Diamond in the Buff (7 page)

I raced up the two flights of stairs in the old office building. The hallway formed a square with the offices-cum-apartments on the outside and old-fashioned bathrooms with separate rooms for toilet and sink on the inside. The once fashionable building had gone downhill. By the Seventies Herman Ott was the most respectable businessman here. The “offices” had been converted—informally—to cheap apartments. But in recent years things had taken an upturn. Refugee families had moved in while they adjusted to American life. Usually the apartment doors were open and the smells of coconut sauce or curry filled the hallway. Usually toddlers on bicycles raced around corners. Now the doors were shut and the hall empty. It must have been a hundred degrees in here. Panting, I ran to the end and pounded on the milk glass panel that said
HERMAN OTT DETECTIVE AGENCY.
No answer. I hit the
O
harder. Maybe that was good therapy. There was no other benefit. Briefly I considered knocking on the closed doors down the hall. But in this building Herman Ott was a hero, a man who helped his neighbors through the mystifying bureaucracies. If Ott was avoiding me, I wouldn’t have expected his neighbors to help me out.

Still fuming I walked down the stairs, telling myself that patrol would find Sandoval. At this very moment an officer would be checking her house, and walking officers would be questioning street vendors near Sandoval’s abandoned space. The best thing for me to do would be to go back to the station and wait. I had plenty of paperwork. There were thirty-seven assault cases on my desk to finish processing. Tomorrow I had a hearing for a warrant; there were still two officer’s reports I needed to round up for that. Before I got those, patrol would have Leila Sandoval waiting for me.

I thought wistfully of my lost day. I had planned to spend it with Howard, looking at a few apartments, then a swim, a bottle of wine on one of The Palace decks, maybe a dip in the hot tub if the weather cooled, and a long, lovely evening that would meander like a teasing finger into a long, lovely night.

A long, lovely fantasy.

At least, I told myself, as I headed back to the station, this day was already shot. It couldn’t get worse.

But when I got to the station, I found I’d been wrong.

T
HE
B
ERKELEY POLICE STATION
was built by the WPA during the Depression. It is a four-story rectangle. The front desk and the row of chairs on which civilians wait is on the second floor. But to get there, civilians enter through a plain stucco room on the ground floor, a room that holds nothing but a work table and a pile of public-service notices. And the fey touch of a split curving staircase, à la
Gone With the Wind,
hugging either wall.

I climbed to the third floor and pulled open the door of the tiny office I shared with Howard, a room that was definitely not Tara quality. The only similarity might have been the temperature. It must have been a hundred degrees in there, too. The papers in my
IN
box drooped limply over the sides of the box. Without looking at them I went downstairs to Files and ran the names of Leila Sandoval, Hasbrouck Diamond, and Krishna Das Mouskavachi through
PIN
for outstanding warrants,
CORPUS
for arrests. No warrants, no arrests, none for any of them.

Then, assuring myself that this day had already provided me its quotient of frustration, that it was almost over, that in an hour I could still meet Howard at the pool for lap swimming, I made my way back to the office and sat down at my desk to tackle my
IN
box. On top was a note from Murakawa, reminding me I’d promised to talk to Mr. Kepple about his neighbors’ complaints. So much for self-proclaimed assurances. In the pasture the spot Mr. Kepple occupied was the one all the flies buzz around. For obvious reasons. Trying to rein him in there would make a fitting end to my day.

Or so I thought until I read the next message: Inspector Doyle was in his office, waiting for me.

Our pasture fence may be barely visible most places, but where Inspector Doyle is, you can see every board and every nail.

“Go on in, Smith,” the officer outside his door said. There was a funereal quality to his voice. There was
always
that funereal quality. Most times it was warranted. Inspector Doyle was not known for his patience or good humor. I had seen him laugh once or twice, but neither of those times had been during this calendar year.

Inspector Doyle nodded at me as I opened his office door. His once red hair had thinned and was mixed with gray. He reminded me of an old red hound lying in the dust, the folds of his neck quivering as he panted heavy old-dog breaths and peered out under sagging eyelids to watch a small terrier prance by. Then in one motion he’d spring forward and snap his teeth around the terrier’s neck.

On the seat to the left of the door sat Raksen, the ID tech, looking exactly like that terrier.

“I can come back when you two are done, Inspector,” I said hopefully.

