Chapter 20

July 31-August 1, 1996

Wednesday evening/Thursday morning

We drove back down Palm Canyon looking for a place to have dinner, settling on Danny's Hideout, which was very old-school. A small, one-story pink adobe building with a giant awning out front, it looked like it had been there since the sixties. When we walked in it was dark, the light barely on. For a moment I thought they might be closed, but then a waiter appeared and led us to a red leather booth.

It wasn't crowded, and the people who were there were all older. Locals. A grand piano was shoved into one corner with a little sign on top that said someone named Eddie Varone would be there at seven.

Ronnie was instantly in love with the place and ordered an Absolut martini straight up with a twist.

"This is totally a martini kind of place." He lowered his voice and asked, "Do you think any of these people are mobsters?"

I didn't bother looking around the room before I said, "No. They're not." A mobster would have the good sense to leave Palm Springs in the summer.

We'd brought Canyon Girl in with us and while Ronnie sipped his martini we read the last chapter, holding the book sideways so we could each read.

The final chapter of the book was all about a suspect Philburn was calling Mr. Fish. The man was in his early thirties at the time and already a prominent attorney. He had many notorious clients, including a few who were believed to be involved in organized crime. He spent little time in court and eschewed publicity. Detective Schmidt had learned that he knew Vera Korenko and that she'd attended several of his family functions. He could not determine whether she'd actually been invited or not.

I looked up at Ronnie and said, "He's talking about Jack Karpinski."

"How do you know that?"

"Well… the description of his law practice matches what his sons and his wife said. Also, Karp… Carp. A fish."

"So, it's really just revenge for silencing him?"

"Yeah. It skirts libel by not directly identifying him and by calling him a suspect and nothing more."

"Do you think he was a suspect?"

"Philburn seemed very excited by the possibility I might have proof that Patrick did it. Which suggests he doesn't know who did it at all."

"Isn't it weird that none of the Karpinskis mentioned it to you?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," I said. "They're weird.

We both ordered steak and potatoes. It seemed like a good call in a place like that. Ronnie had a second martini.

"Why would a police detective give any information to someone like Wallace Philburn?"

"Maybe he was hoping a book might shake something loose."

"It didn't though, did it?"

"Not that I can see. There's never been an arrest."

"Vera liked straight girls, or really girls who appeared straight."

"Yes. I think that's probably true."

"And you think that got her killed."

"That's my working theory."

"Of the women mentioned in the book, that leaves three possibilities: Betty Brooks, Virginia Marker and Georgia Dawson."

"But we're looking for a girl named Gigi."

He started singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" with a French accent. Off my confused look, he said, "Gigi. The musical."

I felt another night of musical viewing coming on. I changed the subject. "Of course, the only connection to Gigi is Rocky Havoc. She could be wrong. It could be a dead end."

"Did you notice, when you were asking Wally questions he said something about his publisher not wanting too many single women in the book? But other than Vera, there aren't any single women in the book."

"And he likes to think he's ethical."

Ronnie shrugged and took a long sip of his martini. "He doesn't have any idea who killed Vera."

"You're right. He doesn't."

The piano player started and wasn't half bad. We had key lime pie for dessert with coffee. Ronnie ordered some cognac. After the waiter left, he looked at me and said, "What? I'm on vacation."

Over dessert we chatted about the co-op and Ronnie's clients. I raised the issue of Junior getting our bedroom and the possibility of his obtaining a section 8 housing voucher. Ronnie didn't say much about the whole thing except, "If he can get the money, then of course he can have the room."

More money from Junior and the ability to rent the room he was in for more would make everything work out well. If the 2nd Street house and the Bennett house paid for themselves, and the co-op cost very, very little, then Ronnie and I would be in excellent shape and well on our way to a down payment for property number four.

We stayed and listened to the piano player for a bit. Ronnie tipped him and asked for show tunes. He got through "If Ever I Should Leave You" and then Ronnie started to sing along. It was time to go.

By the time we got back to the hotel, the temperature was in the low nineties. It was barely ten, so we went for a naked swim in the pool. No one else was around. We floated back and forth staring up at the starry sky. The water was bathtub warm, close to the temperature of the air, which meant the moment you stood up or even let part of your body out of the water it evaporated and had a cooling effect.

Eventually, Ronnie cornered me in the shallow end for a kiss. The alcohol had made him soft and pliable, fuzzy even. Happiness swelled in my chest. I suppose we could have had sex right there. Even if someone showed up, they wouldn't complain. Still, I led Ronnie back to our room, where it was guaranteed to be just us.

***

The next morning, after having breakfast poolside. Ronnie got naked again and jumped into the pool. I went into the room and moved the phone over to the table. Through the window I could watch my lover swim. I called Edwin's office and got through to him.

The first thing he said was, "I've got a meeting in fifteen. Will this take long?"

"Five minutes, tops."

"Great. Go ahead."

"You didn't tell me that your father was a suspect in Vera's murder."

"Okay, well…" He was obviously not expecting that. "It's only in that stupid book. The police never thought he was a suspect."

"What did your father think about that?"

