“I don’t know. There just is.”
“There just is?” he said. “How do I write that in the report?”
“You write this, ‘Detective Michael Flint, serial number What’s your serial number?”
“One-five-nine-nine-one.”
“You can fill that in later,” I said. “You write, ‘Detective Michael Flint, after an exhaustive investigation, determined that Aleda Weston, located in the custody of United States Federal Marshals at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center, was a material witness in the shooting of Emily Duchamps.”
“Did we just make another detour into Oz? Aleda was in an airplane somewhere over the breadbasket when Emily was shot.”
“I bet you breakfast that if you check long-distance telephone records, you’ll find some nice long chats between Emily’s number and the general neighborhood of Aleda’s most recent digs.”
“Think so?”
“I just bet on it, didn’t I?”
“If you’re so damned smart, tell me what they were talking about.”
“The timing of this little reunion. Aleda and Emily were very close until Aleda went underground. I know they worked this all out together.”
He thought about it, frowning. “You can’t be thinking that Emily expected Aleda to come and pour the coffee. They had to know she would be in custody for a while.”
I took his arm. “Let’s just ask her, shall we?”
Still he hesitated. “Do you eat big breakfasts?”
“Huge,” I said. “This one will really cost you.”
“We’ll see.” He unlocked the car. “Vamanos.”
The car was cold when we got in. The windshield steamed up as soon as Flint turned on the heater. Flint smeared it around a little with his coat sleeve. I couldn’t see anything out of my side. He strained forward as he drove us up out of the garage, trying not to hit any concrete pillars. He was awfully quiet again. He had turned down his dispatch radio so that we heard only a female-voiced hum over the sound of the engine and of tires squealing on the slick driveway. I kicked off my shoes and put my damp feet against the heater vents and tried to sort things out.
I had planned to stop by the hospital to see Emily. When I called Dr. Song before leaving Max’s room, he told me my parents had arrived. My father, he said, was sedated and sleeping in the doctors’ lounge. The nurses had set up a cot in Em’s room for my mother. If, by some chance, Mother had managed to fall asleep, my arrival would awaken her. She had to be exhausted. I wanted to see her, but, as Dr. Song had warned me, we were in for a long haul. Mom and Dad needed their rest. I could wait until morning. I prayed Emily held on that long.
The Metropolitan Detention Center sits next to the Holly-wood Freeway, a cruel, transient view for the prisoners locked inside.
Flint parked in what he called city parking-a red zone in front of the building. He hung the microphone of his police radio over his rearview mirror to fend off parking cops.
The streets were deserted-downtown L.A. dies when the commuters go home for the night. Other than a few dark shapes sleeping in protected recesses around the entrance, there was no one around. Not even a news van in sight.
The detention center building is new. It looks more like a postmodern hotel than a prison. At least on the outside. The reception area beyond the front door is hard and polished and austere beyond any need.
There were two federal corrections officers manning the front desk. Flint handed his police photo ID to the older officer, a thin, balding man in his mid-thirties.
“Detective Flint,” he said. “LAPD. Major Crimes Section.”
“Officer Clark. Guest registration,” the officer said, handing back Flint’s ID. “I can recommend the accommodations, sir, but we don’t offer room service.”
Flint laughed politely. “Quiet night, huh?”
“Up here it is,” Clark said. By now they were both leaning companionably on the desk. I might as well have been invisible. “New guest has things hopping in the booking area.”
“Would that be Aleda Weston?”
Clark nodded. “Our star boarder.”
“Is she processed in?”
“They’re still at it. You want to talk to her, you’ll have to wait.
“Who’s the assigned federal attorney?”
“Ricardo Valenti.”
“Richie Valenti?” Flint raised his brows. “Is he in the building?”
“Believe he is. You know Richie?”
“Hell yes.” Flint grinned. “We been tangling for a long time.” Clark grinned his own grin and leaned closer to Flint, expectant. “Yeah?”
“He ever tell you about Senora Magdalena?”
“He never did.” Clark turned to a second officer, an Opie-esque, freckle-faced redhead. “Hey, Ernie, Detective Flint here was on the Magdalena thing with Richie Valenti.”
“Yeah?” Ernie joined them. “How’d that go down?”
“Classic lawyer fuckup,” Flint said. “Can’t blame Richie, though. You ever see Senora Magdalena?”
“Nice, huh?”
“Beautiful. Little bitty thing. Couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. And tight all over. You know the type?”
Flint’s listeners, lifted from their nightwatch boredom, pressed closer, waiting for more. I stood back a little, an interloper, and watched Flint work. He was good, with subtle hand gestures and facial expressions that said more than his words. This was male bonding at its richest.
“Beautiful little thing,” Flint repeated. “And young. In this country we would have called her marriage statutory rape. How she hooked up with Senor Magdalena I can’t figure. Except he was rich. What was he, Colombian trade consul or something? Anyway, he was older than shit and just about as ugly. I think Richie got a look at him and started to feel sorry for the linda senora. Stupid ass, huh?”
“Typical lawyer,” Clark chuckled. “Dumb shit.”
Flint cast me a sidelong leer. “Guess we shouldn’t talk about a pending federal case in front of a potential witness, right?” The two listeners swiveled to look at me.
“Hell,” I said. “Don’t let me interrupt a good story.”
Turning from me, Flint gestured Clark and Ernie closer. “Help me out on a technicality here. Is it considered a conflict of interest if, when a federal case comes to trial, the prosecuting attorney and the chief defense witness are both still taking penicillin for something they picked up together in an interrogation room?”
They all laughed, a little too hard, I thought.
“So,” Flint said. “Is Richie still in the building?”
“I can call down. What’s your business?”
Flint nodded toward me. “Senora Magdalena’s sister wants to see him.”
“No shit?”
“Nah. Miz MacGowen is Aleda Weston’s half-sister. I was told to bring her over here to see the attorney in charge. Guess that’s Richie, huh?”
“Come on through,” Clark said. “Ernie’ll escort you back. Say hi to Richie for me.”
“I’ll do that,” Flint said.
Ernie was still chuckling as he opened a side door for us. Flint waited for me to go ahead of him.
“You’re a good liar,” I whispered as I walked past.
“Standard operating bullshit.”
“With you, it’s a gift.”
He laughed.
“I can’t wait to meet Richie Valenti,” I said.
Flint winked. “Neither can I.”
I stopped in my tracks and laughed. Guffawed may be a better description. Ernie seemed to think I was fairly strange. The way I looked, baggy sweats and spike heels, and Flint’s allusion to me during his Richie story, may have given him a certain impression. I didn’t give a damn: he was handing us visitor’s passes. Ernie clipped a plastic pass to Flint’s lapel, but stood at arm’s length to hand me mine.
“Through here, folks,” Ernie said, and led us into a back passageway. “Down at the end of the hall.”
I noticed the noise first, a stark contrast to the mausoleum-like quiet of the front lobby. A dozen or more people hustled about or sloped against the walls in various stages of boredom. The mob looked something like the crowd that was keeping vigil outside Emily’s hospital room: clusters of people in wilted business suits, a perimeter marked by half a dozen uniformed officers. Most of the activity centered around a gridded window, a cage, set in the wall at the end.