Royal Flush

by Stephanie Caffrey

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As promised, I picked Mike up at the office at noon, and we headed out to I-15, the freeway heading southwest to Los Angeles. To break the drive up, I insisted on showing Mike the world's largest thermometer, in Baker, California, where I also treated him to gyros and a strawberry shake at Mad Greek, the kind of greasy spoon Greek restaurant that was all things to all eaters.

  I let Mike drive for the second leg of the trip while I fiddled on my iPhone. In my haste, I hadn't booked anything for the night.

  "What do you think, Marriott or Holiday Inn?" I asked.

  "Marriott," he said immediately. "It's Mormon-owned."

  I smiled. "Can't argue with that. You get a discount?"

  He laughed. "Not by a long shot. But where are you thinking? LA's a big place."

  It was a good question. Being near Melanie's house might give me better access to her family, but I also wanted to talk to the cops, who were downtown.

  "I don't think it matters that much," I said. "We have a car. And we don't even know what we're looking for yet."

  Mike turned and looked at me. "Ten grand is a pretty nice retainer. Otherwise…" He trailed off.

  "Otherwise, why go to all this trouble, right?"

  Mike nodded. "Exactly."

  "Yes, she paid me a lot, and there's a lot left over. So instead of trying to figure out who I should return the money to, I'm going to work it off."

  Mike was silent. I wasn't sure if he was fully on board with my course of action, but he wasn't my boss. And I figured most people would have just kept the money without doing the extra legwork, so I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it.

  We reached the outskirts of LA just as rush hour was heating up. When you're resigned to a fate of not moving anywhere very quickly, it makes the delay much more tolerable. We were prepared for it, but I was thankful Mike was driving. One reason I lived so close to my job was that I was a clinical road-rageaholic, taking every other driver's failure to use a turn signal as a personal insult. With Mike behind the wheel, I could space out and let him question everyone else's lane changes and screeching stops.

  We decided, for cost purposes, that staying downtown was much more practical than staying near the neighborhood where Melanie's family lived. The Marriott was just what we needed, a comfortable place to settle down and a jumping-off point to go exploring. The long drive followed by the traffic fiasco had made us both tired and hungry, and we decided to be boring and get Mexican food at a place only a block from the hotel. By then it was 7:30, and there wouldn't be any work done that night. Mike wasn't up for a margarita, even with all my powers of persuasion, and so the night was over almost before it began.

  Being used to going to bed at three in the morning, I had trouble getting to sleep and ended up half-watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. The other half of me was wondering what Mike's problem was. I could tell he liked me. At least, I could tell he found me attractive, which for a man was ninety-eight percent of the battle. While working with him the last three months, I'd caught him making dozens of furtive looks and taking extra peeks, and it even seemed that he didn't mind it when I busted him. Maybe it was his way of communicating without actually communicating. But I had decided I wasn't going to play the desperate I-need-a-boyfriend-now kind of girl. At least for now. Men could smell neediness, and it wasn't what they were looking for.

  Although those were my noble, parting thoughts as I drifted off to sleep, Tuesday morning had me back to reality, posing in the mirror with the three different workout tops I'd brought to see which one would generate the most drool from a certain member of the male sex who was all but guaranteed to be in the hotel gym that morning. And he was. When I arrived, Mike was almost effortlessly pushing seventy-five pound dumbbells up in the air. I counted seven perfectly controlled reps, and who knows how many he'd done before that. When he sat up, we exchanged smiles in the mirror on the wall. Given the way he normally dressed, which at best could be described as inspired by the dad on My Three Sons, Mike was a sight to behold, decked out in a blue Under Armour T-shirt and green athletic shorts.

  "Funny seeing you here," I said. It sounded dumb even while I was saying it.

  Mike was panting a bit from his last set. In his workout clothes, he reminded me of an NFL quarterback in his prime. His light-brown hair was darkening with touches of perspiration, and at six-foot-two he was built but not beefy, with that clean-cut look and chiseled face that seemed to be a prerequisite to play quarterback as a pro. The blue shirt accentuated the gray-blue of his eyes.

