Sooner or Later (28 page)

“That was about questioning your client with reference to a murder, Mr. Majors,” Dan snapped. “A murder in which Detective Johannsen was trying to implicate both her and myself.”

Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “No, oh no he wasn’t. He just wanted me to help him.”

“Sure.” Dan’s face was grim.

“You mean he really suspects Ellie of … ?” Majors’ fair skin bloomed a hot red, and his pale eyes behind the gold-rimmed Armani glasses blinked rapidly with shock.

“What the hell d’you think he had us there for? A nice friendly conversation?” Dan thrust his hands in his pockets, leaning against the sleek automobile, looking unbelievingly at the lawyer.

“I’m … I’m sorry. I’m not a criminal lawyer, I deal with wills and property…. This is not my forte, you see.”

“Then for Christ’s sake get somebody whose forte it is, because your client is going to need him.”

“Yes, yes, of course, I’ll do that right away.”

Ellie gave a weary sigh. “I don’t believe this, I just don’t believe it. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, and now look what’s happening.”

“It’s a storm in a teacup.” Dan put his arm around her. “Tomorrow, we’ll sort it all out.” He thanked God that Piatowsky was arriving tomorrow, he surely could use his support.

“Er, can I offer you a lift back to … wherever you’re going?” Majors looked humble now, as well as out of his depth.

Dan relented, he’d been hard on him. “Sorry, Majors.” He slapped him on the shoulder, then looked around the parking lot, remembering they had come in the detectives’ squad car. By rights, they should have taken them home again, but he wasn’t about to argue that point. “We’ll get a cab, thanks.”

“I’ll call one for you.” At least he could do something to help.

The taxi arrived in minutes and Majors waved a hurried goodbye, glad to exit the scene.

They held hands in the cab, sitting silently, unwilling to talk in front of the driver. Dan thought the journey had never seemed so long, and when they finally rolled up the hill, the front door was thrown open and Maya was standing on the front porch, the light streaming behind her, looking anxiously at them.

“Are you okay?”

Ellie dashed up the steps toward her. “Oh Maya, they think I murdered Miss Lottie,” she said, and collapsed into her arms.

B
UCK WAS RESTLESS.
H
E HAD THAT ITCHY FEELING AGAIN
, the way he used to in Hudson, when he needed to break out, do something. He needed to see Ellie. But Ellie was not around.

He was sitting in the car on the hill near her house, sipping a Starbucks double espresso and wondering restlessly where she could be, when two squad cars sped past him and turned into Ellie’s street. Alert as a wary guard dog, he watched through the rearview mirror.

A minute later a black Crown Victoria passed him and parked next to the others outside Ellie’s house. A couple of plainclothes detectives got out and joined the four uniformed officers.

Buck lit up a Camel, got out of the car and strolled casually along the street. They didn’t knock on the door, they simply opened it and walked in. His eyebrows climbed in surprise.
They were searching her house.

Stamping out the cigarette, he walked quickly back to the car and drove down the hill onto Main Street.

It was a Saturday, hot, a beach day, and a passing
parade of Venice youth drifted across the road heading for the ocean. Honking them impatiently out of his way, he sped toward the cafe. There were no parking spaces, but he didn’t need to stop; the
Closed
sign was still visible on the glass door.

Where the hell was she?
She wasn’t at Maya’s apartment, because Maya wasn’t there. They must be somewhere together. Maya would have gone to comfort her.

He drove aimlessly in the direction of Marina del Rey, his mind on Dan Cassidy. He needed to know who he was, where he lived. He had the sudden gut feeling Ellie was with him and rage fermented like acid in the pit of his stomach. Spotting a liquor store, he made a quick, screeching turn into its parking lot, and bought three bottles of Jim Beam.

Back on the freeway again, heading toward Sunset Boulevard, he decided angrily that he would kill Cassidy if he got in his way.

The drapes were kept permanently closed at his apartment. He switched on a lamp and the TV, clicking until he found the local channel with the news. Prowling the perimeter of the small dark room, he slugged bourbon from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes fixed on the TV screen.

The weatherman was telling what a glorious day it was going to be, if you discounted the air quality, of course, and just felt those wonderful warm rays.
“Take care”
he said,
“this is a factor-five burn day …”

Buck tilted the bottle to his mouth again. Goddammit! Why didn’t they get on with the news, tell him what was happening with Miss Lottie, and Ellie. Ripping off his shirt, he tossed it on the floor. He kicked off his shoes, his pants. In seconds he was naked, the bottle clutched in his hands, pacing.

