The Death of Friends (13 page)

“Then you stay here, too,” he said. “The sofa folds out.” He smiled. “I’ll give you my car keys.”

“Keep them,” I said. “All right, we’ll drive into town first thing in the morning.”

“Listen,” he said. “I’m starving. Why don’t you relax and I’ll make something to eat?”

We ate scrambled eggs and bacon, played cards and then around midnight he made up the couch for me and went into his bedroom. I undressed and got into bed. I couldn’t sleep. I’d told Bligh I wouldn’t represent Zack if I believed he’d killed Chris, so I had to ask myself what I thought. The answer was, there was still a sliver of doubt in my mind about his innocence. I couldn’t explain why, except that for it to have been someone else required some fancy moves; the murderer would have to have killed Chris, left before Zack arrived, and then returned after he left and gone undetected both times. In my experience, killing was rarely that complicated. On the other hand, after twenty years of listening to alibis, I had an acute sense of when I was being lied to, and either Zack was the best liar I had ever encountered or he was telling me the truth. I doubted it was the former. There were also better suspects than Zack; Joey Chandler, even Bligh. Had it been Joey whom Zack had seen driving into the garage? What about Bligh? Someone who lived right on the fine line of legality probably had as many friends who fell on one side of it as the other. I let it go. The police could figure out who killed Chris, that was their job. My concern was to clear Zack and then walk away from this case before it got any uglier.

At some point, I dropped off. A little later on, I awoke with a start to find Zack pressed up against me, his hand cupping my genitals.

“What do you think you’re doing, Zack?” I said, rolling away from him and sitting up.

“Don’t you want to?”

“I don’t have sex with my clients.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“That’s not the point. Go back to bed, all right, and we’ll forget about this.”

“I want to pay you for helping me,” he said.

I laughed. “And here I thought it was because I was irresistible. Don’t worry about my fee. Bligh offered to pay it.”

“I don’t want to take anything else from Sam,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “You and I can work it out later. Right now I want to get back to sleep. You should, too. We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”

He got out of the bed and said, “Most guys don’t turn me down.” Before I could answer, he kissed me and said, “Thanks.”

“Any time,” I muttered, as he trotted off back to his room.

The sheets smelled of him. It took me a while to get back to sleep.

W
HEN I WOKE UP
the next morning, it took me a moment to remember where I was. The cabin was bright but chilly and the only sound was the sweep of the wind through the trees. I sat up, yawned and checked my watch; it was a little after seven. We could make it back to the city by noon if we started now. I got out of bed, pulled on my clothes and went to wake Zack. A thin, shrill noise sounded from far off. I knocked at Zack’s door. The noise became louder and I recognized it as a siren. Zack stumbled to the door, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s that noise?” he asked.

“It sounds like a siren,” I said. “Get dressed.”

He didn’t move, because now the siren was at the bottom of the road. Then, abruptly, it stopped, and cars began to rumble up the hill toward us.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Get some clothes on.”

I went into the kitchen and looked out the window to the clearing where our cars were parked. I saw the flash of black and white as two patrol cars pulled in beside them, and then I heard the crackle of police radios carried through the still air.

“Shit,” I said. “Zack, get out here, quick.”

He came into the kitchen tucking his shirt into the pants. A couple of sheriffs were making their way down the path toward the cabin. Behind them I saw Yolanda McBeth.

“That’s the homicide detective investigating Chris’s murder,” I said, pointing her out. “You don’t talk to her.”

“How did they know I was here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe Bligh.”

“He wouldn’t tell them.”

One of the sheriffs pounded the door and called, “Police.”

“Stand back,” I told Zack, as I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“Zack Bowen?” the sheriff asked.

“No,” McBeth said, squeezing past the two uniformed officers. “That’s not him. Hello, Mr. Rios.”

“Hello, Detective. What’s up?”

“I have an arrest warrant for Zack Bowen,” she said, removing a paper from the pocket of her heavy LAPD jacket. “For the murder of Chris Chandler.”

I glanced at the warrant. “On what evidence?”

“We found the murder weapon in his apartment, along with some bloody clothing.”

“You searched his apartment? When?”

