Faye Kellerman_Decker & Lazarus 03 Page 19

  “That’s what I heard,” Decker said.

  “Well, Byron was upset, I’ll tell you that much,” Chip said. “Old man usually talks in one-word sentences. But yesterday, man, he let it all hang out.”

  “What did he say specifically?” Marge asked.

  “I remember him saying, ‘Who woulda done it, who woulda done it,’ over and over. Byron gets a whole sentence out, he likes to repeat himself.”

  Decker wrote in his notepad: Byron upset! Too upset?

  “Remember him saying anything else?” Marge said.

  Chip shook his head, paused a moment, then said, “Byron Howard and Linda Darcy.” He shrugged. “I sure wouldna figured it, but who the fuck knows? Linda was rumored to have a thing with lots of people, but I never seen it. Never, ever. Boys ’round here like to wag their dicks, know what I mean?”

  “What about Carla?” Marge said. “She was also rumored to have a lot of boyfriends.”

  “Carla’d fuck anyone in pants. Right out back—two, three in a row. In daylight. That lady was a rabbit. You ever see Carla?”

  Only dead, Decker thought. He shook his head no.

  “Man, she was ugly.” Chip sniffed his nose in disgust. “I mean ugly—big ears, big nose, no tits, and an ass as flat as a pancake. And was she stupid. Used to be a rumor going round that she and Earl were twins. You know ’bout Earl, don’t you?”

  Marge nodded.

  “’Course, it ain’t true,” Chip said. “Earl is retard stupid. Carla’s just normal stupid. But she was nice enough. Nice fuck if there was no one else around. Linda was a different piece of ass altogether. Smart, sexy. Maybe a few of the guys were slipping it to her, but she kept it to herself.”

  Chip stopped and yelled another order to the sauce-splattering hype. Then he said, “I had the hots for Linda. Almost had her once. Think she was strung out, then.”

  “On what?”

  “Mostly booze, but a little weed, maybe. I thought she was giving me that hungry look, but it didn’t work out.” He frowned at the memory. “Best I got that evening was a blow job from Dawg’s old lady. What a pisser!”

  “Know anyone who didn’t like the Darcys?” Marge asked.

  Chip said, “Far as I know, the Darcys were cool. The old ones were a little cranky—Granny D’s a Bible-thumper—full of fire and brimstone. Pappy D never had a problem telling you his opinion, whether you wanted to hear it or not. Man, the old fart really hates niggers and rich folk. Has a real hard-on for them developers—Man something.”

  “Manfred,” Marge said.

  “Thems the ones,” Chip said. “Froths at the mouth when he talks ’bout them. But Luke and Linda and Carla…nothing. Used to come around here, eat my pizza, drink my beer, tip my ladies, shoot the shit. Carla would ball some of the guys. That’s it. None of us knew the fuck what happened. Sheeeet, we knowed something was goin’ down when all them cop cars started driving past. But till Byron came crawlin’ in, we didn’t know diddlysquat about details.”

  Marge pulled out the Polaroids. “Ever seen this guy, Chip?”

  The biker took the snapshots, clucked his tongue. “Man, is he fucked up. Who’s the nigger?”

  “The man is white,” Decker said.

  “Can’t be. Look at his skin.”

  “Skin does that when it’s been left out in the elements,” Marge said.

  “But his lips are thick like nigger lips,” Chip insisted.

  “That’s bloat,” Decker said. “Take my word for it, Chip, he’s white.”

  Marge said, “He had a tattoo of a naked lady in a helmet on his right arm, the name Gretchen tattooed on his rear end. Ring any bells?”

  Chip stared at the picture. His eyes widened. “Goddam, is that Rolland?”

  “Rolland who?” Decker asked.

  “Sheeeet! Man, is that Rolland?” Chip asked.

  Marge said, “We’re asking you, Chip.”

  Chip said, “Rolland has a naked lady in a helmet on his right arm and Gretchen on his ass. Couldn’t be two guys with those tattoos, huh?”

  “Not likely, Chip,” Decker said.

  “Man-oh-man, did he ever get fucked in the ass.” Chip muttered another “sheeeet.” “I can sort of make him out now, but if you hadn’t told me nothing about the tattoos, I never would have recognized him.”

