Eve and Duncan decided the answer to both questions was no. If they told Celeste a crime scene unit was coming, and she was the killer, it would give her time to get rid of any evidence she hadn’t ditched before. And if they got some chicken, they risked missing Lansing before he headed back to Monterey Park.
They met Burnside in the lobby and went upstairs to the meeting rooms. The sheriff’s talk was in the main banquet room and they slipped in the back, unnoticed by the five hundred collegiate women entrepreneurs but not by Sheriff Richard Lansing, who was in uniform at the dais, giving a speech about how small business investment in a community can deter crime. He spotted the ADA, Eve, and Duncan immediately and looked like he was swallowing back acid reflux.
Lansing was at home on the stage. He was the son of a preacher who had his own church out in Beaumont. But when the time came for Lansing to choose between divinity school and the sheriff’s academy, he picked wearing a badge over a collar. Even so, he still liked to deliver a sermon.
When the speech was over, Lansing took some photographs with the organizers, then gave some excuse for having to go. Burnside, Eve, and Duncan slipped outside to wait for his arrival.
The sheriff emerged a few moments later, his driver/bodyguard right behind him. Lansing had a grim look on his face. “You didn’t come here to rescue me from eating another rubber chicken breast.”
The mere mention of chicken made Duncan glance longingly out the window at the Dinah’s sign across the street.
“I’m afraid not,” Burnside said. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
“This way.” Lansing led them to a small meeting room and told his driver to stand outside the door and keep people out. Once they were inside, he studied the three of them. “You didn’t call ahead and neither did Captain Moffett, so whatever you’re bringing me must be a steaming pile of shit involving the Lost Hills station. And whatever it is, it’s going to draw the media like flies.” He rested his gaze on Eve. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”
It sounded like an accusation, and since he’d put her on the spot, she decided to be the one to break the bad news.
“Six years ago, three off-duty Lost Hills deputies raped two women on the beach and we believe that the detective investigating the case covered it up.”
“Does this have something to do with the woman’s bones that were found a few days ago in Calabasas?” Lansing asked. Eve nodded. “So what you’re actually saying is that you think these deputies raped and murdered her.”
Duncan said, “We’re still investigating the murder and cover-up, but we can prove the rape.”
Lansing looked at Burnside. “How strong is the evidence?”
He knew the prosecutor wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t a case she thought she could win. But he needed to hear Burnside say it anyway.
“The surviving rape victim can ID the deputies and their tattoo, and we have DNA from their semen on her clothing,” she said.
“Tattoo?” Lansing said. “They have the same one?”
“The deputies are inked to show their membership in the Great Whites, a secret society within the ranks of the Lost Hills Patrol Division,” Burnside said, leaving out the fact they weren’t actually certain that Harding had the tattoo.
“Your boss just loves that ‘secret society’ bullshit, doesn’t he?” Lansing said, well aware that the DA made his name prosecuting the tattooed deputies who were arrested for running a protection racket.
“The judge called it much worse,” Burnside said.
Lansing looked at Duncan. “Who are the deputies?”
“Chuck Towler, Dave Harding, and Jimmy Frankel,” he said.
The sheriff winced at the mention of Frankel’s name. “Frankel? He’s in prison for rape and we’ve already paid out $10 million in settlements to his victims.”
“Better get ready to write another big check,” Duncan said.
“Okay, so you’ve proved the rape,” Lansing said. “What about the murder case?”
Eve told Lansing about Sabrina’s efforts to use the tattoo drawing to identify the three deputies, about the other deputy in the Great Whites who tried to warn her off, and about Sabrina’s disappearance the following day.
“The evidence is entirely circumstantial at this point,” Lansing said.
“That’s true,” Burnside said. “But I believe once we get these deputies into an interrogation room, one of them will crack. Even if that doesn’t happen, I’m still feeling good about the case. I’ve won murder convictions with less than we’ve got now.”
“There’s one fact you still haven’t told me,” Lansing said. “Who is the detective that you think covered up for the deputies?”
Eve answered him. “It’s Assistant Sheriff Ted Nakamura.”
“Shit.” Lansing walked across the room, his back to the three of them, and looked out the window at the traffic on the freeway. It couldn’t feel good to know that one of his top lieutenants, the man charged with overseeing patrol operations countywide, let some deputies get away with rape. After a moment, Lansing turned and said, “I need a few words alone with Ronin. Could you give us the room?”
Duncan and Burnside went out. Eve wondered what kind of lashing she was in for and why he was excluding Duncan from it.
“Why didn’t you come to me with this before going to the DA?”
That answered her question about why he’d singled her out for a chat. He’d guessed that she’d made the decision on her own, without including Duncan. But how did he know? It made no difference. She owned this.
“I don’t know how close you and Nakamura are,” Eve said. “I was afraid you’d cover it up to protect him and save the department from another scandal.”
If he was offended, he didn’t show it.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Eve. That’s not why you did it. You made a political calculation. You know that the DA hates me and wants to be the next mayor. You figured that aligning yourself with him would benefit you more than being tied to a sheriff who is already smeared by a prison-beating scandal.”
