Flipping Out (14 page)

Jett
followed the family inside. Houdini, the black Shepherd, and Skunkie, the
shaggy-haired mutt, stood at the front door waiting for a cue from Big Jim.

'Dad,
I'll be right there,' I said. Then I went over to the squad car that was parked
in front of the house.

There
were two young white male patrol officers in the front seat. Emphasis on young.
My guess was that I was as old as the two of them put together. 'You guys here
for the night?' I asked.

'All
night, all day, twenty-four seven, sir,' the one on the passenger side said.
'There's a team covering your wife till the shooter is caught.'

'I'm
Detective Lomax,' I said. 'My partner, Detective Biggs, lives here. It's his
wife you're protecting.'

'Is
that her over there?' he said, pointing toward Diana.

'That's
my girlfriend. We're staying with Detective Biggs and his wife. They're the
ones who went inside.'

'No
problem, sir,' the cop said. 'We've got your back. Have a good night.'

'Thanks,
boys,' I said. That's pretty much what they were. Boys. Young, eager, and
relatively inexperienced. They were here to serve and protect, but they weren't
even sure who they were protecting. I was beginning to wonder if Marisol was
right.
Putting some cop in front of my house isn't going to do
shit.

I
put my arm around Diana, and we went inside. Jim locked the door behind us.

I
gave Angel a hug and thanked Dennis for his help. I could feel Big Jim looming
behind me.

I
turned around. 'What?'

'Don't
shoot the messenger,' he said, 'but your contractor quit.'

'What
are you talking about?'

'Hal
Hooper, your contractor - his wife called here.'

'She
called Terry's home phone?'

'She
couldn't find any of your numbers,' Jim explained, 'but Hooper told her you
were staying with Mr and Mrs Biggs in Sherman Oaks, so she dialled information,
got Terry's number, and called here.'

'And
you answered Terry's home phone?'

'Of
course I answered. I was on guard duty.'

'IPB,
Dad. Improper Personal Boundaries. Why would you answer Terry's home phone?'

'It
was for you, numb nuts. Talk about improper personal boundaries. Why would you
get a call on Terry's home phone?'

'I
live here, dammit.'

'So
I answered a phone call for my own son. Is that crossing a boundary? Do you
want the message or not?'

I
was tired and cranky. But Diana was sitting back on the sofa, enjoying the
show. Laughing, actually. 'He can't wait for the message, Jim. Give it to him.'

'Hal
Hooper fell off the roof and broke his leg. He's out of commission for at least
eight weeks.'

'You've
gotta be kidding me,' I said.

'So
first you don't want me taking your messages, and now you don't think I can get
them right.'

'Hooper
fell off my roof? Did his wife threaten to sue?'

He
dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. 'Don't worry, he can't sue you.'

'How
can you be so sure?'

'He
fell off somebody else's roof.'

Diana
was now laughing out loud. I, on the other hand, was not amused. 'That son of a
bitch. He's supposed to be at our place. He was working at someone else's
house?'

Jim
shrugged. 'Lucky for you. If he fell off your roof, he'd be suing your ass.'

'This
is bullshit,' I said. 'I don't believe he fell off anything. It's just another
excuse to delay the job for a couple of months.'

'That's
what I thought,' Jim said. 'So I told Mrs Hooper we want to send him flowers. I
asked her what hospital he's in. She said Good Samaritan on West Sixth.'

Diana
got up from the sofa. 'Good Sam? I can check it out.' She looked at her watch.
'In fact, I have a friend who works the night shift in the ER. I'll call her.'

I
put my arm around Jim and did my best to direct his massive body toward the
front door. 'Dad, it's after midnight, and I've been going since dawn. Thanks
for watching out for Emily and Sarah. Now take Angel and Dennis and the dogs
and go home.'

'No
problem,' he said. 'You tell Marilyn if she doesn't feel safe with those two
kiddy cops out there watching her house, I'll get some teamsters up here. A lot
of them got licenses to carry.'

'Truck
drivers with guns,' I said. 'It doesn't get any more reassuring than that. I'll
tell her.'

I
said good night to Dennis and Angel, and a minute later, the entire Lomax Security
Force piled into the limo.

Terry
came from the kitchen carrying two beers. He offered me one.

'No
thanks. I'm going to bed.'

It
was the first time we'd been alone since Doughboys.

'So
Marisol was spotted pulling out of Nora's driveway around the time of the
murders,' Terry said. 'I guess she was so busy getting the flip house ready,
she forgot all about it.'

'Should
we remind her?' I said.

'Why
bother? She'll just have some lame excuse for being there. She's not going to
say, "Oh, silly me, I did go over to Nora's house this afternoon, and I
shot her and her daughter. It completely slipped my mind." Let's give her
a little more rope and see if she hangs herself.'

Diana
came back in, even more bubbly than when she left. 'I just spoke to my friend
Nina Bernard. She's a nurse at Good Sam. You're going to love this.'

'Oh,
God, I need something good tonight,' I said. 'Lay it on me.'

'Hal
Hooper
is
a patient. He came into ER this afternoon. Nina read me his entire chart.'

She
was beaming. I was beginning to believe that I might actually enjoy what she
had to say.

'You
realise that telling you what's on a patient's chart is a violation of some
kind of privacy act,' I said.

'That's
the problem with Nina,' Diana said. 'Pretty face, beautiful figure, fantastic
personality, and yet she has this glaring character defect. She will actually
seek out private information about contractors from hell, and pass it on to
those of us who hate them.'

'I'm
sure there's a twelve-step program for that,' I said. 'So, did Mr Hooper really
break his leg?'

