Japanese letters were etched into the teak panels of the front door, above a weathered brass knocker shaped like a fish. A carp- koi- the type Alex Delaware kept in that cute little pond of his.
Petra used the knocker. The man who opened the door was short, bandy-legged, lean but for a protruding belly that hung over his belt buckle.
Koi belt buckle.
Sixty-five to seventy, with a shaved, sunburnt head and drooping white mustaches. He wore a denim work shirt, jeans, red suspenders, and lace-up boots. A white handkerchief flapped from his rear pocket.
He looked Petra and Isaac over, rubbed his hands together as if he’d just finished washing them.
Clear eyes, pale blue, no booze-blear. Sharp eyes, actually.
He said, “I only sell on the weekend.”
“Detective Ballou?”
The man’s hands stopped moving. Now the eyes were twin specks of granite. “Been a long time since anyone called me that.”
Petra showed him her I.D.
He shook his head. “I’m out of all that. Breed and sell fish and don’t think about the past.” He started to step back into the house.
Petra said, “Marta Doebbler. Ever think about her?”
Conrad Ballou moved his jaw around. “Can’t say that I do. Can’t say that I give a damn about any of that.”
“It hasn’t been that long, sir. Six years. I’m looking into some cold cases, including Doebbler. If I could pick your brain…”
“Nothing to pick,” said Ballou, rubbing his bald head. “According to the shrinks the department sent me to.” He looked ready to spit. “I could’ve saved them the trouble. I wasn’t nuts, I was a drunk. Thank God I didn’t kill anybody.” He shook his head. “They should’ve tossed my can out long before they did. Damn department.”
“So you miss police work,” said Petra.
Ballou glared at her. Smiled. Laughed. “You like fish?”
“To eat?”
“To look at. C’mon in. And bring the intern with you.”
The house was rescued from tract-cliché by a trove of Asian furnishings. Vegetable-dye rugs, rosewood tables, porcelain vases and planters, paper screens on the walls, all portraying brocaded koi.
Way too much stuff for the space and to Petra’s eye, nothing pricey. The kind of gaudy, overlacquered stuff you could pick up in any Chinatown or Little Tokyo tourist trap.
Ballou led them past all that, through rear double doors and out to the backyard. What had been a backyard. Every inch of the quarter-acre space had been converted to fish ponds. Sheets of mesh on stakes roofed the entire area, casting shade, cooling the desert air. Beyond the water was a high bamboo fence and a neighbor’s RV.
Lots of burbling, but the ponds weren’t attractive like Alex’s. These were simply rectangular cement tanks, a dozen of them, arranged in a grid with a walkway between them. Not clear like Alex’s, either. Green water, soupy. The only movement on the surface was created by aeration tubes.
But when Conrad Ballou approached the first pond, the surface broke and scores- no, hundreds- of little golden and pinkish fishy faces popped through, flapping, gulping, gasping.
Ballou pointed to the nearest wall where bright blue plastic bins were piled in a heap next to a mess of nets. Nearby stood a gumball machine. Instead of candy, the glass bell was filled with little rust-colored balls, half the size of a pea.
Ballou motioned them over to the machine. “Toss in a quarter.”
Petra did. He took her hand and cupped it below the spout. Turned the handle and little balls tumbled out and her nose filled with the aroma of ripe seafood.
“Feed ’em,” said Ballou. “It’s fun.”
“Which pond?”
“That one. They’re babies, need the nutrition.” Motioning toward the first pond, where the little fish were still clamoring. Petra walked over and tossed in the pellets and a finned riot ensued.
Isaac was already three ponds ahead. Bending low and examining the fish that had risen to greet him. Larger ones, red and black and gold and blue.
He said, “Mr. Ballou, do you use domestic stock or are these from Niigata?”
Ballou lowered his gaze and stared at the kid. “You know koi.”
“I’ve admired them,” said Isaac. “My mother’s employers have a pond.”
“Admire them, huh?” said Ballou. “Then get into it yourself.”
Isaac laughed.
“Something funny, son?”
“It’s a bit beyond my budget. And space. I live in an apartment.”
“Hmm,” said Ballou, “then get yourself a good job, work your tail off, and buy a house. Pay down the mortgage a bit and reward yourself with a Japanese garden and a pond full of nishikigoi. Nothing like ’em to lower your blood pressure.”
Isaac nodded.
“You do all that, son, come back and buy some fish from me and I’ll give you a free karasu- that’s the black one. Symbol of good luck.”
Petra said, “I could use some luck. On Marta Doebbler.”
Ballou said, “Here we were talking about pleasant things… you drink tea?”
Back in his kitchen, he poured steaming green liquid into three stoneware cups.
“Don’t think I’m some fanatic. Asian culture soothes me. When I got out of rehab a koi dealer, a nice old man in Gardena, hired me to mop up his place. I mopped for two years, kept my mouth shut, started asking questions by the third year, learned a bit. He died and put me in his will. Left me some of his breeding stock. That motivated me to buy this place, set up a little weekend business. It’s real peaceful. I don’t think about my other job with fondness.”
Petra sipped the hot, aromatic tea.
“Marta Doebbler’s a good example,” said Ballou. “Ugly scene. When I think of the things I got used to working Homicide.” He placed a thumb under his suspenders, gazed absently through the window. Then back at Isaac.
“You seem like a nice kid. Why would you wanna do this to yourself?”
Petra said, “Isaac’s going to be a doctor. Meanwhile he’s getting a Ph.D. in biostatistics.”
“Meanwhile?” said Ballou, appraising Isaac all over again. “We’re talking Einstein?”
Isaac muttered, “Hardly.” Flushed clear through his nutmeg complexion. Pink as medium-rare beef.
Petra said, “Can we talk about Doebbler?”
CHAPTER 14
What I remember,” said Conrad Ballou, “was that the husband was interesting.”
He returned to his tea, gave no indication of having more to say.
Petra said, “Interesting as in prime suspect?”
The old guy nodded. “There was no evidence tying him to it. Everyone said him and the vic were getting along fine. But I liked him for it.”
He put his cup down. “His reaction to his wife’s death was off. Stone-face, not a tear. When I did the notification call, I brought a pocket full of tissues, like I always did. Didn’t end up using one. Doebbler just stood there, with this flat look in his eyes. Sometimes that happens before they fall apart, I kept waiting. He just stood there staring. For a second I thought he’d gone into one of those whatchamacallit seizures. Then he says, ‘I guess you’d better come in.’ ”
“Guy’s an engineer,” said Petra.
“So what?”
“It doesn’t explain it but sometimes that type…” Remembering her days as a faculty brat. Dr. Kenneth Connor, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, squiring his little daughter to academic soirees. Meeting the tenured crowd. Finding most of them regular folk with slightly higher I.Q.s, a few crashing bores. A few really reprehensible jerks.
“The type?” said Ballou.
“Engineers, physicists, mathematicians, all those megabrains. Sometimes they don’t react emotionally the way the rest of us do.”
Ballou glanced at Isaac, as if wanting confirmation straight from the source. Isaac pushed a smile onto his lips.
Ballou said, “Well, Doebbler was a kind of rocket scientist, I guess. Worked over at Pacific Dynamics, electronics stuff, some sort of computer job.”