Scavenger hunt

Chapter 8

"Filet mignon, bloody, baked potato with the works, asparagus tips," ordered Detective Helen Katz, the waiter scribbling to keep up. She shoved her empty cocktail glass across the white linen tablecloth. "Another double bourbon too. One cube."

"I'll have the tuna," said Jimmy. "Rare, please."

"Must be nice to have an expense account-go anyplace you want, order anything you want, and stick somebody else with the bill," said Katz. "I always wanted to eat here"-she watched the waiter hurry off-"but they don't give a police discount, and the steak costs more than a tank of gas."

"What's the ME's report going to say about cause of death?"

"Hold your horses, Pancho. You don't want to rush a lady."

Jimmy started to laugh but then thought better of it. Katz was wearing a blue suit and white dress shirt, her necktie the height of cop chic with a pistols-and-handcuffs pattern, her dirty-blond hair swept back into a ducktail. For all he knew, she considered this a working date.

"You going to finish your appetizer?" Katz grabbed the rest of his onion soup before he could answer. "You bring Holt here sometimes?" Strings of mozzarella hung from her spoon. "Special occasions?"

"No."

"What's the matter, her ladyship not a meat eater?"

Jimmy wished Katz would have just told him the results of the autopsy over the phone, but she had insisted on giving him the news here. He hated the Grove. The food was overpriced, the menu was geared to induce coronary thrombosis, and the decor was Hollywood circa the time when Buddy Hackett was considered funny. At least the ancient tuxedoed waiters didn't introduce themselves. Lately the Grove had made a retro-chic comeback, frequented now by twenty-something hipsters and bitter, retired executives chewing unlit cigars and talking about how good things used to be and how lousy they were now.

"I'm just giving you shit about Holt," said Katz, picking at her teeth with a fingernail. "She's a good cop. Not my kind of cop, but a good cop just the same."

"I'll tell her she has your seal of approval."

"That supposed to be put-down?"

"Yeah, that's what it was."

Katz grinned again. "See, just when I'm ready to write you off as a scumbag with gainful employment, you go ahead and give me an honest answer. Makes me almost like you." She looked around the dark, wood-paneled restaurant from the shelter of their rolled red leather booth, her head bobbing in approval.

"So… what did the ME decide?"

"That's right, I almost forgot what we were here for." Katz slurped the last of the soup. "The ME said that person or persons unknown shoved something long and sharp through Walsh's ear canal." The spoon banged against the bottom of the bowl as Katz chased the last drop. "Doc almost didn't catch it." She ran a thick finger around the rim of the bowl and put it in her mouth. "You don't look surprised." Jimmy didn't respond, but it didn't seem to bother her. "Me, I was surprised, I admit it, but I'm just a big dumb cop." She barely covered a belch. "So, who do you think did it?"

"I don't know."

"I think you got an idea." Katz gently swirled her double bourbon, the single ice cube clinking against the heavy crystal as she waited for an answer.

"Walsh was afraid of someone, I know that much. When I met him at the trailer, he was jumping out of his skin, but I thought he was just hustling me for some ink."

"Guess we were both wrong." Katz looked around for the waiter.

Jimmy rearranged his silverware, not sure of how much to reveal. Maybe Jane was right. Katz was working the case as a homicide now, so there was no reason to keep information from her. No reason except he liked having an edge, liked having room to maneuver. "Walsh said he got a letter in prison. The writer suggested that Walsh didn't really kill Heather Grimm. That he had been set up."

Katz laughed. "Manson has pen pals too, all of them convinced he's innocent."

"Walsh took this letter seriously. Maybe he wanted to believe. He confessed to killing Heather Grimm, but he didn't remember doing it, so after he got the letter, he was determined to prove his innocence. He didn't really know how to do it, but he was making all the right noises. The screenplay he was working on was going to lay it all out. That's what he said, anyway."

Katz idly stirred her drink with a forefinger.

"Walsh's lawyers hired a private investigator to do a background on Heather Grimm, but his plea bargain stopped all that. Walsh had a copy of the raw notes-he was hoping to use them to find out the truth. I already contacted the attorney. They won't even acknowledge that the file exists, but if you got a subpoena-"

"I didn't find any notes," said Katz, still stirring her drink.

"Neither did I."

"A letter, raw files." Katz flicked her finger and sprayed him with bourbon. "Why didn't you tell me all this at the crime scene?"

Jimmy wiped his face. "I have a hard time sharing my toys. It's a personality defect, but I'm working on it."

"I got a few personality defects myself, but I'm not touching them-why mess with success?" Katz waited in vain for him to disagree with her. "Who wrote this letter to Walsh?"

"I don't know." There was no reason for Jimmy to keep the existence of the good wife from Katz, no reason other than the fact that he wanted to find her first. Jane said he liked saving the damsel in distress, liked playing the hero, but Jimmy knew better. "I asked Walsh, but he wouldn't give it up."

"How convenient." Katz drained her drink, banged it onto the white linen tablecloth. "Well, I searched the trailer myself, and I didn't find anything. No letter. No notes. No screenplay. Poof, disappeared. I did find nine empty prescription bottles of assorted painkillers. Found a quarter-ounce of crank taped under the bathroom sink too, but you probably don't care about that."

Jimmy leaned forward over the table. "Walsh wasn't murdered over a dope deal. If you want to find out who killed him, find out who set him up for killing Heather Grimm."

The white-haired waiter appeared at their table, and Jimmy sat back as the man laid another double bourbon and steak in front of Katz. The man moved so precisely that he didn't disturb the air molecules. He set down Jimmy's plate next, shaking out his napkin before handing it to Jimmy.

"Hey, gramps," said Katz. "Where's the Thousand Island dressing?"

