“I’m sending an undercover officer to his club tomorrow. He gets a massage every week. We’re trying to get photos of him naked to match up with the pictures we have, to ID him from the spinal deformity. My man’s going to hide in the ceiling, try to film through the air-conditioning vent. We could have gone for his medical records, but that would be a dead giveaway and we’d need a court order. Listen, his son is performing in a concert in Los Angeles tomorrow night. If you’re up to it, we’ll go then. I don’t want to wait until Friday.”
“Sure,” Lara said. “Josh can stay with Emmet. He adores Emmet. They’re inseparable.”
“Oh,” the detective continued. “Write me a consent to pick Josh up from school tomorrow. I’m going to take him down to the station and show him a photo lineup with Packy Cummings in it. He might have seen more than he knows. Maybe he saw the guy leaving or something that day and can’t remember what he saw.”
“Sure,” Lara said. “Anything…”
Lara started thinking. If they could put Packy Cummings at the murder scene, then they would have a connection to Evergreen on the homicides. She suddenly thought of the game man. She went over the events of the previous night and told Rickerson what they had learned, explaining that she hadn’t gone any further.
His face instantly flushed with excitement. “Emmet figured this out?” he said, remembering the frail young man. “This is brilliant, fantastic. Hot damn. He should go to work for us. I can’t believe it. It could be him, Lara. Jesus fucking Christ, this game guy could be Evergreen himself.”
He was smiling, slapping his thighs, practically coming out of his skin. Lara remained in the chair, reserved. “We don’t know for sure it’s him. Aren’t you going a little overboard with all the enthusiasm?”
“You said his name was Tommy Black, right?” he said, a smile stretched his pockmarked face and making him look almost handsome, his rust eyes beaming.
“Right,” she said, leaning back down to pick up the ice pack and finding nothing but a puddle of water and a wet towel. “So what does that mean?”
“Guess whose name is on the list of Ivory’s clients? You know, calls made from that house. Guess, Lara. Just guess.”
“I don’t feel much like guessing. Why don’t you just tell me?” she said, staring at him. His excitement was contagious. Her breath was coming faster.
“Tommy Black.”
Lara’s mouth fell open, and for a moment she couldn’t say a thing. She was speechless. Then she let out a whoop and a holler that could be heard all over the complex, and Rickerson came over and picked her right up out of the chair and hugged her until she screamed.
“Put me down,” she said, laughing in spite of the pain. “My side, remember.”
Evergreen was not at the courthouse the following day. Lara called his office and his secretary said he was still out ill but might come in later. “Good,” Lara said, hanging up the phone. “Hope you have a heart attack, you bastard.” He was scared, too scared even to come to the courthouse. He had to know they were close. They had him on the run. For the first time since Ivory’s death, Lara felt in control. Even with what had happened last night, she felt powerful. It could be, she thought, the very fact that she’d faced this Frank Door and survived that had given her renewed strength. With the threat of violence hanging over her head since Ivory’s death, Lara had lived with tremendous fear. Although she had tried to suppress it, she had felt it growing with each day, about to consume her. Now that she’d met her worst nightmare, nothing could bring her down.
While she was in a ten-minute recess from court, Judge Hector Rodriguez stuck his head in the door to her chambers. He and Lara were about the same age, and he was a pleasant man, diminutive in size, his skin a dark brown, his mustache thin and wiry.
“I heard you were attacked in the parking garage last night,” he said, rubbing his chin. “How in the world did they get in? Crawl under the gates? It’s terrifying. Nothing is safe anymore.” He paused and looked at her self-consciously. “The sheriff’s office called me. They thought I released the man who did this.”
Lara took a deep breath and tried to remain composed. “And did you, Hector?”
“Well, no, of course I didn’t. I didn’t even sit the arraignment calendar that day. I had to take care of some business in Los Angeles.”
Lara had heard rumors that Hector was looking for an appointment on the L.A. county bench. Most of his family were up there. He wanted to transfer. She hoped he did before the budget cutbacks were implemented. That would mean a vacant slot. It could mean her job. “Then who covered for you?” She was holding her breath and felt her chest expand. Please, God, she prayed, let it be Evergreen himself. She waited.
“Irene Murdock,” he said.
Lara was shocked, “Irene? Why would she release someone like this? My God, if anyone’s a stickler for things like that, it’s Irene. She would never have made this type of mistake.
“Uh, I don’t know.” Rodriguez was getting antsy, seeing the tension on Lara’s face. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” He ran his hands through his dark hair and looked out over the room. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all your problems. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“Don’t worry about it, Hector. It certainly wasn’t your fault.” She inhaled deeply. “I’ll talk to Irene.
Don’t tell her about this conversation. We’re friends, you know.”
As soon as he turned and started walking out of the room, Lara saw him favoring his right leg and almost leaped right out of her skin. “Hector,” she yelled at him without thinking, “what did you do to your leg?”
“Oh,” he said, looking down, “that…I pulled a muscle on the handball court a few days ago. Guess I’m not as young as I used to be.”
