by M. Z. Kelly
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
“What?”
“You’ve had a strange look on your face all day, like you’re in some kind of distress.” She lowered her voice. “Is it that time of the month?”
“No. I’m just not...” I grabbed my purse and Bernie’s leash. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going home early.”
After letting Lieutenant Edna know I was going home sick, I drove out of the parking lot with my emotions on overload.
Why hadn’t my mother told me about what happened to my father? How could she have let me live all these years not knowing that I was there when he was killed?
While my mom was a bit of a nut case, even she should have realized I had a right to the truth. As I pulled up in front of her house, I was determined to confront her about everything.
Bernie and I found Mom in her spirit room where she holds séances. She was with half-dozen of her closest friends. Miss Daisy, as she sometimes calls herself, was busy trying to raise something other than the dead.
“Kate, come in. We’re just doing some planning for the Oscars for Peace demonstration.”
I suppressed an eye-roll and said hello to her friends.
Ruth Gordon, one of Mom’s buddies from her school days, said, “Do you know anyone who might be willing to wave their assets for peace?”
“Actually, I know several subjects, but most of them are in jail.” As her friends laughed, I turned to Mom and said, “I need to talk to you when your meeting is finished.”
I spent the next hour walking Bernie through the neighborhood until Mom’s meeting was over. I found her in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.
“I want to talk about Dad,” I said, coming around to her as Bernie scanned the floor for crumbs.
Mom gave me a blank look. She must have seen my distress. “Is something the matter?”
“Yes. I had a talk with Pearl Kramer about Dad. He told me what really happened the day he was killed. Why did you keep the truth from me?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Dad was investigating a company called Discrete when he was killed. That business had and may still have connections to the mob. Organized crime may have been involved in his death.”
Mom went back to her dishes. “I don’t know anything about that. Your father never discussed his work with me.”
“And none of the other officers on the force at the time mentioned any of this to you?”
She shrugged, her gray eyes drifting back over to me. “There was some talk but...what happened was so final...it might sound strange, but I was in such a state of shock...I think I just tried to put everything out of my mind. Your father was gone and I was left to raise three children by myself.”
I felt tears stinging my eyes. I tried to put myself in my mother’s place. I understood what she was saying. The trauma of my father’s death must have been tremendous. Maybe I’d been wrong by bringing up the past. It must have been so incredibly difficult for her to carry on with everything, and raise her children on her own.
Mom saw my tears and came over to me. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s been so long ago.”
We held one another for a long moment. When we parted, I said, “Why didn’t you tell me that I was there—when he was shot?”
Tears were now in her eyes. “You were so young, Kate.” She breathed, trying to regain her composure. “On the day he died, your father was taking you to the pony rides in the park. You had just turned four and I’m not sure you really understood what happened.”
“Did I say anything? Maybe something about what I’d seen?”
She shook her head. “When I got there, you were crying. I took you home and tried to comfort you. After a few days, you seemed better, except you kept asking when Daddy was coming home.”
There were more tears. Finally, she went on. “After several months, you eventually stopped asking about him. I didn’t want to upset you, so we never talked about it again.” Her leaden eyes fell away. “I’m sorry, maybe we should have talked about everything when you were older.”
Once again, I took my mother in my arms, weeping for the father I never knew, for the woman who had been left behind, and for the little girl who’d seen so much, but had forgotten everything.
Mom and I had tea and continued to talk about what happened for the next hour, although she really couldn’t tell me anything more. I was helping her finish cleaning up the kitchen when my phone rang. I heard Mo’s frantic voice on the line.
“Kate, there’s been a bad accident. Natalie was run down on the street.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Fifteen minutes after leaving my mother’s house I parked on Hollywood Boulevard, made sure Bernie was secure, and ran up the sidewalk. I found Pearl and Mo in front of the Green Earth Café. The uniforms had cordoned off the area. There was a blanket covering a body lying in the street.
“Where’s Natalie?” I screamed, frantic that she was dead.
“She’s been taken to the hospital, but I think she’ll be okay,” Mo said.
“Thank God,” I said, bending down and resting against my knees while trying to catch my breath. “What happened?”
“Marla West called,” Mo explained. “She told Natalie that she had to bring her the company’s cut for her date with Harmon Sanders. I told her that was a load of bullshit, but Natalie agreed to it. They met at the café. West was leaving the restaurant and getting into her car when another car came out of nowhere and ran them down. Natalie jumped out of the way at the last second, but fell and hit her head.” She motioned to the body in the street. “West wasn’t so lucky.”
After making sure the uniforms had the scene under control, we took Pearl’s car to the hospital because Olive was acting up again. Mo followed on her Vespa.
“Do you think West was rundown on purpose?” I asked Pearl, after making sure Bernie settled in the backseat.
“No way to know for sure, but given everything that’s happened, it’s possible.”
