He expected a flat denial, but the masseur worked his mouth unhappily, like he was chewing something he couldn’t swallow. ‘Does it matter? Birch is dead. So’s Drew.’

‘It matters. Someone murdered Justin Kiel because he was asking the same questions.’

‘Hey, I knew Drew,’ Garth insisted. ‘The kid wasn’t up to something like that. Bad enough to gun down Birch, but those other people, too? No way he did that himself.’

‘Okay. If he didn’t pull the trigger himself, maybe he had help.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like Frank Macy,’ Cab said. He saw a shadow in Garth’s face as the masseur put two and two together. ‘Come on, Garth. Is there something you’re not telling me?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I saw something, but it’s not important.’

‘You obviously don’t think that’s true. What was it?’

Garth was silent, and he squirmed uncomfortably on the car seat. The wine had loosened his tongue, but not enough to get him to spill his secrets. Cab was losing patience.

‘Look, Garth, I’m trying to protect Diane. Justin’s dead. She may be at risk. I need your help if I’m going to keep her safe.’ He didn’t bother to add that if something happened to Diane, the gravy train ended for Garth. No more parties. No more hanging out in the mansion. No publicity bump for his exercise videos. Garth could connect the dots for himself.

‘There’s probably no connection,’ the masseur finally replied. ‘This happened weeks before Labor Day. Way back in July, I think.’

‘What did?’

Garth hesitated. ‘I heard gunshots.’

‘Where?’

‘In the orange groves near the estate. I checked it out. Drew had a gun. He was firing into the trees. Blasting away the fruit. I don’t know, he might have been high. It wasn’t a good scene, you know?’

‘You never told anyone about this?’

‘Are you kidding? No way. I didn’t even tell Diane until later in the summer. I didn’t want to get the kid in trouble.’

‘Was Drew alone?’ Cab asked.

Garth shook his head. He swallowed hard. ‘No. No, he wasn’t alone. That’s the thing. Frank Macy was with him. It was Macy’s gun.’

30

The knife was warm, heated by the dying man’s severed entrails.

When he finally withdrew it from the body at his feet, torrents of rain poured into the wound. The rain spattered the blade, washing pink watery blood over his hands and onto the stone pier. The body below him twitched. The dying man’s breath hacked and foamed; his heart still had a minute or two to beat, spurting rivulets that oozed into the bay.