"Nope."
"Know any of her friends?"
"No."
"They get along?"
"Don't know."
"Anyone who would know?"
"Woman in our English department," Atkins said. "She was pretty friendly with Buckman."
"What's her name?"
"Sara Hunter," he said. "White girl out of Berkeley. Wants to do good. We're just a tryout for her eventual aim, which is to teach in my old neighborhood."
"South Central?"
"Yep. Work off her upper-middle-class guilt."
"She working it off this summer?"
"Not here," Atkins said. "She lives in Westwood, I think. I'll give you her home address."
He found her card in his Rolodex, and copied her address down on a piece of pink telephone message paper. I tucked it into my shirt pocket.
"You don't know much about them," I said. "Is that typical?"
"There are people on the faculty I spend time with," Atkins said. "And people I don't. I didn't like Buckman. I didn't spend time with him."
Atkins paused and sort of smiled.
"You really are feeling your way along," he said.
"You bet. I just try to keep you talking and see if something comes up."
"Like what?"
"Got no idea," I said. "I just hope I'll know it when I see it. You have any record of where they lived? While they were here?"
"Maybe," Atkins said.
He consulted the Rolodex again.
"You think the Buckmans weren't kosher?"
"I don't know enough to think anything," I said. "I'm trying to find out."
Atkins found the address in the Rolodex, copied it down on another piece of message paper and gave it to me. I put it in my shirt pocket with Sara Hunter. Atkins stood, and put out his hand.
"Good luck," he said.
"Luck is the residue of design," I said.
Atkins looked at me blankly for a minute.
"I'll bet it is," he said.
Chapter 25
STEVE BUCKMAN HAD owned a small pink stucco house in Santa Monica, on 16th Street, below Montana. It had a blue front door, a flat roof, and a lemon tree in the front yard. I rang the front doorbell. Inside a dog barked. I waited. Then a young woman with her dark hair up opened the door a crack. Behind her leg, I could see a dog trying to get a better look at me. I could hear children in the background and a television going.
"I'm looking for Mr. and Mrs. Buckman."
"Excuse the door," she said. "But I don't want the dog to get out."
"Of course," I said. "Are you Mrs. Buckman?"
"Oh God no. I'm Sharon Costin. The Buckmans don't live here anymore."
"Did you know them when they did?" I said.
"Just when we bought the house from them."
"How about some of the other neighbors?" I said. "Would they know the Buckmans, you think?"
"People next door," the woman said. "Why you want to know?"
"I'm from the State Treasurer's Office," I said. "Division of Abandoned Property. We have some money for them."
In the background I could hear some children fighting. One of them started to cry. The dog wasn't a quitter. He kept trying to squeeze by her leg.
"Talk to the people in the next house," she said. "Name's Lewin."
She shut the door.
I said "thank you" politely to the door, and went next door. A woman wearing tennis whites opened the door. She had long, blond hair, good legs and a nice tan.
"I saw you next door," she said. "You selling something?"
I smiled my open, friendly smile. And told my lie about abandoned property.
"Oh, sure, Steve and Lou Buckman. Mary Lou."
"You know them?"
"Knew them. We lived next door for, what? I was pregnant with my first when we moved here, so nine years."
"What can you tell me about them?"
"They moved out east someplace," she said. "Town with a funny name."
"Potshot," I said.
"Yes. That's it. They had some sort of business out there."
"They get along?"
"Well as anybody, I guess. What's that got to do with abandoned properly?"
"Nothing," I said with a big sincere smile. "I just heard that he fooled around."
The woman laughed.
"Oh, hell," she said. "They both did. I think my ex may have had a little fling with Lou."
"Lotta that going around," I said. "You know what business they had in Potshot?"
"I don't know. Something to do with camping. You should talk to Nancy Ratliff. She and her ex were pretty tight with the Buckmans."
"Where would I find her?"
"She's still here," the woman said, and nodded at a small white house with blue trim. "Across the street."
