Ed left the room.
I noticed that Bobbi sat a little straighter and tried, without success, to hide her anger. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and rocked almost imperceptibly back and forth.
Judge Koito pulled his chair closer to his desk. “Miss Allen, I have a few questions for you. Mr. O’Brien, you will keep your mouth shut until I’m through and then I’ll ask you to respond.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“Regarding the motion to remove Mr. O’Brien, have criminal charges been filed by your office pursuant to this matter, Miss Allen? Just answer yes or no.”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Has the State Bar reviewed the case and recommended any disciplinary action?”
“Not yet, but they will.”
Judge Koito pounded his hand on his desk. “Yes or no.”
“No.”
“The motion is denied.”
Bobbi started to raise her hand, pulled it down, and jumped up instead. “Your Honor, I have grounds.”
“Sit down,” the judge said. “Mr. O’Brien is an attorney, licensed by the state to practice law, and until that fact changes, he shall remain on the case. Miss Allen, when we go back into the courtroom, I strongly recommend that you withdraw your motion.”
Bobbie sat down and kept quiet.
“Mr. O’Brien, I don’t know what you may or may not have done, but that’s not why we’re here today. Do you have anything else to add pertaining to the case at hand?”
“Yes.” I pointed at Bobbi. “Miss Allen, I’m told, has an alleged jailhouse witness. She cut a deal with him to falsely testify that my client has confessed to the crime.”
Bobbi shot out of her chair again. “Judge, I won’t sit here and be accused of suborning perjury. Mr. O’Brien knows full well that I-unlike him-would not pull that kind of stunt.”
“I know nothing of the kind. I want the witness’s name, and I want to know what you offered him in return for his outrageous and mendacious statement,” I said.
“That’s enough, both of you. Mr. O’Brien, if you want any information from the prosecution, I suggest that you serve the proper discovery requests. Miss Allen, you will turn over to the defense any and all evidence required by law, including all witness statements. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” we both said in unison.
The judge glanced at Bobbi and then at me. “Anything else?”
“Bail,” I said.
“Denied,” he said.
We paraded back into the courtroom. Bobbi withdrew her motion on the record and Koito officially denied the bail request. The trial date was set for Monday, October 2. Judge Koito fined us both fifty dollars for the contempt citation, and admonished Bobbi, telling her the fine was personal. It was not to be paid by the district attorney’s office. He didn’t need to give me the same lecture. He knew I had to pay my own bills. Nothing more was said about Bobbi’s restraining order.
I loitered in the courtroom, scribbling on a yellow pad. I wanted to avoid getting into the elevator with Bobbi when she left the building. I didn’t think I could’ve handled that; might have said something I would regret. After she left, I went to the bank of payphones on the first floor.
C H A P T E R 31
“Rita, I’m just checking in.”
“How’d the hearing go?” she asked. “Like we expected?”
It was noisy in the hallway. I put the phone between my jaw and shoulder and tried to close the booth door, but the handle snapped. A bailiff, hands on his hips, glared at me. I shrugged.
“Yeah, guess so.”
“I’m sorry, Boss, but hang in there, you’ll win at the trial.” I heard her sigh.
“Thanks, Rita. Any calls?”
“Yeah, a cop from Long Beach. Said his name’s Detective Farrell. What’s this all about, Jimmy?”
I knew what it was all about, but I wanted to talk to the guy before I discussed it with Rita. “I’ll call him later and find out,” I said.
My next call was to Sol. I told him about the hearing, about the meeting with Hodges, and the call from Detective Farrell.
“Don’t worry. It’s a scam. You can beat these charges.”
“It’s basically my word against Vogel’s, but I did give him some money.”
“You gonna tell them that?”
“If I’m under oath I’ll have to, but Ron Fischer is the most important thing to worry about. We have to find the pilot fast. I desperately need his testimony.”
“I’m working on that right now. We have a lead and I’m waiting for a call back. It’s lunchtime. Let’s meet at Rocco’s. If the call comes in, I’ll have them transfer it to my table. We’ll go over everything there.”
“I’ll head over right now.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I had your apartment swept for bugs, too. Your phone was tapped.”
I racked my brain trying to remember what calls I’d made from my home phone. It depressed me to realize I hadn’t talked to anyone in the last couple of weeks.
Shortly after one o’clock, I entered Rocco’s. Lively music came from the bar. The piano player, a short cocoa-skinned man wearing an Afro, had a voice like steel wheels rolling on a gravel road, but he was spunky and the crowd loved him.
An unruly queue had formed in front of Andre, customers vying for tables. As I approached the dining room, he noticed me and gestured with his hand to follow him to Sol’s booth.
“Mr. Silverman hasn’t arrived yet,” Andre said. “His secretary called and said he would be here soon.”
I slid into Sol’s booth. Janine appeared, whisked away the reserved placard, and asked if she could bring me anything.
“Yes, thanks. A Coke, and a telephone,” I said.
Janine returned in a few moments with the phone. She plugged it in and a busboy rushed over with my Coke. I dialed the Long Beach Police Department. “This is O’Brien. I’m returning Detective Farrell’s call.”
“I’ll have to patch you through. It may take a few minutes.”
