“You're saying that Wozniak was dirty.”
“That's right.”
“You're telling me that Joe Pike's partner was part of a burglary ring.”
Like maybe I'd heard him wrong and wanted to be sure.
“Well, we weren't at a point in the investigation where we could make the case and charge him, but he was good for it. After he died we could've kept going, but I decided to let it drop. Here was this man's family, a wife and the children, why put them through that? Krantz was livid about it, though. He wanted to keep going and nail Pike.”
“Because Pike had embarrassed him?”
McConnell was about to take another sip of the beer when he paused, and considered me.
“Not that at all. Harvey believed that Pike was involved.”
Sometimes you hear things that you never want to hear, things so alien to your experience, so outlandish that it seems you've rolled out of bed into a Stephen King novel.
“I don't believe that.”
McConnell shrugged. “Well, most people thought what you thought, that Krantz was just hot to get Pike because Pike's the one made him shit his pants. But Krantz told me he really did believe Pike was involved. He didn't have any proof, but his feeling was how could they not be, the two of them riding together every day. I told'm if he'd spent more time in the car being a real cop instead of trying to suck ass his way into fancier jobs, he'd know. It's like being married. You can spend your whole life with someone and never know them.” He glanced out toward the field. The truck had stopped by the control station of the rainbirds. The two older guys were working there, but the younger guy was out on the sod, jumping and waving his arms and splashing around in the water.
McConnell slid off the table. “Now what do you suppose that fool is doing?”
McConnell shouted something in Spanish, but the men couldn't hear him. The girl reappeared in the door to see why he had shouted. She looked as mystified as McConnell.
McConnell fished around in his pants for keys to the Caddie. “Sonofabitch. I'm going to have to go out there.”
“Mr. McConnell, I only need a few more minutes. If there wasn't any proof, what made Krantz think Pike was involved? Just because they were in the same car?”
“Harvey didn't believe Pike's story about what happened in that motel room. He thought they'd had a falling-out with each other because of the investigation, and that maybe Pike was worried that Wozniak was going to give him up to cut a deal. Krantz had been trying to do that, you know. Play them against each other. He was sure that Pike murdered Wozniak to keep him quiet.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Well, I never believed that we knew what really happened in that room. Wozniak lost it with DeVille and knocked him out. We know that much for sure because DeVille and Pike told the same story. But after DeVille was out, all we know is what Pike told us, and some of it didn't make sense. Here was Pike, young and strong and fresh out of the Marines, knowing all that karate stuff the way he did. It just doesn't make a lot of sense that he'd have that much trouble trying to cool out Wozniak. Krantz thought Pike was stonewalling us, and maybe he was, but what are you going to do? We couldn't make the case.”
I didn't like hearing any of this. I was getting irritated with it, and pissed off that McConnell was distracted by the guys in the field. Now the other two guys joined the younger guy in the artificial rain, jumping around with him.
McConnell said, “Oh, this really is out of hand.”
“Do you think Krantz was right?”
McConnell shouted in Spanish again, but the men still didn't hear him.
I went around and stepped in front of him so he had to look at me instead of the men.
“Was Krantz right?”
“Krantz hadn't turned anything that we could make a case on. I figured one tragedy was enough, so I told Krantz to drop it. That's what we did. Look, I'm sorry I can't help you, but I gotta get out there. Those crazy bastards are costing me money.”
He started around me, and when he did I trapped his hand and twisted away the gun. He wasn't expecting it, and the move had taken maybe a tenth of a second.
McConnell's eyes widened, and he froze.
“What about these two fences? You think either of them might be trying to set up Joe Pike?”
“Wozniak was nothing to those two. Reena hauled ass back to Tijuana because he got into a beef with some meth-head. Uribe was shot to death at a gas station when he got into an argument.”
“Wozniak's file showed that he had received administrative punishments on five separate occasions, and twice been suspended for using excessive force. Seven complaints, and in five of those the complainant was either a pedophile or a pimp dealing in child prostitution. Do you know who the informant was who tipped Wozniak about DeVille?”
McConnell's eyes flicked to the gun, then came back to me.
“No. Wozniak probably had several. That's what made him such an effective patrol officer.”
“How could I find out?”
“The divisions keep a registered informant list. They have to do that to protect the officers. But I don't know if Rampart would still have one for Wozniak, all of that being so long ago.”
McConnell looked past me to the fields again, then shook his head. “Goddamnit, you gonna shoot me, son, or you gonna let me go take care of my business? Look at the water they're wasting.”
I looked at the gun, then handed it back to him. I felt myself turn red.
“I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that.”
“Kiss my ass.”
He stalked toward the Cadillac. When he got to the door, he turned back to me, but he didn't look angry anymore. He looked sad.
“Look, I know how it is, your partner gets in trouble. Just so you know, I never believed that Pike had anything to do with that burglary ring. And I don't think he murdered Wozniak. If I'd thought he had, I would've stayed after him. But I didn't.”
“Thanks, Mr. McConnell. I'm sorry.”
“Yeah. Right.”
McConnell climbed into his Caddie and roared away into his fields.
