The Forgotten Man Read online

  "Okay. How about his credit card number?"

  "He paid cash. We do that if you put down a three-hundred-dollar cash deposit."

  I tapped my pad, trying to figure out what to ask next while he stared at me. You should never give them a chance to think.

  He said, "What did you say your name was?"

  "Cole."

  "Could I see your badge?"

  "If he made calls from his room, those calls would show up on his bill, right?"

  He was beginning to look nervous.

  "Are you a policeman?"

  "No, I'm a private investigator. It's okay, Mr. Kramer. We're all on the same side here."

  Kramer stepped back from the desk to put more distance between us. He didn't look scared; he was worried he would get in trouble for answering my questions.

  "I don't think I should say any more. I'm going to call the manager."

  He turned to pick up his phone.

  "You need to do something before you call. Someone else might have been involved, and they might be in his room. That person might be injured and need help."

  He held the phone to his face, but he didn't dial. His eyebrows quivered, as if he was sorry he had ever taken a crappy job like this.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Check his room. Just peek inside to see if someone needs help, then you can call your manager. You don't want someone dying in that room."

  He glanced back toward the hall.

  "What do you mean, dying?"

  "Faustina was murdered. I knocked on his door before I came to you, but no one answered. I don't know that anyone is inside, but I'm asking you to check. Make sure no one is bleeding to death, then call."

  Kramer glanced toward the hall again, then opened the desk drawer for his passkey and came around the desk.

  "You wait here."

  "I'll wait."

  When he disappeared down the hall, I went behind the desk. Herbert Faustina's account still showed on the computer. I found the button labeled CHECKOUT INVOICE, and pressed it. A speedy little laser printer pushed out Herbert Faustina's final room charges on three pages. I took them, and left before Kramer came back. I did not wait. The World's Greatest Detective had struck again.

  10

  Ten hours start to finish, and I had Faustina's name and address, and a list of every call made from his motel. I was thinking about calling Diaz and Pardy when I realized I was hungry, so I picked up a couple of soft tacos from Henry's Tacos in North Hollywood and ate them on the benches out front. I wolfed down the tacos like a starving dog, then bought two more, slathering them with Henry's amazing sauce. I would probably have Faustina's life story by dinner, and his killer by bedtime. LAPD would probably beg me to clear their other unsolved cases, and I thought I might go along. Largesse is everything.

  When I finished eating, I worked my way up Laurel Canyon to the top of the mountain, then along Woodrow Wilson Drive toward my house. I was feeling pretty good until I saw the unmarked sedan parked in front of my house, and my front door wide open.

  I parked off the road beyond my house, then walked back to check out the car. It was an LAPD detective ride with a radio in the open glove box and a man's sport coat tossed casually on the back seat. My friend Lou Poitras was a homicide lieutenant at Hollywood Station, but this wasn't his car. Also, Lou wouldn't leave my front door hanging open like an invitation to bugs and looters.

  I went inside. Pardy was on my couch with his arms spread along its back and his feet up on the coffee table. He didn't get up or smile when he saw me. A black Sig hung free under his arm.

  "You have a nice little place here, Cole. I guess it pays off, getting your name in the papers."

  "What are you doing?"

  "I was up here asking your neighbors about you. They say your car was here all night, so I guess you're in the clear unless something else comes up."

  "I meant what are you doing here in my house."

  "I saw your door open, but got no answer. I thought you might be dead or injured, you being a party to a homicide investigation, so I came in to render assistance."

  I went back to my front door and examined the jamb. Neither it nor the lock showed signs of having been jimmied. I left the door open and went back to the living room. Two cabinets beneath my television were ajar and the stack of phone books on the pass-through between my dining room and the kitchen wasn't in its usual place. Pardy had searched my house.

  "I can't believe you came into my house like this."

  "I can't believe you went back to my crime scene this morning. I find it suspicious."

  "Diaz knows I'm working the case. She gave me her blessing."

