The Killing of Bobbi Lomax (24 page)

Marty had stood in the centre of the room. It was so clean, so empty, it was as if someone had scrubbed the whole place down ahead of surgery.

There was an array of bookcases. All empty. A cupboard under the sink, also empty. A tall chair sat at an empty makeshift desk, next to a workbench which was obviously new, and replaced something the surface of which might have given up its secrets.

‘I don’t understand, Detective.’ Edie Houseman looked more amazed than Marty. ‘But this is where Clark always is, when he’s home, working on something or other.’ Together they stared at the empty walls.

Down here, under the house, there was no noise, not a sound. He must have liked it like that. Needed the silence to work.

All work and no play makes Clark a dull, dull boy.

Marty knew then, knew that whatever had gone on in this room, it was his mind, the mind of Clark Houseman and whatever he had created here in this dungeon that held the key to all the death and destruction that had gone on the past week.

Marty had sent a reluctant Edie off to fetch Whittaker from the kitchen, told her to stay up there with the others and send her sister down here in a minute.

Whittaker’s feet stopped on the wooden stairs. He whistled.

‘Wow, this place is clean.’

‘Isn’t it.’

‘What you hoping to find, Mart?’

‘Anything. You still looking for that blast cap?’

‘We are.’

‘Maybe it’s here. Somewhere.’

‘Really? He’s done a pretty good job of the clean-up. Smell that? Bleach, ammonia and who knows what other household products. He’s a good few steps ahead of us.’

Marty just hoped that Houseman wasn’t too far ahead, because they needed to catch him.

He turned the handle and swung the door open.

How different to last time. No longer in a coma, now hooked up to just one machine, Clark was sat up in bed eating grapes with his good hand, on his lap a week-old copy of the
LA Times
. He smiled at Marty as if expecting him. Perhaps he was. The doctor had refused permission last night, citing some test or other.

‘Good morning, Detective.’

Marty didn’t like to think he looked like a cop. Not that he was ashamed, far from it. He just didn’t want to look like a job. It was rare for people to peg him as a cop. He wondered if Houseman had really been in a full coma the other day. Perhaps he had been semi-conscious and heard every damn word they’d said. And perhaps
Good morning, Detective
was Houseman’s way of telling him this. His way of firing a shot across the bow. He wasn’t going to be a walkover. Marty hadn’t thought he would be. And now he knew for sure. Marty didn’t speak until he sat down at the side of the bed.

‘Good morning, Mr Houseman.’

‘Please, Detective. Clark.’ Houseman held out the bowl of grapes.

Marty shook his head. ‘No thank you, Clark.’

Houseman smiled a wide smile. It was almost as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he hadn’t recognized him, Marty would have thought he was in the wrong room.

‘I wanted to ask you some questions, sir.’

‘Clark, please. Sorry I couldn’t see you then. The doctor said no. No visitors. My wife’s coming this afternoon. Edie. I hope she brings the papers. They’re not allowing me the TV or newspapers, except this. Too traumatic apparently.’

That smile again.

‘It’s not a problem, Clark,’ said Marty, smiling right back.

‘It’s about the bombing?’

‘That’s right, Clark. About the bombings.’

Marty didn’t want him getting worked up too early. Didn’t want to ask questions that would put his back up, close down the session. ‘You just let me know how you’re feeling, at any time. We can stop.’

‘Thank you, Detective – they said I had a brain injury. Swelling. I could have died.’

‘Did you see anyone hanging around near your car, Clark, that day or the days before?’

‘I’m sorry, Detective. My memory’s shot.’

‘Do you remember what happened at the time of the explosion? Were you in your vehicle?’

‘I’m so sorry, Detective. I can’t remember a thing. All I remember is having dinner with Edie the night before. Around eight pm. She’d just got back from a few days at her sister’s. The rest is an absolute blank. Mercifully.’

Strange thing to remember in a vacuum of memory loss.

‘You don’t remember bringing your wife breakfast in bed the morning of the bombing?’

Clark was quiet. He was thinking. Thinking that Edie had obviously told them that. And knowing what the next question would be. Clark shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Marty wasn’t going to let him close it down so easily.

‘She said you often did that if you had a sale to celebrate, or an anniversary, something like that.’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you celebrating that morning?’

‘I can’t remember.’

