The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin (20 page)

D
oing errands. Errands. That's when I had this thought. I carried Toast down to Eddie Stanton's space, said a quick hello to Eddie, then took off in the Focus to do fucking errands. I really don't enjoy doing errands, okay? I know, I know, learn to like the things you're not supposed to like. And I do that, sometimes. But I can't get there with most errands. So I slogged through the drugstore, skulked through the grocery store, went to my house, unloaded everything, then went to one of those do-it-yourself car washes. Now this errand I actually enjoyed. I enjoy making the Focus look crisp and clean and new, like a just-readied rental. Like I said, we were still in the honeymoon phase.

And then, once my car was nice and clean and perfectly unmemorable, I went to gas it up. Get the tank nice and full again. And putting gas in my car made me think. It connected me to something. It threw a line to my subconscious, gave me a feeling not unlike déjà vu. Moments. Moments I'd collected over the course of the Keaton Fuller investigation all started reappearing now in my mind. But with new meaning attached to them. Because something, something didn't feel right. At first the images, the moments, were a little scrambled. I saw Greer Fuller as a kid in his yard standing next to Keaton, who was aiming a twenty-two at an innocent animal. I saw Craig Helton saying: “You get a bar up and running and you can print money. Print it.” I saw Sydney and Geoff Scott behind their house in the Venice canals, clad in karate uniforms, pulling slow-motion noncontact moves.

And then, now sitting in my car, just about ready to take off from the gas station, I looked out the driver's-side window and saw the face of Heather Press. The gardener who stole Muriel Dreen's ring. She wasn't actually there, of course, but her face was there, hanging in my window, just like it had that time she'd walked over to my car to tell me that she'd taken the ring to hurt the hurtful Muriel Dreen.

This was the image I needed to see.

Because Heather Press was telling me something this time too. Her face was giving me a rush of thoughts and images and possibilities. Yes, somewhere down inside I sensed that I had unfinished business. Was Graves not my guy? Did he confess to killing Keaton Fuller simply to complete his tough-guy act? To show me, right before
he tried to kill me, that he was ruthless, that he wasn't the type of guy Keaton Fuller, or anyone else, could fuck with?

I left the gas station and drove back to my office. Opened up the slider, sat at my desk, called Detective Mike Ott. But not to talk to him about this, no. To get him to connect me to a colleague of his who could get me records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Which he did. I spoke to this person, a woman named Janet Falcone.

And then I hung up, and looked around the web for some other information I needed.

And then I left my office, locked up the slider, and drove to an apartment just south of the Pico–La Brea intersection, to visit a sad, nearly broken woman who lived there. I knocked on her door, and she answered by opening it and just walking right to her chair and sitting down with her back to me, not even saying hello.

And I said to this woman, “I want to ask you another question about your daughter.”

And then we talked.

And then I left and went to a Home Depot.

And then I left the Home Depot and went to a cemetery.

And then I left the cemetery and drove south.

And then I went to another gas station, my second of the day, a gas station I'd been to before, just last week with Nancy.

And then I drove a little farther south.

D
ave? John Darvelle.”

“Hey, John! How are you, man?”

“Listen, I'm in La Jolla. You home?”

“Yeah, just. We're all here. You want to come by?”

“Well, wondering if you and I could take a walk. Want to bounce something off you. But I really need to use the bathroom. Mind if I park, come up, then we can take a walk?”

He laughed the laugh of someone who doesn't totally know what's happening but is happy to go along with it. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

“All right, I'll be up in a sec.”

I parked in the garage, got out, got my backpack out
of the backseat, and put it on, wore it. I elevator-ed up, walked into Dave Treadway's apartment, said hi to Dave, to Jill, to Davey. Then I went to the back Ping-Pong room, Dave's man cave, used the bathroom, and came out.

I looked at Treadway. “Ready?”

Dave Treadway and I walked
down the sidewalk toward the La Jolla Cove. The La Jolla Cove that you could see a nice corner of, in the not-too-far distance, from Dave's balcony. The La Jolla Cove that stood out as beautiful, even in beautiful La Jolla.

As we walked down the sidewalk, I told Dave Treadway the full details of the Keaton Fuller case. It hadn't made the papers yet. And even if it had, what La Jolla resident reads the L.A. papers? For that matter, what L.A. resident reads the L.A. papers?

Just as we got to the cove, I got to the end of my story: the shootout that resulted in the deaths of Lee Graves and his two hired killers.

Dave Treadway and I sat down on a bench that bordered the cove. At this time of day, the end of the day, there were people everywhere. Some sitting on benches like us. Some standing on the beach, at the shore, looking out at the water. And some people, lots of people, snorkeling. That's right, tropical fish were present. Treadway had nothing to do with the fish world, with the fish people I'd taken down, and yet here we were, talking about the same case, and tropical fish, while not visible, were all around us. Swimming and gliding about, my constant companions on this one, my colorful friends, my cosmic thread.

“Man,” Dave said. “We were joking around about how you have a dangerous job, but, holy shit, you almost got killed. I mean, you could very easily be dead.”