She was getting completely paranoid. If she kept this up, she would end up in the funny farm. She was blanketing the entire courthouse with her suspicions. As soon as he’d disappeared from the door, she put in a call to Rickerson. With the throbbing pain in her side and now learning that her best friend had released this animal, she was about to put her face down on the desk and cry. “Look,” she said when he came on the line, “Irene Murdock was sitting the felony arraignment calendar that day. I’m getting ready to call her and ask her if Evergreen was the one who told her to do it. The whole thing is pretty strange.”
Rickerson sighed. “How do you explain your name being on the order?”
“Evergreen could have called and told her to release him. Then when the clerk prepared the order, they accidentally put my name on it. I was in that division a few weeks ago. I’m a female judge and so is Irene. Maybe they just weren’t thinking.”
“Doesn’t something like that have to be signed?”
“Of course. Generally, we send it over on the computer and then follow up with the hard copy for their files—you know, the original, with the signature and all. A lot of times they release before they get the hard copy. They’ve been doing that for years. They can tell it’s valid if it comes from our terminal. When we’re really busy, we sometimes don’t get the original over there for days.”
Then that’s probably what happened. Evergreen called her, she cut the order, and then the clerk just made a mistake on the name. There you go.”
Lara was silent. The door to her chambers was shut, so she put the detective on the speaker phone and put her head in her hands. “I told Irene that we suspected Evergreen. I don’t know why she didn’t call me or something. She knew I released Packy.”
“You what?” Rickerson yelled in the phone. “Repeat what you just said?”
Lara felt her heartbeat quicken. She was about to be blasted. She grabbed the phone, taking him off the speaker, certain he was going to yell again. “Look, I didn’t tell her about the pictures or anything. I just told her we thought Evergreen was a pedophile and possibly involved in my sister’s death. God, Rickerson, she’s my best friend and she’s a judge. She knows Evergreen well. I thou
ght she could give us some information.”
“Judge or not, you’re a fucking idiot,” he said and slammed the phone down.
Lara listened to the dial tone and then called him back. Now she was angry too. “Don’t you ever—and I mean ever—hang up on me again. Do you hear me?”
“Calm down,” he said. “I’m sorry, okay, but what happened to everything I told you about keeping this to yourself? Christ, Lara, she might have run straight to Evergreen. You’ve compromised the whole case.”
“I have not,” she insisted. “Irene would never do that. She was genuinely concerned. I’m going to call her right now and see if Evergreen called her about Frank Door. And I’ve asked the jail to send me a copy of the court order. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“Go ahead,” he barked. “Why don’t you tell the whole fucking courthouse? Maybe you should run down there and tell Evergreen himself.” Again he slammed the phone down in her ear.
Lara decided not to call. She was almost certain Irene was in chambers. She always took recess at this time of day. She marched down the hall and let herself in. Her secretary was evidently out somewhere.
“Lara,” Irene said, peering at her over her glasses.
“Come in…have a seat. My God, what happened to your face? Were you in an accident?”
“Someone attacked me in the underground garage last night. His name was Frank Door. Ring a bell?” Lara didn’t sit down. She remained standing in front of Irene’s desk.
The woman looked away as she spoke, avoiding Lara’s eyes. “Frank Door…name sounds familiar, but I can’t recall from where. I think I sentenced him one time years ago.”
“Well, according to the records, Irene, he was released the other day when you were sitting the arraignment calendar for Hector. The jail received an order from Division Twenty-seven. The man is a certifiable maniac.” Lara grimaced. “You should hear the circumstances of this man’s crime. God, Irene, he tried to cremate his ex-wife alive. Can you believe it? He actually tried to put her into the crematorium where he worked. He was supposed to be in court for a preliminary hearing today on an attempt 187. He certainly wasn’t supposed to be released. Did Leo call you and ask you to do that, because if he did—”
Irene cut her off. “No, no, I don’t think so.” She thought about it a few seconds and then changed her mind. “I mean, he might have said something. I could have forgotten. Things were furious in there—a real zoo. I didn’t do this, Lara. I swear. At least I don’t think I did.” She rubbed her forehead in dismay. She looked tired and strained. “If I did, it was a horrid error.”
“Right,” Lara snapped back, oblivious to her friend’s distress. “A horrid error is an understatement. The man almost killed me.”
Irene looked extremely distressed now. She was blinking and Lara could see her chest rising and falling. “I’m not used to the pace of the arraignment calendar. I just don’t recall. I’m so sorry. What a terrible error. Did they catch the man?”
Lara didn’t know what to say. “No, they didn’t catch him,” she finally told her. Then her face softened. Irene certainly hadn’t meant to do something that would have caused another person harm. “Not yet. Anyway, forget it,” she said.
The phone on Irene’s desk started ringing. She looked at it and started to ignore it and then decided not to. “I guess I have to take that call,” she told her. She punched the button and picked up the phone. Then she held the receiver away from her ear and whispered to Lara, “We’ll talk later.”
Lara headed to the door. She had to be back in court. She was already late. She headed straight to the courtroom. Once again she had lashed out when she should have remained silent. Irene was her friend. Everyone made mistakes. Maybe Evergreen was responsible for this anyway, she thought. He could have put a note in the file and Irene just forgot about it. About to enter the rear door to the court, she changed her mind and headed back to her office.