  Marge said that was understandable. Decker asked if Rolland had a last name.

  “Uh, yeah. Rolland Mason. Lives in your neck of the woods over the mountains. Bums off of his old lady. Think she hops tables in Saugus.”

  “Do you know his address?” Marge said.

  “Not offhand. Try the book.”

  “What’s his old lady’s name?” Marge asked.

  “Fuck was it? Betty or Betsy something. A real shit-for-brains.”

  “Know what his connection to the Darcys was?” Decker asked.

  “No. He might have been ballin’ Carla. But I can name four other guys swiggin’ beer out there that was ballin’ Carla as well.”

  “We’d like to talk to them,” Marge said. “Would you tell us who they are?”

  Chip thought a moment. “Why not? Maybe they know Rolland’s connection to Carla. Anything, so shit like that doesn’t happen here again. I’ll introduce you. Tell them you’re okay.”

  “Thanks,” Marge said.

  “Anything for you, honey,” Chip said. “I like big women.” He smiled at her. Marge smiled back, then rolled her eyes when he wasn’t looking.

  Decker said, “So you don’t know of any other connection Rolland had with the Darcys other than his relationship with Carla?”

  Chip smiled. “Relationship? You call being fucked belly down on a Harley a relationship?” He laughed. “Sheeeet, you don’t know Carla. She don’t have no relationships. Sure as shit don’t know what Rolland was doin’ at her house. Maybe he was putting the make on Linda. He’s tried it before. Maybe he got lucky.”

  “Maybe Carla didn’t like him getting lucky,” Decker said out loud.

  Chip thought a moment. “Not a bad point, Mr. Cop. Carla didn’t like the attention that Linda got.”

  “Rivalry between the two?” Marge asked.

  Chip asked, “You mean like did they fight?”

  “Yes,” Marge answered.

  “Not in public,” Chip said. “But Carla would get a mean look on her face when guys paid too much attention to Linda. Maybe she didn’t like her sister-in-law stepping out on her brother, though she never said nothing to me about it.”

  “So you don’t know if Linda was getting it on with Rolland?” Marge asked.

  “Nope,” Chip answered. “Ask Rolland’s old lady. Woman used to watch Rolland like a hawk. That’s why he stopped taking her here. I bet she’d know.”

  “Betty or Betsy something,” Marge said. “A waitress in Saugus.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.” Chip eyed the picture once again. “Man-oh-man, I sure don’t want to sign off like this. He was found with Linda, Carla, and Luke?”

  Decker said yes.

  “Linda, Carla, and Luke look like this, too?” Chip said. “Like niggers?”

  Decker nodded.

  Chip said, “Sheeeet.”

  After jawing with a few inarticulate bikers, discovering nothing of significance, Decker gave Marge the “Let’s beat it” look. They walked out to the parking lot, Decker offering to drive this time. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he noticed Pig leaning against a chopper, glaring at the unmarked. The son of a bitch looked mean as hell, but his corpulent body language didn’t suggest confrontation. Decker shook his head. To think that this blob had once been a baby bouncing in his crib. What do we do to ourselves? He gunned the motor and peeled off.

  “What now?” Marge asked.

  “Byron Howard,” Decker said.

  “Mister Chatterbox?” Marge said. “Guess we should know where he was when all this went down.”

  “No doubt he was on his farm,” Decker said. “And we won’t be able to prove or disprove it. But
it won’t hurt to push him a little, see how he reacts. Also, maybe he knows something about Rolland Mason.”

  Decker pushed the pedal to the floor and whizzed by the idyllic landscape, his mind trying to picture Byron Howard as the culprit. His extreme reaction: It could have been guilt, or he still carried the torch for Linda. Or maybe they were still seeing each other and no one knew about it. Then Luke found out and bam…But how did Carla Darcy and Rolland Mason fit into that scenario?

  Witnesses?

  Did Byron shoot everyone to get rid of witnesses?

  Jigsaw-puzzle time. Can’t force the pieces in, they just have to fit.

  Decker slowed when he reached the Howard Honey Farm sign, then pulled the unmarked onto the gravel path and parked next to the green shack-cum-business office. As luck would have it, Byron was in, perched behind the metal desk. And he’d thrown out the fly-studded pizza. The beekeeper said nothing as they walked in, but his eyes were anything but welcoming. Decker spoke first.