"And your ex husband?"
She laughed sourly.
"Mr. Hot Pants," she said. "Don't know. Don't care."
"Thanks," I said.
"I don't want to tell you your job," the woman said, "but if I were you I'd lose that abandoned property story."
I grinned at her.
"It's gotten me this far," I said.
She shrugged. I walked across the street and rang the Ratliff bell and the door opened at once. I had caused a neighborhood alert.
"Mrs. Ratliff?"
"Yes."
"I'm from the Bureau of Abandoned Property."
I was glad the blonde across the street couldn't hear me.
"What the hell is that," Mrs. Ratliff said.
She was petite, with thick black hair and sharp features.
"State Treasurer's Office," I said. "We have some money for Mr. and Mrs. Buckman."
"Lucky them," the woman said. "You want to come in?"
"Thank you," I said.
I sometimes wished I wore a hat so when I went into a woman's house I could impress them by taking it off in a gentlemanly way. I settled for removing my sunglasses.
The front door opened immediately to her living room, which was done in Indian rugs and hand-hewn furniture that was too big for the room. There was a little gray stone fireplace with gas jets on the end wall. There was a pitcher of martinis on the glass-topped coffee table that took up too much of the room.
"I'm having a cocktail," she said. "Would you care to join me?"
It was 3:30.
"Sure," I said.
She went through an archway to the small dining room and came back with a martini glass in which there were two olives. She poured me a martini.
"Stirred, not shaken," she said.
I smiled. She picked up her glass and gestured toward me with it.
"Chink, chink," she said.
I touched her glass with mine and we each took a drink. The martini was dreadful. Not cold enough and far too much vermouth.
"So," Nancy Ratliff said. "What can I do for you?"
"Tell me about Steven and Mary Lou Buckman."
"Well, she was a bitch. Still is I'm sure."
"How so?" I said.
Nancy Ratliff took another drink. She didn't appear to know that the martini was dreadful. Or maybe she knew and didn't care.
"Well, for one thing she was fucking my husband."
"How nice for them," I said.
"Yeah, well, not so nice for me."
"How did Mr. Buckman feel about it?"
"He didn't say."
She drank again and stared into her glass. "Well, actually he did," she said. "He said we should get even with them."
"Tit for tat," I said just to be saying something, though in the context, the choice of words was unfortunate.
We were silent while she looked into her martini glass.
Finally she said, "Aren't you going to ask me if we did?"
"Only if you want to tell me, Mrs. Ratliff."
"Nancy," she said. "And yeah, I want to tell you."
I smiled happily. She didn't say anything. I waited. She poured herself some more bad martini from the pitcher
where the melting ice would have diluted it by now. She took another sip and held her glass up and looked through it.
"I like how clear it looks," she said.
I nodded helpfully. Friendly guy from the Treasurer's office. Eager to please. Eager to listen.
"Yes, we got even," she said. "In goddamned spades."
"And how did Mr. Ratliff feel about that?" I said.
I had no idea where I was going. Except that Ratliff was a name I'd heard before.
"He left me and went chasing after her."
"And Mr. Buckman?"
"He went too."
"With his wife?" I said.
"I don't know. I guess so. Maybe they were all doing it. A traveling gangbang."
She looked at my glass.
"You're not drinking," she said.
"I'm savoring it slowly," I said. "What is your husband's first name?"
"Ex-husband. I divorced him. The bastard didn't even show up to contest the divorce. I took him for everything he had, except he didn't have anything."
She drank again.
"Movie producer," she snorted.
"Sure."
"And his first name?"
"Mark."
I felt very still for a moment inside and then I took a stab at something.
"You happen to know anyone named Dean Walker?" I said.
"'The cop? Yeah, used to live three houses up toward Montana. Moved away eight, nine years ago."
"He a friend of the Buckmans?"
"I guess, yeah, he'd be at parties sometimes. Him and his wife."
"You remember her name?"
"Judy, I think."
