Eureka

CHAPTER 31

“I knew it as soon as I saw that picture on the front page,” Riker hissed softly, his black eyes glittering. “She was about fifty pounds heavier and she let her hair go natural and she had her nose bobbed, but I knew Wilma better than anybody. I knew she peroxided her hair back then because she thought it made her look like a movie star. I knew she had big dreams that wouldn’t happen, knew she had broken her ankle hiking up near Monterey, because I was with her that day. I piggybacked her down to the first-aid station. And here’s the clincher. I know that lady in the morgue, the one you found in the tub, has bridgework.” He stuck a finger in the corner of his mouth, rubbed it across three teeth. “These three, right side on the bottom.”

Worms of anxiety began to gnaw at me. I hadn’t read the whole autopsy report, I had been out the door as soon as Bones told us we had a homicide on our hands. Riker couldn’t have gotten that detail from the newspaper. The story had only quoted the paragraph from the report that pertained specifically to the fact that she was murdered.

“Anybody could have read that report and phoned you,” I said.

“I didn’t even see the paper until I got up this morning. It doesn’t even hit town here until 4:00 a.m. And there’s nothing in it except the information about water in her lungs and the radio causing it to look like an accident.”

“Your lawyer called you this morning. He could have gotten a copy of that report with a phone call, called you up, and read it to you.”

“Wrong again; I called him first, when I read the Times. He called me back the same as you, in no time flat.”

I thought about what he was telling me. It made a kind of terrible sense. Someone paid to have Wilma’s nose fixed to make her harder to recognize. Then she laid low for a while. Then someone arranged to get her a job in the tax office. Someone with clout.

Someone like Culhane.

“I considered the possibility that she wasn’t dead,” Riker said. “I always figured it was Eddie Woods who set me up on Culhane’s orders. But what could I do? I’m in the can for life. Then I saw the picture this morning and read the story and I knew it wasn’t Lila. So there it was. Verna Hicks was Wilma. I figure the little twist wanted to up the ante on Culhane since he’s running for governor. And if he got elected, she’d probably jack it up again. So Woods did the job for good this time.”

“Pure guesswork,” I said bitterly. “You think you can con everybody into thinking Wilma Thompson’s been alive for the last twenty years, something nobody can prove.”

His lips curled into a sneer.

“Just another lousy cop,” he snarled. “You don’t want to know what really happened. You have any idea what it’s like to live in a cage? The worst part about it is you have no options. You get up at the same time every day, shower at the same time, eat three lousy meals at the same time, and go to bed at the same time. One day is just like the next. You know it will never change for the rest of your life. And worst of all, you know you’re innocent. Well, now it will change. I can change it because now I can prove I was framed. The dentist who did Wilma’s bridgework still lives in San Pietro. His name is Wayne Tyler. I’ll bet he’s still got all the charts and pictures he took when he was working on her. If you’re such a good cop, you’ll go get it. And the coroner can see if I’m telling the truth.”

His smile was an evil leer.

“You know what I like best about all this?” Riker threw his head back, laughed, and smacked his hands together. “The thing I like best is that you, the hotshot L.A. detective who’s been sucking up to Culhane, are going to get me sprung, prove that son of a bitch framed me, and end his run for governor. Who else but Culhane would be paying her five hundred a month to disappear?”

I made a fist and dug my fingernails into my palms to keep from doing something stupid.

“You know something, Riker?” I said, standing up. “The thought of scum like you having one day on the outside turns my stomach.”

“You’d better get busy,” he snapped. “My lawyer’s already on the case. It won’t look too good if he calls a press conference and tells all those newsies who Verna Wilensky was, especially if you knew all about it and didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

I took the ashtray but left the pack of cigarettes in front of him.

“You forgot your butts,” he said.

“They’re not my brand,” I said, rapping on the door.

Behind me, I heard him chuckling. “Thanks a lot, Sergeant. If you’re half as good as you think you are, I’ll be outside the walls suing everybody in sight before I need another pack.”