I drove the clunker rental Toyota downtown and parked in a twelve-dollar all-day lot in the Civic Center. I didn’t have all day, and I didn’t have twelve dollars in my pocket, either. As it was, I walked down to a little deli in the Civic Center Mall under City Hall and spent my last five on a chicken salad sandwich and a diet soda. The sandwich man threw in an extra kosher dill and a couple of cookies because I smiled at him. That’s what he told me, anyway.
I carried the food in a brown bag across the street to the police administration building, Parker Center, and asked the desk officer, Rayetta Washington, to please page Detective Michael Flint, Sr., Robbery-Homicide Division, Major Crimes Section, third floor, last office on the right, second desk inside the door. And to tell him that his snitch was downstairs with new information. I gave Officer Washington a smile, too, because she looked as if she needed one. She was at least nine months pregnant under her midnight-blue maternity uniform.
Officer Washington and I were discussing hee-breathing when Mike came down to the desk. He hadn’t had much sleep, and it showed in the chiseling under his cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes.
“Maggie?” he said, surprised, pleased, and cranky all at once. “What are you doing here?”
I held up the sandwich bag. “You forgot your lunch this morning, honey, and I was afraid you’d go hungry.” I turned to Officer Washington. “You know how men get when they miss a meal. Too hard to live with.”
“That’s it?” he said. “You brought me lunch?”
I kissed his face. “And you forgot to pay me last night, buster. One deluxe blow job, that’s twenty you owe me. I need it now, because I don’t have enough money for the parking lot.”
Expression dark, he took the bag and cautiously looked inside. “It’s a sandwich.”
“What did I tell you?”
“I’m waiting to hear the rest of it.”
“What? You think I have ulterior motives?”
“Or you’re drunk.”
“Okay. I want to hear the tape of your conversation with Elizabeth.”
He sighed.
“Please.”
Officer Washington had been leaning on the counter with her chin in her hand, listening to all this. “I think you better let her, detective. You say no, I don’t want to be held responsible for what she might do.”
“Thank you, Officer,” I said. “I hope you have a lovely baby.”
Mike sighed again. “What kind of sandwich?”
“Chicken salad.”
“Washington,” he said, “do you like chicken salad?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
He put the bag on the counter in front of her and took me by the elbow. “Upstairs. I’ll set you up in an interrogation room.”
“Bon appetit,” I said to Officer Washington.
“Later, honey,” she said, grinning. As Mike and I approached the elevator, I heard her laugh out loud.
We had the elevator to ourselves. I did what I always do when I have Mike captive in an elevator: I grabbed him and kissed the breath right out of him. He cooperated without getting creative about it.
“Hi, baby,” I said when I released him.
“Jesus, Maggie.” He was trying without much success to stay cranky.
I straightened his tie. “You never told me you took Sly shopping.”
He waved it off. “Not a big one.”
“To Sly it was. You have unplumbed depths, Mike Flint. Every discovery I make about you, I like you more.”
“Oh yeah?”
The elevator doors opened on the third floor and I walked out ahead of him. As he fell in step beside me, I said, “The canyons are nice, but I could live at the beach, too.”
“Is this by way of a proposal?” he asked, nudging me.
“Just polite conversation. You didn’t seem very happy to see me downstairs. What’s going on?”
“Had a worry-making phone call this morning. From Long Beach PD. You know we’re cooperating on the Ramsdale case. So, they tell me the Ramsdale house was broken into last night. Neighbors didn’t hear the break-in, but there was a disturbance in the alley that got reported. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“It was so late when you got home last night, Mike. I was going to tell you all about it, but, well, you were in the mood for something other than talk.”
“Sure, blame me. I saw the pictures on the kitchen table this morning. Is that where you got them? Did you break in?”
“Me?” I learned to act watching silent movies.
“You’d better go through it for me.” He showed me into a barren little interrogation room furnished with a scarred wooden table and four oak chairs. He looked grim. Weary and grim. “Take a seat. Take a deep breath. And get to it.”
“Well.” In the light of day, my escapade the night before seemed pretty lame. I did not want to go over it. But I did what Mike said. I pulled out one of the hard chairs and sat down. I smiled up at him. Mike, standing, hip propped against the table, hand resting on his pistol, did not smile back. Seems I had spent all of my magic at the deli.
“After you left last night,” I began, “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a drive.”
“Never mind the embroidery work. Give me the bare bones.”
I squared my shoulders. “Is this conversation being taped?”
“Yes.”
I gulped, and began again. “I broke a window in the Ramsdale house, went inside, took Hillary’s photo album and her yearbook. Nothing else. George Metrano was waiting outside for me. He grabbed me. I got away by diving into the canal. I encountered him a second time in the alley behind the Ramsdale house. He broke my car window with Detective Flint’s Kel-Lite. I drove, then, to the Metrano house to show Leslie Metrano the photographs I had stolen. She identified Hillary Ramsdale as her missing daughter, Amy. I went home, and for the third time yesterday, made passionate love to Detective Mike Flint, badge number one-five-nine-nine-one. That’s as bare as I can make it.”
“Are you leaving out anything I should know?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Except, for the record, considering that he’s a white-haired old guy, Flint’s pretty amazing.”
“This is serious, Maggie.”
“I am serious.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“A couple of bumps and scrapes. That’s all.”
“You’re sure?”
I smiled. “You saw all there was of me to see, Mike.”
He was controlled, but furious. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it last night?”
I slumped down in the chair, the hard back snagging my bra hooks. I was just as tired as he was, and muscle-sore on top of it. I had kept myself busy all morning because every time I gave myself some free space for thinking, the possibilities of what George Metrano had in mind for me took root. I pulled the long sleeve of my shirt down over my skinned knuckles and swallowed back delayed panic, letting it wait a little longer.
“The truth?” I said. “I didn’t say anything because I was scared shitless. When you came home, all I wanted was for you to hold me and make it all go away. I didn’t want to get into a big hassle.”
“Jesus, Maggie.”
I interrupted the lecture mode before he got it booted. “I think George had been waiting there for a long time – long enough to know there was no stakeout. He didn’t break in. He didn’t assault me until he saw I wasn’t the person he was waiting for.”
“Who was he waiting for?”
“There’s only one person left from that household to have a conversation with. And that’s Elizabeth. I’m thinking he must have been lying in wait for her for a long time, because almost every time I have gone near that house, I have run across George in some way. I want to hear what the woman said to you.”
Mike straightened up, tucked in his starched shirt. “I’ll go get the tape if you promise to sit right here and stay out of trouble for the entire minute I will be gone.”