While waiting, I listened to the piano music that drifted into the dining room from the bar. The guy was righteous on the piano, but I wasn’t sure about the rest of his shtick. He had a way of taking popular songs, jazzing up the music, and altering the lyrics. He massacred “Alone Again, Naturally.” He sang with style, but he changed the words to “Alone Again, Ralph.” I didn’t know why everyone laughed.
“This is Farrell,” a listless voice said.
“Detective, I’m O’Brien. You wanted to talk to me.”
“Yeah, need to get your side of the story on the tampering complaint. The D.A.’s hot on this. I already talked to Vogel, said you tried to bribe him.”
I hesitated. I wanted time to think this through. I actually did bribe the guy, but only to get off his ass and look at the hidden meter, not to falsify evidence. But I had to figure exactly how to approach the problem.
I took a sip of my Coke. The gang in the bar was getting boisterous, the music louder. The piano player sang, “I’m in the nude for love”-riotous laughter followed.
“You there, O’Brien?”
“Detective Farrell,” I said, “I think you should drop the case.”
“Drop the case? I told you the D.A.’s all over me about this. What are you, some kind of nut?”
“Yeah, I’m a lawyer.”
“Hey, if you don’t want to talk to me, I’ll just file the report.”
“I’ll talk and tell you why you should drop this thing, now.”
“All right,” he sighed. “I’m listening.”
“First of all, it’s my word against Vogel’s.”
“You’re saying you didn’t give him any money?”
“That’s the point-I gave him forty dollars in cash, a service charge for the labor. I wanted him to unfasten a panel on the plane, check for an additional hour meter, then return the aircraft to its original condition.”
�
�A service charge?”
“Yeah, it looks like Vogel decided to pocket the cash, not turn it over to his employer. He’s trying to cover up a petty embezzlement. I paid Vogel to examine the plane for variations in the time flown and the time logged. That’s all- information useful for research purposes.”
“You get a receipt?”
“Embezzlers rarely give receipts.”
“Let me get this straight,” Farrell said. “You’re saying you just paid Vogel a labor charge. Is that correct?”
“That’s it.”
“And Vogel pocketed the money.”
“He sure did, Detective. There was no intent on my part to falsify evidence. There was no motive to do that. Alone, the fact that the plane had been flown extra hours wouldn’t do me any good with the jury. I needed that information myself, background. I wanted the truth. If the plane was flown those extra hours, then I would look for the person who was on the plane that night.”
“So you’re saying you had no motive. No evidence could come from the plane itself.”
“That’s right. I had no motive to falsify anything, but Vogel had a motive.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he put the money in his pocket, and your case rests on my word against his.”
“I see your point, but why would the Deputy D.A. ask me to investigate if it was that simple?”
“I’ll let you in on something, but don’t put it in the report.”
“What?”
“It’s a personal matter between Miss Allen, the deputy D.A., and me.”
“Personal matter?”
I paused. Watch out, I told myself. I had second thoughts about bringing up my feelings toward Bobbi. I felt guilty about my outburst in court, saying that she asked me out. I really didn’t want to hurt her.
“Nah, not really personal, this is her first murder case and she wants to do a thorough job, I can’t blame her.”
“Okay, I’ll file my report,” the detective said.
“What’s it going to say?”
“You know I can’t answer that.” He stopped talking but didn’t hang up. I remained silent. Finally, he said, “Look, O’Brien, I’m not supposed to tell you this but you’re an ex-cop and you know the score. I’m going to recommend that we drop this thing. It’s a pissing contest between you and the Deputy D.A. and I have real crimes I should be working on. There’s a four-inch stack of complaints on my desk right now, including a few murders, and more coming every day.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You didn’t hear it from me, but this thing is over. I don’t see where any crime has been committed. You hadn’t called the guy to the stand and paid him to lie. Maybe you would’ve, but the point is you hadn’t. ”
I hung up. Sol still hadn’t arrived, so I had time to think a bit. I figured the State Bar charge would also disappear when the criminal complaint was dropped.
Did I feel better? No, not really. Bobbi still thought I was guilty. That’s what mattered, and that hadn’t changed.
When Sol arrived, he had a drink in his hand and a file under his arm. He set the file on the table and slid into the booth across from me.
“You were on the phone so I had a drink at the bar. That new piano player is hilarious,” Sol said.
“I heard him.”
“Guy’s terrific, huh?”
“Sol, the guy sucks.” I’d told enough lies for one day.
“Well, screw you,” he said. “Not everyone can be Louis Armstrong.”
“True,” I said.
Sol glanced around the room, then leaned forward. “I got the call I’d been waiting for, you know, the lead on the pilot, Ron Fischer.”
I straightened up. “What did you find out?”
“First we eat,” he said, looking around. “Hey, did they bring the menus?”
My stomach did somersaults. “What?”
“The menu. What’s the catch of the day? Feel like a nice sauteed sole or-”
“Goddammit, Sol, you do this every time.”
“I think you should eat before I tell you the news.”
“Why? Will the news kill my appetite?”
“Fischer is dead.”
“Oh my God! What are you telling me?”
Sol just looked at me.
