The waterfall, p.31
The Waterfall, page 31
She led them to the balcony, where a door constructed from a rectangular metal frame with a wire mesh across it gave access to a metal fire escape. Only the mesh had been cut away and dropped onto the balcony’s concrete floor.
‘That’s not… it’s not meant to be like that.’
‘Y’don’t say,’ Jakes muttered.
Ken examined it. ‘Bolt cutter. Wouldn’t even take much strength.’
‘Well, now we know.’
Chapter 14
The biographer closed his car door. There was a problem with the catch mechanism, and he had to put his weight against it. He noticed, as he did so, a set of wheel marks in the gravel.
‘Have you had visitors?’ he asked as the two sisters appeared to escort him inside. The younger one shook her head. ‘A car? Someone been and gone?’ The elder one glanced at her, and she shook her head again. Something about the way she was lying made him uneasy.
He was led into the octagonal library. The brother was there in his threadbare suit, wheezing into the rubber tube. The writer put down the satchel he was carrying and took out his notebook and pen. ‘Who built this place?’ he asked while he was setting things up to take down this man’s life story, such as it was.
‘Father.’ His gaze travelled up the wall to a life-size portrait in oils of a man on a chestnut horse galloping across a dry field. The rider was glaring at the artist. The painting was so large that it took up an entire wall. Below it was a brass plaque that read ‘George Faulkner’.
‘Is he still with us?’
The rubber tube swished from side to side. ‘If… he… was… I… would… never… have… written… at… all.’
‘Why? He wasn’t a big reader?’
Gabriel shook in silent laughter. ‘You… could… say… that.’
Something glinted on the writing desk. A blue glass letter-opener. ‘Attractive piece,’ he said as he sat where he was directed.
‘Venetian.’
‘I love Venice. I went once on an assignment. Just unforgettable.’
His subject closed his eyes. ‘I… have… only… been… in… my… mind.’
The writer paused to pluck up courage. ‘May I ask a question? It’s a little personal.’ There was no immediate objection, just the sound of the breath in the machine. ‘Can you get out? Leave the house? Drive?’
There was a pause. ‘My… time… is… limited.’
Chapter 15
Ken and Jakes left the apartment block and drove back to the station. The smarter streets soon gave way to the old Skid Row, where bums swayed across the road, shops sold liquor through the windows and cops never got out of their cars. When they got to the precinct house, it looked to Ken more like an island than anything else.
‘What now?’ he asked, as Jakes sat at his desk with a coffee he had been given by a secretary. She hadn’t offered Ken one.
‘What now?’ He sounded tired. ‘Now we start callin’ all the nut houses and askin’ if one of their guests with a thing for literature’s been discharged or escaped in the past month. Hey, Klinghoffer! Ring round all the booby hatches. See if any of them can shine a light on this guy. Must have a history of serious violence an’ maybe likes books.’
‘Novels,’ Ken added.
‘Yeah, novels. Make sure y’say novels. We don’ want them talkin’ about any other kinda books, do we now?’ He looked contemptuous.
‘You should tell the press,’ Ken said. ‘People need to be warned. And someone knows something.’
‘The press. Jeez. Just let me handle it from here.’
Ken thought it over. Well, he had got into this to clear Coraline’s name. And unless the LA County detectives were going to open themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit, even they had to admit that Coraline couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder of Frankie Angel and would have to let her go. ‘Call LA County. Get them to release Coraline, and I’m gone.’
‘Consider it done.’ Jakes picked up the phone. ‘Put me through to County.’
Ken left him to it and discreetly wandered away. He watched the officers as word spread about what they had found that afternoon. Some of them looked grim, others amused, as if a good slaying only came along once a year and here it was. And a two-time killer who maybe had more in store? Well, that was overtime and then some.
There was a wooden tray in the corner of the room that had once held pastries of some kind and now held only crumbs. He was hungry, he realized, having eaten nothing all day. He casually opened a cupboard above the pastry tray in the hope that there might be some food in there.
