Self-Defence

23

She showed us two pictures of herself and Felix, saying, "These are the only ones I have. When you go mobile, you keep things to the minimum."

The first was a wedding portrait, the young couple posed in front of a painted backdrop of the Trevi Fountain. She'd been a pretty dark-haired girl, but even at nineteen her eyes had been wary. Felix wasn't much taller than his bride, a spare man with slicked hair and Clark Gable ears. He'd worn a pencil mustache, like Gable, but had none of the actor's strength in his face.

The second snapshot had been taken two years before Barnard's murder. The mustache was gone and the PI was stooped, his face lined, the toupee embarrassingly obvious. He wore a gray sharkskin suit with skinny lapels and a white turtleneck and held a cigarette in a holder. Mo's hair was bleached blond and she'd put on some weight, but despite that she did look young enough to be his daughter. The picture had been taken in a back yard, their faces shaded by a big orange tree.

"Our place in Santa Monica," she said. "I rent it out now. The income along with my pension's what keeps me going."

Milo asked to borrow the more recent photo, and she said, "Sure." We thanked her and left. As we stepped out of the trailer, she said, "Good luck to you. Let me know if you find out anything."

"Nice lady," I said, as we walked down to our cars.

"She fed me dinner," said Milo. "Beans and franks and potato chips. I was ready for camp songs. Before she really opened up, we watched Jeopardy. She knows a lot about presidents' wives."

"How long were you there?"

"Since six."

Four and a half hours. "Dedication."

"Yeah, beatify me."

"How'd you learn about Barnard's murder?"

"Social Security said he was deceased, so I checked county Death Records and it came up homicide, which needless to say surprised me. According to the autopsy report, he got shot in the back of the head in that motel, just like she said. What she doesn't know is that his pants were down around his ankles, but there was no evidence of sexual activity and he hadn't ejaculated recently."

"Was the place an outright bordello?"

"More of an anything-goes place. I knew it well from when I used to ride Westside patrol. Drugs, assaults, all-around obnoxious behavior. The detectives on the case assumed Barnard was a john who got in trouble."

"He was shot," I said. "Wouldn't a hooker have been more likely to stab him?"

"There are no rules, Alex. Some of the girls pack fire, or a pimp could have killed him; lots of them carry."

"Did anyone hear the shot?"

"Nope. Clerk discovered his body, cleaning up. By the time he called it in, place was empty."

"Deaf clerk?"

"It's a busy street, he had the TV blasting, who knows? There was no reason to think it was anything more than Barnard picking the wrong time and place for a blowjob."

"And now?"

"Maybe still. I called you because the fact that he was murdered knocks the Karen Best case up another notch on the Intrigue Scale. As does Mo's feeling that he came into dough."

"Best told me Karen was Barnard's last case," I said. "And Barnard was killed a year after Karen disappeared. You think he could have been blackmailing someone about Karen and they finally got tired of paying?"

"Or he got too greedy. On the other hand, he could have been blackmailing someone about another case totally unrelated to Karen. Or maybe he got the T-bird by saving pennies behind his wife's back. Or at the track. She said all he left her was three thousand bucks- how much would a T-bird have cost back then?"

"Probably six, seven thousand."

"Not major-league blackmail. We're still a long way from evidence. Barnard could have been shot simply because some whore did get mad at him."

"So where do we go from here?"

"I'll see if I can turn up anything more on him. Then I guess the logical thing is to try to find those Sand Dollar people and see if they remember anything about Karen."

He looked through the trees at the restaurant. No cars in the lot and only a few lights were on.

"I went in there tonight looking for Doris Reingold, but she's off for a couple of days… The thing that bothers me about Barnard's investigation is if Karen was hired by the Sheas to work the Sanctum party, why wouldn't anyone at the Dollar have mentioned it?"

"You think someone told Barnard and he left it out intentionally?"

"Who knows? Like you said, maybe he was just an incompetent boob and didn't ask the right questions. Or he got answers and didn't think they were important."

