California Girl

by T. Jefferson Parker

  The manager didn’t understand why he couldn’t help the detectives but the owners of Lorenzo’s could. Said he knew the operations up and down, knew personnel better than any of the investors, knew what was going on and what wasn’t. He wore his hair short and a U.S. flag pin on his coat lapel. Nick thought it was odd that half the men in the country had hair like this and a flag pin while the other half had hair down to their backs and were loaded.

  Nick showed him the picture.

  “Oh,” he said quietly. “Sure.”

  “Sure what?” asked Nick.

  “She’s been in. Hard to forget a fox like her.”

  The manager sat, flipped through a Rolodex file on his desk, and handed Nick a business card. Nick read it. Heart did a little hop. He handed the card to his partner.

  “He’ll put you in touch with the others,” said the manager. “I think there’s five investors total, maybe six. They’re all Journal newspaper guys. Don’t know anything about this business.”

  “Enough to give you good reviews,” said Nick.

  The manager smiled. “Kind of biased, maybe.”

  JONAS DESSINGER

  Associate Publisher

  Orange County Journal

  “This the guy she was with?” asked Lobdell.

  The manager shook his head and stood. “Ask him.”

  “I asked you.”

  “Let’s just ask Jonas,” said Nick.

  THEY WERE near the Journal building in Costa Mesa at four. Lobdell had to stop at a convenience store pay phone on the way and call Shirley and talk to Kevin. Lucky’s voice was always soft and serious when he talked to his wife. Then with his son it was loud and brusque. Nick bought a pack of cigarettes, stood under the overhang of a U-Totem market in Orange, and smoked one while he half eavesdropped on Lobdell barking at his son. Saved the rest of the pack for the Wolfman Neemal. Waste of thirty-four cents. Wondered what relation Jonas Dessinger was to Teresa, Andy’s girlfriend. Hoped he and Lucky didn’t have to walk through the newsroom, call attention to themselves, get Andy curious.

  Nick watched the cars go up and down Tustin Avenue. Liked the new AMC Barracuda and the Mustang and the Dodge Dart convertible. Figured it would take a lot more overtime for a deputy with a wife and three to afford something like that on top of the Red Rocket, which they needed for the kids. Thought of his father and mother and how they drove the Studebaker until it quit. Right there on Holt Avenue, smoke billowing out of the grille like napalm is how Dad described it. Still waxed and polished, probably. What, hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand miles? Nick figured his mom and dad had plenty of miles left on them and that’s what counted. Wondered at Max’s obsession with the Communists, how he went crazy with it after Clay. Him and Roger Stoltz and their damned meetings and rallies. The booze. And Monika getting quieter and slower, like Max was stealing her energy. Part of her died when Clay did. A blind man could see that.

  Lobdell walked from the phone booth, broad shoulders forward, head down in thought. Nick saw disappointment in Lucky’s hard gray eyes as he shook his head and went to the car. Nick couldn’t figure if Lucky was more pissed off or worried.

  Jonas Dessinger kept them waiting for half an hour. Nice enough lobby but the receptionist had to give them badges and buzz open the door before they could come in and get on an elevator.

  Third floor, office with views of Newport Boulevard and the tracts of Costa Mesa. Good-sized room, sparsely furnished. Framed Journal press club and CNPA awards on the walls. Funny leather and chrome furniture.

  Dessinger was early thirties, dark-haired, gray-eyed. Thick mustache. Under six, slender. Tapered suit, a European look, not like those Botany 500s on TV. He had that funny hairstyle, covering the ear tops and a shock hanging down his forehead but short in back. No sideburns. Like he wanted it both ways, thought Nick. Half square, half hep. Like he’d wear half a flag pin.

  Nick cast him as Red. Maybe. Pictured him balancing a full-grown woman over his shoulders while he pulled open a padlock, threw it into an orange grove, then slid open a two-hundred-pound door on rollers. Iffy. Maybe whoever it was put her down and picked her back up. Not easy, either.

  Dessinger said that Janelle had been his guest at two dinner parties at Lorenzo’s.

