Scavenger hunt

by Robert Ferrigno

  "Fuck," said Rollo, right behind Jimmy now.

  Walsh floated face-down in the dirty water, unrecognizable, hands and feet chewed away. He wore jeans and no shirt, just like the night they had first met, his swollen torso lobster red from the sun, blistered, the flesh of his back split open. The devil tattoo on his shoulder was so stretched and distended, it looked like a map of terra incognita. Fat foot-long koi swam lazily around the body as the blackflies settled back down.

  Jimmy stared at the body, feeling light-headed, his skin clammy in the heat, the crickets sawing away, the rhythm broken by B.K.'s sobs. "Did you tell anyone else where Walsh was staying?" he asked Rollo.

  "What does that mean?"

  "Did you?"

  "No, man-I only gave B.K. directions this morning." Rollo was breathing heavily, but the smell didn't seem to bother him. "Mr. Walsh, I was keeping him for myself. To be honest, I was half sorry I told you."

  Jimmy sidled toward the body, swatting at the bugs, until he reached the rock border of the koi pond. He had been in apartments that smelled worse-crackheads who bought a pound of raw hamburger, left it on the counter while they fired up a rock, and a month later it was still there. The fish had long since finished with the soft parts-Walsh's face was eaten away to the ears, and the koi were grazing now on his fingers and toes, the tips of the finger bones stark white in the murky water. There was no obvious wound to the head or torso, no gunshot at least, but decomposition could have hidden almost anything. He could see the outline of the linoleum knife in Walsh's back pocket, so whatever had happened to him had come as a surprise.

  Rollo tossed a pebble at a shattered bottle of brandy at the edge of the pond, sending ripples across the water. Broken glass glittered in the sunlight. "It's like I always told you, Jimmy, alcohol kills. " He fired up the remains of the joint he had started in the car, inhaled, then held it out. "Take a hit, Jimmy. Kills the stink."

  Jimmy turned, walking quickly now.

  "Where you going?" called Rollo.

  The trailer was unlocked. Jimmy stepped inside, careful not to touch anything. The lights were all on, so Walsh had probably died at night. The sink was piled high with empty cans and crusted plates fuzzy with mold-after the koi pond the stale beer smell was like fresh-cut flowers. The main room looked pretty much the way it had the last time Jimmy had been there, but it was Walsh's study that Jimmy was interested in. He pushed aside the curtain and stayed there, surveying the small room. The bed was made, the sheets pulled tight and pillow fluffed. The two Academy Awards were back on the bookcase, and the typewriter was still on the table. But the script was gone, as was the accordion-style file folder with the investigator's raw notes. There was no balled-up paper in the wastebasket.

  Jimmy barged into the room, looking for something amiss: a book askew, a piece of the fake wallboard bowed out, a ceiling panel that didn't quite fit-anything to indicate where Walsh might have stashed his precious script, his notes, his files. He rested a hand on Walsh's chair, still seeing the fear in the man's eyes as he begged for help that night, hearing his voice crack as he glanced out the window. Jimmy knocked over the chair and picked it back up, clumsy now. He bent down and checked under the mattress, felt the mattress itself, then moved into the tiny bathroom, looking behind the toilet and inside the tank. He wasn't really expecting to find the screenplay. It was a lousy thing to wish that a man had gotten drunk and drowned in a glorified lily pond, but that was what Jimmy had been hoping for: an accident.

  B.K. was wiping his tongue when Jimmy walked out of the trailer. He had thrown up all over his corduroy pants. Rollo stood in front of the koi pond, staring down at Walsh, right where Jimmy had left him. He looked up as Jimmy approached.

  "Give me the phone number for the Monelli twins," said Jimmy.

  "They didn't tell anybody about Mr. Walsh. He said to tell Napitano that we got the Oscar from an anonymous collector, and that's what we did."

  "You should give it to me anyway."

  Rollo turned back to the body. "Mr. Walsh-I think he might have gotten a kick out of us finding him like this. You know, like Sunset Boulevard."

  Tires crunched on the gravel road, and Jimmy turned, his heart pounding way too loudly. It was a police car, Anaheim PD, and another, unmarked unit. The full treatment.

  Rollo gobbled down the last of the joint.

