Scavenger hunt

Chapter 45

"I bet you hated leaving your lucky sunglasses in the koi pond," said Jimmy.

"You don't forget a thing, do you?" Walsh poked at the hot dogs smoldering on the hibachi with a fork, a joint stuck in the corner of his mouth. "I was wearing those Wayfarers the night I won the two Oscars, kept them with me through thick and thin. But I tossed them in the water next to Harlen and was glad to do it. Even stuck the linoleum knife in his back pocket. Whatever it took to convince you."

"Is that what it was all about, convincing me?"

"Convince you, convince the cops. One way or the other I figured it was healthier for me to be dead than alive." Walsh's grin exposed a chipped front tooth. He slid his tongue across the rough edge, aware that Jimmy had noticed. "Busted it the night Harlen drowned. Fell right on my face and never felt a thing. The two of us were so wasted."

"Did he drown on his own, or did he have help?"

"You think I killed him?" Walsh was wreathed in smoke. "You got a mind like a corkscrew, tough guy. That's what they used to say about me, because they could never tell what I was up to. No wonder I like you."

Jimmy didn't return the sentiment. The two of them leaned against the railing of Walsh's balcony, a concrete slab overlooking the Dumpsters in the alley. The apartment itself was a by-the-week rental in Manhattan Beach, a small studio with orange shag carpeting, a toilet that never stopped running, and cast-off furniture from previous tenants. The unit was located just a couple of miles and a half-million dollars from the cottage where Heather Grimm had died. Jimmy had driven right past the Kreamy Krullers shop, thought of Sugar, and almost stopped for a dozen.

Walsh rubbed a hand across his scruffy beard. It was a lousy disguise, more vanity than anything else, thinking the world was full of fans who would recognize him. He squatted on his haunches now, wearing baggy shorts and a new red cowboy shirt with bucking broncos on the yoke. The shirt was unbuttoned in the afternoon heat, the pits stained with sweat. He balled up some newspaper and pushed it onto the coals, the flames flaring up, the hot dogs popping. "I've always been impatient," he said, stabbing the dogs with the fork. "Me and Harlen stood in the middle of the koi pond that night, pissing on the fishies. I finished first and staggered back across the rocks, in a hurry to get back to the crack pipe. I woke up at dawn, eyes swollen half shut and spitting teeth, but I still looked better than Harlen. Damn fish had already nibbled away his eyeballs when I rolled him over." He dragged again at the joint and flicked the roach off the balcony. "Put me off my Froot Loops, that's for certain."

"Don't make jokes, Garrett." Brooke sat inside on one of two mismatched kitchen chairs, wearing sandals and a short sundress the color of ground mustard. Her legs were long and tan, her toes daubed with coral. "You're going to give Jimmy the wrong idea."

"Jimmy knows I didn't kill Harlen." A truck rumbled past on the street outside, rattling the windows. "Jimmy doesn't give me that much credit."

"You'd be surprised, Walsh. I'm more impressed with you now than ever."

"The feeling is mutual." Walsh speared one of the burned hot dogs and held it up to his lips, blowing on it. "You sure you don't want one?" He shrugged. "Just for curiosity's sake, what clued you in that I was still alive? Was it this?" He reached inside his shirt and flicked the gold ring through his right nipple. "I thought about it after I left, but I didn't want to go back and try sticking it on Harlen's tit. Tell you the truth, after a couple days, I didn't want to touch him."

"No, I missed that, but it wouldn't have mattered. He didn't have any nipples left by the time they ran the autopsy."

Brooke winced at the image, but Walsh seemed unaffected, finishing the first hot dog and reaching for the other one. "What was it, then?"

"Your last two calls were to Vacaville."

"How did you know that? I used a prepaid cell phone. They're untraceable."

"Not anymore."

Walsh stopped chewing. It wasn't being caught that bothered him. It was the realization that everything had changed in the seven years he had been gone.

"I thought maybe you had been killed on some prison contract and the killer was just checking in afterward. I never considered that it wasn't you dead in the koi pond. The police had a dental match, and there was the devil tattoo. Then a friend of mine mentioned these gangbangers she had seen, and they all had the same tattoo. It made me rethink things."

"So you just got lucky?" Walsh turned to Brooke. "He just got lucky, that's all."

Brooke crossed her legs. "I don't believe in luck."

