Dead Pigeon Read Online Free

speaking of Michael Gregory?”
    I nodded.
    “I hope you aren’t suggesting that he committed suicide. He was murdered!”
    “That,” I said, “is what the police claim—mur­dered with a shotgun. They also claim that they found no weapon near the body. I lived in Santa Monica for twelve years and have good cause to believe they were lying.”
    She stared at me.
    “What’s your minister’s name?” I asked.
    “He’s not really—a—a minister,” she said. “His name is Turhan Bay. He won’t be here until this afternoon. Could I have him phone you?”
    “No, I’ll get in touch with him.”
    “Your name?”
    “Carlton Ramsay.”
    “Mr. Gregory was not a member of our flock,” she said, “but he was a very close friend of Turhan’s and Turhan tried to help him.”
    “That’s what I’ve been told. I look forward to meeting him.”
    Millionaire electronic preachers and kooky cults were infesting our country. Maybe Mrs. Casey was right; it was time to return to the true church. But what about confession? How could I convince the priest that incessant lying was a requisite of my trade. It was a necessary evil, designed to keep the bad guys discombobulated.
    There were a pair of teenagers standing next to my Mustang when I came back to the parking lot. They looked normal enough, but who can tell, these days?
    Then one of them said, “A sixty-fiver, right? Two hundred and eighty-nine cubes?”
    I nodded. “Right. With a four-barrel carb and Spelke cams.”
    “What’ll she do?” his partner asked.
    I shrugged. “I’ve never had her over a hundred. I’m too old and too frail to test her above that.”
    “You don’t look frail to me,” he said.
    “How about old?”
    It was his turn to shrug. “Oh, maybe thirty, thirty-two?”
    “You have just earned yourself a pair of Cokes,” I said, and handed him a fin.
    “Thank you, sir!” he said, and the two of them went into Denny’s.
    Maybe for a few beers? No. Denny was strict about that. There was still hope for the future of the planet.
    From there to the SMPD. The desk sergeant told me Lars was out on the street and would be all day. But it was possible, he added, that I could catch him around noon at Ye Sandwich Shoppe on Wilshire. Lars usually ate his lunch there.
    It was still short of eleven o’clock. I used the phone book in the hall to see if there was a listing for Crystal Lane. There was, 332 Adonis Court. I knew the street, a short one, and not in the high-rent district.
    They were all small frame houses on a narrow dead-end street. On the pitted asphalt driveway of 332, a sleek black Jaguar was parked. I wrote down the license number before I went up the one step porch to ring the doorbell.
    No answer. I rang again. The same. I went back to the car to sit and wait. It seemed highly unlikely to me that the Jag was Crystal’s. How long could they fornicate?
    Too long for me. A few minutes before noon I drove to Ye Sandwiche Shoppe. Lars walked in soon after.
    “You bought the dinner,” he said. “I’ll buy the lunch. I suppose you’ve been sticking your big nose into police business all morning.”
    “Somebody has to.” I didn’t reveal my sources, but I told him what I had learned from Denny and Joe Nolan, and what I had suspected at my stakeout at Crystal’s house.
    “You’ve got that Turhan-Lane bit wrong,” he informed me. “They’re not shacked up together. Turhan lives in Brentwood.”
    “Does he drive a Jaguar?”
    Lars shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    I handed him the slip. “Here’s the license number of the Jag that was parked on Crystal’s driveway.”
    “I’ll check it out.” He took a deep breath. “I picked up Miss Lane a few times when I was working Vice a few years ago. But I sure as hell can’t pick her up for having an expensive car on her driveway.”
    “You picked her up for prostitution?”
    “Yup. But she had some expensive clients and beat the rap.”
    “Did you know that she was once