L.A. Requiem

by Robert Crais

  He believes that Dolan has always been overrated as an investigator, so the killer discounts her. But Cole is another matter. He has met Cole, and studied him. Cole is dangerous. An ex-Army guy who wears the Ranger tab, and an experienced investigator. Cole does not appear dangerous in an obvious way, but many officers respect him. He heard one senior detective say not to let the wisecracks and loud shirts fool you, that Cole can carry all the weight you put on him, and still kick your ass. The killer takes this opinion seriously.

  When you are plotting against the enemy, you always look for an exploitable weakness.

  Cole has a girlfriend.

  And the girlfriend has a child.

  32

  • • •

  I walked down the infinite flight of steps from Lucy's apartment to sit in my car. I thought about starting it, but that was beyond me. I tried to be angry with her, but wasn't. I tried to resent her, but that made me feel small. I sat there in my open car on her quiet street until her lights went out, and even then I did not move. I just wanted to be close to her, even if she was up in her apartment and I was down in my car, and for most of the night I tried to figure out how things could go so wrong so quickly. Maybe a better detective could've found answers.

  The sky was pale violet when I finally pulled away. I was content to creep along in the morning traffic, the mindless monotony of driving the car familiar and comforting. By the time I reached home, Dolan was gone. She had left a note on the kitchen counter. What it said was, I'll talk to her if you want.

  I cleaned our glasses from the night before, put away the tequila, and was heading upstairs for a shower when the phone rang.

  My heart pounded as I stared at the phone, letting it ring a second time. I took a breath, and nodded to myself.

  On the third ring I picked it up, trying not to sound like I'd just run ten miles.

  “Lucy?”

  Evelyn Wozniak said, “Why didn't you call?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I left a message yesterday. I said you should call no matter what time you got in.”

  I had checked my message machine when Pike was still in the house, but there had been no messages. I looked at it now, again finding nothing.

  “Okay. You've got me now.”

  Evelyn gave me directions to the storage facility that her mother used in North Palm Springs. She had had a duplicate key made for the lock, and had left it for me in an envelope with the on-site manager. I asked her if she wanted to be there when I went through her father's things, but she said that she was scared of what she might find. I could understand that. I was scared, too.

  When she was done, I said, “Evelyn, did you leave any of this on your message?”

  “Some of it. I told you the name of the place. I know it was your machine and not somebody else's, if that's what you're thinking. Who else would have a message that says they're the world's greatest human being?”

  I put down the phone, then went upstairs, changed clothes, and drove to Palm Springs, wondering if Pike had heard the message, and if he'd erased it.

  And why.

  When I was thinking about Pike, I didn't have to think about Lucy.

  Two hours and ten minutes later, I left the freeway and again made my way through the wind farms. The desert was already hot, and smelled of burning earth.

  The storage facility was clusters of white cinder-block sheds set in the middle of nowhere behind a chain-link fence with a big metal gate. A cinder-block building sat by the gate with a big sign saying LOWEST RATES AROUND. Since nothing else was around, it was an easy guarantee to keep.

  An overweight woman with skin like dried parchment gave me the key. Her office was small, but a Westinghouse air conditioner big enough to cool a meat locker was built into the wall, running full blast and blowing straight at her. It was little enough.

  She said, “You gonna be in there long?”

  “I don't know. Why?”

  “Gonna be hot,” she said. “Make sure you don't pass out. You pass out, don't you try to sue me.”

  “I won't.”

  “I'm warning you. I got some nice bottled water in here, only a dollar and a half.”

  I bought a bottle to shut her up.

  Paulette Renfro's storage unit was located at the rear of the facility. Each unit was a cinder-block shell that sprouted corrugated-metal storage spaces. There was no door on the shell, so you walked inside what amounted to a little cave to get to the individual storage spaces.

  From the tarnish on the lock, it was clear that Paulette rarely if ever came here, but the key worked smoothly, and opened into a space the size of a closet. Boxes of various size were stacked along the walls, along with old electric fans and suitcases, and two lamps.

  I emptied the closet, putting the unboxed things to the side, then carried out the boxes. When all the boxes were out, I went through the older boxes first, and that's where I found the notebooks that Evelyn Wozniak remembered. Her father had kept field notes much like a daybook, jotting notes about the young officers he trained, the perps he busted, and the kids he was trying to help, all dated, and crammed into seven small three-ring binders thick with pages. I was pretty sure that the most recent would be the most relevant.

  I put the seven binders aside, then went through the rest of the boxes to see if anything else might be useful, but the only other things of Abel's were a patrol cap in a plastic bag, a presentation case with Wozniak's badge, and two framed commendations from when he was awarded the Medal of Valor. I wondered why the commendations were here in a box, but she had remarried. I guess over time she'd lost track of them.

  I was repacking the boxes when a shadow framed itself in the door, and Joe Pike said, “I wanted to get here before you.”

  I glanced over at him, then went on with the packing.

  “It's so easy to show you up.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Wozniak's daybooks.”

  “You look through them yet?”