None of that had occurred to her. She didn’t think that way. “All I care about is doing the right thing for the victims. I’m not interested in politics.”
“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I’m the one you used to leverage the popularity of your viral video into a promotion to Robbery-Homicide at Lost Hills.”
“You made that decision, not me.”
“You know damn well why I did.”
“You were playing politics,” she said.
“We both were. You knew the pressure I was under then and you know what I am facing now. You saw an opportunity and you took it. Now you’re doing it again. That’s politics. There’s just one thing I want to know,” Lansing said, narrowing his eyes at her. “What’s your endgame?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Are you positioning yourself for a run for my office? Or is this all about selling a TV series?”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Your job would still be in the burglary detail in Lancaster if it wasn’t for that video,” Lansing said. “But I will admit that you proved yourself when you solved that triple murder. You even managed to become a media hero again.”
“You got a boost from the press, too. Both times.”
“Yes I did. But not this time, will I? You’re going to arrest two deputies for rape and possibly murder, reveal a ‘secret society’ of corrupt deputies, and expose a plot by the department to cover it all up.”
“Not the department,” she said, “just Nakamura.”
“That’s not how the media will see it or package it.”
“I won’t talk to the media unless you tell me to, and even then I will only say what you tell me to say,” Eve said. “In other words, sir, you can present the story any way you want as long as the guilty are punished for what they did. The rape, the murder, and the cover-up. That’s my endgame.”
Lansing looked b
ack out at the traffic again. She could almost hear the gears grinding in his brain. “This all happened six years ago, right?”
Eve immediately knew what he was getting at. The crimes weren’t committed under his watch. He was cleaning up the other guy’s mess. Lansing could be the hero of this story, even though he was the one who’d promoted Nakamura to assistant sheriff.
“That’s correct.”
Lansing nodded to himself. He could work with this. He turned back to her. “You informed me the instant that you suspected that deputies might be involved in felonies and that a detective might have helped hide their crimes. I told you to treat this like any other case and that I would back you every step of the way. Are we clear?”
“We are.”
“Okay. Send in Burnside, then wait outside. This will only take a minute.”
Eve stepped out of the room and waved over Burnside. “The sheriff wants a private word with you.”
Burnside went in. Duncan gave Eve an inquiring look. She led him off toward the window, out of earshot of Lansing’s driver, where not only could they see the Dinah’s sign, but they could smell the fried chicken. Both their stomachs growled.
“The sheriff was with us on this from the get-go,” she said. “He let us run with it, wherever it might lead.”
“I guess that’s what he’s telling Burnside. She and the DA will go along with it, even if it makes it a bit harder for them to capitalize on the scandal at his expense.”
“I don’t care how they spin this, just as long as those deputies are taken off the street.”
Lansing opened the door a moment later and waved them over. Eve and Duncan went back inside the room.
“Now that we’re all on the same page,” Lansing said. “Let’s talk about how we arrest these two armed men without anybody getting shot.”
It was almost 4:00 p.m. Eve and Duncan sat with Lansing in his black Expedition, which was parked beside their plain-wrap Explorer in an abandoned warehouse on the eastern bank of the Los Angeles River in Glendale, where the 134 freeway met Interstate 5. They waited in silence. Duncan held his jacket over the grease stain that he’d left on his shirt when the four of them were eating from a bucket of Dinah’s fried chicken and strategizing at the DoubleTree. Somehow, only Duncan had managed to stain himself.
“Do you often meet people in empty warehouses?” Eve asked the sheriff, who sat in the front passenger seat. “I thought this kind of thing only happened in bad movies.”
“You’d be surprised how often it’s necessary for me to meet people away from the public eye.”
“Or any eyes,” said Duncan, who sat beside Eve in the back.
“It’s a complicated job that requires unlikely alliances. There are people who don’t want to be seen with me and vice versa that I still need to talk with to understand our community or maintain the peace.”
Eve asked, “Do you carry around a list of empty warehouses in Los Angeles County?”
Lansing gestured to the driver beside him. The man was so silent and still that Eve almost forgot that he was there. “That’s one of Rondo’s jobs.”
Rondo? Eve thought. What kind of name was that?
At precisely 4:00 p.m. a black Lincoln MKZ came in and parked beside the Expedition.
“Right on time,” Lansing said.
Ted Nakamura got out of his car and eyed the plain-wrap Explorer suspiciously. Lansing got out of the Expedition first.
“Thank you for coming out, Ted.”
It wasn’t as if Nakamura really had a choice. “What’s the situation?”
“You are.”
Eve and Duncan emerged from the back of the Expedition and Nakamura stiffened up. He looked at Lansing and said: “I don’t understand.”
“Tomorrow we’re arresting Deputies Charles Towler and Dave Harding for rape. Murder charges are likely to follow. The question I’m wrestling with now is whether Detectives Ronin and Pavone should also arrest you for obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact.”
“If I could just have a word in private—” Nakamura began.
