The Second Goodbye

by Patricia Smiley

  Velez had only seen Davie once in Mar Vista Gardens and it was dark and from a distance, but it would blow their cover now if Velez recognized her. Davie caught Reggie’s gaze and scratched her nose. He saw the gesture but didn’t react, so she tilted her head down and watched from under the bill of her ballcap.

  Loco pointed to Velez. “My girl’s got the blow. In her backpack.”

  On cue, Velez lifted the bag from the bench and held it out. “Where’s the money?” she asked.

  Reggie looked menacing with his arms crossed over his chest. Loco couldn’t tell but Davie knew Reggie’s hand was on the nine hidden inside his vest. “You said it was in a car. I’m tired of this bullshit. You got the goods or not?”

  “Give it to him,” Loco said to Velez.

  “Open that bag wide and slow before you stick your hand in there,” Reggie said. “I want to make sure the only thing that comes out is Big C.”

  Velez opened the bag and Reggie glanced inside. “Hand it to me. I don’t want to touch your nasty-ass backpack.”

  This transaction had gone on too long for Loco. He looked agitated and rabbitty. Reggie took the cocaine Velez offered and tucked it under his belt. He looked at Davie and nodded. Both drew their weapons.

  “LAPD!” Reggie shouted. “Down on the ground. Now. Hands behind your head.”

  Loco scrambled to the ground and assumed the position as the rest of the team moved in.

  Velez glared at them in defiance. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

  “Maybe you’ll live long enough to tell me, dipshit,” Reggie said. “Then again, maybe not. Don’t make me say it again. On the ground.”

  Velez mumbled an expletive in Spanish and slowly knelt on the sand.

  41

  Davie had left Velez to stew in a cell in the Pacific jail for thirty minutes, long enough for her anxiety to build. So far she’d refused to speak with Reggie but she hadn’t asked for an attorney. It was Davie’s turn now.

  She walked past the glassed-in holding tanks and secured her weapon in a locker outside the jail before entering through the Officers Only door. Velez was lying on the bench in one of the cells with the hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head and Venice Beach sand still clinging to her shoes. She looked up and scowled when the jailer unlocked the cell and Davie entered.

  Davie loomed over Velez with one shoulder braced against the wall. “You’re in a lot of trouble, girl. Running from an interview is one thing, but now it’s felony possession with intent to sell. If you’re convicted, you could spend three to five years in state prison plus a ten-thousand-dollar fine. Manny will be out of kindergarten by the time you get out.”

  “I was just along for the ride,” Velez said, pulling herself into a sitting position. “I can’t stay here. I need to go home to my baby. I want to call my mom. She’ll come get me.”

  Davie crossed her arms over her chest “Let me tell you what’s going to happen. A bus will take you to court tomorrow where you’ll be arraigned. Maybe the judge will release you on bail, or maybe not. Depends if your mom can come up with the money. If she can’t, you’ll be remanded to the county and locked up somewhere in their jail system. After that, who knows?”

  Velez pulled the hood over her head again and sat for a moment, pouting. “My mom doesn’t have no money.”

  “What about you? You have a job, right?”

  “I quit. The people were no good.”

  “Maybe you could call Daniel Hernandez and let him know you’re in jail. He’s Manny’s father, right?”

  Velez lifted her chin in defiance as she held up her middle finger. Davie ignored the gesture.

  “Tell me about Felix Malo.”

  “I told you before. I don’t know him anymore.”

  “Let me guess. He sends you instructions from prison. You and Loco sell drugs for him, right?”

  Velez leveraged what she thought was a bargaining chip. “If I tell you, will you let me go home?”

  “If you tell me Malo is directing the gang’s drug traffic from prison and agree to testify against him in court, I’ll tell the DA’s office. But that’s no guarantee you won’t still be charged for selling drugs.”

  Velez didn’t respond.

