Vigilante

by Stephen J. Cannell

  I told them in detail about Nix Nash’s first show from Los Angeles and handed Hitch the Janice Santiago cell-phone video. He brought out his laptop and watched it.

  “So we got totally schmucked by Chavaria and that bullshit story about the ceiling fan,” Hitch said after the video ended.

  I nodded. “That whole ugly daisy chain was a setup. Worst thing is, we can’t prove anything against any of them.”

  “Are you saying Nix Nash paid all these people to lie to you about a first-degree murder?” Crystal said, appalled.

  I nodded.

  “But why?”

  “It’s good TV. It makes Hitch and me look like cowboys so it helps Nash sell his general premise that all cops are corrupt. He’ll spin it that we don’t give a damn who really killed Lita Mendez as long as we can hang it on somebody quick. Carla and Julio are minorities and were handy. That’s probably going to be his theme for show two.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes as I finished my beer.

  “You guys aren’t going to take this lying down, I hope,” Crystal said.

  “Hitch should probably resign. That would be my advice,” I said. “He should go into the movie business full-time like he wants.”

  “Listen, dawg, not for nothing, but I’m just horsing around with you when I say stuff like that. Every time I hint that I’m gonna bail, your ears turn red. I gotta have a few yucks on a boring shift.”

  “That’s very sweet,” I said ruefully. “I’m deeply touched.”

  “Besides, this guy Nash is starting to give me a bad case of blood fever, which is what the head wraps on my old block in Watts called the need to bleed.”

  Then I told him about the cold-case segment of the show and how Nash made a big deal out of voting by secret ballot when he selected the Hannah Trumbull murder as a second case to work.

  “How’s that matter?” Hitch wondered.

  “I ran into Hannah’s parents in the parking lot right after the show. They show up twenty minutes after Nash decided to work on their daughter’s murder.”

  “I’m not getting it,” Crystal said. “How’s that change the Mendez case?”

  “It doesn’t,” Hitch explained. “But it strikes to methodology. Nash already picked that case in advance, but he lied about it on the air.”

  “Exactly,” I confirmed.

  “I still don’t see how it matters,” Crystal persisted.

  “It matters because it proves that almost everything on that show is managed content,” I said. “The whole Edwin Chavaria thing, the Sanchez bust, the ceiling fan. It was all scripted, just like the vote on the Hannah Trumbull case. My guess is it’s going to become a pattern with us, just like it was in Atlanta.”

  It was getting cold, so Crystal went inside, but Hitch and I stayed on the deck and had another German lager. This time I declined the scotch shooter. I didn’t want to drive home drunk.

  The drinks began to calm me, and the city view provided some needed perspective, spreading out below us, each twinkling point of light displaying another home full of dreams and fears.

  After a minute Hitch looked at me and said, “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We gotta pick our next move carefully,” he cautioned.

  “I don’t know about you,” I replied. “But when I’m on a dangerous, tricky course, I like to find someone who’s seen the road up ahead.”

  “Like?”

  “Those two cops who got smoked last year in Atlanta.”

  I looked at my watch. With the time difference, it was too late to call, so we decided to do it first thing in the morning.

  As I was leaving, we agreed that with the arrival of the Janice Santiago video we had no case left against Carla and Julio Sanchez.

  We called the jail. It was too late to get the release papers drawn up tonight, but we made arrangements to have the Sanchezes cut loose first thing in the morning.

  CHAPTER

  24

  At eight thirty the next morning, Hitch and I sat across the table from Carla and Julio Sanchez and their young attorney, Alfredo Zelaya, in an I-room at the Hollenbeck Station. Zelaya should have been clocking high-dollar hours as a GUESS model. He had a swarthy complexion, wavy black hair, and two perfect rows of sparkling teeth. He was tricked out in a black suit, crisp white shirt, and maroon tie.

  Carla squatted uncomfortably on a metal chair, overhanging the seat dangerously on both sides while complaining. “We didn’t do nothing and still we hadda spend two days in this fuckin’ shit hole.”