  Jonas was a bachelor, by the way.

  He and Janelle had been friends and lovers.

  He had last seen her on the Saturday afternoon before she died, when she’d broken off their relationship after “an almost unbelievable session of lovemaking.”

  Jonas looked out a window, smiling privately. Then back to the detectives.

  “How old are you?” asked Nick.

  “Thirty-four.”

  “She was nineteen,” said Nick.

  “And that made us consenting adults.”

  “Pathetic is what it makes you,” said Lobdell. “Bet you didn’t mention those dates in your fish-wrap newspaper social page, did you?”

  “And the point of that would be…”

  Nick felt the change then. The altered frequencies of the room as Lobdell’s anger filled it. He could tell that Dessinger had no idea.

  Lobdell stood and went to a window. Looked out. Just as well, thought Nick. Let him cool off.

  “Where were you last Tuesday? Between noon and midnight, say.”

  “Which is the approximate time of death?” asked Dessinger.

  “Maybe,” said Nick.

  Dessinger leaned forward and flipped back the pages of a desk calendar. “Here in this building, noon to five, minus an hour-and-a-half lunch at the Ancient Mariner. Home to Newport by five-twenty. I live at the Bay Club.”

  Of course he does, thought Nick.

  “Nap, news, tennis, dinner. Drinks, drinks, drinks. Good nights around one A.M. There were four of us. I hate to drag them into this but—”

  “Into what?” asked Nick.

  “Janelle.”

  “What, Saturday she’s unbelievable but now she’s something stuck to your shoe?” asked Lobdell.

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s referring to a certain callousness that comes off you, Jonas,” said Nick. “He thinks you’re an asshole. So do I.”

  Dessinger looked at Lobdell, then Nick. Nick saw no worry at all in him.

  “Moving right along, here are three numbers to call to corroborate my story.”

  He took his time writing. Finally slid a sheet of typing paper across the desk to Nick. Capped his pen and returned it to the breast pocket of his tailored suit in one confident motion.

  “Anything else, gentlemen? I’ve got an early dinner date tonight.”

  “Poor girl,” said Lobdell.

  “Good, then. It’s been a pleasure.”

  Dessinger rose and stood behind his desk. Offered a winning smile to Nick as he picked up the paper.

  Lobdell shot a hand out with surprising speed, got hold of Dessinger’s left ear, and forced his head to the desk. Dessinger yelped and bent at the middle to keep his ear on, spread his arms out, and chattered his feet like he was dancing a show tune. Lobdell walked him to the edge of the desk, then forced him down. Dessinger’s legs collapsed and his chest hit the carpet with a huff. Lobdell knelt, ear still in one hand.

  “What shall I do with him, Nicky?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Take your time.”

  “Here.”

  Nick drew his ballpoint from his jacket pocket and wrote “19” on Dessinger’s forehead. Blew on the numerals.

  “It’s a short editorial,” said Nick.

  “Use Old Dutch cleanser and some steel wool,” said Lobdell. “Get that ink right off before your date tonight.”

  When they got in the elevator Nick looked at Lobdell’s heavy face. Had to laugh. Lobdell did, too. Lit a cigarette.

  “That was dumb,” said Nick.

  “Yeah.”

  “Harloff’s going to kill us. I just got…pissed off.”

  “Me, too,” said Lobdell. “Look, Dessin
ger won’t say anything. It’d ding his pride. Watch out for him, though.”

  “How can you find out your lover was murdered and show absolutely no feeling?” asked Nick. “There’s people who didn’t ever meet her who feel worse than that guy.”

  “The shrinks got some name for it. Some kind of ‘path.’”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Homicide gets you the winners,” said Lobdell. “Wolfman. Newspaperman. You never know who’s next.”

  They stepped out of the building and into the crisp evening. Red leaves swaying on a box elder. Sky an unlimited blue. A new black Mustang flashed down the boulevard.

  “Makes me hope his alibi is bullshit,” said Nick. “Makes me want to bust him all the way to the chamber.”

