by Paul Bishop
JoJo began walking forward.
“Don’t be an idiot!” Morrison yelled. “Give it up.”
JoJo kept coming. He held his hands out to the side, his fingers spread. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. “Come on, man, kill me,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Kill me!”
Morrison backed up a step, then two. “Don’t screw with me, JoJo. Put your hands up. Now!”
“I want you to kill me. I’m guilty. It’s a sin.” JoJo moved forward again. “Come on, shoot me. You know you want to do it. I’m just another nigger. Come on, shoot me!”
“Only if you make me,” Morrison said. Both men’s’ voices were clear in the night air.
“Then I’ll make you.” JoJo began to run toward Morrison.
Morrison scooted backwards in a half shuffle. He didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man. He waited a half a second as JoJo closed on him and then swung the butt of his gun with both hands.
The impact on the big man’s jaw was devastating. He lurched to the right and dropped to one knee. He had expected Morrison to shoot, not to fight. Morrison moved in fast, pressing his advantage. He kicked out with his right foot, the toe of his steel-capped combat boot making contact with JoJo’s temple. The big man tottered and then fell all the way over.
Morrison stood back, his gun extended again. Sound came back to his ears and he could hear the whumf-whumf of the police helicopter coming in from the distance. Somewhere there were sirens.
He looked for Bassett, who suddenly appeared beside him.
“Roll him over and cuff him,” Morrison ordered.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Bassett asked, moving to do as he was told.
Morrison could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He gasped for air before speaking.
“Because I didn’t have to,” he said finally.
Chapter 25
Fey often found that when she was under stress her dreams seemed to be of an erotic nature. She didn’t know what that meant, but perhaps it was something to talk with her shrink about at the next session.
When the phone rang at one a.m., she was in the middle of a particularly breathtaking sequence that had something to do with muscles, 501 button-fly Levis, and the vague smell of musk mixed with fresh-cut leather and sweat. The image was shattered by the insistent ringing, and Fey unwillingly clambered to wakefulness with her heart pounding and an itch she knew wouldn’t be taken care of soon.
“What?” she grunted into the phone.
“Fey? It’s Terry Gillette.”
“Oh, for hell’s sake, Terry. I need my beauty sleep.”
“But you’re going to love this,” Gillette said. He was calling from the Watch Commander’s office at West LA. “They’ve got him.”
“Got who?” Fey asked.
“The guy who’s putting the kids in the graves.”
“What are you talking about, Terry?” Fey sat up in bed, turned on a lamp, and looked at her clock.
“Morrison and Bassett,” he said. “They caught the guy burying another body down on the beach at Sunset and PCH.”
“In the act?”
“Absolutely, but that’s not all. The guy they caught is JoJo Cullen.” Gillette sounded excited, triumphant.
“Who?” Fey’s brain was fogged.
“JoJo Cullen! Come on, Fey. He’s only the hottest basketball player in the NBA – the next Larry Bird. He’s just signed a three-million dollar contract to promote Nike shoes, but I guess he can kiss that goodbye.”
“I only follow hockey,” Fey said. Her third ex-husband was still an assistant coach with the Chicago Blackhawks. “But the name rings some bells.”
“You’ve got to get in here and control this thing, Fey,” Gillette implored. “The press is going to be all over us.”
Fey began to pull her thoughts together. “Have you called Cahill yet?”
“I called his house and spoke to his wife. She says he was called out a couple of hours ago and should be in here already. Nobody has seen him though. I tried his beeper, but there was no response to that either.”
Fey laughed. “Well, you probably dumped him right in the crap. I bet he stiffed in a phony call-out to get away from his wife and knock off a piece on the side.”
“His own fault then for not letting me know he was going code X.”
“Amen to that,” Fey said. Code X was the unofficial designation when a cop needed to be covered for some kind of extra-curricular activity. “Keep trying his beeper until you get hold of him.”
