Cabello and Johnson watched the dazzling Taryn Zimmerman sashay out the door. Having elicited no interest in her theory as to who killed Jack Nathanson from reporter Maxi Poole, she’d driven from Channel Six in Burbank to the Hall of Justice in downtown L.A. to tell it to the detectives on the case.
“So what do you think?” asked Johnson.
“I think I need oxygen!” Cabello grinned.
“Yah, yah,” Johnson said dismissively. He usually got a kick out of Cabello’s raging Italian hormones, but he had no time for them now. “So did Irving Zimmerman have Jack Nathanson done?”
“If you’re seriously asking that, I’d like to sell ya the Hollywood Sign,” Mike shot back. “But yikes! What a major babe!”
“Nathanson had a lot of major babes in his tent,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, Debra Angelo, jeez!” Cabello offered, fanning himself. “And I wouldn’t mind having Maxi Poole between the sheets….”
“What about Maxi Poole?” Jon threw out. “We know she was at the murder scene. During the murder.”
“No,” Mike countered, “we know that dipstick actress thinksshe saw her at the murder scene. She might just be covering her own ass. Besides, there are a lot of black Corvettes around town.”
“You know,” Jon said thoughtfully, “I don’t think Debra Angelo is a dipstick at all. I get the feeling all of that’s an act, that she knows exactly what she’s doing, and exactly what she’s saying. And if she says she saw Maxi Poole driving away from her house that day, I get the feeling she saw Maxi Poole driving away. She wasn’t exactly bursting to tell us that, remember? Do those two know each other?”
“They’d have to. While Maxi Poole was married to Nathanson, Debra Angelo would have picked up and dropped off the kid.”
“Oh, right, and they probably swapped notes on the kid, did their mother thing. Do they like each other?”
“Who knows?” Mike said.
“Still, I’d like to hear Maxi Poole tell us where she was last Saturday afternoon. Should we haul her in?”
“Uhh… What do you think, partner?”
“I think… I think… Lemme bounce this off you,” Johnson tossed out. “I think no, not now, not yet. We know she’s not going anywhere, and we know she’s digging, for real or pretend, and we know she’s good. And she’s real close to the people in Nathanson’s world. And the second we bring her in, the station’s gonna take her off the story. I can’t believe Capra hasn’t done it already. I say let’s sit on it for now and see if she turns anything up.”
“Oh, right,” Mike sneered. “Like she’s gonna call us and tell us what she digs up.”
“You’ve got a TV.” Jon grinned. “We’ll see it on the Six O’clock News!”