“Late yesterday afternoon,” she said. “Pursuant to a warrant. I’m sure the D.A. will provide you with a copy. Is Mr. Bowen here?”

“Just a minute, Detective. What exactly did you find at his apartment?”

She smiled indulgently. “We found a marble obelisk about a foot high that was given to the judge as an award by a lawyer’s group.” Her smile faded. “There are blood traces on it that match Judge Chandler’s blood type. So does the blood on the clothes. Also, there was a partial thumb print on the obelisk. Bowen’s. Is he here?”

“Zack,” I said, nodding him over.

He looked wildly between me and McBeth, and I could see he was about to bolt, so I reached out and grabbed his arm.

“I didn’t—” he started to say.

“Quiet,” I said. “Everything will be fine.”

The tension went out of his body. I tugged him over to McBeth.

“Zack Bowen, you’re under arrest for the murder of Chris Chandler,” she said, and read him his Miranda rights. When she finished, she asked, “Do you understand the rights I’ve just read to you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“Do you have anything to say?”

“No,” I said. “He doesn’t and no one is to speak to him about the case unless I’m present.”

“Deputy,” McBeth said to one of the sheriffs. “Take him up to the cars.”

“Where’s he going?” I asked her.

“We’ll book him in San Bernardino and take him back to L.A. later on today. He’ll be at County by tonight.”

As one of the deputies handcuffed him, I said, “Remember, Zack, you don’t talk to anyone unless I’m with you. I’ll see you back in L.A.”

Dazed, he let the sheriffs lead him up the path to their cars. McBeth said, “I’d like to search the cabin.”

“Not without a warrant,” I said.

“I don’t need one,” she replied. “The search is incident to an arrest.”

“Nice try,” I said, “but we both know that’s bullshit.”

“You shouldn’t object if you don’t have anything to hide.”

“Oh, please,” I said. I stepped outside the cabin and closed the door behind me. “You work fast, Detective. Had you already executed the search warrant when you talked to me at the hospital yesterday? Was that why you were so eager for me to tell you where Zack was?”

“You knew where he was,” she said, starting up the trail to the clearing. I fell in step beside her.

“The question is, how did you find out?”

“You have other things to worry about than how I do my job,” she replied, as we reached the clearing. “By the way, I will get a search warrant for the cabin.”

“I give you my word as an officer of the court that I won’t remove anything.”

A caustic smile flickered across her face. “All the same, I’m going to leave one of the deputies here until I get back.”

Zack was in the back seat of one of the patrol cars. He was crying, the tears running noiselessly down his face. An hour earlier I’d believed him innocent of Chris’s murder, but now the evidence seemed inescapable. The deal I’d made with myself was that I wouldn’t represent Chris’s killer, and yet I was already thinking ahead to Zack’s defense. I wasn’t convinced of his guilt, and although I couldn’t identify the source of my doubts, I trusted them. There was just something too pat about this solution, and the one thing I was certain of was that in things pertaining to Chris Chandler nothing was as it appeared.

I went over to the car and tapped at the window. Zack looked up me with his tear-stained face and managed to roll the window down a bit.

“Here,” I said, handing him my handkerchief. He wiped his face with it.

“Mr. Rios,” he said. “I swear I didn’t do it.”

“We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, Zack,” I said. “You better start calling me Henry.”

When the patrol cars drove off, I noticed the driver of the second one, the one in which McBeth rode, was the same officer who had stopped me the day before for speeding. Kind of a coincidence. I thought about running into McBeth at the hospital. That was a coincidence, too. They seemed to have a way of happening between us.

I bickered about search and seizure law with the deputy whom McBeth had left to secure the cabin until he agreed to let me inside for five minutes to get the rest of my things. Once in, I looked through the bedroom Zack had occupied, but found nothing incriminating. Then I left and drove to a gas station, where I made a couple calls, to Josh, to let him know where I was, and to my investigator, Freeman Vidor, to set up a meeting. When I got back to L.A., my first stop was to see Sam Bligh.

Tommy Callen let me in, wearing even less than he had the day before, a black Speedo. His multihued hair was plastered to his head, giving him an even gaunter look. I again noticed the strange contrast between his young body and wasted, half-handsome face, and wondered if Bligh knew he was a speed freak.

