The Burning Plain

by Michael Nava

  “I don’t specialize,” I said. “Isn’t Nick Donati more yours?”

  He blushed. “He said you knew about us.”

  “He led me to believe it was over between you.”

  “It’s complicated,” he said. Donati’s phrase. “In the Industry, you can be out, but you can’t be out out.”

  “Aren’t you out at work?”

  “Yeah, but I’m a production designer. I’m supposed to be gay. Nick’s upper-level management. He has to keep it private.”

  “That mean no boyfriend?”

  “It’s hard because I really love him,” Travis said. “I want everyone to know. I want to live with him. That’s what most of our fights are about. We break up, we get back together. All this trouble has brought us a lot closer.”

  “That’s one good thing, then,” I said. We picked at our meals for a few minutes, talking about things unrelated to the case. Then I recalled what I meant to ask him. “Last night Nick said you had something to tell me about the case. What is it?”

  He swigged his tea, put the glass down. “Yeah, remember you told me to try to figure out what weekends I was using the cab?”

  “I remember. Did you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I definitely did not use it the first weekend of June.”

  The weekend Alex was murdered.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I was trying to reconstruct when my car broke down,” he said. “I looked at the receipt from the mechanic. I didn’t take it in until that Wednesday, so it must have been working over the weekend. Does that help me?”

  It was further evidence he couldn’t have been driving the cab the night Amerian was killed. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s very helpful. Bring the receipt to the lineup.”

  The sheriffs conducted their lineups down at Bauchet Street, site of the men’s county jail. Every new deputy sheriff started out as a jail guard at that squalid, violent and overcrowded pile of concrete. In a few cell blocks, the deputies patrolled from catwalks suspended between the rows of cells where they monitored the floor on closed-circuit cameras, rarely coming into contact with the prisoners. For the most part, though, they worked the floor, where they were vastly outnumbered and in constant fear for their safety, a combination that bred paranoia and encouraged brutality. I’d been in and out of a lot of jails and prisons, but there wasn’t anywhere like the LA County Men’s Jail; to step inside was to step into a funnel of rage. Bob Travis went chalk-white when I led him in for the lineup, and I think he would have grabbed my hand if some instinct for self-preservation hadn’t stopped him.

  “He’s terrified,” I said to Serena, as we watched Travis and five other men file into the room on the other side of the one-way mirror.

  “He looks all right to me,” she replied, plainly understanding the purpose of my remark.

  “If this wasn’t pro forma,” I said, “I’d object to proceeding with the lineup until he calmed down.”

  “Why don’t we get started.” She went to the door and said, “Mac, the first witness, please.”

  “Mac?” I said. “You can’t mean Gaitan.”

  Before she could answer, he swaggered into the room, followed by a child. When our eyes met, I think we would have snarled if we could. My gaze flicked past him to the child who, I quickly realized, was not a child, but a young man. Willie Wright. The hustler who’d seen Jack Baldwin climb into the Lucky Taxi. He had a soft, spoiled prettiness and glanced around the room glassy-eyed.

  “Are you ready, Willie?” Serena said.

  From the depths of whatever drug he was on, the boy said, “Yes, ma’am,” in a soft, hillbilly drawl.

  “Mac,” she said to Gaitan. He read the standard admonition. “You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Willie said, a bit more firmly. “Yes sir, I do. You want me to tell you if one of those men took Jackie.”

  “That’s right,” Serena said. “Take a look, Willie.”

  “You have to be positive,” I said.

  “Just tell me if you recognize any of them,” Serena said, throwing me a warning look.

  Willie Wright went to the window, standing so close his breath fogged the glass. “No,” he said.

  “Take as long as you need,” Serena said.

  “That’s coercive.”

  She made a sour face. “That’s absurd.”

  Willie turned slowly from the window. “Jackie was my friend. I’d tell you if I saw the man. He ain’t one of them. They’re too young.” The little speech seemed to exhaust him. “Can I go now?”

  “All right,” Serena said. “Thanks, Willie. Mac?”

  “I did see him once,” Willie drawled, as Gaitan tried to usher him out of the room. “In the paper …”

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “Let him go, Henry,” Serena said, bristling. “He didn’t ID your client and he’s obviously under the influence.”

  They left the room.

  “What is Gaitan doing here?”

  “He interviewed these witnesses,” she said, “and he asked to be here. I didn’t see any reason to say no.”

  “After what I told you about him?”

  “Let’s just get on with it, all right?” she snapped, jaw quivering.

  “What’s with you?”

  She went to the door. “Mac. Mr. Gray, please.”

  Parker Gray, the sex-club bouncer, was turtle-necked and gargantuan in his pressed walking shorts and red, white and blue tank top with an American Gladiator logo. There were heavy patches of acne on his big shoulders, a side effect of steroids. He studied the men on the platform carefully.

  “Could they please turn to the side?” he asked, with the faintest of lisps. “Thank you.” He knotted his hands behind his back and examined them. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t be sure.”

  I skipped a breath. “Do you mean you think you recognize one of them?”

  “The man I saw looked something like these men,” he explained apologetically, “but none of them look exactly like the man I saw. Does that make sense?”