But that escape wasn’t to be. “Sit down, Smith.”

I sat. And watched. I had worked under Inspector Doyle for over a year, paired
with
him on murder cases, sat in this chair talking strategy, called him at home when a break came, shared the satisfaction of marking a manila jacket
Closed.
I still couldn’t ward off his thrusts, but I had learned the rhythm of his reactions and I could see those thrusts coming.

Inspector Doyle leaned forward on his desk. Piles of papers squirted out from under his elbows. “What is it about you, Smith? What do you do to these people? I’ve got two other Homicide–Felony Assault detectives; no one’s calling complaining about them.”

I shot a glance at Raksen. His normally pale face was ashen. His fingers were white against the manila folder on his lap. He looked like a terrier Doyle had not just snapped at, but mangled, spit out, and left on the ground a week ago.

Doyle inhaled a long, labored breath. “Now what do you make of this, Raksen? Smith goes out on a simple assault call. Nothing undercover, right? The victim was stark naked at the time of the attack.”

“So he said,” Raksen muttered. I could almost see the old yellowed teeth grazing Raksen’s terrierlike neck. And yet Doyle’s rhythm was off. I had seen him go for flesh often enough, but he didn’t do it without a buildup.

“The two of you, you’ve got the victim, you’ve got the weapon right in front of you. And in less than four hours we’ve got the victim complaining about incompetence.”

“Incompetence?” I said before I could catch myself. I was prepared for Doyle to light into me about the fiasco on Telegraph, but not for
Diamond
talking about incompetence. It was too soon for him to have heard about Sandoval’s escape. “About what? I took his statement. I interviewed both his house guests. I attempted to interview his neighbor.” I did not bring up her departure. “Raksen took a mold of the eucalyptus branch—”

“And didn’t notice the wound,” Doyle snapped.

“Wound?” I looked at Raksen. We’d both checked Diamond’s leg. There had been no broken skin, no black, blue, or yellow marks. Only the scrapes from the falling eucalyptus branch.

“Wound on the crotch,” the inspector went on.

“He didn’t tell
me
that,” I said. “And I didn’t check there.” From all I had learned of Leila Sandoval, that did seem the type of wound she might have felt driven to inflict. Damn the woman for escaping me. Damn me for letting her. I could picture her kicking Diamond in the balls, but still couldn’t see how she could have managed to get a eucalyptus to do it.

“Diamond said there was a wound, a depression, that had been dug into the crotch of the tree—”

“The crotch of the
tree!”

“That’s where the branch comes into the trunk, Smith.” Doyle’s cheeks quivered; he was as close to laughing as he’d been this year. He fought it back.

“Dug in? There was a depression, but there was no sign of fresh digging, was there, Raksen?” I asked.

Before Raksen could respond, not that he looked likely to, the inspector continued. “Not new, maybe a year old. And in that wound there were bacteria.”

“So that branch was weakened,” I said. “They say eucalyptus branches fall without warning. I guess bacterial wounds are one of the reasons why.”

“And do you know why those bacteria were able to survive, Smith?” Doyle didn’t wait for a reply. “Because water had collected in that wound.”

“Water?”

“In August of a drought year, Smith.”

“The wound was wet,” Raksen muttered.

Despite all my experience with Inspector Doyle, I laughed. “Inspector, what we’ve got here is a soap opera. Sandoval left her husband for Diamond, hard as that is to imagine. Diamond tossed her aside for Bev Zagoya. Sandoval may well be bitter. She did order a hive of bees, most likely to disrupt the presentation at his house tomorrow. But gouging out a hole ten feet above his deck and tossing in bacteria, I find that a bit hard to believe. And now is he asking us to believe she watered that hole every week like a goddamned houseplant?”

Doyle’s face colored. Out of the side of my eye I could see that Raksen was paler. I should have stopped then. I didn’t. “How did Diamond say Sandoval did the watering? Did she shinny up the trunk every Sunday morning when he wasn’t looking? Or did she hang a hose out her window?”

The inspector jammed his teeth together. His face got redder. “You think that’s funny, do you, Smith?”

Maybe it was the result of letting Leila Sandoval outsmart me. Maybe I was just tired. I should have kept my mouth shut, but I didn’t. “It’s ludicrous. I’m sick of us running out to deal with Diamond and Sandoval and their prepubescent squabble.”