“Right. Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Fey flung back the bed covers and swung her feet to the floor. “This happened down on the beach?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I want the whole beach area down there taped off, not just the main crime scene. Nobody gets in, and I mean nobody, Terry. No press, no brass, no stray dogs, nobody. Got it?”
“I’ve already got the all of the mid-pm shift down there.”
“Great. Have them rope off a separate holding area for a command post. Where’s the suspect, this JoJo character?”
“He’s getting MT’d over at Santa Monica Hospital. Apparently, he tried to get Morrison to shoot him, but Morrison kicked the crap out of him instead. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Were there any shots fired?”
“Yeah. The kid, Bassett, capped off some rounds at the suspect’s Jeep as it was trying to run him down.”
Fey started pulling clothes out of her closet; black slacks, low heeled shoes, a white blouse, and a black suede blazer. “What are you operating down there, Terry? A frigging three-ring circus? Get the officer-involved shooting team rolling from DHD, but keep them on a leash until I get there.” She pulled underwear out of a drawer. “Hang on,” she said, and held the phone away from her ear as she pulled her nightshirt over her head. She put the receiver back to her ear. “Also, relieve Morrison and Bassett,” she said. “Keep them separated from everybody. Feed them and make them as comfortable as possible. It sounds like they’re in for a bumpy ride. Nobody talks to them until I do. Got it?”
“No problem,” Gillette said, he was busily writing out a list. “Anything else?”
Fey thought for a second. “I want everyone in on this,” she said. “Start with Monk Lawson and then get Brindle Jones and Alphabet rolling. I’ll call Hammer and Nails. Have everyone meet at the station code two.” Fey gave the code two direction so everyone would know the urgency. “Tell them to clear the decks and stand-by for a long haul.”
“You got it,” Gillette said, glad to have somebody taking charge and taking the responsibility off of his shoulders.
“Get the coroner rolling as well, Terry, like usual. I want a criminalist and a photographer from SID. Wait. Make sure they send Eddie Mack to take the photos. Insist on it.”
“Okay. I’ll do what I can.”
“All right, I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. Thanks, Terry.”
“De Nada.”
Fey hung up. She reached into the drawer in her bedside cabinet and pulled out her phone book to look up the home numbers for Arch Hammersmith and Rhonda Lawless. As she dialed, she walked through her house turning on lights. In the kitchen, she displaced an unhappy Brentwood who was sleeping on top of the sheriffs’ murder file.
From inside the file she pulled out the card Ash had given her with his home number. If she had to be up and miserable, there was no reason why everyone else shouldn’t be – including the FBI.
What a zoo, she thought wryly.
As Fey turned her car onto the freeway on ramp, she checked her watch. She’d have to put her foot down if she was going to get to the station in the forty-five minutes she’d promised Terry Gillette. The vintage, black Datsun 280Z was in prime condition and roared along throatily.
She took the car up to seventy-five on the almost empty freeway and set the speed control. Steering with one hand, she wedged her mug of instant coffee between her thighs, the warmth flowing through her crotch and brin
ging back a fragment of the dream she’d been torn from. With her free hand, she fumbled in her purse on the passenger seat and pulled out her cellular phone.
It sounded as if this case was going to get hairy right from the start. She had taken a quick glance at her sports page from the previous day’s newspaper, and sure enough there was a photo of JoJo Cullen jamming home a-two handed slam dunk as the San Diego Sails put away the LA Clippers. As high profile as the situation was going to get, Fey decided she wanted legal counsel with her right from the get-go.
She pressed one of the memory buttons on the cellular phone and waited for Jake Travers to rouse himself from sleep and answer the phone. Their personal relationship may need patching up, but Jake was still the one of the best deputy district attorneys she knew. He’d also jump at the chance to get out to a crime scene, especially one where there would be a lot of cameras.
“Hello.” The voice that answered the phone was young, feminine, sultry, and sleepy.