‘Kourian!’ It was Jakes, of course. He looked over. The detective had the telephone receiver wedged under his chin while he was writing on a pad. He looked pained. He looked that way a lot. He beckoned irritably to Ken.
‘Yeah?’
Jakes rolled his eyes and muttered ‘Right’ into the phone and ‘You serious? What’s that gonna do?’ Finally he said, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll call you back.’ And he rammed the receiver down with about ten times the force needed to place it in its cradle. There was a pause.
‘Jakes?’
‘I heard you the first time.’ He tapped his pen on the pad, where he had made a series of scribbles that looked like a child learning to write. ‘Some idiot’s told the mayor.’
‘Told him what?’
Jakes glared up. ‘What d’you think they told him? They told him some nutjob is out rippin’ up actors an’ nightclub owners.’
Ken couldn’t help but poke the bear. ‘And how does he feel about that?’
‘He’s against it.’ He looked through the blotches of ink on his pad.
‘I think we agree on that. But all I want right now is for you to tell me that Coraline is being released.’
‘She’ll be released.’
‘Okay, then. Have a nice day, won’t you?’ And he turned to leave.
‘But they want her t’make a public appeal for information. Alongside Frankie Angel’s girl.’ Ken knew how Coraline would react to the request. Especially when she would be required to play a weeping widow, while all the cops around her knew exactly what she had been doing while Riley was being shivved. ‘It’s all about people power. The mayor’s big thing now is people power. Don’t trust us to do our job, wants the public to do it for us.’
‘She probably hasn’t slept for forty-eight hours.’
‘She can have a nap. They want t’run it on the news shows tonight.’
‘Just get her out. We’ll take it from there.’
Jakes picked the phone up again. ‘I’ll have her at your place in two hours.’
Ken looked at the cover of The Waterfall. ‘We need to track down the guy who wrote this.’ He tapped the name. ‘G. B. Faulkner.’
‘You think he’s in the frame?’
‘Could be. Could be he knows who else should be.’
‘Could be he knows nothin’.’
‘One way to find out.’
* * *
She knocked on his door. He knew it was her because it wouldn’t be anyone else. It was six o’clock, and her skin was pale through lack of sleep, and her hair was tied back underneath her pink pillbox hat, but her milky blue eyes pierced like they always had. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘You’ve never needed an invitation with me.’
‘That’s true,’ she said softly as she stepped in. She turned slowly to gaze at the words painted on the walls. ‘Jakes told me about this.’
‘You should try sitting with it for an hour. It makes you think God’s telling you to be better.’
‘We could hardly be worse.’
‘I don’t know, we could be whoever did it.’
‘I suppose that’s true,’ she replied.
‘I made a deal with Jakes. You’re going on the TV and radio to appeal to the public for any information about Riley’s death. Frankie Angel’s widow is going to do the same.’
She took the deal. ‘Let’s hope no one calls in with information about where we were when it happened to Riley.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s something to do with Oliver’s book.’ He held up a copy. ‘But the other side to it. The Waterfall.’ He explained the murders and their links to the work by the obscure G. B. Faulkner.
‘Who is he?’
‘I have no idea. We’re trying to find him.’
He stood and went to her. She lifted her mouth to him, and he pressed his lips to hers. Her skin was cold, but her mouth was warm.
Chapter 16
An hour later, they sat on opposite sides of the bed. The air smelled of what they had done. He knew what it meant to him, but not to her, and they had gone past the point where he could ask, for fear that the very act of asking would end it all.
He watched over his shoulder as she pulled on her pantyhose and then her brassiere, all black. It was time for him to dress, too. Neither spoke. Soon they were both ready to head to the station, where the press conference would take place at eight, in time to be live on the nightly news. Neither wanted to do it, but the consequences of not doing it – the renewed suspicions and whispers of guilt – outweighed the pain of Coraline having to play-act the weeping widow who’d loved her husband to the exclusion of all others.
‘I’m always playing a part, aren’t I?’ she said, almost to herself, as he drew a glass of water from the faucet, thirsty in the hot night. ‘Why do you think that is?’
