by B. J. Graf
The sun was starting to burn through the thick grey mist shrouding the parking lot as I walked out of the Clara Vista station. I made my way to my Porsche on autopilot, the vein in my left temple throbbing.
I sat in my car and gripped the steering wheel hard. My pounding head seemed stuffed with cotton wool. I opened the window, letting the engine idle and the sea breeze wash over me. The sky was the color of a mottled trout belly. The scent of eucalyptus and wild dill mingled with the tang of salt air.
Rubinov had nailed me on my regrets about Frank, but he was wrong about the crash. Forensics may not have found the cause, but this was no accident. When coincidences pile up like one royal flush after another, someone’s dealing from the bottom of the deck.
Yesterday I’d thought Lee, who’d been under pressure from his work and the threats from the protestors, had killed Britney when she’d tried to blackmail him. But what if somebody else had killed them both?
Only a sliver of steel-hued sky pressing down on the strip of grey-green ocean was visible from the parking lot. A flock of honking geese flew overhead. One goose fell further and further behind the tight V-shaped flying formation of the others – like a black pearl thrown to the ground when a string of pearls breaks from a white neck. Black pearls - like the ones Mrs. Lee wore.
She wouldn’t be the first jealous wife to take out a cheating husband and possibly his girlfriend.
But there I agreed with Rubinov. Mrs. Lee was a cool customer, but she had no priors, and there’s usually a learning curve for homicide. I called up the argument Frank had captured on his phone and watched Mrs. Lee pummel her husband again. Could she have hated him enough to murder in cold blood? Because if this was homicide, it was no crime of passion. Was Mrs. Lee really the type to rig a cheating husband’s engine to explode? It was a leap, but I’ve seen far worse in my time on the force. And Mrs. Lee was well-off. She could have hired someone else to do the dirty work.
Rubinov had said Lee’s car was so fried that forensics couldn’t find any evidence of tampering, or even of the leak itself.
Tony Gomez was the automotive tech expert who’d conducted the forensic evaluation on Lee’s Lexus. The gearhead picked up on the fourth ring, his square furrowed face with Cocker Spaniel eyes appearing on my glove phone.
“Tough break about your partner, Detective.” Tony said after I’d introduced myself. “What can I do you for?”
“Lee’s Lexus.”
“Yeah, I went over it myself.” With his free hand he took a rag from his jeans pocket and wiped a smear of grease and sweat from his face. “Total crispy critter.”
“Do me a solid and check the underbelly once more.” I reiterated the particulars of the leak. “There’s gotta be something near the fuel line. If you didn’t find chemical residue or a timer, it’s something else. Something the average tech won’t find.”
Tony squinched his spaniel eyes and sighed heavily.
He seemed to be weighing the challenge against a good review for a tight budget, so I put my finger on the scales. “For a fellow officer.”
“Aw, geez.” Tony Gomez pursed his lips and sighed again. “Alright. I’ll take another look. Can’t do it today though.”
“As soon as you can. I owe you one.” I left him my number and sat there in the parking lot minutes after Tony’d already signed off.
Whoever tampered with the car had needed access to Lee’s Lexus and time to rig the explosion. The leak couldn’t have started much before the chase or Frank and I would have seen the telltale signs in the casino parking lot. That narrowed the window of opportunity. If somebody’d tampered with the car, they’d have had to have done it at the casino.
Nobody but Lee had approached the Lexus while I’d been there, but what about earlier? Frank had been stationed near the scientist’s car the whole morning Lee had been inside the casino, and Frank’d said no. But given what I now knew about his deteriorating health, the cancer he’d worked so hard to hide, could I even trust Frank’s account?
Plus, when I’d dropped food off with Frank upon my arrival, I’d caught the old guy napping. It hadn’t seemed important then. But it was just possible my partner had dozed off long enough for somebody to tamper with Lee’s car unseen.