  “We might have identified the other man who was murdered along with Luke, Linda, and Carla Darcy. Name Rolland Mason ring a bell?”

  “No,” Howard said.

  “Never heard the name before?” Marge asked.

  “No.”

  “He was a friend of Carla’s, maybe a friend of Linda’s too,” Decker said.

  “Don’t know him,” Byron said.

  “He was a biker.”

  “Don’t know him,” Byron persisted. “Is that all?”

  “No,” Decker said. “I need to ask you some questions about your affair with Linda Darcy.”

  Byron turned deep red, but maintained eye contact with Decker. He said, “It was over afore it started, and it ain’t none of your business.”

  Marge said, “It’s our business if it has anything to do with the murders.”

  “It don’t,” Byron said.

  “It was four years ago?” Decker asked.

  Byron bit his lip. “About.”

  “And it was just one time?” Decker said.

  Byron bit his lip, didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

  “At the Sleepy-Bi Motel?”

  “Goddam big-mouth women,” Byron said. “I’m gonna kill both of them—”

  “Like you killed Linda Darcy?” Decker said.

  “Whatchu say, boy?” Byron coughed out.

  Decker could almost see steam coming from his nostrils. “Just getting your attention, Byron. By the way, did you visit the Darcy farmhouse within the last week?”

  “No,” Byron said. His voice became soft and furious. “No, I didn’t. And I didn’t have nothing to do with anything that happened over there. And I don’t know where I was every single second of the past week, so if you got something to say, say it. If not, get out of here!”

  Decker waited a beat, giving Byron a chance to cool off. He regarded the pinups in back of the desk. Byron, seeing Decker’s stare go over his shoulder, glanced over his back and noticed the nude-women posters as if he’d seen them for the first time.

  “Like your artwork,” Decker said.

  “My baby brother put them up,” Byron said.

  But you didn’t take them down, Decker thought. “One more thing, Byron. Do the Darcys own a gun?”

  Byron said everyone here owned a gun. Decker pressed him on it. What kind of firearms?

  “Shotgun,” Byron answered.

  “What kind?”

  “Browning Pump.”

  “What gauge?” Decker asked patiently.

  “Twelve.”

  “Any handguns?” Decker asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “We couldn’t find anything there,” Marge said. “Know where the Browning was kept?”

  Byron squeezed his hands into fists and said, “Why don’t you ask Pappy D these questions?”

  Decker said he’d do just that.

  16

  Rolland Mason was not listed in the book. Nor did he have an unlisted number. But at least he wasn’t a total cipher.

  Marge reviewed her notes:

  Rolland Mason, born in Macon, Ga. WM, 42, 6'1", 220, brown hair, blue eyes, no wants, no warrants, no priors, the last two words underlined with a bold pencil stroke—a real surprise. His prints had placed him in the USMC—a one-year tour in Nam in ’67, obtaining his honorable discharge in ’68. He returned home to Macon. Married Tammy Reebs a year later, five kids, worked as an electrician. Divorced 1983 after fourteen years of marriage, moved to California. Whereabouts unknown 1983–1985, no California driver’s license, no taxes filed, no address, no phone number, no welfare, no nothing. In 1986, he did obtain a CDL, the address listed now a shopping mall. No info on him after that.

  Marge took out the phone book and started calling coffee shops in Saugus, hoping that Chip’s information wasn’t pure bull. She hit pay dirt after twenty minutes of phoning. Betty Bidel who did the morning shift at Nicky’s knew Rolland very well. Marge said she’d be right down, and Betty said good. The hour between ten and eleven was slow anyway.

  Rolland’s old lady was a stringy brunette with a pasty complexion. Hair packed into a net, Betty wore a starched white uniform, her name tag pinned above a breast-pocket handkerchief. She was manning the countertop, wiping coffee cups with a brown terry-cloth rag.

  As soon as Marge identified herself, Betty said, “So the law finally caught up with him.”

  Marge smiled cryptically.

  Betty cocked her head. “Knew it was only a matter of time. All that meth dealing. I didn’t know nothing ’bout it. You got to believe me on that.”

  Marge said she did.

  “Man, this is the final straw,” Betty announced. “Even if he’d come back, I wouldn’t take him. Not after the dealing. And what he did to me.”

