Gray Area (12 page)

Diamond did just that, entering the backyard area of the Simpson house,
which was striped with yellow ticker tape that read LAPD - NO
TRESPASSING.  She approached what appeared to be a small garden shed and
opened it.  Diamond looked inside.  Various power tools and gardening
equipment hung willy-nilly from hooks and fixtures but that was not what
interested him—what caught his eye was the trapdoor on the floor.

“It leads to the cellar,” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  “If I would have
known it was extremely important for the police to have seen Don, I would have
come over and told them where he spends most of his time.  But I usually
just mind my own business.”

Diamond accepted the explanation without comment.  Most likely the
old bird kept constant surveillance on Don and his wife for lack of anything
better to do in her lonely life.  A not uncommon practice of old people in
general.  He opened the doors and descended the stairs, removing a pocket
flashlight to light the way.

The descent was brief.  The cellar was surprisingly spacious. 
It was strewn with bottles of Jack, cigarettes, TV dinners and baseball
paraphernalia like bats, mitts, balls and caps.  Mrs. Hutchinson followed
him down.  A small distasteful sound of disgust  passed through her
lips.

“Iissh,” she muttered, waving at clouds of dust motes.

“How could you tell he was here all night, ma’am?” Diamond asked. 
“After all, he could have sneaked out at anytime.  Unless you had your eye
peeled out here until morning.”

“I knew he was here,” she said.  “Same way I know every time he’s
here when he’s drunk.  He does the same thing over and over again.”

“What same thing?” he asked.

“He sings,” she said, a wrenched look of disgust crossed her face as she
lashed out at more motes of swirling dust.  “God awful voice.  Just
loud and drunk enough to keep me awake.”

The Singing Wife-Killer.

Diamond could imagine the headlines now.

An hour later he was in his brother’s office tossing the evidence bag
holding the Beretta onto the desk. 

Marshall regarded the gun as if it were a new form of bacillus, backing
up in his chair, staring at it with mute horror.

“Is—is that what I think it is?” he croaked.

“We found it in Don Simpson’s house.  Just after we finished trading
potshots at each other an hour ago.  He went a bit nuts, hurt some cops,
raised some hell.”

Marshall nodded sagaciously, as if all the mysteries of the universe were
beginning to coalesce into one crystalline meaning, free of doubt and
conjecture.  “Well.  I guess it would make sense.  Marianne was
leaving him.  He must have gotten wind of Jason.  Then he made his
move.”

Diamond followed the train of thought up to a point.  “Except Don
Simpson never left his house last night.”

Marshall just stared.  “What?

“I think our shooter is still around.  It wasn’t Don Simpson.”

Marshall stood, shoved his hands in his pockets.  Diamond noticed
they quickly turned to fists within the fine Armani fabric. 

“Didn’t you question Simpson?” he asked tightly.

“He’s unconscious at the moment,” Diamond said.  “He was deeply agitated,
fucked up on a major pop of PCP and god knows what else.  He’ll come out
of it in a few hours, I’m told.”  Diamond watched his brother pace. 
“This is beginning to stink.”

Marshall turned on him suddenly.  “Look, you just said Simpson went
ape-fuck.  For my money, and with this kind of evidence,” he said, jabbing
at the evidence bag containing the .16 mil as if it were some kind of venomous
grub, “he’s our man.  Let’s close this up now.”

Diamond took a breath, trying to quell the irritation that was
vulcanizing within him against his brother.  “You aren’t listening. 
Don Simpson never left his house last night.  We have a witness that
corroborates that fact.”

“Alright,” Marshall snapped, exasperated.  “If it’s not Simpson,
then who?”

A knock on the door, and then Linda Baylor stepped in.  “Hope I’m
not interrupting anything?”

She was dressed in an exquisitely tailored business skirt and
jacket.  The skirt was perhaps a tad high by most standards, but what the
hell, no one would complain the way she was wearing it, Lou thought. 

She smiled obliquely at him.

“I thought you weren’t coming into the office today,” he said.

Linda shrugged.  Her trademark response to most everything worthy of
her dismissal. “I was curious to see how the investigation was coming along
since I’m a prime suspect.”

This time Lou shrugged.  “Unless you have a confession for us,
nothing is written in stone.  And I wouldn’t exactly call you a prime
suspect.”