  B.K. waved feebly to the cops. He would have called 911 sometime after seeing the body and before throwing up. Guys like B.K. always called the cops when bad things happened. That's what you were supposed to do.

  Jimmy had other ideas. He had no respect for rules or authority, no regard for holographic ID badges, formal invitations, or signing in at the front desk. He cheated on his taxes, trespassed when he felt like it, and broke the speed limit every time he got behind the wheel. But he never stiffed a waitress and never told a woman he loved her if he didn't-his internal compass always pointed to true north. If you had to think about a moral choice, wondering what you should do, then it was best to roll over and play dead, leave it to the cops or just let the bad guys inherit the earth.

  The breeze kicked up and sent Walsh's body bumping gently against one of the large rounded rocks in the koi pond, one hand waving sluggishly, draped in skin like a lace glove. Walsh had been right-he hadn't killed Heather Grimm. Maybe if he had gone about his business like a good ex-con, grateful to be out, and keeping a low profile-maybe if he had shut up about working on the Most Dangerous Script in the World-maybe if Jimmy had believed him, he would be alive today.

  A glossy black crow landed on the back of Walsh's head, claws brushing the scalp, then quickly flew away, trailing hair. Walsh's head bobbed in agreement.

  Jimmy heard footsteps approaching.

  Chapter 6

  Jimmy was watching the crow fly away, trailing a strand of Walsh's hair in its claw, when he became aware of Rollo edging away and knew things were going to get ugly. He slowly turned around. Oh, shit. He forced a smile. "Good afternoon, detective."

  Detective Helen Katz glowered at him, a big rawboned cop with short dirty-blond hair and a face like a plowhorse. She elbowed Jimmy aside and stood there with one foot on the stone border of the koi pond, wrinkling her flat nose at Walsh's bloated body. "Jesus, this bastard is way past his pull date."

  Katz was one of those female cops who habitually wore crepe-sole brogans, shapeless suit pants, and a white shirt and tie, thinking that she had to dress like Sergeant Joe Friday to be respected. That's what she had told Jane Holt anyway, criticizing Holt's designer suits and pearls, her iridescent running shoes, as "too girly"-fine for the politically correct Laguna PD, but Anaheim was an inland PD whose officers had to face down warring gangbangers, not chase rowdy boogie boarders off the beach. In actuality, no one on the Anaheim PD would have dared treat Katz in less than a professional manner regardless of what she wore. A former army MP who regularly took top honors in the annual Southern California Peace Officers hand-to-hand combat competitions, Katz was a hard-ass who considered interpersonal skills a sign of weakness. She scared the shit out of everyone. Jimmy was always overly polite with her, complimenting her wardrobe, solicitous about her health. It drove her nuts.

  "Is that a new perfume you're wearing?" said Jimmy.

  "I'm in my period."

  "Congratulations. You must be so proud."

  Katz draped a meaty arm across his shoulders and dragged him closer, her body warm and heavy. "This floater a friend of yours?"

  Jimmy could hear a camera whirling behind him, the uniforms taking Polaroids until the CSI wagon arrived. "His name is-"

  "I know who he is." Katz grabbed Jimmy by the scruff of the neck, throwing him off balance, his shins butting painfully up against the rocks. One push, and he'd be headfirst into the filthy water. "What I'm interested in is what you're doing here fouling up my crime scene."

  Jimmy relaxed, refusing to struggle, not wanting to give her an excuse. He pretended they were old friends out for a stroll in Venice, and that
the flies floating around them were pigeons in St. Mark's Square. He could see Rollo huddling with one of the uniforms, glancing over at him. "I'm writing an article on Walsh-"

  "Detective? Is there a problem?"

  Katz spun around and stared at the young uniformed officer, a strapping Hispanic rookie wearing his Sam Browne belt too high. "A problem?" she demanded, her hand still on the back of Jimmy's neck. "You think I might have a problem that you could actually do something about, Commoro?"

  "Yes… I mean-yes, sir. Yes, detective," Commoro corrected himself, his adolescent acne flaring against his dark brown skin.

  "Can you swim, Commoro?" asked Katz.

  "I still hold the record in the hundred-yard butterfly at Santa Ana Catholic-"

  "Good." Katz tossed him a set of keys. "Go get my boots out of the trunk of my car."