"He have anything to do with Mrs. Buckman?"
"Dean? I don't know. She'd have been willing. She was like a bitch in heat. But Dean seemed sort of straightforward. If he was fucking her, I don't know about it."
Each time she said fucking she said it with relish. As if she liked to say it, as if it were a counter-irritant. Like scratching an old itch. Forgive and forget didn't seem to work for her.
Chapter 26
SARA HUNTER LIVED in a faux Tudor three-unit condo in Westwood, a block below Wilshire. She was L.A. serious, which meant a loose-fitting, ankle-length flowered dress, some Native-American jewelry and dark leather sandals. Her blond hair was done in a single long braid that reached nearly to her waist. She wore no makeup and despite her best efforts, she was pretty good-looking. When she opened the door she kept the chain bolt on. I gave her my card. I introduced myself. I explained what I wanted, and I smiled at her. None of it seemed to make her more welcoming.
"Why do you want to talk to me about Steve Buckman?" she said. "He's just somebody I knew at work."
"Well, that's why," I said. "I was hoping for some of your insights."
She liked insights.
"Why do you want that?" she said.
There was never a good way to say it. I'd learned over the years to just say it. Which I did.
"Steve's been murdered."
She looked at me as if I had commented on the dandiness of the weather.
"What?"
"We could talk out here on the porch," I said, "if you'd feel more secure."
She didn't speak for a moment, then she closed the door, unchained it, opened it again and stepped out. She was careful to pull the door shut behind her. The porch extended along the front of her condo to form a little veranda and we sat on some wicker chairs out there. Across the street a couple of Mexicans were trimming a hedge, and on the sidewalk below the veranda, a shapeless middle-aged woman with bright red hair was walking a small, ugly, possum-y looking dog on a retractable leash.
"Tell me about Steve," I said.
She leaned forward a little, resting her elbows on her thighs, and put her face into her hands.
I waited. She sat. Maybe overreaction was endemic. Or maybe she was a very dramatic person. Or maybe Steve was more than someone she knew at work.
After awhile I said, "How you doing?"
Without taking her face from her hands, she shook her head.
"Take your time," I said.
The lady walking her possum turned the corner at Wilshire and disappeared. One of the gardeners across the street was edging the grass now, with a noisy power trimmer.
"Did he suffer much?" Sara said finally.
"He was probably dead before he knew he'd been shot," I said.
I didn't know that, but I saw no reason not to say it.
"Did she do it?" Sara said.
She was still in her position of official mourning and as she talked she rocked a little, forward and back.
"She?" I said.
"Mary Lou. Did she kill him?"
"I don't know. You think?"
She raised her head.
"I think that she would do anything."
"Really?" I said.
"You wouldn't see it. You're a man."
"And you're a woman," I said.
"What?"
"Just trying to hold up my end of the conversation," I said.
"Well you wouldn't. She'd fool you. Blue eyes. Cute. Sweet. She'd show you her dimples and ask for your help and you'd be falling over yourself like some big puppy."
"Woof," I said.
"You can laugh at me if you want to," Sara said, a little pouty. "But it's true."
"Probably is." l said. "Why do you think she might have killed him?"
"Because she couldn't control him, though she never stopped trying. She resented authenticity. She was frightened of the untamed self."
The sky was cloudless. It was 75 and bright. I could smell olive trees.
"His?" I said.
"His, her own…" Sara made a you-know-what-Imean gesture and her voice trailed off.
"How untamed was that?" I said.
"As untamed as yours… or mine."
"That untamed?" I said.
"You're laughing at me again."
"That was just a quizzical smile," I said. "You know this, how?"
"We were… friends."
"Not just someone you knew at work."
"I'm sorry," she said. "That was reflexive. I've become used to evasion."
"The world is too much with us, lately."
"My God, a literate detective?"
"Goes with good-looking," I said. "You and Steve were close friends."
"Yes."
"Do you know if he had any source of income other than Fairfax High?"
