The old man seemed happy and relaxed and now he wanted to visit. He started talking about crime in the city and how it didn’t used to be that way, but with all the security now, his business had never been better. Leonard let the man babble as he gathered the badge, flashlight, and handcuffs and set them on top of the glass case between them.
“Anything else, young fella?”
“How much is that Buck knife there, the one with the rubber grip and a sheath?”
Ray walked with purpose through the back door of the bureau and into the squad room. He had a case file in his hand. I sat on the far side of the expansive room talking to Floyd at his desk. Ray nodded when he noticed me and angled toward us. When he was within speaking distance he said, “It’s not her.”
“Wait, what? Our Jane Doe, it’s not Chaney?”
He was shaking his head. “Nope.”
I stood and met him near the row of desks. Floyd leaned back in his chair, watching while biting at the end of a pen.
“Who is she then?” I asked.
Ray handed me the file. I opened it, and as I started to read it, Ray began: “Lisa Williams. She’s a high-priced hooker out of the Marina area, from what I’ve discovered so far.”
Her photograph was printed on one of the sheets that listed close to a dozen arrests, mostly drugs. I noticed several arrests for prostitution and a couple for extortion too. Those caught my attention, but there wasn’t much information that accompanied the entry, only the date, agency, and disposition. Most of her cases had been dismissed.
“These extortions, LAPD Venice, two years back, another from Culver City PD . . . those are interesting. You know anything about them yet?”
He shook his head. “No, partner, just came back from the lab. This is hot off the press. In fact, we need to go brief the captain, asap. This is big news.”
I closed the file and handed it back to him.
Floyd said, “How’d you ID her, Ray?”
“DNA, believe it or not. But the reason her DNA was in the system is another mystery. Provost is looking into it for me.”
“Do we love Doctor Provost?” Floyd asked, of nobody in particular.
“Ready when you are,” I said to Ray. Then to Floyd, “Try staying out of trouble, would you?”
“You two are boring the hell out of me. I think I’ll head up to the crime lab, have a visit with Doc Provost, find out how her research is coming along.”
I reminded him he wasn’t actually assigned to our case.
“Hey, I’ve got my own cases . . . I’m sure there’s something around here I can dig up that needs to be resolved by the sexy doctor.”
Ray and I walked off with Floyd adding something about me not liking fun and a newswoman with pretty eyes.
The squad room was nearly empty as it always seemed to be late in the afternoon. It was Monday, which meant a third of the bureau would have the day off. That third would be up for murders through the weekend and work through to the following Thursday, ten days straight. Of those who were on a regular work day, some were out in the field investigating their cases, while others had maybe finished for the day and were off to see their wives or girlfriends or both before the bodies started stacking up again. Though there was an on-call schedule, you never knew when a cop would be killed or multiple murders would occur at once and everyone then became fair game for recall.
Ray and I walked into Stover’s office but he didn’t look up from his computer screen. “One of you better have good news.”
I sat down, committed to keeping my mouth shut.
Ray said, “Well, I suppose it is good news to some, bad for others. We have our girl ID’d.”
Stover looked up. “Yeah? Is it the missing person?”
“No. It’s a gal named Lisa Williams, a high-priced call girl out of the Marina. She has probably a dozen arrests ranging from prostitution and dope to extortion. That’s about all we know right now, this ID is hot off the press. Figured you’d want to know asap.”
“Jesus Christ,” Stover said. “Okay, well . . .”
He seemed to lose his train of thought, or maybe he didn’t have one. He wasn’t an investigator, and he didn’t think like one. He was an administrator. He was likely thinking how this might impact his budget, whether overtime would be involved, is it better that we have her identified, because now we still had the case of the missing person. What would be the political fallout, and how pissed off would the sheriff be to find out this case just got worse?
I watched him and thought about what he might be thinking, and I realized we were probably miles apart in our thoughts and ideas. I wanted to know things about the dead woman, this Ms. Lisa Williams. Was she married? Did she have kids? If she was married, does the old man know she was hooking? Why was she in Santa Clarita if she was from the Marina, and what the hell was she doing getting herself whacked in Marilynn Chaney’s car?
The crime scene photos stayed with me as I went through this list in my head, and new questions surfaced: Where was she killed? We knew she wasn’t killed in the car from the lack of blood evidence. Also, she didn’t drive it there given the seat position. A man or tall woman drove that car there. How tall was Chaney? I had pictured Mrs. Chaney when I first thought it, and then I pictured Mr. Chaney, the tall, handsome, smug sonofabitch in his big leather chair. And where the hell is the lovely Mrs. Chaney, now that she isn’t our dead woman in the car? That was the real question.
Ray broke the silence. “You don’t have a woman disappear only to have her car recovered with a dead woman inside, who isn’t her. Not normally, anyway. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It is unsettling,” Captain Stover said, “that’s for sure. How did you identify the dead woman?”
“DNA. It’s a hundred percent, boss.”
“Nothing’s ever a hundred percent, Cortez. Have them double-check it. There’s something just not right here. When are you guys in the rotation again?”