  Commoro looked at Walsh's putrid body, then at Katz, then back to the body. He was fingering the car keys like rosary beads.

  "Move it!" Katz waited until the uniform hustled away, handcuff jingling against his belt, before letting Jimmy go, giving his neck one last painful squeeze for good measure. She blotted her sweaty forehead with her necktie. "Now, where were we?"

  "I was mentally composing my police brutality complaint."

  "That'll be the day," Katz snorted. "Nice photo of you and the naked bimbos in SLAP. I bet Jane Holt was thrilled. Why did you have your hands over your unit, though? You got something to be ashamed of?"

  "I'm sure yours is bigger than mine, detective."

  "Follow me," snapped Katz. The two of them started a slow circuit of the koi pond. Katz stopped after a few feet, chewing on a thumbnail as she studied the body from a new angle. "You said you came here to do an article on Walsh. This your first visit?"

  "I was here once before, about three weeks ago."

  "Walsh had a drug problem when he went into prison," Katz said idly. Something in the water had caught her attention. She seemed barely interested in talking with Jimmy. "Did-did he have one when he got out?"

  "I don't know what that means."

  Katz looked at him, her eyes the intense blue of an antique doll, painted on and hard all the way down. "So in your position as a professional journalist and helpful citizen, was Walsh still strung out when you last saw him?"

  "He liked to mix painkillers and booze. A lot of people do."

  Katz watched a blotchy gray koi nuzzle what was left of Walsh's right ear. Cartilage was the last to go. "I saw a broken bottle in the water back there. A sloppy man and a sloppy death."

  "Maybe."

  Katz stared at him, but he didn't back down. The collar of her white shirt was soaked with sweat, but she wouldn't loosen her tie if you threatened her with a cattle prod. "Maybe?"

  Jimmy didn't offer a clarification. The trick with someone like Katz was to make her force the information from you that you wanted her to have-the only truth she believed was the one she extracted under duress. If Jimmy was willing to be strong-armed, he could give up a partial truth and hold back the most important parts.

  Commoro clomped across the dry ground wearing thigh-high rubber boots and rubber gloves, cursing to himself, accompanied by a stoop-shouldered man with a backpack.

  "I need to get my samples before you disturb the body, detective," called the stooped man, his voice reedy and eager. You'd think he was at a birthday party, ready to blow out the candles on the cake. He was a few years older than Commoro, a pencil-neck in hiking boots, khaki shorts, and a denim shirt with double-decker pockets, his hair a nest of unkempt curls.

  "Just don't take all day, professor," said Katz. "Make sure you get photographs first."

  The professor took a 35-millimeter camera from the backpack and started taking photos of the corpse from every angle, moving closer, leaping from rock to rock until he was right next to Walsh's body. He perched there and finished out the roll, ignoring the flies swarming around him. The camera returned to his pack and he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, then bent down over the body, knobby knees wide, his face inches from the putrefying flesh. Sunlight flashed on the stainless-steel tweezers in his hand as he plucked something off and held it up for examination. It wriggled.

  Jimmy looked at Katz.

  "Professor Zarinski is a bug doc who wants to be a consultant," Katz explained. "He's a pain in the ass sometimes, but he doesn't charge the department anything, and besides he buys coffee." She nodded to where B.K. was talking to an older cop. "The doofus there says you took one look at the floater and made a beeline for the trailer." She punched him lightly in the kidneys, more of a love tap. "What were you looking for?"

  "A phone. I wanted to call it in to the proper authorities."

  Katz smiled. "The proper authorities-who's that, the Drudge Report?" She stared into the koi pond again, cocking her head to get a better look. "Hold that thought, Jimmy. Okay, Commoro, time to take a dip."

  Commoro shifted from one foot to the other.

  "Get in there," ordered Katz. "There's something just under the surface, right near the head. I can see it catching the sunlight. See that gray rock? That one. Hurry up, the fishies won't bite you-they already hit the smorgasbord." She laughed. It was a nice laugh too, a sweet laugh, a private joke on a summer day.