I went back to my car, put my own gun back in its holster, and sat there, thinking. The smell of the fertilizer was stronger now. Rainbows floated around the dancing men in the mist from the rainbirds. The Caddie skidded to a stop behind the truck and McConnell got out, pissed off and shouting. One by one the men stopped jumping and went back to work. McConnell turned off the water and the rainbirds died.
Sitting there, I reread the LAPD incident report and found the reference again: Acting on information received from an unnamed informant, Officers Wozniak and Pike entered room #205 of the Islander Palms Motel.
The more I sat there thinking, the more I thought about the unnamed informant, and what he might know. He or she probably didn't know anything, but when you've got nothing the way I had nothing, a long shot starts to look pretty good.
I went back through the rest of my notes and found Wozniak's widow. Paulette Renfro.
Maybe Wozniak talked about his work to his wife, and maybe she knew something about the informant. Maybe she knew something about Harvey Krantz, and how the Leonard DeVille file had come to be missing.
You look for connections.
I started my car, pulled in a wide circle, and drove back toward the highway.
Behind me, the sod had already begun to bake in the afternoon heat. Steam rose from the ground like a fog from hell.
29
• • •
You're getting close to Palm Springs when you see the dinosaurs.
Driving through the Banning Pass, a hundred miles east of L.A. where the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains pinch together to form a gateway to the high deserts of the Coachella Valley, you emerge into the Morongo Indian Reservation. A towering apatosaur and tyrannosaurus rex stand just off the freeway, built there by some sun-stricken desert genius long before Michael Crichton created Jurassic Park. Years ago, they were the only thing ou
t here, monstrous full-sized re-creations standing in the desert heat as if they were frozen in time and place. You could pay a dime and walk around them, and maybe have your picture taken to send to all the folks back home in Virginia. Look, Ma, here we are in California. The dinosaurs have been there for years, but drunks and hopheads still stumble into the bars down in Cabazon, swearing they've seen monsters in the desert.
A few miles past the dinosaurs, I left the freeway and followed the state highway along the foot of the San Jacintos into Palm Springs.
During the winter months, Palm Springs is alive with tourists and weekenders and snowbirds come down from Canada to escape the cold. But in the middle of June with temperatures hovering at one hundred twenty degrees the town is barely breathing, its pulse undetectable as it wilts in the heat like some run-over animal waiting on the side of the road to die. The tourists are gone, and only the suicidal venture out during the day.
I stopped in a tee-shirt shop to buy a map of the area, looked up Paulette Renfro's address, then made my way straight north across the desert, one moment with dinosaurs and Indians, the next passing the science-fiction weirdness of hundreds of sleek, computer-designed windmills, their great flimsy blades rotating in slow motion to steal energy from the wind.
Palm Springs itself is a town of resorts and vacation homes and poodle groomers for the affluent, but the men and women who keep the city running live in smaller communities like Cathedral City to the south or North Palm Springs on what's considered the wrong side of the freeway.
Paulette Renfro lived in a small, neat desert home in the foothills above the freeway with a view of the windmills. Her home was beige stucco with a red tile roof and an oversized air conditioner that I could hear running from the street. Down in Palm Springs the people can afford to irrigate for grass lawns, but up here the lawns were crushed rock and sand, with desert plantings that required little water. All their money goes into the air conditioner.
I parked off the street and walked up her drive past an enormous blooming century plant with leaves like green swords. A brand-new Volkswagen Beetle was parked behind a Toyota Camry, only the Camry was in a garage and the Beetle was out in the sun. Visitor.
A tall, attractive woman answered when I rang the bell. She was wearing a nice skirt and makeup, as if she planned to leave soon or had just returned.
I said, “Ms. Renfro?”
“Yes?” Nice teeth and a pretty smile. She was five or six years older than me, but that meant she must've been younger than Abel Wozniak.
“My name's Cole. I'm a private investigator from Los Angeles. I need to speak with you about Abel Wozniak.”
She glanced inside like she was nervous about something. “Now isn't really a good time. Besides, Abel died years ago. I don't know how I could help you.”
“Yes, ma'am. I know. I'm hoping you can answer a few questions about a case he was working on at the time of his death. It's pretty important. I've come a long way.” Sometimes if you look pathetic enough it helps.
A younger woman appeared behind her, the younger woman saying, “Who is it, Mom?”
Paulette Renfro told me that we were letting out all the cold and asked me to come in, though she didn't look happy about it. Most people don't. “This is my daughter Evelyn. Evelyn, this is Mr. Cole. From Los Angeles.”
“I have to finish moving.” Annoyed.
“Hi, Ms. Renfro.” I offered my hand, but Evelyn didn't take it.
“My name's Wozniak. Renfro was her mistake.”
“Evie, please.”
I said, “This shouldn't take any more than ten minutes. I promise.”
Paulette Renfro glanced at her watch, then her daughter. “Well, I suppose I have a few minutes. But I have things to do, and I have an appointment to show a house in less than an hour. I'm in real estate.”
Evie said, “I don't need your help. I just need to bring in the rest of my things.”
