Follow the Money

6


Mostly, I stayed away from the other summers. A lot of them knew each other from school, since most of them came from the same few places. I made small talk with them, but little else. I figured I was there to get a job, not to bide time until I collected my inheritance.

Which made it all the more intriguing a few days later when I was alone in the firm library and heard her voice beside me. She said, “I always thought the library would be more fun when they were paying me to be in one. Turns out I was wrong.”

It was Morgan Stapleton, the hottie from Yale that I’d heard people whispering about, the one I’d studied at the rooftop party. Some guy’s buddy used to date her in college, also at Yale. I looked over, unsure if she was talking to me. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. I said, deadpan, “Can I tell you a secret? I don’t know how to read.”

She laughed and then covered her mouth, looking around, “Oh my God, that was loud. Do you think we have to be quiet in here like a real library?”

“Isn’t this a real library?” I studied the cover of the treatise in my hand. “Someone told me these were books. Have I been misled?”

“I thought you couldn’t read, so what do you care?”

“Hey,” I shrugged, “I may be illiterate, but I don’t want to look stupid.”

She smirked and cocked her hip to one side, “You want to talk about looking stupid? I once sat through a lunch interview with a piece of lettuce stuck to my front teeth. Size of a nickel. It was sweet.”

“You gotta love that.”

“Of course, but you know the best part? I didn’t notice it until about two hours after lunch.” She smiled and nodded her head, raising those eyebrows again.

“Nice,” I nodded back. “But that only reminds me of the time I was at an interview and I walked into a parking meter.”

“What?” She laughed again, throwing her head back and shaking her hair. She was killing me. Something tugged inside me. What was I thinking?

I laughed along with her and nodded. “Yeah, we were walking to lunch and I was talking, y’know, with my head turned, and I plowed right into it. Full bore. Whack! It stopped me cold.”

“Oh my God, what did the people you were with do?”

“What could they do? They were horrified.” I pointed at my chest. “It left a smudge right here on my tie. I had to sit though lunch with a big splotch of dirt on me like a bull’s eye.”

“That’s pretty good,” she nodded, her body swaying back and forth. I glanced down at the muscles in her legs, flexing with her shifting weight. She caught my glance on her and she moved a little slower. Playful, athletic, clever. She grinned through the silence and then slapped the book in her palm. “Well, as much as I hate it, I guess I actually do have to write this memo.”

“Yeah,” I held my book up and grinned back, “and I have to learn how to read.”

She smirked and walked past me down the aisle. “See you Ollie,” she said, without looking back. I was surprised she knew my name. I watched the back of her legs as she walked away. My face felt hot and I turned to look out the window.

***

I’d had enough of looking through the file and milling around the library. I figured if there were anything worthwhile in either place, Steele would already be out. It was time to poke around and see what else might be out there.

Sergeant Wilson of the LAPD had been the first one to Steele’s house on the night of the murder. His signature was on the initial police report. He was now Detective Wilson, and although I doubted he’d have anything to say to me, I decided to track him down. It couldn’t hurt to ask. He seemed amused by the phone call. Fortunately, he was kind enough to let me buy him lunch.

He met me in a crowded place in Chinatown where most people get take out. Detective Wilson had a salt and pepper buzz cut and a stern expression — vaguely military — and I knew he was a cop the minute I saw him. He was lean and fit, and walked into the room like he owned it. I was sitting at one of the small tables by the windows and Wilson picked me out immediately. I guess that made him a good detective.

“I don’t have much use for lawyers,” he said, as soon as he sat down. “But I figure we can both do each other a favor. I’ll try to keep you from wasting your time so you don’t waste any of mine.”

“Pardon?”

“You want to talk about Steele, I’ll tell you everything about him. But you need to understand something, son, that guy’s as guilty as they come. I’ll bet I’ve been a cop longer than you’ve been alive. I know what I’m talking about.” He leaned back and waved to a guy behind the counter, who immediately came over to take our order. Wilson was obviously a regular. He was also used to people paying attention to him.

I ordered the chow mein and wondered where to start. I was beginning to regret calling him. I was also wondering why he’d agreed to meet with me. I said, “I’ve read your report, so I think I’ve got a good sense of what you saw that night. I guess I’m interested in why you’re so sure it was Steele.”

“Son, when you do this as long as I have, you can just tell when people are lying. When you walk into a house and find a dead woman and a man covered with blood, you don’t have to be a genius to put the pieces together.”

“But he moved the body.”

“Sure he did. You don’t think she just sat still while he stabbed her, do you? Come on. I’ve seen hard cases in my time, but this wasn’t one of them. What mystifies me is why so many people have such a hard time believing this guy killed his wife.” Wilson shook and scratched his head at the same time, grinning with disbelief.

“But what was the motive?” I heard a pleading quality in my voice, and I didn’t like it. I sounded desperate. Probably because I was.

“Sometimes people just get pissed off and get carried away. It wasn’t like these two had a perfect relationship. They’d separated before.”

“And gotten back together.”

“Yeah,” Wilson grinned, “that was her biggest mistake.”

The waiter brought our food and we ate quietly for a few minutes. There was an arrogance to Wilson’s conviction that galled me. It was as though he could not accept even the suggestion that the world was not exactly as he saw it. I watched Wilson mow through half his plate of food. Something seemed to be simmering inside him, and he struggled to contain it for a moment, then he finally leaned in and spoke with a voice as unwavering as any I’d ever heard.

