Free Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) by Marshall Karp Page A

with all the finesse of a rutting pig.”
    “Rutting bull moose,” Terry corrected.
    “Aha! You
were
paying attention,” I said. “I believe our supreme leader also advised you to ‘let Lomax do the talking,’ so if your mouth suddenly goes on autopilot, pop a few Skittles in there to keep it busy.”
    “You really expect me to do my job without talking?” he said as we walked up the driveway.
    “Why not? Harpo Marx made a dozen movies—never said a word.”
    “Harpo had a horn he could honk,” he grumbled.
    I rang the doorbell, and an attractive, fiftyish woman greeted us with a smile which disappeared as soon as I flashed my shield and said, “LAPD. Is Bruce Bower at home?”
    People with nothing to hide are often intrigued, even delighted, to have a cop drag them away from their humdrum routine. I’ve had more than one person joke about who they’d like to play them in the movie version of our brief interview.
    But this woman did not appear to be intrigued, and she certainly wasn’t delighted. “Bruce is not well. I’m his wife Claire. Can I help?” she said, her body tense, her defense mechanisms on point.
    “We’re doing some follow-up on a shooting that happened yesterday, ma’am,” I said. “We’re going through the shooter’s cell phone records, and we’re sorry to disturb you, but we have to touch base with everyone he spoke to recently.”
    “You mean Cal Bernstein?” she said, looking somewhat relieved. “Terrible, terrible thing. We saw it on TV. Bruce was very upset.”
    “It won’t take long, ma’am. Just a few routine questions,” I said, doing my best to sound like a TV cop who has to do a quick scene with a minor character before he gets to confront the real killer. “But if Mr. Bower isn’t feeling well, we can come back another time. We’ve got a lot of people to check off our list.”
    I only gave her two options. Answer
a few routine questions
and get it over with in a hurry. Or send us away and have the specter of a police investigation hanging over her head. I had no doubt which one she’d take.
    “Come in,” she said, leading us into the living room.
    The man sitting on the sofa didn’t look much like the picture on Bruce Bower’s driver’s license. He’d aged about twenty years, his skin was dry and papery, and his hair was gone. Notjust the curly mop of silver gray on his head, but his eyebrows, lashes, and most likely, his pubic hair as well.
    I knew the look. I’d lived with it while Joanie was dying. The ravages of chemo.
    “Bruce, the police are here to ask you some questions about Cal Bernstein,” she said.
    He nodded. “Terrible, terrible thing. We saw it on TV,” he said, echoing his wife word for word.
    “Were you two close?” I asked.
    “Close?” he said, his voice as frail as the frame it was coming from. “I’ve only known him a few months, but you could say we had become kind of chummy.”
    “Where’d you meet him?”
    A simple question, but he rubbed his hand across his chin, vetting the answer in his head before he spoke. “A support group. Cal and I were both dying of cancer. I guess he beat me to it.”
    “I’m sorry to hear about your illness,” I said. “What else can you tell us about this support group?”
    “It’s called Living With Dying,” he said, looking at his wife. “Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night at eight a bunch of people who are gearing up for the final curtain meet in the basement of Our Lady of Mercy Church in Santa Monica and talk.” He looked back at us. “You probably think it’s depressing as hell, but we all have a lot of laughs.”
    “It’s true,” Claire said. “Bruce always comes back from those meetings so energized.”
    “Did Mr. Bernstein ever talk about killing anyone?”
    “Did he ever talk about killing anyone?” Bower repeated. “Of course not.”
    Cops have built-in lie detectors, and between their body language and their verbal choices, the Bowers had given up about