"Malibu Sheriffs interviewed the same people," I said. "If Karen was working the party, why wasn't it in their reports?"

"Maybe she never was at the party. Or could be the sheriffs found out she was and didn't think it was important either."

"The last place she was seen wasn't important?"

"Her serving hors d'oeuvres to five hundred people isn't much of a lead, Alex. She could have been picked up by some party animal and run into trouble later. What reason would anyone have to suspect she was somewhere on the grounds, six feet under?"

We reached the bluff and I walked him to the Porsche. He opened the driver's door and fished for car keys.

"I told Lucy about Karen," I said.

"Oh?"

"I'm still not sure it was right, but I followed my instincts. It was either continue to hold back information from her, and take the chance it would destroy our rapport, or be straight."

"How'd she react?"

"Initial shock. Then she warmed to the idea that the dream might actually mean something. Learning the truth's become her mission."

"Great."

"I'm doing my best to keep the lid on. So far, she's being reasonable. She asked for hypnosis to enhance her memory, and I agreed to try some basic relaxation. I thought she'd be really susceptible, and at first she seemed to be. Then she fell asleep. Which means she's resisting strongly. She slept very deeply and her dream pattern's fragmented. I actually watched her go in and out of several phases. I'm not surprised she's a sleepwalker and has chronic nightmares. She'd like to believe she sleepwalked her way into the kitchen and put her head in the oven, and I guess it's possible. Sleep's her great escape. She blocks things out by dozing off."

The keys came out of his pocket, and he jangled them. "Did it bother her, falling asleep?"

"I downplayed it, made it sound routine. I was worried about getting into too much too quickly, but overall the session seemed to help her. She left in good spirits. Other than the dream, her main concern's Puck. She's well aware of his addiction, defends him as a sick guy. And thinking about him helps her forget about her own troubles. You had any thoughts on the note?"

"Not really."

"Anything new on the copycat?"

"Not a thing, but I'm gonna check out the Bogettes very seriously." He got in the Porsche, started it, and lowered the window.

"I went by the Sheas' surf shop today," I said. "Bought a pair of shorts. Gwen arrived with their son. He's got severe cerebral palsy, needs constant care. Tom Shea drives a newish BMW 735, Gwen's got a customized van for transporting the boy, and both Best and Doris Reingold said the Sheas have a house on the beach at La Costa. Even years ago that was serious money. Not to mention all the medical expenses. The shop didn't look like any big cash cow, but even assuming it is, how'd they get the capital to start up a business by tending bar and waiting tables? Now that we're thinking about Barnard getting paid off, it makes me wonder if they did, too."

"Gwen was obviously an enterprising lady, subcontracting catering. Maybe she had other things going."

"It's still quite a leap from moonlighting to living on the sand. Coming into a little venture capital twenty-one years ago would have helped. Be interesting to know what transpired between the time the Sheas left for Aspen and returned. And why they left in the first place. If it was just because Sherrell Best was bugging them, that would imply some kind of guilt."

"Well," he said, "I gave the widow Barnard plenty of information. Malibu's still a small town, there should be some whispering. Break a few eggs, and who knows?"

"Flushing out the prey?"

He turned his hand into a pistol and pointed it at the windshield. "Boom."

"I may have a shot at big game," I said. "Lucy and I decided I should accept Buck Lowell's invitation to chat."

His hand lowered. "Where you going to meet with him?"

"Sanctum."

"Don't go snooping around the dirt looking for burial plots."

"I promise. Dad."

"Listen, I know you… Meanwhile, you want to talk to Doris Reingold again, or should I try?"

"I can do it; we're already pals. If she's got nothing to hide, another big tip might be enough to pry something loose."

"Hoo-hah, Daddy Warbucks."

"I expect to be reimbursed by the department."

"Oh, sure, absolutely. Officer Santa Claus'll deliver it to you personally. And no new taxes."