We discussed Marla West’s death for a few minutes, speculating that she’d been killed so that she couldn’t talk about Discrete blackmailing their customers. I then told Pearl about what my mother had said about my father’s death.
“All things considered,” he said, “It seems like your mom was trying to do the right thing. She just wanted to protect you.”
“I know, but it’s frustrating. Especially now that I know I saw my father’s killer, but don’t remember anything about him.”
As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, I continued to turn the day’s events over in my mind. By the time we reached the parking garage, some things started to fall into place for me. It was clear what I needed to do. I told Pearl about the decision I’d made.
“I think I became a cop for a reason, Pearl. It’s almost like it was predestined because of my father’s death. I was also meant to be here at this place and time to find out the truth about who was behind his murder.”
Pearl glanced over at me as he parked. “I understand what you’re saying. I’m just not sure what you’re planning to do.”
“I’m going to see if I can pull the murder book on my father’s death. I need to know everything that happened and if there’s anything in the reports that tied his murder to his investigation of Discrete. It might also help us with our current case.”
After Pearl turned off the ignition, he looked over at me again. His voice was heavy. “I understand why you need to do this, but you need to keep some things in mind. What started out as something that was made to look like a murder-suicide may have turned into multiple killings with a trail leading all the way to the mayor’s office and the biggest crime syndicate in Los Angeles. No one is safe until we stop whoever is behind these killings.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Two days after nearly being rundown and killed, Natalie had been released from the hospital and was appearing on Hollywood Daybreak with
Mo.
My friend had received a concussion and was unable to give us any details about the car or driver who ran down and killed Marla West. We were also coming up empty on anything reliable from witnesses at the accident scene.
Pearl, Edna, Jessica, and I gathered around a TV in a conference room at Hollywood Station as Holly Sawyer began the interview with my friends. Things started well, with Mo and Natalie filling her in on their duties as part-time wedding planners and security staff for the Clinton-Warner nuptials. Then all hell broke loose.
Mo, who was dressed in red, as in a tight red dress, red heels, red lip stick, red nails, and red hair, said to Sawyer, “I have friends who are in touch with what happens on the street in Hollywood, if you know what I mean. Rumor has it that China at one time worked for an escort service called, Discrete, and that business might have been getting special treatment.”
The camera moved in for a close-up as Holly Sawyer leaned forward and said, “Are you telling me that China Warner was an escort?”
“That would be the polite term.”
“And this company, Discrete. It was getting special treatment by the police?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Mo said. “All I know is that the protection had to come from someone in power.”
“Aw shit,” Edna said, reacting to the interview. “Wait until the captain hears about this.”
Natalie then took over. My friend was wearing a yellow miniskirt and form-fitting white blouse tied at the midriff, leaving little to the imagination. She began by telling Sawyer how she’d gone undercover, working for Discrete to gather information.
Natalie went on to say, “The mayor’s assistant is a rat turd with too much aftershave who tried to get me to suck the sugar stick. I’d rather dink a dead donkey. You want my opinion, it’s not the police, but the mayor and his buddy that have been helping keep the whorehouse in business.”
A few words had been bleeped by the station’s censors, but otherwise Natalie’s comments had been broadcast to everyone in southern California.
“Fuck,” Edna said. “Somebody just slit my throat.”
The lieutenant left the room as we turned off the TV. I wasn’t sure if he was planning to call the captain about the interview or find someone with a knife.
“Looks like your little friend has screwed the pooch on this one,” Jessica said.
I motioned to Bernie who was curled in a corner. “Watch it. My partner is sensitive about his kind.”
“I can’t believe you live with those two women,” she went on. “One’s a pimp and the other is crazier than a fruit fly.”
“Watch your mouth,” I said, my anger surfacing. “At least they’ve both gotten past their high school crushes.”
“I will not listen...”
Pearl held up a hand. “Okay, let’s leave it there.” He took a breath and turned to me. “Did you talk to Holly Sawyer?”
I turned away from Jessica who was pouting like a schoolgirl. “I talked to her yesterday. She said that she and China did have their differences about compensation and the content of the show, but otherwise they got along fine. I mentioned that I was surprised she wasn’t invited to the wedding. Sawyer said she was a little taken aback by not getting an invitation, but that China was trying to keep the guest list down.”
“Just a little wedding with a couple hundred people,” Pearl said.
“I also asked her about Michael. She said that she never met him, but China had admitted to her he had a problem with sexual addiction. He’d even gone to some kind of meetings for people with sex problems.”
When I finished filling them in on my discussion with Sawyer, Pearl told us there were no leads on the hit and run driver who had killed Marla West. He then told us something he’d learned from talking to the department’s vice officers.
“Both Harmon Sanders and Marvin Chauncey have been regular customers of Discrete, as well as other escort services, for years according to my sources. Both men have also been mentioned by the girls on the street as johns always looking for a good time.”
“What about the tie-in to organized crime?” I asked. “Do any of the officers know if Marcello’s still behind Discrete?”