  "I guess we both get up early," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall, which said it was just past seven-thirty.

  "Yeah," I muttered. Suddenly I was the shy one in the relationship. Breathing heavily, only a few feet in front of me, Mike's athletic frame dwarfed me. The gym was clearly Mike's element, where he was on his home turf.

  "When do you want to get going?" he asked.

  Not surprisingly, I hadn't formulated too much of a plan. But I had something, at least.

  "I emailed Philippe LaGarde," I said. "He gave me a couple of people he's friendly with in the LAPD. People who might be able to cut through all the red tape and give us some answers." LaGarde ran the top-end detective agency in Las Vegas, and we'd had a recent collaboration that made both of us look good. He had been in the business almost forty years, and he knew everybody.

  "So you want to go to HQ first, right?" Mike asked.

  I nodded. "I've got three names of higher-ups, so at least one of them should be around."

  We agreed to meet up for a nine o'clock breakfast in the hotel, where we lingered over a shared newspaper in an effort to avoid the morning rush. The paper was silent about Melanie's death, except for the paid obituary in the local section. It said the funeral would be Wednesday at 10:00, which meant tomorrow.

  "Funeral tomorrow," Mike said. "Kind of quick, right?"

  "Maybe. We heard about her death on Sunday, when the news reported it, but the reports said she died earlier, probably Saturday."

  He shrugged. "Never been to a Presbyterian church before."

  "We're going to the funeral?" I asked. "I hate funerals."

  "That's where all her friends and family will be. And any enemies, probably, too."

  I was skeptical. "If you say so. But I don't think she was the kind of girl who had enemies. I'm just looking to provide a fuller picture of what happened, that's all."

  "So you can keep the money with a clear conscience," Mike mused.

  I shot him a look. "Yes, so I can keep the money. Between the two of us, I'm the only one who's met her, and my best guess is that she'd want me to look into this rather than just sending the money back to a family that doesn't need it."

  Mike smiled. "If you're fine with it, I'm fine with it." He said it in a way that made me think the opposite was true.

  I changed the subject. "Think it's safe to venture out yet?"

  "I don't think it's ever safe, but now's as good a time as any."

  We got our car out of the parking garage and headed into downtown. The navigation system had us going down Beverly Boulevard, which at some point would turn into First Street, where the police headquarters was. The traffic was rough, but not as bad as I feared. I had conned Mike into driving, so I was taking in the sights myself.

  "There it is, over there," I said, pointing. The familiar glass police headquarters, which had starred on dozens of TV shows, stood about a block away.

  "That's not the address, though," Mike said. He kept driving until the GPS told us we were in the right place. Amazingly, it was right.

  "Must be a new building," I said, stating the obvious. The new LAPD headquarters was about fifteen stories tall, an angular structure made up of blocky gray stone and shimmering green-blue glass. We found a parking garage on the next block and pulled in.

  As we walked into the police administration building, we entered a bustle of busy-looking cops and other functionaries. The difference
was that these people all had ID badges, and we were just a couple of out-of-towners who'd wandered in off the street. There was no directory where I could look up names and phone numbers, but there was a small visitor desk staffed by two all-business gray-haired women who looked as if they could be sisters. Patty and Selma from The Simpsons came to mind.

  I nudged Mike and handed him a piece of paper from our hotel's scratch pad. "Here are the three names I have."

  He frowned at me but then got with the program. The women were both watching us, mildly curious about our intentions. I waited about ten feet back while Mike went to talk to them.

  I couldn't hear the conversation, but the look on the women's faces told the whole story. The one on the right, who had a haircut that she must have received at a Marine's barracks, was arching her right eyebrow at Mike as though he were claiming he just saw an alien spaceship land on the roof. The other one kept making furtive glances at me. I had done my best to dress professionally, but I had the sneaking suspicion that the officer saw right through my getup and knew I was trouble.

