“What target? What the hell are you talking about?”
“The lawyer. The fixer.” A noiseless belch. “The one who….” His eyes lost focus.
“What do you know about him?”
“Leave me alone.” Quinn’s jaw hung slack, his tongue barely forming the words. “You had your chance.”
Horn stood over him, furious. “Dolores Winter told me you’ve replaced booze with Jesus,” Horn said. “She doesn’t know you very well, does she?”
“Tired of talking to you,” Quinn said almost inaudibly. “Don’t bother to come around anymore. If you do—”
“I know. You’ll have me thrown out.”
Outside, Horn sat in his car for a few minutes, wondering why Quinn was suddenly shunning him. And whether the man had some new reason to suspect Lombard. And about the photograph underneath the wounded hands. One evening years earlier, while his father had sat working on a sermon, he began telling John Ray and his little brother about the various roads to sanctity. Some so-called Christians, the Reverend Horn said, preach that you can find God by mortifying the flesh. We don’t go that far. We believe in self-denial, in avoiding the temptations that we find so abundant on this Earth. But wearing the hair shirt, flogging one’s own body, dragging a heavy cross to the church on Good Friday—all that is a perversion of the Word. And that has more to do with human guilt than with any desire to sanctify the self.
Horn thought of Quinn and the stigmata of his bloodied knuckles. Was it simply sorrow over losing Rose, he wondered, that drove the man to punish himself? Or was it rage directed at Lombard, and shame over his own inability to take action? Or was it something else?
* * *
He parked the Ford in a lot near the Hall of Justice, then walked over to the massive, thirteen-story Greco-Roman building and waited outside the Broadway entrance. At precisely three o’clock, Luther Coby came out.
Cassie was with him.
She wore a wrinkled dress and scuffed penny loafers without socks. Her face wore its familiar sullen expression, but underneath Horn could discern anger, barely held in check.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. Then, turning to Coby, “What’s she doing here?”
“You know her, don’t you?” Coby asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Sure you do. She’s related to that fellow you work for. And, it turns out, she’s the woman who was spotted by one of the neighbors in that rooming house the night Rose Galen was killed. She’s been identified. You know what else? She’s living in the Galen woman’s room.”
“I know all that,” Horn said. “I’ll vouch for her.”
“You?” Coby seemed to find that an irresistible joke. “I’m not sure that would do her much good, since I’ve got my own doubts about you. But don’t get yourself all upset. I just wanted to ask her a few things. Went over there this morning and invited her to come in for a talk. She didn’t like the idea…. Did you, girlie?” he asked, turning to her. Although Cassie remained silent, the look she gave him was venomous. “But she came along. And she explained how she went over there that night just to talk, and how she moved in just because she needed a place to stay.” He seemed vaguely amused at the recitation.
“You didn’t arrest her?” Horn asked.
“No, no,” Coby said expansively. “I don’t like to arrest anybody until I’ve got everything I need. My conviction rate is one of the best in the department, ’cause I’m careful. I’ve even got a plaque on the wall upstairs. Maybe you’ll see it someday.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not watching,” he went on. “If somebody looks good to me, I stay on their tails, let ’em know I’m there. You’d be amazed how many people get nervous, trip up and do something crazy when they know I’ve got my eye on them. You ever read Crime and Punishment?”
“No,” Horn said.
“You should. This old detective I started out with in the department gave me a copy years ago. Some Russian wrote it. It’s really long and it has some big words, but you can skip over the boring places. It teaches you a lot about the way guilty people behave. You can see that some people want to confess. I don’t suppose that ever happens in any of your movies, does it?”
“No,” Horn said. “Can she go now?”
“Sure.” Coby turned to her. “I want to thank you for your cooperation,” he said with some formality.
“Don’t mention it,” she said icily.
Horn took her aside. “Did anybody hurt you?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “They just wanted to scare me,” she said. “It didn’t work.” She looked shaken but in control.
“Fine. Maybe I’d like it better if you were a little scared, as long as it made you careful.”
“I have to go,” she said. “I should be working.”
“If you’d like to wait, I can drive you.”
“It’s not far. I can walk.” She turned and left them, striding purposefully.
“Come on,” Coby said as they watched her walk away. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
They went north a block, then over to a cafe on Spring Street, where they sat at the counter.
“Where’s your partner?” Horn asked.
“Stiles? Doing paperwork. Says he can’t wait ’til he’s old and fat and got enough seniority to order around his junior partner.” Coby summoned the waitress and ordered a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun. Horn asked for an orange soda and looked around the place. The cafe’s customers were a cross-section of the civic center: lawyers in good suits, court workers, jurors on a break, and off-duty police, both in and out of uniform.
Getting his first good look at the detective in broad daylight, Horn decided the man wasn’t fat after all. His waist was thick, and his bullish head and neck made him look heavy, but the extra weight seemed to be solidly distributed. The fingers delicately holding the coffee cup were stubby and strong-looking. He resembled a more compact version of Willie Apples, only marginally better dressed.
“You’re on the wrong track with Cassie,” Horn said. “She’s had some problems back where she grew up, and some problems getting used to living here. But—”
“Don’t be so sure I’m on the wrong track,” Coby said lightly, blowing into his cup. “She’s a tough little half-breed, that one. Carries a knife.”
