A Death In Beverly Hills (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Steve flipped through the email report he had received from the Foster Agency.

Robert Garsen: age forty-three, divorced, no children, a senior Vice President in a commercial liability insurance company, Santana Casualty, in which his family owned the majority of the stock. Salary and bonuses of about half a million a year. Between the family trust fund and personal assets his net worth was someplace between ten and twenty million.

Santana Casualty's PR materials listed the company as one of the sponsors of the campaign to build a new womens shelter, one of the charities in which Marian Travis had been active. He had probably met her over champagne and canapes at some fund raiser. How romantic. Steve frowned. Liar or not, Marian had married Tom Travis and it rankled him that she had been out trolling for a new lover while still living in Travis's house and sleeping in his bed. If she had been sleeping in his bed.

Steve tried to relax. He had no right to be upset with Marian. She wasn't his wife. Still, a wife shouldn't. . . . Sure, he hadn't been the perfect husband, who was, but Lynn never would have . . . . Steve squeezed that thought into a tiny pellet and made it disappear. Lynn loved him and she had never cheated on him. She was too honest. But, Marian had been honest. No, not really. An honest wife doesn't jump into the sack with another man no matter how much she wants to have a baby. Just because Steve wanted to wait another year or two, Lynn wouldn't have stopped taking the pill or found some other guy . . . . Another forbidden thought to be ground into dust and swept away.

But if that was true, why didn't you read her autopsy report
? a little voice echoed inside his skull.
Why didn't you read the card she left you?
That extra weight she had been putting on just before she died, the jeans that didn't seem to fit anymore . . . . No!
But,
another little voice assured him,
even if she was pregnant, certainly it was yours, had to be yours. Lynn would never
. . . .
But you were using condoms the last two or three months. You told her it was a health issue but if you were both faithful . . . . You know the real reason
, the voice whispered.
You didn't trust her. You were afraid she'd accidently-on-purpose forget her pill, so every time you made love you wore a condom and reminded her that you didn't trust her. So if you were wearing a condom and she got pregnant
. . . .
If she had been pregnant when she died you could have had a DNA test done on the fetus and then
. . . . He recoiled from the thought as if he was about to touch toxic scum.
What was in that card?
the little voice demanded.
Was she leaving you. Had she found another man? If you weren't such a coward
. . . .

Steve closed his eyes and saw Lynn's face beneath him, that horrible bored, irritated look she got at the end when she thought he wasn't watching, the 'Fine, go ahead and get it over with' expression that was like a knife in his heart, and when he caught it he'd thrust harder,
Feel this! Do you feel this? Don't look at me like I'm some dirty job you have to do!
and then, the next time, he'd put on the damn condom again because not using it would be letting her win.

The fight they had had that last morning, the day she had been . . . the day she had died, flooded into his head.

* * *

"Are you going to be late again?" Lynn asked when he ignored her and reached for the corn flakes.

"I could be."

"That's helpful. . . . Fine, maybe I'll be late too."

"Knock yourself out."

"Steve, look at me!"

With a clink Janson put down his spoon and gave her an angry stare.

"Steve, it's not like we haven't talked about having a baby."

"We talked about it. We didn't agree to it."

"That's it. Play the lawyer card."

"You know we can't afford a child yet. Maybe in a couple of years--"

"Please! I've got plenty--"

"Of your father's money. You know he thinks I'm some second-rater who only married you because I'm after your family's money."

"Well, you're sure doing a crappy job of getting any of it."

"I'm not some kind of loser who--"

"Nobody thinks you're a loser. Steve, I want a baby. Now."

"And I want your family to respect me but that doesn't mean either one is going to get what we want any time soon. . . . I gotta go."

Steve pushed back his chair and headed for the door.

"Steve. . . . Steve?"

* * *

Those were the last words they had spoken to each other. Shit! If he could do it over again, if he could have her back, he'd . . . . But he couldn't. That bastard had killed her before he'd had the chance to make things right.

Steve looked at the desk. The card was still sitting there, unopened. He tried to make himself go over there and pull it out, but he couldn't move.

He wanted a drink so badly that it hurt. There was an emergency bottle in the cabinet over the sink . . . .
I've got to get out of here.
Steve grabbed his keys and fled the apartment without looking at the kitchen cabinet. On the way out, Lynn's French painting seemed to call to him. He hurried past it without allowing his head to turn in its direction.

For a couple of minutes he just sat in his car. No bars, no night clubs. He didn't know how long he'd stay sober if ended up somewhere like that. Physical exertion, that's what he needed, sweat the frustration out of his system. The chances of finding a racquetball partner on short notice were nil. He had never been a golfer so no driving range. The batting cages? It took him twenty minutes to get to the Fun Center. Two of the cages were down for repairs and three nervous, frustrated men were already signed up for the third one. Back in his days on the force, the cops had had a bowling league over at the Twilight Lanes. If they hadn't bulldozed the place and turned it into a Mega-Starbucks it was . . . . yeah, about a mile over that way. Steve absentmindedly waved his hand in that direction.

The Twilight Lanes still squatted in the center of a cracked asphalt lot. On the roof a storm of animated pink and green neon flashed cascading pins like a beacon in the night. Once through the double doors Steve was assaulted by the hollow racket of clattering pins and balls skidding over polished oak. An acre of fluorescents banished shadows and perspective like an Arctic white-out. Just like old times.

"I need an alley and a pair of shoes."

"Sorry, full up. It's league night. It'll be--"

"Janson, is that you?"