"Well they ran that camping business out in the desert. She did, really."
"Anything else?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Well Mary Lou is paying me a fair sum to investigate," I said. "Without complaint. Life insurance?"
"I suppose so, but I can't imagine that it was huge… a teacher's salary. She's paying you?"
I nodded.
"Did Mary Lou know you and Steve were good friends?"
"I don't know what she knew. She was no trembling virgin herself."
"Mary Lou?"
"See, you're shocked aren't you? Any woman could see through her."
"Why that untamed vixen," I said.
"It was all right for her, but not for Steve."
"Gee that doesn't sound fair," I said.
"No," she said, pouty again. "It wasn't."
The landscaper finished his power trimming and the sudden quiet was almost intrusive. Then as my ears adjusted I could hear the traffic on Wilshire. I kept at Sara for as long as I could stand to, but I had learned what I was going to learn from her and I finally said good-bye and went back to Beverly Hills.
Chapter 27
THE HOTEL ROOM was awash with tissue paper and shopping bags. Amid it all, and somehow above it, Susan was trying on some new duds, and examining them carefully in the mirror. "Would you have any interest in exploring my authentic untamed self?" I said.
"Your what?"
"My untamed self," I said.
"God, if I haven't encountered it yet, I don't think I want to."
; "You got something against authenticity?" I said.
"No. I'm just afraid I'll get hurt."
"Maybe later when I've calmed down," I said.
"Maybe," Susan said. "What brought on this sudden attack of authenticity?"
I told her about Sara.
"We assume Sara was having an affair with Steve Buckman?" Susan said.
"Yes. But a fully authentic one," I said.
"What would an inauthentic affair be?" Susan said.
"One which used a battery-powered device?"
"Do you like this skirt?" Susan said.
"I'm not sure," I said. "Better take it off and put it on again."
"Is lechery authentic?" Susan said.
"You bet," I said.
Susan put on a blouse.
"So if we are to believe What'shername…"
"Sara."
"Mary Lou were fooling around with other people, and at least from Whosis's perspective…"
"Sara," I said.
"From Sara's perspective Mary Lou was, and perhaps is, a bitch."
"Sara's perspective may be somewhat skewed," I said, "by her being a nitwit."
Susan examined in the mirror the way some new pants fit her. She smiled. Apparently she was pleased. Me too.
"That skews a lot of perspectives," she said.
"Present company excluded," I said. "You wanna eat?"
"Let's go someplace I can wear my new clothes," she said.
There was always something in her eyes that suggested we'd have more fun than we could imagine, whatever we did.
"Does this mean I have to cancel the reservation at Fat Burger?"
She said that it did. She also declined Pink's for a chili dog and we ended up at The Buffalo Club on a dark stretch of Olympic, in Santa Monica. We sat together on the same side of the booth and had a Ketel One martini, or two, and studied the menu. We ordered some oyster shooters and pot roast and ate them. That is, I ate them. Susan had two shooters, and half her pot roast, cutting the other half away before she started and carefully putting one half on her butter plate lest, God forbid, she should eat it by mistake and balloon to 130. I helped. I had her leftover oyster shooters, and the pot roast from her butter plate, and virtuously declined dessert.
Outside I gave the ticket to the valet and held Susan's hand while we watched the desultory traffic plod by in the dark. A silver Lexus pulled up and two men got out. The valet went forward and the first man shook his head. He looked like a mature surfer. Long blond hair, pale blue eyes, sun-darkened skin, which didn't fully conceal the broken veins of a boozer on his cheeks. He was wearing a pair of brown slacks, a brown shirt buttoned to the neck, a small diamond stud in his right earlobe and a camelhair jacket. The jacket was unbuttoned. The guy with him was all edges and angles. Small, lean, hard, pale, with spiky hair and a sharp hooked nose. His eyes were like the windows in an empty house. He had on big shorts and a flowered shirt that hung over his belt. The surfer stopped in front of me. He stood very close.
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