  “It’s never the guys you want it to be,” said Lobdell. “Usually some drunk little prick, loses his temper. Or thinks a gun makes him tough. Or some guy who’s spent half his life in the slammer, doesn’t care if he goes back or not. Dessinger couldn’t hate anybody enough to do what we saw. Wouldn’t mess up his clothes.”

  Nick only just now worried that he’d done something to damage his brother. Andy had come up with good information—the FBI and the narc payroll—and he’d given them both to Nick. Pronto. In return Nick had helped mutilate Andy’s boss. Maybe Dessinger hadn’t been paying enough attention to connect Becker to Becker. Maybe Dessinger didn’t have anything to do with the reporters. Better give Andy a heads-up either way.

  NICK GOT Terry Neemal out of protective custody and into an interview room. Tossed the smokes on the table. The jailers had shaved his hair and beard for lice but left a gigantic mustache. The former Wolfman looked like a toy-breed dog trimmed for hot weather. They’d shaved down the wolfish arm hair, too. The skin was still almost black, like it was burned or paved. Terry rubbed it, frowning.

  “They hacked me up.”

  “It’ll all grow back.”

  Nick made small talk for a minute. Asked about the food and the exercise room and the other inmates. Neemal told him he’d met Nick’s brother, the jail chaplain.

  “Nice guy,” said Neemal.

  “Let me see your hands again, Terry.”

  Neemal held them out. Turned both over. Then turned one over, then the other, but flipped the first one back. Smiled at Nick like it was a magic trick.

  “How’d you get the cuts and scrapes?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  “They were deep enough to bleed. To hurt and get infected and make scabs. But you don’t know how you got them?”

  “That’s the truth. But I will say…”

  Nick waited. On his first morning here, Neemal had been attacked by a trustee who said his sister had been a beauty queen. Hit Neemal across the shins with a broom handle. Deputies had overwhelmed the trustee but the incident seemed to have made Neemal feel important.

  Since then, Neemal had kept a collection of newspaper clips about himself and allowed some deputies to photograph him, freakish arm prominently displayed. His posture was better. He was hurling back insults at the other inmates, who chided him whenever they could. Wolfman. Head Chopper. Hairy Motherfucker Werewolf Man. He ate every bit of his bad jail food and often asked for more.

  Nick noticed that Neemal had developed a love of dramatic conversational pauses. He liked to set up his statements with the phrase “But I will say…” He had changed minor details in his story several times. Nothing substantial. Nick had spent a half hour or so with Neemal every day since his arrest. Kept thinking the Wolfman would come up with something truly useful.

  “What will you say, Terry?”

  “That I saw the girl twice that night.”

  Nick considered. “Are you counting when she was on the man’s back? The man who carried her into the packinghouse?”

  “Actually not.”

  Nick lit a smoke for Neemal and one for himself. “Talk to me, Terry.”

  Neemal crossed his arms and looked down at the table. Blew out smoke. “I saw her once. Like I told you. Then I went back an hour later.”

  This was new. “Why?”

  “I wanted to confirm what I thought I’d seen.”

  “Confirm.”

  “That means make sure.”

  “I know what it means. And?”

  “She was there all right. No head. Underpants.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I don’t remember anything until the police woke me up.”

  “Not one thing?”

  “No.”

  “Not even walking out, sliding open that big heavy door, finding the way back to your lean-to in the dark?”

  “No.”

  “You went back and looked at her.”

  “Correct.”

  Nick stood there and watched Neemal smoke. “You didn’t take the saw blade?”

  “No.”

  “Kept it, put it somewhere for later?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Nick shrugged. Had no idea why. “What did the shrink say today?”

  “Said I could have my old meds back if I wanted. I said no. I may see and hear stuff that isn’t there but at least the reception is clear. With all the drugs from Atascadero it was like being underwater.”

  “I’d like to know more about why you went back to see Janelle that second time.”

  “So would I.”

  Nick shook out another cigarette and handed it to Neemal. “Did you kill her, Terry?”

  Neemal looked down at the table again. “I didn’t kill her, I’m pretty sure. But I will say…that sometimes my memory falls behind, then jumps ahead and catches up.”

