Flea Flicker

by David Chill

  “Maybe not,” I said softly, trying to lower the heat of the conversation. “But something’s going on here that just isn’t making sense. You’re right. The evidence against Tyler is lacking. Was he even in the alley behind Glasscock’s office? If he did it, why would he be that careless as to drop things like a murder weapon with his fingerprints all over it. Granted, people who commit these crimes are often in panic mode. But these items were left near a dumpster where they’d be easily found. They have all the earmarks of being planted.”

  “I know. But by whom?” she asked, her eyes wide in bewilderment. “And why’d they target him?”

  “That’s obviously what I’m trying to get to. Do you know who Glasscock was having an affair with?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve heard rumors, but I’ve heard them about other people in city government, too. There’s only so much you can believe. In politics, you never know when someone is just spreading lies to trash others. Just to advance their own careers.”

  “Glad I didn’t stick with public service,” I commented.

  Hannah Briggs buried her face in her hands, although it didn’t look like she was crying. I wouldn’t blame her if she did, but people who became prosecutors normally have some sort of mechanism to check their emotions. The waitress came over with our drinks and also brought along a basket filled with crusty looking bread. She sat it down with a smile. If she saw Hannah, nothing registered. I smiled back at the waitress and picked up a piece of bread. It was good bread, surprisingly soft in the center even though the crust was exceptionally crispy. I took another bite.

  “This whole thing feels like a dream,” she said, spreading her fingers a bit so I could see her face. “Or maybe a nightmare. I wish I could just wake up and have everything be the way it used to be.”

  “I understand,” I said between bites. Hannah was far from the first distraught client I had had, and she wouldn’t be the last. I started to regret pressing her hard for intimate details about her personal life; people have a way of shutting down when they feel they’re being interrogated. And maybe it didn’t matter who Hannah Briggs was involved with outside of the shambles she called a marriage. Both her and Tyler were cheating, maybe one did so to get even with the other, but it mattered not. The homicide charges were their real problem now. Marriages can be fixed or ended, but incarcerations were a different story. And being the wife of an accused murderer was bad enough. How she would keep her job as a prosecuting attorney, or worse, explain this whole mess to her daughter one day was a question I couldn’t even begin to contemplate.

  “Look, I just can’t believe someone would kill a local leader over a romantic relationship,” she said, finally lowering her hands. “Certainly not Tyler. He just doesn’t have that in him.”

  I shrugged. Tyler Briggs was a football coach, and a football player before that. Even though he played quarterback, a position that is less affected by the violent nature of the sport, physical combat was always nearby.

  “So who would have that in them? Glasscock’s wife maybe?” I asked.

  “I’ve met Colin’s wife. Even if she knew about his dalliances, and she probably did, she’s not the type of person who would act like this. She might have left Colin. But murder him? No. I can’t see it.”

  “All right. That leaves us with what? Political rivals? Local activists? Clearly, Colin was not popular in his district any longer.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought this was why I hired you.”

  I sighed. That was indeed why she hired me, but people sometimes have agendas that are not obvious at first glance. And the level of trust I had in Hannah was diminishing by the minute.

  “Yes. That’s why you hired me. And I’m trying to unravel this. But what we have here is a setup, a murder made to look like Tyler did it. Someone had to have access to certain things. That green baseball cap, for instance. Could someone he knew from the football world have done this and tried to pin it on him? A player, maybe? A coach?”

  “Good heavens, you’re mad,” she snipped, and looked around as if she were going to leave. But something stopped her. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I’m running out of options,” I said. “And because that’s a stone I haven’t turned over yet. Players angry because they got cut, their big salaries suddenly gone. Coaches fired when Tyler was brought in. There’s a lot of money at stake in pro football, and the people who work there are very intense people. I’m sure you’ve met some players, they’re not that far removed from gang culture. I’m sure you’ve met some coaches, some reminded me of the type who go into police work. Maybe ex-military guys. All of them are around a violent culture. So no, I’m not mad. But I am frustrated. Excuse me if I poke at things. It’s sometimes the only way to dislodge the truth, whatever that might be.”

