The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) (13 page)

He and Burns had the good-cop-bad-cop thing down to a science. First he’d browbeat me for a while. Then Burns would replace him at the table and soothe me with her dulcet tones.

It was Casillas’s turn. “Jeez,” he said. “Things keep turning up on you, don’t they?”

“Listen just once more, because I’m not telling you again. I left the bag in the back of the truck at the funeral. Anybody there could have planted the ties in it. Any of the cactus people. Even Brenda’s sister. Even
you”

“Accusing L.A.’s finest of planting evidence?”

“Look,” I said. “Given that you think I’m stupid enough to shove a plant down a woman’s throat and leave the stub lying around my yard, do you really think I’m so
monumentally
stupid as to do the same kind of thing again? Talk to anybody Ask them if they ever saw me use a thin plastic tie. Everyone knows I like the soft, wide kind.”

While that statement didn’t convince anybody of anything, it was dumb enough to shut them up. I jumped into the breach. “Do you have someone watching me?”

“Watching you?” Burns said. “As in, following you around?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them exchanged looks. “You tell him,” Burns said.

“What?” I said. “Tell me what?”

Casillas pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “This isn’t the only case we have to work on, you know.”

What was he doing, going for the sympathy vote? Goon.

“We’ve got a gang-killing in Venice, another over by Mar Vista Gardens, and a body dump in Ballona Creek, We’re not just working your goddamned serial succulent killer.”

“And this means what to me?”

“Everybody else around here has the same kind of caseload. You think we’ve got the manpower to spend following you around?” He and Burns swapped glances again. She frowned and shrugged her shoulders. “Why don’t you go home,” Casillas said. “And do me a favor. Don’t go finding any more dead bodies.”

“I’ll try my best.” I got up and hurried toward the door, certain he was going to call me back any second. It was a cruel joke. He would throw me in the hole. Cockroaches would be my friends.

It didn’t happen. I emerged into the hall. Burns waited long enough to let me feel stupid and came out and escorted me up front. Gina sat waiting for me in the lobby, all worried-looking. She jumped up when she saw me, hugged me fiercely, led me out to her car, and took me home.

Sometimes things get so depressing or so weird that you need something to remind you of a better time and place. Or
a simpler one. When people you knew didn’t end up with spines through their hands and the only plant you put in your mouth was marijuana. Certain record albums can be counted on as such a reminder. Neil Young’s
After the Gold Rush
. Jefferson Airplane and
Surrealistic Pillow
.

At nine thirty-five on this particular Thursday evening, it was
Beggars Banquet
, which, as far as I’m concerned, was the last really good Rolling Stones album. “Parachute Woman” blasted through the speakers in my living room, and Gina’s ears perked up. “Did he say what I thought he said?”

“You mean about ‘blow me out’?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s what I’ve always thought he was saying. But I’ve been known to get lyrics wrong. For decades in some cases.” I took a sip of Snapple. “Who do you know that would want to set me up as a murderer?”

“Could be anybody. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m getting on the phone to Madagascar. You work on your spreadsheet or get back on the Internet or something.”

She went out to the car for her computer, and I rooted around for Brenda’s itinerary. By the time I found it, Gina was on the couch with the computer in her lap and was mousing away.

Brenda’s travel plans had put her in Antananarivo for only one day. Her companions would already be in the bush, unless Sam’s cable had reached them and persuaded them to stick around town mourning or something. I dialed a ton of digits and was rewarded with the news that all circuits were busy. I put down the phone and dropped down next to Gina.

“There’s, like, fifteen more messages since this morning,” she said.

“Did you send one like we talked about?”

“Uh-huh. Wait a minute, I’ll show you. Here.”

I squinted to make out the screen. She’d paid three thousand
dollars for her computer, and you couldn’t read the damned thing.
Anybody knowing anything about the death of Brenda Belinski or any of her affairs before her death please e-mail privately to [email protected]. Weirdos and murderers need not apply
.

“Not bad,” I said. “Short and to the point. Did you get any replies?”

“I’m not sure. Let me wade through the rest of this stuff. It all gets mixed up with my regular e-mail, which is mostly junk anyway.”

The doorbell rang. “Who’s got their kids selling chocolate bars at this time of night?” I said. The bell rang again. “I’m coming. Hold your damned horses.”

My father always taught me to ask who it was when I answered the door. My father probably had more reason than most to do so. But what good would it do? If the killer were out there, he could just shoot me through the door.

So I pulled it open. It wasn’t a kid with a Rubbermaid full of sweets. It was a grown-up. His face was reddish, his blond hair combed straight back, his mouth crooked. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, with crinkly facial skin from which sprouted a couple of days’ growth of blond stubble. His clothing was brown and rumpled. “Mr. Portugal?” When I uh-huhed he held out a hand.

“Very nice to meet you. I’m Willy Schoeppe.”

I
TOOK THE OFFERED HANDSHAKE IN A BIT OF A TRANCE
. “Hi,” I said. “I just tried to call you in Madagascar.”

“I don’t suppose I was there.”