Because if you could, you’d probably remember that you were just saying you had something to celebrate, so you could wake your wife up to give you an alibi for the morning of the first bombings.

‘You’d made a good sale, maybe the day before, or perhaps that week sometime?’

Marty was leading him to a dead end. If Houseman was clever he’d find a way to turn around, back up.

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Really? How far back can’t you remember? What’s your last memory before the bombing, apart from the dinner?’

‘Maybe a few days. It’s all a bit hazy that last week. Just patches of flashbacks.’

‘Do you recall being attacked, perhaps a few days prior?’

‘Attacked?’

Marty nodded.

‘No. I don’t recall being attacked. Was I really attacked?’

‘I believe so, Clark.’

‘Do you recall perhaps reporting that attack to the police?’

Clark shook his head. No.

‘Is there a reason someone might want to attack you? Perhaps if you could tell us that we could find the person responsible.’

‘Do you think it’s the same person?’

‘We’re looking at several theories right now. Can you remember, right after the explosion, you said that someone was trying to kill you? Do you remember that?’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes, Clark. Can you recall why you might have said that?’

‘No.’

‘Even though you were attacked and then bombed in the space of a few days.’

‘The doctor says it’s the trauma, the memory loss.’

‘Can you tell me where you got the documents in your car?’

‘What documents?’

‘In the trunk of your car. There was an exceptionally valuable collection of documents.’ Marty looked at Clark, waited for him to tell him what they were. He couldn’t claim to forget something he must have been involved with for months before the explosion. If he could claim months’ worth of memory loss, how could he have said someone was trying to kill him less than a few minutes after the bomb had exploded? When he was referring back to either the bomb, the attack or both.

‘I don’t remember any documents. In the trunk? Are they OK?’

‘No. I’m sorry. They’re ruined.’

‘Do you know what they are? Maybe that will help me remember. Can you describe them?’

‘The explosion shredded them into thousands of pieces.’

‘How terrible.’

‘But my colleague and I put them back together.’

‘You did?’ The very briefest of tremors, shock, crossed Clark’s face. He was sat up straighter in the bed now, leaned more towards Marty. ‘What was it?’

Al arrived, almost on cue, moved silently to the other side of the bed. Nodded hello to Clark. Clark didn’t offer him any grapes.

‘The Letter of Accession.’

‘
The
Letter of Accession.’

So he remembers something.

‘Well, not the ideal one the Faith would have wanted to have. But one worth two million dollars anyhow.’

‘Two million dollars? It’s a shame I can’t remember it, isn’t it?’

‘Would you know where you got it from?’ Marty took out the letter, in a baggie, flicked through the others quickly. ‘This letter and the collection along with it, any idea?’

‘No. Was it in something? An envelope? Maybe that has a return address on it? Maybe even a receipt or a letter or something with it?’

A letter . . . or something.

‘No, no letter.’

‘I’m so sorry. I don’t. People send me stuff all the time.’

‘Stuff worth two million?’

‘Even more than that. I check authenticity of documents. It’s not always to sell. Shame I can’t remember this.’

‘Do you keep records, perhaps at your office?’

‘I don’t have an office.’

Marty smiled to himself at how Houseman’s memory was only faulty when he didn’t want to answer.

‘At your home?’

‘Dealers don’t like
records
. Most of what I deal in is very confidential.’

‘Would you be able to put us in contact with Mr Clifford Hartman?’

‘Mr Hartman?’

‘You know him?’

Marty knew what was coming.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t remember. I must have had an address book. I hope it wasn’t in the car.’

‘We didn’t find one in there.’

‘Why do you want to speak to this Mr Hartman?’

‘We think he’s the dealer for this document.’

‘I don’t remember a Mr Hartman. But what has that got to do with the police?’

‘It’s a fake.’

‘A fake? No, that’s impossible. A fake worth that much?’ Clark’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘But I thought you were investigating the bombings.’

‘So did we,’ said Marty. ‘But we think that this Mr Hartman might be responsible for the bombings.’

‘Really? What makes you think that?’

‘You did, Clark. Don’t you remember? Right after the explosion, that’s what you told me.’

Did Marty see a flicker in the eye, just a flash of something? Satisfaction. Clark leaned back on the bed.

‘I have no objection to you searching my home, Detective. It might help my memory. If you could find my records, such as they are. And, if it helps, I could take a lie-detector test.’

‘I don’t know how that would help, Clark. If you have memory loss, it might not be reliable.’

