Nickel Package

by David Chill

  *

  I drove quickly away from Moonrise Drive, flew down Ridgeline and then jumped onto the San Diego freeway heading north. I kept one eye on the rear-view mirror to see if anyone was tailing me. No one was. After about 10 miles, satisfied there were no police cars in hot pursuit, I stopped for a mediocre cheeseburger at a chain restaurant. It paled in comparison to the burgers they serve at the Apple Pan. The restaurant had at least 25 TVs mounted throughout the room. Most were tuned to ESPN. I'm sure there were better places to eat in Orange County, I just didn't happen to know of any. I also didn't have a contact in the Irvine P.D., which meant I had no leverage if the security guard had indeed called 911. I did know Juan Saavedra now lived in nearby Mission Viejo, but that wouldn't prevent an overnight stay in the Irvine jail. And I didn't think my attorney spouse would be pleased at the thought of having to pull strings in another jurisdiction to extricate her combative husband from the clink. But it did feel worthwhile to have a chat with Juan.

  Before driving back to the Westside, I placed a call to the Purdue Division. Juan was in the field, but his assistant told me he would be leaving early today on personal business. A little probing with her revealed that Juan's son had a basketball game in Gardena later that afternoon. The CIF playoffs were starting, and like any proud parent, Juan hated to miss a game. Short of a major tactical alert, the Captain would be knocking off early today.

  The drive to Gardena didn't take long, but it was still early afternoon. Later in the day, the freeways would be gridlocked. I made a few phone calls, scanned the internet on my iPad, and mostly sought out ways to kill a few hours. I parked in the lot at Junipero Serra High school, and took a walk around the neighborhood. Gardena was a blue-collar area in the South Bay, a mixture of many ethnicities, from Hispanic to Pan-Asian to African-American, and could easily serve as a microcosm for L.A. itself.

  Some people called L.A. the great experiment. Los Angeles was a cosmopolitan city that attracted people from every corner of the world. It wasn't necessarily a melting pot though, it was more of a salad bowl. People often stayed with their own group, but L.A. was also one of the most tolerant places on earth. You could find your niche, and these days, you normally didn't get bothered because you looked or acted differently. That hadn't always been true, but L.A. had evolved. It was hard to say whether this experiment could be duplicated elsewhere. L.A. might just be a little too unique.

  I walked back onto the school grounds and strolled over to the football field. I had visited this campus countless times over the past three years, Serra was a showcase for some of the best prep football players in the country, and recruiting them into the Trojan family was a top priority. When he was head coach, Johnny declared he wanted to build an invisible fence around Southern California, corralling the biggest talent and enrolling them at USC. That meant frequent visits and frequent smiles. I quickly learned my role as an assistant coach began with recruiting top players. And that also meant becoming a salesman, a job I had some difficulty morphing into.

  High school basketball games are normally free, except during the playoffs. The tired-looking parent volunteer at the gym entrance collected a ten dollar bill from me, before engaging in a spirited argument with a pair of teenagers. They had forgotten their IDs and the parent aide wouldn't let them take advantage of the five dollar student discount. The kids started to walk away in disgust. I called them back.

  "Pay your five dollars. I'll pick up the difference."

  "Hey, man. You don't have to do that," one of them said, a light-skinned African-American kid with the hint of a moustache. He was wearing a bright blue hoodie with the school name emblazoned across the front.

  "It's okay. Serra's been pretty good to us. I used to coach football at USC. I know some of the people here."

  "Oh, yeah?" he asked, eyes widening. "Did you coach Marquis Lee?"

  "No, I coached defensive backs. But Marquis was before my time. You know him?"

  "My older brother was in his class. Hey, thanks. You checking out one of our guys for basketball?"

  I smiled what might have been a sad smile. "I'm just seeing a friend. His son's playing for St. Luke's."

  The kids paid their five dollar fees, and I handed some more money to the parent volunteer, along with my disapproving look which was mostly ignored. I knew there were rules to follow, but not giving a teenager a student discount when he's obviously a student stretched the boundaries of reasonable behavior.

