Rock & Roll Homicide

by R J McDonnell

  I decided to have him tail Nigel for a while. I couldn’t help but wonder why Nigel was being so generous. First, he asked me to sit in on a recording session, then offered work doing bios, then the gig at Bernie’s. Each of these things served to make me like Nigel and, at the same time, distracted me from working the case.

  Cory had gone back to the hospital and had his ribs wrapped. He said that the assignment would take his mind off of the pain and he was glad he still had a job.

  When I returned from lunch Jeannine said, “Chelsea Tucker called while you were out and seemed upset that she couldn’t reach you. She’ll be out for the rest of the day, but asked for an appointment tomorrow. You’re seeing her at 1:00 PM. Is that OK?” she asked.

  “That’ll be fine,” I replied.

  I then called California Confidential and told them I would make a statement this evening. They seemed genuinely pleased.

  At 4:30 PM Shamansky called. “So, are you going to make me guard you on an empty stomach, or what?”

  “I don’t see the boss until tomorrow, so the petty cash fund is teetering on empty. But, if you can settle for Mickey Dee’s instead of Larabee’s, I think I can handle it,” I said.

  Shamansky replied, “There’s a Subway three blocks east of Cerise. If we have to go cheap, let’s at least make an effort to keep the calories down.”

  “Will 6:30 PM work for you?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he replied and hung up.

  I spent the next hour getting my expense report together for Chelsea. I held off on doing totals so that I could include Shamansky’s freebie on the report. I also picked up Kelly and drove her home.

  By 6:40 PM I was noshing a six-inch turkey club while Shamansky was stuffing a twelve-inch meatball torpedo. I concluded that he kept his weight down by only eating when complimentary meals could be arranged.

  “You disappointed me today Duffy,” he said. “After reading that Entertainment section article I thought you’d be reversing your career change.”

  “I couldn’t do that, Shamansky,” I said.

  “Why not? You’re rockin’ with the big boys now,” he said.

  “But then nobody would be left to chase after Terry’s real killer,” I said with a broad smile.

  “The DA thinks I’m doing a hell of a job,” he offered.

  “Too bad the profile method of police work doesn’t allow for investigating more than one suspect,” I said.

  “In this case, I don’t think we need to go beyond your boss. But, once we lock her up maybe you can offer your services to OJ. He’s still looking for the real killer, isn’t he?” Shamansky asked.

  “If you’re so sure Chelsea did it, what are you doing here tonight and meeting with Koflanovich tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Because I was told on Friday that I’m the lucky stiff that catches the clean-up work on your break-in and other crimes against Duffy Investigations personnel,” he said with a look of consternation.

  “But you’re a Homicide Detective,” I said. “If the department is treating them as separate crimes, wouldn’t they go to another department?”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you,” he stated. “But in this era of fiscal austerity, if a detective catches a case and there are cross-over crimes during the course of the investigation, he’s stuck cleaning up the mess.”

  “What about GI Jo-Jo? Did you conclude that having a demolitions expert who just had a fight with the victim is completely irrelevant?” I asked incredulously. This got us stares from two soccer moms who just sat down at an adjacent table.

  Shamansky gave them a charming smile, flashed his badge and said, “Police business, ladies. We’re having a working dinner. Could I ask you to please move to another table? This is confidential.”

  I would have told him where to get off, but the soccer moms were happy to accommodate Shamansky’s request. Once they were out of earshot he turned to me and said, “I’m looking into it, but I’m getting the impression Terry and GI Jo-Jo were actually friends, or as close to friends as guys like that get.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked heatedly.

  “Terry wasn’t going to get rid of Martin. I don’t believe that was ever an issue. Terry had a lot of respect for him as a soundman. As a perfectionist, Terry would never get rid of another detail-oriented craftsman,” he said.

  “What about Martin procuring drugs for Davis? What about his groupie girlfriend? What about the fight? And how can you dismiss the fact that he engineered the death of a former boss?” I said getting loud again.