I reached across the table and grabbed his arm. “Tell me you were kidding about Fischer. I need his statement. He’s gotta tell me who was on the plane that night. Christ, he can’t be dead.”
“Jimmy, Ron Fischer’s been dead for over a year.”
C H A P T E R 32
Sol insisted we eat first then we’d talk about Fischer. I knew from experience that it’d do no good to try to change his mind; food and wine always came first. I also knew there was more to the story about Fischer being dead than what he just told me. There had to be a postscript, an explanation of some sort. Sol and his games…
He ordered lunch for both of us: salmon almandine. He’d have Mondavi Chardonnay with his. I’d have coffee. Andre brought Sol’s wine draped in a linen towel. After uncorking the bottle with reverence, he poured an ounce or so into a glass that seemed to appear magically from his free hand. Sol sipped and nodded and told him some crap about the fruity aroma having the essence of a romantic melody.
I remained patient during the wine pouring ceremony, but I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Sol, for crying out loud. Tell me about Fischer.”
“Sure, my boy, but first sit back and relax; everything’s going to be okay. I have it worked out-”
“Goddammit, Sol! What about Fischer?”
“As far as I know, Karadimos’s pilot is still alive, but he’s an imposter. He’s not Ron Fischer.”
“Thank God, he’s not dead. But why do you always play games? You had me crazy.”
“Ah, Jimmy, my boy, a little suspense in your life is like pepper in your soup.”
The food thing again. Suspense, he says. Bad guys following me around, cops on my ass, and a woman who dumped me before we even got started because she thinks I’m a crook. That’s right; a little suspense is what I needed.
Still, a wave of relief flowed over me knowing the pilot was not dead. “Yeah, pepper in my soup. I hate soup,” I said. “But anyway, who are we looking for now?”
Sol opened his file and read from it. “The real Ron Fischer died in a car crash last year in San Diego. The guy was a Navy fighter pilot, flew off aircraft carriers at night-very dangerous.” He looked up. “The guy had nerve.”
“And he died in a car crash,” I said.
“Yeah, ironic, isn’t it?”
Janine appeared with our food. The appetizing aroma triggered within me a hunger that I did not think existed. Sol and I tucked into the salmon, and after several mouthfuls, I asked him, “You said you have it worked out?”
He swallowed. “You bet. We have to find the guy, correct?”
“Of course.”
“And we don’t know who he is, also correct?”
“Yep.”
“Be easier to find him if we know who he is.”
“Sol, please. I think you know who he is. Just tell me what’s going on. Okay?”
“No. First we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to fight those phony charges against you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m off the hook.”
“You’re off the hook? You didn’t tell me.”
“How could I? You were going on and on about the fish, and jiving Andre about the wine like some kind of connoisseur.”
“Hey buddy boy, I drink enough of the stuff to be an expert.”
“No argument about that.”
“Now, tell me how you got the charges dropped.”
In between bites of fish, I told him about my telephone call to Detective Farrell.
“I knew you could beat those farmisht charges.”
I set my fork down. “Lot of smooth talking.”
“I’ve been using my yiddisher kop, been busy.” Sol drained his wine glass.
“Busy doing what?” I asked Sol.
“We found out last Monday that Fischer was dead.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I didn’t want to tell you until I had things worked out.”
“So I gather.”
“Now I’m going to explain how the world’s foremost detective operates.”
“That would be you,” I said.
Sol gave me a look that said, isn’t it obvious. “I’ve had his girlfriend’s apartment staked out for a while, but pulled my men off when we found out the guy’s a fugitive. He ain’t coming back.”
“The guy’s a fugitive, running from the law? What’s his name?”
“Let me finish,” Sol continued. “As soon as I found out the real Fischer was dead, I got in touch with a friend in the FBI. I asked him to get me the Federal Aviation Agency’s list of all the pilots that are Cessna Citation rated. Remember, Karadimos’s jet is a Citation.”
“I know.”
“To be able to fly the plane, unless you’re military trained in jets, you’d have to take a course at the Cessna factory. It’s a very sophisticated airplane; regular private pilots wouldn’t be able to fly it.”
Sol stopped talking and angled his head close to the table. He jabbed at something on his plate with his fork, then held it up and inspected the tidbit impaled there. “Hey,” he said. “This doesn’t look like an almond. Where’s Andre? This is a goddamned walnut.”
“Sol, forget the walnut. Tell me about the pilot.”
“Okay, hold on.” He popped the walnut into his mouth.
“Not bad,” he said. “Now, where were we? Oh yeah, when you pass the Cessna course, you get a type rating. The factory notifies the FAA and they send you a new license.”
“Must’ve been hundreds of pilots.”
“No, very few. The Citation jet just came out this year. Karadimos’ plane is one of the first. Anyway, we ran a check on the pilots to see if any of them had a record. Remember, his girlfriend said he had some trouble with the law.”
“I see where you’re going with this, but how did you know the imposter would use his real name to get the rating?”
“To take the course, you need a multi-engine pilot’s license. Couldn’t use Fischer’s ticket, he was dead before the Cessna Citation was introduced to the public. Also, you need to pass a medical exam to get the license.”
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