“Buy me a drink and there’s no telling what you’ll get out of me,” she
said neutrally.  “Better yet, I’ll provide the cocktails.”

Lou stepped closer to her.  “Where and when?”

Linda looked at Marshall, who turned to glance out the window.  “You
forget my open door policy, Lou.  How about seven?”

Jesus, she’s a piece of work, Lou thought.  “Front door or terrace?”

“Surprise me,” she said, then turned and left. 

Lou watched her walk down the hall, turn the corner and disappear from
sight.  When he looked back Marshal was staring at him, a tired frown
crossing his brow.

“I’ll need a place to set up shop,” Lou said, ignoring the frown, and
pulling his attention back to the moment.

“You can use Randall’s office.  He won’t be needing it,” Marshall
said acerbically.  “Don’t get involved with her, Lou.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, Marshall.”

“She enjoys being a bitch.  She’s a damn smart attorney but she’s
got a few kinks in the personal department.”

“I noticed that,” Lou said.

“She’ll use you to bug me.  She likes to do that, too.”

“Marshall, I’d sooner book her for murder than fuck her.  Besides,
she’s not my type.”

Marshall smiled at this.  “Yeah, she is.  She’s crazy. 
Just like you.”

FIFTEEN

Julie Westover was the Division’s top psychologist and well liked by damn
near every agent around.  She was smart, to the point, and not hard to
look at it. 

Diamond decided he would take his good friend and superior’s advice, just
so he could say he did, and drop by for an informal chat about his admittedly
fucked-up mental condition of late.

Julie lived in Huntington Beach, half an hour or so south of Los Angeles
on the 405.  Diamond was about to knock on the door of her second story
condo when he heard the sounds from within.  He instinctively reached for
his gun but then relaxed as the sounds became more recognizable.

He glanced at his watch and waited until the screams from within
crescendoed and then quieted.  He waited another minute or two, then
knocked.

After yet another minute, the door cracked open.

“Hi, Julie.  Does my timing suck?”

Julie brushed a wisp of hair out of her face, glanced quickly around,
then grinned at him.  “It was never that great.”

“Turner said I could drop by any time,” he continued, playing with
her.  The first real enjoyment he’d had in god knows when.  He’d
always liked Julie, in and out of bed.  She was good people and was the
only person alive who could make him, on those very rare occasions, laugh.

“Maybe I should have called,” he amended, beginning to walk away.

“No,” she said, reaching out to him, holding a sheet next to her
body.  “Give me five minutes,” she said as she took another look at him,
this time a studied one.  “You look dreadful, Lou.”

“And yet I feel so fun and frisky, filled with the flowing juices of
youth.”

“You don’t need a shrink.  You need the latest spectrum of
antipsychotic on the market.”

He smiled.  She closed the door and he waited for another few
minutes before she appeared again and admitted him into her home.

Julie Westover was a year past thirty but looked much younger.  Her
husband Chuck waved at Diamond as he headed into the back bedroom.  They
had a passing acquaintance, though Diamond thought he saw a trace of irritation
on the other man’s face as he shut the door behind him.

Can’t say I blame him, Diamond mused.  My timing truly does suck.

“Sorry about all this,” Diamond said, meaning it.

Julie shrugged and smiled.  “Chuck understands.  It’s one of
the great things about being married to a pilot.  We grab what time we
have together, but we also know when duty calls.”  She was watching him
again.  “Turner told me about last night.  And about the new
case.  Don’t you think you’re taking on a little too much a little too
soon?”

Diamond, suddenly very tired, fell into a seat.  “Probably. 
But if I keep working, I don’t have to remember.”

Julie sat opposite him, pulling over a dining room chair and pulling her
robe closer around herself.  Their fling, many years before Maria, was
brief, strange, and tinged with humor and regret.  Of course nothing could
have lasted between them—Diamond’s choice from the word go.  But it had
been pleasant, and Diamond had spent much harder company around women than the
likes of Julie Westover. 

She had seemed mildly heartbroken about the affair, but had accepted his
recalcitrance to the notion, mainly because she had no choice.  Julie
Westover understood Diamond and his demons.  They were demons particular
to a special category of man.  Lou Diamond was a warrior, from beginning
to end.  If there was no war to fight, he would have gone out to find one.
 It’s what he was born to do, had trained to do all of his life. 
Nothing could change that. 

