cops were in shirtsleeves, the homeowner was wearing plaid bermuda shorts and a wtf? expression. The body floating facedown in the swimming pool was wearing a navy-blue wool suit, which was odder than the veil of blood hanging like shark bait in the water.
The girl by the pool was more appropriately dressed—if you could use that word to describe the triangles of turquoise fabric that covered her nominally private parts.
“The poor dope,” I said, shaking my head. “He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool—only the price turned out to be a little high.”
The girl looked at me. She had a hot-pink towel clutched dramatically to her mouth, eyes wide above it. Turquoise eye shadow to match her suit, and a lot of waterproof mascara.
“Tom Kolodzi,” I said, with a jerk of the head toward the uniformed cops. “I’m with the police.” You notice I didn’t say I was the police. “You know the guy in the pool?”
Her eyes got wider, and she shook her head. I took out my notebook and flipped it open, turning to shield it from the cops.
“Your name?”
She blinked, and lowered the towel. Her mouth was blurred with red, and she looked like a little kid who’d been eating a popsicle, breast implants notwithstanding.
“Chloe Eastwood.”
“Any relation to Clint?” I smiled, friendly.
“Who?”
I should have flipped a coin and said, Call it, friendo. Instead, I asked, “Do you live here?”
She nodded like a bobble-head doll, her eyes going back to the body. “I just … I just came out to tan, and … there he was.”
“You called it in?”
She shook her head, blond ponytail swishing over baby-oiled shoulders.
“I screamed and Cooney came running out, and the yard guys and everybody.” She waved vaguely toward the house where three nervous-looking Mexicans were clustered. A Mexican woman too, with a blond boy of five or six clutching her leg. “I guess Cooney called.”
Her eyes went to the homeowner: Mr. Bermuda Shorts, shoulders hunched in aggression. One of the uniforms caught sight of me and opened his mouth to order me out. The two uniforms exchanged a quick look, though, then stared right through me before turning deliberately toward the pool.
I relaxed a little. I’d been doing a ride-along—you always want to get acquainted with the cops in a new place—when the 410 call came through. They’d told me to stay in the car, of course, but didn’t lock me in. It could get up to 140 in a parked car, and they didn’t want to explain a dead reporter in the backseat. They didn’t want to explain a live reporter in their crime scene, either; if I kept my mouth shut, they’d pretend they had no idea how I got there, and leave it to homicide to throw me out.
There was a sudden hum, and a whoosh made everybody jump. A timer had come on, and water was rushing down a pile of rocks at the end. It sounded like Niagara Falls, and Gonzales turned and started yelling at the homeowner, who looked confused and belligerent, like a bear in the underwear aisle at Macy’s.
“Cooney doesn’t know how to work the pool stuff,” my new friend said, contemptuous. “My mom always has to do it.”
I took out my cell phone and snapped as fast as I could while everyone’s attention was distracted. The blood in the water was beginning to eddy away from the floating body.
I nodded to Chloe.
“Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
I stepped behind a pair of palm trees, and hit 1 on my speed dial.
“Paulie?” I said, low-voiced as I could over the artificial falls. “Where are you?” She was supposed to be at Scottsdale and Shea, shooting a traffic accident; if she was still there …
“Kolodzi?” Her voice was outraged. “Are you calling me from the men’s room? That’s just gross!”
“No. Get this—10236 North Forty-eighth Street. Body in the pool.” I saw the fresh-sawed stubs on the palm tree by my face and had a brain-wave. “There’s a ladder lying on the ground out front—” The Mexicans had been trimming the palm trees; I’d seen the dead palm fronds on the curb. “It’d be a killer shot from the roof.” And maybe the cops wouldn’t see her before she got it.
The click in my ear coincided with silence; somebody’d turned off the falls. I pocketed the phone and rejoined the party.
One cop was missing; so was the Mexican woman. The palm tree trimmers were edging slowly toward the side