“They think he’s still involved behind the scenes, but not in the day-to-day operations.”
We went around and around for the next half hour, our speculation ranging from China being blackmailed by Discrete over her past connection to the escort service, to Michael Clinton possibly being extorted because Marcello had learned through China about some shady business practices. It was all conjecture and I was beginning to feel like the possibilities were endless.
“What do we know about Marcello...his background?” Jessica asked Pearl, back on track after her meltdown.
Pearl referred to a notebook as he spoke, “I’ve done a little research. Marcello’s crime syndicate had its early roots in New York with the mafia, where it specialized in bootlegging and arson. Over the years, the family became a separate entity and now has no known connections to the mafia or other organized crime groups.
“In the mid-eighties, Jimmy and his brother, Tony, opened Discrete with Sal Madden who ran the day-to-day operations. We think there was a family dispute, Madden ended up dead and Tony went missing. The business closed for a time and then reopened a few years later with Jimmy in charge and Marla West managing the operations.
“We don’t know much about Marcello’s other operations. The family is small and their business interests are covert. There have been rumors that, in the past, the family’s been involved in extortion and illegal gambling. Marcello’s now in his sixties but, according to what we do know, he’s still going strong behind the scenes.”
It was the first time I’d heard about Marcello’s brother disappearing. Maybe Tony Marcello and Sal Madden had been killed because the police were investigating the business and Jimmy didn’t want them talking. My father could have been murdered because he’d found out Jimmy was behind their deaths.
“Maybe it’s time we had a chat with Mr. Marcello,” I suggested.
“First, I want us to be sure that the rumors about him still having ties to Discrete are accurate,” Pearl said. He turned to Jessica. “That’s where you come in. I want you to do some research. We need to know every business interest Marcello has, as well as those of Michael Clinton. If we can get a handle on their businesses, we might be able to determine if Marcello had any financial dealings that conflicted with Clinton’s.”
“Why me?” Jessica whined, glancing over at me but not making eye contact. “There are two of us working this case.”
“I want you to take the lead, go to the well on this. You’re one of the best we have at digging up information. Getting a comprehensive picture of the financial and corporate dealings of Marcello and Clinton may be crucial to solving our case.”
Jessica smiled and said she’d do her best. Even Pearl knows how to charm a serpent when it’s in his best interest.
I spent the rest of the day doing paperwork while Lieutenant Edna did his best coitus interrupt-us routine, ranting about the captain, the mayor, and the chief of police all being upset about the Hollywood Daybreak interview.
On my way home, I stopped by LAPD records division where I met with Wilma Bibby. She had on a blue and white dress that contrasted with her red hair. It made me think of the Fourth of July.
After exchanging pleasantries, I asked her if she’d been by to see Charlie recently.
Wilma shook her head. “I’ve decided to give him some time to rest. He needs to regain his strength.”
“I think he’s missing you. He’s even wondering if you’re seeing someone else.”
“Oh, heavens no.” She lowered her voice and motioned for me to follow her to a more secluded area of the office. When we were alone she said, “It’s just that…” Her gaze drifted away, then came back. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
My voice softened. “Whatever it is, it remains between the two of us.”
>
“Well...it’s just that…Charlie…he can be very energetic, if you know what I mean.”
Charlie energetic? My partner was a human slug. I drew a blank. Then it suddenly hit me. “You mean, as in...” I cringed, “sex?”
“He’s a real tiger. I’m just worried that he’ll overdo it, given his heart condition.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure how to respond. Charlie, a tiger? After putting an image of my partner mauling Wilma out of my mind, I said, “Maybe you should just visit him for companionship for a while. He could really use the company.”
“I’ll try but he...he’s very persistent.”
Wilma probably didn’t know how persistent Charlie could be. Wait until she realized he’d been surfing Internet porn sites while recuperating. I decided to change the subject.
“Wilma, I need you to pull a file for me. It’s on a very old case.”
I explained that the murder file I was requesting was on my father, but I needed her to be discrete about my inquiry. I knew that if the department got wind of me looking into his death, it would only complicate things.
Fifteen minutes later, Wilma returned empty handed. She held up a card that I knew from experience indicated that the file had been pulled.
“It’s with John Duncan in the RHD Cold Case Unit,” Wilma explained. “It involves the homicide of a police officer so those cases are kept on active status until they’re solved or...” Wilma must have seen my disappointment. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thanks for checking, Wilma. I’ll be in touch.”
As Bernie and I drove home, I felt both frustration and relief. I knew that the murder files on my father would be filled with reports containing the details of his death. I also knew there would be graphic photographs of the crime scene. I didn’t think I was ready for that.
When I got home, I found my roommates milling around in the kitchen. I accepted Natalie’s offer of a glass of chardonnay.
“Mo and me are all over the news,” Natalie said. “We’re even gettin’ offers from some of them morning TV shows.”