“Why do you think we’re here and not at headquarters or in your living room?” Lansing interrupted. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“You’re going to humiliate yourself and the department if you arrest anybody. Ronin and Pavone don’t have a case against Towler or Harding, much less me,” Nakamura said. “It’s all circumstantial and built on Ronin’s vivid imagination. She’s let her emotions run wild.”
“That’s what you told me,” Eve said. “But we know more than you think we do. We know Sabrina Morton remembered that her rapists had the same tattoos, the ones worn by deputies at Lost Hills. We know she had an artist make a drawing of the tattoos and then she came to see you with it. We know you didn’t report it and tried to discourage her. We know she showed the drawing around Malibu anyway and that a deputy warned her off.”
“You don’t know anything,” Nakamura said. “It’s what you believe. You don’t have evidence to support any of it. You don’t have Sabrina Morton’s testimony. You don’t have the DNA. You don’t have anything.”
“Sabrina wasn’t the only one they raped that night. They also raped her roommate,” Eve said. Nakamura looked bewildered. “You didn’t know about her because she didn’t step forward until now. She says Sabrina came to you with the drawing. She also identified the tattoos and she picked the deputies out of a photo array.”
“You’re making a rookie mistake,” Nakamura said. “This woman, whoever she is, told you what you wanted to hear, or worse, you coached her, intentionally or not. But even if what she says is true, which I seriously doubt, it’s meaningless without DNA.”
“We have that, too,” Eve said.
Nakamura wasn’t shaken. “No you don’t.”
“You sound very confident, Teddy,” Duncan said. “Is that because you tossed the rape kit or altered the case number so it would never be found?”
“I won’t dignify that with an answer. The fact is, you don’t have the DNA, end of story.” Nakamura turned to Lansing. “I can’t believe that you’re seriously considering any of this. There’s no case here against anybody. What we have is a rookie with an agenda and a fat old detective who should have retired years ago.”
“We don’t have the rape kit,” Eve said, “but we have the bathing suit the other victim wore that night.” Nakamura turned back to Eve. She could see his confidence was cracking. “The DNA matches Towler, Harding, and Jimmy Frankel.”
Nakamura swallowed hard. His throat had gone dry, which Eve knew was an involuntary response to stress. A tell. He said, “I don’t see how that changes anything.”
“I do,” Lansing said. “The only question I have is just how much you knew about the rape and murder when you covered up the crimes. So you’d better start talking, Ted, and when you do, we need to hear the truth. Because how honest you are now will determine whether you leave here in handcuffs or not.”
“What does the ‘or not’ mean? I just drive away as if nothing happened?”
“I take your badge and gun. You go home and say nothing about this case or this conversation to anyone. You retire, effective immediately, and never work in law enforcement in any capacity again. You move out of Southern California, preferably to another state or country, where the odds of any of us ever seeing your face again are the same as encountering Bigfoot, extraterrestrials, or Elvis.”
Eve hated the offer Lansing was making, but Burnside had made a convincing argument at the DoubleTree that the case against Nakamura was hardly a slam dunk. The trial would be profoundly embarrassing for the department and, rather than proving a crime, might only succeed in establishing that Nakamura was a lousy detective who’d nonetheless managed to rise to the highest ranks. On the upside, no matter how it turned out, Nakamura would be publicly shamed and professionally ruined.
He seemed to be making that same calculation as he stared at the floor and considered the sheriff’s offer.
When Nakamura looked up again, his decision made, he pinned his gaze on Eve and said: “What did Sabrina Morton think was going to happen, going to the beach half-naked, drinking, and doing drugs with a bunch of guys? C’mon. We all know she wasn’t raped. She simply got more of what she wanted than she’d bargained for. Girls who behave like her know the risks of their drinking, drugs, and promiscuity. They deserve whatever they get. But I did my job—I took the report and sent the rape kit in, knowing it would be years if it was ever tested. By then, she wouldn’t want to pursue charges anyway. She’d be married, with two kids, and wouldn’t want the reminder of what an irresponsible slut she was in her youth.”
Nakamura stared at Eve as he said every word, as if checking to see if he’d managed to provoke her. But she kept her face impassive, or at least she hoped that she did. Eve didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words offended her, how sickened she was by his opinion of rape victims. He shifted his gaze to Duncan. “You know that’s true, Donuts. We’ve seen it happen.”
“She came back to you later with the drawing of the tattoo,” Duncan said, ignoring Nakamura’s comment. “You knew then, without a doubt, that it was Lost Hills deputies who’d raped her.”
“They fucked her,” Nakamura said. “There’s a difference.”
“Did you warn them that she remembered their tattoos?”
“Warn who? I didn’t know which deputies were involved. There were probably at least thirty or forty deputies out there with that tattoo. But I knew what the result would be if her accusations came out. It would be a huge scandal for the department. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Why should we all be tarnished by the conduct of a few basically good guys who partied a little too hard with loose girls? Why should their careers be destroyed by a momentary lapse in judgment? So I didn’t report the tattoos and I changed the case file number so it wouldn’t match the kit if the result ever came back.”
“You did more than that,” Eve said. “When Sabrina started showing the drawing of the tattoo around on the beach, you sent Deputy Pruitt to warn her off.”
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