A World the Color of Salt (24 page)

Joe said, rising, “You're upset because of your friend Patricia.”

“Wouldn't you be? Anyway, how do you know that?” And then, of course, I knew it was Raymond, communications conduit in place. “Ray Vega come to you with every little thing I do?” What I was worried about, of course, was Ray telling Joe I'd recently demonstrated a colossal lack of judgment in the domicile of one Armenian, namely B. K. Katchaturian.

“Ray Vega is your friend. He's worried about you. He's a talker. He likes to get on the horn and talk.” That sounded like Ray all right, bless his evil heart.

“Is nobody looking at this thing the way it appeared the first day?”

“Smokey. You know eye-witness testimony isn't worth a hill of beans. Emilio's the only one—”

Don't lecture me is what I said. Nobody seems to give a rat's ass, probably because of overwork, but just as likely because it was nobody's important son, no rich developer's boy, no cop's brother. . . . I was ranting, I know.

Joe said, “Speaking of overwork, time to roll, don't you think? Got two of Orange County's finest sitting on their duffs here.” He noticed me shiver once or twice. “Come on in and wait, this won't take long. I've got to go see if I can get out of jury duty.”

“Joe! Shame on you! Besides, why didn't you try when it was just a matter of sending off paper?”

He said, “They're tougher these days.”

I said, “Go through with it. It'll make you a better person. See justice in action.”

He moved to one side, facing the building, as if having to gird up to go in, then put a sideways arm around me and gave me a tight but respectable hug. He said, “You're a bright light in my life, Smokey. I shouldn't tell you that.”

I let myself ease into him, then turned, thinking, Yes, it would be all right to kiss him now. But I didn't. I smiled, though, and said, “Well, maybe we'd better skip the coffee, huh? Do it some other time?”

“Right,” he said.

We stood just a second, looking at each other, and then we went off, he to his and me to mine, as if some bridge had been crossed and we'd meet again at the apron of another one soon and have to make a decision again. And I felt better than I had in a long time, and scared, all at once.

I climbed back onto the freeway in the wrong direction to my state of mind at the moment. That is, I headed back to the lab. I
felt
like heading out to San Pedro. But how would I extract a different story from Roland's bosses anyway, one that said, Oops, we made a mistake, Roland
didn't
work the day J. Dwyer was killed? No, the thing to do would be to go see Patricia when Roland was with her. Feel the jerk out, swallow my bile and get friendly. Sure, you were right, Patricia. Like, I was wrong.

“Hi, Gare. It's me, Smokey. Can you talk?”

“Sure thing. I'm just doing reports. What's up?”

“I hear we've got a Forrest Sinclair in the population somebody rolled over on. Is that right?”

“He's in the population all right, and I gotta tell you, Forrest Sinclair could do whatever scuzzy thing you put on him, but it would be a personal thing, not this. He's got a temper. Give you an idea, he broke into his ex-wife's house and wrote nasty stuff on her mirrors. She lives in Orange, up there by that lumberyard that does the woodcarving classes? I forget the name. Great big one.”

“I don't know, Gary.”

“He's a real beaut. Once he beat up a guy behind a disco for getting in his face. Guy spent two months in the hospital and never turned him in.”

“For an old man hangs around the house a lot, you're sure a window to the world.”

I could hear paper crinkling in the background, like cellophane. He said, “He's a zip. I worked with him a little as a junior. He likes to think he knows it all, you know what I mean?”

I grunted a reply so he'd continue.

“Used to like burgs nobody else could figure out. He's smart, I'll give you that. Too smart to do a stop-and-rob with a murder in his hind pocket.”

“What's he in for?”

“Well, his first turn was for B-and-E's. Thought he knew everything because he'd been a cop. He'd break in a place,
drink the good wine, spread out the paper like he took a long time readin' it. Then pocket some jewelry or a few syringes, and go out the front door. Joe Citizen'd replace the locks, the doors, the whole bit. Two weeks later, Forrest Sinclair would be in there again. He did it for laughs, that's what he told his public defense who told it to me on the sly—he's a member of my church. Oh, he
could've
graduated to person crimes, but I don't think so, not that one. Most burglars are cowards. They don't wanta get hurt. Take a gun into a store, you might get hurt. Besides, I got another reason for thinking so.”

“And you're going to keep it to yourself,” I said.

“No. Don't be so impatient. I'm eatin' some peanut brickle here.” He called it
brickle
. “The granddaughter brought it over last night, couldn't sell it all. You want a couple boxes of not-so-bad peanut brickle?”

“I'll send the money. You can keep the candy.”

“Okay, if that's the way you want to be.”

“Gary, why would the inmate try to burn him?”

“Favors. A turn out of the barrel, who knows. Let me tell you what Sinclair's in for now. It's a real hoot. A drug pinch was going down in Magic Kingdom territory—”

“Off Harbor?”

“Right. Small stuff, not a big bust or anything like that—you know, they cleaned up the hooker trade so good they can load Narc Detail. So anyway, they're waiting for the bust signal, they got a wired guy inside the room. Car pulls up. Hey, who's this? This john's gonna screw up the deal. Plainclothes on a bicycle moves in, tries to get what turns out to be Sinclair off to the side. Sinclair starts acting real funny, and the girl in the car gets out, takes off the other direction. Which makes Mr. Sinclair commence to give mouth to the officer, 'cause he just lost his date.”