“Look, kid, you weren’t there that night. You didn’t see it. It was indescribable. His wife’s blood was everywhere, all over the walls, sprayed up across the ceiling. I mean everywhere. And that son of a bitch Steele, he sat there in that bathroom, with the water running in the tub, and scrubbed the blood off the kitchen knife he used while his wife lay there dying. Don’t forget, he’s a politician, he made his living pretending to be a good guy. Don’t be fooled. He’s a cold blooded killer if there ever was one. I knew it the minute I met him.”

“But you don’t know he did it. No one found even a trace of blood on any of the kitchen knives.”

“They were solid steel German knives. All he had to do was wash it off good. There was no wood on them. There were no little crevices in them, just a solid steel blade and handle. All one piece. It would have taken only a minute to do a good job cleaning it, and he had probably ten minutes total.”

There was no getting around it. Wilson was convinced Steele was guilty. Finally, I asked, “But what about the boyfriend? Why couldn’t he have done it?”

“He had an alibi. He was home with his family.”

“But what if they were lying?”

“You mean, what if he wasn’t home?” I nodded. “Jesus Christ, son, even if he wasn’t home, it doesn’t mean he was down the street killing someone. That’s a goddamned big assumption to make. Don’t you think?”

Wilson watched me sitting there. He cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck, and then rolled his head back on his shoulders. “Look,” he said. “Just think about it. Sharon Steele had at least three big gashes in her neck.” He leaned forward. “Have you ever seen how much blood comes out of a jugular vein?” He knew I hadn’t, just from the way he asked it. “Let me tell you something. You couldn’t be close enough to cut one and not get blood all over you.”

Wilson hunched over his plate and shoveled fried rice into his mouth. Between bites, he added, “The only bloody footprints in the house belonged to Steele. At the time, Matt Bishop was a scrawny fifteen year old punk who wasn’t much bigger than Sharon Steele. He wouldn’t have been able to slip in, overpower her, and get out without a scratch or a drop of blood on him. No way.” Wilson shook his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But what about the daughter? She called Matt’s house the next morning and she said—”

“You’re not listening, son.” He scraped the last of his food into his mouth and talked as he chewed. “Proving Matt Bishop wasn’t home doesn’t prove he killed Sharon Steele. There’s nothing there. Unless you can put him in the house, there’s nothing to talk about.”

Wilson took a long drink of water and leaned his chair back on two legs. “Look son, you seem like a nice kid. Smart, hard-working. What are you doing on a case like this? I realize it’s popular to think all cops are dirty. Hell, I’m an enlightened guy. I’ll even admit some are dirty. But goddamn it, most of us do a good job. In almost every case, the right guy goes to jail. And that’s especially true in this case. You’re concerned with motive? Steele killed his wife. I don’t know why. I don’t need to know why. Murder doesn’t always make sense, son. Hell, it never makes sense.”

Wilson scraped at his plate with his fork again, as if somehow more food might appear. He was thin but muscular, and had the energy and cynicism of a guy who needed a lot of fuel just to deal with each day. But when he spoke again, he had an exhausted tone. “I just want this case to go away. To be over. I’d like to save you some time, son, so you can save some of mine. I’m tired of testifying. I’m tired of dealing with reporters. I just want it to end.”

There wasn’t much else to say. I resented Wilson’s sense of confidence, the self-assurance in his voice. He was used to being right all the time. He was used to having things his way and having what he did matter in the world. I half-suspected that people questioning the Steele case struck him as a personal attack.

Finally, I said, “You keep saying you wish everyone would stop asking so many questions. I’m just curious. Who else is asking besides me?”

Wilson groaned and pulled a file out of the bag by his feet. “Shit, it happens every time Steele appeals. People come out of the woodwork. Calling in, asking all kinds of stuff.” He flipped through the file. “Let’s see. This time it’s some guy named Ray Gee.” He turned the page so I could see his notes. “Said he was a reporter. Calls up with some theory that Steele wasn’t acting alone. He asked me all kinds of questions about the 911 calls and what Steele was doing when he wasn’t on the phone. Your typical bullshit.” Wilson shook his head. “Nut cases. This city’s full of them.”

Detective Wilson left me with the bill and a bad taste in my mouth. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through Chinatown, thinking it over. How certain Wilson was that he had the right guy. How honest Steele seemed. One of them was wrong.

When I made it back to the office I had a voicemail from Morgan Stapleton. I recognized her voice immediately even though I’d only exchanged those few words with her. She said, “I hope I haven’t missed you, but a bunch of us are going out tonight and I was hoping you could join us. We’re meeting at some place called Bar Marmont around nine. Hope to see you there, bye.”

I felt a flush of excitement. What did she mean that she was hoping I could join them? I replayed the message, listening to the intonation of the words. Then I shook my head and thought of Liz. Don’t be an idiot, I told myself.

I leaned back in my Aeron chair and swiveled around to look out the window. I could see the buildings stretch out and away from downtown — the high rises of Koreatown and Miracle Mile, the thoroughfares of Wilshire, Pico, and Olympic clogged with midday traffic. Morgan’s message echoed in my head. It wasn’t worth thinking about. I couldn’t go even if I wanted to. I already had other plans. I erased Morgan’s message and headed for the west side, hoping to beat the traffic.