  It was clear that the two officers were immune to Mike's charms, so I sidled up behind him and waited for the right moment to butt in. The women began frowning at a computer screen.

  "Did you mention LaGarde?" I whispered.

  "They never heard of him," Mike said. "You have a Plan B?"

  "Did they even call upstairs?" I asked.

  "No, I didn't get that far."

  "I'm sorry, ma'am," I said, using my most obsequious voice. "We drove all the way from Nevada to talk to one of these officers."

  "Well, they're not expecting you," said the one on the left. She had a point. I was beginning to get upset because calling in advance would have been an easy thing to do, and I had botched it.

  "All I'm asking is that you call their office, and mention that a friend of Philippe LaGarde would like ten minutes. That's all."

  The one on the right, who was appropriately named Officer Stark, finally picked up the phone and punched a few numbers. She was doing her best to make it seem as if she was granting me the favor of the century.

  Officer Stark apparently had no luck with the first number, but on the second try she began nodding and murmuring. I heard her mention LaGarde's name. After a long wait, she nodded gruffly and hung up the phone.

  "Someone will come down for you," she said curtly. Between the two of them, I could sense their disappointment that we had been granted an audience. "You can wait over there," she said, pointing at a bench near the turnstiles.

  Mike and I milled around the expansive lobby for a few minutes, inspecting the plaques and stars memorializing fallen officers, many of whom were in their twenties when they lost their lives on the job. It was a sobering reminder that my own life really wasn't so bad. Or so dangerous.

  Eventually we were greeted by a thirty-ish uniformed cop, a hulk of a man with short black hair whose thick, nerdy glasses didn't seem to fit on his wide face. "Follow me upstairs, please," he said.

  Mike shot me a look that I interpreted as this guy takes himself way too seriously, although Mike could just as easily have meant that he thought the guy looked like a steroid-ridden dork. Both would have been true.

  Officer Dolan swiped an ID and led us through a visitors' entrance, where we were both directed to fill out a brief information sheet and provide our drivers' licenses while yet another clerk decided if we could pass through. It was probably easier to get in to see the Pope, I figured.

  When we finally passed the inspection, Dolan led us up an elevator to the seventh floor where we passed down a long hallway where the grizzled faces of former police chiefs and commissioners stared down at us from portraits hung on the walls. We stopped at a door marked Deputy Chief Bruskewitz, Metropolitan Division.

  Mike elbowed me. "A deputy chief is a pretty big deal."

  I nodded, pretending to be impressed. Officer Dolan swiped his card yet again, and the door clicked open. Inside was a suite of cubicles surrounding the desk of a receptionist who appeared to be in charge of the whole thing. The man I assumed to be the commander was standing behind her, looking over her shoulder. He looked up when Dolan coughed.

  Given the gruff treatment we'd already received, I wasn't prepared for the chief's warm smile and handshake. He was about fifty, with graying temples, ice-blue eyes, and a paunch that betrayed the fact that he enjoyed a donut every now and then. Two silver stars were prominently displayed on his shoulder epaulettes.

  "How is Philippe?" He asked, seeming genuinely interested.

  I wondered whether I should reveal that I barely knew him. "He's fantastic. Not slowing down at all, but you know how Philippe is." I wondered how the commander and the old French Canadian had met.

  Bruskewitz smiled warmly. "We've worked together on a half-dozen cases over the years. You know what keeps that guy going?"

  "No," I said. LaGarde was in his seventies, and wheelchair-bound, but he seemed to possess a verve for life and an otherworldly intelligence that made him seem much younger, much more alive than many twenty-something digital zombies who started at their smartphones all day.

  "He's running on brandy. The only vegetables that guy consumes is tobacco! He's amazing," he said, shaking his head. "Me, I even look at a pizza, I gain five pounds."

  His secretary flashed a thin smile and rolled her eyes at me. "That's because after you look at the pizza, you eat the whole thing!"

