Part 2 (1/2)

I took one last gulp of tea, locked the front door, and slid onto the creamy leather seat of Lucy's vintage black Caddy, the kind with huge shark fins on the back.

I left Lucy waiting near the front desk while the officer escorted me into a blue interview room of the West Valley Police Station on Vanowen Street. I waited for fifteen minutes, expecting Beavers to show up. When the door finally opened, I stiffened. Kaplan walked in.

Detective Kaplan was Beavers's younger partner. The jerk arrested me four months ago, causing me a lot of unnecessary grief. In the aftermath, he never apologized for his behavior. I couldn't stand him.

I looked in the hallway, but no one else was there. ”Where's Detective Beavers?”

With his combination of liquid brown eyes, olive skin, and curly black hair, Kaplan was probably irresistible to young women and girls. To me, however, he was just an arrogant little punk.

He looked at me with a slight smirk, which I immediately wanted to slap away. ”The LAPD has a policy. Detectives cannot interview the women they're sleeping with.”

I glared at him. ”I guess that means where you're concerned, all the hookers in LA can breathe a sigh of relief!”

Kaplan's eyes blazed, and he opened his mouth to respond, but he must have thought better of it. After a beat, he said, ”Just tell me about this morning.”

”I went for a walk and saw the body. I called Detective Beavers. I didn't touch anything. When I realized I knew the victim-Dax Martin-I threw up. Then I sat down and waited for the police to show up. EMTs briefly examined me and then Detective Beavers escorted me back to my house. The end.”

Kaplan was far from done. He kept me there for another half hour, asking questions about how I knew Martin and digging for details about the relations.h.i.+p between the neighbors and Joshua Beaumont School.

”I went to Beaumont myself,” he interjected at one point.

That explains everything!

I tried my best to protect Ed Pappas. I read his name upside down on a folder sitting in front of Kaplan on the table and a.s.sumed the contents must have been Ed's arrest record from his fistfight with Martin. But I knew Kaplan wouldn't be interested in my opinions.

”Have you seen any of the homeless people back there in the wash? Can you describe any of them?”

”Do you think one of the homeless people killed him?” I had, in fact, heard Dax Martin brag on television how he and his a.s.sistant coaches periodically visited the occasional person camping out behind his ball field. The coaches cleared out ”those losers” so his young ballplayers wouldn't have to look at them. He actually winked at the interviewer. I wouldn't blame the homeless if they had killed Martin.

”I ask the questions here.”

Give me a break.

”No. I've never actually seen any of them. They purposely stay out of sight. I don't think they want any trouble.”

I spoke from firsthand experience. Four months ago, I met a homeless woman, Hilda. She sold me a discarded baby quilt, which turned out to be the key to finding a killer. Hilda worked hard every day to support herself by collecting recyclables and way overcharging me for information. She was a real entrepreneur and harmless.

”Well, they're about to get a whole truckload of trouble.”

Oh, please. My daughter, Quincy, was around the same age as Kaplan. I hoped she never got involved with someone like him.

As Lucy drove me back home, she asked, ”Arlo didn't interview you, did he?”

I shook my head, still seething at Kaplan's crude remark.

”I imagine interviewing you is no longer kosher,” continued my Catholic friend. ”After all, you two are dating.”

”Guess so,” I snapped.

Lucy pulled up to the front of my house and smiled. ”See you in the morning at Birdie's.” For the last fifteen years, Lucy, Birdie, and I got together to quilt every Tuesday morning-no matter what.

”Thanks for everything, Luce. See you tomorrow.”

I closed the car door and stood in the ninety-degree heat as I watched Lucy drive away. Five motorcycles sat in Ed's driveway. He loved his Harley and, in the days before the baseball stadium, used to have his friends over for parties after riding all day.

As far as I could tell, the guys in Ed's biker club always behaved respectfully to the neighbors. Even so, some of the locals were freaked out by the men's matching leather vests that had VE painted on the back in big purple letters.