‘Oh.’ Was that disappointment in the slight downward movement of the chin? Whatever it was, he quickly recovered. Chewed another grape.

‘I’ll let you rest, Clark.’ Marty was up now. He turned back to Houseman. ‘I hope you get better soon, Clark. Oh, some friends of yours wanted me to send you their very best wishes.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yes. Wonderful folks. The Rooks.’

A flash of darkness swept Clark’s face quickly replaced by a megawatt smile. ‘How kind of them. Thank you, Detective.’

‘My pleasure, Clark.’

Marty felt Clark’s eyes bore into his back all the way out the door. Al was waiting outside the room with Grady’s kid.

‘He hasn’t had the papers, no TV, no visitors, phone? Nothing?’

‘No, Detective, just like you said. Nothing and no one but the medical staff in and out since he woke up.’

‘Good. Thanks.’

‘Detective! Detective?’ Marty and Al both turned around. It was the nurse that had been tending to Clark on the first day. She was holding out a phone. ‘We have a call for you. A Detective Renaldi.’ Marty and Al both looked at each other.

‘Venice Frank? Tracked you to here? He’s damn good. Tell him I told you that,’ said Al.

Marty took the phone off the nurse. ‘Thanks.’ She nodded, smiled. She still had a great smile.

‘Frank, Marty, what on earth. How long’s it been?’

‘Too long,’ the deep voice on the phone said. ‘We missed you at the Christmas party. You should try and come out for this year’s. It’s at some smart hotel they built overlooking the beach.’

‘I’ll tell Al. But this isn’t social, huh?’

‘No. I got someone here wants to talk to you.’

‘To me?’

‘Who is it?’

‘A walk-in. Ziggy Bookman. He’s worried about a friend of his. One of the victims in that case you got up there.’

‘Who the hell’s . . .’ And then he remembered Burkeman, as Carvell had called him.

‘He thinks he can help you, help his friend. There’s a guy he thinks might be responsible.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Yeah. His friend gave him money, told him get out of town, it’s getting dangerous. He’s out of control.’

‘Who’s the friend?’

‘His friend’s Clark Houseman. He said he thinks he knows who tried to kill Houseman and killed the others.’

‘He got a name, the bomber?’

‘Yeah. What was it again, Mr Bookman?’

Marty heard Frank pass Ziggy the phone. Ziggy whispered into the receiver. ‘Clark doesn’t let him out much. I think he’s bad. A bad man.’

‘Who, Ziggy? Who’s a bad man?’

‘Cliff Hartman.’

Marty looked at Al, smiled – then, back into the phone, ‘Who warned you to get out of town? Clark?’

‘Yes, he said Cliff Hartman was out of control. You need to catch him, Officer. He’s a murderer.’

‘We will, Mr Bookman. He gave you money? Clark?’

‘Money and a little Bible owned by . . .’

‘Edgar Allan Poe?’

‘You’re clever, mister. That why you’re a detective?’

‘And how much money, Ziggy?’

‘Five thousand dollars. Cash.’

‘Clark must have been a good friend.’

‘The best.’

‘What day was all this, Mr Bookman, can you remember?’

‘My mother’s birthday. October twenty-eighth.’

October 28th. Two days before the first bombing.

‘You gonna catch Bad Hartman now, Detective?’

‘We’re gonna catch him now, Mr Bookman. Thanks to you.’

The Mustang had slipped and slid all the way to the top. Up here there was nothing that hadn’t been abandoned long ago. Marty parked near the old ski chalet. What was left of it. It had gotten hit by a mini avalanche back in the late 1950s and no one had bothered to rebuild it. The hotel a couple of hundred yards away was long abandoned, rendered obsolete when a swanky resort opened up the other side of the canyon, attracting the rich and famous for the skiing in winter and rehab in summer. It was the state’s answer to Aspen.

The sky was a brilliant blue, the snow pure up here, a fresh powder had fallen and it was ready to ski. On the ridge overlooking the old hotel parking lot were thousands and thousands of evergreens. Marty didn’t want to get out of the car, not just yet. He wanted to set the postcard in his mind. He had been up here many times. Mostly on his own looking for Liss. Even if it had been a horrible death, this would still be a beautiful resting place.

