"The cops came to question him this morning. They said they were following an anonymous tip. Walked straight to his backyard and found a b.l.o.o.d.y baseball bat under the bushes. Before they hauled Ed away, he told me to talk to you. Said you'd know why he's being set up."

"Oh, my G.o.d. I do know why he's being set up. Just this morning he told me he uncovered some irregularities between the Beaumont School and several government agencies. They know he's digging for information. We can be pretty sure he's made some very powerful enemies. Ed needs a good lawyer. Does he have one?"

Crusher nodded. "One of the guys. He's with Ed now."

"What exactly does Ed want me to do?"

He paused for a second, seeming to size me up. "You're hooked up with a cop. You could get information for us."

I crackled at his suggestion. How dare he ask me to manipulate Beavers! "That's ridiculous. I don't take advantage of my friends." Golem or not, I glowered at the giant and put my fists on my hips.

To my surprise, he smiled a little. Then he threw back his head and laughed from a place deep inside.

"What?"

"You're small but fearless. I like that."

Small? Did he just say small? I must admit, standing next to Crusher, I didn't feel the least bit overweight. I stepped aside to let him in the house.

"Would you like some water?"

"No, but I'd sure like to sit down. I've been standing a long time."

My heart sank as he walked inside and headed toward my cream-colored sofa with my favorite blue-and-white quilt draped over the back. I waited tensely for it to collapse under his weight, but I relaxed when only air strangled out of the cushions.

I closed the door and sat in a comfortable overstuffed chair. My living room, painted the color of driftwood, featured neutral-colored upholstery and accents of blues and oranges in the rug and accessories. White linen drapes softly framed the windows. "It's true I want to help Ed, but I'm not willing to take advantage of my friend. Let's just get that off the table right now."

Crusher shifted his weight and the sofa frame groaned. "Okay. I get it, but I know the cops are going to take the easy way out and settle on Ed as the doer. Isn't there anyone else around here who might have had the stones to go after the b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"I can't think of anyone else. Although, I did notice a couple of sleeping bags and other items under the tall bushes on the other side of the river, right across from the crime scene. I'm thinking there might have been witnesses camping there."

"Or maybe a homeless guy killed the dude. The cops are probably already tearing up their place right now trying to ID him."

I nodded. "Yeah, but I think I have a better chance of identifying them than the police do."

Crusher's eyebrows pushed together. "How?"

"I've got a friend." I told him about Hilda and my plans to find the guy who lived under the bushes. "She's arranging a meeting with a guy named Switch, a sort of king of the LA River homeless."

"Don't be an idiot! I know this guy. He's a whack job. Gets his name from carrying a six-inch blade. You can't go in there!"

"Watch me."

"Okay now, babe, that's just wrong. Even the cops don't go in there alone."

"I'm not going in there to arrest anyone. I'm going in to buy information. It's just a business deal."

"You can't deal with those lowlifes. They're thieves, pimps, and dealers. Without protection, you could get hurt real bad. Me and the others will have to go with you."

There it is again! Another man telling me what to do. Is bossiness programmed into their DNA?

"Seriously? You guys look a lot scarier than the police. I, on the other hand, am not a threat. I think I'll have better luck alone."

He shook his head. "You're being stubborn, not smart."

Crusher was right. I'd be taking a big chance going unprotected into a den of known criminals. "Fine. I'll ask Hilda what she thinks. She may be homeless, but she's sharp, and I trust her. If she says it's safe, I'm going in, and I'll try to get her to come with me." I paused for a beat. "How'd you get the name 'Crusher,' anyway?"

"I used to be in that line of work."

"What line would that be?"

"Crushing."

I hope he isn't referring to skulls or kneecaps.

He jerked his head slightly toward the street. "You ever ride a bike?"

"What?"

He smiled and ducked his chin a little. "You want to go for a ride sometime?"

"Are you insane? I'm fifty-five years old, for G.o.d's sake!"

"So?"

"What's your real name, anyway?"

"I told you. Crusher."

"No, I mean the one you were born with."

His eyes twinkled. "Yossi. Yossi Levy."

Impossible! My brain stopped for a second and I blinked rapidly. Did I hear him right? "You're Jewish? There's no such thing as a Jewish biker."

Crusher laughed. He was having way too much fun at my expense.

The knocking on my door pulled me out of my shock. Before I could get up, a key sc.r.a.ped in the lock and Beavers walked into the room. He stood unmoving when he caught sight of Crusher sitting on my sofa. I thought Crusher smiled slightly.

Never taking his eyes off the biker, Beavers said, "Martha?"

I got up and walked over to him. "Hi, Arlo."

He put his arm protectively around my shoulders, still staring at Crusher. "You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be? This is a friend of my neighbor Ed's." I hesitated, trying to decide whether to introduce him as Crusher or Yossi.

Crusher stood, crossed his arms in front of his ma.s.sive chest, and took a slow, deliberate breath. He towered over Beavers by a good six inches and far outweighed him.

Beavers's jaw muscle rippled and his frown deepened.

I looked at Crusher. "This is Detective Arlo Beavers."

Beavers still stared at Crusher, who stared back. Must be a guy thing, sort of like p.i.s.sing on your enemy. "What are you doing here, Levy?"

Surprised, I turned to Beavers. "You know each other?"

Crusher lifted his shoulder to his ear and cracked his neck. "I've seen Detective Beavers at my shop from time to time."

"Your shop?"

Beavers let go of my shoulders and a.s.sumed an official posture. "Mr. Levy, here, owns a motorcycle repair shop on Reseda, not too far from the station. We've had occasion to visit him a few times. Mr. Levy's shop is well-known to my colleagues in the department."