A biker I'd never seen before stood in front of Ed's place, the kind of guy you'd remember: a white male, well over six feet, and weighing about three hundred pounds of solid muscle. He looked like a golem, wearing a black leather vest and a red bandana do-rag. He watched me closely as Lucy drove away.

CHAPTER 5.

I cracked open a can of diet cola and sat down at the kitchen table. My large cat, b.u.mper, jumped up on my lap. ”Hey, handsome!” I smoothed his fluffy orange fur. He rewarded me with an affectionate purr and settled on top of my thighs, one of his favorite soft places to rest.

I couldn't get the picture out of my head of Dax Martin and his fellow coaches hara.s.sing the poor homeless people behind the ball field. Did one of them fight back and kill Martin? They'd probably never get the chance. Bullies, like Dax Martin, rarely did their dirty work alone. If you scratched the surface of most bullies, you'd find a coward. If Martin tangled with the homeless, he wouldn't have gone in without backup.

Without support, Martin would have stayed within the safety of the fenced-off ball field. So, what drew him to the river's edge in back of the field? How did his killer lure him there? He must have felt safe enough to go there alone. Did Martin trust his attacker? Did he know him?

What about the homeless? Was anyone hiding there who might have seen the attack? If I could find a witness, maybe I could help Ed Pappas. I wouldn't actually be searching for the killer. I knew how mad Beavers would be if he thought I was poking my nose in police business again.

No, I only would be looking for one piece of the puzzle. I only wanted to help clear Ed as a suspect.

I needed to find Hilda. My stomach growled as I got in my Corolla and drove south toward Ventura Boulevard (known as ”the Boulevard” or simply ”Ventura” to local residents). She hung out in front of a strip mall wedged between two tall office buildings on Ventura, with a great little falafel place I liked to go to. Whenever I saw her sitting in her spot near the sidewalk, I'd stop for a chat and slip her a twenty. I hoped to find her there today.

I pulled into a parking spot halfway down the block and walked toward the mall. Rafi's Falafel was easy to find. You just followed the scent of c.u.min and hot oil wafting seductively out toward the sidewalk. My watch read three in the afternoon and my last meal had been a virtuous breakfast of scrambled egg whites and coffee, which-come to think of it-hadn't stayed with me long. Technically, I'd eaten zero calories today. Pangs of hunger stabbed me accusingly.

Hilda sat in her usual spot and smiled as I approached. She wasn't old, wasn't young. Her years of living rough etched her with a kind of agelessness and a wary ability to blend into the background. In the heat of the day, her hair clung to her head in moist strings, and her skin looked desiccated. ”Hey, Wonder Woman! Caught any bad guys lately?” She burst into laughter at the joke she always greeted me with.

”Hi, Hilda. I'm just on my way to Rafi's for a shawarma. Care to join me? My treat.”

”Only if he lets me park by the door. I gotta keep an eye on my cart.” Hilda kept her worldly goods in an old shopping cart, along with large black trash bags full of the cans and bottles she collected for recycling, her major source of income.

”Never hurts to ask.”

Hilda got up and wheeled her cart near the restaurant and waited for me while I went inside. The interior was refres.h.i.+ngly cool and smelled of cooked meat and spices. Rafi looked up and smiled. He was short, with the dark curly hair and brown skin of a Sephardic Jew from Syria or Iraq.

”Hey!” I waved.

”Martha! Shalom.” He pointed to Hilda with his chin ”Ma koreh?” (”What's happening?”) ”My friend Hilda-we want to have lunch in here, but she needs to keep an eye on her cart.”

Rafi shook his head sadly. ”I see her every day. Haval.” (”A shame.”) ”You know, in Israel, there is no homeless. We take care of poor and old. America's a rich country. I don't understand why anyone live like her.”

”Well, can we park her cart near the door so she can see it?”

Rafi shrugged. ”Why not?”