Murder Season

by Robert Ellis

  Escabar remained silent, his wheels turning. “Are you trying to say that Gant didn’t kill the girl?” he said finally. “That Johnny knew?”

  Lena nodded slowly. From the look on his face, she could tell that he was hearing it for the first time. Something shocking enough to deaden nerves. But she could also see him putting it together. The next logical step.

  If Johnny Bosco knew that Jacob Gant was innocent, so did the district attorney.

  “How can I help?” he said.

  “The security videos we found tonight are probably gonna be tied up for a while. I need to know what’s on them. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s a lot more than that. But you’re here every night. You know everyone involved better than anyone else. I’d like you to go through your footage and let me know what you find. I’m gonna guess that you’ll know what it is when you see it.”

  “You want me to start eighteen months back?”

  “I’m more concerned about the month leading up to Lily Hight’s murder. After that, sure, make a pass through all eighteen months. I need you to work quickly though.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I’ll do it for Johnny.”

  He killed his drink, and Lena could tell that he was still tossing something over in his mind. As she studied his face, she wasn’t sure that she could trust him. And when it came to Higgins, she still thought that he was holding out on her. But she didn’t have much choice. Not with her cell phone vibrating in her pocket. It was after 11:00 p.m. and she could see her supervisor’s name flashing on the touch screen. Somehow she doubted that Barrera was calling just to check in.

  “You cool?” Barrera asked.

  His voice was stuck in neutral. She couldn’t get a read on him.

  “I’m good,” she said.

  “You need to come in, Lena. We’re burning the midnight oil down here. Sixth floor, Deputy Chief Ramsey’s office.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Good,” he said. “Sooner is better than later.”

  35

  Ramsey’s door was open, the overhead lights switched off, his office illuminated by a couple of table lamps spread about the room. Lena tried not to show any surprise when she saw Vaughan sitting at a small meeting table. Ramsey was behind his desk watching Barrera type something into a notebook computer. She had expected to see Higgins, but he wasn’t here.

  Ramsey pointed to a chair without saying anything, his steel blue eyes pinned on her. The silence was overwhelming. The weight of the air made it hard to breathe. She glanced over at Vaughan, who nodded at her almost imperceptibly. As his eyes moved slowly but deliberately across the room, Lena followed them to the phone on the credenza behind Ramsey’s back. The line light was burning. Someone was listening over the speaker phone. She didn’t think that it would be Higgins. And while it might have been Chief Logan, still on the East Coast recruiting students for SID, it could easily have been something much darker. She took a quick look around the office, wondering if Internal Affairs had hidden a camera somewhere.

  Ramsey leaned over his desk. “Mr. Vaughan has already informed us that Jacob Gant passed a polygraph six weeks before the trial. Did Paladino use one of his people?”

  “No,” she said. “One of ours.”

  “Who?”

  “Cesar Rodriguez.”

  Ramsey grimaced like he’d just eaten bad food, then rubbed his hand over his shaved head. As Lena gazed at his rough face, he seemed both worried and amped up—a combination that on any other night would have made him all the more frightening. But not now—not with so much on the line.

  “Well, let’s have it,” he said. “What happened in Malibu, Gamble?”

  She decided not to dwell on the consequences and just get it out of her system. Tell them what happened and worry about defending herself later. She got out of the chair and started emptying her pockets on Ramsey’s desk. Her voice was low and scratchy, but didn’t crack.

  “The district attorney broke into Johnny Bosco’s house with the help of a man named Jerry Spadell,” she said. “They used this set of lock picks to get past the front door. I wasn’t there long enough to see how they beat the alarm system. But Spadell looked like the kind of guy who could handle the job. I found this .38 on him and I don’t think that it’s registered. I found five grand in Higgins’s pocket. I think it’s Bosco’s money, and that the district attorney stole it from the house.”

  Ramsey traded looks with Barrera. “Higgins didn’t mention the money.”

  “I didn’t think he would,” Lena said. “When I identified myself as a police officer through the front door, both he and Spadell tried to make a run for it.”

  “He didn’t mention that either,” Ramsey said.

  Lena sat down at the table with Vaughan. She couldn’t get a sense of where things were going. She had expected her termination to be quick and decisive. Expected to hear Ramsey’s smoked-out voice raging in her ear. No matter what the circumstances, she had fired her weapon at the district attorney. Most politicians have a thing about being shot at. It’s not just a matter of form.

  Ramsey got to his feet, glancing at Lena and Vaughan as he moved to the window. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s my take. The city is in fucking strife over the murder of a teenage girl. Not only did we blow the fucking trial, we got the wrong fucking guy. And now the wrong fucking guy and another guy with clout are both fucking dead. Aside from what’s happening with Higgins and his bullshit band of clowns, that pretty much sums up where we’re at, right?”

  Lena glanced at Vaughan and they nodded.

  Ramsey turned to Barrera. “You ready?”

  Barrera gave him a look, then spun his computer around. “You’re being followed, Lena. Dick Harvey’s been on your back all day. And he’s shooting video. It’s on the Web, and it’s on TV. Every part of your day until tonight when you lost him on the Pacific Coast Highway.”