Walsh watched Brooke, dreamy-eyed. "Look at her, tough guy. She's something, isn't she? Seven years is a long time, but she was worth the wait."

"You had somebody at the prison switch your dental records with Harlen Shafer's," said Jimmy. "That's what the two phone calls were about. One to make the request, the next to confirm that it had been done."

Walsh applauded.

"Was it a guard who made the switch, or a trustee with another one of those devil tattoos?"

"A trustee, one of the boys. Vacaville is computerizing their medical records, but the state doesn't have enough money to hire out the job, so they use brainiac inmates." Walsh picked at his teeth with a fingernail. "That kind of arrangement, they're just asking for trouble."

"So you didn't kill Shafer. Maybe you just saw him slip and knock himself senseless on the rocks. Maybe you even started to help him, and then thought about it. Knee deep in the stink, fish going crazy- I bet you worked through the possibilities fast. You knew you weren't going to have visitors for weeks."

"You trying to make me mad?" The fork was still in Walsh's hand, held casually, as though he had forgotten it was there.

Jimmy smiled and slightly shifted position to block the strike if it came.

"Listen, tough guy, my first day inside, strung out and so scared I couldn't even talk, Harlen slipped me a quaalude, told me to hang on, said we got pie for dessert every Friday." Walsh shook his head. "Fucking Harlen couldn't read without moving his lips. He never walked past a pay phone without checking the change return. But he kept my back, and I kept his." He gripped the fork tighter. "I wouldn't have let him drown without doing something about it."

"Once he was dead though, you decided to take advantage."

"You think Harlen cared? The only good thing about dying is you don't give a shit anymore." Walsh tossed the fork aside. "You're just mad because I played you. Well, don't feel bad, I've played better men than you."

"You're going to have to get that tooth fixed. It makes you look like one of those peckerwoods from Deliverance."

Walsh hung on to the grin. "Make jokes. All I know is when you wanted to find me, you went to Brooke. If you figured out she's the good wife, that means you got the goods on Danziger, you know he set me up. You know he had that girl killed." He winked at Brooke. "Didn't I tell you he could do it? Jimmy here is a real bird dog."

Sugar Brimley had called Jimmy the same thing. He didn't like it any better coming from Walsh.

"You should be thanking me, Jimmy-I've given you the biggest story of your career. I'm going to make you famous." Walsh leaned closer to Jimmy and went to pat him on the back, then thought better of it. "I tried to play boy detective myself, but I didn't have the aptitude. I made phone calls, I drove around asking questions, but nobody would talk to me, and when they did, I didn't know what to do with the information. You, though-after you and Rollo left that night, I checked you out. You're the real deal. Smack dealers, stock hustlers, assorted fuckwads and phonies-once you sink your teeth in, you don't let go. You even went after your own brother." He shook his head. "A man who sends up his own brother, that's the man I want on my side. I tried to come up with something that would get you interested." He glanced over at Brooke. "I asked her to call you, but she wouldn't hear of it. Flat out refused."

"I had no intention of letting myself be used," said Brooke. "You're the storyteller. If you couldn't convince Jimmy, then I wasn't about to try."

"Women, Jimmy. They love us, but they never love us enough."

"Getting me to dig around in Heather Grimm's murder might have brought down some trouble," said Jimmy. "You could have gotten me killed."

Walsh spread his hands. "That's a risk I had to take."

"Of course, if I had gotten killed, that would have really made your day. Killing a reporter-that's better than killing a cop if you want to attract media attention. Every newspaper in town would have assigned somebody to cover the case, just to teach the lesson that you don't fuck with somebody with a typewriter and a printing press."

"Sad but true."

"You don't look sad to me."

"I'm crying on the inside, Jimmy."

"Well, you better crank up the tears, because I can't prove that Danziger had Heather Grimm killed. I can't even prove he set you up. I think he did. I think he had her bump into you at the beach, and I think he had somebody call the cops, but I still don't know what really happened in the beach house that night. Not yet."

"Well, I sure as fuck didn't do it."

"You told me you didn't remember. You said you were doing dope all afternoon."

"Dope and sex," snapped Brooke.

"I told you I was sorry about that," Walsh said to her. " You were the one who needed time to think. Maybe if you hadn't run back to hubby-"

"I needed time to make a decision, and I made it," said Brooke. "I had an appointment with a divorce attorney scheduled for Friday. Wednesday night you were arrested. You couldn't wait for me to decide."