I said, “I want you to listen to me for a second. Okay, Dave?”

He gave me that same laugh that he'd given me when I'd asked to use the bathroom and said, “Okay.”

“One of the interesting things that happens when you're on a case, pretty much any case, is that you consider most everyone you meet along the way as a possible suspect. You just can't help it. I mean, basically everyone. On this one, I never looked at Jackie or Phil Fuller as a possibility, but everyone else? Yeah. Obviously, I'm looking at Lee Graves that way when I first met him. Same with Craig Helton, the burned ex–business partner. But I'm also looking at you that way. At Sydney. At Greer, Keaton's own brother.”

Treadway nodded.

“Seriously. I'm looking at the guy's brother, at this hurt, innocent-looking guy who was Keaton's own flesh and blood, and in the back of my mind I'm saying to myself, you know, maybe. Doubtful. But you never know.”

“Right,” Treadway said, his chuckle now betraying a little more confusion.

I continued. “Now, in this case, everyone had a really strong alibi. Airtight—that's what the cop I told you about, Mike Ott, had said. Airtight. So my consideration for people like Greer Fuller wasn't
that
intense, but it was still there a little. As I said, you just can't help it. And so that's part of the reason you want to be sure you're right
when you solve it. Because you've
considered
the fact that other people
might
have done it. So being one hundred percent sure at the end eliminates any conjecture, as absurd as that conjecture might be. And that's a satisfying feeling. To know. To know something for sure. And, of course, there are other benefits of that clarity as well. More human benefits. Like knowing that a sibling didn't have anything to do with the murder of his own brother. Stuff like that.”

Treadway just nodded. No awkward chuckle this time, but the look on his face that accompanied the nod was enough for me to know that he had no idea where I was going.

I said, “But at the end of this one, even though I had Lee Graves's confession, I didn't totally, totally know. I almost totally knew. But not totally, totally. I had the confession of a man who'd tried to kill me, who'd hired guys to try to kill me, and who almost certainly was a
successful
killer himself. And that's a lot. That's pretty damn convincing. Shit, the cops are cool with it. But I didn't have a murder weapon. I had weapons that are the same make and model as the murder weapon, which strongly suggests this guy uses this particular kind of gun, but I didn't have
the
murder weapon. The actual one. I also didn't have a witness. Someone who could say something like: ‘I saw Lee Graves driving up the road to that clearing.' Or: ‘I saw him fire the gun.' See? I didn't have any proof. An article of clothing, something. I just had a confession.”

Again, an unsure nod from Treadway.

I continued. “And that's why my mind kept thinking about it. Because I wasn't one hundred percent sure.”

Dave Treadway now gave me his charming smile, the
one with the underbite. The one that was accompanied by the shine in his blue eyes.

I said, “What's my point, right?”

And now another laugh from Treadway. “Right.”

“Okay, stay with me on this one.”

“Okay, John.”

“Let's say you did it.”

His smile shifted into a furrowed brow. A friendly but furrowed brow that said: “But you know, and I know, that's not possible.”

I said, “But you couldn't have, right? Like, how would that be possible? You're on the apartment video going up to your pad the night before. You're on the elevator video leaving your pad the next morning, at something like 7:45 a.m. You made an intercom call to your doorman at 6:30 a.m.
from
your apartment. Your two cars, also on video, had not left the building. And even if they had left, which they hadn't, what, you're going to race up to L.A., 120, 130 miles away, shoot a guy, then race back? Not to mention, there were two wrecks on the southbound freeways from L.A. to La Jolla that day. Putting the driving time from Keaton's place to your place at three hours. The whole thing is just not possible.”

Treadway, perhaps with some relief in his voice, said, “Right. Not possible.” And then, after a pause, “And just for the record: didn't happen.”

I said, “Add to that, Dave, why would you do that? That's the really important point. Sure, you didn't like Keaton Fuller, but nobody did. That doesn't mean you're going to figure out a way to kill the guy in cold blood.”

Treadway shifted. Moved closer to the edge of the
bench. This just became a story he might be getting interested in.

“So, anyway, now listen carefully, Dave. Today I'm at my desk in my office. I work out of a warehouse, don't know if I ever told you that. And this cat wanders down to see me. Not a guy who I might refer to as a cat. An actual cat. So this cat who came to see me is owned by a guy who keeps a couple motorcycles in a nearby warehouse. I like the cat, so I pick it up and pet it a little bit. Today, I'm talking about. Today I did that. Then, an hour or two later, I'm no longer at my office, I'm no longer with the cat, I go to a gas station to fill up my car, my Focus. And all at once, I have all these thoughts. One of them was—and the cat, I think, led me to this—If you, Dave Treadway,
had
driven up from La Jolla and killed Keaton Fuller, what if you hadn't made the drive in a car, but instead you'd made the drive on a motorcycle? One that you'd parked outside your garage so it wouldn't be seen by the garage cameras? So then the questions were: Would that somehow help you make it to L.A. and back in time? And: Either way, would you be able to make it the whole way on one tank of gas? Or would you have to stop somewhere to get gas, like I had to on the morning Nancy and I left your house after we spent the night? See, that memory, of Nancy and me getting gas that morning, was another thing connecting to all the thoughts I had while getting gas today. That's how the mind works sometimes. You just get this onslaught. Now, before I get to whether or not you would be able to make it in time, and whether or not you'd have to get gas, I want to tell you about another thought I had this morning at the gas station.”