Gina jumped up from the couch, introduced herself, and maneuvered him and his battered leather suitcase through the door. As he passed into the living room, she raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. “Make yourself at home,” I said. Once he had, I asked, “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

“Sam Oliver told me I should speak to you.” His accent wasn’t quite as thick as I would have expected. He spoke quickly, with everything sounding like it came through pursed lips. “I spoke to him from the airplane.”

“Sam’s in Tucson.”

“Yes, I know. I spoke to him in Tucson. Isn’t it wonderful now, you can pick up a telephone from the back of the seat in front of you and call anywhere in the world.”

“You’re telling the wrong guy how wonderful it is,” Gina said.

“Call anywhere except Madagascar, that is,” he went on.
“I tried to reach Doug Hammer numerous times since I left there but was unable to get through. Ach.” He shifted his weight, trying to find a comfortable spot on the couch. “I have spent the last three days in airports and on airplanes. Air travel to and from Madagascar is not difficult if you are prepared well in advance, but last-minute arrangements are troublesome. I had to transfer in Ouagadougou. I spent the night there as well. Have you ever spent the night in Burkina Faso?”

“Cant say as I have,” I said.

He asked for a glass of water, and Gina brought him one. He held it up to the light, saw we were watching him, smiled. He was always smiling, like everything in life was a big happy merry-go-round. “One gets in the habit of inspecting one’s water when one spends time in Madagascar. Not that one can see all the nasty things inside. However.” He downed half the glass, placed it carefully on the coffee table. “So. I came as soon as I heard. It is a terrible thing, no?”

“It is a terrible thing, yes,” I said. “Assuming you’re talking about Brenda’s murder and not the water in Antananarivo.”

Yet another smile. None of them real big, but a constant stream. “Yes, of course. I truly wished to be at the funeral, but the airline situation prohibited it. I am sorry to have missed it.” He rubbed his chin and appeared surprised at the stubble he found there. “I understand you are investigating Brenda’s demise.”

Gina nodded. “And Dicks.”

For the first time Schoeppe’s expression wasn’t so happy-go-lucky. The ever-present smile gave way to a puzzled frown. “Dick’s? Who is this Dick?”

Of course. No one knew but Gina and me and anyone Hope had managed to call. This was my big chance. I could telephone everyone I knew and gauge their reaction to Dick’s
death. Eugene Rand and Henry Farber. The entire Department of Botany at UCLA. Anyone who’d ever been to South Africa.

Only one problem with that: the news vans at Dicks. The local TV news fiends were already all over the story like flies on a carrion flower. The story had doubtless been on Channel 6 already.
“New developments tonight in the shocking death of UCLA professor Brenda Belinski
…”

We filled Schoeppe in on Dick. “This Mr. McAfee,” he said. “Was he involved in conservation?”

“Some,” I said. “He had a letter in the
Journal
a few months back. Called the plant smugglers some pretty nasty names.”

“They sound so dangerous,” Gina said. “Evidently they macheted a ranger.”

“Sam told you that,” Schoeppe said. A statement, not a question.

“Yes,” I said.

“I do not believe that incident happened. These people… they are not violent. That is why I find it difficult to believe they were involved in Brenda’s death.”

I cleared my throat. “May I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know a Hermann Schoeppe?”

That momentary retreat of the smile again. “Yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

“Are you related to him?”

“He is my brother. Has Hermann’s name come up in this business?”

I told him about my conversation with Lyle. When I was done he sighed deeply. “Hermann is what you would call the black sheep of the Schoeppes. Even when we were boys, he was always looking for—what do you Americans say—an angle. I have not seen him in several years. But I have heard
much about my brothers adventures.” He held his glass out to Gina. “May I have some more water?” I got the feeling he wasn’t thirsty, that he was stalling. When she returned he put the glass on the table without touching its contents and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “What you have heard is true. It is most uncomfortable for a man like me, a man deeply concerned about our natural heritage, to rub shoulders with my colleagues knowing my own brother is one of our adversaries.”

I said, “Do you think—”

“That he had something to do with Brenda’s death? No. I do not.” His smile was resigned now. “Whatever else you may say about Hermann, he is not a violent man. He may be clever and devious, but he would never hurt anyone.”

Except for the thrum of the refrigerator, we sat in silence. Gina broke it. “I’ve been hearing all this about the plant smugglers. About this CITES thing. But how exactly was Brenda involved? What did she hope to accomplish?”

He sipped his water, licked his lips. “She was on the verge of a breakthrough with the Malagasy government. While they have in general been cooperative, until now harsh economic realities have kept them from giving us support. That was about to change. We were going to collect some final data before returning to Antananarivo to sign an agreement that would enact the harshest of penalties against anyone caught smuggling plant material out of the country. Up to and including death.”

It seemed draconian, but who was I to say? “So these plant smugglers—the evil ones, as opposed to your brother, who is merely a crook—maybe they sent someone to prevent her coming.”

He shrugged. His eyes drooped, and his words came slowly. “All of this is mere hypothesizing. As I have said, I do not have any reason to believe plant smugglers had anything
to do with Brenda’s death.” He stood suddenly, regarded Gina and me in turn. “But I have intruded quite enough. Perhaps we can speak tomorrow, when I am rested. I only wanted to make your acquaintance this evening, Mr. Portugal. Ms. Vela, it was quite enjoyable making yours as well.”

“Where are you staying?” I asked.