He'd gained twenty pounds around his gut and his mustache was showing white at its drooping tips but Steve still recognized Mike Leahy from his days at the Ramparts Division.

"Hey, Mike. You're looking good."

"Something happen to your eyes?" Leahy patted his gut. "What're you doin' here?"

What am I doing here?

"I just needed, you know, to get out of the apartment. I didn't figure on league night."

"You want to bowl? I can fix you up. The Blue Angles are short a guy." Mike gestured to a bunch of off-duty cops clustered at the end of alley 19.

"I'm not exactly on the job anymore," Steve said uneasily.

"Don't worry about it. Jack, give him a pair of shoes."

Four guys in blue and yellow bowling shirts looked at Steve with typical cop expressions of faint suspicion and barely concealed distrust.

"Guys, this is Steve Janson. He was on the job for, Geeze Steve, what was it, eight years?"

"Nine."

"Nine years, then he went over to the D.A.'s office."

"You're a lawyer?" a thickset Latin guy asked in the same voice he might have used to inquire if Steve were a homosexual, a pedophile or a communist.

"Used to be. They kicked me out."

"Janson? You the guy who blew away the Headless Killer?" the tall white guy cut in.

Steve shrugged.

"You know how to bowl?" the Black cop asked, sporting a relieved smile.

"Used to have a one sixty five average, but it's been a while."

"So," Mike said, "you guys want Steve to fill in or what?"

"Okay by me," the Latin guy said. Everybody else nodded their approval.

"All right, you've up against . . . ." Mike consulted his list, "The Forty-Fives," Mike pointed to five guys chatting up the waitress and re-tying their shoelaces the next alley over. He made a check mark on the page then looked up. "Steve, come find me before you leave, okay?"

"Sure, Mike, catch you on the other side."

"I'm the Captain, Carlos Arriaga," the Latin guy said, holding out his hand. The Black guy was Walter Purcell, and the two white guys were Tall Jerry and Regular Jerry. All were street cops from Central Division.

"I guess I'd better get a ball." Steve wandered past the racks looking for one that fit his hand.

"Anybody know this guy?" Carlos asked once Steve was out of range.

"I heard he came home and found his old lady's head sitting on the dining room table and by the time the Dicks had ID'd the doer, he'd skipped the country."

"Put the guy down on his knees and blew his fucking head off with a .45 the way I heard it," Tall Jerry added.

"Put the whole fuckin' clip into him."

"Seriously pissed."

"The guy killed his wife," Regular Jerry countered.

"Would you do a guy who killed your wife?"

"Kill him? I'd give him a fucking medal."

"Maybe Janson loved his wife."

"What's love got to do with it?" Regular Jerry asked and they all laughed.

"I miss something?" Steve asked, cradling a nicked, black sixteen-pounder.

"Just talking about the size of Walter's dick," Tall Jerry said, smiling.

"He's just jealous," Walter told Steve.

"So, are we gonna bullshit all night or bowl?" Carlos snapped his fingers. "Walt, you're up, and try not to trip on your prize possession, okay?"

The first game he was a little rocky. Steve kept missing the pocket and leaving himself splits. He finished with a one thirty two. By the second game he had gotten into the routine and the constant pitchers of draft helped loosen his coiled nerves. He hit one fifty seven eclipsing both Walter and Tall Jerry. He had forgotten what it was like to spend a normal evening with a bunch of guys who weren't wondering if he was going to snap and start shooting people. By the third game he felt the beer starting to get to him and switched to coke to the jeers of his teammates until he rolled a one-ninety-two and they took the match two games out of the three.

"Hey, Clara!" Regular Jerry waved at the waitress. "Time to celebrate!"

Steve glanced at his watch, a little after eleven.

"Two G and T's, a scotch -- Steve, what're you having?"

Janson stared vacantly at Regular Jerry then down at his coke.

"I'm good."

"Pussy!"

"I've got a big day tomorrow. Anybody know where Mike is?"

Tall Jerry glanced at the clock. "By now he's in the lounge sweet talking Ella."

"Thanks, guys."

"So, Janson," Carlos said, grabbing Steve's shoulder, "you want to bowl next week?"

"Sure, but what about your regular guy?"

"Harry fucked up his ankle on a foot pursuit. He's on desk duty for a month."

Steve glanced at the plastic chairs, the screaming lights, the incessant clatter of the pins and the crash of the balls, the stink of beer and sweat and politically incorrect cigarette smoke and felt as if some part of him that had been warped out of alignment was suddenly straight and true again.

"Sure, sounds good. Next week, same time?"

Carlos gave him a level stare and a closed-fist to closed-fist bump. Five minutes later Steve found Mike in the back corner of the lounge, a tall glass of something beige on the table in front of him. The almost invisible glow of UV light sizzled the air. The patterns on Mike's shirt fluoresced in sympathetic response. Mike sipped his glass dry through a red straw then rattled the ice like a dinner bell.

A latte-skinned bartender, about five ten with ample breasts and high coiled black hair slipped another cocktail into Mike's hand with a soft "Here you go, Sugar." Steve caught her eye and shook his head. With a quick wink she headed back to the bar.

"Is that Ella?"

"You know what they say, 'Ella is swella'." Mike laughed at his own joke. "Everything okay?"

"I had a good time. Thanks for getting the guys to let me in."

"No thanks necessary. They were a man short. Besides," Mike took a long swallow, "you've paid your dues."

"A lot of people think I belong in a cell."

"Bosses maybe. Not the guys who work for a living. You stayin' busy? You need anything?"