  At that point, our food came. My pasta was good, and I dug in. Hannah picked at her salad as if she were looking for something very particular and not finding it. The din around us grew louder, but the greater the roar, the less I seemed to notice it. We finished our lunch, I paid the bill, and silently decided not to add it to the expenses I would later bill her for. Half of me tried to applaud myself for being a great guy, but the other half wasn’t having any part of that.

  *

  My schedule that afternoon was wide open. I didn’t have anything else to do, and I was running out of people to talk to. The ones who spoke with me weren’t telling me anything useful. I decided to pay Roy Woolley a visit for that very reason, not because I thought he could tell me much, but because he was now a politician, and politicians were normally chatty. A big plus was he owned a coffee house, and I needed a jolt of energy after my dispiriting lunch with Hannah. There was a Starbucks a couple of blocks away on Venice Boulevard, but I decided it would be bad manners to walk into his establishment drinking a beverage from the competition.

  Roy Woolley owned The Roasters, which was as generic a name for a coffee house as one could conjure up. I used to drive by it thinking it was a barbecue joint, until one day when he wisely painted a big cup on the front window, with steam rising from it. There was also a sign that said there was free parking in the back. I had meant to stop in one day, just like I meant to do a lot of things that I never wound up doing. It was the price of having a busy life, but also the result of being a loyal Starbucks customer, which also might mark me as something of a caffeine addict. I had yet to find any other coffee that gave me the same buzz.

  It was after 2:00 pm, a time when a lot of people stopped drinking coffee. But there were still a lot of people lounging about The Roasters, a few sipping coffee, and many who were just working feverishly on their laptops. I waited behind a pair of aging hipsters who ordered identical decaf non-fat hazelnut lattes with extra whip and a caramel drizzle on top. Roy Woolley was working the counter and took their order with the nonplussed expression of a counterman who had seen it all, or perhaps one who did not care. Up close, Woolley was an even larger man than I first thought: thick arms, barrel-chested, with a full beard that made him look even bigger than he first appeared.

  “You serve black coffee here?” I asked innocently, once the customers before me walked out of earshot.

  “We do, indeed,” he smiled, “Although it’s not our best seller. You have a preference on roast? We have Mocha Java and Italian Roast brewing.”

  “Whatever’s darker, I’ll take.”

  “You betcha,” he said, as he began filling a large yellow ceramic cup. “That’ll be one dollar.”

  “Good deal. Better than Starbucks.”

  “That’s the idea. Same coffee for less.”

  “Sure,” I said, wondering if I’d get the same jolt. “Say, is this the place where I volunteer for your city council campaign?”

  Woolley looked up at me. “It is. Happy to get your help. I also have a petition to put my name on the ballot over there by the window. Would love to get a signature,” he said, pointing to a well-lit spot in the corner th
at had various signs and pamphlets laid out.

  “Okay,” I said, handing him a five-dollar bill and telling him to keep the change. My donation to political insurgency certainly wasn’t overwhelming, and it was tied to my hidden agenda of getting a little time with the aspiring candidate. “Mind if we talk for a few minutes?”

  Woolley looked at me for a long moment before motioning for one of the counter staff to handle drink orders for the customers behind me in line. He poured a cup of coffee for himself and led me over to the window. We quickly commandeered two chairs that a pair of teenagers had just vacated, ones that the aging hipsters were eyeing but couldn’t get to quickly enough. The seats were still warm. The hipsters looked frustrated.

  “My name’s Burnside,” I said and handed him my card. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I noticed a Starbucks a couple blocks away,” I said. “That’s usually trouble for a small coffee house.”

  “Normally, yeah,” he said, looking at my card. “A private eye, huh?”

