Burn (25 page)

“Nah, ” Luther said. “Me, I'm movin’ up. You can decide for yourself which way your ass is headed.”

Todd just looked at him.

“And by the way, I saw y'all drive in, ” Luther said. He shook his head slowly. “Fender bender my hard black ass.”

As Todd sat there behind his desk, he forgot about his injuries. He forgot about his throbbing nose, his throbbing ankle. He forgot about the many bruises and scrapes. He even forgot about the fender bender lie. A warm tide washed over him.

He thought about everything Luther Vines had just said.

He thought about Heather.

He thought about the eerie calm with which Luther had unleashed his violence upon the defenseless Abdom-inator. He thought about how the man's eyes had looked as he swung down his battering iron: cool, untroubled. Unbound.

He thought about Heather.

He looked at Luther.

He said, “How do I know that disc you have there is the only copy left? That your paranoid friend downstairs didn't make others?”

“You know 'cause I'm tellin’ you, ” Luther said. “And that's all you got.”

Todd nodded.

“My schedule seems to have opened up, ” he said. “I wonder if you'd consider renegotiating our deal.”

YOU
knew there had to be something in the air when you found grown homicide detectives with caseloads standing around the bullpen shooting the shit in the middle of a weekday morning. The squad room had taken on the air of a coffee klatch.

Captain Graham's door stood open. The captain saw Timms and Drea as soon as they hit the floor. He pointed at Timms from behind his desk. Timms de-toured in that direction.

Drea followed him. They stuck their heads in.

“Looks busy around here, ” Timms said. “Did we miss the Krispy Kremes?”

Graham raised a finger without looking up. He had the morning
Times
on the desk in front of him. He put his finger down, used it to hold a spot in the middle of the page. He looked up at Timms, looked at Drea. Looked back at his finger and began to read.

“ ‘ “… belonging to Mr. Lomax was discovered during an authorized search, ” LAPD investigator Detective Adrian Timms confirmed.’” Graham looked up again. “An
authorized
search, even.”

“Yeah, that kid PIO you sent to coach me on my quotes is really paying off. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this. Especially with the big words.”

“I have a couple words for you.”

Timms had prepared for the moment, sort of. “Somebody leaked the badge, Captain. Mel Roth called me out on it. I didn't know what she had, and I didn't want to get caught denying anything.”

“Gee, how nice it would have been to know that
before
getting a microphone shoved in my face bright and early this morning. Shut the door.”

Timms and Drea stepped into the office. Drea pulled the door closed behind her.

“And you can cut the shit, Detective, ” Graham said. “Because I already know you leaked the badge yourself.”

“Ah.” Timms glanced at Drea, who wore a hard smirk. He looked back at Captain Graham. “So who ratted me out?”

Beside him, Drea muttered, “There's a big mystery.”

Graham ignored both the question and the commentary. “So as long as the chief, the rest of the board, and the DA's office seem to be taking a short break from taking turns crawling up my ass this morning, would you like to offer an explanation as to why a bright detective like yourself would even think about jeopardizing future prosecution with a bullshit, bush-league play like this? Without clearing it with me?”

“I guess I was thinking, ” Timms said carefully, “that since you wouldn't have been able to approve it anyway,
under the circumstances, you might appreciate the gift that keeps on giving.”

“Which is?”

“Plausible denial.”

“I'm touched.”

“Yeah, well, I never got you anything for Boss's Day.”

Graham didn't seem amused. “At least tell me you kept your mouth shut around those
Inside L.A.
idiots downstairs.”

“We took the fifth, ” Drea said.

Timms elbowed her. “Stop helping.”

“You two chuckleheads can save it.” Graham stood up and came around the desk. “This discussion isn't finished, just so you know. But you don't have time at the moment.”

“So we heard, ” Timms said. “Where is he?”

“Interview room. Waiting for you.”

“He say what he wants to talk about?”

“Nope.”

“All lawyered up?”

“He's in there by himself.”

“So we're waiting for how many attorneys to show up before he talks to us?”

“He's not waiting for his attorneys, ” Graham said. “He's here by himself.”

“You're kidding, ” Drea said.

Graham shook his head. “Mr. Lomax is asking to speak with our endlessly quotable LAPD investigator Detective Adrian Timms here. And he's made it clear that he wants to do so … how did he put it … ‘without the impediment of legal counsel.’ ”

Timms shook his head. It was refreshing, sometimes. Discovering that you hadn't yet seen it all.

“I guess I oughtn't keep Commissioner Lomax waiting.”

“Make a stop down the hall first, ” Graham said. “Joe and Ruben have a live one. She beat you two here by five minutes, waving that newspaper article.”

“Who?” Timms said.

“Says her name is Iris Warner, ” Graham said. “Works as a private nurse practitioner. Want to guess where?”

Drea said, “The name rings a bell.”

Timms thought so, too, but he couldn't think why.

“You already talked to her, ” Graham told them.

Timms snapped his fingers.

Drea said, “Okay, I give up, clue me in.”

“Mountain View, ” Timms said.

“That's right, ” said Graham. “She's Barbara Lomax's caregiver.”

DOREN L
omax sat alone at the table in the interview room, gazing at the backs of his hands. He raised his head when Timms opened the door.