Bligh was in the pool, swimming laps. He dragged himself through the water with short, powerful strokes, pulling his withered legs behind him. When he finished, he clung to the railing at the shallow end while Tommy lowered a wheelchair into the pool on a ramp, settled him in it, and then wheeled him out. Bligh’s chest and belly were covered with a mat of white hair, but he was solid beneath it and his arms were thickly muscled. Tommy helped him with a robe, then he wheeled himself to a patio table set for two.

“Set another place for lunch,” Bligh told Tommy. To me he said, “Find Zack?”

“I wasn’t the only one,” I replied. “The police arrested him this morning for Chris Chandler’s murder.”

Tommy drawled a slow, “Wow.”

“Lunch,” Bligh said sharply.

When he disappeared into the house, I said, “It’s none of my business, but Tommy has the look of a speed freak to me.”

“You’re right,” Bligh said. “It isn’t any of your business. I want to hear about Zack.”

I described the events of the morning and asked him, “Who knew that Zack was at your cabin?”

“No one,” he said. “That was the point.”

“Could Tommy have told someone?”

“Tommy didn’t know. No one knew but me, until I told you. Why does it matter?” he added irritably. “We’ve got more serious problems to think about.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Like the police finding the obelisk at Zack’s apartment.”

“You can’t be sure it’s the same one.”

“McBeth’s description matched Zack’s,” I replied. “Listen, Mr. Bligh, I’m willing to take Zack’s case, but I don’t want to be a patsy. Did Zack kill Chris Chandler?”

He fixed me with his fierce, cold eyes and said, “Zack’s no more capable of murder than you are.”

“Of course, you’re prejudiced,” I said, “because you’re in love with him.”

He grimaced. “I didn’t say I was in love with him, I just said I wanted him back.”

“I would imagine in your case it amounts to the same thing.”

“Zack didn’t kill anyone,” he said, letting my comment pass. “If he did, he would’ve told me because he knows I’ll protect him.”

“Chris put Zack in his will,” I said.

“Is that supposed to be a motive? Zack doesn’t care about money.”

“He thought Chris was seeing someone else.”

Bligh shrugged. “So?”

“I don’t think Zack’s attitude about being cheated on is as casual as yours.”

Bligh laughed a rumbling laugh. “If jealousy’s the motive, I’m a better suspect than Zack is.”

“The thought did cross my mind,” I said.

“Pretty hard for a cripple to bang someone over the head.”

“Maybe someone did it for you.”

He laughed again. “Who? Tommy? In between fixes? Don’t be stupid, Mr. Rios. My vanity was wounded when Zack left me for Chandler, but I got over it.”

Tommy appeared pushing a trolley laden with food. I took it as my cue to leave.

“Leaving?” Bligh asked.

“I have errands,” I said.

“You wouldn’t take my money yesterday. Will you take it now?”

“Zack won’t take it,” I said. “He’s the client.”

“I see,” Bligh said, smiling bleakly. “Tell me something, do you think a jury would send a cripple to the gas chamber?”

Tommy dropped a glass.

I was almost out the gate when I heard Tommy Callen calling me. I turned around. He came running down the driveway.

“I have to tell you something,” he said, out of breath.

“What is it?”

“I saw Zack the night the guy was killed. The judge.”

“Where?”

“At the restaurant. Azul?” He mispronounced it. “I ate dinner there that night with some friends. Zack waited on us. After he got off work, he came into the bar and had a drink with us before we all split up.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t remember, but I was back here by twelve, so it had to be before then.”

“Okay,” I said. “I knew Zack was working at the restaurant that night, so I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”

“Because of Sam,” he said. “Sam can’t get around unless I drive him. He didn’t go anywhere that night because I was at the restaurant. Ask Zack.”

“Oh,” I said, understanding. Tommy hadn’t meant to alibi Zack, he was trying to protect Bligh. Was he really so stupid to think Bligh was serious about taking the rap for Chris’s murder?

“Okay?” Tommy said.

“Sam was here,” I said. “What about Zack? Did he tell you he was going to see Chris?”

He shook his head. “He had a drink with us and then he left.”