  “Too hot to look through them here. I'll take them where it's cooler.”

  “Want some help?”

  “Sure.”

  He put the boxes I had finished repacking back in the closet. I sealed the last two boxes, then handed them to him one by one.

  “You erase Evelyn's message?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to make sure you didn't find anything here that would hurt Paulette.”

  “I'm looking for something to help you.”

  “I know. Maybe we'll get lucky.”

  “But maybe there's something here that will hurt Paulette.”

  Pike nodded.

  I took that in, and it was like taking in volumes.

  “How did you break Karen Garcia's heart, Joe?”

  Pike stacked the boxes until the last box was in place, and then he went to the door and looked out toward the desert as if something might be there. All I could see past him were other cinder-block buildings with other people's memories.

  I said, “Karen loved you, but you loved Paulette.”

  Pike nodded.

  “You dated Karen, but you were in love with your partner's wife.”

  He turned back to me then, the flat lenses empty.

  “Paulette was married. I kept waiting for the feelings I had for her to go away, but they didn't. We didn't have an affair, Elvis. Nothing physical. Woz was my friend. But I felt what I felt. I tried dating other people to feel other things, but love doesn't just come and doesn't just go. It just is.”

  I stared at him, thinking about Lucy.

  “What?”

  I shook my head.

  “You already know that Krantz thought Wozniak was involved with a burglary ring.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was true.”

  I watched him.

  “Krantz thinks I murdered Woz for Paulette.”

  “Did you?”

  The corner of Pike's mouth twitched
, and he tipped the glasses my way. “You believe that?”

  “You know better. Krantz also thinks you were involved with Woz in the ring. I don't believe that, either.”

  Pike tipped his head the other way, and frowned. “How do you know that?”

  I spread my hands.

  “Right.”

  Pike drew a deep breath, then shook his head. “I didn't have any idea. All that time in the car with Woz, and I never knew until Krantz talked to Paulette and scared her. She asked Woz about it, and he denied it, so she asked me. That's how I found out. I followed Woz and saw him with the Chihuahuas. He'd gotten some girl pregnant, and he'd set her up in an apartment in El Segundo. He was paying for it by tipping the Chihuahuas on easy places to rob. Krantz had it all. He just couldn't prove it.” Just what McConnell had said.

  “You tell Paulette?”

  “Some of it. Not all. He was her husband, Elvis. They had the child.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I told him he had to resign. I gave him the choice, and I gave him the time to think about it. That way it was between me and him. That's why he died.”

  I thought that maybe Krantz had been right about many things.

  “What happened in the motel, Joe?”

  “He didn't want to resign, but I didn't give him any choice. I didn't want to give him to Krantz, but I couldn't let a bad officer stay on the job. If he didn't hang it up, I would've brought in Paulette, and I would've arrested the Chihuahuas.”

  “The Chihuahuas would've rolled on him.”

  “If he resigned I would've found another way at them, but it never got to that. We got the call about the missing girl and DeVille, and Woz got the location. When we got over there, Woz was already short, and that's when he lost it and hit De-Ville with his gun. I think he was just working up his nut, because he already knew what he was going to do. It was about me, and the box he was in, and how he was going to get out of it.” Pike stopped for a time, then went on. “He let DeVille have it, and when I pushed him away he pointed his gun at me.”

  “You shot him in self-defense?”

  “No. I wouldn't shoot him. I didn't draw my weapon.”

  I stared at him.

  “He knew I loved his wife, and he knew she loved me. His career was over, and if Krantz could make the case he would go to jail. Some men can't take the weight. Some men break, and will do anything to stop the pressure.”

  “Abel Wozniak killed himself.”

  Pike touched his chin. “Pointed the gun here and pulled the trigger, up through his chin and out the top of his head.”

  I asked, but I had already guessed. “Why take the blame?”

  “It had to be explained. If I tell the truth, Krantz would be able to make the case, and if Woz goes out a felon, his pension and benefits could be withheld. Paulette and the girls would've lost everything. Maybe Parker Center might've felt sorry, and cut them slack, but how could I know? If he goes out a suicide, there's no insurance. The insurance we had then wouldn't pay if you capped yourself.”

  “So you took the weight.”

  “DeVille was going to wake up and say that Woz hit him. I just went with it. I told them that we struggled, and that's how it happened. It would fit with what DeVille was going to say, and it would explain Woz being dead.”

  “Only you get marked rotten for causing your partner's death to protect a pedophile.”

  “You do the best you can with what you've got.”

  “Did Paulette know the truth?”

  Pike stared at the cement. “If Paulette knew, she would've told the department. Even if it meant losing the benefits.”

  “Wasn't that her decision to make?”

  “I made the decision for all of us.”

  “So she doesn't know that her husband killed himself.”

  “No.”

  Pike just stood there, and I thought that this was his single lonely way of protecting the woman he loved, even if it had cost him any chance at her love, forever and always.

  Pike would take that weight.

  And had.

  I said, “All this time, all these cops hating you for nothing.”

  Pike cocked his head, and even in the dim light of the little building the glasses seemed to glow.

