“What the hell is that all about?” Kerrigan asked.
“Want to be a hero?” I motioned for him to follow me. When we got to the fire truck hosing down the smoking embers of the garage I said to Kerrigan, “Tell the fire chief you want him to put their ladder up there so you can look down the chimney.”
“Say what?” asked Kerrigan with a squint.
“Why do you think the kid thought he saw Santa?” I asked.
Kerrigan smiled and started barking orders. Ten minutes later, with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other Kerrigan called, “I got him!” When they got down to the ground Kerrigan got a round of applause from the spectators, fire, and police personnel. He stuck his arm out toward me to give me credit, but I shook my head and waved him off.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. Jensen said, “Who said you never get a second chance to make a first impression? You’re alright, Duffy.”
“You’ve got a hellofa team, Jensen. You’ve done a great job with them,” I said and meant it.
Shamansky broke up our little fence mending session to say, “Let’s get you downtown and wired. Nigel should be at the compound in about an hour. No time for lunch today.”
As we rode to the station house Shamansky said, “I’m sure glad we got Bates, but I’m not exactly feeling the thrill of victory,”
“I know what you mean. Just before we found Bates I got a message from Cory. He enhanced the picture he took with the night scope of Billingsly walking into the garage last night and guess what was in his hand?” I asked.
“The headphones?” he asked with a wince. I nodded. “He must have booby-trapped them.”
“It worked,” I replied. “He took out the number one booby in Southeast San Diego. I found out last night that Theodore Pine was our best bet for rolling over on his mates. He had an IQ lower than the tree he’s named after. He also has a long criminal record and was the only one of the three with very little to do with killing Terry.”
“Damn! What about the other two?” he asked.
“Some college, passing grades, no felony convictions,” I said.
“Shit! They’ll probably lawyer up and hope Nigel can get them out of it,” he said with disgust. “By the way, where are you getting this information?”
“You don’t want to know who and you don’t want to know how,” I said with a tone of mystery in my voice.
“Now you’ve peaked my interest,” he said.
“Let’s just say it’s a guy who can get into other people’s computers quicker and easier than I got into the house we just left,” I said.
“Maybe he could be a resource in the future,” he said.
“He’s being watched by agencies I never even heard of, and I doubt he’ll be reachable once this case is over. He was a friend of Terry’s,” I said and Shamansky let it go.
“Have you been thinking about what you’re going to say to Choate and Chofsky?” asked Shamansky.
“I’m gonna tell Nigel we found the headphones, the blasting caps and the BBs. I’ll also tell him that while Teddy Boy was trying to be fiercely loyal, he came down with a case of the stupids and a couple of smart cops tricked him into giving it up,” I said.
“Perfect. Very believable. As far as I know, the names have not been released to the press as yet. Even if Choate watched the noon news or heard a radio report, he shouldn’t make the connection,” he said.
“He’s conducting an audition for a new guitarist this morning, so I doubt he’ll be seeing or hearing any news,” I said.
“Good. I think once you tell him, you should make like it was all Chofsky’s idea, and that he might be able to cut a deal if he rolls on the mastermind,” he said.
I replied, “Chofsky’s got a compound full of guys with automatic weapons. I was thinking of maybe a less direct approach.”
“No! For a few seconds you’ll have them by the short hairs - squeeze and twist. Try to get them to turn on each other,” he said.
“What if they decide that getting rid of me is the best solution?” I asked.
“Then show them the wire. Tell them 50 cops have been listening to every word and the wrath of God will come down on their heads if they do anything to you. They’ll lawyer up at that point, but they won’t touch you,” he said with more confidence than I felt.
“What if they both just deny everything and don’t go for the bait?” I asked.
“Then we bring them in and hope we get somebody to roll. I think we’ll still have a shot. The Irishmen aren’t going to want to do time in the US where they’ll be away from family, friends and the Orangemen. One of them might give us Choate if we work a prisoner exchange deal,” he said.