The waiter acted like his pacemaker had just started sparking inside his chest. "The Grove asparagus spears are served only with soft-boiled eggs and lemon wedges, madame," he croaked. "It's one of our signature dishes."

"You ever hear the phrase 'The customer is always right'?" People at the surrounding tables glanced over, but Katz was oblivious. "Just bring me the Thousand." She shook her head as the waiter retreated, then sliced into her steak, the knife clicking on the thick china plate. "We dusted the trailer for prints, every inch of it." She brought the forkful of meat to her mouth, blood running down the tines. "Got some hits too."

"Yeah?" Jimmy forced himself to be careful. Something wasn't right.

"Yeah. Yours." Katz chewed with her mouth open. "Good cow," she pronounced, washing it down with a swallow of bourbon. She took the knife to the steak again. "Rollo's too. And Walsh's, of course." The fork was poised in front of her mouth. "Last but not least, Harlen Shafer, until recently a resident at one of our fine penal institutions. Mr. Walsh's alma mater, to be exact. Aren't you proud of me, Jimmy?" Katz was having way too good a time for Jimmy's taste.

"What was Shafer sent up for?"

The waiter returned and set a side dish of Thousand Island dressing in front of her, then sidled away as Katz ladled dressing onto the asparagus.

"Do you have an APB out for him?" Jimmy said.

"An APB?" Katz picked up three of the asparagus spears and waved them coquettishly at him. "I just love it when civilians use police lingo. I bet that gets Jane hot too."

Jimmy didn't answer. Anything he said was going to be used against him.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch. Shafer's just a small-time dope dealer." Katz bit off the heads of her asparagus. "I do have a confession to make, though." She hung her head for an instant, crossed herself, then looked up at him, showing off those big flat horse teeth of hers. "I haven't been completely honest with you, but then, you weren't completely honest with me. What goes around, comes around." She gulped down half her fresh drink and smacked her lips. "Nobody shoved anything in Walsh's ear, you silly bastard. He wasn't murdered. He died from drowning, with alcohol and drug intoxication as contributing factors." She batted her lashes at him, a little bleary now. "I do hope I haven't destroyed your faith in law enforcement."

"Walsh didn't drown."

"I'm afraid he did." Katz beamed.

"Walsh's body was too deteriorated for the ME to be sure of-"

"Deteriorated is too nice a word. Walsh looked like month-old cottage cheese." Katz wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Floating in the hot sun all that time, fish chewing at his fingers and toes, and the ravens-it was like that Hitchcock movie. Good thing we had Walsh's prison dental records, or we couldn't have made a positive ID."

"Walsh might have been strangled, and no one would know. Any ligature marks would have been eaten away."

"Ligature." Katz chuckled, then reached over and rapped Jimmy on the larynx, suddenly solemn as he jerked back, coughing. "That's your hyoid bone. Somebody chokes you to death, you're hyoid bone is going to show it even if the flesh is mushy. Walsh's hyoid-it was just fine."

Jimmy rubbed his throat.

"Then there's the blood chloride levels." Katz started in on the steak again, gleefully masticating her meat. "Blood chloride levels on the left and right chambers of Walsh's heart were equal." She finished off her bourbon and held her glass above her head. "Garcon!" She grinned at Jimmy. "I always wanted to say that."

"What does blood chloride have to do with it?"

Katz let him simmer, watching the waiter hustle toward the bar. "I barely passed chemistry myself, but Doc says that if the chloride levels are equal, it means that Walsh was still breathing when he went into the water." She stopped as the waiter came by with another drink, then sipped this one now, rolling it around in her mouth; Jimmy had watched Jane do the same thing with her first drink of the evening until she noticed him paying attention. She hid her pleasure now.

"So Walsh drowned. Maybe he had help."

Katz stuck the end of her napkin in her water glass and rubbed at the gob of Thousand Island dressing that had fallen on her necktie. "You hold somebody down, he's going to put up a fight, even somebody as drunk as Walsh was," she lectured. "Those rocks in the koi pond are rough, but Walsh's hands and knees-what was left of them anyway-there were no lacerations on them. His fingertips were gone, but the fish didn't touch his fingernails-none of them were broken off. Sorry to spoil your fantasy, but Walsh just fell down drunk and drowned. The ME's issuing the report tomorrow afternoon, so consider this your heads-up-I always keep my word."

"Somebody took the screenplay. It just didn't disappear."

"The screenplay may be missing, but that doesn't mean somebody took it." Katz inspected her tie, smoothed it flat. "I did my job. I even had the crime scene unit take tire impressions from the ground around the trailer; we haven't had rain in what-three months? CSI got a match on standard-issue tires from Walsh's Honda, your Saab, the Ford Escort driven by Mr. Ponytail, Rollo's VW van, and one more, origin unknown. I admit I got a little interested at that point, but then we determined that Goodyear 275 R15 radials were basic equipment on 1996 Camaros, like the one currently registered to the aforementioned Harlen Shafer, the dealer who makes house calls. That's it, Jimmy-those were the only tire treads up there. Give it a rest."

"Have you talked to Shafer?"

"About what? The case is closed. If you don't know what that means, ask Holt."

The waiter reappeared, nodded at Jimmy's untouched plate. "Is everything all right, sir?"

"Yes, fine." Jimmy looked at Katz. "You're wrong."

"Put my date's tuna into a doggie bag, gramps," Katz told the waiter. "And drop in a few of those dinner rolls." She pushed her plate away and leaned close to Jimmy. "Thanks for the chow and the laughs. I'll keep your number in my wallet. If I ever need somebody to track down the Easter Bunny, I just know you're the guy who can do it for me."