But something
had
changed for Diamond, long ago, with Maria. 
For a brief period of time in Diamond’s violent life, there was ...
peace.  It was short-lived, as was his marriage, as was his poor
wife.  What little light that had shown in Diamond’s life had quickly
dimmed and was snuffed out forever. 

“Turner mentioned a girl last night,” Julie said gently.  “A girl
who looked like Maria.”

“Juanita,” Diamond said.  A hideous image of Juanita lying naked on
a cold slab down at County made him shiver. 

Julie saw the chill pass through him and waited. 

“She didn’t make it,” he said at last.

“Tell me about her,” Julie said, realizing that she was working in highly
charged territory.

Only to Julie Westover would Diamond allow some of the fences to come
down.  He shrugged, as if perhaps they were discussing a new kind of
disposal unit in the kitchen.  “Not much to tell,” he said.

“Try,” Julie cajoled.

“She was young.  Twenty two, maybe.  I ended up—” he took a
breath, and shook his head, waves of guilt and recrimination flooding through
him.  “I trusted her.  I didn’t think she was that close to
Palomito.  She blew the whistle on my team, on me.  Two men died
because of my dick.”

It wasn’t said humorously and Julie remained stone-faced.  He looked
at her, waiting for the inevitable platitude that he felt certain was
coming.  But she surprised him.  Julie had always surprised
him. 

“Maybe. Maybe not.  Turner said it was a suicide op from the start.”

“Bullshit,” Diamond snarled.  “I’ve pulled worst gigs than
that.  It was a judgment error, plain and simple.  Then, last night,
something happened.  They had us.  We were finished.  Juanita
... began to do things ...”

He couldn’t go on.  He looked down.  “I liked it.  Christ,
I liked it, even when I knew we would all be dead.”

For a long time Diamond just stared at the floor, for the first time
thinking about the bizarre sequence of events in the warehouse the night
before.  He realized that he’d successfully bullied the memories out of
his mind.  Now, with Julie, more barriers crumbled. 

He could feel the sob in his throat and fought against it.  “I guess
the reason I’m here,” he said slowly, each word a victory of control, “is to
have you tell me I’m not fucking nuts.”

Julie reached out and took both of his hands in hers.  “You lost a
wife five years ago, Lou.  You’ve never recovered from that.  And
you’re in, to put it mildly, a high stress, high risk profession.  You’re
not nuts.  But you’re on the way to a nervous breakdown if you don’t let
up.”

Diamond searched her eyes, trying to find something there that might hold
the answer to a thousand questions clamoring for answers.  “Something in me
actually liked what happened.  I was getting fucked up in more ways than I
care to get into ... and I
liked
it.”

He stood, shoved his hands into his pocket.  He noticed a bottle of
vodka, along with some scotch and wine, on a nearby counter. 

“Help yourself,” she smiled.

Diamond unscrewed the Absolut, reached for a Dixie cup, and poured
long.  He killed half the burning vodka in one chug.  He nodded to
himself.  “You should have seen it, Julie,” he muttered.  “What she
did to me ... what I allowed her to do ... while my men watched.  While
they died...”

He finished the vodka.  “You don’t call that nuts?” he said to her,
contemplating whether or not he should switch from the Absolut to the
J&B.  Decisions, decisions.

“No.  I call it a fairly common syndrome that is symptomatic to
individuals who put themselves in life and death situations on a daily
basis.  There are thousands of feet of documentation on soldiers back from
war who failed to psychologically adjust to an environment when their lives weren’t
in constant jeopardy.  You fit into a very specific category.”

“Wacko,” he said.

“You’re a violent man,” Julie said, not blinking once.  “By training
and by disposition.  You’re addicted to the buzz of ‘kill or be killed,’
and you should look it square in the face.”

“I can look it in the face,” he said softly.  “But yesterday ...
that was something different.”

“No, it wasn’t.  And you better start addressing that as well. 
Your wife is dead, killed in the streets.  Last night was the eighth
undercover op you signed on for since her death.  You’ve been topside
maybe four months total in all that time.  You drink too much, your sex
life is probably shot or nonexistent and, when you do get laid, it’s probably
pretty bizarre.”