'In
six places,' she said.

'And
did he fall off a roof?'

'Two
stories.'

'So
now I don't have a contractor,' I said. 'How is this supposed to bring me joy?'

Her
eyes were dancing now. 'Ask me how he fell off the roof.'

'Consider
it asked.'

'He
shot himself with a nail gun. He screamed in pain and went crashing to the
ground.'

'It
couldn't happen to a bigger asshole,' Terry said.

'I'm
not finished,' Diana said. 'Ask me where he shot the nail.'

'I'd
guess his brain, but he doesn't have one.'

'Go
lower,' she said.

'His
stomach?'

'Lower.'

'His
thigh?' I said.

'Go
higher.'

I
was all smiles myself now. It was too much to hope for. 'His...'

'Yes,
yes, yes,' she screamed. 'Hal Hooper shot himself in the dick with a nail gun
and fell off the roof.'

'There
is a God,' I said. I checked my watch. 'It's too late to call Kemp, but I'll
call him first thing in the morning.'

Kemp
Loekle is a good friend who gave up being a carpenter in LA to pan for gold in
Oregon. He had e-mailed me to let me know that after six months of eating
freeze-dried beef stew, shitting in a spackle can, and sleeping on a cot with a
.44 magnum at his side, he was ready to come back home and start swinging a
hammer.

'Even
if we lose a couple of grand from the advance we gave Hooper, it'll be worth
it,' I said.

'We're
not losing anything,' Diana said. 'Tomorrow morning while you're calling Kemp,
I'll be calling my friend Liz Corrado. She's a lawyer. And if Hooper is lucky,
he'll only wind up with one nail in his dick.'

Before
he became a cop, Charlie Knoll was a crook. He grew up in foster care, and by
the time he was fourteen, he'd been arrested for shoplifting, vandalism, and
breaking and entering. One night he decided to swipe a couple of bottles of
sacramental wine from the storage room of a Catholic church.

Luckily,
the priest who caught him believed in redemption and gave Charlie a chance to
do penance. But instead of giving him an Our Father to say, the priest gave him
a bucket and a bottle of Mr Clean. Charlie spent the next six months cleaning
up the floors, the toilets, and his act. His juvey records were sealed, and
eventually, his benefactor, Father Bill Leydon, gave him the reference he
needed to get into the Police Academy.

After
a few years as a beat cop, Charlie made detective. Once again he gravitated to
robbery, only this time he wasn't the perp.

Terry
and I were in an elevator at Cedars-Sinai on our way up to interview him.

'This
is not going to be fun,' Terry said.

'It's
a homicide investigation,' I said. 'Where is it written that we get to have
fun?'

'And
yet, we so often do.' Terry said. 'But this is different. The poor bastard's
wife and his multimillionaire mother-in-law got iced. If he didn't do it, he's
probably devastated. If he did do it, we have to nail one of our own. Either
way, where's the fun?'

'I'm
sure you'll come up with something,' I said.

The
door to Charlie's room was closed. I knocked. No answer.

I
opened it, took one look, then closed it again.

'Are
visiting hours over already?' Biggs said.

'Father
Bill is in there with him. They're praying.'

'Maybe
he's confessing. If you open the door a smidge, we might be able to hear him.
It would save a lot of time.'

'I
know you're determined to have fun, but the guy's wife just got murdered. Give
it a rest.'

Much
to my surprise, he actually did. We waited in silence for five minutes. Then
the door opened, and the priest came out. Father Bill is short, white-haired,
with a cherubic face and rimless glasses. If someone called central casting and
said, 'Send over a guy to play a priest,' he'd be perfect.

'Mike,
Terry,' he said, shaking our hands. 'It's been too long. Charlie said you'd be
coming. I guess we're both here under the worst of circumstances.'

'How's
he holding up, Father?' I said.

'It's
one of those times when someone asks me to explain God's will, and all I can
say is don't try to understand the ways of the Lord; just accept it. We were
praying for that strength.'

'Charlie's
a trooper, Father. I know he'll get through this, especially with you praying
for him.'

'I'll
be praying for you boys too. I hope you find the bastard who did this.'

'We'll
do our best, Father,' I said, and Terry and I stepped into Charlie's room.
There were two beds. Charlie was in one. The other was vacant.

'How
you doing?' I said.

Charlie
shrugged, then coughed up a half-hearted laugh.

'We're
really sorry about your loss,' I said.

Terry
nodded. 'We both are.'

'Thanks,'
Charlie said.

'How
are the chest pains?' I said.

'They
gave me some pills. Come on, Mike, cut the crap. This ain't a social call.
You're here on business. Ask me what you've got to ask.'

'Where
were you yesterday afternoon, say from around four until Sergeant Bethge called
you at six forty-five?'

'I
was having a few drinks.'

'At
the book launch party?'

'Come
on, guys. By now you talked to half the people who were there. You know I never
made it to the party. I was with a friend.'

'What's
her name?' I said.

'None
of your business,' he said.

'Actually,
it is our business,' I said.

'Why?
Do I need an alibi? Are you charging me?'

'Take
it easy,' Terry said.

'Don't
tell me to take it easy. I'm taking it hard. I loved Julia. And her mother.
What I've never loved are those big splashy parties where Queen Nora is the
centre of attention, and everyone knows she's making a mint, and they all come
up to me and tell me I stepped in shit when I married Julia. Like maybe I'm
getting a piece of every book she sells. I wasn't looking forward to the party,
so I drowned my sorrows with a very understanding, very sympathetic, very
compassionate friend.' is she a cop?' Terry said.