  Davie continued. “What do you know about Javi Hernandez’s murder? You were with him the day he died. His brother Daniel was there, too. Did you kill Javi after Daniel left?”

  Velez stared silently into mid space. If she was surprised Davie knew about Daniel Hernandez’s presence at the crime scene, she gave no indication of it.

  “You and Javi were together shortly before he was killed. What did you see?”

  Velez’s tone was subdued as she withdrew farther into her hoodie. “I liked Javi. Why would I hurt him?”

  Davie gave her a hard stare, noting a tiny fracture in her tough-girl façade. “You tell me why.”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “Who? Daniel Hernandez? Felix Malo? Some other boogieman?”

  Velez’s lips were pressed together so tight the Jaws of Life couldn’t pry them open, so Davie continued asking questions. “Loco’s nose looks broken. You know anything about that?”

  She turned her head to avoid Davie’s stare. “I’m no doctor.”

  Velez still hadn’t invoked her Miranda rights, so Davie kept asking questions. “I was assaulted the night I stopped by your mom’s place. I broke the guy’s nose. He bled all over my shirt. Once the lab matches that blood with Loco’s, I’ll charge him with assaulting a police officer. If you were an accessory, that could add another ten years to your sentence.”

  “I don’t owe you nothing.”

  “Not me, but what about Manny?”

  Velez wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’m going to take care of him. Don’t worry.”

  Davie turned to leave, closing the cell door. “Good luck with that.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. See you in court.”

  “You’re just going to leave me here?”

  Davie walked toward the exit. Over her shoulder she said, “Enjoy your evening.”

  In a panic, Velez bolted off the bench. “I can’t stay here.”

  Davie kept walking.

  “I didn’t kill Javi.”

  Davie signaled the jailer to buzz her into the hallway.

  “It was Felix Malo!” Velez shouted.

  Davie stopped, slowly turning toward Velez. She waited, unsure whether the girl was just throwing out Malo’s name to placate her or if she was telling the truth.

  “How can that be? Felix was in Texas when Javi was killed.”

  “He came back.”

  Davie grabbed a tape recorder and waited for the jailer to unlock the door to Velez’s cell. She sat next to Velez and pressed the machine’s record button. “Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.”

  Velez slumped back on the bench in her cell, biting her cuticles. “Daniel stopped by to say goodbye to Javi before he went to Afghanistan, but I knew he was there to see me. I didn’t want Javi to find out we’d been together, so I treated Daniel mean. I told him to leave and he did.”

  “That left you and Javi alone together.”

  She began rocking her body to a rhythm only she could hear. “A few minutes later, Felix showed up. One of his homies had told him I was screwing around behind his back, so he came home from Texas. I said I’d been true to him but he didn’t believe me. He went crazy. Started beating on me. Said he’d kill me if I didn’t name the man I’d been with. I didn’t want to say it was Daniel because I was afraid Felix would kill him.”

  “What did Javi do?”

  Velez put her hands over her face. “He was high and acting kind of slow. At first he didn’t realize Daniel and I had been together. Nobody knew but us.”

  Th
e silence in the room was palpable. Davie waited for a few beats before asking again. “What happened, Alma?”

  Her hands began to tremble. “I think Javi finally figured out why his brother came that day. Not to see him. To see me. He told Felix to stop hitting me. Felix asked him why he was there alone with me. Javi didn’t say a word. That’s when Felix accused Javi of cheating with me. Javi just sat there. Didn’t say anything.”

  “So Felix took his silence as an admission of guilt and killed him?”

  She nodded. “He pulled a knife from under his shirt and stabbed Javi over and over again. There was blood everywhere but Javi never fought back, just let Felix kill him. I knew somebody would call the cops so we both ran. All I could think about was that Daniel was safe—on his way back to the base.”

  Davie’s emotions were mixed as she realized what had happened. Some people might have considered Javi Hernandez a failed human being, but his life mattered as much as anybody’s. Considering all the wrong choices he’d made, at the end he’d sacrificed his life to save his brother’s. That was about the greatest testament to love a person could make.