  Commoro gingerly entered the pond, dark blue circles spreading under the armpits of his uniform. The bottom of the pool varied in depth, the scummy water rising to his knees as he made his way to where Katz pointed. He tried not to make waves, but he sent ripples across the pool with every step, banging Walsh's body against the rock the professor knelt on. Commoro stuck his hand in the water, his head turned away.

  "What were you looking for in the trailer, Jimmy?" asked Katz, still watching the water.

  "The things that a reporter learns from a source. That's privileged information, but at the same time," Jimmy hurried, sounding nervous, "I feel an obligation to help your investigation. We're on the same side."

  Katz laughed.

  Commoro fumbled around the gray rock, the water filling his rubber glove. He shuddered, trying not to breathe, as the body bobbed against him.

  "A word of advice," the professor murmured to Commoro as he picked through Walsh's scalp with the tweezers, his voice barely louder than the flies that buzzed around them. "Take deep breaths. It will make it easier. It's called sensory overload. Once the nasal receptors fully fire, well, it's really quite tolerable."

  "Take off your glove, Commoro," ordered Katz. "Okay, Jimmy, show and tell."

  "Okay." Jimmy was going to tell her the truth, as much as he needed to anyway. "In exchange, I'd like a heads-up on the autopsy report before you release it. There's going to be reporters all over this story."

  "Sure, Jimmy, share and share alike, you and me, we'll have a regular circle jerk. Hey, Commoro!" Katz's voice echoed off the surrounding hills. "You puke on my floater, you're going to be directing traffic at Disneyland until your nuts drop!"

  Commoro was shaking as he pulled off one of his rubber gloves. He took a shallow breath, held it, and plunged his bare hand into the murky water, setting Walsh's body rolling as he reached around. He suddenly held up Walsh's sunglasses. One of the lenses was cracked.

  "Bag 'em," said Katz.

  Commoro's look of triumph turned to shock as what was left of Walsh's face came briefly into view.

  "They go for the eyes first, the soft parts," Katz said conversationally, batting away flies. "They swim right inside the mouth going after the tongue."

  "What kind of fish are these, detective?" said Commoro, hand on his pistol. "Piranha?"

  "Koi, officer," soothed the professor. "Quite harmless, I assure you."

  "There's not a fish alive that won't eat dead meat," Katz said to Jimmy. "These assholes who keep tropical fish-goldfish are just Dobermans with fins, if you ask me."

  "Detective?" Sergeant Rollings lumbered over to them, a fleshy old-timer sweating in the sun, counting the coffee breaks until retirement. "I finished the preliminary with the
two civies and checked on the meat wagon-they should be here in five or ten minutes." He hitched his pants, his blue uniform so wrinkled it looked deliberate. "Hey, Jimmy, loved the picture of you with the twins. How do I get your job?"

  "How are you doing, Ted?"

  "My hemorrhoids are acting up, and this heat ain't helping." Rollings watched the rookie standing in the koi pond. "Hey, Commoro, you need a license to fish!"

  "Start a walkaround on the ridgeline, sergeant," said Katz. "Keep your eyes out for anything that might indicate someone had been up there watching the trailer."

  Rollings looked up at the steep slope. "How about if I do a look-see inside the trailer instead? My bunions are killing me."

  "Gum wrappers, cigarette butts, anything that you can find," said Katz, as though she hadn't heard him.

  Rollings hitched at his pants again, sighed, and shuffled away.

  "Can I come out now, detective?" Commoro sounded like he was twelve.

  "A doper tries walking on water, slips, cracks his head on a rock, and drowns. That's my first impression," said Katz. "But you don't think it was an accident. What do you know that I don't?" She shifted her stance, closer now. "You don't want to make me wait, Jimmy. You really don't."

  "Walsh was working on a new screenplay," said Jimmy. "We were going to have a little party today, then I was going to interview him and-"

  "That's what you were doing in the trailer?" said Katz. "Getting the screenplay?"

  "It wasn't there."

  "Maybe you didn't look hard enough."

  "He was supposed to show it to us today. That's why we were having the party."

  "What was this screenplay about? Some kind of crime story?" Katz stroked her thick jaw. "Walsh writing about somebody he met in the joint? That could be dangerous. Nobody likes a snitch." She smiled again at him. "So what was it about?"

  "I don't know. Walsh said he didn't give previews."