CHAPTER

16

The path through the trees was a six-foot-wide swath overhung by branches. The black Ford pickup was parked in front of the cabin.

The tiny building was raw cedar with a plank door. One square window in front. As simple as a child’s drawing of a house. Propane gas tanks stood to the left, along with a clothesline and a smaller generator.

The truck’s windows were rolled up and Milo got close and peered through the glass. “He keeps it neat.”

He used a corner of his jacket and tried the handle. “Locked. You wouldn’t think he’d be worried about theft, out here.”

We walked up to the cabin. Green oilskin drapes blocked the window. A square of concrete served as a front patio. A hemp mat said Welcome.

Milo knocked. The plank was solid and barely sounded. But within seconds, the door opened.

Barnett Malley looked out at us. He was taller than he’d appeared on TV—an inch above Milo’s six-three. Still lean and rawboned, he wore his yellow-gray hair long and loose. Fuzzy muttonchops trailed below his jaw before right-angling toward a lipless mouth. Sun exposure had coarsened and splotched his complexion. He wore a gray work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Thick wrists, veined forearms, yellowed nails clipped straight. Dusty jeans, buckskin cowboy boots. A silver-and-turquoise necklace ringed the spot just below a prominent Adam’s apple.

A peace symbol dangled from the central turquoise. More aging hippie than militiaman.

His eyes were silver blue and still.

Milo showed him I.D. Malley barely glanced at it.

“Mr. Malley, I don’t mean to intrude, but there are some questions I’d like to ask you.”

Malley didn’t answer.

“Sir?”

Silence.

Milo said, “Are you aware that Rand Duchay was murdered Saturday night?”

Malley clicked his teeth together. Backed into his cabin. Closed the door.

Milo knocked. Called Malley’s name.

No response.

We walked to the south side of the house. No windows. At the rear a single horizontal pane was set high into the northern wall. Milo stretched upward and rapped the glass.

Bird calls, forest rustles. Then: music.

Honky-tonk piano. A tune I’d always liked—Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date.” Solo piano, a recording I’d never heard.

Momentary hesitation, then the tune repeated. A flubbed note followed by fluidity.

Not a recording. Live.

Malley played the song through, then began again, improvising a basic but decently phrased solo.

The rendition repeated. Ended. Milo took advantage of the silence and knocked on Malley’s window again.

Malley resumed playing. Same tune. Different improv.

Milo turned on his heel, lips moving. I couldn’t make out what he said and knew better than to ask.

On our way out of the campgrounds, we spotted Bunny MacIntyre over by the RVs, talking to one of the elderly couples. Her hand went out and some bills were passed. She saw us, turned away.

“Charming rural folk,” said Milo, as we got back in the unmarked. “Is that the theme from Deliverance I hear wafting through the piney woods?”

“Should’ve brought my guitar.”

“A duet with Barnett the Pianner Man? Was that the reaction of an innocent guy, Alex? I was hoping I could eliminate him, but just the opposite.”

“Wonder why he keeps that welcome mat in front,” I said.

“Maybe some people are welcome.” He turned the ignition key, let the car idle. “The bloodhound part of me is itching to sniff, but the self-styled protector of victims thinks it’s gonna be a shame if Malley turns out to be a murderer. Guy’s life was blown to bits. I don’t read the Bible, but on some level, I get the whole eye-for-an-eye thing.”

“I get it, too,” I said. “Even though eye for an eye was never meant to be taken literally.”

“Sez who?”

“If you read the original biblical text, the context is pretty clear. It’s tort law—monetary compensation for damages.”

“Did you come up with that on your own?”

“A rabbi told me.”

“Guess he’d know.” He drove out of the campgrounds, turned onto the highway, switched on the police band. Crime was down but the dispatcher’s recitation of felonies was constant.

“The possibilities,” he said, “are dismal.”

Thursday morning, he called at eleven-fifteen. “Time for tandoori.”

I’d just gotten off the phone with Allison. We’d managed to sneak in some personal talk before her grandmother’s call for tea and comfort drew her away. The plan was for her to return in two or three days. Depending.

I said, “What’s up?”

“Let’s talk about it over food,” he said. “It’ll be a test of your appetite.”

Café Moghul is on Santa Monica Boulevard, a couple of blocks west of Butler, walking distance from the station. The storefront ambience is dressed up by carved, off-white moldings and arches designed to mimic ivory, polychrome tapestry murals of Indian country scenes, posters of Bollywood movies. The soundtrack alternates sitar drones with ultra-high soprano renditions of Punjab pop.

The woman who runs the place welcomed me with her usual smile. We always greet each other like old friends; I’ve never learned her name. Today’s sari was peacock blue silk embroidered with gold swirls. Her eyeglasses were off. She had huge, chocolate eyes that I’d never noticed before.

“Contacts,” she said. “I’m trying something new.”

“Good for you.”

“So far, so good—he’s over there.” Pointing to a rear table, as if I needed directions. The layout was four tables on each side divided by a center aisle. A group of twenty-somethings was gathered around two tables pushed together, dipping nan bread into bowls of chutney and chili paste and toasting some sort of success with Lal Toofan beer.