  “Not for nothing. For everything.”

  “Okay. So now what?”

  “She still gets his survivor benefits. I want to make sure that whatever leaves here doesn't affect that.”

  “Even if it's something that could help you?”

  The corner of Pike's mouth twitched. “I didn't come this far to quit now.”

  “Then let's see what we find.”

  We sat in a Denny's just off the freeway for the next two and a half hours, drinking tea and going through the day books. The Denny's people didn't mind. With the heat, they didn't have much business.

  We started with the most recent book and worked backward. Eight pages were missing from that book, but the rest were there, and legible. Wozniak's entries were often cryptic, but pretty soon they made sense to me.

  At one point I saw that Pike had stopped reading, and asked him, “What?”

  When he didn't answer, I leaned closer and found what had stopped him.

  “This Pike is a sharp kid. He'll make a good cop.”

  Pike pulled back the book, and kept reading.

  Many of the entries were about arrests that Wozniak made, with notes on crimes and criminals and witnesses that he took for future reference, but much of what he'd written was about the street kids whom Wozniak had tried to help. Whatever he had become, Wozniak had been sincere in his efforts to help the people he was sworn to protect and to serve.

  In all seven books, only three names were used in a context that suggested they might be informants, and only one of those seemed a possible, that being in an entry dated five months prior to Wozniak's death.

  I read that entry to Pike.

  “Listen to this. ‘Popped a kid named Laurence Sobek, age fourteen, male hustler. Likes to talk, so he might be a good source. Turned out by the Coopster. ID? Fucked up kid. Gonna try to get him inside.’” I looked up. “What's that mean, get him inside?”

  “Get him into a halfway house or a program. Woz did that.”

  “Who's the Coopster?”

  Pike shook his head.

  I stared at the page.

  “Could it be DeVille?”

  Pike considered it. “Like a nickname. Coupe DeVille.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thin.”

  “You remember Laurence Sobek?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else in here look good?”

  Pike shook his head again.

  “Then this is what we go with.”

  We paid the bill, then brought the books out to our cars. I took the notebook that mentioned Laurence Sobek with me.

  “How can I reach you?”

  “Call the shop and tell them you need me. I'll have a pager.”

  “Okay.”

  We stood in the heat and watched the trucks go by on the freeway. Behind us, the windmills churned for as far as we could see. Pike was driving a maroon Ford Taurus with an Oregon license plate. I wondered where he'd gotten it. When I finally looked over, he was watching me.

  I said, “What?”

  “I'm going to beat this. Don't worry about me.”

  I made like Alfred E. Neuman. “What, me worry?”

  “Something's eating you.”

  I thought about telling him about Lucy, but I didn't.

  “You take care of yourself, Joe.”

  He shook my hand, and then he drove away.

  33

  • • •

  It was late when I got home, but I called Dolan anyway. I called her house twice, leaving messages both times, but by the next morning she still hadn't gotten back to me. I thought that she might be at Parker Center, clearing her desk, but when I called her direct line there, Stan Watts answered.

  �
�Hey, Stan. It's Elvis Cole.”

  “So what?”

  “Is Dolan there?”

  “She's over, man. Thanks to you.”

  Like I needed to hear that.

  “I thought she might be there.”

  “She's not.”

  Watts hung up.

  I called Dolan again at home, still got her machine, so this time I took Wozniak's notebook and drove over there.

  Samantha Dolan lived in a bungalow on Sierra Bonita just a few blocks above Melrose, in an area more known for housing artists than police officers.

  I parked behind her BMW, and heard music coming from the house even out in my car. Sneaker Pimps. Loud.

  She didn't answer the bell, on my knock, and when I tried the door, it was locked. I pounded hard, thinking maybe she was dead and I should break in, when the door finally opened. Dolan was wearing a faded METALLICA tee shirt and jeans and was barefoot. Her eyes were nine shades of red, and she smelled like a fresh dose of tequila.

  “Dolan, you've got a drinking problem.”

  She sniffed like her nose was runny. “That's what I need today, you giving me life advice.”

  I walked in past her and turned off the music. The living room was large, with a nice fireplace and a hardwood floor, but it was sloppy. The sloppy surprised me. A big couch faced a couple of chairs, and a mostly empty bottle of Perfidio Anejo tequila sat on the floor by the couch. The cap was off. An LAPD Combat Shooting trophy sat on top of the television; the room smelled of cigarettes. I said, “Why didn't you call me back?”

  “I haven't checked my messages. Look, you want me to talk to your friend, I will. I'm sorry about what happened last night.”

  “Forget it.”

  I tossed Wozniak's binder to her.

  “What's this?” She scooped a pack of cigarettes off the floor, and fired up, breathing out a cloud of smoke like a volcanic fog.

  “A day book that Abel Wozniak kept.”

  “Abel Wozniak as in Pike's partner?”

  “Read the pages I marked.”

  She frowned through another deep drag, reading. She flipped back several pages, then read forward past the point I had marked. When she was done, she looked at me. The cigarette forgotten.