  "Did she?"

  "Ask her."

  "O'Loughlin gave me the lead, and I don't need any help. Consider this a courtesy call."

  Pardy suddenly stood. He was taller than me, with angular shoulders and large bony hands, and he stood close to intimidate me.

  "Don't come around my case anymore. I don't want you talking to my witnesses, I don't want you at my crime scene, and I don't want you contaminating my evidence."

  "I'll bet you don't want me finding evidence you missed, either."

  He was here because of the key card. When I arrived at the alley that morning, Pardy had been shining a flashlight under the Dumpsters. It had been his evidence to find, only he hadn't found it. When Chen notified Central Homicide about the card, O'Loughlin must have asked about it, and now Pardy felt shown up.

  "I'm sorry you got burned, but what was I supposed to do, pretend I didn't find it?"

  "Funny how you found a card that wasn't there. I'm thinking maybe you planted it, looking to show us up."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "I know you're a publicity slut, Cole. You might have murdered that bum just for the ink—the dumb cops can't close the deal, so the superstar asshole rides to the rescue, page one above the fold?"

  I was pissed off and tired, and the wonderful spicy soft tacos had grown sour and old.

  I said, "Have you been to the Home Away Suites yet?"

  Pardy's face tightened and his red skin looked like parchment pulled over a skull. I shook my head because I knew he hadn't.

  "No, Pardy, you haven't. While you were dicking around up here, I went to the motel. The vic was listed on their register as Herbert Faustina. When the reporters interview you, you can tell them the superstar asshole had to give you his name because you were up here going through my house without a search warrant while I was working the case. They'll probably make me out to be Sherlock Holmes after that."

  Pardy's face pinched even tighter.

  "What did you do at the motel?"

  "I talked to a clerk named Kramer. He's probably gone off duty by now, but you can catch him tomorrow. Tell O'Loughlin I covered that one for you, too."

  I didn't tell him I had entered the room, and I wasn't going to give him Faustina's bill. I decided I would still call Diaz, but Pardy could swing it himself.

  He said, "You think you know, but you don't, Cole. You don't have any idea. Stay out of my case. You're nowhere around this or I'll have your ass."

  I should have let it go. I should have just nodded, and he would have walked out, but I didn't like that he had come into my house, and I liked it still less that he thought he knew me when he didn't know me at all.

  "Wrong, Pardy, which is something you'd know if you had paid attention at the Academy. I can pursue any matter I choose so long as I don't interfere with or obstruct you in doing your job. You might not like it, but if you arrest me on those grounds, you'll have to make a case not only to the district attorney but also to Internal Affairs. You'll get to tell them how you entered my home without paper, and how you missed the key card and showed up late at the motel. You'll even get to tell them how you tried to front me off even though everything I've done today has been done with the full knowledge and permission of LAPD. You'll look sweet with all that, Pardy. O'Loughlin might even help you
pack."

  Pardy watched me with the hard eyes as if his body had gone rigid, and he didn't know what to do because nothing was playing out like he imagined. Then he made it worse.

  "I don't think you understand, Cole. Where's your gun? Let me see the gun you killed all those people with."

  Pardy raised his right hand and rested it on the Sig's grip. A film of sweat made his forehead shine.

  "I want to make sure you understand."

  The hammer cocking on the Colt .357 Python at my front door sounded like cracking knuckles. Pardy turned to the sound, and shouted his warning like when he was in uniform.

  "LAPD!"

  Joe Pike said, "So?"

  Pike stood framed in the shadows of the open front door with his .357 down along his right thigh. Pike was six feet one, with short brown hair and ropy muscles that left him looking slender even though he weighed two hundred pounds. He was wearing a sleeveless gray sweatshirt, jeans, and the Marine Corps sunglasses he pretty much wore 24/7, inside and out, daytime or night. Light from the setting sun caught the glasses, and made his eyes glow.