Where the fuck was she?

T
HE
U
NITED
737
DIPPED LOWER AND
P
IATOWSKY
watched Los Angeles gradually emerge from the layer of yellow smog. He saw an endless grid of streets bisected by a curving snarl of freeways, dotted with turquoise swimming pools and tall stringy palms. He hoped it got better than this.

Urban man though he was, through and through, born and raised in the city, it still seemed like a miracle to him that he could fly across a continent and, in a matter of hours, be in another world.

Cassidy was waiting at the baggage claim. For a guy living in sunshineland, he surely looked tired. His jaw glistened blue-black with stubble and his hair looked as though he’d run his hands through it once too often. Still, his eyes lit up when he saw him.

“Jesus, Piatowsky, am I glad to see you.”

“Yeah, likewise.” They embraced, slapped shoulders, grinned at each other.

Dan grabbed his bag and Piatowsky shouldered his fishing rods in their black case. “Guess there’s not gonna
be much fishin’, but I brought ’em anyways.” Following Dan outside, he lifted his pale city face to the sun, breathing the fumes of a zillion automobiles. He grinned. “Perfect, man, it’s great.”

“Wait till you’re out of the urban sprawl, then you’ll know it’s really great.”

Piatowsky followed him, marveling at the long-legged women in shorts, striding confidently in front of him. “Boy, do you know you’re not in New York,” he said, amazed. “And every one a blonde. It must be all that sun.”

They picked up the car in the lot and Dan quickly edged his way into the flow of traffic, heading down Century Boulevard to the 405.

Piatowsky shot him an assessing glance. He thought his friend looked like a guy with a lot on his mind. “So, how’re ya holdin’ up?”

“You’re not gonna believe this, but the local cops think maybe I did the job, along with Ellie.”

“Jesus!” He sat back for a minute, thinking about that. “What are they basing this theory on?”

“A motive.
The
motive. Greed. We kill the old lady, Ellie inherits. We live happily ever after, in luxury.”

“Why you?”

“I’ve been cast as the boyfriend, an ex-cop who knows how it’s done.” Dan shrugged, swinging the Explorer into the right lane and onto the freeway. “I had the strength to strangle the old lady, while Ellie shot the housekeeper. And the dog. I had the know-how to copycat the signature to throw them off the scent.”

“They found the weapon yet?”

Dan shook his head. “If they have, they’re sure not telling me.”

“Right, right, of course they wouldn’t.” Piatowsky frowned. “But it doesn’t smell right, y’know. It’s too
easy, too obvious. I mean how would you be dumb enough to do the deed and then find the body? You’d have had an alibi a hundred miles from here, and so would she.”

“It’s an execution, Pete, I feel it in my bones.” They had both seen enough execution-type slayings in the boroughs to know the pattern. “Maria was shot coming out of the bathroom. He must have been waiting for her. Miss Lottie was strangled, even though he had the gun and could have shot her too. I mean, why would he do that? Strangle her?”

“Kind of a vengeance thing?”

Their eyes met, then Dan shifted into the fast lane and put his foot on the gas. “That’s what I thought. But Ellie doesn’t know of anyone with a grudge against her grandmother. Though there was one incident she told me about, years ago. Seems like some guy broke into the house and attacked her. Ellie was just a kid, but she was in the room and saw it all. Her screams brought the servants running, and the security guards.”

“So what happened to the guy? He do time, or what?”

“Ellie didn’t know. The grandmother never told her and she said she had to forget about it, and never mention it to anyone. Up until she told me, I don’t believe she’d ever talked about it. It all took place more than twenty years ago, so I’m not sure how relevant it might be.”

“Old grudges never die, they just get more bitter.”

Dan shrugged. “I checked the security service she used then. It’s no longer in business. There’s no one left who knows anything about it, except Ellie. But
I saw
the crime scene. I
know
what it felt like. Y’know how you get the feeling?”

Piatowsky knew exactly that feeling; it was part instinct,
part experience, part guess. Whatever, it raised the hackles and sent the mind questing farther than the obvious, and that’s what made a good detective.