Evie Wozniak stalked out of the house and slammed the door. She looked like a twenty-something version of her mother in the face, but where Paulette Renfro was neat and well put together, her daughter was puffy and overweight, her features pinched with a set that said most things probably annoyed her.
I said, “Looks like I interrupted something. Sorry about that.”
Ms. Renfro seemed tired. “There's always something to interrupt. She's having boyfriend problems. She's always having boyfriend problems.”
The house was neat and attractive, with an enormous picture window and comfortable Southwestern furniture. The living room flowed through to a family-room combination with the kitchen on one side and a hall that probably led to bedrooms on the other. Beyond the family room, a small blue pool glittered in the heat. From the picture window, you could look down across the freeway and see the windmills, slowly turning, and farther south, Palm Springs.
“This is very nice, Ms. Renfro. I'll bet Palm Springs looks beautiful at night.”
“Oh, it does. The windmills remind me of the ocean during the day, what with their gentle movement like that, and at night the Springs can look like one of those fairy-tale cities from A Thousand and One Nights.”
She led me to a comfortable couch that looked toward the view.
“Could I offer you something to drink? With our heat out here, you have to be careful to keep yourself hydrated.”
“Thanks. Water would be good.”
The living room was small, but the open floor plan and a spare arrangement of furniture made it feel larger. I hadn't expected Paulette Renfro to keep any fond memories of Joe Pike, but as I waited for the water, I noticed a small framed picture resting in a bookcase among a little forest of bowling trophies. Paulette Wozniak was standing with her husband and Pike in front of an LAPD radio car that was parked in the drive of a modest home. Paulette was wearing jeans and a man's white shirt with the sleeves rolled and the tails tied off in a kind of halter.
Joe Pike was smiling.
I went over to the bookcase, and stared at the picture.
I had never seen Pike smile. Not once in all the years that
I'd known him. I had seen a thousand pictures of Joe in the Marines, of him hunting or fishing or camping, pictures of him with friends, and in none of them was he smiling.
Yet here was this picture of her former husband and the man who had killed him.
Smiling.
Paulette Renfro said, “Here's your water.”
I took the glass. She'd brought water for herself, too.
“That's Abel on the left. We were living in the Simi Valley.”
I said, “Ms. Renfro, Joe Pike is a friend of mine.”
She stared at me for a moment, holding her glass with both hands, then went to the couch. She sat on the edge of it. Perching.
“I imagine you find it odd that I would keep that picture.”
“I don't find anything odd. People have their reasons.” “I've been reading about all that mess down in Los Angeles. First Karen, now Joe being accused of murdering this man. I think it's a shame.”
“You knew Karen Garcia?”
“Joe was dating her in those days, you know. She was a pretty, sweet girl.” She glanced at her watch again, then decided something. “You say you and Joe are friends?”
“Yes, ma'am. We own the agency together.”
“Were you a police officer, also?” Like she wanted to talk about Joe, but wasn't sure how to go about it.
“No, ma'am. Private only.”
She glanced at the picture again, almost as if she had to explain it. “Well, what happened to Abel happened a long time ago, Mr. Cole. It was a terrible, horrible accident, and I can't imagine that anyone feels worse about it than Joe.”
Evelyn Wozniak said, “Your child feels worse about it, Mother. Since he killed my father.”
She had come through the kitchen carrying a large cardboard box.
Paulette's face tightened. “Do you need a hand with that?”
Evelyn continued on through the
living room to disappear down a hall without answering.
Paulette said, “It was hard on Evelyn. She's moving back home now. This boyfriend, the one who just left her, took their rent money and now she's lost her apartment. That's the kind of men she finds.”
“Was she close to her father?”
“Yes. Abel was a good father.”
I nodded. I wondered if she knew about Krantz's investigation. I wondered if she knew about Reena and Uribe and the burglaries.
“I really do have to be leaving soon. What is it that you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened that day.”
Paulette stiffened, not much, but I could see it.
“Why do you want to know about that?”
“Because I think someone is trying to frame Joe for Eugene Dersh's murder.”
She shook her head, but the stiffness remained.
“I couldn't even guess, Mr. Cole. My husband didn't talk about his job with me.”
“On the day your husband died, he and Joe were tipped to the whereabouts of this man DeVille by one of your husband's informants. Would you know who?”
Paulette Renfro stood, and now she wasn't looking so much like she wanted to help. Now she was looking uncomfortable and suspicious.
“No, I'm sorry.”
“He didn't talk about that kind of thing with you, or you don't remember?”
“I don't like to talk about that day, Mr. Cole. I don't know anything about it, or about my husband's job, or any of that. He never told me anything.”
“Please take a moment and think, Ms. Renfro. It would help if you could come up with a name.”
“I'm sure I never knew.”
Her daughter came back through the room then, carrying empty boxes and clothes hangers.
Paulette Renfro said, “Do you have all your things?”
“I'm going back for the last of it.”
“Do you need money?”
“I'm fine.”
Evelyn Wozniak stalked on through the living room and slammed the door. Again.