Stover seemed to be studying a calendar on his desk. It was color-coded to show which teams were on call at any given time. With six teams, each comprising twelve investigators, to provide 24/7 coverage of a 4,000 square mile county and its ten-million residents, came a complex system of scheduling.
Ray said, “Three and Four are up this week. We come up this weekend, Teams Five and Six.”
I finally chimed in and wished I hadn’t, only because I had told myself to just listen. “Unless it’s busy and our teams come up early.”
Captain Stover thought about it for a minute before saying, “So, you guys are off today?”
Ray nodded. I stared straight ahead.
“Jesus, you guys and your overtime.”
And of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut now. “I guess we could be off playing golf when the sheriff calls you for an update.”
Stover glanced up at me but didn’t speak. He leaned back in his chair, glanced through his office window out to the squad room. He seemed to be thinking, and it seemed he ignored my comment. Normally, he and I would go at each other, and a comment like that wouldn’t go unanswered. Maybe the captain was getting soft. Or maybe just tired of my shit.
“You guys are going to need some help on this,” he finally said. “There’s just too much to it, and I have a bad feeling this is headed in an ugly direction. If Three and Four are up, pick someone off of One or Two and have them work this all week with you. No limit on the overtime. Also, tell your lieutenant I said not to put you two up for murders in the next rotation. I don’t care how if your team is short in the line-up.”
I decided to push my luck. “How about Floyd and his trainee, Diaz? I know Floyd could use the overtime.”
Stover grinned his smug grin and held it for a moment. “Yeah, I don’t care, that’s fine. I can’t keep you two apart anyway, so I might as well put you together. And where the hell has White been? Is he still working this case with you?”
Ray lied, “Yeah, boss, he’s still at it.”
The captain’
s eyes darted around aimlessly as he seemed scattered in his thoughts. Finally, he looked at me and said, “Tell your old partner this is temporary, don’t get any ideas. I might leave you on Five if you and Cortez can stand each other. And if you don’t crash any cars or kill anyone in the next ten days or so. That’d be nice.”
I felt myself actually smile. It seemed for a moment he didn’t hate me, but I was skeptical. “Thanks, Captain.”
He ignored it and said to Ray, “Keep me posted on this. I’m not saying anything until we have an absolute on the ID, and we have a strategy of how to go forward. No word to anyone outside this office about any of this until I say so. That includes the sheriff. If his office calls, you don’t have anything new to report. Same with Santa Clarita. In fact, don’t answer your fucking phones unless you know who it is calling and it’s neither of them.”
I had stood but waited in front of his desk until he was finished speaking. Ray followed suit.
Stover finally said, “That’s it. Get at it.”
Leonard pulled out of the lot onto Hollywood Way, leaving the uniform store behind but not the images of all those guns stored in the display case. He thought about smashing the glass and collecting several of them, and then he saw himself doing it in the dark. He would have to think about it. The more he thought about a gun, the more he liked the idea of having one, or maybe more than one. He could teach himself to shoot, that would be no problem. He and Whitey had taught themselves martial arts. He had taught himself to drive. Everything is easy when you’re smart.
His car began sputtering when he pulled away from an intersection where he had stopped for a red light. He pushed the gas pedal further down and it sputtered even more. He feathered the gas and it began to find power, but just as he built up speed, the car’s engine died. He cranked the ignition over and over as he coasted it to the side of the road and stopped, cursing under his breath. After trying for several minutes unsuccessfully to start his car, he took the keys and walked away, seeing the smiling Russian in his head, and then having a vision of hitting the goddamn Russkie in his fucking head with a hammer.
He walked to the next intersection where he found a gas station that still employed a mechanic and offered a tow service. It was something Leonard found odd—one of many things—after spending twenty-five years in prison: there were no more service stations. Gas stations had pumps but you were on your own, ladies too. You had to go in and pay for your gas before you bought it. It drove him crazy. How the hell would he know how much it would cost? So, he would usually do twenty at a time. He didn’t want to have a full tank of gas if he were going to abandon the car somewhere. Which might happen at any given time, if the heat was turned up. Also, he knew it would always take twenty bucks worth. That kept him from having to go inside twice and interact with people and touch door handles that thousands of dirty people before him had touched.
After making some arrangements with the manager, the mechanic told him to hop up in the tow truck and he’d give him a ride back to get his car. The guy was an Armenian or Russian, or one of those fucking gypsy types, and Leonard thought here it goes, he was going to take it up the ass again. The whole lot of them were probably in cahoots.
I called Floyd who answered the phone, panting. I pictured Doctor Provost in the white lab coat underneath him, and then the blonde news woman with the pretty eyes. But the background noise gave his location away and rendered in my mind the more accurate vision of him at the gym, sweat dripping off of his head, bare chest, and arms, onto blue mats that lined the floor. He was probably looking at the wall of mirrors as he stood speaking into his phone now.
“Working out?”
“Yeah, what’s up, Dickie?” he said through heavy breaths.
“You up for some overtime this week?”
“I’m not working the goddamn Gay Pride Parade, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I smiled, recalling a night we signed up to work overtime in West Hollywood on Halloween. It was a freak show, and we both swore we’d never do it again. He always referred to it as the Gay Pride Parade, even though it wasn’t. I didn’t even know when or where any such parade was held, or if there even was one.
