"Mrs. Ratliff?"
"Yes."
"I'm from the Bureau of Abandoned Property."
I was glad the blonde across the street couldn't hear me.
"What the hell is that," Mrs. Ratliff said.
She was petite, with thick black hair and sharp features.
"State Treasurer's Office," I said. "We have some money for Mr. and Mrs. Buckman."
"Lucky them," the woman said. "You want to come in?"
"Thank you," I said.
I sometimes wished I wore a hat so when I went into a woman's house I could impress them by taking it off in a gentlemanly way. I settled for removing my sunglasses.
The front door opened immediately to her living room, which was done in Indian rugs and hand-hewn furniture that was too big for the room. There was a little gray stone fireplace with gas jets on the end wall. There was a pitcher of martinis on the glass-topped coffee table that took up too much of the room.
"I'm having a cocktail," she said. "Would you care to join me?"
It was 3:30.
"Sure," I said.
She went through an archway to the small dining room and came back with a martini glass in which there were two olives. She poured me a martini.
"Stirred, not shaken," she said.
I smiled. She picked up her glass and gestured toward me with it.
"Chink, chink," she said.
I touched her glass with mine and we each took a drink. The martini was dreadful. Not cold enough and far too much vermouth.
"So," Nancy Ratliff said. "What can I do for you?"
"Tell me about Steven and Mary Lou Buckman."
"Well, she was a bitch. Still is I'm sure."
"How so?" I said.
Nancy Ratliff took another drink. She didn't appear to know that the martini was dreadful. Or maybe she knew and didn't care.
"Well, for one thing she was fucking my husband."
"How nice for them," I said.
"Yeah, well, not so nice for me."
"How did Mr. Buckman feel about it?"
"He didn't say."
She drank again and stared into her glass. "Well, actually he did," she said. "He said we should get even with them."
"Tit for tat," I said just to be saying something, though in the context, the choice of words was unfortunate.
We were silent while she looked into her martini glass.
Finally she said, "Aren't you going to ask me if we did?"
"Only if you want to tell me, Mrs. Ratliff."
"Nancy," she said. "And yeah, I want to tell you."
I smiled happily. She didn't say anything. I waited. She poured herself some more bad martini from the pitcher where the melting ice would have diluted it by now. She took another sip and held her glass up and looked through it.
"I like how clear it looks," she said.
I nodded helpfully. Friendly guy from the Treasurer's office. Eager to please. Eager to listen.
"Yes, we got even," she said. "In goddamned spades."
"And how did Mr. Ratliff feel about that?" I said.
I had no idea where I was going. Except that Ratliff was a name I'd heard before.
"He left me and went chasing after her."
"And Mr. Buckman?"
"He went too."
"With his wife?" I said.
"I don't know. I guess so. Maybe they were all doing it. A traveling gangbang."
She looked at my glass.
"You're not drinking," she said.
"I'm savoring it slowly," I said. "What is your husband's first name?"
"Ex-husband. I divorced him. The bastard didn't even show up to contest the divorce. I took him for everything he had, except he didn't have anything."
She drank again.
"Movie producer," she snorted.
"Sure."
"And his first name?"
"Mark."
I felt very still for a moment inside and then I took a stab at something.
"You happen to know anyone named Dean Walker?" I said.
"'The cop? Yeah, used to live three houses up toward Montana. Moved away eight, nine years ago."
"He a friend of the Buckmans?"
"I guess, yeah, he'd be at parties sometimes. Him and his wife."
"You remember her name?"
"Judy, I think."
"He have anything to do with Mrs. Buckman?"
"Dean? I don't know. She'd have been willing. She was like a bitch in heat. But Dean seemed sort of straightforward. If he was fucking her, I don't know about it."
Each time she said fucking she said it with relish. As if she liked to say it, as if it were a counter-irritant. Like scratching an old itch. Forgive and forget didn't seem to work for her.
Chapter 26
SARA HUNTER LIVED in a faux Tudor three-unit condo in Westwood, a block below Wilshire. She was L.A. serious, which meant a loose-fitting, ankle-length flowered dress, some Native-American jewelry and dark leather sandals. Her blond hair was done in a single long braid that reached nearly to her waist. She wore no makeup and despite her best efforts, she was pretty good-looking.
When she opened the door she kept the chain bolt on. I gave her my card. I introduced myself. I explained what I wanted, and I smiled at her. None of it seemed to make her more welcoming.
"Why do you want to talk to me about Steve Buckman?" she said. "He's just somebody I knew at work."
"Well, that's why," I said. "I was hoping for some of your insights."
She liked insights.
"Why do you want that?" she said.
There was never a good way to say it. I'd learned over the years to just say it. Which I did.
"Steve's been murdered."
She looked at me as if I had commented on the dandiness of the weather.
"What?"
"We could talk out here on the porch," I said, "if you'd feel more secure."
She didn't speak for a moment, then she closed the door, unchained it, opened it again and stepped out. She was careful to pull the door shut behind her. The porch extended along the front of her condo to form a little veranda and we sat on some wicker chairs out there. Across the street a couple of Mexicans were trimming a hedge, and on the sidewalk below the veranda, a shapeless middle-aged woman with bright red hair was walking a small, ugly, possum-y looking dog on a retractable leash.
"Tell me about Steve," I said.
She leaned forward a little, resting her elbows on her thighs, and put her face into her hands.
I waited. She sat. Maybe overreaction was endemic. Or maybe she was a very dramatic person. Or maybe Steve was more than someone she knew at work.
After awhile I said, "How you doing?"
Without taking her face from her hands, she shook her head.
"Take your time," I said.
The lady walking her possum turned the corner at Wilshire and disappeared. One of the gardeners across the street was edging the grass now, with a noisy power trimmer.
"Did he suffer much?" Sara said finally.
"He was probably dead before he knew he'd been shot," I said.
I didn't know that, but I saw no reason not to say it.
"Did she do it?" Sara said.
She was still in her position of official mourning and as she talked she rocked a little, forward and back.
"She?" I said.
"Mary Lou. Did she kill him?"
"I don't know. You think?"
She raised her head.
"I think that she would do anything."
"Really?" I said.
"You wouldn't see it. You're a man."
"And you're a woman," I said.
"What?"
"Just trying to hold up my end of the conversation," I said.
"Well you wouldn't. She'd fool you. Blue eyes. Cute. Sweet. She'd show you her dimples and ask for your help and you'd be falling over yourself like some big puppy."
"Woof," I said.
"You can laugh at me if you want to," Sara said, a little pouty. "But it's true."
"Probably is." l said. "Why do you think she might have killed him?"
"Because she couldn't control him, though she never stopped trying. She resented authenticity. She was frightened of the untamed self."
The sky was cloudless. It was 75 and bright. I could smell olive trees.
"His?" I said.
"His, her own…" Sara made a you-know-what-Imean gesture and her voice trailed off.