Gary was thoroughly enjoying the moment of telephone break so he could eat his peanut brittle. It sounded wet in my ear, all the smacking. “The wired copper,” he said, “
inside
the motel, he's doing his thing, playing it to the hilt, like, ‘Yo, you mf-ers, you brought the heat in, you clumsy mf-ers,' and like that. The bust by now is completely watered. So the rest of the detail goes to hassle the bejesus out of this jerk in the white windbreaker who dumped it for them, who they don't know
yet is Sinclair, “and guess what? His registration's not current and they think they smell marijuana. They search the car, think they see flake in the seats. Buddy, we got a fatal error here. Your system has done crashed. They ask Sinclair can they see in the motel room he was going into, the one, it turns out, is next to the setup. ‘No,' he says. Puts up a lot of bull. By now they know who he is, so they are major pissed. They get a telephone warrant and search the room, find some good old Hawaiian sunshine inside and a kilo o' Henry ain't even been stepped on yet. Sinclair's cussin' like a sumabitch. That boy is going to camp for a long while and it won't need the Kwik Stop murder case to do it.”

“He sounds like a genuine multitalent to me.

“Personally, I can't see the guy dipping petty cash at a convenience store when he's got a kilo Henry, can you? You know what that's worth these days, coke in recession?”

“No. What?”

“Try three mil.”

“Yow.”

“You said it.

“Hey, Gare.”

“What?”

“Why are we so honest and so dumb?”

“Aw, hell, I don't know. Dumb parents, I guess.”

“So why does anybody want him for the Dwyer?”

“I don't want him for the Dwyer.”

“I know. Who does?”

He said, “Tired cops who see a lot of dealers walk, okay? Cops who're mad they're dumb like you and me.”

“Can I see Forrest Sinclair?”

“I can give you all the stats on him, that's what you want. But I really don't see why you don't let us do our business, and you keep doin' the fine job you're doin'.”

“Gary, I knew the Dwyer kid.”

“So? Open up some evidence for us. That's your job.”

“Thanks a big one, Gare.”

“I'm busy, what can I say? He's not your man.”

“I heard there are a couple other suspects.”

“Nah. Wishful thinking. Give the DA a menu to choose from is all.”

I was coming to the final question with Gary, wondering how I'd say it since it wasn't clear to me if I disliked Roland Dugdale because he was Roland Dugdale, because he was someone with a record and was taking my friend away, or did I just not like Roland because of something working I couldn't put my finger on, something you see in your peripheral vision but not when you turn around? I said, “What do you think of the Dugdales now that the channel's changed?”

There was a pause, not long, and then, “I hate to say it, but it looks like we can trash that file.”

“Ah, Gary.”

“You wanted it to be those two, didn't you?”

“I guess so. Probably just because they were the ones I actually saw. All your fault for letting us come down.”

“Yep. That's a danger.”

I asked him about the photo lineup, had he taken a photo lineup to Emilio.

“Emilio don't work at El Cochino no more.”

“Oh, shit. We scared him.”

He was silent a moment, and I was wondering if he thought that was a criticism, or if he was intent on peanut brickle again, though I didn't hear anything crinkling.

Behind me, one of the new specialists was sliding drawers in and out of her desk. I swiveled to see her, and could hear a lone pencil rolling back and forth, back and forth in the top drawer as she opened it, bent over to peer in, closed it, opened it. She was a round-faced thing with whitewashed skin, and I'm sorry to say I didn't like her the minute I took her damp, limp hand. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled, said quietly, “The lock doesn't work.”

Gary was talking again, saying, “I showed the shots to the family. Nothing. I even showed them to the Iranian, the guy who came in after? And the lady with the stroller. I showed them to the father. No luck.”

“Did Ray Vega tell you about my friend Patricia?”

“He did. Ray was sittin' on tacks.”

“Is that whole thing a coincidence too spooky to believe?” I was hoping, of course, he'd say yes, and be alarmed and suspicious and angry and motivated.

What he said was, “Hey, I met my fourth-grade teacher
from Moundsville, West Virginia, in Crown Books at Main-place Mall last week. It's a small world after all.”

“No kidding.”

“You know what she was buying? An Orange County Firemen's calendar, you know, with all them twenty-year-olds in red bikinis showin' ass? Excuse me, pardon my French.”

Stu Hollings had a meeting that took clear up till noon, talking about who's going to get to work in the DNA building, and who's going to be up next for training. It's quite a coup that we have a DNA lab, to the director's credit. There are only a few DNA labs in the country, mostly private, and police have to send stuff out to them, and wait, and wait. An expert was up front talking about the sieving properties of electrophoretic gel and the use of restriction endonuclease, and about that time my eyes glazed over and I caught myself wishing a bird would hop on a bush in the window behind Stu for me to analyze.

When I came out, Kathleen told me Rowena Dwyer was waiting in the lobby. She was wearing a tan suit jacket with narrow black stripes, over a black skirt. Her hair seemed blonder, too blonde I think, so that she just looked tired and older. She said she'd been getting the runaround. “I feel like no one at the police department is doing anything at all on this case.” She was agitated, of course, but at the same time wanting to show me all the newspaper clippings she had in her folio from both L.A. and Orange Counties, stories having to do with armed robberies and some homicides. Some of them, I could see as she flipped through, were library microfilm copies. I pictured this lady in a branch library sitting in front of one of the big white screens turning dials, asking the librarian how do you do this and how do you find that.

I asked her if she'd like to go talk somewhere private, and I went back to my desk and wrote a note to Stu telling him I was going to the doctor's again, placing it on his desk while he was out—he wouldn't want to know the truth. I was back in an hour and took my note off his desk and he didn't even know I was gone. Mrs. Dwyer and I walked to the gazebo by the public library and, with the day warmed up now, sat just
outside the gazebo in the sun. The sky was clear blue, and stacks of white clouds, a rarity in this country, moved in two columns over the tops of the buildings. Black birds with yellow eyes fluttered down from trees that were set into rounds in the concrete, and landed near us as if expecting handouts. A man in his forties, handsome behind his raggedy beard, sat not too far off from us, studying a bus schedule.