Pike followed the fly, and closed the bathroom.

I walked over to the front door, stared out at the hot earth, then went back to James Lester's chair and sat. Maybe James hadn't known Pritzik and Richards. It was still possible that he had, but if he hadn't then he wouldn't have been able to fake the evidence. He wouldn't have known they were dead. He wouldn't have known where to plant it. Maybe James had been telling the truth. Of course, maybe his dive through the shower glass was an accident, too.

Jonna Lester got the hey-waitaminute-! look again, then frowned as if she was trying to see shadows within shadows and not having a lot of luck with it. She wiggled her finger in the air and said, 'I take it back! There was another guy I saw him with.'

I stared at her.

'This time that I followed him, he went to the Mayfair Market over here and talked to this guy.'

Pike crossed his arms and looked at me. Well, well.

'A guy in the Mayfair?'

'A guy in the parking lot. I thought he was going to the store, but he just parked there in the lot and went over to this other car. James just kinda squatted by the driver and talked through the window, and then this guy gives him a bag and James left.'

'The man in the car gave him a bag?'

'Mm-mm. Like a Mayfair bag. Brown paper.'

'When did this happen?'

Her lips made a tight line. Her eyebrows jumped up and down. Time sense distorted by all the hash. 'A long time ago. Two or three weeks.'

I looked at Pike again, and Pike's mouth twitched. It could've been after Pritzik and Richards were killed and before James Lester phoned the hotline. Maybe we were getting somewhere.

I said, 'What did the guy look like, Jonna?'

'Like a guy. I was behind them and he didn't get out.'

Pike said, 'What kind of car was it?'

'I don't know anything about cars. It was little.'

'What color?'

She frowned. 'Dark blue. No, waitaminute. I think it was black. A little black car.' She was nodding like she could see it.

I said, 'Did James ever mention someone named Elliot Truly to you?'

She shook her head. 'Who's that?'

'Truly was James's lawyer in San Diego.'

She shook her head again. 'Nuh-uh.'

I looked around their living room. I dug through the comic books and monster truck magazines, and looked under the couch. I finally found four days' worth of the Los Angeles Times at the bottom of a plastic trash can in the kitchen. I found the one with my picture and brought it out to her. You could see Elliot Truly clearly behind me and Jonathan Green. I pointed at Truly. 'Was this the man in the car?'

Jonna Lester shook her head. 'Oh, no. He didn't look anything like that.'

I pointed at Green. 'Him?'

'Oh, no. Not him, either.'

I glanced at Pike and Pike shrugged. He said, 'Could've been anybody about anything. Doesn't have to relate to this. Maybe he was buying the hash.'

Jonna Lester's pout had come back, and now it was rimmed with petulance. 'Look, I've been trying to help, haven't I? All those news people said it looked like we were gonna get the reward, and I think we still should. I mean, even though he's dead he's still due the reward, and that means I should have it, right?'

I stared at her.

'Well, it's only right. You're only guessing that he made it up, and even if he did you can't prove it. I don't think he made it up at all. I think he was telling the truth, even if he was a lyin' no good sonofabitch.'

I said, 'Jonna, in about two minutes you're going to call the police. Do yourself a favor and don't tell them how much you should get the cash.'

The pout edged over into full-blown petulance. 'Well, why not?'

Pike said, 'Because with all the remorse you're showing, they'll think you killed him for the money. You don't want them to think that, do you?'

Jonna Lester slapped hard at the couch, then threw the glass pipe to the floor. She stamped both feet. Mad. 'Life really sucks.'

'That's true,' I said. 'But think of it this way.'

She squinted at me, and I glanced toward the bathroom.

'Death sucks worse.'

CHAPTER 23

Jonna Lester dialed 911, identified herself, and told them that she'd found her husband dead of an apparent bathtub accident. Jonna related the facts as I outlined them, and the operator said that the paramedics were on their way.

I made Jonna dump her hash down the disposal and spray Lysol to kill the smell. Flushing it down the toilet would've been better, but I didn't want anyone in the bathroom. Evidence. I had her wash her mouth with bourbon; if she acted goofy or giggly, they'd smell the booze arid figure her for a drunk. The paramedics arrived first, then the police. A uniformed sergeant named Belflower shook his head when we told him who James Lester was and said, 'Hell of a thing, ain't it? Guy stands to collect a hundred grand and he gets his neck slit from slipping on a bar of Ivory.'

I said, 'You think?'

He frowned at me. 'You don't?'

We stared at each other until he went out to his squad car and called the detectives. Pike and I stayed until the police were satisfied that Jonna Lester had found the body on her own and that we had stumbled in later, and then they said we could go.

We stopped at an Arco station two blocks away where I used the pay phone to call a friend of mine who works at the Medical Examiner's office. I told him that James might've had help falling through the glass, and I asked if he might share his findings after the autopsy. He said that such a thing might be possible if I was able to share four first-base-side tickets to a Dodgers game. I said, 'I don't have first-base-side tickets to the Dodgers.'

My friend didn't say anything.

'But maybe I can find some.'

My friend hung up, promising to call.

I dropped Pike off, and it was twenty minutes before seven when I arrived home.

Lucy's rental was wedged on the far left side of the carport, silent and cool in the deepening air. The far ridge was rimmed with copper and bronze, and honeysuckle was just beginning to lace in and around the musky scent of the eucalyptus. I stood at the edge of the carport and breathed deep. I could smell the grease and the oil and the road scents of my Stingray mixing with the smells of the mountain. I could feel the heat of its engine, and hear the dings and pops of the cooling metal. The house was quiet. A horned owl glided across the road and down along the slope, disappearing past the edge of my home. Insects swirled over the canyon, erased by the dark blur of bats. I stood there, enjoying the cooling air and the night creatures just beginning to stir and twilight in the mountains. Home is the detective, home for the night. Sandbagged, unemployed, and feeling more than a little suspicious.

I let myself in through the kitchen. Lucy was on the couch in the living room, reading Los Angeles Magazine. Ben was on the deck, sitting crosslegged in one of the deck chairs, reading Robert A. Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. There wasn't much light, and he would have to come in soon. I said, 'Another strange day in Oz, Lucille.'

Lucy closed the magazine on a finger and smiled, but the smile was small and uncertain. 'We got back around four.'

'Sorry I'm so late.'

'It's okay.' She made a little shrug, and in that moment I wondered how much of the tension from last night was still with us.

'Are you two starving?'

Lucy made the uncertain smile again as if she recognized the tension and was trying to soften it. 'I made Ben a snack a little while ago, but we could eat.'

'How about I make spaghetti?'

'Oh, that would be nice.'

I went into the kitchen, popped open a Falstaff, and took a package of venison sausage from the freezer. I filled a large pot with enough water for the spaghetti, dropped in the sausage, then put on the heat. I heard the glass doors slide open and Ben yelled hi. I yelled hi back. I heard Lucy tell Ben that dinner would be ready soon and that he should take a bath. I heard the guest room door close and water run. The sounds of other people in my house.