  It was smiles all around, and I could immediately sense why LaGarde had thought Bruskewitz might be able to help me. He was clearly comfortable in his own skin and with his own authority.

  "Come on back," he said, gesturing with his hand toward a corner office on the far left.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mike and I found ourselves chairs facing Commander Bruskewitz's desk. Although we sat down, he remained standing up and then turned to look out the window at downtown LA Sensing our awkwardness, he reluctantly sat down behind his desk.

  "Well, this must be important," he mused. There was still a hint of a twinkle in his eye. "What can I help you with?"

  I explained the background as briefly as I could, although I fudged the truth a bit when it came to my relationship with Melanie. She and I were friends, I said, and I wanted to get to the bottom of whatever happened to her.

  Bruskewitz tented his hands together and looked thoughtful. "From what I've read, it was a simple overdose. Is there any reason to believe that's not what happened?"

  Mike piped up. "Not exactly. But she wasn't really much of a drug user. She had so much to live for, so many friends."

  He nodded. "That's pretty common, unfortunately. I got my start in narcotics, and you'd see this kind of thing all the time, especially in the nicer neighborhoods. They're not bad kids. The problem is, these kids get bored. They have everything handed to them on a silver platter. Fancy car, tuition, nannies, maids, you name it. They want to live! To be challenged. To experience something different. They're so overshadowed by their successful parents, some of them are almost suffocating."

  It made a lot of sense. I wondered how Melanie had coped with having a famous and rich father, and if that might have been what was driving her to get involved with Kent. Kent, even if he was a fraud, meant action and excitement. A way to get out from under her dad's shadow. Just like Jojia, I thought.

  "I understand," I said. "But I just don't think that was Melanie's issue. She was so solid," I said, unable to come up with a better word.

  Bruskewitz wheeled his chair around and peered outside again. A light haze was hanging over the city, but we could still see the mountains in the distance. "The guy you want to talk to is the deputy head of the West Bureau, which covers Hollywood Hills, where she died. He's a commander named David Chung, a guy I helped promote a few times. West Bureau is down on Venice Boulevard."

  "Thanks so much," I said. "I'll tell him that you recommended we speak to him."

  Bruskewitz smiled. "Better yet, I'll give him a call and tell him you'
re coming. He should be in the office today, but it makes sense to double check." He punched a few times at the iPad that was open on his desk, which apparently had a department directory on it. A few swipes and touches later, and the phone was ringing through an unseen speaker in his office. It was Chung's secretary, and she confirmed that he'd be in the office most of the day.

  "This is about the death of that Weston kid, in case he's wondering in advance," Bruskewitz explained.

  "I'll pull the file," the secretary said.

  I was impressed by LAPD technology and the smoothness of the whole operation, although I had my suspicions that Bruskewitz was the cream of the crop and thus not fully representative of the Department as a whole.

  "Thanks so much," I repeated on our way out.

  "Say hi to Philippe for me," Bruskewitz said, probably for the third time.

  Mike was shaking his head in the elevator on the way down. "That Philippe LaGarde guy really opens some doors. Bruskewitz is a two-star chief. You don't just walk in and get to sit down with a guy like that."

  Our escort, Officer Dolan, smiled. "He's a real people person. Sometimes I forget our ranks and get a little too familiar, but he doesn't seem to mind. Too bad he's on his way out," he said, somewhat wistfully.

  "Retirement?" I asked.

  Dolan nodded. "Yeah. He's sixty-five. The next guy up's a real asshole, so I'm hoping for a transfer."

  I feigned an expression of pity as the thick-necked Dolan led us to the exit and showed us out, where I waited outside the building while Mike picked up the car from the garage. Unlike in Las Vegas, the late morning sun was a pleasantly warm caress upon my skin rather than a scorching assault. Mike picked me up and we drove west about twenty minutes to Venice Boulevard, where the West Division had its headquarters inside the Wilshire Community Police Station, a two-story tan structure fronted by the same palm trees that seemed to be everywhere in town.