When we arrived at Shamansky’s desk in the stationhouse, Dad was across the room chatting with one of his buddies. He looked serious and as he approached us he said, “Sounds like you had some fireworks out there.”
“We got some of what we were looking for, but not everything,” I said to him.
Shamansky said to Dad, “Your son was a big help, Jim. He did you proud. I’ll brief you in a few minutes, but first Jason needs to get wired and out to Chofsky’s place.”
“Do what you need to, Walt. Let me know when you’re ready,” Dad replied and walked back over to his friend’s desk.
“Walt?” I asked Shamansky.
“It doesn’t sound right coming from you,” he said, then picked up the phone. “Dispatch, it’s Shamansky. Are the two B&W’s ready? … Good, we’ll be down in ten,” he said and hung up. To me he said, “Take off your shirt.”
I did so and Shamansky expertly attached the microphone and transmitter. “How will I know if you’re getting the transmission?” I asked.
“The guys in the truck will have your cell phone number. If they can’t hear you they’ll call and tell you the instant they lose you. Just make up an excuse to go out and talk to the cops, and they’ll strap on a new one. But trust me, I’ve used this model a hundred times. I know the range and the layout of the compound. There shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
I stood up and Dad walked over carrying a bag. “Your mother packed you a lunch. I figured you wouldn’t have much time.”
I could tell Shamansky was dying to display his humor, but didn’t want to piss Dad off, so he held his tongue.
At 1:18 PM I arrived at the compound in a black & white. After a minor hassle with Svetlana she escorted me to Chofsky’s office. The doors swung open and Chofsky was standing behind his desk. The thick-paned, tinted French doors behind the desk that overlooked half of the swimming pool were open. As I walked in I could hear Ivana splashing in the pool and talking to someone I couldn’t see.
“I don’t have much time for you, Mr. Duffy. Besides the interviews with the men you helped bring into the country, I also have another business meeting taking place right now. So quickly, what can I do for you?” he asked impatiently.
“I need you to call Nigel in here,” I said.
“He is in the meeting. This will have to wait,” he said assuming I didn’t have the clout that Shamansky carried.
“His friends were arrested this morning and told us Nigel swapped out the headphones Terry’s wife gave him with the one containing the bomb. We need to talk right now,” I said.
Chofsky picked up his telephone, dialed and said, “Bring Mr. Choate to my office.” He then walked to the French doors and closed them. As he was doing so he gave a tight-lipped smile and waved at Ivana. I felt sorry for her, knowing what she had been through and what was coming. Chofsky pressed his fingertips together and had a worried look on his face. He was about to say something when Svetlana swung the doors open and Nigel walked in.
“What’s going on?” asked Nigel.
I replied, “The police raided Desmond Thompson’s house first thing this morning. They found the headphones Chelsea gave to Terry along with two of the three pairs that were sent to Devin Billingsly in North Ireland.”
“Bollocks!” he exclaimed.
I continued, “They also found blasting caps and a box of BBs.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would they do that? They know Terry was my mate. I can’t imagine how this is possible,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.
“Well, actually we have some answers to those questions already,” I said. “Your friends Devin and Warren weren’t giving anything up. But the other guy, Teddy Boy is quite another matter. He had every intention of keeping your secret, but he lost a battle of wits with a couple of smart cops. We know about how you swapped out the headphones at 7/Eleven.”
“Bollocks! I had nothing to do with it!” he exclaimed.
“Before I left to come over here, Detective Shamansky called the 7/Eleven to find out if they have a surveillance system, and guess what? They got robbed three times last year so they put cameras on the parking lot to record the faces of robbers before they put on their ski masks,” I said.
“Aha! Now I know you’re lying! There aren’t any cam…” Nigel’s voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying.
I replied, “See how easy it is to give it up? This is the kind of thing that got Teddy Boy to slip up. You knew Terry would be stopping there for his usual Super Big Gulp of iced tea. They had posters all over the windows so you didn’t have to worry about being seen by him,” I said.