Fey held the phone away from her ear and stared at it. The correct number for Jake’s residence was prominent in the lighted digital display. She put the phone back to her ear.
“Hello?” the feminine voice said again, this time as a question.
Before Fey could answer, she heard Jake’s voice in the background saying, “Give me that.”
“Hello.” Jake’s voice came on the line thick with sleep.
Fey felt anger rising up inside of her. She didn’t care if the feeling was rational or irrational, it was still there bubbling away.
“Hello, Jake,” she said.
“Fey –”
“Let’s not try to think up any excuses on the fly,” she interrupted. “I know it wasn’t your mother who answered the phone.”
“My sister --”
“Nice try, pal, but you don’t have a sister. Let’s accept you’re a philanderer who can’t keep it in his pants and go from there.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I couldn’t go to your flashy little fundraiser, so you went and found yourself a little trophy slut to hang on your arm. Bet you couldn’t wait to get her home and bed her down. Another notch on your bed post.”
“I’m not like that and you know it!”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” Fey said, anger, hurt, and exasperation all fighting for the upper hand in her voice. “I don’t have time to deal with this now.”
“What else is new?” Jake said, interrupting and fighting back.
“Screw you, Jake.” Fey hit the disconnect button, threw the phone back on the passenger seat, and used both hands to swerve around a mini-van who thought going sixty-five in the fast lane was fast enough.
With clear road ahead, Fey slammed her right palm into the steering wheel. The pain felt good. Coffee from the mug between her legs slopped over onto the seat. She picked up the mug and threw it onto the floor on the passenger side of the car.
“Arrrg!”
She took a deep breath. She had to shut this down. Keep the emotion under control. It was something at which she was very good. She’d had a lot of practice over the years, one way or the other. Had to compartmentalize every segment of her life – keep them separate, don’t let one segment bleed into another. She kept the deep breathing going until she felt things were under control again.
What was she so pissed off about anyway? She knew whatever she and Jake had between them was over. She’d known that for months. Then why did it hurt so much?
If she was honest with herself, she knew why. It all came down to ego. She wanted to be the one to do the leaving. She wanted to do it when it suited her. But Jake had beaten her to the punch, had taken up with some floozy, and now her feelings were hurt. How pathetic, she thought.
And then she turned off all thoughts about Jake. Had to do it. She had a job to do, and she couldn’t be falling all apart when she got to the station like some love-sick teenager.
She couldn’t have anyone think she was falling apart ‘like a woman.’ When you were a woman, you weren’t allowed to be human.
She picked up the phone again and dialed another number. Jake Travers wasn’t the only fish in the sea. She knew several other DAs who would bust a gut to be in on a case like this. And now that she thought about it, one in particular might be the best choice of all.
You had to think ahead in a case like this. Two white officers beating up one poor black man out gathering his thoughts on the beach – their word against his, no independent witnesses – she could see the racial overtones of the defense forming already. In these days, race was the issue even when it wasn’t.
From information, Fey got the number for Winston Groom. She’d done a couple of cases with Groom. The District Attorney’s Office was only a start for him. He’d be a top-flight private practice lawyer within a few years demanding fees that were high enough to cause nose bleeds. He was sharp and aggressive.
He was also very, very black.
Chapter 26
Fey set her command post up in the beach parking lot where JoJo’s Jeep still had its nose buried in the rear quarter panel of Bassett and Morrison’s patrol car. Both vehicles had been pulled far enough out of the entrance to allow other police vehicles to enter and exit. SID had brought a brace of klieg lights with them, elevating them on spindly poles set in tripod bases. The lights spread an eerie glow over the scene, and the noise of the power generator provided an irritating background hum.
Arch Hammersmith had brought his personal war wagon with him. It was a black 70’s Chevy van, with custom rims and wide tires. Inside, it was completely carpeted and had been adapted to provide Hammersmith with anything he might need in his somewhat obsessive pursuit of justice.