  She also thought about Sabine Ponti and all the denigration she’d endured from her neighbors, stepson, and even her own family members. But whatever bad choices she’d made, her life mattered, too. Davie didn’t yet know what all had led to Sabine’s death, but now more than ever she felt driven to find the truth.

  Moisture pooled in Velez’s eyes. “It was my fault. Everything.”

  Davie gave her credit for telling the truth even if it had taken her two years to do it. Felix Malo was already in prison. With a 187 hanging over his head, he wouldn’t be released for a long time—maybe never.

  Davie arranged for Velez to call her mother, picked up her weapon from the lock box, and headed upstairs to her locker to change and wash the gang-queen makeup from her face. Then she returned to her desk, where she found Giordano on the telephone. He looked grim.

  42

  After Giordano ended his call, Davie told him about Alma Velez’s confession.

  “Good work, Richards. You’ll have to verify her story before filing charges, but that shouldn’t be difficult.” He seemed subdued considering she was on the brink of closing one of his old unsolved cases.

  “Now I can devote all my time to the Ponti case.”

  He didn’t respond. Davie wondered why. She wrote up her interview notes and reviewed the case again. She needed verification of Velez’s claims to make an ironclad case against Felix Malo. For starters she’d search Malo’s cell phone records on the day of the murder to confirm he was in L.A. and not in Texas. It was possible his phone had pinged on a cell tower near Javi’s apartment that day. She would also check with Malo’s Texas relatives.

  Twenty minutes later she was still at the computer typing a report when Vaughn walked into the squad room looking glum.

  “I just presented one of my old cases,” he said. “The filing DA kicked it back.”

  “Is it salvageable?”

  “No. It’s just too old.”

  “You need partner therapy?”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  They walked upstairs to the roof deck outside the employee lunchroom and sat on the parapet overlooking the parking lot. Davie listened as her partner vented his frustrations.

  “I feel your pain,” she said. “I have a similar problem with the Ponti case. Gillen’s wife might have information about her husband’s murder and maybe Sabine’s, too. Meanwhile she’s in Tortola where I can’t get to her.”

  Vaughn glanced at a message that lit up his cell phone display. “Yeah, it’s frustrating when things don’t go your way.”

  “I’m still thinking about flying to Tortola on my own to interview her. I have a ton of vacation days piled up. I’m guessing I could get there, interview Gillen, and fly home in three days, four max.”

  Vaughn grabbed her arm with his free hand. “Look at me, Davie. It’s my job to protect you from yourself, so read my lips. I told you before that’s one crazy-assed idea. The department won’t pay for your trip. It’ll cost major bucks and if the brass finds out you went alone, your career is over.”

  “Sabine Ponti was murdered. I just want to find out who killed her. Come to the BVIs with me.”

  “In a word: no. First, I can’t afford it. Second, I burned all my vacation days on that trip to Italy with my parents. Third … oh, screw it. It’s just a bad idea.”

  Davie felt so close to finding justice for Sabine Ponti. She thought about the hours she’d spent interviewing people and getting Giordano to reclassify the case as a homicide. Now she could finally write search warrants and use other tools to undercover information. She wanted to escalate the pace of the investigation by jumping on the next flight to Tortola, but she had to admit there was still work to be done from here.

  She stood to leave. “Thanks for talking me down, Jason.”

  He slipped his cell inside his jacket pocket. “It’s what I do.”

  Davie walked down the stairs to the squad room and found Giordano at his desk, hanging up the receiver of his desk phone. He raised his hand and waved her over.

  “I just got off the phone with Lieutenant Repetto. The captain is sending the Ponti case downtown to Homicide Special. Someone is driving over to pick up the file. Write up a 3.14 Follow-up, reclassifying and transferring the case. Put it on my desk. I’ll sign it.”

  Davie’s mind spun. “What? Why?”