‘Just destined for it.’
She paused for a long time. ‘I guess that’s it.’
She straightened her hat on her head and went out.
* * *
The station was besieged, not by the homeless masses of Skid Row, but by a crush of press men who had got word that something big and brutal was happening, and they all wanted a slice of the action to sell.
‘If it bleeds, it leads,’ Ken said under his breath as he and Coraline slipped in a side entrance to avoid the flashbulbs and notepads at the ready.
‘What did you say?’
‘Just something reporters tell each other.’
One of those reporters, a thin man wearing dark glasses, had strayed from the rest of the pack and was hanging around in the corridor. ‘Hey, are you part of this? Can I get a picture?’ he asked, shoving a Kodak 35 in Ken’s face.
‘Get that away from me or it won’t be usable for much longer,’ Ken growled back, pushing him away.
‘Hey, no need for that!’ the guy protested. ‘Anyhow, we’ll get you soon enough. Freedom of the press. What made this country great.’ And there was the click of a camera shutter. Ken stopped, turned around and began to walk back. The reporter shrank into a corner. Ken didn’t stop. He walked up to the man, grabbed his camera, tore the film out and dropped it on the floor. ‘S-sorry,’ the man stuttered.
Around a corner Ken found a junior officer, who escorted them to a large meeting room, where a number of journalists were huddled in a corner, sharing cigarettes and laughter. A couple glanced at Coraline and whispered to each other without trying to hide it. At the other end of the room, a platform with a table, four chairs and heavy microphones had been set up. People were scurrying about, setting out rows of Bakelite seats.
‘Kourian.’ Jakes was looking harassed in the centre of the room with a clipboard and a pen that he was trying to get to work. He threw it aside and snatched another from a passing uniform.
‘Jakes. Did your men find anything at the Angel house? Prints?’
‘A few unidentified around the place, but they could be any visitors’. Only ones on the bathtub were the wife’s. Dummy was wiped clean. We checked Mrs Angelo’s story. About half of Los Angeles saw her that day. She bought a truckload of clothes from the kinda boutique where they charge in gold bars, then had lunch with some girlfriends who are so above board they might as well be nuns.’
‘What about the author of the book?’
‘G. B. Faulkner? No one we spoke to has heard of him. Publishin’ house closed down a couple of years back. We’re tryin’ to track him down through public records.’
There was a second ripple of interest as Frankie Angel’s widow, Diane, was guided in by a female cop, followed a few moments later by her husband’s brother. She was already dabbing away tears, while he was glaring at her back.
‘Mrs Angelo,’ Jakes said. ‘Thanks for comin’.’
‘I hope it does something,’ she sniffed, attempting a smile. ‘Frankie’s not coming back, but I want whoever did it locked away.’
Carlos shook his head in contempt and barged her aside. ‘Are we going through with this goddamn charade? Whatever happened, she’s only ever wanted his money,’ he growled, jerking a thumb at his sister-in-law.
At that, the tears started to flow again, and Diane Angelo ran out of the room. Jakes looked to Coraline, apparently expecting her to show some sisterly instinct and hurry after her to sympathize. Coraline only met his glance and shrugged. She didn’t know this woman. Jakes instead pushed the female officer towards the doorway. ‘Try to get her to come back, will you?’ he ordered. ‘And you,’ he stabbed a finger in the face of Carlos Angelo, ‘keep it buttoned!’
‘Fun and games already,’ Ken muttered. From the beginning, he had been sceptical that any useful information would come from this public appeal, but now he was doubting it would even happen.
‘I’m telling you—’ Carlos piped up again.
‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ Jakes shoved the man into one of the seats. ‘Sit there, keep it shut until I call you up.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You say what I want you to say an’ nothin’ else. Got it?’
‘Yeah, yeah, okay,’ Carlos muttered.
Jakes stomped back to Ken and Coraline. ‘Like dealin’ with street kids.’
‘He’s angry. His brother was murdered,’ Ken said. ‘How would you feel?’