He took a protective step in front of me. "So, what are you doing in this house?"

Crusher wasn't here to hurt me, and I wanted Beavers to know it. "Arlo, I-"

Beavers held up a hand to silence me, and I really, really didn't like that.

Crusher watched my reaction and then sneered at Beavers. "Trying to get her on the back of my bike."

The red crept slowly up Beavers's neck. He opened his jacket, exposing his brown leather shoulder holster. In a very quiet, very low voice, he said, "Time to go, Levy."

Crusher looked at me and I nodded rapidly behind Beavers's back. Crusher walked to the front door. "I'll be in touch, babe. Don't forget what we talked about."

He wasn't referring to the back of his bike.

CHAPTER 7.

As soon as the door closed, Beavers whirled around and looked at me, fury heating his face. I'd only ever seen him mildly annoyed-say a four on a scale of one to ten. This anger scored an eleven.

"What just happened, Martha? How could you let a guy like him come into the house?"

I walked into the kitchen and put a kettle on the stove, put a couple of bags of Taylor's Scottish Breakfast Tea in a pot, and pulled out two cups. "Before we have this discussion, I'd like to get a few things straight."

Beavers followed me and growled, "Like what?"

Outside, the loud guttering of a Harley-Davidson motor accelerated down the street and off into the distance.

"Like the fact that even though you have a key to this house, you do not own this house. You do not get to determine who comes or goes in this house."

Beavers's eyes flashed. "Levy is-"

"I'm not through!" I shouted, getting close to losing it completely. "Even though you and I are together, you do not own me. You do not get to order me around. You especially do not get to silence me in front of others and especially in my own home!"

By now, I stood trembling in the middle of the kitchen. "If you ever do that to me again, Arlo, we're through. Done!" Then the horror of the morning and stress of the day came crashing in on me and I started sobbing.

My fury had the effect of calming him. Beavers walked over and wrapped his arms around me. "After everything you went through this morning, I just wanted to be here with you. Then when I saw Levy inside the house . . . he's an ex-con. We've never been able to prove anything, but he operates on the fringes. Now you're telling me he's tight with our chief suspect? I guess I just went into protective mode. I'm so sorry, honey."

I relaxed into his arms until the emotional storm pa.s.sed. In truth, I liked feeling protected and always felt safe with Beavers.

When the kettle whistled, I fixed two cups of tea. We settled on the sofa and I pulled my feet up and wrapped myself in my favorite blue-and-white quilt. I should be grateful someone wanted to look out for me for a change. Lucy was right; I needed to trust Beavers more.

He sat close to me and we sipped in silence. Then he put down his cup. "So, what was Levy doing here, anyway?"

I had no reason to hold everything back, so I told him what I could, minus the part about my plan to go to the homeless encampment in the wildlife reserve. "Crusher just wanted to know if we could somehow prove Ed innocent of killing Dax Martin."

"What did he have in mind?"

"He wanted to know if any of the other neighbors might have done it."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him no. But if you want, I'll tell you what I think."

"Go on."

My gla.s.ses had slipped down my nose and I pushed them back up. Then I leaned closer toward Beavers. "First of all, I'm pretty sure Martin was killed where he lay. The ground was soaked in way too much blood. Am I right?" I shuddered a little at the memory of the mangled jaw and all those ants.

"Yeah."

I put my cup down. "Okay. Second, we know Dax Martin was a bully. He and his coaches frequently went behind the field to hara.s.s the people living along the riverbank. They made a sport out of rousting the homeless. Bullies usually roam in packs, like wild dogs stalking a single sheep."

"So?"

"So I'm pretty sure Martin wouldn't have ventured outside the security of the perimeter fence unless he knew he'd be safe. That means he must have known and trusted his killer. Martin would never have gone out there with Ed Pappas. Martin was soft around the middle and out of shape, despite being a coach. He would've been no match for Ed."

"Maybe, but Pappas is in serious trouble. We found the murder weapon, a b.l.o.o.d.y baseball bat, in his yard."

"That's not proof of anything. The killer could have tossed the weapon over his back fence." I carried our empty cups to the kitchen and refilled them from the still-warm pot of tea. I loaded a plate with almond biscotti and brought everything back to the living room on a lacquered wooden tray painted with tole roses.

I dunked the end of a biscotti into my tea and told Beavers about the potential scandal Ed discovered involving Beaumont and various government agencies. "I think someone might be framing Ed in order to silence him."

"If you're right about a scandal, Dax Martin was probably right in the middle of it. But why choose him as the victim, especially if he was one of the conspirators?"

Beavers had a point. It was hard to believe some mysterious cabal wanted to stop Ed Pappas from uncovering a scandal so they committed murder and framed Ed for it. Why would they choose Dax Martin as their sacrificial victim?

Occam's razor: the cops would be searching for the simplest motive for the murder and Ed was the perfect suspect.

"Yeah, I know a conspiracy theory may not make much sense right now, or what the connection is with the murder of Dax Martin, but that doesn't make Ed's premise less plausible. Arlo, look at all the recent political scandals that have been exposed in Los Angeles. We live in the most corrupt munic.i.p.ality in the nation, second only to Chicago. Rampart wasn't so long ago."

I referred to the Rampart Street Division of the LAPD, which was responsible in the late 1990s for its own crime wave. More than seventy officers were implicated in a litany of crimes, including drugs, murders, robberies, planting evidence, and perjury. When the story broke wide open, the city was forced to accept a consent decree allowing the US Justice Department the authority to step in for five years and implement serious reforms. Rampart wasn't the city's finest hour.