“Do you believe this shite?” Nigel said to Chofsky, who remained silent.
I continued, “Mr. Pine has a big problem with spending the rest of his life in a California prison. As an accomplice he could get as much time as everybody else. But, since he told us Warren stole the blasting caps and Billingsly built the bomb, he really didn’t have much of a role in the killing. The DA agreed to a prisoner exchange with Northern Ireland. The details still have to be worked out, but the bottom line is that Pine agreed to five years near his family, friends and fellow Orangemen versus life where he’ll never see a familiar face again. Pine has been to prison before. He knows what it would be like at a facility with no friends. He took the deal.”
Nigel asked, “Then why are you here instead of the cops?”
“The cops are here,” said Chofsky.
Nigel looked at me and I said, “Because I don’t believe this was your idea. I think Mr. Chofsky laid out Terry’s plan for a protracted legal battle that would have shut down your cash flow for the next three years, and you asked him what you could do to get the deal done. I think Terry put you in a position where he wanted to punish you for your excessive spending and felt a legal battle would get him more money in the long run and get you back under his thumb in the short run. You didn’t think it was fair and Chofsky suggested something that would solve all of your problems.”
“You’re out of line Mr. Duffy. That is preposterous,” Chofsky said with his chest puffed out and his thumbs looped under his lapels.
“Then why did you place an ad for the new CD in a trade publication the day before Terry was killed?” I asked. When he couldn’t come up with a response I turned to Nigel and said, “The DA always comes down hardest on the mastermind. If you tell the police that Chofsky took advantage of you while you were in a vulnerable spot, you could get a deal like Teddy Pine. Probably a few more years, but with good behavior you’ll only have to do one-third of your minimum sentence. If you keep denying everything while everybody else cuts deals, you’re screwed.”
Chofsky boomed, “Get a lawyer and keep your mouth shut!”
Immediately after he shouted all hell broke loose. A hail of gunfire seemed to come from everywhere. I instinctively dove to the carpet, looked up through the French doors, and saw several paratroopers with automatic weapons floating quickly toward the inside of the compound. Chofsky bolted through the French doors toward the swimming pool. He got about three steps onto the decking when a bullet struck him in the forehead. I rolled onto my side as I heard the sound of Ivana getting out of the pool.
By this time Chofsky’s guards were returning fire and drawing the attention of the paratroopers. I ran out the French doors and dove behind one of several large brick planter boxes that ringed the pool area. When I peeked over the edge of the box I was horrified to see who Ivana had been talking to. It was Jeannine. At first my brain had trouble processing what I was seeing. Why would Jeannine be in Chofsky’s backyard? Then it hit me. She had come with Michael to his audition, and her presence must mean he was asked to join the band.
Jeannine was in a squatting position with her hands over her ears, and her eyes closed. I ran to her, bent down, pulled one of her hands away from her ear and as calmly as possible said, “Jeannine, it’s Jason. Come with me.”
Her eyes opened wide and focused on me, “Let’s go!” I shouted over the gunfire. I laced her fingers in mine and pulled her to a standing position then started to run. She kept pace all the way through the French doors. I brought her around the desk and guided her down to the floor alongside Nigel. “Wait here!” I shouted.
I pivoted and ran back to the deck where Ivana was down on all fours calling to her father in Russian. Keeping my head down I ran to her. “He’s gone, Ivana,” I said.
“No!” she screamed. I put my arm around her waist and carried her on my hip back through the French doors to where Jeannine and Nigel were hunkered down behind the desk.
“Nigel, where’s the rest of the band?” I asked while breathing heavily. He pointed toward the door. “Show me!” I exclaimed.
He led us out the office doors and into the hallway. I asked Ivana, “Is there a safe room in the house?”
She looked confused, “What?”
“Do you have a safe room in case you’re attacked?” I asked.