“Sure she does. Driving a cab is dangerous in this town. Everybody knows that. But Rose wasn’t killed with a knife. And Cassie had no reason to hurt her anyway. The woman had been good to her.”
“Well, I have to go with what I see,” the detective said, sawing off a sizable wedge of his bun and spearing it with his fork. “Now if you’ve got any other information for me….”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been looking around,” Coby said, chewing vigorously while he studied the sugary contours of the bun, planning his next assault. “Stiles and me, we hear things. You’ve been talking to the guy who runs that mission down on Main. You—or somebody who looks an awful lot like you—were at the fights with him the other night, making nice with Jay Lombard. Late that night, Lombard’s right-hand muscle, guy named Willie Apples, showed up at the Good Samaritan emergency room with a bruised rib and a slight head wound. Told the doc he had a little car accident. And….” He stared intently at Horn. “And you show up here today with a bandage big enough for the Bride of Frankenstein.”
“So?”
“So you’re sniffing around and butting heads with people, telling ’em you want to find out who killed your friend. You probably don’t realize what a big joke this is. Maybe you used to be some kind of movie hero, but now you’re just an ex-con, and eventually you’ll get the other side of your face pushed in for your trouble.”
“It’s my face. What I want to know is how come you’re suddenly worried about who killed Rose Galen. First time I saw you, you acted bored by the whole thing. She was just a barfly, you told me. Life is cheap where she lived, you told me, and anybody could have killed her. Today it sounds
like you’ve decided to take this seriously.”
“I don’t like to see anybody get killed,” Coby said mildly, as if he had decided not to be offended. “I get paid to bring in the ones who do it, and I enjoy my work. But I will say that I’ve changed my mind about Rose Galen. That actress, the great-looking redhead, told me a little about her background, and I dug up some more. Seems that long before her barfly days, she was in the movies, and she was pretty good.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Horn said. “You like it when they’re famous. Either the victims or the criminals.”
“Sure.” Coby wiped his mouth. “Anyway, I’ll tell you what I told Cassie Montag: I’m as serious about this one as anything I’m working on right now. And if you’ve turned up anything I can use, I want it. You give me a good reason, and I’ll forget my fascination for this Indian girl and go focus it on somebody else.”
Horn was silent. “The next time I bring her in,” the detective continued quietly, “she’ll spend the night in our facilities up on the top floor. There’s a lot of yelling and screaming in the ladies’ block. I don’t know how any of ’em manage to get a good night’s sleep, what with—”
“All right,” Horn said. “What do you want to know?”
“Start with Lombard,” Coby said. “What’s that slick son of a bitch got to do with Rose Galen?”
“Sounds like he’s not one of your favorite people.”
The detective made a what-the-hell gesture with his fork. “He’ll defend anybody who’s got money,” he said. “There was a trucking company owner who stabbed his wife with a steak knife over dinner; he got him off. I heard he even defended Dolores Winter’s husband when the guy got fired by his studio.” He resumed eating.
“How did that turn out?”
“Not so good, I guess,” Coby said, his mouth full. “He’s still out of work, right? I bumped heads with Lombard once when I brought in this fence. I’d caught him with the goods, everything. By the time Lombard got finished, the jury believed the guy just happened to be in a room with all the stuff and that I was an overzealous cop. I suppose he’s good at what he does, but him and me, we play on different teams. Now answer my question. What’s he got to do with Rose Galen?”
“He knew Rose years ago, but I’m not sure exactly how or where. A few weeks before she was killed, he met her for a drink,” Horn said. “They talked for a while. I don’t know about what. I tried to ask him the other night, after the fights, and that’s when he turned his bulldog loose on me.”
“So he’s touchy about her,” Coby said reflectively. He pushed his plate away, then waved the waitress over to refill his cup.
“He is.”
“What would you guess they talked about?”
“I’m not sure, but I think she might have wanted him to represent her.”
“Why would she need a lawyer?”
Horn sighed. “It’s a long story.” He began talking. He told Coby about Tess Shockley and her death, about Rose’s hints that she had something to do with it. He talked about Tess’ grieving parents, about Emory Quinn and his apparent suspicion of Lombard, about Dexter Diggs and the old days before the movies learned to talk. He held back only the suggestion that Rose and Dex had been involved. He wanted to ask his old friend about that first.
“Sounds like I should have another talk with the preacher,” Coby said. “Nothing I’d like better than to hang this on my little shyster friend. Anything else?”
“Well, there’s Dolores Winter,” Horn continued. “You already know she and Rose were friends.”
“That’s right,” the detective said. “Some kind of woman, huh? Makes me wish I’d seen some of her movies. But she’s not one you want to fool with. When I find the guy who did this, I’d better have him locked up before she has a chance to get at him. I wouldn’t want her after me.” He looked pointedly at Horn.
“She’s not after me anymore,” he told Coby. “We’re buddies now.”