  “Terry, after five days and everything we’ve been through, you tell me you’re only pretty sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Next time, you tell me why you went back to see her.”

  “Sure. Okay, Nick, I’ll give it some thought. Thanks for the extra cigarettes. Would they put that in the paper?”

  “Put what in?”

  “If I had some reason why I went back and saw her.”

  Nick looked into Neemal’s mad tan eyes. Considered the possible answers. Then chose the one that would help him most. And would help Terry Neemal probably not at all.

  “The newspapers would be interested in that. Yes.”

  And I can get you an interview with the Journal’s best crime reporter, Nick thought.

  “Good night, Terry. The deputy will be right in.”

  BY SEVEN that night Nick had talked with Deacon Mike Shaffner, who said he’d picked up the worship programs at six o’clock last Tuesday night. No, he had not given one to Janelle Vonn or to anyone else. Hadn’t seen Janelle.

  Shaffner was very tall and thin, blond hair, gentle hands. Nick couldn’t cast him as Red or Ho. Or anybody who would do the kind of violence he had seen.

  Shaffner said he’d taken them home and put the mailing labels on, rubberbanded them into stacks, and set them in a paper Market Basket bag to take to the church in the morning for postage. There was a postage machine in the office, which saved him licking stamps. Though it still cost the same six cents for each one, which hit the Grove Drive-In Church pretty hard. He said he finally dropped them off at the post office in Orange Wednesday morning around ten.

  Shaffner didn’t know for sure, but he guessed the programs were printed by five o’clock. The job was done at the Tustin Times building, by a man named Gunnar.

  “NICK BECKER? I’m an old friend of Andy’s,” said Gunnar.

  He smiled a jagged smile at Nick. Held out a blackened hand. He was short, late sixties. Oddly tanned for this time of year. Sharp eyes and thin brown hair combed from one side of his head to the other.

  “Oh, Andy was one of the best reporters we’ve had. I was glad to see him go. He needed to try bigger things. These little weeklies, you know, you stay too long and end up like me.”

  “You seem all right,” said Nick.

  Gunnar smiled. “He likes the J
ournal?”

  “I think so.”

  “The Wolfman pictures were wonderful,” Gunnar said.

  “It was good work.”

  “He came by here a few months ago with the lady friend, Teresa. To say hi and for me to meet her. He likes me to know his women. I was pretty good friends with Meredith. I wished he could have stayed with her but it was impossible. You knew that Andy was going to go out and experience the world. But she has a family now. Like she wanted.”

  Nick smelled the clinical scent of vodka. Looked around for the glass or bottle but saw neither. Noted the radio playing upstairs, oddly loud. Sounded like the big-band swing music his parents used to listen to on 78s.

  Gunnar told him that the Grove Drive-In Church worship programs had been completely finished and boxed by 5:15 P.M. last Tuesday. He was sitting at his desk reading the blockbuster paperback Valley of the Dolls when Mike had come to pick them up. That was about six. Gunnar said he printed eleven hundred each week now. Used to be two hundred. The Tustin Times couldn’t profit from such a small run, but Mae Overholt—J.J.’s widow—did it as a favor to God and David Becker. And Valley of the Dolls really wasn’t as bad as some people said.

  A side door opened and a handsome woman came in, glanced at Gunnar and Nick with a pleasant smile. Mid-sixties, Nick figured. Had to be Mae. She waved in a way that promised no interruption. Just got something from a desk drawer and went back out. Looked like a roll of masking tape.

  “Anyone else come by?” asked Nick. “Maybe to check the print run, grab a few early copies?”

  Nick heard a new song start upstairs. No doubt about this one—“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” One of Max and Monika’s favorites from when they were young. Danced to it in the living room. Boys hooting and fake throwing up.

  “No,” said Gunnar with a sharp little smile. “I’ve heard of people rushing the printer for an early copy of an important newspaper. But never in all my sixty-seven years have I had someone rush the printer for a worship program.”

  “That’s funny, isn’t it?” asked Nick.

  “It is.”