As we reached the huge dining room where the band was set up she said, “The bomb shelter.”
Upon entering the dining room Ian and Jack were asking what was going on while Michael ran to Jeannine, threw his arms around her and said to her, “Thank God you’re alright. I was going out of my mind.” She sobbed loudly into his shoulder.
“Listen up!” I screamed above the cacophony of everyone talking at once. When I had their attention I said, “Ivana is going to take us to a safe room.”
“Bomb shelter,” she corrected me.
“Let’s go,” I said and pointed Ivana’s shoulders at the door. She started walking down the hall when we heard a loud crash in the front of the house. “Faster!” I exclaimed in an excited whisper. She ran and we kept pace all the way into the library. She pressed a hidden button under the lip of one of the shelves and a panel next to the bookshelves retracted, revealing a metal door with no handle and a box the size of a fire alarm unit with a green display screen. Ivana put her thumb on the illuminated scanner and the door opened instantly. As soon as we entered she thumbed another scanner and the door closed.
“The panel on the outside is closing now. We should be safe,” she said.
“What’s this?” asked Nigel.
We walked over to a desk that held two television monitors. Ivana opened up a laptop computer and turned it on. She then hit a couple of keys and the monitors came on. One showed the area in front of the bomb shelter and the other was an interior camera showing the front door, which was wide open.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Ian.
I replied, “It looks like the Russian Mafia sent a skydiving hit squad into the compound.”
“They killed my Daddy,” Ivana whimpered and started to cry.
“How many are out there?” Ian asked.
“There must be at least a hundred of them,” she replied. Actually, I think it was closer to twenty, but I had no problem letting Ivana think it took a small army to kill her father.
The bomb shelter looked comfortable. It held two single beds, a stocked kitchen, bathroom, radio, TV, DVD and a short-wave radio. “Do you know how to work the short-wave radio?” I asked Ivana. She nodded and wiped tears. “See if you can reach the police.”
When I said this, Nigel reached into his pocket and came out with a small
pistol that he pointed at Ivana and said, “Put the radio down, Ivana.”
“What are you doing Nigel?” asked Jack.
Nigel replied, “Ask Jason, he has all the bloody answers today.”
Everyone looked at me and I said, “Nigel and his hooligan buddies killed Terry.”
“Why?” asked Ian.
“You know why,” answered Nigel. “Terry was going to sit back and let us go bankrupt while he worked out our deal with Cerise. You called me right after Koflanovich called you. You didn’t like it either.”
“There’s a lot of things I don’t like but I don’t go around killing people,” Ian stated.
Nigel replied, “No, you just go get fucked up and pretend that everything’s fine. Well I couldn’t do that. We’re on the brink of being one of the biggest bands in the world. I wasn’t going to sit back and see my personal life go down the crapper while Terry lived off of his rich wife. We’re hot, but in this business you cool off fast if nobody hears from you for a few months, never mind a few years.”
Jack said, “We could have talked to him. It was probably just a bluff to get the record company to cut us a better deal. Did you even ask him about it?”
“I talked to him, but he wouldn’t listen. I think he was jealous that the ladies were into my songs and not his. He wasn’t going to let it go three years, but he had no problem tying everything up for at least a year,” Nigel said.
I interjected, “It wasn’t just the money for you Nigel. Terry wasn’t thinking about Ian when he put that clause in the new contract proposals about getting rid of a band member. He wanted to get rid of you.”
“Is that true?” asked Ian.
Nigel replied, “You guys have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. We weren’t really that big until our second CD. What made us huge was all the women who loved my songs, not Terry’s songs, my songs. But do you think he would recognize that and treat me with the respect I deserved? Not a chance. He was going to run things his way, and if we didn’t like it, too bloody bad. So I stood up to him and he told me that if I think I’m such hot shite maybe I should get my own band together. Bloody ingrate deserved what he got!” Nigel had worked himself into a lather and had a crazy look in his eyes.
Rock & Roll Homicide Page 28