  She remembered seeing a white van, but not the driver’s face. Something about the van had made her feel uneasy, so she’d decided to give the new car a run once she found enough road.

  Barrera pointed to the monitor. The Blanket Hollywood Web site was broadcasting her day with commentary by Harvey. The shot of Lena entering Buddy Paladino’s office seemed to be playing over and over again with pictures of Lena and Paladino matted in graphic boxes over the building. Harvey’s wild speculation was just as endless. When the Web site cut to a shot of Lena talking to Vaughan on the phone from her car, Vaughan’s picture faded up beside Lena’s.

  “How did he know Lena was talking to me?” Vaughan said.

  Ramsey waved his hand through the air, indicating that he wanted the computer shut down. “Harvey knew it was you because he hired a lip reader. Gamble used your name.”

  Vaughan traded looks with Lena, then turned back to Ramsey.

  “How much of what we said did he get?”

  “Not enough to reveal what you two were up to,” Ramsey said. “Most of the time Gamble’s mouth was below the dashboard. But I heard enough to know that this shithead is a real problem. And it’s been my experience that guys like this don’t stop. They just keep coming. Harvey wants to think that he’s been wronged. He spent that night in jail convincing himself that he was wronged. He’s itching for a lawsuit and the publicity that would come with that. So both of you guys are on notice, okay?”

  Vaughan nodded again. Ramsey pushed Spadell’s revolver aside and sat on the edge of his desk.

  “Now I want to talk to Gamble alone,” he said. “If you guys would excuse us.”

  Lena watched Vaughan and Barrera get up and head for the door. Vaughan turned back to her and shot a look of support her way, but Barrera closed the door. And then she was alone with Deputy Chief Albert Ramsey. Alone and waiting for him to deliver the blow. He was still seated on his desk, still staring at her with those hard eyes of his.

  “I saw you smoking a cigarette on Harvey’s Web site,” he said finally. “Where’s the pack?”<
br />
  She patted down her jacket and found the pack in her pocket. Ramsey tapped a cigarette out and lit up with a lighter he kept in his top desk drawer. He took a hard first pull on the thing, then paused a moment before he blew out the smoke.

  “You gonna have one?” he said to her.

  Lena shook her head. “No thanks.”

  Ramsey sat down at his desk and pulled the trash can closer. After tapping the ash into the can, he turned and gave Lena another long look.

  “Higgins said that you hit him in the balls with your gun tonight.”

  Lena felt the pull in her chest and struggled to find her voice. “I just gave him a tap,” she said finally.

  “Why?”

  “He’d lost his focus. He needed to know that I was there.”

  “You ever do that kind of thing before?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you do it tonight? Give me the real reason, Gamble. No bullshit. I’ve got X-ray vision. I’ll see through it.”

  Lena moved to the window. She could see their new building. Tonight it was all lit up and looked like a work of art.

  “Why’d you do it, Gamble?” Ramsey repeated. “Higgins is the district attorney.”

  “Because I was angry,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Because they took Jacob Gant to trial for no reason. Because they didn’t have the brass to back out and say they were wrong. Because I could see Gant’s dead body on that bathroom floor with two bullets in his head. Because the guy who murdered Lily Hight is still out there. I was thinking about a lot of things, Chief.”

  Ramsey took another deep pull on the cigarette. “Let me see your piece,” he said.

  Lena drew her gun from its holster, gave it a quick check and passed it over. Ramsey ejected the mag and examined the weapon.

  “Why do you carry a .45?” he asked.

  “I like it.”

  “Higgins told me that you fired a shot into the fence just above their heads.”

  “I didn’t know who they were at that point.”

  “I understand that. But when you figured it out … when you saw Higgins and Spadell standing in front of you with their hands raised … when you were thinking about what they did to Gant and you had all that shit in your head—I want to know whether or not you thought about shooting them. Did you, Gamble? Did you think about putting them down?”

  She hesitated, guessing that Ramsey was hoping to trap her. When she finally nodded, something bloomed across his ruined face. Confirmation of some kind. She wondered when he would get to the part where he asked for her badge. It felt close.

  “What stopped you?” he said.

  “I’m a police officer. I took an oath.”

  Ramsey jammed the mag into her gun and passed it back to her. She wasn’t sure what was happening anymore. She walked back to the window, steadying herself against the sill.

  “Okay,” he said. “So they went to trial knowing that they were prosecuting the wrong man. Now they’re doing their best to cover everything up. But why do you think Higgins was at Bosco’s house? What’s he looking for that a security camera could pick up?”

  She had asked Escabar the same question. Stray thoughts surfaced like how the mob had been able to keep J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, in their pocket for so many years. As it turned out, they’d managed to take a photograph of Hoover performing oral sex on another man—his assistant at the FBI and his longtime companion. The more she’d thought about it, the more sense it made. Johnny Bosco wasn’t a mob figure, but would have had similar needs. He ran Club 3 AM, a place where on any given night, a VIP could be driven to excess, get into trouble and need a free pass. Higgins already had a reputation for keeping celebrities, even trust fund babies, out of jail. It had come up during Lena’s last case when a TV actor driving drunk crashed his Land Rover, killing his friend in the passenger seat. It had come up even more recently when countless actresses charged with possession walked away free and clear.