  Pardy kept shouting, but had the sense not to pull out his gun.

  I said, "This is my partner, Joe Pike. You read about him in the newspaper, too."

  "I'm a police officer, goddamnit. Police officer! Put down that weapon! Tell him to put down the goddamn gun."

  I looked at Pike.

  "He wants you to put down your gun."

  "No."

  "What do you want to do, Pardy? You want to have a shootout? You were finished. If you want to arrest me, I'll go with you and we can sort this out with O'Loughlin down at the station. Did you want to place me under arrest?"

  Pardy glanced back at me, and the moment was done. He could press it, but his shit was weak and he knew it. He was so tight his voice squeaked like a bad hinge.

  "Sit this one out."

  Pardy lurched around like a sailing ship tacking into the wind. Pike stepped down out of the entry to let him pass. When Pardy reached the door, he looked back at me. He didn't seem scared; he seemed certain.

  "Sit this one out."

  "Good night, Pardy."

  Pardy left, and after a minute his car pulled away. When it was gone, Pike holstered his .357.

  "Was this about your father?"

  Just like that.

  "He isn't my father, for Christ's sake. How do you know about this?"

  "Starkey."

  "Are you two phone buddies now?"

  "She was concerned."

  Pike knew much of it from Starkey, but I filled in the rest. Joe Pike had been my closest friend and only partner for almost twenty years, but we had never much shared the facts of our childhoods to any great degree. I'm not sure why, only that it had never seemed necessary and maybe even felt beside the point. Maybe it was enough that we were who we were, and were good with that; or maybe we each felt our baggage was lighter without the weight of someone else's concern. When I reached the part about the Home Away Suites, I showed Pike the bill with Faustina's name and address. Pike glanced at it.

  "This isn't the right area code for Scottsdale. His address and phone number don't go together."

  The motel record showed 416 as the area code for Faustina's home number.

  "What's Scottsdale?"

  "Four-eighty."

  I brought the invoice to the phone, and punched in the number. A computer chimed immediately to inform me that no such listing existed. Next, I booted up my iMac, signed on to Yahoo's map program, and entered Faustina's address. No such street existed in Scottsdale. I leaned back in my chair and glanced up at Pike; everything I thought I knew about Herbert Faustina was wrong.

  "His phone number and address don't exist. He made them up."

  Pike studied the invoice again, then handed it back.

  "My guess is he made up more than that. Maria Faustina was the first saint of this millennium. She was canonized for her trust in God's Divine Mercy. Five gets you ten he was using an alias."

  Pike knows the most surprising things.

  I unfolded the morgue photos and showed him the picture of Herbert Faustina's tattoos.

  "I guess he sought mercy."

  "Maybe," Pike said. "But mercy for what?"

  11

  Yard Work

  Frederick made three trips down to Payne's house that day, not that so much was left after all these years, but the bags were awkward. Each time he came down, he was terrified the police would be waiting. He crept through the trees, gut-sick with fear until he saw that the coast was clear.

  Once everything was down, Frederick fired up Payne's gas grill. He used four full cans of propane, then mixed the ashes with gasoline and burned them in a fifty-five-gallon drum Payne used for burning trash. After the second burn, he bagged the residue, then scrubbed the drum with Clorox. He drove the ashes out along Highway 126 to Lake Piru, washed out the bags with lake water, then stopped at two nurseries in Canyon Country before heading back. Late that afternoon when the sun was beginning to weaken, he dusted Payne's property with a generous mix of warfarin, ant poison, cayenne pepper, and arsenic. The police might eventually bring dogs to search the property, but when their mutts hoovered up Frederick's little surprise, they wouldn't last long. Frederick felt satisfied with a job well done.

  With the evidence gone and the grounds laced with poison, Frederick let himself back into Payne's house to think. Payne had always told him they would be punished. Frederick thought he meant they would burn in Everlasting Hell—especially after Payne began tattooing himself and talking to Jesus—but maybe it wasn't that at all. Frederick woke every morning knowing that someone somewhere was hunting them; entire armies were probably trying to find them.

