All or Nothing by Elizabeth Adler Page A

tourist, filled with galleries, gimmick stores and gift boutiques. The good hotels and the Pacific beaches brought in the tourists as well as the surfers, and houses and apartment buildings were scattered throughout the neighboring hills.
    This was the first time Giraud had been allowed access to Laurie’s home, and it had taken the combined efforts of Lister and Marla as Steve’s attorneys to get Bulworth to agree to it now.
    “Thanks for getting me out in the rain on a Sunday afternoon,” yawned the detective, who met them at the condo. “I was enjoying a rare peaceful afternoon at the precinct until you came along.”
    The apartment was light and compact rather than spacious. “Around sixteen hundred square feet,” Marla the real estate developer’s daughter assessed. “Plenty for one person.”
    “Unless they’re like you,” Al said. “Then they need twice as much.” He stared at the pastel decor: white, pink, turquoise. “Kind of tropical–looking. I thought she came from Texas.”
    “Looks more like Florida to me.” Marla was looking at the framed photo on the mantel. It was of a dog, a black mutt wearing a red bandanna around its neck. “Cute,” she murmured, ever soft–hearted. “I wonder what happened to him.”
    Al checked the kitchen and the bedroom. No dog basket; no dog bowls; no dog paraphernalia. “Who’s taking care of the dog?” he asked the detective.
    “There is no dog. Never was one. They’re not allowed in this building.”
    The detective stepped out onto the covered balcony for a smoke and Al looked thoughtfully at Marla. “Steve said that when he showed Laurie the pictures of his kids, she showed him a picture of Clyde. She talked about the dog as though she really had it living here with her. Like Steve had his kids. Y’know what I mean? And you notice there are no pictures of people here.”
    “Perhaps she only loved her little dog.” Marla took the dog photo from the shelf and slipped it out of the frame, looking for information on the back, but there was nothing.
    Al was scanning the shelves of books. He stared at the bottom shelf, then glanced over his shoulder at the detective out on the balcony. “Marla, go make nice with the detective,” he whispered. “Keep him busy.”
    “Oh. But how?”
    He threw her a withering look. “What kind of P.I. are you?
You’re
asking
me
how a woman keeps a man interested in her conversation?”
    “Oh. Okay   .   .   .” Marla drifted across the room to the balcony.
    “Got another cigarette, Detective?” Al heard her say in her velvetiest voice. She didn’t even smoke. He knew he would pay for this later.
    He reached down, took a leather–bound volume from the bottom shelf. As he had thought, it was a photograph album. He riffled quickly through the pages. Most of the pictures were of houses that Laurie must have sold and of various holiday landscapes. Then he came across a page of pictures of the little black mutt. In one, it was perched on the hood of a car. Al couldn’t make out the license plate––it was too blurred, but it didn’t look like a California plate to him. Quickly, he slipped the photo into his pocket and replaced the album on the shelf.
    He could hear Marla coughing out on the balcony and he called her back in. “I’m glad I never was tempted to smoke,” she grumbled. “My mouth tastes like a garbage can.”
    “All in day’s work. Every detective I know smokes.”
    “Except you. Now I’ve trained you better. No more garbage mouth   .   .   .”
    He heaved a regretful sigh. “You have no idea how good that garbage tasted sometimes.”
    They were standing in the bedroom now. “Girly,” Marla commented, taking in the thick pile white carpet; the queen–size white and gilt Louis–style bed loaded with ruffled pillows; the round tables with ruffled turquoise silk skirts and glass tops; the pink velvet chaise with a collection of dolls; the bedside lamps with beaded pink shades. “So this