  “What do you think, Gamble? What’s Higgins looking for?”

  “I can’t say with any certainty, Chief. But he’s been keyed up about that pile of coke we found from the very beginning.”

  “And about Bosco’s reputation with drugs,” Ramsey said.

  “He worked on you, and he tried the same thing with the medical examiner during the autopsy.”

  “What’s Higgins doing at an autopsy?”

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “It’s unusual.”

  Ramsey flashed a wicked smile. “He’s using,” he said. “And Bosco recorded it. He wanted something on Higgins just in case he ever needed to force the issue.”

  “It’s possible,” she said. “Escabar told me that Higgins shows up just short of once a week.”

  “He’s a casual user. And Bosco was his provider. Bosco would’ve given him the shit for free to get that kind of an insurance policy.” Ramsey crushed the head of his smoke inside the trash can. “What about Tim Hight? How close are you to putting him in the murder room at the club?”

  “SID found blood on his shoe. Enough to work with. We should have the results soon.”

  “But you’ve got nothing on him for killing his daughter.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Other than the fact that the sky’s falling and you’re the one holding the bag, you got any other issues, Gamble? Anything I should know about?”

  “Dan Cobb,” she said. “He’s in this thing with Bennett. They’ve got a history. They go way back.”

  “Vaughan told us about it before you got here. I know Cobb. I remember when he used to work here.”

  Ramsey pulled another cigarette from Lena’s pack and lit up. When he noticed the light on the phone, he stared at it for a long time, then switched it off. Several moments passed in silence. As he joined her by the window, she could see him taking in the breadth of the city and thinking it all over. More time passed before he finally spoke, his voice low and raspy and shot for the night.

  “There comes a point in every decent cop’s life when they’ve gotta do what they’ve gotta do,” he said. “That point started for you tonight. It started in Malibu when you stood up to an asshole like Higgins. I only wish I’d been there to fucking see it. I hope I dream about it tonight. I hope I see it in color. You get my drift, Gamble?”

  “I think so,” she said quietly.

  “I want you and Vaughan to keep going. I want you to take it as far as it goes.”

  She met his eyes. Her head was spinning.

  “Let the chips fall?” she said.

  Ramsey nodded. “Let ’em fall, Gamble. We don’t need to advertise what we’re doing. The arrests will speak for themselves.”

  “How’s Higgins gonna take the news that I’m still around?”

  Ramsey glanced over his shoulder at the roll of hundred dollar bills on his desk. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “He didn’t mention the five grand, and you did. I’ll make sure he knows that I sent the bills over to SID for prints. If Bosco’s turn up on the money, Jimmy J. Higgins is dead.”

  36

  Green lights work both ways, she thought. They open the road ahead. At the same time, they force you to move forward—perhaps entering territory that you’re unfamiliar with, territory that comes with a price and no guarantee that you’ll make it back.

  She found Vaughan waiting for her in the lobby. As they exited the building together and she walked him to his car in the visitor lot, he seemed jazzed that Ramsey had cut the strings and that they were finally free to work the case wherever the evidence took them.

  “I need you in the morning,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Tim Hight’s producer is a guy named Pete London. He’s agreed to talk to us. They’ve worked together on and off for the last twenty years.”

  “How did you get him to agree?”

  “He called me this afternoon. It sounds like he wants to get something off his chest. He’s producing a reality TV show for one
of the music channels. Hight directed the show for about a year, then stopped sometime after his daughter’s murder.”

  “Did he fire Hight?”

  “He wouldn’t talk about it over the phone. All he said was that they were shooting at a house in Venice. He gave me the address and he’s expecting us to show up tomorrow morning by eight.”

  Vaughan hit his clicker, unlocking the car and opening the door. As he turned back to her, their eyes met and he took a step closer.

  “I can’t believe what you did tonight,” he said in a quiet voice. “Taking Higgins on like that. You know if it ever got out that you caught Higgins with his pants down, your picture would be on every deputy DA’s desk in the building.”

  She smiled, and Vaughan laughed and gave her a hug. Then he climbed into his car and lowered the window.

  “You’re okay, right?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Where do you want to meet up in the morning?”

  “I live in Rustic Canyon. It’s a five-minute drive to Venice. If you come by early enough, you can meet the kids.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “See you at seven-thirty.”

  “I’ll text you the address.”

  Then he laughed again and drove off.

  * * *

  She couldn’t put her finger on it. His eyes, his face, his body, or his person. All she knew was that something had happened. When he hugged her, something changed and she became very aware of his physical presence.

  She was driving on the Hollywood Freeway, heading home. The wind was up—a bone-dry wind spewing clouds of dust from the desert into the city. The clouds were so thick and dirty that Lena could hear the particles beating against the side of her car.