  The Serra gym had been a mainstay in local high school sports for many years. The stands were pull-out bleachers that were rickety and proved challenging to climb up. They were half-empty and I could only imagine what the weight of a full house might do to them. They creaked with every step I took. I scanned the crowd and it didn't take long to find the ruddy face and close-cropped silver hair that belonged to a certain LAPD Captain. I navigated over to him.

  "Juan Saavedra. Funny running into you here."

  The deep-set brown eyes focused on me, curious for a moment before recognition set in. "Well, looky here. If it isn't L.A.'s most famous former football coach. You still scouting talent or just come by to give my boy's team some moral support?"

  "Oh, you know me, Juan. I just like a good game to watch."

  "More like you need a favor. This game won't be close," he observed.

  I raised my eyebrows. "How so?"

  He pointed to the two teams that had just come out onto the polished floor. Every player on the Serra team was at least 6'3" and some reached 6'9". All were lean and athletic. By contrast, the tallest player on St. Luke's might have been 6'4", with most of the squad closer to 6'0" tall. Or shorter. In football, there is no substitute for speed. In basketball, it's length.

  "Roberto tell you I left early? He said you were sniffing around the division yesterday."

  "It wasn't Roberto who gave you up," I said. "My ears are everywhere."

  "Ah, I forgot who I was dealing with. You planning on giving my assistant tickets to a game, also?"

  "Maybe an iced Frappucino."

  "She'd like that better," Juan said. "So tell me what you're working on. Got a new client already?"

  "Yeah. BMB. Some background work."

  Juan looked at me. "BMB?" he said with a chuckle. "I suppose they'll pay you well. But Roberto mentioned something about your looking into a cold case with the founder of Laputa. Drowned off of the Marina."

  "Co-founder, name's Jack Beale. I'm actually looking into his business partner. But I guess Beale was high-profile. Your guys work that case?"

  "We didn't work it, but I remember it. Ripe for a TV movie. Millionaire gets drunk, falls into the ocean, and no one on the boat notices until it's too late. Everyone on board was either a big shot at Laputa or had a spouse that was. They all pretty much kept their mouths shut. Solving that one would have been tough for Agatha Christie."

  "Think there was anything there beyond an accident?" I asked.

  "Maybe. But when no one is talking and no evidence exists, you can't do much. And the guy that benefited the most, Eric Starr, he wasn't even on the boat."

  "Speaking of Starr, anything you can share about him?"

  "Arrogant bastard, but that's all I really could gather. He may have had a thing with his partner's wife, who knows. They had some animosity, that's for sure. Why the interest?"

  "Search committee at BMB asked me to look into Starr. Hiring decision. Confidential, of course," I said with a wink.

  "Interesting. I'll keep that to myself," he grinned.

  "What about his family? I understand Starr grew up in Irvine. Near where you live now. Know anything?"

  "Oh, sure. I know everyone who lives in south Orange County. Must be a million people there now."

  "I'd settle for a contact on the Irvine P.D."

  "That I might be able to help you on. Let me go through my file at the office."

  We turned our attention to the game. Serra won the opening tip and proceeded to score the first 12 points at a rapid
clip. Juan's son made a couple of three-point baskets to shave the lead to 12-6 before Serra went on another tear. They scored 8 more unanswered points, and then a thundering, two-handed slam dunk from the Serra center brought the crowd to its feet. A weary-looking St. Luke's coach signaled for a timeout.

  "Not a real fair matchup for a playoff game," I commented. "Your kid's team is going to get boat-raced."

  "First round is always like this. St. Luke's won their conference, but it's a weak one. And besides, we're more of a football school."

  "Your son play?"

  "I wanted him to. But my better half was worried about concussions. Her line in the sand. So we did this thing that married couples do. It's called compromise. He can play any sport except football."

