Sunset People. Herbert Kastle
scene was. And stopped at a gas station and entered the phone booth to call Roberta and say he’d be over by eight. And dialed Diana Woodruff’s number instead.
The ring sounded six times before she answered, and her “Hello” was thick, groggy.
“It’s Lieutenant Admer. I’ve got some questions to ask. Either I come over to your place, or you come down to the Central West Station.” His hand was sweating on the phone. He was upset, and annoyed with himself for being upset.
She mumbled something he couldn’t make out.
“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped.
She cleared her throat “Doctor prescribed a sedative. Lieutenant Admer, you say?”
He began to feel lousy. “We can do it another time.”
“That’s all right. Just have to shower and clear my mind of sleep. Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.” She made a laughing sound. “Shakespeare obviously didn’t have a murdered sister.”
“I don’t really have anything important to ask, Diana.”
She was quiet, and he began to say goodbye, and she surprised him. “I haven’t eaten in almost two days. I’m either going to die or grief and starvation, or I’m going out to dinner. Want to take me?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said eagerly, then was embarrassed and tried to cover. “Maybe you’ll show me some of those massage-parlor moves, so I can use ’em on my girlfriends.” And winced because the remark sounded so gross, so stupid. “Erase that,” he muttered. “I can’t seem to say anything right with you.”
“What difference does it make?” she asked, and he regained his balance and said, “Yeah, see you in about half an hour.”
A whore, he kept reminding himself as he drove toward the coast and Malibu, with a bunch of good looks and some style and . . . and shit, a murdered sister, like she said, which made him sorry for her.
But when she answered the door to her condo, he had no thought of feeling sorry for her. Red-rimmed eyes and all, she was the best-looking woman he’d ever seen. And she knew how to dress—a long black skirt and black high heels and a satiny deep-green blouse and thin silver chains around the neck of that blouse and her hair hanging long and dark and a delicate hand that moved out to take his. He didn’t want to think of what that hand did at the parlor, and couldn’t help thinking of it. At the same time, she was about as far from cheap and whorey as she could be.
He raised her hand and kissed it.
She said, “Rather gallant for a cop.”
“Fuck my being a cop,” he snapped, angered by her patronizing manner.
“That’s more like it, Lieutenant.”
He sighed. “Sorry. Had a long day. I meant, I’m not a cop right now, with you.”
“But you are,” she said firmly. “The cop who’s going to avenge my sister.”
“Well, avenge . . .”
“That’s the word.”
He shrugged, and she kept looking at him, and he finally said, “Okay.”
She directed him to a seafood restaurant set on pilings right over the water. There were tables available, but not the one she wanted so they waited at the bar. He had a Chivas and water. She had plain water and asked if he ever experimented with alcohol—martinis, Manhattans, Margaritas, some of the more exotic drinks. He said, “No. Booze is booze.”
“Then you should drink straight domestic vodka. That way you’ll get the most effect for your money. With Scotch, bourbon, brandy, you pay for the congeners, the color and flavor elements that are as superfluous as the fruit juices, flowers, and coconut shells of exotic drinks.”
“You lecture this way all the time?”
“With friends, yes. Not that I have many.” She looked away and tapped her long, slender fingers on the bar. She wore a silver and jade ring in the shape of a curled serpent holding the Earth in its mouth.
“Nice ring,” he said. “Gift?”
“No. I bought it myself, at an auction in Beverly Hills. An extravagance, but I wanted it.”
He raised her hand for a closer look. It was as knockout as she was. And looking past her, he realized that a man at the other end of the bar, with a pretty woman of his own, was sneaking glances at Diana. And the bartender, young and bushy-haired, passed by more often than necessary. And other men at tables along the wall looked at her occasionally.
And they only saw what he had first seen. They didn’t know her voice, soft yet incisive; her obvious intelligence; her poise . . .
He was proud to be with her. Still, he heard himself saying, “I wouldn’t think you’d have to buy jewelry. Men must give you presents all the time, trying to make contact outside your place of business.”
“Carla was wearing two of those presents when she died. I sold all the others. Most were costume pieces. A few were genuine. None were to my taste.”
The maitre d’ was there, smiling at Diana, saying, “Your table is ready now, Miss Woodruff,” barely including Larry in the sweep of his arm.
But that was okay. That was part of the pleasure of being with this surprising woman.
Their table was in a corner where two glass walls met. Sitting down, they were suspended over black, rolling water which gave a shattered reflection of moon and stars. It was incredible, and he looked from the view to her, wanting to comment but afraid his words wouldn’t be right, would disappoint her. He waited for her comment.
She said, “Tell me what you’re doing to find the man who killed Carla.”
He lit a cigarette. “We’re just starting.”
“Tell me how you’re starting. How many officers are working on the case. How they’re chosen.” She leaned forward. “Tell me everything.”
He sighed. It was simple enough to explain to a cop or reporter or anyone who knew the Los Angeles Police Department. But explaining it from scratch was another matter. He’d have to shorthand it.
“When there’s a homicide, it’s given to an S.I.T., a special-investigations team. Some teams have as many as six detectives, some as few as three. Mine has four. Teams are headed up by a lieutenant, and mine operates out of the Central West Station. We were assigned the case because your sister was found in our area. My men are Marv Rodin, Vic Chasen, and a detective who hasn’t been designated yet, who’ll report tomorrow.
“When your sister was discovered Saturday morning, the information was relayed to DHQ—Detective Headquarters—in Parker Center. They phoned me at home, and I phoned Marv. If we hadn’t been available, DHQ would have sent a man of their own, who’d have filled us in the next day, then left the case. Right now we’re waiting for the autopsy and lab reports. No weapon was found, and it’s doubtful whether any fingerprints will be either—no surfaces on which to find them.”
“What,” she asked, “can you expect from the autopsy and laboratory reports?”
“Not much. We know she was killed by a twenty-two caliber firearm. We found the casing and fragments of the bullet on the sidewalk. Looks like a hollow-point load, also called dum-dums, which struck the brick apartment house wall after passing through the victim’s skull.”
She winced.
“Sorry. That’s the trouble with explaining these things to relatives. Should I stop?”
She shook her head.
“The fragments are too small to be of much use, though we’ll try to match them up with larger fragments found in the cab of the driver who was killed a few streets away. His was definitely a gangland execution. If we can tie him to your sister . .