They had promised heavy snow later, it might even block his way out down the canyon pass. He hoped he would find what he was looking for before the snow came. Marty knew if you wanted to catch a killer you had to think like one, but this was more than just murder. Fake documents, the Faith, large cash transactions, hundreds of thousands of dollars missing, a bust property investment firm and who knew what else. What he did know was that Clark Houseman had in all probability been beaten up by Red Faber, who undoubtedly was paid for this by Lomax as the paper had ended up in his safe. No doubt to replace the ledger the former Mrs Lomax had stolen and given to Peter Gudsen. Did everything else that ensued, the bombings, stem from this one action? Marty doubted it, but it was all he had now. Lomax’s most precious object, Bobbi, had been taken from him, so you could say the hatred for Lomax was greater than for Peter Gudsen, despite the nail bomb that had killed the latter. Houseman had owed Lomax, at the end, almost $700K. Lomax, under pressure from all sides, was an easy mark for Clark to fit everything on. Clark loved his family, according to Edie, he doted on the kids. Just from that it was easy to think that there was no way on earth he’d be building bombs right underneath where they all slept. Even if Edie and the kids were away for a few days before the bombings, like she’d said, most likely they weren’t assembled until right when Clark needed them. And where did he test them? It had to be somewhere remote, somewhere away from the congested, residential sides of the canyons. And where better than what Clark would have known was empty land, not likely to have passers by, for the very end of the Old Canyon Road was impassable thanks to a major landslide over a decade ago.

Marty looked up. A proud sign announced ‘
COMING SOON 500 NEW HOMES’
, and to the side of it a cheesy life-size photo of Arnold Lomax and emblazoned on that ‘
SELLING FAST’
. Where better for Clark to practice, a part of the canyon where you wouldn’t come unless you were lost or up to no good.

If there was anything visible, any bomb dummy runs, all evidence of it had been covered by the snow. But when he looked at the snow, in what he supposed had been a flat part of the ski chalet’s yard he could see that there were visible pockets, where it looked like it had sunk a little into the ground. Marty had seen those kind of depressions in snowy ground before, on his search for Liss. It usually meant something was underneath that was warmer than the rest of the earth, or that the earth underneath had been turned recently, or – and this was the one he never liked to think about – that there was something buried there, just near the surface.

Thirty minutes later he had sweated his jacket off in the low winter sun.

‘Looks like you could do with some help.’

Marty looked up. It was Al. They had dug together before. Dug while searching for Liss. And now who knew what they were digging for. ‘Snow’s a bitch, and the ground’s rock hard.’

Al was unfolding a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket. ‘One-eyed guy came up trumps. Recognize anyone?’ Marty looked at the sketch. ‘I just faxed it to the department. They’re going to circulate it urgently, see if anyone else recognizes our Mr Houseman, or is it Hartman?’

‘Looks like Hartman’s quite the forger.’

‘Yeah, matched only by Houseman.’

‘Let’s get Hobbs or someone to go over to the original Mrs Lomax. Ask her if this is who she saw meeting Gudsen at the Faith Mission that night.’

‘You think it was him she saw?’

‘That’s my gut. Let’s hear her say it though. I think the Faith are in with Houseman somehow, Al, although they’ll be wishing they weren’t now.’

‘Speaking of Hobbs. He called. Frank Renaldi sent through a twelve-page fax with all the details of Ziggy’s dealings with Clark Houseman and his associate Cliff Hartman. It’s quite a read, apparently.’

‘Useful?’

‘Sounds like it. Calls, transactions, names. Good work, Mart.’

‘Good work Ziggy Bookman.’

Marty knew Al would start digging alongside him and wouldn’t stop until Marty did. That’s how it had been before. So maybe now was a good time to call a halt. There was nothing here. He was pissed about Houseman, they needed physical evidence to tie him to the bombings. Sightings and statements weren’t enough. This was a capital case. Marty drove the shovel hard into the ground. It was softer here, less compacted by the cold, and so he drove it in again. It hit something which forced Marty’s shovel back deep into his hand. ‘You son of a . . .’ Marty peered into the ground, saw a little spot of something lemon-colored. He dropped to his knees. Al was next to him. ‘What’s that?’

‘I dunno. But somehow I don’t think it belongs here.’

Marty scraped away at the soil covering it. A cooler box. He grabbed the handle and pulled it hard and fast up out of its burial place.

He sat up on his knees, hunched over it, about to open it. Al grabbed his shoulder: ‘Don’t! We should call it in. Who knows what the hell’s in there.’