Dave, shaking his head, still holding on to his charm, said, “Okay” again. And then he said, “Because I don't know what you're talking about, man. A cat at your office? Motorcycles? It's like: What?”

“Let me finish, Dave. So right there at the gas station today, I have this vision. This vision of this woman who was part of the case I was on before I got the Keaton Fuller gig. This woman is a gardener, and she had stolen an engagement ring from her boss, this rich old lady in Beverly Hills. I got her to admit that to me, that she had taken it, and that she still had it. And I got her to give it back. And after she gave it back, she told me why she had taken it. See, she didn't want the ring. She didn't want the money the ring would bring her if she sold it. No. So why did she take it? Well, she told me, in so many words, why she did it. And here's what she said: to strike back. The old lady was a mean old bitch, mean to her employees, the rest of her staff, mean to this woman, the gardener. And so this woman, the gardener, did something to get back at her. To hurt her. See? The gardener didn't just
think
the old lady deserved it, she
knew
it. Because it was personal.

“And see, this girl was a nice, great girl, and had a certain inner strength and confidence about her. Like you. And she was a bit of a bystander in this other world. She was a bit removed from this mean old lady and the rest of her staff, who had been with her forever. She hadn't been working for her for that long. So she was able to watch the whole dynamic kind of from afar, the distance making clear what was no longer obvious to the rest of the staff who'd been beaten up for so long. Which is also a bit like you,
down here in La Jolla, watching Keaton Fuller continue to be himself without any consequences. But the thing is, she was still connected enough to this old lady's world to care. To care about the treatment of the other employees. And to care about how the old lady treated her. And to be hurt by it. So this woman's moral compass told her that she had to do something about it—even if that thing was wrong, or even illegal. So I began to think that in a way, you two sort of occupy the same role in your respective stories. Are you following me, Dave?”

Dave Treadway looked at me and shook his head. “No, I'm really not.”

I said, “Let me keep going. See, you know all the players in the story: Keaton's parents, Greer, Craig Helton, Keaton's ex-girlfriend, the whole lot. And you knew how Keaton treated all these people. You knew what a shit he was. Your whole life you've known that. And you're this good guy on the edges of it all. Witnessing it all. Seeing it all happen. So I thought, if you
had
done it, it was probably for the same reason that gardener stole that ring: to strike back. To strike back at Keaton Fuller. Plain and simple.

“But, see, the problem was, when all these thoughts and connections started coming to me, I didn't think you'd do it on behalf of any of those people I've just mentioned. Because from what I've seen, your relationships with these people aren't
that
powerful. Right? With the gardener, she was a witness to all the old lady's crimes, yes. But she was also a victim of those crimes. She was directly affected, directly hurt by her. To my knowledge, with what I had uncovered, you really weren't ever directly hurt by Kea
ton. You weren't like the others. And your relationships with the people he
did
hurt . . . they didn't seem strong enough for you to react so powerfully. Greer was a friend, but you're not going to kill his brother on his behalf. He wasn't that kind of friend. So I thought, if it
was
you, there had to be a story where Keaton hurt you specifically. Or hurt someone you loved. It had to be personal. There had to have been something where your heart was more involved.”

I looked at Dave Treadway. He was listening, his face frozen. He looked tired.

I said, “I went and saw Eve Cogburn today, Dave. Andrea's mother. You were close to Andrea. Really close.”

Treadway, some momentary relief coming to his face, said, “Yeah, John, I was. That was a long time ago. It's not like that's a secret. If you had asked me about that before, when we talked, I would have told you. I didn't even know that Eve and Andrea were a part of your investigation. I mean, Andrea's dead, but—you know what I mean.”

“You met her when she was dating Keaton. And she was nice to you. And you became friends, even though she was a few years older. Probably like a big sister. And you
stayed
friends with her. You even dated her a little bit, after she and Keaton were finally done, a couple years before her death. And you were good to her. Always. Because you cared about her. Deeply. Eve told me that. Eve appreciated that. And, knowing you, I believe that.”

“Yeah, John,” he said, with a little bite. “All that is true. Except I don't know if I'd say we dated. More just hooked up a few times. Sometimes that happens when two people
who care about each other realize the person who used to be too young isn't too young anymore. I'm surprised Andrea shared that with Eve.”

Treadway paused for a second and then said, “And, yeah, I tried to help Andrea when she . . . I'm sure you know this . . . when she got heavily into drugs, when it was getting out of control, toward the very end.”

I nodded and said, “Dave, knowing all that I know about Keaton Fuller, I think he was a total fucking scumbag. But I bet you know more about how
much
of a scumbag he was. And I bet you know just exactly how much he fucked with Andrea Cogburn. Someone who was very special to you. And I bet, at the end of the day, you put her death on him.”