It was eleven: autumn sun rode high in the now crystalline blue sky overhead. The vanished cloud cover would have been more appropriate for the day’s coming attractions. Frank’s funeral was scheduled for later this afternoon. I had to change. But first I’d head back to the casino parking lot and see what those security cameras had to say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jo had flown the red eye up north last night for Frank’s funeral - bringing my dress blues with her. Leaving her to sleep-in a while longer, I stepped into the bathroom of the dingy little motel room and put on the uniform.
“Hell of a thing, Eddie.” Adjusting my hat in front of the mirror I heard Frank’s voice so clearly, I turned my head, half expecting to see him standing there behind me. There was nothing but steam and silence.
Writing a hasty note to Jo with a promise to pick her up for the funeral, I slipped out of the room and headed for the Casino parking lot in search of those security tapes.
Shin called before I’d closed the door to the Porsche. He was about an hour’s drive south on PCH.
“Hey Eddie.” Shin’s voice was missing its usual optimistic vibrancy. “Holdin’ up?” His concerned face floated in the L-shaped space of my Nokia Handy.
Avoiding his eyes and questions, I raised one shoulder and let it drop in a shrug.
“Eddie, about Frank…I”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
Shin started to say something and stopped. “See you there.” His pixilated face dissolved as I closed my hand and started the ignition.
Yesterday Lee’s Lexus had been parked in space 003 in the Clamshell Casino lot. A grey Honda with a vanity plate GR8 WON sat there now. I was hopeful. Even casinos as low rent as this one tend to be vigilant on security. Stepping out of my car, I looked up. Sure enough, cameras were mounted on all the parking lot security lights. I noted those with the best angles on all sides of space 003. Climbing up on the spool shaped concrete bases of each light, I read the serial numbers etched into the metal on the cameras’ underbellies into my phone.
The security guard’s cubbyhole was squeezed into a corner near the public rest rooms. Smelling of new paint and stale cat piss, the industrial grey office featured a long low desk with a bank of screens mounted on the wall above.
The fifty-something security guard sat hunched in a swivel chair in front of that desk wolfing down an Egg MacMuffin. He had hair like a frightened porcupine and glasses with thick black plastic frames that could have been cool but weren’t. The guard kept his eyes moving intently between two of the screens.
On one of the screens a server in a skintight micro-mini skirt bent to dispense drinks to the gambling guests. The guard angled his whole body down to the left in hopes of getting a better view.
“If she’s skimming from the till,” I said, “she’s not holding on her person.”
The guard whirled his chair around towards me. “What you want?” A blob of thick glutinous yolk from the MacMuffin dribbled onto his tie.
“Detective Piedmont,” I said, and flashed him my badge.
He perked up as he took in the badge and my dress blues.
“Pete Simpson,” he replied, dabbing at his tie with a paper napkin. His pudgy fingers only smeared the yellow paste. “Two years retired from twenty on the Santa Barbara Police Force.” He reached out to shake hands, then retracted the proffered yolk-smeared paw with an embarrased shrug.
I forced a smile. Given the way things were going, next year I might be the one squirreled away in a grey cubbyhole spying on girls in skirts with more buckles than fabric and dribbling food all over myself.
“Have a seat,” Pete Simpson said, smiling as he pushed forward a small metal seat with his foot. “Wedding or funeral?” Simpson
gestured at my dress blues as he sat back in his rolling chair and took another bite of breakfast sandwich.”
“Not a wedding.”
My words wiped the smile off his face. Simpson held the MacMuffin suspended in mid-air in front of his open mouth for a second without taking another bite – just like a frozen holo-screen.
“How long do you keep the footage? I said.
He set the sandwich down on the paper napkin and wiped crumbs of English muffin and dried yolk from his mouth with the back of his hand. “A week, give or take,” he said. “You lookin’ for something in particular?”
“My partner and I were tailing a silver Lexus yesterday,” I said. “It was parked in your lot for a while before things heated up.”
“Whoa,” he said. “That chase on PCH I saw on the News? The one with the old Porsche?”