"I didn't plan on this little cupcake showing up on my doorstep."

"I hate to interrupt the blame game just as we're entering the lightning round, but if you didn't kill Heather, who did?" said Jimmy.

Walsh shook his head. "I wish I knew."

Jimmy turned to Brooke. "Do you know?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Brooke.

"It wasn't your husband. A guy like him-he doesn't pick up a phone or flush his own toilet." Jimmy stared at Brooke. "Did Michael have anyone on the payroll who could have murdered Heather? Someone who might have done some security work, or maybe body-guarded the two of you at some special event?"

"There-there were always a lot of people vying for Michael's attention back then. He greenlighted a lot of action films when he ran the studio, and men came up to him at social functions, trying to impress him, bragging about working for the mob. We used to laugh about it afterward."

"I'm disappointed in you, Jimmy," said Walsh. "I'm waiting around for you to get the goods on Danziger, and all you can tell me is you don't have proof."

" 'Not yet.'" Brooke looked up. "He said he didn't have the proof yet, Garrett." She watched Jimmy, her mouth set, just like when she reined in her horse yesterday. "Jimmy's got a plan."

"That's right, Mrs. Danziger." Jimmy enjoyed the way she reacted when he called her that. "You're not going to like it, though."

"It doesn't matter what she likes." Walsh gestured at the kitchen table behind Brooke, where a ream of paper was stacked neatly beside an electric typewriter. "I finished two treatments and a shooting script since I moved in. Best stuff I ever wrote too. Clean and sober, Jimmy, just a little weed to keep me loose. You clear my name, and every producer in Hollywood is going to be unzipping me."

"When we talked in the trailer, you said Brooke overheard her husband listening to tapes of the two of you making love," said Jimmy. "Danziger's a diligent man. Cautious. Patient. You think he suddenly stopped taping once he knew about the affair?"

Walsh was blank for a moment, then smiled.

"Once I listen to the tape from the night Heather Grimm was murdered, then I'll have proof," said Jimmy. "It may not be the kind of proof you want, though. Maybe Danziger didn't have anyone working for him. Maybe you really did kill her. You've already done the time, but if you're guilty as charged, forget lunch at the Ivy."

"I'll take my chances," said Walsh.

"What about you, Brooke? Do you just want to know the truth too?"

"I never heard anything that sounded like that girl being murdered," said Brooke.

Jimmy watched Brooke. She said she didn't believe in luck, but her timing was perfect. She had first heard her husband listening to the tapes just before Walsh was due to be released. Not during his first month of incarceration, or his first year-that would have been lucky for Walsh. No, she found out about the tapes seven years later, after Danziger's production deal had run out. After she and Danziger had started reneging on their charity pledges. Walsh had a devious sensibility, able to plot out the most cynical and intricate storylines, but when it came to Brooke, he was as trusting as a bridegroom.

"You can't be sure such a tape exists," said Brooke.

"It exists. I just have to find it. Where does your husband listen to the tapes?"

"The screening room."

"Then it's more than an audiotape. If it was just audio, he'd slip on a pair of headphones and listen to the two of you while he walked on the beach or drove in his car. No, if he has to get up in the middle of the night to replay your greatest hits, he's watching it too."

Walsh and Brooke turned to each other.

"Is there a storage locker in the screening room? A locked cabinet?"

"Yes, of course." Brooke lowered her eyes. "If Michael is watching movies of us, it's even worse somehow."

"The premiere of My Girl Trouble is tomorrow night," said Jimmy. "I assume you and your husband are attending. Will there be anyone left in the house?"

Brooke shook her head. "Raymond used to live in, but he goes home at five now." She crossed her legs. "I don't have a key to the film cabinet. Michael's very territorial."

Walsh walked over to Brooke, put his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair. He finally stood up. "You're good, Jimmy. Nice to see a man who knows what he's doing." He fumbled another joint out of his pocket and fired it up. "If none of this had happened-if Heather hadn't shown up at my house that afternoon-everything would be different. Brooke and I would be living in a mansion in the clouds, happily married and rolling around on satin sheets. I'd have a few more gold boys on my mantel, and you would have interviewed me about my latest movie, the one with all the buzz, and if I was in a good mood, we might have hit it off." He was lost behind the smoke again, his voice barely audible. "I don't know… we might have had some fun, you and me."