  “Right. I live in Mar Vista. You can call me a concerned citizen, but I’m here on business. I’m looking into what happened to Colin Glasscock.”

  Woolley smirked. “No need to look into anything. Seems like old-fashioned karma to me.”

  “How so?” I asked, eyeing him carefully.

  “Glasscock was a selfish bastard. And a coward to boot. You live in Mar Vista? Well then you’ve seen that mess he’s made of our streets,” he said, angrily pointing a finger toward the window. “Traffic nightmare. Emergency vehicles can’t get through. Fire trucks, police, ambulances stuck in gridlock. Pedestrians getting hit by bicyclists. The preschool down the street complained about a three-year-old almost getting run over.”

  “That’s not good,” I said, hoping he’d continue with his rant.

  “It gets worse. A bicyclist was hit by a car the other day. The drivers can’t see the bicyclists. The bicyclists can’t see the pedestrians. Throw in those stupid Bird scooters the kids like to ride now, and it’s a nightmare.”

  “Any of this affect you directly?”

  “Affect me?” he asked incredulously. “Aside from my five-minute drive in the morning taking twenty minutes, no. I get a lot of walk-in business here at the shop, and the regular customers know there’s free parking in the back, only for The Roasters, so my place is okay. Got a tech company across the street, this is practically their lounge area in the morning. And I’m diversified. But a number of local stores closed this year because their business was way down. People can’t find a place to park, or they get frustrated being stuck in traffic, so they take other routes. This was supposed to be a growing area, they call it Silicon Alley. New businesses, startups moving in. But the city’s thrown cold water on that.”

  “So, a lot of people hated Glasscock.”

  “Yup. The worst part was he wouldn’t meet with his constituents. People here begged him to show up at community meetings and talk to us, but he stopped doing it once they took away the traffic lanes. Never would face people and listen to their concerns. He was a coward.”

  “I’d guess you’re not unhappy with what happened to him,” I asked carefully.

  “Hey, look. My condolences to his family. But the guy was a prick, and I’m not going to mince words about it. He got what he deserved. He instilled a lot of hate in people, he divided the community and someone got pushed over the brink. Surprised it was that football coach, but there are plenty of angry people around here.”

  “You thought maybe someone in the business community was involved in this?”

  Woolley raised his hands. “Hey, I’m not making accusations. I’m not pointing fingers. But you don’t shoot someone at point-blank range without being pretty ticked off about something.”

  “That’s true,” I said placidly.

  “Yeah. And something tells me you don’t think it was that coach.”

  “Nope. Too many pieces don’t quite fit.”

  At that point, an elegantly dressed man, who had to have been in his seventies, sporting a carefully trimmed silver goatee approached. He smiled a bright white smile. “Hello there, Roy,” he said.

  “Carl,” Roy said, jumping up and shaking hands. “Good to see you. It’s been a few days. I was getting worried.”

  “Oh, I don’t like to get out when it’s this cold,” he said.

  “Good thing you don’t live in Chicago,” I butted in. “That’s a whole different definition of cold.”

  “You from Chicago?” he asked.

  “Nope. Almost moved there, though.”

  “This is cold enough for me,” he said and turned back to Woolley. “Listen Roy, I just dropped another dime in the kitty. I’m looking forward to your campaign. The community’s behind you a thousand percent. Don’t worry about the money. We’ll get a lot of dough rolling in. I’m getting my friends involved.”

  Roy Woolley gave the man a hug and thanked him profusely. The aspiring politician politely listened to the elderly man go on about traffic, before he finally sauntered away. Woolley sat back down.

  “Dropped a dime in the kitty?” I asked.

  “Ten grand. He’s one of my big donors. I’ve raised over a hundred thousand so far. I was afraid things would dry up when Glasscock was wiped out. Looks like the cash is still flowing in.”

  “A hundred thousand dollars?” I whistled. “That’s pretty substantial. Going up against Glasscock might actually have been good for fundraising.”

