The Crime Writer

We headed offon foot, sourcing the distant chime of the Mexican-food truck as Chic filled me in on the latest from the database guy. He'd unearthed a number of the overlaps between Genevieve and Broach that Kaden and Delveckio had referred to, and a few others that sounded irrelevant. Broach and I both belonged to 24 Hour Fitness but worked out at different locations. We both had checking accounts at Wells Fargo. Stop the presses.

"And there's one other tidbit nothing that shudders the heavy bag, but worth poking at." Chic pouched his lips. "Your boy Delveckio bought his life-insurance policy through the same broker as Adeline." He reacted to my face before I could say anything. "I knew you'd go spinning on this like you did with the Cal Unger thing" though he'd agreed to look into it, Chic had been understandably skeptical about Cal as suspect "but it's probably nothing, like everything else. Question, though what's a rich girl like Adeline need a million-dollar life-insurance policy for?"

"Genevieve had one, too they were each other's beneficiaries. Their father read in some in-flight magazine that people with life insurance live longer and take fewer risks."

"Ain't that like buying a Subaru because you hear people with low blood pressure own 'em?"

"I thought so, but Luc plays golf with Warren Buffett, and I use the driving range off I-5, so whose advice are you gonna take?" I rolled my lips over my teeth, bit them. "I don't like this Delveckio overlap at all."

I pictured the detective in the interrogation room, his weak features set in their best approximation of anger. I did the advise-next-of-kin for Adeline. I wish I'd borrowed your camcorder first so I could make you watch her reaction. I repeated his words to Chic, who shrugged.

"Don't you think it's weird he referred to her by first name?" I asked. "And why mention her at all, let alone so emotionally? And now we've got a million-dollar life-insurance policy in the mix."

He gave me the slow-down hands. "It's a big city, but the right demographics cut it down to size. So they used the same insurance broker. So the fuck what?"

I was embarrassed to have no answer. Plus, how would Delveckio fit with Frankel, my lead horse? Like Cal, Delveckio ran across Mort Frankels every day in the course of doing business. Frankel could be a hire. Or, given the paucity of connective tissue, both cops could be red herrings. Delveckio and Genevieve's kid sister used the same insurance broker. Any more salient than my sharing a gym with Kasey Broach?

Chic interrupted my thoughts. "Hard to imagine Delveckio having an affair with Adeline I've met her and seen him, and that match only works if the finances tilt the other way." He sucked his teeth, an old Chic standby. "And even if they was? What they need another million for anyway? If there is a hook here, it ain't the broker, it's a step removed. The cat who referred them to the broker, that kind of stuff. Until then it's just another L.A. overlap. So we'll keep chasing the digital trails and focus on whoever put that sheen on your forehead when you first drove up. And that was…?"

I was convinced Chic was Sherlock Holmes in another ethnic incarnation. I told him about Morton Frankel and asked him to put his guy on him to see if and how he connected with the other living and dead players in our evolving drama. Chic of course lifted an eyebrow at the new name and listened pensively while I yammered on about the case developments.

"What you gon' do next?" Chic asked. He seemed to have been expecting my silence, and nodded. "Call me when you need it."

We ducked into the corner store and picked up a plastic braid set for Asia's friend.

"That's how it works," he said. "They buy crap for your kids, then you buy crap for theirs. It's supposed to show you're caring."

My cell phone rang, and I tugged it out of my pocket and answered.

"You'll be here at one-thirty, correct?"

It took me a moment to place the voice as Caroline's.

Junior's court date. Oh, yeah.

"Hello?" she said.

"I'm just… I'm sort of tangled up today. More than usual, I mean."

Caroline said, "Last I heard, your presence was court mandated."

"There is that."

"Get him there, then you're off the hook. But you'd better not screw this kid over with what's at stake for him."

From my brief experience ofjail, I knew it was no place for a fourteen-year-old who cried over his dog going to the pound.

"I agree," I said.

"Trust me, you don't want to go to war with me."

"No," I said, "I think I enjoy you too much."

I hung up as Chic ran down the food truck. His shapeless jersey, from an obscure minor-league team, drooped to midthigh. Together with his unlaced black high-tops, it made him look as if he'd raided the closet of one of his sons. We strolled back together in silence, the sun coming off the pavement in waves.

"The lady psychologist?" he finally asked.

"Yeah."

"You like her?"

"A lot. She's a bit hard-edged, though. Moody, too."

"Always easier to take somebody else's inventory."

"What do you mean?"