn’t thrilled to know.
“What?” I asked.
“I asked the judge how nobody could be home if all the cars are in the garage. He had some ideas. A boat wasn’t one of them.”
I looked at Mike. “All the cars?”
Mike had my arm. “You’d better show us, sergeant.”
I felt a hole open in the pit of my stomach, like just before you reach the top of a roller coaster and you haven’t seen yet how far down the other side goes. It’s the expectation that gets you, not the drop.
I gave Martha’s shoulder another squeeze and fell in beside Mike, hustling to keep up with Mahakian. We went along a dark and narrow side yard overgrown with ivy, through a tall wooden gate, and out into an alley that ran between rows of garages. The Ramsdale garage was as wide as the house, room enough for four cars and some storage.