Both he and Rhonda had been awakened by Fey’s call to Rhonda’s house. Rhonda had answered and told Fey that she would call Hammersmith. Fey didn’t question the offer. She knew better.
Driving a gray BMW, Winston Groom had appeared on the scene within thirty minutes of Fey’s arrival. He cut an impressive figure. Tall and rapier thin, his body was draped in a rich, chocolate brown suit below which protruded highly polished shoes. A cream-colored shirt and yellow tie set off the ensemble. He was bald, and the black skin of his scalp glistened in the artificial lighting. He’d adjusted the wire-rim glasses that rested on his long, patrician nose, and looked around as if trying to absorb everything at once.
“Have you called in Robbery-Homicide?” he asked when he found Fey.
“This is my investigation, Winston. If I can keep Robbery-Homicide out of it, I will,” she answered. “If you want in, then you play on my team.”
Groom shrugged. “No skin off my nose.” He turned around in a full circle. “Where’s the suspect?”
“Last I heard, he was off to County USC jail ward.”
“He recover consciousness yet?”
“Morrison apparently kicks like a mule. Mr. Basketball is still trying out for the real dream team.”
“You got anybody there in case he wakes up and makes spontaneous statements?”
“Give me some credit,” Fey said. “This isn’t my first homicide.”
“Don’t get on your high horse,” Groom replied, his glasses glinting as he turned them full on Fey. “If you want me on your team, I’ve got to be able to speak my mind.”
“Touché’,” Fey said.
There was another flock of klieg lights set up around the lifeguard station. Lily Sheridan and her crew from the coroner’s office were back sifting through the sand. Eddie Mack had been roused from a sound sleep, but was happily standing by Lily’s side popping flash shots.
A fire department rescue unit had just departed the scene. Morrison had called them on the slight chance the victim had been still alive. After Bassett handcuffed JoJo – whose arms had been so muscular two sets of cuffs had to be linked together to accomplish the job – Morrison had rushed back to the lifeguard station. Once there, he had dug madly with his hands to uncover the victim whose arm he had seen sticking out of
the shallow grave.
At the beginning of watch, Morrison had read through the murder book on Ricky Long and remembered the conclusion that Ricky had been buried alive.
The victim in the sand was another teenager, trussed with the same manner of strangling rope around his neck as the others. Morrison had used his pocket knife to cut the rope, and started artificial respiration – knowing all the while that it was to no avail. When the paramedics arrived, they took over from Morrison, but quickly declared the victim dead.
Fey understood Morrison’s actions, but the crime scene had been virtually destroyed in the process. However, it was a factor they had to live with. If the victim had still been alive and Morrison hadn’t taken any kind of action, the consequences were almost unthinkable.
Fey had sent Brindle to County USC to be present if and when JoJo regained his senses. There was no doubt that sending Brindle was a calculated move. Waking up to a pretty woman could work their advantage if JoJo was inclined to spill his guts. Fey was also playing to the strengths of her team. Brindle was a master at manipulating men. Having her at JoJo’s bedside made much more sense than having her out digging around in the sand.
Before Brindle had gone, however, she and Alphabet had given Fey the information that they had dug up on Ricky Long and the boy known as Rush, the victim of the sheriffs’ homicide.
Bomber, whose real name was Jackson Carter, stated that Rush had been working the local scene as a party boy for about three months. He was a runaway from either Kansas City, Seattle, or Denver, depending on what mood Rush was in when he told you. He’d started out working the streets, but soon found a safer niche immersing himself in the underground rave culture. He was still tricking, but it was a step up the ladder.
Bomber had given Brindle and Alphabet a location for where Rush had been living, but they hadn’t had the chance to follow up on the lead. As far as a complete identification was concerned, Bomber had been a wash. Rush was the only handle he knew for the boy, and not even Alphabet’s kindly, persuasive manner could coax out anything further.