  I thought about this. Last year I made a few jokes about Marcus joining a Pop Warner football league when he came of age. In the world of Pop Warner, the minimum age turned out to be five years old. Gail gave me a look that silently said this was a subject in dire need of discussion. There were risks in everything, and I had seen kids get hurt in all sports, including non-contact ones. Basketball players can take a tumble and land head first onto an unforgiving hardwood floor. Same with volleyball, they play on the same court, and kids sometimes dive for balls. Tennis players can get severe tendonitis in the elbow or knee. Baseball players can get beaned. No matter how many precautions a parent takes, a kid playing sports runs the risk of injury. Usually it's not serious. Once in a while it is.

  "I think playing a team sport is a positive thing for a kid," I said. "If it's a good team with a good coach, the experience can last a lifetime."

  "The good coach part, yeah. You think you'll miss it?"

  I sighed and looked towards the other side of the gym. A stage was set up behind the team benches, since the school used the gym as a theater or an auditorium when it wasn't being used for basketball. Back in the day, multipurpose structures were common. Today, everyone wants their own space. In one exclusive private high school in the Valley, a wealthy parent contributed to the building of an Olympic-sized swimming pool on the campus. He thought his son had the potential to win a gold medal. In the end, the kid barely made the school swim team.

  "I miss the guys," I said. "That was always the driving force for me. I'll admit I wasn't the best coach in the world, but I wasn't the worst, either. I was trying to motivate the players to be the best athletes, the best competitors. And mostly, the best people they could be."

  "SC always gets a lot of talent."

  "Sure. But the kids all came in thinking they'd go on to the pros. Every one of them were stars in high school. College is different."

  "Next level is always tougher. In everything."

  "Yup. Especially the NFL. It's uber-competitive. So a lot of the players I coached weren't going to make it big in pro football. A few of them might, some could win a starting job for a while, a few more could hang on as backup or as a special teams player. I kept telling them to get their degrees. They all wanted a shot at the NFL, but the odds are steep. I kept reminding them that pro football is a really bad job that just pays really well."

  "How did that go over?"

  I shrugged. "When kids think they have a shot at making millions, they don't recognize the costs involved. Most would do anything to make it to the NFL. So my approach was to use that drive to get them in top condition, mentally and physically. I didn't focus so much on the opponent each week. I just tried to get them to play up to their ability. I figured that would translate into success of some kind in life after football."

  "I guess it worked. SC got to the national title game two years ago."

  "We did. Close game with Texas, but a tough loss. Everyone took it hard. It's a different world today. If you lose a championship game, you're simply a loser. Doesn't matter if you were undefeated all season. One team wins the title, everyone else is a failure. I didn't like that part."

  "You were always different," Juan mused.

  "And that's one of the reasons I'm not that sorry I'm out of that life. Not that I had a lot of options in the end. Any new coaching job would have meant moving from L.A. I like it here. It's home."

  We turned back to the court. With the timeout over, St. Luke's ran a pick-and-roll and scored an uncontested basket. Then Serra took off on another spurt. By halftime the score was 49-16. Juan didn't look upset about this. In fact, he said, Serra would probably put in their second stringers and his son might get to play against kids of his own caliber.

  At that point, Juan's cell phone rang. His face grew tighter as he listened. He asked the basic questions, who, when, where, how. Then he gave instructions as to which squads to deploy. He hung up the phone and looked at me.

  "I have to go," he said grimly, looking for a path down the bleachers.

  "Duty calls?"

  "Yeah. And it's funny your being down here with me now. You might want to tag along on this one."

  "All right. What happened?" I asked, not looking forward to what I was about to hear.

  "That was Robbery-Homicide. We lost one of our own today. Well, he used to be on the job, anyway."

  "Did I work with him?" I asked, as I followed his steps.

  "Oh, I think you know him," Juan replied as he began to carefully climb down toward the gym floor. "Hector Ferris. Outside chance it might have been a hit-and-run accident. But more likely someone was targeting him."

  Chapter 4

  The Rancho Park neighborhood is a community best known for its golf course. At one time, Rancho Park was included in the PGA Tour, but that was many decades ago, having been nudged aside by the tonier Riviera Country Club in the Palisades. Nestled beside the wealthier Cheviot Hills enclave, Rancho Park passes for middle class on the Westside of L.A. Middle class is a fluid term, though; homes in Rancho Park often sell for what would be considered outlandish prices in the rest of the country. And even with that, some pay a ridiculous sum just to buy a house, tear it down, and construct a bigger one in its place.