“What about prints?”

“I guess Ellie’s were all over the place, after all she was there every week. I was careful not to touch anything. Anyhow, this is the piece de resistance. The cops dragged us back in for questioning last night, right at dinnertime.”

Piatowsky snorted; he knew that routine. Unsettle the suspects, get ’em while they’re hungry and anxious.

“Ellie wanted to help. She remembered something that had been stuck in the blur of images when she found the body. The French windows had blown open. The gauze curtains were billowing in and she thought she saw something … the reflective flash on a pair of sneakers.”

“He was out there?”

Dan nodded. “She thinks so.”

“Then why didn’t he kill her too?”

“That’s the other thing. The grandmother kept Ellie’s photo in a silver frame on her night table. It was missing.”

Piatowsky took a deep breath. “Daniel, my boy, there’s more to this than meets the eye. A hell of a lot more.”

“Try telling that to Detective Jim Johannsen.”

Piatowsky looked shrewdly at him. “You in love with her?”

“I didn’t want to be, I’ve no money, no prospects, at least not for a hell of a long time.”

“And what did timing ever have to do with true love?”

Dan grinned at him. “I guess Romeo must have asked Juliet that same question?”

“Yeah, and look what happened to them. You’re gonna have to do better than that, Cassidy. And if Ellie is your woman, she’s gotta be pretty darn special.”

“She is.” Dan agreed, quietly. “Believe me, she is.”

“I
T LOOKS JUST LIKE THE PHOTOS.
” P
IATOWSKY STOOD AT
the top of the hill, looking back at the immaculate rows of vines, and the black-and-white cattle clustered under the shady oaks on the hill opposite. He swung around, taking in the house while Dan hauled the bags from the back of the car. “I thought you said it was tailing down?”

“It was. Where d’you think my money’s gone?”

He laughed, cocking his head to one side, listening to the birdsong and the soft sigh of the wind. He said, baffled, “Isn’t it kinda quiet round here?”

“You’ll get used to it. Life is better without traffic, Piatowsky, believe me.”

He nodded, he was willing to be proven wrong, but it would take a lot. He spotted two figures cresting the hill in the distance. A couple of dogs were chasing after them and, faintly, he heard their excited barks.

“Here’s Ellie and Maya. And this is Pancho.” The mutt flew toward Dan, covering the ground like a racehorse, yipping madly, with Cecil bringing up the
rear. They bounced up at him, then turned their lavish-tongued attentions to Piatowsky.

“Terrific, great.” He patted them cautiously. “What kinda guard dogs are these?”

“They’re country dogs, Piatowsky. They just come with the territory.”

“Yeah, well forgive me but I’m not familiar with the breed. Though they sure aren’t any prettier than city mutts.” He glanced up as Ellie and Maya approached. “But the women are,” he murmured under his breath. “Jeez, Cassidy, you attract ’em in pairs now?”

Ellie looked tall, slender, elegant in a pale, waiflike sort of way, with no makeup and her hair pulled tightly back in a knot at the nape of her neck. She was wearing white shorts and an
Ellie’s Place
T-shirt. Maya, also un-made-up, looked fresh-faced as a schoolgirl, except for that body, encased in a brief yellow Lycra tank top and shorts. Ellie made straight for Dan.

Like a homing pigeon, Piatowsky thought, watching as Dan put his arm around her shoulders, inspecting her anxiously.

“Ellie, this is Pete Piatowsky, my old buddy from New York. Maya Morris, Pete.” As they shook hands, Piatowsky knew why Cassidy was in love with her. There was sorrow in her beautiful eyes, but there was also strength. This woman was wounded, but not broken.

“Are you going to help Dan find out who did it?” Maya was nothing if not direct. Her big whiskey-brown eyes fastened on him, demanding an immediate answer.

“I’ll try, Miss Morris, though this is really for the Santa Barbara police department to deal with.”

Ellie stared at him. This was Dan’s friend, he’d worked with him for years, trusted him. He’d said if anybody could help, Piatowsky could; nothing escaped him, he knew his job backward. “I’m glad you came,” she
said quietly. “And I’m sorry if all this is interrupting your vacation.”

“Don’t worry, I’m the kinda guy who can never take a real vacation. I need to keep on my toes. If I miss a trick or two, there’ll be some criminal out there ready to outsmart me.”