The Two Minute Rule

by Robert Crais

  “Yes, I’ve spoken with him and Captain Levy. Levy was Richard’s commander.”

  “Right. I’ve spoken with him, too, but I still have some questions about how this could happen.”

  “Juarez blamed Mike for what happened to his brother. Do you know that whole story?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the paper. You knew Sergeant Fowler?”

  “Mike was Richard’s training officer. They were still really good friends.”

  “Random told me that Juarez had been making threats ever since his brother was killed. Was Mike worried about it?”

  She frowned as she thought about it, trying to remember, then shook her head.

  “Mike never seemed worried about anything. It wasn’t like I saw him that often, just every couple of months or so, but he didn’t seem worried about anything like this.”

  “Did Richie maybe mention that Mike was worried?”

  “The first I heard about this gang business was when they issued the warrant. Richard never said anything, but he wouldn’t have. He never brought that kind of thing home.”

  Holman figured if some guy was shooting off his mouth and making threats, he would pay the guy a visit. He would let the guy have his shot straight up or put the guy in his place, but either way he would deal with it. He wondered if that’s what the four officers were doing that night, making a plan to deal with Juarez, only Juarez got the jump on them. It seemed possible, but Holman didn’t want to suggest it to Elizabeth.

  Instead, Holman said, “Fowler probably didn’t want to worry anyone. Guys like Juarez are always threatening policemen. Cops get that all the time.”

  Elizabeth nodded, but her eyes began to redden again and Holman knew he had made a mistake. She was thinking that this time it wasn’t just threats—this time the guy like Juarez had gone through with it and now her husband was dead. Holman quickly changed the subject.

  “Another thing I’m wondering about—Random told me Richie wasn’t on duty that night?”

  “No. He was here working. I was studying. He went out to meet the guys sometimes, but never that late. He told me he had to go meet them. That’s all he said.”

  “Did he say he was going to the river?”

  “No. I just assumed they would meet at a bar.”

  Holman took that in, but it still didn’t help him.

  “I guess what’s bothering me is how Juarez found them. The police haven’t been able to explain that yet. It’d be tough to follow someone into that riverbed and not be seen. So I’m thinking maybe if they went down there all the time—you know, a regular thing—maybe Juarez heard about it and knew where to find them.”

  “I just don’t know. I can’t believe they went down there all the time and he didn’t tell me about it—it’s so far out of the way.”

  Holman agreed. They could have sat around getting drunk anywhere, but they had gone down into a deserted, off-limits place like the riverbed. This implied they didn’t want to be seen, but Holman also knew that cops were like anyone else—they might have gone down there just for the thrill of being someplace no one else could go, like kids breaking into an empty house or climbing up to the Hollywood Sign.

  Holman was still thinking it through when he recalled something she mentioned earlier and he asked her about it.

  “You said he almost never went out late like that, but on that night he did. What was different about that night?”

  She seemed surprised, but then her face darkened and a single vertical line cut her forehead. She glanced away, then looked back and seemed to be studying him. Her face was still, but Holman felt the furious motion of wheels and cogs and levers behind her eyes as she struggled with her answer.

  She said, “You.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You were being released the next day. That’s what was different that night, and we both knew it. We knew you were being released the next day. Richard never spoke about you with me. Do you mind me telling you these things? This is just so awful, what we’re going through right now. I don’t want to make it worse for you.”

  “I asked you. I want to know.”

  She went on.

  “I tried talking to him about you—I was curious. You’re his father. You were my father-in-law. When Donna was still alive we both tried—but he just wouldn’t. I knew your release date was coming up. Richard knew, but he still wouldn’t talk about it, and I knew it was bothering him.”

  Holman was feeling sick and cold.

  “Did he say something, how it was bothering him?”

  She cocked her head again, then put down her cup and turned away.

  “Come see.”

  He followed her back to a bedroom that was arranged as an office. Two desks were set up, one for him and one for her. The first desk, hers, was stacked with textbooks and binders and paperwork. Richie’s desk was backed into a corner where corkboards were fixed to the adjoining walls. The corkboards were covered with so many clippings and Post-it notes and little slips of paper they overlapped each other like scales on a fish. Liz brought him to Richie’s desk and pointed out the clippings.

  “Take a look.”

  Shootout Ends Crime Spree, Takeover Bandits Stopped, Bystander Killed in Robbery. The articles Holman skimmed were about a pair of takeover lunatics named Marchenko and Parsons. Holman had heard about them in Lompoc. Marchenko and Parsons dressed like commandos and shot up the banks before escaping with their loot.

  She said, “He became fascinated with bank robberies. He clipped stories and pulled articles off the Internet and spent all of his time in here with this stuff. It doesn’t take a doctorate to figure out why.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Wanting to know you. A way of being close to you without being close to you was my guess. We knew you were approaching your release date. We didn’t know if you would try to contact us or if we should contact you or what to do about you. It was pretty clear he was working out his anxiety about you.”

  Holman felt a flush of guilt and hoped she was wrong.

  “Did he say that?”

  Elizabeth didn’t look at him. Her face had closed, and now she stared at the clippings and crossed her arms.