‘You think the bomber left us a little surprise?’

‘Could be, although it’s not in a ribboned box.’

They both laughed.

‘I can’t see any wires. But maybe they’re all inside,’ said Marty.

‘Yeah. Why spoil the surprise.’

‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’

‘Step back. Come on. Right back. Just in case it goes up.’

They moved back twenty yards. Marty threw himself down onto the powder. Pulled out his .38, straightened his right arm, rested it on his left, bent in front of him. Al looked at him. ‘Come on, you’re not going to try shooting the lock off. I’ll radio Tex.’

‘Tex? He’ll blow up half the mountain.’

Bam.

The bullet took off the first clip-lock and the force of the impact pushed the top half off the cooler box, twisting the second clip-lock off and exposing the contents. Covers and pages of books blew in the wind.

Marty and Al made their way back over to the box. Marty picked up a large velvet case that took up half the top of the chest. He clicked it open.

‘Coins?’

‘I’ll give Houseman his due, he’s diverse.’

‘Follows the dollars, I guess.’

‘Looks that way.’

‘What’s he thinking, burying all this up here?’

‘Planning on coming back for it one day, I guess. Lomax must have told him, or somebody did, that the land was toxic, not likely to get anything built on it. He took a gamble they were right.’

‘Well, he’s not coming back for anything. Ever.’

‘What’s all that?’ said Marty.

‘Lot of old books, signed some of them. Letters.’ Al picked up one of the letters.

‘Who’s that one from?’

‘George Washington,’ said Al.

‘Who’s it to, Elvis?’

‘No. Von Steuben, that was his military guy, wasn’t it? In the Revolution?’

Marty was staring to the far side of the abandoned hotel. ‘What’s with all that glass smashed out of there? It wasn’t like that before, last time I was up here.’

‘Vandals, maybe?’

Marty moved away, towards it. ‘Close that lid up, Al. Put this one in your car. And then we’ll start digging for the rest.’

‘There’s more?’

‘Oh yeah. Eight, I think, in total. Look at the way the snow is uneven over there.’

‘Like graves.’

Marty could see Al regretted that line the second he said it. But he couldn’t dwell on it.

Al pressed the books and letters back down into the chest. Hoisted it up and carried it like a sleeping child towards where Marty was clambering through panes of broken glass in the wooden window frames. In front of him he could see the blue tiles that surrounded the long empty pool. ‘Watch it, Al, there’s all broken glass out there buried in the snow.’ Marty pointed off. ‘Go round over that way. There’s less of it.’

A few minutes later they both stood beside the empty pool. Nothing but blue tiles, on the walls, in the pool. Everywhere blue. Crumbling and cracked. Almost the entire place was splattered with blood. The pigs it had come from, at least several of them, were blown into hundreds of decomposing lumps that almost covered the bottom of the empty pool.

Marty nudged Al. ‘What’s that down there?’

‘What?’ said Al.

Marty jumped down into the pool, pulled out a handkerchief, plucked something metal off the tiled floor. Held it up so Al could see. ‘A blast cap.’

‘The missing one?’

‘He must have dropped it in here, not realized.’

‘Lost it before he had time to wipe the prints?’

‘That would be good.’

Marty’s foot kicked something. He looked down. A pig with a nail through its eye. Just like he’d seen Gudsen that day. He turned away.

‘How’s Houseman looking now, Mart?’

Marty turned to Al, smiled. ‘Like a dead man walking.’

Al helped pull Marty back up out of the empty pool. ‘You better get Whittaker and some of his boys up here, Al. Help us extricate that stuff from the ground.’

After Al and Whittaker’s team had taken off back to the precinct, Marty sat in his car, the door open, his feet rested in the snow. He rolled a cherry menthol. Lit it. Inhaled. It was so good. Sharper up here, at this altitude.

Liss
.

Everyone thought it was short for Felicity.

Happiness
.

It wasn’t. But she had brought him that.

Liss was the name she’d called herself, as a toddler, somewhere in her mouth losing the A in Alice.

He looked out, over the ridge of a million evergreens that ran as far as the eye could see.

The light was fading.

The snow was falling.

He took another hit, closed his eyes and thought of Alice.

Tomorrow morning he would charge Clark Houseman with the killing of Peter Gudsen and Bobbi Lomax.