Jakes relented. ‘I got a brother. Someone rubbed him out, I wouldn’t rest ’til I’d broke their neck myself.’ He sniffed. ‘We’re not gonna mention anythin’ ’bout the book here, by the way.’
‘Why’s that?’ Coraline asked.
‘It’s a test,’ Ken said. ‘Five hundred people are going to call in and say they’re the killer or the killer’s their neighbour or some guy they passed on the street. But if they mention the book, the cops know it’s someone with good information.’
‘You always gotta keep somethin’ back,’ Jakes confirmed. ‘And besides, we don’t want to start a total panic. It’s bad enough sayin’ we got some guy killed two people. We throw in that he’s doin’ it outta some book, an’ for all we know he’s gonna keep doin’ it, then the whole city goes nuts.’
Diane reappeared, led in by the female cop. Her brother-in-law caught Jakes’s glance and stared at the floor. ‘What do you want me to say, Detective?’ she asked in a fragile voice.
‘Truth be told, we want you to tug at people’s heart strings. Someone knows somethin’, but they don’t remember it or don’t wanna come to us with it. You can make them remember and come forward.’
‘I presume it’s the same for me,’ Coraline said.
‘Yeah.’
Coraline flashed Ken a look that said Playing a part again.
The room was full now, and the reporters, from some unseen signal, were taking their seats. Jakes looked at his wristwatch. ‘All right. Let’s get this goin’.’ He clicked his fingers at Carlos to tell him that he was wanted, but on a short leash.
Diane and Carlos Angelo studiously avoided looking at each other as Jakes showed them to their seats and subtly separated their chairs. The sound of joshing from the journalists gave way to a degree of hush as Jakes tapped his microphone to make sure it was on. It was.
‘Gentlemen.’ He peered into the audience and seemed to pick out a couple of faces. ‘Tonight we’re askin’ for the public’s help to track down a killer.’ A few flashbulbs went off. He outlined what he could about the crimes and then introduced Coraline.
‘Riley Tithe was a fine man,’ she said. ‘If anyone has any information at all, please call the station.’
A few reporters called out questions that she answered calmly, batting away snide enquiries about his line of work.
‘Do you miss him?’ one more shouted. It was the one they’d had the set-to with a few minutes earlier.
‘Every day.’
Ken caught a look in the pressman’s eye. He was one journalist who wasn’t convinced by Coraline’s performance. Maybe she was just too beautiful to credit with honesty.
Then it was Frankie Angel’s wife’s turn. There were a lot more waterworks there, and Jakes had to move it on to the dead man’s brother or she would have cried all night about her loss. Carlos spoke about how people should keep an open mind about who might have committed the crime and if they suspected anyone at all they should speak up. Jakes reiterated that it looked like the work of someone who had brutally targeted two complete strangers.
This sparked a chaos of yelled questions.
‘He done it before?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Do you have any leads?’
‘That’s why we need help.’
‘You need our help? What’s the police for if it needs our help?’
‘We got a madman on the loose?’
Jakes didn’t like the new direction the show was taking and tried to shut it off. ‘That’s speculation!’ he yelled from the stage.
‘Speculation? It’s a front page!’ one of the reporters, a one-legged example of the species, cried out to the delight of his pals. Ken could see that the event was getting away from Jakes. Well, he hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place.
‘That’s the end of the meeting, gentleman!’ And Jakes gestured to the attendant cops to hustle all the reporters, thrilled that a really juicy case had come their way, from the room.
Diane, appearing lost, wandered away, looking for someone to guide her but not finding any help at all.
Ken stepped in. ‘The way out is this way,’ he said, showing her the path.
‘Thank you.’
He could barely credit the difference between her and Coraline, who was still in her seat, impassive, while here was Diane Angelo, wet handkerchief in hand, barely able to leave the room on her own. ‘You need someone to call you a cab?’ he asked, accompanying her along the corridor, which was lined with bills alerting the reader to wanted individuals, the dangers of leaving your gun unattended and options for medical cover.
