me?”
“Lawyers can spend tens of thousands of dollars on fancy jury consultants, but that’s just money down a hole. One sharp nun is all anybody needs.”
She laughed. It was lilting and simple and pure. That transparency and ease made her face incredibly attractive just then. I knew that was not a good thing to be thinking. The emotion of working close in an intense situation—and there’s nothing more intense than a murder trial—had to be watched.
Fortunately I could almost feel the eyes of Sister Hildegarde on me, ever watching, holding a rubber mallet.
“Enough flattery,” I said. “Let’s get back to work.”
We worked for another hour when I got a call from Sid, B-2’s computer whiz.
78
WE SNUCK HIM into the office. This was where Sister Mary handled a lot of the abbey business, being the nun computer expert. It’s also where Sister Hildegarde was liable to show up at any time, unannounced.
But Sid installed the program and said it was triggered to send him an alert when it caught a whiff of our intruder.
And then we’d see.
It was all a holding pattern now. Like the way everything else in my life seemed frozen in time.
I had to get some things moving.
79
THE NEXT DAY I drove over to the Ezzo Cement Company. It was on the back end of Brazil Street in Glendale, on the east side of the 5 Freeway, across from the Griffith Park Golf Courses.
It was like a different country on this side of the 5. Brown and dusty, it could have been a set in a Mexican caper movie. Over on the green of the links, it was a golfer’s paradise.
I went into the front office of the pre-engineered steel building and found a gaunt, smiling man sitting at a desk, holding a fly swatter.
“Hey hey,” he said.
Hey hey? “How you doing,” I said, going with the mood.
He laughed and nodded his head. Then swatted something on the desk.
I assume it was a fly. But now I’m not sure.
“Do for what?” he said. Thick accent. Russian?
“Is the boss around?” I said.
The Swatter laughed and nodded. “Yea boy.”
I laughed and nodded.
He swatted something else.
“So can I talk to him?” I said.
“More chesty,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
He laughed and nodded.
“Maybe I’ll just go find him myself,” I said. I didn’t know where I’d go, but anywhere but here seemed a step in the right direction.
“Sit, sit,” he said. He got up and waved his swatter like a baton, presumably showing me to sit.
I laughed and nodded.
He went out a back door. A few minutes later he was back with a goateed man, tall, in a long-sleeved shirt with purple and red stripes, and jeans. About forty, younger than the Swatter.
“Help you?” he said.
“My name’s Buchanan,” I said. “You are?”
“Mike Ezzo.” He did not offer his hand.
“I wanted to ask you about Carl Richess.”
“Why?”
“I’m representing his brother.”
“So?”
“Carl worked for you, right?”
“So?”
“If I could ask you some questions—”
“Carl Richess was a troublemaker,” Ezzo said.
The Swatter laughed and nodded.
I said, “So that means he might have had some people mad at him. People like Nick Molina, say.”
Ezzo squinted at me. “What’ve you been doing, snooping around?”
“Look, friend, I’m just doing my job, like you do your job. I’m not out to make any trouble for you or anybody else. I just want to know what happened.”
“You are making trouble. I don’t have time for this.”
“Why was Carl a troublemaker?”
“Because he made trouble,” Ezzo said.
“Hey hey,” Swatter said.
I gave Ezzo my card and said I’d appreciate a call if he changed his mind.
“Don’t hold your breath,” he said.
I laughed, nodded, and left.
80
I SPENT THE rest of the day putting in calls to a couple of forensic labs. I’d need an expert or two in my pocket.
I got back to St. Monica’s around four and headed straight to my home at the northeast corner. Father Bob was watering some flowers he’d planted outside his trailer.
“She got another one,” he said.
I knew he meant an e-mail. This one was a full-on assault. Another graphic description, another drawing of a nun that looked like Sister Mary, and a couplet of sexual rhyme.
“She doing okay?” I said.
“She is, but Sister Hildegarde is about to bust a gasket.”
“Is that a Catholic thing?”
“It does not bode well for any of us, Sister Mary especially.”
I went into my own trailer. Hoping to hear from Sid about the e-mail. I microwaved some macaroni and cheese and read some of my Jake Ehrlich book. I liked the guy’s attitude. I liked his approach to