  “He wouldn’t. He never talked about you with me or his mother, but when he told me he was going to see the guys, he had been in here all evening. I think he needed to talk to them. He couldn’t talk to me about it, and now look—now look.”

  Her face tightened even more with the hardness that anger brings. Holman watched her eyes fill, but was too scared to touch her.

  He said, “Hey—”

  She shook her head and Holman took it as a warning—like maybe she sensed he wanted to comfort her—and Holman felt even worse. Her neck and arms were bowstrings pulled taut by her anger.

  “Goddamnit, he just had to go out. He had to go. Goddamnit—”

  “Maybe we should go back in the living room.”

  She closed her eyes, then shook her head again, but this time she was telling him she was all right—she was fighting the terrible pain and determined to kill it. She finally opened her eyes and finished her original thought.

  “Sometimes it’s easier for a man to show what he feels is a weakness to another male rather than to a female. It’s easier to pretend it’s work than to deal honestly with the emotions. I think that’s what he did that night. I think that’s why he died.”

  “Talking about me?”

  “No, not you, not specifically—these bank robberies. That was his way of talking about you. The work was like an extra duty assignment. He wanted to be a detective and move up the ladder.”

  Holman glanced at Richie’s desk, but he didn’t feel comforted. Copies of what looked like official police reports and case files were spread over the desk. Holman skimmed the top pages and realized that everything was about Marchenko and Parsons. A small map of the city was push-pinned to the board with lines connecting small X’s numbered from 1 to 13 to make a rough pattern. Richie h
ad gone so far as to map their robberies.

  Holman suddenly wondered if Richie and Liz believed he had been like them.

  He said, “I robbed banks, but I never did anything like this. I never hurt anyone. I wasn’t anything like these guys.”

  Her expression softened.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Donna told us how you got caught. Richard knew you weren’t like them.”

  Holman appreciated her effort, but the wall was filled with clippings about two degenerates who got off by pistol-whipping their victims. It didn’t take a doctorate.

  Liz said, “I don’t want to be rude, but I have to finish getting ready or I’ll end up blowing off class.”

  Holman reluctantly turned away, then hesitated.

  “He was working on this before he went out?”

  “Yeah. He had been here all evening.”

  “Were those other guys on the Marchenko thing, too?”

  “Mike, maybe. He talked with Mike about it a lot. I don’t know about the others.”

  Holman nodded, taking a last look at his dead son’s workplace. He wanted to read everything on Richie’s desk. He wanted to know why a uniformed officer with only a couple of years on the job was involved in a major investigation and why his son had left home in the middle of the night. He had come here for answers, but now had more questions.

  Holman turned away for the final time.

  “They haven’t told me about the arrangements yet. For his funeral.”

  He hated to ask and hated it even more when the hardness again flashed across her face. But then she fought it back and shook her head.

  “They’re having a memorial for the four of them this Saturday at the Police Academy. The police haven’t released them for burial. I guess they’re still…”

  Her voice faded, but Holman understood why. These officers had been murdered. The medical examiner was probably still gathering evidence and they couldn’t be buried until all of the tests and fact-finding were complete.

  Elizabeth suddenly touched his arm.

  “You’ll come, won’t you? I would like you to be there.”

  Holman felt relieved. He had been worried she might try to keep him away from the services. It also wasn’t lost on him that neither Levy nor Random had told him about the memorial.

  “I would like that, Liz. Thank you.”

  She stared up at him for a moment, then lifted on her toes to kiss Holman’s cheek.

  “I wish it had been different.”

  Holman had spent the past ten years wishing everything had been different.

  He thanked her again when she let him out, then returned to his car. He wondered if Random would attend the memorial. Holman had questions. He expected Random to have answers.

  13

  THE MEMORIAL SERVICE was held in the auditorium at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Police Academy in Chavez Ravine, which was set between two hills outside the Stadium Way entrance to Dodger Stadium. Years earlier, the Dodgers erected their own version of the Hollywood Sign on the hill separating the academy from the stadium. It read THINK BLUE, the Dodger color being blue. When Holman saw the sign that morning it struck him as a fitting reminder of the four dead officers. Blue was also the LAPD color.

  Liz had invited Holman to accompany her and her family to the service, but Holman had declined. Her parents and sister had flown down from the Bay area, but Holman felt uncomfortable with them. Liz’s father was a physician and her mother was a social worker; they were educated, affluent, and normal in a way Holman admired, but they reminded him of everything he was not. When Holman passed the gate to Dodger Stadium, he recalled how he and Chee had often cruised the parking lot for cars to steal during the middle innings. Liz’s father probably had memories of all-night study sessions, frat parties, and proms, but the best Holman could manage were memories of stealing and getting high.

  Holman parked well off the academy grounds and walked up Academy Road, following directions Liz had provided. The academy’s parking lot was already full. Cars lined both sides of the street and people were streaming uphill into the academy. Holman glanced over their faces, hoping to spot Random or Vukovich. He had phoned Random three times to discuss what he learned from Liz, but Random had not returned his calls. Holman figured Random had dismissed him, but Holman wasn’t content with being dismissed. He still had questions and he still wanted answers.