  “Look, Richards, people are dying all around you. You got multi-state felonies, not to mention an arson homicide in another division and a shitload of financial crimes. We don’t have the resources to handle that kind of case.”

  Davie felt sick that this was happening to her again, but she also knew she was powerless to do anything about it. She stood stunned and mute as Giordano rose from his chair and walked toward the lieutenant’s office.

  She sat at her desk and pulled up a CCAD Update exemplar, reclassifying the case from a suicide to a homicide. Next, she wrote a 3.14 summary of the case that would soon be signed and hand-stamped with rhd handling. She printed both and laid them on Giordano’s desk, along with the file. She hadn’t been given the chance to set up a Murder Book for Sabine Ponti. It pained her to realize somebody else would do that now.

  She wanted to be alone with her thoughts but there was no place to escape. People would be sitting around in the lunchroom eating, watching TV, and otherwise invading her privacy. The roof deck was quieter, but there was no place to sit and she intended to be out there for a while. The parking lot picnic table was the only option, so she grabbed a cup of Giordano’s coffee and walked outside to check for news about the wildfires on her phone.

  The Santa Paula blaze was still burning out of control, but fire crews had managed to partially contain the Malibu fire. She’d lost track of how long she’d been sitting in the parking lot—forty minutes, she guessed—but her coffee was cold and the news hadn’t distracted her from the frustration she felt about losing her case to Homicide Special.

  A car she didn’t recognize drove into the Culver Boulevard gate and parked in the detective area. A moment later, Jon Striker rolled out of the driver’s seat and walked toward the back door of the station. He must be the Homicide Special errand boy sent here to pick up the Ponti file, thought Davie. She lowered her head, hoping he wouldn’t notice her, but a moment later he changed direction and headed for the table.

  Striker’s eyes were fixed on hers as he sat on the bench across from her. “I assume you heard. How do you feel about it?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  Striker’s hands were clasped together prayer-like on the table. “It matters to me.”

  Davie didn’t even try to hide her indignation. “Okay, it matters to me, too—a lot. It’s my investigation and it’s being taken away from me for no reason. Sabine Ponti’s dea
th was a closed suicide when I got involved. If I hadn’t knocked on doors and talked to people, that’s what it would still be. Nobody knows the facts the way I do and nobody cares about Sabine Ponti the way I care.”

  “I know you don’t want to believe it at the moment, but we all care, partner.”

  In the LAPD, partner was anybody who was working with you at the moment. She’d been Striker’s partner on another case, but she didn’t think of him that way now. Jason Vaughn was her partner. She didn’t answer.

  He tilted his head. “I’m confused. Didn’t anybody tell you? Lieutenant Repetto asked your captain to loan you to Homicide Special for the duration of the case.”

  The news didn’t completely assuage her disappointment, but it was a step in the right direction. “Giordano didn’t tell me that.”

  “He may not have known, but I’m sure he does by now.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He stared wide-eyed. “Start with something simple. Can you handle a red eye to Tortola?”

  Davie squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she hadn’t misheard. When she opened them again, she said, “How soon do we go?”

  “I’ll make arrangements and let you know. The lieutenant is getting a letter from the Chief of Police, verifying our credentials so we won’t have a problem bringing our weapons into a British territory. You’ve already told me a lot about the case, but I’ll read through the files when I get back to my desk. I’ll call if I have questions. While we’re away, I’ll have members of the team start writing search warrants for records.”

  “Write one for bank records connected to that deposit slip I found in the storage unit and also for Jack Blasdel’s cell phone.” Davie paused, realizing she’d forgotten something important. “What about Jason Vaughn? Is he on loan, too?”

  Striker hesitated, glancing at his watch. “Just you. My understanding is he wasn’t involved in the case.”

  Davie didn’t want to leave Vaughn behind, but she suspected he wouldn’t mind. His experience with Homicide Special on their last case wasn’t entirely positive.