“Commissioner, ” Timms said, pulling the door closed behind him. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We're kind of hopping around here this morning.”

Lomax didn't seem the least bit impatient or perturbed. “I got that impression. About the time I saw the reporters waiting outside my house again this morning.”

“You've seen the
Times,
then.”

Lomax nodded.

“It's a bitch, ” Timms said. “I know Mel Roth. Don't know who her sources are, but she claims they're solid, and I know her well enough that I wasn't ready to call her bluff. Tried to talk her into holding off, but she's not in her usual quid pro quo kind of mood on this one.”

“I thought you handled it as well as anybody could
be expected, ” Lomax said. “And you don't need to explain yourself to me. I didn't come in to talk about the story in today's paper.”

“I see.” Timms turned a chair around backward and took a seat. “What can I do for you, then? Do you want some coffee? Water?”

“I'm fine, ” Lomax said. “I have a statement to make, Detective, so I'd like to get to it.”

“A statement, sir?”

“I've withheld information from your investigation.”

Timms looked at the man for some time.

He said, “In that case, sir, I'd like to suggest we stop here. Until you have legal representation present.”

“That won't be necessary.”

“With all due respect, sir, I disagree. I'm thinking about your best interests here. Also the best interests of the investigation. We need to do this right.”

“I thank you for your concern, but I'm old enough to look after my own best interests, ” Lomax said. “As for your investigation … that I understand. I'm prepared to do this again for the record. In the meantime, you can stop ‘sir’-ing me, Detective. It's not impressing anybody.”

Timms sat for a moment. He tapped his thumbs on the back of the chair. He and Lomax looked at each other.

“Listen, ” Timms said. “Since this isn't an interview, there's no reason to do it in an interview room. Let's go downstairs and get a cup of coffee. We can have a conversation if that's what you want.”

“I think I've dodged enough reporters for today, ” Lomax said. “But I suppose a cup of coffee would be fine.”

Timms nodded and rose from the table. “I'll go scare us up a couple. Be back in a minute.”

“I'll be here.”

Lomax didn't seem quite so impatient to get to his statement as he'd made out.

“Humans are strange animals, ” he said.

Timms sipped his coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “Agreed.”

“In the wild, most animals spend their energy finding the next meal. Or trying not to become one. We humans are the only creatures I can think of who spend energy trying to burn off whatever we ate last. Why do you suppose that is?”

“I don't know, ” Timms said.

“Say you had to speculate. It's not a trick question, I'm interested in your opinion.”

Timms began to feel like the guy who was supposed to be answering the questions instead of the guy who was supposed to be asking them. But he wanted the man to feel comfortable, wanted to preserve the conversational vibe. So he took a shot.

“Vanity, I guess.”

Lomax gazed into his coffee cup as though pondering his reflection.

“You forgot procreation, though.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“One of the other ways nature spends energy. Perpetuation of the species. Right?”

Lomax chuckled a little at that. “Detective, you're talking to a man who, at forty-five, married a woman less than half his age and decided he wanted offspring. I think you could argue that procreation can be a form of vanity, too.”

Timms let that ride.

“I need to show you something, ” Lomax said.

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded the paper, looked it over, and handed it to Timms.

Timms took one look and didn't like what he saw. It was only a photocopy, but it still was what it was. DR tag and all.

“That isn't David's signature, of course, ” Lomax said. “I'm sure you've ascertained that by now. I'm only giving this back to you for your own information.”

“With all due respect, ” Timms said, “how do you happen to be in possession of this, Commissioner?”

“It was delivered to my home.”

“Delivered by who?”

“A private courier, ” Lomax said. “I can't be positive of the sending party. And I'm not prepared to suggest names in any case, lawyers or no lawyers. But I think we can assume by the fact that this letter has been assigned a Division of Records number that …”

“… somebody around here is trying to keep you up to speed.”

“It would seem.”

They sat with their coffees, each studying the other's eyes.

“You were saying something about procreation, ” Lomax finally said. “But I think you really mean to talk about fornication. Why do I get the feeling you already know what I came here to tell you today?”

Lomax never did touch his coffee. He spoke long and candidly while it grew cold beside his hand.

“I don't know if you remember, Detective, but you met my wife once. Years ago.”

Timms nodded. “I remember.”

He'd still been with the Santa Monica force, rolling patrol. One night in November, late, he and his partner had responded to a call not far from the address contained in the bogus David Lomax letter. Several motorists had reported an apparently disoriented woman wandering the west shoulder of PCH. Timms and his partner had finally found the woman huddled in wet sand beneath Santa Monica Pier, unclothed and without ID. At the station, she'd said her name was Barbara Lomax. It had turned out that she was right.

“I remember your discretion, ” Lomax said. “And your kindness. Then as well as now.”

Timms didn't know how to take that, so he took a pass.

“But you didn't really meet my wife, ” Lomax said. “You didn't meet Barbara. You only met her illness. At that time, the two weren't inseparable. Early on, when she was still diligent about her medication … well. Barbara is quite a human being.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Over the years, as her condition … evolved, as different prescriptions lost their usefulness, her doctors tried different combinations. Some were more effective than others. Though it's my way of thinking that ‘effective’ is too polite a way to describe a scorched-earth campaign.”