“Well, that’s just fine. I envy you.” Coby swung heavily off the counter stool and laid six bits on the counter. Then something occurred to him. He pulled a well-chewed pencil out of his shirt pocket and wrote a phone number down on a corner of his paper napkin and slid it over to Horn. “I’m all out of fancy calling cards,” he said. “You can usually reach me at this number, or leave a message, if anything occurs to you.”
“You mean if I suddenly get the urge to confess?”
“Something like that.” He looked at Horn for an extra second. “That cost you a lot, didn’t it? Telling me what you know.”
“No offense,” Horn said, getting up. “I don’t like the police. Never had any reason to.”
“Now you’re going to tell me you were railroaded.”
“No. I did what they said. I’m just not sure it was worth two years of my time, that’s all.”
“You know something? I’m not sure it was either. But you made an enemy of an important man. In this town, that’s all it takes.”
The detective’s chunky features eased into a grin. “Not all us cops are bad guys. Some of us are just working stiffs trying to pile up enough years for that pension. You want to see something?” With two stubby fingers, he dipped into a vest pocket and came up with a folded snapshot. Horn took it and unfolded it. It was a photo, in garish colors, of a cottage with a small porch and a vine-colored trellis over half the porch.
“Color didn’t turn out good,” he said apologetically. “I’m having trouble with that film. But this is going to be my retirement place down in Del Mar. Sweet, huh? It’s a ten-minute walk from the racetrack and fifteen minutes from the ocean. In a few more years, old Luther Coby will be sitting on that porch, breathing salty air and forgetting all about big, dirty L.A.”
“Good for you.”
They walked to the lot where Horn had parked.
“You want to come up?” Coby asked. “I can show you where Mitchum was a guest of the county for sixty days.”
“No, thanks. I’m familiar with the place.”
“Oh, hell.” Coby slapped his forehead. “What a memory I’ve got. Sure you are. You must’ve spent a night or two up top, then got tried in one of the courtrooms down below. For all I know, you and Mitchum had the same cell. The celebrity cell. He didn’t really have a bad time. Just mopped a few floors, that kind of thing. You probably saw that picture in the paper, him and his mop. Did you mop any floors, or did they have you cleaning toilets?”
All of Horn’s initial distaste for Coby was returning. Ignoring the question, he said, “You want to tell me who you think killed Rose?”
Coby’s stare was without expression. “I’m not ready to say yet. But I’ll tell you one thing: You’re still on the list. The Indian girl too.”
* * *
The flag was up on the mailbox that stood on a post just outside his gate. In the box he found a large manila envelope, sent air mail special delivery and containing something thick. The return address bore the name of the Oklahoma City Board of Education, under which someone had written a street address in the same precise hand used to address the envelope. He took it inside and opened it, finding a small bundle of letters tied with a violet ribbon.
“Thank you, Mr. Shockley,” he muttered.
He flipped through the envelopes, noting that they were arranged in reverse chronological order of postmarks, with the most recent on top.
He considered fixing a drink or something to eat, but his curiosity was too strong. Settling into the wooden rocker on the porch, he opened the letter with the earliest postmark and began reading.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Shockley, the letter began. My name is Rose Galen, and I was a friend of your daughter, Tess. I’m writing to say how sorry I am about her death. She was a fine young woman, and she spoke often of you….
He read quickly through the rest. Rose expressed her condolences, spoke a little about her friendship with Tess, and promised to write again. The next letter was similar but mentioned a phone conversation she had had wit
h the couple. You sound like good people, she said. You can be justifiably proud of your daughter….
The letters settled into a rhythm then, coming at the rate of about one a year. Rose thanked the Shockleys for sending her a photo of their daughter. She told stories about Tess, always stressing how happy the girl had been and how she seemed just on the brink of some kind of success in Hollywood. But the physical appearance of the letters changed. At first they had been written in a careful, almost elegant hand on good stationery. Later, the postmarks changed from Los Angeles to Wichita and then New York, and the quality of the paper declined. Sometimes the notes were written in pencil on stationery marked with the names of hotels Horn did not recognize. Sometimes the penmanship declined as well, the words carelessly formed.
The last few years’ worth of letters again originated in Los Angeles, with the return address at the Bunker Hill room. The next to last letter, dated six months ago, was the one Horn had been expecting.
Dear Edith and Willis, she wrote in careful lettering, Forgive me for what I’m about to say. I’ve been carrying it around with me for years, and the burden has become too great.
How would you feel—what would you say—if I were to tell you that I was present when Tess was killed? Not killed, I mean, but so horribly injured that she would die because of it. And further, that I was not innocent but had a role in what happened.
This is so hard. You have been dear friends to me, and I fear what you must think of me now. I tell myself I’m no murderer, but I cannot deny what I did. I know that if I had not been there that awful night, she almost certainly would still be alive. So, does this make me a murderer? I dread what you will say.
What I have to tell you is not for a letter. I feel we should talk. If you want, I will call you whenever you like. If you prefer, I will even come to see you. I have one or two friends who would lend me the money for a bus ticket. Once we have talked, whatever you decide to do—even if it involves going to the police—will be, I am sure, the right decision.
God bless you,
Rose
He picked up the last letter. It was postmarked not quite two months ago. The envelope was still sealed.
While I Disappear Page 20