“The old Porsche,” I said, thumb pointing at my chest.
Simpson shook his head and clicked his tongue with a slightly sympathetic ruefulness. “Shit, man. I’m sorry - about your partner and all.”
I gave him the serial numbers of the cameras. “Late afternoon.”
He jotted down the numbers. “Man, that was some bad luck you stepped in.”
I nodded.
Pete Simpson swiveled back around so he was facing the computer and bank of screens once more. Watching Simpson type in the serial numbers with one finger was like waiting for the water in a stopped-up sink to drain on its own.
Eventually, he found the footage for the first camera. We started skimming through, looking for anything out of place. Simpson said nothing, but his attention kept wandering back to the pretty servers on the other cameras.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t want to hold you up. How about you make me a copy, and I get out of your hair?”
Simpson squinched his face. “We’re supposed to get permission and fill out a bunch of paperwork,” he said.
“But for a brother in blue…” I wheedled.
He gestured to me to have at it and scooted the swivel chair back over in front of his preferred viewing.
I wasn’t as nimble as Denver on a keyboard, but five minutes later I had a copy of the security disks from all three cameras for that entire day on flash-dot in my hand.
Heading back to the Sierra Madre Motel, I shelved intrusive thoughts of an unwanted future staring back at me in the form of a pudgy nearsighted peeping tom as fast as possible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There wasn’t time to review the security footage from the casino parking lot before Frank’s funeral.
When I pulled up into a space behind the motel room, Jo was already out front waiting, dressed in a little white dress and black pearls: fashion forward funeral attire. On an ordinary day, I’d have told Jo how the dress was anything but ordinary on her, and she would have criticized my choice of accomodations. But today was the day I had to bury my friend. We drove to Frank’s funeral in silence.
The service was held at St. Michael’s Anglican Church one street over from Vista Drive, the small town’s main thoroughfare. The church itself was a simple whitewashed Mexican structure with bougainvillea framing the heavy bronze doors. The thorny bushes erupted into violent fuschia and orange-colored blossoms shimmering in the heat. From the street, it almost looked like the church was on fire, flames licking at the white plaster as they ran towards the tiled roof.
I parked next to the old green Volvo that belonged to Frank’s daughter Susie. Wreaths of blue and white spilled out from the altar to the doors, their sweet perfume heavy in the heat as Jo and I walked inside.
“Hell of a thing, Eddie,” said a familiar voice. Detective Timberman stood in the aisle next to Frank’s and my old captain from North Hollywood station. They’d been talking shop. Something about a struggle for power in the AzteKas ever since Nieto left prison. Timberman gave me a stiff-armed bear hug. Lieutenant Dixon with his bald pate and military bearing just shook my hand and clasped my right shoulder with his left hand, shaking that bald head in wordless sympathy.
There was a jumbotron up near the altar, playing a continuous loop of pictures of Frank. Baby Frank cut to a ridiculously young Frank at his wedding to Ruth then Frank getting his gold shield.
There was a shot of him and me celebrating the Sphinx collar at the Code Seven. I was looking out at the camera. Frank was looking at me. He had an expression on his face like a Little League coach beaming when his player knocks one out of the park.
I don’t remember much about the actual service. In my head, I was back in NOHO working cases with Frank.
“Eddie?” Jo was squeezing my arm.
The next thing I knew I was walking up to the podium on legs as heavy as leaded steel. I’d carefully prepared a speech. Taking the folded pieces of paper out of my pocket, I smoothed the creases with my hands, trying to make the papers lie flat. I cleared my throat and looked out at the congregation.
Seated mourners in blue were peppered liberally amongst those in black and white. Since Frank was retired at the time of his death, there’d be no missing-man chopper formation or a gun salute to pay tribute to his years on the force. But he’d have been really proud to know the thin blue line stretched so far north to see him off.
I refolded my speech, tucking the pages back in my breast pocket.
I heard my voice start to speak.