  “Hate to say it, but yeah. I guess that takes me off the hook as a suspect, huh? Better to run a campaign against a despicable prick than against a ghost.”

  What he said made sense, but I thought back to an old French expression, Qui s'excuse, s'accus, which translates to something along the lines of he who excuses himself, accuses himself. No sense sharing that yet with Woolley, but I really didn’t have anything else to go on with him. Instead, I went back to asking him about something else.

  “You know, normally a Starbucks down the street is a problem for a shop like yours. But you’ve managed to survive it.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the exception. Starbucks is kind of predatory. They look for small coffee houses like mine, then they rent space next door, take away half their clientele, and then wait for them to go under. When the independent goes out of business, they expand and take over their space. Pretty cutthroat.”

  “How did you avoid it?”

  “My family’s owned this block for generations. Next block, too. So when Starbucks came calling a few years ago, wanting to move in next door, we told them no.”

  “And they moved in a few blocks away.”

  “Yeah, we own that property as well.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Why’d you rent to them then?”

  Woolley gave a sly smile. “It’s in a strip mall. And we also rented to a bagel shop and a dry cleaners and a convenience store. A lot of the parking spaces are taken up by those customers. People drop off their dry cleaning, get breakfast in the morning, pick up a few quick items. Those wanting coffee can’t find parking, get frustrated, and they come over here. I figured Starbucks was going to enter this neighborhood anyway, I might as well make it difficult for them.”

  “Pretty shrewd,” I marveled.

  “I always think ahead,” he smiled.

  “Tell me something. You really think you can get elected to the L.A. City Council?” I asked.

  Roy Woolley took a long sip of coffee and sank back in the chair, acting as if no one had ever asked him that question. It was a good act. If I weren’t a skeptic on human behavior, I might have bought it.

  “It’ll be tough. Not as tough as running against Glasscock. But I’m optimistic.”

  “You’ve heard Neil Handler is getting appointed to fill out Glasscock’s term.”

  “I heard. No big deal, I’m running anyway.”

  I frowned. “Insurgent campaigns don’t usually win, especially if they’re going up against an incumb
ent. Even if the incumbent is unpopular. But how do you think you’d win, an unknown trying to unseat a guy like Neil Handler? Even if he was just appointed, he has the power of the office. And a lot of friends in city government.”

  “Let’s just say that’s not a concern of mine,” Woolley replied. The sly smile returned to his lips for a moment, involuntarily perhaps, because it passed quickly. But at that moment, it all became clear. He had no intention of winning. He had no intention of running a real campaign. The hundred thousand dollars that was donated to his newly found political career would largely go to other purposes, maybe a new BMW, or remodeling his kitchen. He was not unlike a few politicians you see around today, soliciting donations from anyone who would provide them; they knew taking money made the donor feel good, even though they’d be getting nothing back on their investment. The candidate would pretend to put up a fight, lose by a large margin, and say he did the best he could. It was a scam, a con, a scheme, and a fraud, but it was a legal one, perfectly legitimate in the eyes of the law, albeit bereft of having any moral compass. Woolley’s smile was the smile of just another politician. He was indeed running for something, just not what most people thought. He was running to raise money. For himself.

  I asked him once more if he could provide any thoughts as to who might have been behind Glasscock’s demise, any name at all would help. Woolley just shook his head, smiled yet again, and said he had no idea how to help me. He reminded me to sign the petition that would put his name on the ballot, which I did using a fake name and a fake address, ensuring that it would not be counted once the petition was reviewed by the city clerk. If it even got that far.

  As I stood up to leave, I thanked Woolley for his time, more to be polite than because I meant it. I left three-quarters of my coffee in the cup, it wasn’t very dark and it wasn’t very good, and by now it wasn’t even lukewarm. I didn’t quite know where I was going next, but as I walked outside into the cool, damp air, I found out. My phone rang, and it was a familiar voice.

  “Hello, Captain,” I said. “Nice of you to call me for a change.”