  “What did he do to you?” Marge asked.

  “Left me flat when I was three months pregnant,” Betty said. “Asshole tells me to keep it ’cause he’s gonna marry me, right? Then he just disappears. Come home one day and all his things’re gone from my place. That was it! Hunnerd and fifty bucks out of my pocket to fix up my problem!” Betty folded the towel and began wiping the counter. “No more bikers for me, I can tell you that! Ever!”

  “Any reason for his sudden departure?” Marge asked.

  “’Nother woman, probably.”

  “Linda Darcy?”

  Betty’s eyes narrowed, her lips turned ghostly white. She let out a string of obscenities directed at Linda. What Marge finally learned was that Rolland was screwing many women, but Linda seemed to be a unique problem.

  “He akchilly told me he loved her!” Betty cried out. “He wanted to marry her, can you believe that! Walks out on me after knocking me up to marry some fancy broad with fancy jeans and a fancy chest.” She paused to catch her breath. “Fucking around is one thing. Guys just do that. Like I knowed Rolland was screwing Carla, but that was different. I mean, Carla was just a friendly girl. But Linda was above it all. Miss Perfect Princess. Tell Rolland he can drop dead if he wants bail money. Tell him to go ask Princess Linda for the money.”

  Then Marge broke the bad news.

  Betty clutched her chest, leaned against the countertop for support. It took her around a minute before the tears came. She cried for her Rolland, wailed how she loved him. Marge hugged her, waited until her sobs turned to sniffs, then slowly exited the shop. Over her shoulder, Marge took a final look at Betty. She was still sniffing, her eyes moist and red. But grief hadn’t interfered with her job. She did her chores swiftly, hopping from table to table, refilling salt shakers, muttering to herself as she worked.

  Decker had an hour to kill before his three o’clock court appearance. He called home, but Rina didn’t answer. He debated running out to the ranch to make sure everything was okay, but decided that was foolish. She’d probably gone over to the yeshiva to visit old friends. Or maybe she was shopping. Decker had left her the keys to the Porsche.

  The hell with it, he thought. She could take care of herself
. He’d have to trust her.

  He decided to buy a carton of orange juice and read the paper in Van Nuys Park—his usual pit stop when he was tied up at court. He drove the unmarked out of the court complex, and hooked a left onto Van Nuys Boulevard. A minute later, he passed a block-long western-wear store, a string of iron-gated hock shops, several adult bookstores and a couple of dark, smoky taverns. As he headed south, the stores were replaced by acres of car lots displaying both new and used autos, their rock-bottom prices written in red on white placards placed inside the windshields

  Van Nuys Boulevard. On a warm Wednesday night, it was mecca for cruisers. The street was clogged with bumper-to-bumper cars containing youngsters, oldsters, anyone wanting to make that hormone connection. After his divorce, Decker had often traveled to the Boulevard, observed the pickup rituals and the souped-up cars. His biweekly treks had lasted about three years. He’d stood alone, hands in his pocket, people steering clear of him because he made no effort to disguise his cop demeanor. Once in a blue moon, a woman approached him. And once in a blue moon, he accepted her invitation, bought her a drink at one of the local bars.

  Those days were long gone, and Decker felt no nostalgia for the lonely nights, some drunken cop groupie crying in her beer while groping him under the table. The very thought of it made him cringe.

  Life do get bettah.

  The car lots disappeared, replaced by high-rise medical and office buildings. A block before the Ventura Freeway, the name on one of the skyscrapers caught Decker’s eye. Quickly, he jerked the unmarked into the right lane, and turned just as the light became red. Someone honked his car.

  Decker smiled. He was honked at a lot and deserved every metallic blare he got. He drove like a jerk. But not when Rina was in the car.

  He parked in an underground lot, and entered the Manfred Building from the back. The directory put the corporate offices on the top floor—the fourteenth, which was really the thirteenth, but the unlucky number had been eliminated from the list of elevator buttons. He shared the lift with a pin-striped suit with a runny nose and darting eyes. The suit got out on the seventh floor.

  The elevator doors to number fourteen opened, and Decker found himself staring into the yawning portals of a paneled reception room. It was as big as a tennis court, as hushed as a library.