  “Let’s walk over to Cerise Records,” he said and stood up. As soon as we got outside he said, “The thing you gotta know about a guy like Terry Tucker is that he put his personal success and the success of the band ahead of everything else. If Terry yelled at Martin over a drug issue I think he was probably pissed that Martin misread the purity level of whatever he was giving Davis to keep him going.”

  “Where the hell did you get that?” I asked.

  “Hear me out,” he said. “The groupie girlfriend was another functional convenience for Tucker. He got to maintain the bad boy image while the press was around, then schlep her off on Martin as soon as the photo op was over. All of the band members confirmed that theory. I see the fight as two perfectionists having a tiff. Tucker pulls rank on him all of the time in front of the band and he lets Martin flex his muscles in front of his girlfriend to throw him a bone. You wanted to know what was said when Terry was bent over after getting punched? It was probably something like. ‘Do you think that will get you some hot action tonight?’ No big deal.”

  “What about fragging his commanding officer? Was that a big deal?” I asked as we approached Cerise.

  Shamansky stopped, turned to me and said, “You said it yourself. The C.O. had influential friends pulling strings against a redneck, loner Sergeant and what happened? He got off with a transfer to the States and an Honorable Discharge.”

  I was about to tear into Shamansky’s convoluted logic when a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder from behind, and I heard a deep Russian accent say, “There better not be any bootleg CD’s made last Saturday night.”

  I turned around to see Vlad “The Impaler” Torhan looming above. “Vladimir, out of jail already? Last time I saw you, you were being dragged out of the Dali Lama in handcuffs by San Diego’s finest.”

  “San Diego’s finest? What a joke. They are called pigs because they are all fat and lazy. If not for stun gun I would have introduced them all to emergency medical services,” he said with a sadistic laugh.

  I replied, “Where are my manners? Vladimir Torhan, Cerise Records executive, this is police detective Walter Shamansky.”

  Torhan made a face like he just stepped in a dog pile. “You appear less portly than your comrades,” Torhan said in a lame attempt to backpedal.

  “I get the impression we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other,” Shamansky said with a raised eyebrow.

  Before they could continue, a pushy blond woman with a ponytail and a clipboard grabbed Torhan by the arm and said, “You need to go over to the make-up trailer now.” She then turned to me and said, “Who are you?”

  Shamansky said, “You don’t recognize the one and only Jason Duffy? How did you ever get a job as a secretary with no eye for detail?”

  “I’m an Associate Producer,” she said indignantly to Shamansky.

  “National Inquirer eat your heart out,” he replied and walked away.

  “I’m Emma Baldridge,” she said and stuck out her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at first. That Torhan person makes me nervous.”

  “Don’t worry, he has that effect on everybody,” I said as I shook her hand.

  She said in a fast-paced cadence, “I understand you want to go on after Mr. Torhan has concluded his statement. Can I ask what we can expect to hear?”

  “We’ve had a couple of new developments since the initial story broke, so I thought I’d bring you u
p to speed and comment on whatever Torhan has to say,” I said while trying not to match her staccato speech pattern.

  “Excellent, excellent, should make for interesting TV,” she said. I wondered how excellent it will be when I tell their viewers what a slipshod operation they’re running.

  She did her best to try to persuade me to visit the make-up trailer, but I knew I’d never hear the end of it from Shamansky or his cronies on future cases. I’d rather be the pasty PI than the pansy PI in the eyes of SDPD.

  At 7:30 PM the sun was down but the camera lamps lit up the front of Cerise’s building like high noon. Five minutes later I saw Jennifer Wilde, the field reporter who did the remote from my house, standing in front of the building doing a sound check. A few minutes later she gave some instructions to The Impaler, then stood in place, waiting for her cue.

  Emma tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We’ll go to the studio after Torhan finishes, then to commercial. You will be on when the studio sends it back to us.” She handed me an ear monitor. “Put this in your ear and you can hear what Mr. Torhan has to say. Jennifer will nod when you can make your statement.”

  “OK,” I replied.