  “You and your husband were being held as material witnesses,” I said. “In our opinion, you’ve also chosen to insert yourselves into Lita Mendez’s murder investigation by making false statements. If we can prove collusion or obstruction of justice, we’re gonna file it.”

  “Is this going to take much longer?” Zelaya said, sounding way too tired and bored for such a snazzy-looking guy. “We don’t need to hear any more threats. I was told you were going to cut my clients loose, so let’s sign the forms and get out of here.”

  Hitch slid the release forms across the table. As Zelaya was reading, Hitch turned to Carla and said, “We know you have some kind of deal with Nix Nash and V-TV.”

  “Prove it!” Julio injected angrily.

  “Was there anything else?” Zelaya had finished scanning the document. “Or can we please sign these and go?”

  “You’re released,” I said.

  All the way back to the PAB, Hitch and I were both still burning over our time-wasting runaround with the Sanchezes. We’d been set up and then stuffed like amateurs.

  It was around ten thirty when we took the elevator up to Homicide Special. I dialed the Atlanta PD to get contact numbers for the two detectives who had worked the Piedmont Park murders. I’d seen half the shows and remembered one of the detectives was named Caleb Cole. I couldn’t remember his partner’s name.

  The sergeant I spoke with in Atlanta PD’s Human Resources Department gave me Cole’s phone number and current address. He’d retired and was now living in Mission Viejo, near San Diego. The sergeant said that Cole’s partner was named Ronald Baron, but that after he’d resigned, he dropped off the radar and Atlanta PD didn’t have any current information on him. They were holding his pension checks.

  Hitch and I called Caleb Cole on the speakerphone. He answered on the first ring. A bad connection full of static filled the line, sounding like bacon frying. After we identified ourselves and gave him a quick rundown on what was happening and why we wanted to talk to him and his partner, Cole told us in his slow southern drawl that he’d also lost track of Ron Baron. Apparently, after leaving Atlanta, Ron had started drinking and the last Cole had heard, he’d gone to Mississippi to work construction. Caleb Cole came west and was now aboard his cousin’s lobster boat, which was at that moment a mile off the San Diego jetty, explaining the poor phone reception.

  “If you’re fixin’ to work a case Nash is lookin’ at, then my best advice for you boys is get helmets and flack vests,” Cole said. “You’re gonna end up looking as confused as Kmart Republicans. Me and Ronnie was running a high temperature in the press on account a two of the girls who got killed in Piedmont Park came from good Atlanta families and they kept up the political pressure. Our bosses wanted it solved fast and that’s what happened. But when it was done with, I’m not at all certain we booked the right doer.”

  “I thought that schizophrenic bum Nash found sleeping in the park confessed,” Hitch said.

  “Yeah, but we’re talking about a totally gassed crystal meth freak who didn’t even have a regular name, just Fuzzy. Guy made Nick Nolte’s mug shot look like the statue of David. He’d been scraping corrosion off of old car batteries and mixing it with crystal to amp up his fixes. When we booked him, Fuzzy was so confused he was breathing outta his ass.”

  “You saying he didn’t do it?” Hitch asked.

  “He said he did, but it’s hard to put much fai
th in a guy with a pet spider named Louis he kept in a matchbox. This guy who prayed three times a day to a pile of rocks he’d stacked up behind the park toilet.” Cole heaved a sigh. “Listen, all the captain cared about was that Fuzzy was wearing an overcoat with four of the six dead girls’ DNA on it. Our department was being blasted for not getting anywhere, so when Nash finds this guy and Fuzzy cops to all six killings, everybody was so happy the case was off the board, we had him booked and cooked by sundown.”

  “Listen, Caleb, if you had something to tell us about Nash—a heads-up of some kind—what would it be?” I asked.

  “Don’t take nothing for granted, ’cause everything means something.”

  “Explain.”