  “In other words,” I said, “you don’t see that man here today.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “That’s a miss,” I told Serena.

  “I’m not so sure,” she said. “Do you need more time, Mr. Gray? Would that help.”

  “No,” he said, surer now. “I don’t see him.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Gaitan let him out but didn’t leave with him. I heard Serena draw a deep breath and said, “There’s one more witness.”

  “What?”

  “The investigation’s ongoing,” she said stiffly. “Another witness has stepped forward.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A couple of days ago. I didn’t mention her because we hadn’t taken a statement from her until yesterday.” I watched her glance at Gaitan. “Was it yesterday, Detective?”

  “That’s right.”

  I exploded. “You bring me down here with my client and forget to mention you have a third eyewitness? This is bullshit.”

  “You agreed to the lineup,” she said defensively.

  “I didn’t agreed to be sandbagged by you and this—” I stared at Gaitan. “This scumbag.” He took a step toward me. “Just try it, you asshole.”

  “Maricón …”

  “Stop it,” Serena said, jumping between us. “Get out of here, Mac.”

  I felt his breath on my face. He told her, “You better remember whose side you’re on, lady.”

  “I said get out.”

  He backed off. “I’m bringing her in,” he said.

  Serena went to the intercom and instructed the deputy in charge of the line-up to clear the room. “You won’t do anything until I tell you to,” she told Gaitan.

  He raised his hands. “Whatever. You’re the boss.”

  After he left, I said, “What’s going on, here?”

  There was a door opposite the one from which Gaitan had exited, “Come with me,” she said. “There’s
a conference room over there. We need to talk.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Chapter 13

  I FOLLOWED HER into yet another windowless room with scuffed walls and a battered table. The kind of room where I seemed to spend a lot of my life. She tossed her briefcase on the table and removed a file from it. Without looking up at me she said, “Here’s a copy of Ms. Schilling’s statement. She’s the new witness.”

  I grabbed the two handwritten sheets from her. “Why didn’t you mention this when I first got here?”

  Nervously, she smoothed her skirt. “I hoped one of the other witnesses would ID your client.”

  “But if not, you had this in reserve,” I said. “And if you’d told me any sooner, you know I would’ve walked. You played this wrong. We’re leaving anyway.”

  “At least read the statement,” she said, in a voice that was halfway between imperious and imploring.

  I started reading. Joanne Schilling lived in an apartment two blocks from the alley where Alex Amerian’s body had been found. At around five-thirty A.M., on the morning Alex’s body was found, she was out walking her dog when a blue and white cab exited the alley at a high rate of speed and nearly ran her over. The driver stopped just in time to let her cross, then sped off. She got a good look at his face. The description she gave matched Bob Travis down to pale eyebrows.

  “Gaitan took this statement?”

  Serena colored. “Don’t start, Henry. I’ve talked to the woman. She repeated her description almost verbatim.”

  “Bob wasn’t driving the cab that weekend,” I said. I showed her the receipt from his auto mechanic indicating his car had gone into the shop the Tuesday after the murder.

  She studied the receipt, swallowed. “If I was going to kill someone,” she said, returning the receipt, “I wouldn’t use my car, either.”

  “Gaitan is using you to help him frame an innocent man,” I said.

  She scowled. “That’s so incredibly offensive to me.”

  “You brought me down here under false pretenses,” I replied. “That’s more offensive.”

  “Look at these,” she said, digging into her briefcase.

  She slapped a stack of pink phone messages on the table. I glanced through them. They were all from either Mr. or Mrs. Jellicoe.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Tom Jellicoe’s parents. They live in Colorado Springs. Their priest told them Tom’s death was a blessing in disguise. After the newspaper ran the story of his murder, the Jellicoes got hate calls. Mrs. Jellicoe sent me Tom’s baby pictures, his high school yearbook. She told me she wanted me to know who he was, so I wouldn’t stop looking for his murderer just because he was gay.” She slipped the phone messages back into her briefcase. “I make it a policy not to come out to victims or witnesses, but I came out to her so that she would understand that I understood. Now she calls me two or three times a day because she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. People in her town think this guy did her a favor by killing her faggot son. I hold the phone to my ear and listen to her cry. I promised her I would find the man who killed Tom.”

  “My client didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Then let’s finish the lineup,” she said. “If he wasn’t in the alley, she won’t ID him. If he was, Henry, I want him off the streets today.”

  “You said she repeated the statement to you verbatim. That sounds like coaching to me.”

  She was about to answer when there was a knock at the door and then Gaitan entered the room.

  “The lady picked his client,” he thrust his chin at me. “She’s positive it was him.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I told you to hold off on the lineup,” Serena said, angrily.

  “I admonished her,” Gaitan said.

  For a moment, Serena and I were both too stunned to speak.

  “You conducted a lineup of my client without telling me?” I said. I grinned at Serena. “You can kiss that identification goodbye.”

  She had turned beet red. “Goddamn you, Gaitan. Haven’t you ever heard of right to counsel?”

  “Miranda only applies to questioning,” he replied.