  Hector Ferris lived a block south of Pico, in the shadow of the Westside Pavilion, on a sleepy street where not much drama ever occurred. His house was on a particularly quiet block, shaded by long rows of jacaranda trees. For about a month or so each spring, the trees would bloom with lavender flowers. The delicate petals would float down and create a purple dusting atop the green lawns during much of May and June. But on this early evening in mid-March, the streets were lined instead with police cars, the lawns covered only with grim-faced uniformed officers.

  Access to the street was blocked off by orange cones, and yellow tape had been hastily strung to cordon off the crime scene. One of the uniforms approached me and told me this was not a place for visitors, but a brief conversation with Juan allowed me to be waved on in. Roberto De Santos was standing in the street a few yards away from the victim, the body covered indelicately with an off-white sheet. Roberto was listening to one of the investigators explain why this wasn't an accident.

  "No skid marks, that's the tell," said a long, thin man with unruly hair that looked like it hadn't been combed all day. He wore a blue windbreaker, unzipped, and waved his arms about as he spoke. "Everything we need is right there on the street. You just have to know what to look for."

  "Go on, Lew," Roberto said.

  "If this had been an accident," he continued, "skid marks would show on the pavement, right near the initial impact. They would indicate the driver tried to apply the brakes before the crash. None of that is evident. No sign of braking whatsoever."

  "What else?"

  "Follow me," he directed, and we walked 30 yards up the block. He stopped and dramatically pointed down at the ground. A pair of fresh black streaks were embedded into the asphalt, the marks about six feet apart, the distance that separated two front tires. "This is where the driver started out."

  "How do you know for sure?" someone asked.

  The investigator sniffed and gestured at the pair of black patches.

  "This might look like
a skid mark to the untrained observer. It's actually what we call an acceleration scuff mark. You know that old saying, 'leave rubber on the road'? Well, this is what it looks like. This is where they gunned the engine and took off. Jackrabbit start. Whoever did this was waiting for the right moment. When they saw the victim enter the street, they floored it. Couldn't have been more than 20 feet away from him, we see bloodstains at the initial impact. Blunt-force trauma. Then it just continues for a good 75 feet as the body dragged underneath the vehicle. Probably hooked on by a piece of clothing. The manhole cover finally extricated the body. Lucky thing for the driver."

  "Meaning if the body was still attached to the vehicle ... " Roberto started.

  "Then the vehicle couldn't have been driven much further. And the driver would have been stuck there. Could have gotten out and ran, I suppose, but a getaway on foot is far more difficult. And we would have had the license plate. May have been stolen, but it would have been a place to begin. At least there was one person who saw this happen from a distance. Said it was an SUV. Thought it was dark green."

  Roberto wiped his face. "Okay. Thanks," he said. "Keep digging on this, see if we can get a match on the type of tires. Could narrow it down a little."

  The tall man in the blue windbreaker shrugged. "Sure."

  Roberto started walking away and then noticed me. "Burnside. Need to speak with you. Glad you're here."

  "I don't get told that very often."

  Roberto managed a dry half-smile before walking off. "Stick around. I have some assignments to give out. But I want to talk to you."

  I waited a while as Roberto weaved slowly through the crowd of officers. Across the street, neighbors stood in front of their homes, huddling together in groups of three and four. I noticed one man standing by himself, rocking back and forth as if he were listening to a tune in his head. In his hand was a can of something, neatly encased in a yellow insulated-foam holder. The holder was designed to keep the can cold, but it also masked what he was drinking. He wore dark green cargo shorts and a black t-shirt promoting a local soccer team. If the man was drinking alcohol, he might be loose-lipped enough to reveal something interesting. And while the detectives would hardly approve of my interviewing potential witnesses before they did, I also recognized his tipsiness might not last long.