"He thought it was funny. What else could he think of it?"

"He let Philburn have the last word," I said, implying that was very unlawyerly.

"That's not how he looked at it. Philburn was deliberately trying to provoke him. He wanted to get sued. The publicity would have sold thousands of copies of his book. Not to mention, the suit would have failed. Defamation cases are hard enough to win without having to prove it's you the author is talking about."

Not bad points. I moved on to the next big question, "Did your father know your uncle was gay?"

"That's a tough one. I didn't know. So I don't really know what anyone else knew. I will say that one of my dad's favorite sayings was ‘Don't know what you don't want to know.'"

"That sounds like lawyer speak."

"Definitely. Given the circumstances he would have considered my uncle's sexuality a legal problem, so he wouldn't have asked. In fact, he'd probably have discouraged Uncle Patrick from telling him."

Through the window, I watched as two new guests arrived at the pool. Both were young and attractive. Both were impressively naked.

"Is that it?" Edwin asked.

"Ah, yeah, I think so…" my attention was elsewhere.

Edwin said goodbye and hung up. I put the phone back where it belonged and went out to the pool. Ronnie was already talking to the new guests. Seeing me, he swam over.

"Hey," he said.

"I'm thinking we should drive over to Riverside and try to catch Andrea Grubber. We'll be back by lunch."

"Okay, sounds very interesting," he said. Then climbed out of the pool.

I followed him back to the room, appreciating his ass every step of the way. Before I went in, I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that I had not been alone in my appreciation.

By the time we got to Riverside it was after ten. The temperature was a frigid hundred and ten. When we found Andrea Grubber's house for the second time, there was a minivan in the driveway. She was home. I pulled the Legend up behind the minivan, Ronnie and I got out.

Normally, I wouldn't involve him in a case I was working on for The Freedom Agenda. Those cases were likely to go to court and no one wanted to explain what my real estate boyfriend was doing at an interview. It didn't matter much with the Patrick Gill thing because that would never go to court, and even it were to spawn a trial for some reason I'm not under any professional strictures and couldn't be criticized.

For obvious reasons, I shouldn't have let him come with me to talk to Andrea Grubber, but I wasn't going to leave him in Palm Springs in a pool full of naked men, and I certainly wasn't going to leave him in a hot car.

We knocked on the front door and a moment later it was opened by a frazzled looking woman of about forty-five.

"I work for The Freedom Agenda. You wrote an article about Pete Michaels about twenty years ago?—"

"For God's sake come inside. I can't afford to refrigerate my entire front yard."

We stepped into the house. There were two toddlers in the living room. Andrea had constructed a kind of corral out of the furniture and a couple of gates. It looked kind of clever.

"So, as you were saying…"

"Yes. We represent Larry Wilkes. We feel that he's innocent. I'd like to ask you a few questions about an article you wrote for The Downey Ledger."

"Would you like some iced tea? I made it fresh this morning."

"Um, sure."

We followed her into the kitchen/dining room. Everything was messy but clean. There was a desk in a corner of the eating area with a computer and printer on it. She caught me taking it all in and said, "No one should have children after thirty-five. It's just a terrible idea."

"I wouldn't know," I said.

She pulled three mis-matched glasses out of a cupboard, took a plastic pitcher out of the well-stocked fridge, and poured us each a glass of tea.

As she did all that she said, "So, I wrote an article about Pete Michaels' murder."

"You did. Do you remember?"

"Of course. I was only an intern there for a year and it was the biggest thing I got to work on."

"You wrote an article about two days after the murder in which you referred to a source saying that Pete Michaels was engaged. I'm trying to track down your source for that."

"Hold on," she said, then put her tea down and walked out of the room. She disappeared into one of the bedrooms. A few minutes later she came back carrying a cardboard box. She pushed the breakfast dishes aside and set the box on the dining table. She began digging through the box.

I must have been gawking at her, because she asked, "What? Are you surprised I'm going to give you my source?"

"Very. I thought I'd have to beg."

"Number one, an innocent man is in prison. That's what you said, right?"

"I did."

"More importantly, number two, does it look like I'll be returning to journalism any time soon?"

"You do have a computer right there."

"I write a newsletter for the Inland Orange Growers Association and one for Kaiser Permanente. Doesn't sound like much, but with the kids it keeps me busy. I'm officially done with journalism."

She found what she was looking for. "Here we go." She pulled out a small, girly, notebook and flipped through it. Found the right page and said, "Kelly Hawley."

"Really?"

"You know the name?"

"I do," I said. "Do you remember the conversation?"

"Yes. But not well."

"She didn't tell you who Pete Michaels was engaged to, did she?"

After double-checking her notebook, she said, "No."

"So, you can print something like that without corroboration?" Ronnie asked.

"That's why you add things like, ‘according to a source.' That means we're not sure. Our source could be lying."

"Which they were in this case," I said.

"If I'm remembering correctly, the engagement came up at trial."

"Another lie. Do you remember anything else about the murder that might be helpful?"

"I doubt it. The narrative formed quickly. I was surprised it even went to trial."