“People change you,” I said. “If you let them in. So, you want to make sure the people you let in are good people. Frank was one of the good guys.”
Several uncomfortable looking teens in ill-fitting blazers and ties bunched together in the back of the church like a murder of crows. One kid sat hunched by himself off to the side in the very last row. I could guess who they were. Frank had taught a Drug Abuse Resistance Education class continuously for the past twenty years.
Most of the kids stared at me red-faced, but one head in a dark nanoskin hoodie tilted down towards the black chopper helmet cradled in his lap. The neon colors from some streaming download were bright enough to see from the podium. The twerp was futzing with his glove phone – at Frank’s funeral.
“’Serve and protect’ weren’t just words to him,” I said. “He lived them. Frank was my partner and my mentor. He was the father I never had, and I’ll miss him every day of my life.”
There was more I’d wanted to say, but I walked back towards my seat feeling like I’d swallowed a hot coal scorching its way down to my guts.
I was just about to squeeze back into the pew when the kid with the black hoodie stepped out of the church.
I slipped out the side door and followed him to the parking lot. He was just about to lower that helmet onto his head.
Approaching from behind, I yanked his hoodie back hard. He dropped the helmet and it fell, clattering hard on the tarmac.
“What the fuck?!” The kid spat at me. He’d dropped his glove phone too.
I took a step forward and heard the satisfying crunch of computer chips and leather under my right foot.
“Next time show a little respect,” I said. “Especially at the funeral of a guy who tried to help you, you miserable little git.”
Eyes on his back, I retrieved the dropped helmet with my foot, and kicked it into my hands.
“I didn’t even know that old fuck,” the kid spat. His voice was familiar.
As he turned around and took a step towards me, I caught my first good look at his face. He wasn’t one of Frank’s D.A.R.E. kids.
It was Raymond Lee – the son of the scientist who’d tasered Frank’s car that day everything had spun out of control. That was a surprise.
“Why are you here, Ray?”
“None of your business.” He reached out for his helmet.
I pulled the helmet into my chest fast, and he had to let go or lose his balance. He swore again. Maybe Ray had come north with his mother to identify his father’s body. Maybe he slipped away for some air while she made arrangements for the funeral and ended up here.
But Ray’s nos
e was running. He wiped it on the sleeve of his hoodie. Raymond’s skin didn’t yet have the greenish-yellow tinge or the stench of dirty socks, but when you live with an addict as long as I had, you know.
“You’re hurting,” I said. “On your way to make a buy?”
“No. What the fuck.” His eyes narrowed to blazing slits. “Why couldn’t you just leave him alone? My dad.”
“He was caught up in the murder of a young woman, Britney Devonshire.”
“I don’t know anything about those women. But you killed my dad!” Ray’s face was a patchwork of angry red blotches. “I wish it was you who bought it,” he said. “Not your friend.”
Me too, kid. I looked at Ray, and for a second his father’s face pushed through the kid’s features. Father – 333-1110.
When Gabriel Lee had said father after the crash, I’d assumed he was referring to Britney Devonshire’s blood spot. What if he was trying to tell me something about his son?
“I’m sorry about your Dad,” I said. “But I didn’t kill him.”
“Chumonio!” Ray grabbed for the helmet again. This time I chest-passed it to him like a basketball. Ray jammed the helmet on his head, and pulled the visor down over misting eyes.
The bronze doors of the church clattered shut. I looked up to see Jo on the steps with Shin hard on her heels.
I needed more than a feeling to hold Ray for questioning. I let him go, watching his back as he sped off on the Yamaha.
“Everything alright?” Jo spoke in that voice she reserved for calming squalling cats or clients. “Fr. Valdez is starting the interment.”
With a curt nod, I followed her and Shin back inside, vowing to pay a little visit to Raymond Lee and his mother at the first opportunity.
We interred Frank in the columbaria opposite the Mary chapel. When it was over, Ruth squeezed my hand.
“This terrible accident would have been even worse if you weren’t here, Eddie. Thank-you.”