Other than them, just Milo. He was hunched over a gigantic salad bowl, sifting through lettuce and retrieving chunks of what looked to be fish. A cut-glass pitcher of iced clove tea sat at his elbow. When he saw me, he filled a glass and pushed it toward me.

“The special,” he said, plinking the rim of the salad bowl with his fork. “Salmon and paneer and these little dry rice noodles over green stuff with lemon-oil dressing. Pretty healthy, huh?”

“I’m getting worried about you.”

“Get real worried,” he said. “This is wild Pacific salmon. The intrepid types that leap upstream when they’re horny. Apparently, farmed fish are bland, lazy wimps and they’re also full of toxic crap.”

“The politicians of the fish world,” I said.

He speared a piece of fish. “I ordered you the same.”

I drank tea. “What’s going to test my digestive juices?”

“Lara Malley’s suicide. Got hold of the final report from Van Nuys. Turns out the D’s who worked it were the same ones who busted Turner and Rand.”

“Sue Kramer and a male partner,” I said. “Something with an ‘R.’ ”

“Fernie Reyes. I’m impressed.”

“I read their report on Kristal more times than I wanted to.”

“Fernie moved to Scottsdale, does security for a hotel chain. Sue retired and joined a P.I. agency over in San Bernardino. I’ve got a call in to her—here comes your grub.”

The blue-saried woman set a bowl down gently and swished off. My salad was half the size of Milo’s, which was still more than ample.

“Good, huh?” he said.

I hadn’t lifted my fork. He watched until I did, studied me as I ate.

“Delicious,” I said. Technically true, but tension had blocked the circuit from my taste buds to my brain and I might’ve been chewing a napkin. “What’s off about the suicide?”

“Cause of death was a single gunshot to the left temple, a thirty-eight. She was left-handed, so the coroner felt that supported a self-inflicted wound.”

“Through-and-through wound?”

“Yup, the bullet lodged in the passenger door. The gun was a Smith and Wesson Double-Action Perfected revolver registered to Barnett. He kept it loaded in his nightstand. His story was Lara musta taken it when he was at work, drove to a quiet spot in the Sepulveda recreational area and boom.”

“Did she leave a note?”

“If she did, it’s not in the coroner’s summary.”

“Was the gun returned to Malley?”

“No reason it wouldn’t be,” he said. “He was the legal owner and no foul play was indicated.”

He began shoveling fish and cubes of paneer cheese into his mouth. “Maybe my ambivalence about Malley was misguided. His life went to hell, but looks like he coped by getting rid of everyone he blamed for Kristal’s death. Starting with Lara, because she hadn’t kept her eye on the kid. Then the C.Y.A. system took care of Turner. That left Rand as the last messy detail.

“Why would he wait a full year after Kristal’s death to kill Lara?” I said.

“I was being imprecise. She died seven years and seven months ago. Just one month after Troy and Rand got sent away. What’s the obvious assumption?”

“Maternal grief.”

“Exactly. Great cover.” He pushed food around his plate. “Malley’s a weird one, Alex. The way he started pounding on that piano. I mean the smart thing to do, the cops come calling, is fake being cooperative. He does that, maybe I drop it.”

Unlikely, I thought. “ ‘Last Date’.”

“What?”

“The song he played.”

“You’re saying he was being symbolic? Rand had a last date with life?”

I shrugged.

He said, “Guy keeps his truck locked even though he lives out in the boonies and the damn thing’s sitting right in front of his cabin. Because he knows it’s hard to get rid of every speck of forensic evidence. Maybe he’s an old-fashioned eye-for-an-eye guy, doesn’t give a shit about original biblical context.”

“Other than the similarity to Rand, was there anything iffy about Lara’s suicide?”

“Nothing in Sue’s report.”

“Was she a good detective?”

“Yeah. So was Fernie. Normally I’d assume they’d be damn thorough. But in this case, maybe they saw Barnett as a victim and didn’t think it through.” He frowned. “Bunny MacIntyre likes him but she didn’t vouch for his whereabouts Sunday.”

He poured himself tea but didn’t drink it. “I need to get hold of the entire file on Lara before I talk to Sue. That’ll be fun—reopening a case another D thinks is long-closed. Maybe I’ll use the helpless approach: Here’s what I’m faced with, Sue. I could use some help.”

He grabbed his fork again, held it poised over the bowl. “So how’s your appetite?”

“Fine.”

“Proud of you.”

He downed two Bengal premiums, called for the check, and was slapping cash on the table when his cell chirped Beethoven’s Fifth.

“Sturgis. Oh, hey. Yeah. Good to hear from you, thanks . . . Would that be okay? Yeah, sure. Let me write it down.”

Tucking the phone under one ear, he scribbled on a napkin. “Thanks, see you in twenty.”

Rising to his feet, he motioned me toward the exit. Some of the twenty-somethings stopped laughing and looked at him as he loped out of the restaurant. Big, scary-looking man. All that merriment; he didn’t fit in.

“That was Sue Kramer,” he said, out on the sidewalk. “She’s right here in the city. Working a suicide, as it turns out, and happy to chat about Lara. So much for reading the file.”

“It’s L.A.,” I said. “Improvise.”