Embarrassing, with Sam Barrera there. I had to swallow a couple of times, press my hands against the bumpy texture of the kitchen wall behind me.
"Upstairs?"
Barrera nodded.
"Two days ago," I guessed. "Shot with a Beretta."
Barrera started, a bit uneasy at my guesswork.
"See?" I said. "You passed up a hell of a trainee."
"I'll live with it. Go look. I'll wait."
It was almost easier than staying there in the kitchen. At least upstairs, if I threw up, I wouldn't have Barrera looking at me.
My feet were heavy on the staircase.
I breathed as shallowly as I could but it didn't help. After only two days dead in a cool house, the smell shouldn't have been this cloying. Somehow, though, every time I smelled that smell it seemed worse than the time before.
Alex was facedown on a queensized bed in the same clothes he'd worn at the Indian Paintbrush. His left limbs were extended and his right limbs curled into his body, so it looked like he was rock climbing. The sheets were in a state of disarray that conformed to his posture, a clump of fabric gathered in his right hand. Fluids had crusted his face to the bedspread. There were flies.
I stood at the doorway for a long time before I could make my feet cooperate. I forced myself to go closer, look for entrance wounds. There were two-a clean round hole in the back of the beige windbreaker, maybe shot from ten feet away, the other in Blanceagle's temple with the edges of the flesh starred and splitting, very close range.
Hard to be sure without stripping him, checking for lividity, but I was pretty sure the body hadn't been moved. He'd walked into his bedroom, somebody behind him.
They'd shot him in the back. He fell forward onto the bed. They came up and finished it off. Simple.
The rest of the room looked fuzzy, like all the light was bending toward the corpse. I tried to focus on the bedstand, the dresser, to look without touching.
There was a shoe box on the bureau top, full of correspondence that looked carefully picked through. Drawers were open. A pair of rubber gloves was draped over the top one and the chair was pushed out as if someone had just gotten up from it. Sam Barrera's work, halffinished. Maybe it was possible that even Barrera got the creeps, alone in a dark house, going through paperwork with a dead man right next to you on the bed. Maybe even Barrera had to take a Corn Pops break from that kind of work.
I didn't throw up. I somehow made it all the way back down the stairs, back into the kitchen where Barrera was still eating, one hand holding the. 22 flat against the tabletop.
"Can I sit down?" I asked.
Barrera examined my face, maybe saw that I wasn't doing so hot. He waved at the stool opposite his.
I sat, took a few breaths. "I take it you haven't called the police."
Sam lifted his right ear just slightly, like God was telling him something. "Blanceagle's been dead two days. He can wait another few hours. Now I'm going to ask you what I asked Erainya: What's your business with Blanceagle? With Les SaintPierre?"
I stared at Barrera's cereal bowl, the little gold ball bearings in the white grease. My stomach did a somersault.
Barrera said, "Try some. It'll help. Corn products are good."
"No thanks. Erainya doesn't have any business with Blanceagle. I'm on my own."
"On your own," he repeated.
"That's right."
"Unlicensed."
I nodded. Sam shook his head and looked sour, like his worst assumptions about human nature had just been confirmed.
"Tell me everything," he ordered.
"And then?"
"And then we'll see."
I told him the basics. Sam asked a few questions- what did Jean look like, what exactly had Les Saint Pierre told Milo Chavez about his plan to force Tilden Sheckly's cooperation. Twice Barrera dug out handfuls of dry Corn Pops from the box and ate them, one pop at a time.
When I was done talking he said, "I've already spoken with Detective Schaeffer at SAPD. I'll talk to the Hollywood Park police. You were never here tonight. You are not working on this anymore."
"Just like that."
"Tell Mr. Chavez he'll have to do the best he can for his artists. Tell him Les SaintPierre will probably show up on his own sooner or later and there's no problem with Tilden Sheckly as far as you can determine."
"And that Santa Claus is getting him a nice tricycle for Christmas."
Barrera frowned at me. He flexed his fingers and the gold rings rubbed together with a sound like seashells.
"This thing with the singer, Miranda Daniels," he said. "This is a sideline. Forget it. You think it has anything to do with SaintPierre disappearing, you think a guy like Tilden Sheckly would waste his time with murders over a recording contract-" Barrera paused. "You don't know what you've stepped into, Navarre. I'm telling you to step back out."
"There're some shipments going through the Indian Paintbrush," I said. "Something from Germany-big heavy cylinders. Blanceagle said the arrangement has been going on for about six years. Les SaintPierre found out about it from Julie Kearnes, who probably got it from Alex Blanceagle. Les threatened to expose the business to keep Sheckly from pressing his claims on Miranda Daniels. Les miscalculated-either how bad the information was or how violently Sheck would react. Now Les has disappeared and the two people who helped him get his information are dead. How am I doing?"
"Not well," Barrera said. "Shut up."
"You spoke to Alex Blanceagle at least once before- he told me another investigator had been poking around. You were in Austin Saturday night arguing with Julie Kearnes after I knocked off surveillance. At the time she wouldn't cooperate? she shooed you out of the house with a gun. By Sunday night, after I'd rattled her too, maybe after she'd gotten some calls from Sheck's people, she was scared enough to set up a meeting with you in San Antonio. Somehow Sheck found out about it. Julie still didn't trust you so she came armed, without any information written down. She got to your rendezvous a little early or you got there a little late and she got shot in the head.
You got there, found a murder scene, and decided it was safest to drive on by and ask questions later. Who are you working for, Sam? What is Sheckly hiding that's worth killing people?"
Barrera stood up slowly, checked his gold watch. "Gather your stuff. Go home and stay there. I'm going to call it in."
"You've got five fulltime operatives just at the San Antonio office, fifteen more regionally. You've got a dozen national clients subcontracting investigations through you. If you're here in Blanceagle's living room yourself, taking trips up to Austin to argue with Julie Kearnes in person, this has to be big. Something your friends on the Bureau lined up for you, maybe."
" Your other option is that I turn you over to some of the agencies involved."
"Some of the agencies?"
"People far out of your league, Navarre. They could make very sure you stay quiet.
They would also have some hard questions for Erainya Manos about the way The Widower's Two it Step 169 that you're operating. We could be looking at a revoked license for her, a guarantee your application never comes up for review. That's all before we bring in the D.A."
"You'd be such a bastard?"
Sam looked at me dispassionately. There was no implied threat. It was a simple multiplechoice test.
"All right." I started to gather up my money, my burglar's tools, my photos and paperwork. I stuffed it all into my backpack. My fingers didn't work very well. My stomach still felt fluttery, warm.