Laugher Read online

Page 13


  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  I had no right to ask, I know. That’s why I was so surprised when he answered. Maybe he was too exhausted to argue.

  “We found an earring.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Granger wears a green earring on his left ear.”

  I hadn’t noticed the earring in the headshot I had.

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Research, Santone. Pictures, video. The earring matched.”

  “Where did they find it?”

  “In the kitchen of the Chuckle Hut. We figure it fell off in the struggle.”

  Marber came back in then. “Lieutenant’s talking with New York now. They’re gonna send someone to get her.”

  “Get her?” I said. “Does that mean arrest her?”

  “It means finding Granger.”

  “Nora Massey had nothing to do with any of this. I’ve watched her step by step all along.”

  “Noted.” He said it with acidic disgust, and looked at Grayson. “We gonna let him go?”

  Grayson looked at me like I was a five-year-old in time out. “If I let you go, you stop.”

  “Stop?”

  “You leave Granger to us. You do not contact Nora Massey or anyone else tied to this case except us. And even then, think twice.”

  “I’d like to know she’s okay,” I said. “She did run away with a suspected killer after all.”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  That answer wasn’t good enough for me, but I didn’t have a response that was either, so I nodded.

  I wondered if I should come clean about everything I knew -- Silvio’s body in Grossman’s office, Nathan Roscoe, the motel attack –- but decided against it. They wanted Denny, and Denny was back in New York. That’s all that mattered to them. Plus, it’s always useful to have a few secrets.

  “Santone!” It was Marber. They had told me to leave twice already.

  -----------------------------

  Grayson drove me back to my house. “Goodbye, detective,” he said. “Hopefully you never have to come back.”

  “Always a pleasure.” I got out and watched him drive away past the STOP sign and left at the light.

  Having been so rudely interrupted, I had forgotten to grab my keys when I left, which I didn’t realize until I tried opening the door and the knob didn’t budge.

  My lock picks were still in the Beemer, which was also locked. The garage had a security key pad that opened the door, but I had forgotten that code long ago and never had to use it. It was the only other way in. I was stuck.

  But I had my phone on me. The only one who had a spare key was Charlotte. I wanted to see her like a kid wants to open presents on Christmas, but I knew all this would do is agitate her. She’d think I did this on purpose to trick her into seeing me. Some would say I was just being neurotic, but I wasn’t. She once accused me of purposely ruining a Thanksgiving turkey so I could watch the Lions game instead. I had never cooked a turkey before, and I hate the damn Lions.

  At least it was Sunday. She wouldn’t be working, but if she was still at her sister’s place, she’d have quite a drive.

  “She’s not here right now, Marshall.” It was Rose. She had the same Sahara desert voice.

  “She’s getting groceries. Forgot her phone.”

  “Can you tell her I need her to come down here? I locked myself out and she’s the only one with a key.”

  It sounded like an “ugh” on the other end. These girls sure know how to make a man feel stupid.

  “I’ll come down,” she said.

  “But Charlotte has the key. If she’s getting groceries, she has the key with her.”

  Another “ugh” sound. This time it sounded like I caught her in a fib.

  “I have the key,” Rose said. “I’ll come down.”

  “Charlotte’s there, isn’t she?”

  “I will come down,” she said.

  My neighbor, Ned, let me in and gave me a place to wait and a cup of coffee. He told me about his son who played football at Stanford. Fullback.

  “Gonna go pro?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said with a modest smile. “Whole thing’s a popularity contest.”

  I smiled. “You know, that’s my alma mater.”

  “Stanford?”

  “That’s where I went to law school.”

  “Well, I’m sure you were a better student than he is.” He laughed. Ned was a good man. I wondered why I didn’t stop by more often. We were around the same age. Why hadn’t we ever watched a Super Bowl together? Or a boxing match, or the World Series?

  “You got kids?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You got any kids?” he asked again.

  “Oh...no.” I held up my cup. “Could I trouble you for another?”

  He got me another. “Thank you. So what do you do, Ned? For a living?”

  “I’m a data analyst for an investment consulting firm.”

  “Really? That’s interesting.”

  “No. It’s not,” he smiled. “but they let me work from home most of the time so it’s not so bad.” His eyes moved past me. “Oh. Looks like your visitor is here.”

  I turned. Through the bay window, Rose pulled up to my curb and got out of her car. I set my coffee cup down on the table and Ned showed me to the door. We shook hands. “Take care, Ned. See you soon.”

