BLOOD ON THE MOON
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lously sculpted hair, the sideburns too long for a fat face; the uniform encasing his musclebound upper torso and soft stomach like a sausage skin. Lloyd watched him don aviator sunglasses and hitch up his gunbelt. Not intelligent, but probably street-smart; play him easy. The deputy walked directly to Lloyd’s booth. “Sergeant?” he said, extending his hand. Lloyd took the hand, squeezed it, and pointed across the table, waiting for the man to take off his sunglasses. When he sat down without removing them and picked nervously at an acne cluster on his chin, Lloyd thought: Speed. Play him hard.
Haines fidgeted under Lloyd’s stare. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.
“How long have you been with the Sheriff’s, Haines?”
“Nine years,” Haines said.
“How long at the West Hollywood Station?”
“Eight years.”
“You live on Larrabee?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m surprised. West Hollywood is a faggot sewer.”
Haines flinched. “I think a good cop should live on his beat.”
Lloyd smiled. “So do I. What do your friends call you? Delbert? Del?”
Haines tried to smile, involuntarily biting his lip. “Whitey. Wh-wh-what do you—”
“What am I here for? I’ll tell you in a moment. Does your beat include Westbourne Drive?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Have you worked the same car plan your whole time at the station?”
“S-sure. Except for some loan-out time to Vice. What’s this all—”
Lloyd slammed the table top. Haines jolted backward in his seat, reaching up and straightening his sunglasses with both hands. The muscles around his eyes twitched and tics started at the corners of his mouth. Lloyd smiled. “Ever work Narco?”
Haines went flush and whispered “No” hoarsely, a network of veins throbbing in his neck. Lloyd said, “Just checking. Basically, I’m here to question you about a stiff you found back in ’78. A wrist slash job. A woman on Westbourne. You remember that?”
Haines’s whole body went lax. Lloyd watched his muscles unclench into an almost stuporous posture of relief. “Yeah. My partner and I got an un-124
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known trouble squeal from the desk. The old bag who lived next door called in about the stiff’s record player blasting. We found this good lookin’
babe all bl—”
Lloyd cut him off. “You found another suicide in your own building the year before, didn’t you, Whitey?”
“Yeah,” Haines said, “I sure did. I got wasted from the gas, they had to detox me at the hospital. I got a commendation and my picture on the honor board at the station.”
Leaning back and stretching out his legs beneath the table, Lloyd said,
“Both those women killed themselves on June 10th. Don’t you think that’s a strange coincidence?”
Haines shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”
Lloyd laughed. “I don’t know, either. That’s all, Haines. You can go.”
*
*
*
After Haines had left, Lloyd drank coffee and thought. A transparently stupid cop strung out on speed. No guilty knowledge of the two murdersuicides, but undoubtedly involved in so much penny-ante illegality that a questioning on old homicides was like being spared the guillotine—he never asked why the interview was taking place. Coincidence that he discovered both bodies? He lived and patrolled the same area. Logically, it fit. But instinctively it was somehow out of kilter. Lloyd weighed the pros and cons of a daylight breaking and entering. The pros won. He drove to 1167 Larrabee Avenue.
*
*
*
The mauve-colored apartment building was perfectly still, the doors of the ten units closed, no activity on the walkway leading back to the carport. Lloyd scanned the mailboxes at the front of the building. Haines lived in apartment 5. Running his eyes over the numbers embossed on the first-story doorways, he spotted his target—the rear apartment. No screen door, no heavy brass hardware indicating security locks. Working a short bladed penknife and a plastic credit card in unison, Lloyd snapped the locking mechanism and pushed the door open. Flicking on a wall light, he shut the door and surveyed the tasteless living room he had expected to find: cheap Naugahyde couch and chairs, a Formica coffee table, a ratty “deep-pile” carpet going threadbare. The walls boasted velveteen landscape prints and the built-in bookcases held no books—
only a pile of skin magazines.
He walked into the kitchen. Mildew on the chipped linoleum floor,