  “Here we go,” she said and walked away from me. She pointed at Jennifer and I heard:

  “This is Jennifer Wilde reporting from in front of Cerise Records. Standing next to me is Vladimir Torhan, the Executive Producer of Doberman’s Stub’s latest CD, which is not yet titled. Mr. Torhan, it is alleged that Cerise Records is a front for the Russian Mafia. How do you respond?”

  “It is ridiculous! John Koflanovich, the owner of Cerise Records, is a lawful, contributing member of the community. The Mafia is a plague on all of mankind. If Mr. Koflanovich…”

  As Torhan was making his statement on live TV, two gunmen jumped out from behind a bush carrying AK-47 machine guns and sprayed him with bullets. Torhan was killed immediately. Jennifer Wilde was hit in the left shoulder and right thigh. The impact knocked her over backwards.

  Shamansky drew his revolver and got off four shots from behind the communications van. The gunmen reloaded and sprayed the van. I pulled my gun and got off a few rounds as the gunmen jumped into the back of a black pickup truck and sped off. Shamansky shattered the rear window of the pickup with a long shot, but the vehicle continued out of sight. Since we had walked to the Cerise Building from Subway, we had no way of pursuing them and both knew they had gotten away.

  After I had spent my rounds I noticed that the cameraman had filmed my firing sequence. I turned to the camera and said:

  “Send the paramedics right away. Suspects are fleeing in a late model, black Ford F-150 pickup truck with a shattered rear window, heading west on Broadway. One of the suspects is believed to be Boris Schmelnikov of Odessa, Ukraine. He is approximately six feet tall, 190 pounds, with white hair combed back and a mostly black mustache. He has a tattoo of a submarine on his left bicep. He is armed and very dangerous. If you see him please contact the police immediately.”

  As I finished my statement Emma Baldridge walked up to me, looked in the camera and said:

  “For those of you who don’t recognize him, this is Jason Duffy. Mr. Duffy, you were going to make a statement after Mr. Torhan had finished. Would you like to make that statement now?”

  I gave Emma an incredulous look and said:

  “I think we both need to see if there’s anything we can do for Jennifer Wilde.”

  I walked back toward the victims, where Shamansky was kneeling to the side of Jennifer. Apparently, I was still in frame while Emma was engaged in a dialogue with the studio. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked Shamansky.

  “Yeah,” he replied, “try keeping a lower profile.”

  I took off my shirt and folded it into a triangle. I then unbuttoned the top of Jennifer’s blouse and pressed the shirt into the bleeding wound. I held it in place for about twelve minutes, then the paramedics took over. Shamansky, who had been using his hand to press on the outside of the other entry point, followed my lead and pressed his shirt directly to her thigh wound.

  While we were waiting for the paramedics I told Shamansky about Boris Schmelnikov and my conversation with Lt. Sanchenko. “I need to call that in right now,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “The camera was on me after the shooting, so I gave the description of the pickup and Schmelnikov on the air.”

  “You what!” he screamed.

  “It was better than letting those guys just get away,” I said.

  “Bullshit!” he exclaimed. “You’ll have every cowboy on the West Coast out shooting up every black F-150 they see.”

  “Oh, come on. We see police actions from helicopters everyday on the news.” I said. “The police chase has overtaken sports as California’s favorite pastime.” Shamansky grumbled, but he knew I was right.

  We stayed at the scene for about an hour and talked with the assigned officers. As we were about to return to Subway for our vehicles, Emma Baldridge approached. “That was very heroic of you, Jason. We’ve had hundreds of viewers call in and praise you for administering first aid until the paramedics arrived,” she said.

  “I hope you got some kudos for Detective Shamansky, too,” I said.

  “Actually several viewers called in to complain about the man who had his hand up poor Jennifer’s skirt,” she said to me, then turned to Shamansky and said, “I’m sure you meant well.”

  Shamansky walked in silence. As we neared Subway I asked, “Are you still up for meeting Koflanovich if he doesn’t cancel?”