  He nodded. I could see a loneliness in his eyes.

  Rose was holding her arm out, the key dangling from her fingers.

  “Thanks,” I said and took it. “Come in and have a drink.”

  “I should get back. It’s a forty five minute drive.”

  “Come on. Don’t make me feel guilty for not giving you something in return.”

  We went inside.

  I fixed her a Screwdriver, but took it easy on the vodka. I had one myself, not so easy on the vodka.

  “How’s Mike?” I asked.

  “Just fine.”

  “Kids?”

  “Also.”

  I handed her drink to her. She sniffed it and took a sip.

  “Why don’t you like me, Rose?”

  “I like you,” she said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?” Rose didn’t like cursing. She was a Presbyterian. Charlotte was the only one in her family that wasn’t religious.

  “Sorry,” I said. She took another sip. “You just...seem very cold with me. Ever since we met, you’ve kept your distance.”

  She set her drink down. “Charlotte’s been through a lot. Every time she’s been certain that whoever she was with was ‘the one’, they turn on her.”

  “I haven’t turned on her. I love her.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is that you’re leading her on. You’re always waiting for her to see things your way and never the other way around. And she always falls for it. Because she sees something in you that I don’t.”

  That stung a bit. But I guess she was right. Charlotte wants to get married, we’re not married. She wanted to move in together, we didn’t move in together. She wanted earrings for Christmas, I got her a necklace.

  “She’s talked about how much she wanted it with you that I started to believe it would really happen. If you don’t want to get married, for whatever reason, fine. But Charlotte knows what she wants. And it’s not fair for you to keep it from her.” She set the drink down, half empty. “I need to go. I wasn’t even supposed to talk to you.”

  “Thanks again.” I showed her to the door. She left without saying goodbye. I finished off my Screwdriver and the rest of Rose’s too.

  The original copies of Nora’s flight information and Denny’s headshot were still in the copy machine. I laid them out on the desk and pulled the check Nora left me from my wallet and set it with them.

  Stop, I thought. Just stop. Do what Grayson told you. Walk away. Let the police handle the rest. Forget about Nora and Denny. Forget
about The Long Walk, and James Lawson, and the moving curtain at Roscoe’s house. Forget about the loose ends. Just cash the check and buy a diamond ring...

  BBBLLLLIIIINNNGGG!!! My head bolted upright at the sound of the desk phone. I had fallen asleep. For how long, I didn’t know.

  “Yeah?” I said into the handset without checking the caller I.D. My eyes were dry and legs were sore.

  “It’s me, Marsh.”

  “Who?”

  “Gordy. Remember me? I tried your cell. You didn’t answer.”

  “Gordy! Yeah, sorry. I was, uh, taking a nap.”

  “Well, sorry to wake you, but I got that information you asked me for. About the murder in New York.”

  The murder in New York. Didn’t have much of a point now since I knew for sure that Denny had been on the plane that landed at LAX last Thursday.

  “The lead detective’s name is Raymond Donovan. Want the number?”

  “Let’s meet up.”

  “Sure. I’m just about to leave the office. I’ll come over.”

  “Door’s open.”

  “See you soon—“

  “Gordy, wait!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hold on one second.” I ran to the bedroom and grabbed my notepad off the night stand and came back. I flipped through the pages.

  “Can you run plate numbers?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I need you to run one for me. This is the last favor I’ll ask.”

  “For some reason I don’t believe you. What’s my probable cause?”

  “A long story. I’ll tell you when you come over.”

  “...What’s the number?”

  “KZ6L284.”

  --------------------------

  Gordy showed up with beers. Sarah didn’t like him drinking in the house, didn’t like him drinking at all in fact, but it was a compromise they made. He could drink every once in a while as long he never stayed out all night, and never let the boys see him drunk.

  “Jesus, what happened to you?” He said, obviously seeing my roughed up face. I don’t think my nose had gone quite back to normal yet.

  “Come out back, I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Were you drunk?”

  “Surprisingly, no.”

  We went to the back porch and kicked back on a couple lawn chairs. I lit up a cigarette. Gordy hooked his cane over the arm of his chair and held up a folder he’d been carrying.

  “You’re gonna get me suspended if I keep pulling this shit for you.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  We each cracked open a can and I told him all about Nora and Denny and San Diego, the getaway car, and where I had spent my afternoon.

  “Why would he attack you like that?” He asked.

  “Apparently thought there was something going on with Nora and I.”

  “Was there?”