“Smith, you’re a public servant. You don’t get to choose which citizens deserve your time. You’re paid to serve them all. You understand that?”

“Inspector, I have served Diamond. We all have. On this he’s had a patrol officer, a homicide detective, and an ID tech. We don’t normally send out ID techs for fallen branches. The man’s not getting his money’s worth, he’s getting the jackpot.”

I expected Doyle’s teeth to plunge well into my jugular. But his only reaction was the deepening red of his face, and the tight set of his jaw. He rapped a finger on the desk. Unbalanced piles of papers jerked in response. “Smith,” he said slowly, “I know about Has-Bitched Diamond. I know about his feud with Leila Sandoval, and I know about the tree controversy. I know the man is a pain in the ass.”

I nodded, amazed at his control. Amazed and wary.

“By rights we should be able to file this complaint under loony.”

I nodded again. Raksen sat back. I didn’t.

“But if you think this is a joke, Smith, you’re missing the ball. Diamond’s a pain all right, but he’s a dangerous pain. He’s already called me once, to say he’s getting slipshod service here.”

“He knows better.”

Undaunted, he continued. “That call, Smith. It came on my private line.”

I was beginning to see the ball now. It was sailing over my head. “Diamond has your private number?” I said. “Who else’s number does he have?”

For the first time, Doyle nodded. “Exactly, Smith. You got that, Raksen?”

Raksen looked paler yet. Clearly, he didn’t get it. In the lab Raksen was the best, but his real love was for microbes. In his view, man’s role was as host.

“How long do you think it’ll be, Raksen,” Doyle asked, as if to a dim child, “before Diamond’s on the horn to the chief, the mayor, the papers?”

“But, Inspector,” Raksen said, “they must know what he’s like, too.”

Before Doyle could position his teeth, I said, “All the better for them.”

But Doyle wasn’t deterred. “Raksen,” he said, staring straight at me, “you must still think news reporting is merely passing on the truth. The truth is that August is a slow news month. Everyone, except Diamond, dammit, is on vacation. It’s too late for floods, too early for hurricanes, too warm to bemoan the plight of the homeless. The city council’s on vacation, the students haven’t returned. Nothing is happening. There is no news, Raksen. Nothing to sell newspapers. You got that? And then, Raksen, Hasbrouck Diamond bursts onto the scene, bitching that his bare flank was attacked by a eucalyptus. It’s a gift from the gods, Raksen. With a clever headline—”

“LIMBS ATTACK LIMB.”
It got out before I could stop myself.

“When they find that Diamond is accusing his neighbor of using a tree limb to maim or kill him—”

“BRANCH OFF TO ETERNITY.”

“And when they find out that the crotch of the tree was wet …” He paused.

I could read the dare in his eyes. I couldn’t resist.
“‘WET CAVITY FELLS DENTIST.’
We’re talking family papers, Inspector.”

Doyle flashed a smile. It only served to make the glower that followed darker. “You’ve got the game, Smith, so tell Raksen here what happens when they get the report that Diamond is complaining about us.”

“‘COPS FINGER CROTCH WHILE MASSEUSE RUNS LOOSE.’”

Back in my office, I called the dispatcher three times, even though I knew he would have contacted me as soon as he heard from patrol. Leila Sandoval should have ambled back to her Oriental rug and beach chair on the Avenue an hour ago. The longer she was absent, the more uneasy it made me. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get a warrant for her; as it stood now I didn’t even have grounds to charge her. You can’t charge a woman because her tree branch falls, or because she chooses to purchase a beehive.

I had been flippant with Inspector Doyle, no doubt about that. It was as if I had peeled off the thickened top layer of chocolate pudding and tossed it on the table between us. And now, I was left with just the pudding beneath, the mushy pudding of apprehension.

A
S
I
HEADED ACROSS
the parking lot to my car, Raksen was starting up his old brown Dodge. He backed up and sat in the lane for a moment staring at me, then pulled up next to me. His face was still as pasty as it had been in Doyle’s office. A film of sweat covered it and coated his wiry hair. He looked like a terrier who’d just been hauled out of the sink by the scruff of the neck. “Two things, Smith,” he said, finger tapping rapidly on the steering wheel. “First—this is really Pereira’s find, but it’ll be in my report, too—I yanked out a six-inch copper nail.”