  “Not hardly,” I said. “You can fill Gaitan in on the law later. Right now my client and I are leaving.”

  “I arrested him,” Gaitan said.

  “Then unarrest him.”

  “Cut him loose,” Serena said wearily.

  Gaitan looked at her and said, “No.”

  “The lineup was improper,” she said, speaking slowly. “The ID won’t hold up. Cut him loose.”

  “Lady,” he said, “isn’t it time you remembered whose team you’re on?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “What are you, a DA or a dyke?”

  She pushed past him to the lineup room. I followed her, Gaitan behind me. She grabbed the nearest deputy and ordered him to bring Travis to the room. He arrived in handcuffs, so pale I thought he would pass out from shock. She ordered the cuffs removed.

  “Take him,” she told me. “Go.”

  “He ain’t going anywhere,” Gaitan said.

  “I’ll escort you out,” she said, ignoring him.

  Gaitan grabbed her arm. “Let’s knock this shit off.”

  She spun around, shaking him off. “You touch me again, I’ll have you arrested for battery. I’m going to write you up as soon as I get back to my office. Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth before you make it worse for yourself.”

  He looked as if he’d been slapped, then he recovered, grinned. “Hey, you’re the Man. You want to cut this guy loose, it’s all on you.”

  Out in the parking lot, I sent Travis to the car and told her, “You did the right thing in there.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said, snapping on a pair of sunglasses. “Gaitan fucked up, not me. I can still use Schilling.”

  “You’ll never get her ID in,” I said. “I’ll argue that any future identification was tainted by what happened this morning.”

  “I’m talking about her statement,” she said. “I can still use that.”

  Before I could ask her what she meant, she was striding across the lot. I got into my car, where Travis huddled in the passenger seat.

  “Am I under arrest?” he asked, as I started up the car.

  “No,” I said. “Gaitan produced a last-minute witness who claimed she saw you in the alley, driving the Lucky Taxi, the morning Amerian was killed.” When he didn’t respond, I glanced over at him. “Bob?”

  “Pull over,” he gasped. I pulled the car to the curb. He opened the door and threw up into the gutter.

  I was sitting in Travis’s antique-filled apartment waiting for him to come out of the bathroom, where he had been for the past fifteen minutes. I’d heard the tap run and then nothing. Finally, I called him. A moment later, he stumbled out. His eyes swam in and out of focus.

  “What were you doing in there?”

  He sprawled in a chair. “Relaxing.”

  “What are you on, Bob?”

  “Quaalude,” he said. “For my nerves.”

  “How many?”

  His eyelids fluttered. “Enough.”

  “How many?”

  “One, two,” he said. “I’m tired. I want to rest.”

  “Don’t fall apart on me.”

  “I’ll be all right,” he said, closing his eyes.

  I sat with him, watching for signs of an overdose, but after awhile it became clear he was merely asleep. I shook him into consciousness long enough to get him to bed, then I went into his bathroom and searched it for other drugs. I found small dosages of everything from crystal meth to Percocet; party drugs, recreational drugs. I flushed them down the toilet and called Nick Donati. I caught him as he was leaving for a meeting, but there was more than impatience in his cold, “What do you want, Henry?”

  “Something wrong, Nick?”

  He was silent. “Say what you have to say.”

  “All
right,” I said. “Detective Gaitan has produced an eyewitness who said she saw Bob coming out of the alley where the first victim was dumped,” I said, and recounted the morning’s events.

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “His witness has to be a fake.”

  “That’s my working assumption, too,” I replied, “at least until I interview her.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The DA in charge of the case is operating under a different assumption. She talked to the woman, and she believes her. I’m pretty sure she’s going to use the witness’s statement to obtain either a search warrant or an arrest warrant. I wanted you to know this is about to escalate.”

  “Media?”

  “If there’s an arrest, I don’t see how it can be avoided.”

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Meanwhile, Bob seems to be falling apart. I just flushed his pharmaceuticals down the toilet, but at the moment he’s passed out on Quaaludes. I think someone should be here to keep an eye on him.”

  “Can’t you stay?”

  I glanced at my watch. It was nearly noon. “I’ve got a suppression motion in Torrance at one-thirty,” I said. “If I don’t show up, I’ll be held in contempt.”

  “All right, I’ll take care of Bob,” he said. “I’ll call you tonight. Meanwhile, don’t talk to anyone in the media again.”

  “Again?”

  “You heard me,” he said, and hung up.

  Puzzled by his peremptory tone, I put the phone down, checked on Travis, and left.

  When I got home that evening, I found a FedEx envelope at my door from Richie Florentino. I called Travis, but his line was busy, so I returned some other calls that had come in while I was in court. As I talked on the phone, I opened the package and out slipped the September issue of L.A. Mode with a note from Richie on a pink Post-It stuck to the cover. On the cover were pictures of Duke Asuras and Reverend Longstreet at their most predatory, under the headline: THE SECOND COMING: JESUS IN TINSELTOWN. The note read: Couldn’t wait to hear from you. R. I shook my head and put the magazine aside while I finished my calls. I ordered some food from the chicken place down the street, and when it arrived I went out on the deck to eat and read Richie’s big story.