  Liz had told him to meet them in the rock garden outside the auditorium. The flow of foot traffic led him up through the center of the academy to the garden, where a large crowd of people stood in small groups. Camera crews taped the crowd while reporters interviewed local politicians and the LAPD’s top brass. Holman felt self-conscious. Liz had lent him one of Richie’s dark suits but the pants were too tight, so Holman wore them unfastened beneath his belt. He had sweat through the suit even before he reached the garden and now he felt like a wino in hand-me-down threads.

  Holman found Liz and her family with Richie’s commander, Captain Levy. Levy shook Holman’s hand, then took them to meet the other families. Liz seemed to sense Holman’s discomfort and hung back as Levy led them through the crowd.

  “You look good, Max. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Holman managed a smile.

  Levy introduced them to Mike Fowler’s widow and four sons, Mellon’s wife, and Ash’s parents. All of them seemed drained, and Holman thought Fowler’s wife was probably sedated. Everyone treated him politely and with respect, but Holman still felt conspicuous and out of place. He caught the others staring at him several times and—each time—he flushed, certain they were thinking, That’s Holman’s father, the criminal. He felt more embarrassed for Richie than for himself. He had managed to shame his son even in death.

  Levy returned a few minutes later, touched Liz on the arm, then led them inside through open double doors. The floor of the auditorium was filled with chairs. A dais and podium had been erected on the stage. Large photographs of the four officers were draped with American flags. Holman hesitated at the doors, glanced back at the crowd, and saw Random with three other men at the edge of the crowd. Holman immediately reversed course. He was halfway to Random when Vukovich suddenly blocked his way. Vukovich was wearing a somber navy suit and sunglasses. It was impossible to see his eyes.

  Vukovich said, “It’s a sad day, Mr. Holman. You’re not still driving without a license, are you?”

  “I’ve called Random three times, but he hasn’t seen fit to return my calls. I have more questions about what happened that night.”

  “We know what happened that night. We told you.”

  Holman glanced past Vukovich at Random. Random was staring back, but then resumed his conversation. Holman looked back at Vukovich.

  “What you told me doesn’t add up. Was Richie working on the Marchenko and Parsons investigation?”

  Vukovich studied him for a moment, then turned away.

  “Wait here, Mr. Holman. I’ll see if the boss has time to talk to you.”

  Word was spreading that it was time to be seated. The people in the rock garden were making their way to the auditorium but Holman stayed where he was. Vukovich went over to Random and the three men. Holman guessed they were high-level brass, but didn’t know and didn’t care. When Vukovich reached them, Random and two of the men glanced back at Holman, then turned their backs and continued talking. After a moment, Random and Vukovich came over. Random didn’t look happy, but he offered his hand.

  “Let’s step to the side, Mr. Holman. It’ll be easier to talk when we’re out of the way.”

  Holman followed them to the edge of the garden, Random on one side of him and Vukovich on the other. Holman felt like they were shaking him down.

  When they were away from the other people, Random crossed his arms.

  “All right, I understand you have some questions?”

  Holman described his conversation with Elizabeth and the enormous collection of material pertaining to Marchenko and Parsons he
had found on Richie’s desk. He still didn’t buy the explanation the police put forth about Juarez. The bank robberies seemed a more likely connection if Richie was involved in the investigation. Holman floated his theory, but Random shook his head even before Holman finished.

  “They weren’t investigating Marchenko and Parsons. Marchenko and Parsons are dead. That case was closed three months ago.”

  “Richie told his wife he had an extra duty assignment. She thought Mike Fowler might have been involved in it, too.”

  Random looked impatient. The auditorium was filling.

  “If your son was looking into Marchenko and Parsons he was doing so as a hobby or maybe as an assignment for a class he was taking, but that’s all. He was a uniformed patrol officer. Patrol officers aren’t detectives.”

  Vukovich nodded.

  “What difference would it make one way or the other? That case was closed.”

  “Richie was home that night. He was home all evening until he got a call and went to meet his friends at one in the morning. If I was him and my buddies called that time of night just to go drinking I would have blown them off—but if we’re doing police work, then maybe I would go. If they were under the bridge because of Marchenko and Parsons, it might be connected with their murder.”

  Random shook his head.

  “Now isn’t the time for this, Mr. Holman.”

  “I’ve been calling, but you haven’t returned my calls. Now seems like a pretty damn good time to me.”

  Random seemed to be studying him. Holman thought the man was trying to gauge his strength and weaknesses the same way he would gauge a suspect he was interrogating. He finally nodded, as if he had come to a decision he didn’t enjoy.

  “Okay, look, you know what the bad news is? They went down there to drink. I’m going to tell you something now, but if you repeat it and it gets back to me I’ll deny I said it. Vuke?”

  Vukovich nodded, agreeing that he would deny it, too.

  Random pursed his lips like whatever he was about to say was going to taste bad and lowered his voice.

  “Mike Fowler was a drunk. He’s been a drunk for years and he was a disgraceful police officer.”