“No gay parades, pal. Me and Ray Cortez need some help on the Santa Clarita case, and I volunteered you and your partner. Stover actually went for it.”
“Ah shit, Dickie, I don’t know, man. The kids have games all week, Cindy’s been all over my jock about never being home . . .”
I waited.
“I haven’t been to the gym but maybe twice all month, and now you want me to go back to your crazy idea of working around the clock seven days a week. I know you, Dickie.”
“So, you’re in?”
“Yeah, I guess. What are we going to be doing?”
“Well you heard about our Jane Doe, how that just went sideways on us with the ID, right?”
“Yeah, your dead girl isn’t the missing girl.”
“Exactly. And that’s a big problem for us. We need to get some direction and go at it on several different fronts. Why don’t you finish your little Jane Fonda workout, wash your nasty ass, and be back here at the office by seven. We’ll brainstorm it then. Oh, and call your goon.”
He laughed. “Mongo. Yeah, shit, I’ll need to stop him before he gets into the Jack. When we’re not on call, that sonofabitch gets drunker than a tent full of Indians.”
“No shit, huh? A Jack and Coke guy?”
“No, straight. I thought he was Samoan, by the size of him, then just figured him for a big-ass Mexican, with Diaz for a name and all. Now I’m starting to think the crazy bastard’s an Indian, the bow and arrow type, you know what I mean? Tonto, or Chief Firewater, I don’t know.”
I chuckled. “Okay man, get crackin’. I’ll see you in an hour.”
He hung up without saying goodbye. I texted him the emoji of a middle finger. I had recently discovered it and had been dying to use it on him, just waiting for the right time.
On my way to the kitchen for coffee I stopped by Ray’s desk to confirm our plans. “Just talked to Floyd. He’ll be here by seven and hopefully his partner too, if he’s still sober. We can brief and brainstorm then.”
“Sounds like a plan, partner. Thanks.”
19
IT WAS NEARLY eight by the time the four of us had gathered in the conference room. There had been phone calls and emails and matters of great importance, such as making a fresh pot of coffee, that preceded getting to the business at hand.
Once we were settled, Ray briefed the case from the beginning. Much of what he said was a repeat from the briefing he had given at the bureau meeting five days earlier. He updated Floyd and Mongo with what had transpired since that briefing, including our meeting with Mr. Philip Chaney, the husband of the missing person, the two men in suits who arrived as we were leaving, the status of their vehicle license having no record, and finally, the news that was hot off the press, that the missing person found dead and decapitated in Marilynn Chaney’s black BMW was not Ms. Chaney after all. She was, in fact, Ms. Lisa Renee Williams, a thirty-four-year-old high-dollar hooker with a nose candy addiction and a willingness to commit other crimes for financial gain.
“Like what?” asked Floyd, who sat at the end of the large, dark conference room table, one leg crossed over the other. His shirt collar hung open and he hadn’t bothered to put a tie back on. Two Styrofoam cups sat on the table in front of him next to a can of Copenhagen, a notepad, and pen. One of the two cups steamed from the fresh coffee it contained; the other would no doubt be a spit cup.
“She has a couple extortion charges, one out of Venice and another out of Culver, if I recall correctly. We don’t have the particulars yet. I think extortion is an interesting charge for a high-dollar hooker. Makes you wonder what she was up to, and then you have to ask if that has anything to do with her losing her head.”
Mongo sat to the side of Floyd, his hands folded high on his stomach and his chin tucked down to meet his tie
. He watched and listened carefully, though you didn’t expect him to say anything. For one, he was relatively new, less than a year at the bureau. He was a fifteen-year veteran on the department with a solid reputation as both a street cop and then a gang detective, but he was still new to Homicide. The other reason you didn’t expect him to say anything is he was the type who didn’t have much to say. He was more of an action guy, a hands-on guy. The type of man who spent his free time working on the house or cars, making repairs or remodeling if he wasn’t coaching sports or lifting weights. He was the type of cop who studied everyone and everything, and although he was slow to act, when he did there would be a big wake behind him.
I sat at the opposite end of the table from Floyd, next to Ray. I said, “Ray, what are your thoughts about how this Williams broad plays into the bigger picture? I mean, the Chaneys are up to their necks in something, there’s no doubt about that. How does Mrs. Chaney go missing and a hooker wakes up dead in her car? That’s the question. There’s just too much going on for it to not all tie in together, somehow. Do you have any thoughts about any of that?”
“I don’t know, partner, to be honest.” He was studying a DMV photograph of the good-looking blonde with bright blue eyes that was the former Lisa Williams. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, the whole deal. It doesn’t make sense.”
There was silence.
I looked at Floyd and nodded. He thought for a moment and then offered his thoughts. “Maybe it was meant to fake her death—Chaney’s—that was my first thought. Have we looked into insurance policies on her yet?”
Ray said, “Yeah, that was one of our first thoughts after meeting with Mr. Chaney, a financial gain angle. He said she has a million-dollar policy and shrugged as if that was hardly worth mentioning.”
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 44