  I gave him a look that said I could neither confirm nor deny. She did kiss me, after all, but I had left that part out.

  “So you’re wondering how this guy from New York, who hasn’t been here for eight years, suddenly has a car with Cali plates in San Diego?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why not tell the detective – this Grayson guy? Why not give him the plate numbers?”

  “If I brought up this...this conspiracy theory with him, he’d think I was nuts and would never check it out. He’s not my biggest fan right now, anyway. I doubt he’d even listen. But this murder is not as simple as he thinks it is. Cops found an earring of Denny’s in Slavas’s kitchen. But Denny had no motive to kill him. That means he had to be working for somebody, or maybe somebody forced him too.”

  My beer was gone. I had a habit of crushing the can in my hand when they were empty.

  “Who did you say the guy was? Who Denny said he was with in San Diego?” said Gordy.

  “Barry.”

  “Huh...” His brow furrowed like he was trying to remember if he needed to buy milk.

  “What is it?” I said.

  He opened the folder and revealed the registration for the license plate.

  “That license is registered to a Bartholomew Leitner. I wonder if Barry could be short for Bartholomew.”

  “Let me see that.” I took the folder from him. Bartholomew Leitner. He lived in Sherman Oaks. How convenient.

  “There’s more,” said Gordy as he reached over and slipped out a page from underneath. “He has a record. Two bar fights, one count of disorderly conduct, one count of resisting arrest.” Gordy put the page down in front of me.

  It was a mugshot. A man holding an ID plate. A wiry, middle aged man with curly brown hair. All that was missing was the tie-dye button-up.

  Chapter 13

  “What is it?” Gordy asked.

  Lawson. It was James Lawson’s car. Were he and Denny in on this together?

  “Marsh. What’s wrong?”

  I had to get over there, but I couldn’t let Gordy know. I didn’t want him to get involved in this, not with so much to lose.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m just really tired all of a sudden.” I closed the folder and stood up, faked a yawn. “I’m gonna hit the sack.”

  “You were taking a nap when I called earlier.”

  “And now I’d like to finish it.”

  Gordy smiled, chuckled a little even, and stood up and grabbed his cane. “All right, fine. Sarah’s probably wondering where I am, anyway.”

  We went back inside and headed for the front door.

  “By the way,” he said, “What happened with Charlotte? Did it blow over?”

  I opened the door and thought about my response. “She’s at her sister’s place,” I said. “Not very interested in talking to me right now.”

  “Holy shit, Marsh. She left you?”

  “Not exactly, but I’m afraid she might.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay. I’m...” My throat was dry. Nerves. “I’m gonna propose.”

  “What?” Gordy said. His mouth curled upward. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s time. I don’t want her to—“ He hugged me, possibly for the first time. I don’t remember another.

  “That’s fantastic, buddy. I’m so happy for you!”

  “Thanks. Listen, don’t tell Sarah, all right? There are no secrets between those two.”

  “You got it. When are you gonna do it?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  He hugged me again. “I can’t tell you how long we’ve been hoping this would happen.”

  “Yeah, well...it’s happening. You should get home.”

  He winked at me and smiled. I closed the door after him and watched through the kitchen window as he got in the car and drove home.

  I went to my bedroom, looking for my gun, then remembered it was stolen in San Diego. But if Lawson was home, I’d need some sort of protection and I didn’t have another gun. I went into my office and ruffled through the drawers of my desk looking for anything I could use. Nothing but old notebooks and yellow legal pads from the pre-private eye days. Questions of why I had never thrown them out were fleeting through my brain when I saw the small black cylinder of a pepper spray can. Not a gun, I thought. But it’ll do.

  The place was nothing special. A one-story house with a red roof. Probably paid around fourteen-hundred a month. The garage was closed, but there was a slip of light eeking out from the crack of the door.

  The pepper spray was in my pocket. I kept my hand on it and was going to keep my hand on it until I knew this wouldn’t be dangerous. Before I knocked, I checked it once again to make sure the safety lock was off.

  There was some skirmishing noises when I knocked. Like he was tidying up for expected company.

  “Just one second,” he called from within. “I hope you’re wearing that same dress you wore in the ad.” He chuckled in a sleazy way. Three deadbolts from inside turned. “You’re early—“

  The door swung open and there was his fac
e, still a bit swollen with a couple of bandages, and his curly hair. His eyes widened right away, recognizing me. He threw the door shut and ran into the house. I stopped the door with my foot and burst in after him.