“Did that order come over from the jail?”
“Yes,” Phillip said, handing it to her without looking up.
“Call the court and tell them I’ll be another five minutes.” With the computer printout in her hand, she made her way to the arraignment calendar. They were in session, Judge Hector Rodriguez on the bench. Lara crept in and bent down to talk to the clerk. Rodriguez glanced at her and then turned back to the courtroom. He was in the midst of an arraignment.
“Do you remember this order?” Lara whispered to the clerk, putting the paper right in front of her.
The girl looked at it and then looked at Lara. “No. Why?”
“Well, it was issued from this courtroom. It says Division Twenty-seven right there.”
“But it’s not our terminal. See?” She pointed to a series of numbers in the corner of the document. “That’s not ours. I don’t know who that terminal belongs to. Our number is 45892. This was transmitted on 45891. It’s got to be someone in superior court, but it’s not us.”
Lara snatched the document away and crept back out of the courtroom. As she rushed down the hall, she repeated the number to herself. Then she remembered.
Terminal 45891 was on her own desk.
Evergreen must have entered her office, probably while she was out and Phillip was at lunch, and transmitted that order from her terminal. If she tried to do something about it, no one would believe her. They would assume she’d staged the entire event, possibly to attract people’s sympathies, or to take the heat off herself because she was under investigation. Leo was smart. Every step he made was carefully orchestrated.
Bringing the court order up to her face as she walked, she stared at the typed lines. If she had typed this document, with her limited skills, it would have taken her hours. Could Leo Evergreen type? The words were all aligned perfectly. Not only that, what she was looking at was a form stored on the county’s computer software with the specifics of Door’s case entered in the blanks. Would the presiding judge know how to find this form on the county’s massive computer system and execute it himself?
Lara exhaled and hit the back door to the court.
“All rise,” the bailiff said as Lara took her seat on the bench.
She didn’t hear the bailiff’s words. She looked right over the heads of the spectators and attorneys as if they weren’t present. Evergreen might not know how to operate the computer software, but Phillip certainly did.
Chapter 22
Rickerson left Josh at the station in the hands of baby Bradshaw for the photo lineup and rushed home for an early dinner with the family. He had promised Lara he would pick up something for Josh and Emmet to eat on the way to the complex. As soon as he wolfed down his food, he got up to shower and dress for the concert.
After he cleared the table, Stephen followed his father into the bathroom and watched him shave. “Mom called today,” he said, leaning back against the door frame.
“Oh, yeah?” Rickerson answered.
“She wants you to send her some money, and she’s pissed that you haven’t called her lately.”
“Sure,” he said, frowning in the mirror, “I’ll rush right out and print some up. If she calls again, tell her we’ve got about fifty bucks until payday. She’ll have to get a part-time job or a loan.”
“I filled out an application at Baskin and Robbins today. They think they can use me a few days a week after school.”
Rickerson dropped his razor in the sink and faced his son, hitching up his towel. “I don’t want you working. First, I need you here in the house, and second, your grades are more important than the twenty bucks or so you could earn. It won’t hurt your mother to get a job. She’s the one who insisted on this whole thing.” He rinsed his face and splashed on aftershave. “Besides, this next paycheck will put us over the top. I’ve been putting in a ton of overtime.”
Heading to his closet, he took out his best sports jacket and laid it out on the bed, turning to the dresser for a dress shirt. “What tie would look best with this?” he asked his
son, holding two or three ties in front of him.
“The brown paisley. Hey, Dad, where did you say you were going tonight?”
Rickerson looked at his son and saw the gleam in his eyes. “I’m working.”
Stephen smiled broadly. “Really? You’re working, huh? You’re getting all dressed up like this to go to work? You’ve got a date, don’t you? You’re finally getting off your duff and going out on the town. Hot damn, Dad. ‘Bout time.”
Rickerson’s face fell. “I’m working, okay? I’m working undercover. Who would go out with me anyway?”
“A lot of women. Leslie thinks you’re a hunk. She even told me that the other day.”
Leslie was a divorced neighbor three doors down. She was one of the few people that knew Joyce was gone. She was always coming over with casseroles and food for the kids. The woman weighed about two hundred pounds, was about four feet nine, and had four screaming little kids. “Thanks,” Rickerson said, “but no thanks, kid. I’m hard up, but I’m not that hard up.”
A few seconds later, Rickerson went in and spoke with Jimmy, gave him a hug and left.
Lara glanced at her watch and was relieved that the day was over. They had run past six o’clock. Poor Victor Adams looked more strained today than yesterday. He was teetering on the brink, but no one could save him, no one but the D.A. and he had refused. She instructed the jurors, tapped the gavel, and adjourned for the day, slipping from the bench. Rickerson had taken Josh to the police station for the photo lineup. She’d told him to drop him at Emmet’s and then come to get her at the condo.
Back in her chambers, she was about to grab her purse and leave. Phillip had already left. Then she looked up and saw Leo Evergreen standing in her doorway.
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