  “Everything that happens on that damn TV show has a purpose. A reason. It’s uncanny, but in the end, it will all somehow tie together. You won’t think it’s going to, but it will.”

  Then the signal started breaking up.

  “I’m losing you,” he said. “We’re out at sea heading south and the cell pods down here near Mexico are like nonexistent. I’m coming to L.A. next weekend. Gimme your number and we can get together if you still want.”

  Hitch and I traded him our cell numbers just before the line went dead.

  After he was gone, I looked across the desk. My partner had one Spanish loafer propped up on his lower drawer, the pleated knee of his expensive gray slacks peeking just above the desktop. His brow was furrowed and he was blowing reflectively through steepled fingertips. His thinker’s pose.

  “What?” I asked. “You got something? Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s stupid, okay? A long shot.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Okay,” he said, putting his foot down and sitting up straighter. “We know now that the argument over the fan, the Sanchez arrest, and Janice Santiago’s cell video were all part of a big setup to make us look like douche bags.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Nash choosing the Hannah Trumbull case on the air, also staged, right?”

  I nodded again.

  “And Caleb just said watch out because everything on that show has a purpose and it will eventually all tie together.”

  “Where’s this going?”

  “I’m just thinking, how’s it possible that Hannah Trumbull’s murder in ’06 has anything to do with Lita’s murder two nights ago? How’s that ever gonna tie together?”

  “I don’t think it does.”

  “I’m thinking we’re already in the blender, maybe we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get out. Suppose Caleb’s right and the Hannah Trumbull case is gonna somehow affect Lita’s murder. Maybe we should just go ahead and fully engage with this guy.”

  “You mean, put in for Hannah’s cold case, get it assigned over to us?”

  “That was my notion,” Hitch said. “I’m not saying it’s real smart; it’s just an idea. You asked what I was thinking.”

  I thought about it for almost a minute.

  “I’ll give you this much,” I finally said. “Nash will never see it coming.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  That night, Alexa had a law enforcement dinner at the Bonaventure Hotel downtown. Police chiefs and their executive commanders from all over the country were in town for a rubber-chicken banquet where Chief Filosiani was the keynote speaker.

  I had to don the monkey suit and go as Alexa’s arm ornament. I hate these things, but being a division commander’s husband requires a few sacrifices. The banquet lasted until ten. The chief was a hit with the audience but the rest of the speeches were written by press attachés and delivered from note cards in a generally lackluster fashion.

  We couldn’t get out of there quick enough. Once we retrieved the car from the hotel valet, because we were already dressed up and it was still relatively early, we went to a club called the Elephant Room, which Alexa said she’d driven past a few times and had heard was spectacular.

  We hit the place at eleven. The inside had a faux East India feel. The booths along the walls were only large enough for four people but were fashioned to look like big oversized baskets, like you’d sit in to ride giant Indian elephants in Nepal or Bangladesh. There was enough phony crystal hanging from the ceiling to delight a Vegas hooker. The waiters were all wearing turbans as they served their patrons while sitar music oozed out of the sound system. For my money, it was a total miss, but we were already there, so we ordered a drink and made the best of it.

  While we waited for our cocktails we quickly got around to Nix Nash, V-TV, and his devastating first show in L.A. When I finished filling in Alexa, she sat there scowling.

  “I know we’re supposed to support the First Amendment and a free press,” she said. “But I’m sort of losing energy for it.”

  “Yep,” I agreed. Then I told her what Caleb Cole had said about everything being part of the whole on that show and that there were no loose ends.

  “That seems a little paranoid,” she said. “Maybe Detective Cole just feels that way because of the way he blew his murder case in Atlanta.”

  “There’s probably some of that, but the whole Carla Sanchez ceiling fan runaround really got me and Hitch thinking. We talked it over. Judging from his first two seasons, the stories Nix likes to feature on the air are usually connected and part of some big overarching theme of police corruption. Those big overlapping themes are what’s driven his ratings up.”