  Maybe now they had.

  Thoughts swirled through Frederick's head like whispering voices, and he felt himself beginning to panic.

  "Stop."

  Frederick sat motionless at the table except for his right leg. His foot bounced with a will of its own, separate and apart from him, faster as the buzzing grew louder.

  "Make it stop."

  Frederick knew he was in trouble. They were trying to get him, and they might have already found Payne—mercenaries, masked assassins, maybe even criminals; hired killers paid to find and punish them. Maybe they had snatched Payne and his car, too; made their move so quickly that Payne simply vanished.

  Frederick realized if they found Payne, then they might be watching him right now. He felt the weight of their eyes. He heard their covered whispers.

  Frederick's foot bounced until the table shook; a ceramic Jesus danced to the edge of the table and fell. When it shattered, Frederick clutched his leg, and pounded his thigh—

  "Stop it! STOPITSTOPITSTOPIT!"

  He lurched to his feet, stumbled into the kitchen, and saw a fresh message waiting on Payne's machine. Someone had called that day while Frederick worked in the yard.

  Frederick played the message, and a voice he had heard only once—the time he let Payne talk him into going to the Catholic church that Sunday—came from the machine.

  "Payne, this is Father Wills. I hope you're well, but I'm concerned I haven't heard from you. Please call or come by. It's important we continue our discussion."

  Frederick's stomach clenched, and he tasted sardines.

  What discussion?

  Father Wills was a priest, and priests took confession.

  What had Payne told him?

  What was the knowing suspicious tone in Father Wills's voice?

  Payne had probably confessed his ass off to every priest and minister and rabbi in town. Frederick started shaking, and the buzzing returned—

  Frederick deleted the message.

  He breathed hard, drawing in ragged and hideous breaths until it occurred to him that Payne might have told his confessor where he was going and what he was going to do. Father Wills might know.

  Frederick decided to ask.

  12

  During the nine days Herbert
Faustina resided in the Home Away Suites, he made forty-six phone calls, but none were to any number I recognized. He had not phoned my office. The bill listed each number dialed and the duration of the call because the motel charged by the minute. Of the forty-six numbers dialed, Faustina had called 411 an even dozen times. Pike and I divided the remaining thirty-four numbers between us, then began dialing to see who answered, me on the house line and Pike on his cell.

  The first two calls Faustina made were to the information operator. A woman with a steady voice answered on the third.

  "Los Angeles Police, West L.A. Station. May I help you?"

  I was surprised, and wasn't sure what to say.

  "This is the police. May I help you?"

  "Is there an Officer Faustina?"

  "I don't see that name on the roll."

  "Do you recognize that name, Faustina?"

  "Who is this?"

  I apologized and hung up. Faustina had spoken to the West L.A. Station for six minutes, which was long enough to be transferred through every unit in the building. He might have asked to speak with me, and, when I wasn't there, asked for J. Edgar Hoover. Anyone loopy enough to believe he was my father would want Hoover on the case.

  I glanced over at Joe.

  "He called West L.A. Station. How about that?"

  Pike said, "Uh."

  A man with a gruff voice answered the next number.

  "Police, Southeast."

  When I hung up, Pike was waiting.

  "Another station?"

  "Yeah. He called Southeast."

  "He also called Newton."

  Herbert Faustina had spoken with Southeast for eleven minutes, and Newton for eight. The next three numbers brought me to Pacific, the 77th, and Hollenbeck.

  When I leaned back, Pike had still more.

  "Devonshire, Foothill, and North Hollywood."

  Three more of LAPD's eighteen patrol areas.

  "Okay, this is strange. Why would he call all these police stations?"

  "The newspapers described you as a detective. Maybe he thought you were a police detective, and called the stations trying to find you."