  “Provided I’m not buried in paperwork or getting my ass chewed off for letting a hit go down under my nose,” he said.

  “Will this be another of the collateral messes you’ll be assigned?” I inquired.

  “Who knows? I could be a crossing guard at SeaWorld by this time tomorrow,” he moaned.

  I said, “I’ll call Koflanovich in the morning and let you know if he’s still agreeable to a meeting.”

  I arrived at Kelly’s condo at 10:00 PM. She was extremely excited. “I saw the whole thing on television. I recorded it for you. That poor reporter. Is she going to be alright?”

  “Slow down,” I replied. “You sound like you just won a chugging contest with Juan Valdez.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Is she still alive?”

  “She was alive when the paramedics transported her. I don’t know any more,” I replied.

  “I thought I was going to faint when I heard the gunshots and saw them go down. I knew you were standing right there. I didn’t know if they shot you, too,” she said as a tear streamed down her cheek. “I felt so helpless. Then, there you were firing your gun on camera. It was like watching an episode of Law & Order. I was shaking for about a half-hour,” she said with a quivering voice.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said sympathetically. “Do you mind if I watch the video, or would it be too upsetting?”

  “It’s ready to go. Just hit play,” she said. Unfortunately, the footage didn’t capture the gunmen on tape. The cameraman stayed with the victims falling to the ground and held frame until he adjusted to focus on me firing my revolver. It was strange seeing myself talking directly to the camera.

  When I refused to humor Emma Baldridge with a statement, Kelly commented, “Good for you, Jason. That bitch just wanted to milk the situation for ratings.”

  I was a little embarrassed when the cameraman let Emma go out of focus while she was still talking, in order to get a close-up of me taking off my shirt and compressing Jennifer’s shoulder wound. I was waiting for Kelly to comment as the camera stayed on my shirtless torso a little too long. But before she could say anything I got a sinking feeling as the camera captured Shamansky reaching under Jennifer’s skirt to compress her inner thigh wound. When the camera was on me the audience saw the whole sequence of events as I took off my shirt, folded it, and compressed the wound. The viewers understood what I was doing and could relate. Unfortunately, the camera sk
ipped all of the preliminaries and just focused on Shamansky as he was reaching under Jennifer’s skirt. What I’m sure was the cuff of Shamansky’s white shirt dangling out of his hand, appeared on camera to be Jennifer’s panties hanging down near the top of her knees. I suddenly understood the negative feedback he got from Emma Baldridge and, more importantly, I understood the weeks of hazing he would get from his fellow officers back at the station house. I suddenly wished I hadn’t invited him along for the meeting with Koflanovich tomorrow. If he seemed sullen on the walk back to Subway, he would be unbearable after a morning at Metro.

  “What’s he doing to that poor girl?” Kelly asked with a disgusted tone.

  Chapter 18

  It was the Tuesday morning before the Labor Day weekend. Kelly woke up with a case of the friskies for yesterday’s hero, then treated me to a delicious breakfast. Jeannine was awed by my role in last night’s California Confidential, and even Delbert Henson insisted on opening and closing my door for me when I arrived at work. I had the feeling I better enjoy the red carpet treatment while it lasted. Soon I’d be meeting Shamansky, coming from a squad room full of ballbusters, and John Koflanovich, who had just lost a key executive/bodyguard and must be feeling particularly vulnerable.

  “We got a delivery this morning,” said Delbert.

  “Was it UPS this early in the morning?” asked Jeannine.

  “No, it was a guy in a taxi with a big, heavy box,” replied Delbert.

  “Where is the box now?” I asked.

  “I set it down in front of the entrance to our office,” he said.

  “Is anything wrong?” asked Jeannine me.

  “I think I know what it is, but, just to be on the safe side, why don’t you two stay here until I tell you it’s OK,” I said.

  As expected, the box contained my stolen computers. I opened the outer shell and did a cursory inspection. Everything appeared to be in order. I was more concerned with bugs than bombs, considering Koflanovich’s propensity for paranoia and sudden need for my endorsement.