  “You’re making it sound as if Nash could be involved in Lita’s murder and maybe also in Hannah’s. But wasn’t he in the penitentiary in ’06 when Hannah got killed?”

  “I wish Nix was directly involved, because I would dearly love to book that asshole. But that isn’t what’s happening. His alibi is rock solid for the time of Lita’s murder, plus they really were friends and you’re right, he was still doing time when Hannah was killed.”

  I paused as our drinks were delivered by a Mexican waiter who looked like he should be a José or a Carlos but who had a name tag identifying him as Bashkir. I wasn’t buying that either. Once he left, I continued.

  “Nash is all about creating high-value police humiliation. He wants to set us up, then get us to make mistakes. I don’t have a clue yet who killed Lita Mendez, but Hitch and I are gonna work it till it bleeds. I’ve got a list of potential suspects and we’re not gonna let up.”

  “And if you find the perp, then Nash won’t be able to get you,” Alexa correctly surmised. “The case will be down and he’ll be without his big L.A. finale.”

  “Yeah, but he’s gonna try and keep that from happening by slowing us down and wasting our time. He’s gonna feed us false leads like he did last year in Atlanta, like he already did with Carla Sanchez. He’s an ex-lawyer and he knows how to pull that off so we can’t see his hand and pin an obstruction case on him.”

  “You can’t be saying he’s good enough to beat you and Hitch to the solution.”

  “It’s not so much about police science as it’s about delegation of resources. Our department is spread thin. Our forensic experts are shared with a hundred and ten other detectives. Sometimes R and I, print runs, and autopsy results take weeks. There’s a wait for everything these days. Nash has ten full-time cops, ex-FBI, and forensic scientists on his TV staff. Marcia Breen vets all his legal stuff so they don’t get caught in a prosecutable offense. Web Russell will downfield block at the courthouse. Basically, Nash is going to float bum leads for us to chase and then try and beat us to the killer. He can probably do it, ’cause he’s got us outmanned ten to one.

  “Making it even worse, Hitch and I only have a limited budget while he has five or six hundred thousand dollars a week to spend on that show. He can bribe suspects and offer rewards. If he finds the unsub first, then Hitch and I get launched right up into orbit and start circling the globe with Caleb Cole and Ron Baron.”

  We sipped our drinks without talking for almost a minute.

  Then, unexpectedly, Alexa said, “Marcia Breen is working with Nash?”


  “Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate, but a survival alarm went off in the primal part of my brain that processes emotional danger.

  “Didn’t you used to go out with her?” Alexa asked.

  “With Marcia?”

  “Yeah, who do you think I’m talking about?”

  “We dated a couple of times. It was years before I met you.”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “Next to you, it’s like putting Marge Simpson next to Aphrodite.” I was digging hard, trying to shovel my way out of this.

  “Calm down; I trust you,” Alexa said, sipping her drink slowly, never taking her eyes off me. “You used to date her, so don’t blame me for being just a little bit jealous.”

  I smiled and tried to get her off this subject: “Are we through with the Marcia Breen part of this conversation? Because I’d like to move on.”

  “What do you need, honey?”

  “I’d like to get the Hannah Trumbull case assigned to Hitch and me. I checked this afternoon and it’s not actually being worked right now by anyone. Hitch and I want to take it over.”

  “Doesn’t that double your exposure?”

  “Here’s our theory on that: if somebody’s already determined to bash your head in with a hammer, what does it matter how many additional reasons you give him to try?”

  Alexa took another sip of her drink and thought it over, or at least that’s what I thought she was doing. But instead, she said, “You really don’t think she’s prettier than I am?”

  “What? Hell, no! Weren’t you listening to what I just said? Marcia once had a certain earthy appeal, but she went to the dark side. My Lancelot vows won’t let me anywhere near her.”

  Alexa finally smiled.

  When we were driving home Alexa turned to me and said, “I think you guys might be right. Taking over that case is a good strategy. Keeps us on the offensive. I’ll call Jeb and have Trumbull transferred over to you first thing in the morning.”