"It's still nice to take one out." I gave the coffeepot a useless whack to speed it up.
"You an idealist," he said. "Me, I'm a realist. You know the difference between an idealist and a realist?"
"No," I said, "but I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"The idealist is holdin' the gun. The realist is on the other end."
"And where'd you pick up this bit of knowledge?"
"Nice little island name of Grenada. I was a member of the victorious invadin' force. We fought them on the beaches, we fought them in the streets."
"One of my favorite wars."
"Like the man say, democracy in action. 'Nother exercise in poli sci."
"So you went to college, went into the forces, and then put all that background to work picking up dead animals."
"Markin' time."
The phone rang. I went to pick it up, and Dexter went over to study the coffeemaker.
"It's Hammond," Hammond said.
"Damn," Dexter said to the coffeemaker, which still hadn't dripped a drop. "Come on, now."
"You were right about the Oldfield house," Hammond said. "They were pros. They even ripped the paper off the back of the mirror in the bedroom."
"Did they wipe the place?"
"Looks like it. Lots of smears around, hardly one good print, not even many of hers. Also, they left money. There was about three hundred in a flour canister. Canister was open but the money was still there."
"Be drippin'," Dexter said, rattling the pot and peering into it. "Move your ass."
"What did they take?"
"Well, that's hard to say," Hammond said with exaggerated politeness. "Because it wouldn't be there, would it? I mean, after they took it, we wouldn't find it, so we wouldn't know if they'd taken it, would we?"
"I knew there was a reason I hadn't joined the force," I said. "The difficulties you overcome in the line of duty. Was there a personal phone book?"
"No."
"Don't most women have a personal phone book?"
There was a silence. "Are you going to let me tell this my way, or are we going to play Twenty Questions?"
"Sorry," I said. "Just trying to gain insight into the police mentality."
"Police?" Dexter said. "Get a man out here to arrest this coffeepot. It gone on strike."
"Someone's there?" Hammond said.
"A man from the county," I said. "Animal Homicide."
"Ask a stupid question," Hammond said. "No phone book, no checkbook, no letters, no fingerprints. Not many photographs. They wanted to know who she'd been talking to, who she'd been writing to, who she really was."
"Who was she?"
"Sarah Theresa Oldfield. Married, divorced. Husband in Utica. That's in New York. No kids. In L.A. three years."
"Utica?"
"That's what it says. Sounds like something that hangs in the back of your throat. Booming little town. Saturday night, you ask your date if she'd like to go down to the beer factory and watch the gauges rise."
"How long in the Church?"
"That's coming. Ought to know this afternoon."
"You're not talking to the Church."
"Please," Hammond said. "We're going to check her bank records."
"I got a idea," Dexter said. He yanked the empty pot out from under the spout.
"You'll make a mess," I said warningly.
"Somethin' this contrary, a mess is what she want."
"Jesus," Hammond said, "it's nice to have your attention."
"Here she come," Dexter said with nicely modulated triumph. A stream of brown coffee splattered on the hot plate. Dexter slipped the pot back under the filter.
"I never thought of that," I said admiringly.
"There is much in heaven and earth, Horatio," Dexter said, "that is not in your philosphy."
"Maybe you'd like me to call back to tell you about Wilburforce," Hammond said. "Or maybe you'd like to call me when Animal Homicide has gone to that big kennel in the sky."
"Sorry. What about Wilburforce?"
"A real shtarker. An old-time con man named Jason Jenks, aka Jinks Jenks. Actually, I sort of remember Jinks. He was jugged about fifteen years ago for practicing medicine without a license."
"What's so memorable about that?"
"He was doing surgery."
"Ah."
"Pretty well, too. He cut them open and sewed them up again. Sometimes he even got what he was after. Apparently he had some medical school in a previous life. After that he was arrested for running a weight-loss clinic, pretending to be the doctor in charge. They put people on a diet and then fed them all sorts of bright little pills and injected them with water and B-12 every couple of days. Also, apparently, a little cat piss."
"Wilburforce running a weight-loss clinic?" I asked. "He's bigger than Luciano Pavarotti."
"He was svelte in those days," Hammond said. "Weighed a chic two-oh-five when he was booked. Called himself Dr. Pounzoff, with a Russian spelling. Place was called the Pounzoff Clinic. Cute, no? The fat lady is his wife, Clara. She was pretending to be a nurse then."
Dexter poured a cup of coffee and waved it questioningly at me. I nodded, and he went to the counter and got my cup.
"Why was he arrested?" I asked. "L.A. has more phony weight clinics than fire hydrants."
"Couple of customers got hepatitis and complained. This is in the early seventies, before AIDS. Even then, we dumb cops knew that meant that someone wasn't being really scrupulous about sterilizing needles. And then, of course, there was his surgery conviction. We couldn't have him getting delusions of grandeur and cutting honest citizens open again. Think how the doctors at Cedars would have felt."
"Since then?"
"After the Pounzoff dodge he dropped out of sight. Went somewhere and gained weight. Then he surfaced in the Church of the Eternal Moment."
"And you guys left him alone?"
Dexter handed me my cup. The coffee wasn't as good as Roxanne's, but it was better than nothing.
"Freedom of religion, remember?" Hammond said. "Anyway, he didn't seem to be bothering anybody."
"He was passing himself off as the little girl's personal physician."
"Well, we didn't know that. Unless somebody gets killed, we leave the religions alone."
"Somebody got killed," I said.
"Yeah, and you went all cute about it, didn't you? Our buddy Jenks was long gone by then anyhow. Set up his own shop, didn't he?"
I slurped my coffee. Dexter crossed his legs and examined the crease in his pants.
"So tell me about this year's Jenks. Dr. Richard Merryman."
"Nothing."
"By which you mean?"
"Nothing at all. Nothing illegal, nothing legal. He's a whaddya-call-it, a blank slate."
"Tabula rasa."
"You took the word out of my mouth. Or words, maybe. Not even a parking ticket. The lad is cleaner than a nun's conscience."
"Licensed for California?"
"Not so far as we can tell. He could have been licensed in the past six months or so. Sometimes they're a little slow up there in Sacramento."
"Can you get them to hurry?"
"Not without telling them why I'm interested. You want I should do that?"
"I'd rather you got leprosy."
"Wo," Dexter said. "That's cold."
"I agree with the man from Animal Homicide," Hammond said. "Anything happening on your end?"
"A dead cat," I said. "I'll call you when there's something more interesting."
"You'd better," Hammond said, meaning it. "Listen, one more thing about Sally Oldfield-you probably should know it although we're keeping it out of the papers."
"What's that?" I didn't like the edge in Hammond's voice.
"She was hurt."
I chewed the inside of my lip and remembered Sally's face, Sally's smile. "Hurt like how?"
"The man left with four of her fingernails in his pocket."