“A trait I share with many successful people. So what?”
“Your need to win at any cost is what makes you dangerous. You hated my father because you believed he got away with attempted murder. It turns out you were wrong—he was innocent. But that was the first big case you lost, the one that stung the most. You’re using me to settle the score.”
“Your father shot a man and lied about it, just as you did.”
“Both cases are based on fiction by people who just wanted to make a few bucks.”
A chill had settled into Harrington’s muscles. “Why are you telling me this? Why not just hold a splashy press conference with some ambulance-chasing lawyer?”
“Not everybody borrows a page from your playbook.”
His right leg began to tingle. Sitting in one position on the sharp edge of a rock had cut off his circulation. He stumbled to his feet, ignoring the needling pain. “You’ve made a huge miscalculation coming here.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? All your crusading against the police department and it turns out you’re as dirty as the worst of them.”
Harrington turned toward his car. “This conversation is over.”
“Don’t you want to hear what else I have?”
“Stay away from me or I’ll get a restraining order.”
He ran the first few yards, listening for the sound of footsteps but heard nothing to indicate she was following him. She had gall, accusing him like that. He thought about the cases he’d lost in his career, not many, but he admitted that none of them had caused him as much pain as losing the case against William Richards.
It troubled him that Maria Luna had withheld key evidence and that he may have transferred his hatred of William Richards to the detective’s daughter. His entire career had been dedicated to the pursuit of justice, but now he wondered if Davie Richards was right. Had he subconsciously tried to punish her as a last-ditch effort to wipe out that humiliating loss? He had known the evidence against her was thin, but he hadn’t followed the Police Commission’s recommendations or listened to Alex Sloan’s warnings, because he truly believed she had lied on that police report. He still believed that.
Twenty minutes later, he sat in the car to catch his breath, warming his hands in front of the heater. Then he turned the wheel and headed back to his office.
“Excuse me, sir.” Maggie Perez stood at the threshold of Harrington’s office, wringing her hands. “One of Mayor Gossett’s people just called. The mayor wants to see you.”
Harrington’s watch read 10:17 a.m. He had just arrived at the office from his run, having showered and changed into his suit at the gym. He was eager to review the latest investigative report on the Davie Richards case, which was waiting for him on his desk.
“I have a meeting in half an hour. Tell him I can rearrange my schedule but not until this afternoon, sometime after two.”
“He wants to see you now. His car is waiting downstairs to pick you up. It sounded urgent.”
The anxiety in Perez’s voice made Harrington’s pulse quicken. He took a deep calming breath, hoping she had misjudged the threat in the mayor’s summons.
“Call Alex Sloan. Tell him we’ll have to reschedule.”
Harrington locked the Richards report in his desk drawer. He grabbed his overcoat from a rack near the door and headed downstairs, where he found Mayor Lloyd Gossett sitting in the backseat of an SUV parked in a red zone. The mayor’s driver and another member of his security team sat up front.
Harrington slid into the back next to Gossett, inhaling the fragrance of the mayor’s citrus cologne. Next to him on the seat was what looked like an iPad with a black cover. Gossett didn’t look him in the eye, which was troubling. Instead, he studied a contact sheet full of glamour headshots. Harrington assumed they were from the recent People magazine photo shoot. Gossett tapped his knuckle on the closed privacy window and the driver pulled into traffic, but he didn’t go far. He made a right turn and immediately pulled up to a two-hour parking meter, leaving the engine running.
Harrington was pleased. At least this meeting would be a short one.
The side street was lined with trees, forming a canopy that blocked the light. To the right, ivy snaked up the facade of the building. To the left, razor wire coiled atop a wall that guarded a parking lot. All at once, the scene made Harrington feel claustrophobic. He stared at the sheen on Gossett’s manicured fingernails and waited for the bomb to drop. It didn’t take long.
Gossett put a photographer’s loupe to his eye and studied each picture. “I’ve been in conference all morning with the DA, the City Attorney, and the President of the Police Commission. We have what you’d call a situation.”
Harrington clasped his hands together to hide the onset of a slight tremor. “What’s going on?”
Gossett’s body was as still as a Sphinx. The car’s heater had elevated the temperature in the SUV to high noon in the Sahara. Harrington began to sweat. He considered removing his overcoat but didn’t want to appear weak.
“The Davie Richards case, that’s what.”
Harrington wondered if Richards had contacted the mayor about Maria Luna’s bogus gun story, but he didn’t see how she could have done that so soon. He and Gossett were friends and even he had trouble getting the man’s attention.
“You appointed me to investigate police misconduct, Lloyd. That’s what I’m doing. Some cases are more challenging than others.”
“Malcolm, it appears you forgot to tell me there wasn’t a case against Davie Richards six months ago, and there isn’t one now. You had her relieved of duty without cause. The voters might think you abused your authority. They hate that. The City Attorney says if she files a civil suit against the city, he’ll have to settle. If he doesn’t, a jury could award millions, which will mean budget cuts for everyone, including me. Do I have to tell you how annoyed that would make me?”
Harrington leaned forward to catch Gossett’s eye. “The victim’s widow claims Richards lied on the police report.”
The mayor’s focus remained on the contact sheet. “Ah, Mrs. Hurtado. Earlier this morning I arranged for an Internal Affairs detective to interview the woman. He found her packing to move to Texas with her new boyfriend. The investigator enlightened her about the penalty for perjury. After hearing that, Mrs. Hurtado seemed confused about her lawsuit against the city. Claimed she doesn’t remember hiring a lawyer.”
The odor of the mayor’s cologne in the overheated car was now making Harrington feel nauseated. “There are other witnesses.”
“Like who?”
“All in good time.”
Gossett circled one of the photos with a grease pencil and held the contact sheet toward Harrington. “What do you think of this one? Do I look sexy enough for People?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Gossett moved on to study the next sheet. “I warned you not to mold the facts of this case to fit your conclusions.”
“Cool your jets, Lloyd. No criminal charges have been filed against Richards.”
“And none will be filed. Shut this thing down.”
“As soon as the investigation is—”
Gossett slammed the contact sheets onto his lap. “Do it now, Malcolm, because we both know there’s more to the story than Davie Richards’s OIS case.”
That’s when he realized Gossett knew. Somehow Davie Richards had gotten to him. Harrington hoped his voice sounded confident. “It’s about exposing cops who break the law.”
The mayor slipped the loupe into his jacket pocket and turned toward Harrington. “It’s about you, Malcolm. You’re obsessed with the Richards family. I’m worried. I think you need professional help.”
Harrington’s pulse quickened. “Don’t be ridiculous—”
“Take a look at this.” Gossett opened the cover of his iPad, exposing a video clip. “This arriv
ed in my private email account yesterday.”
The mayor pressed the arrow in the center of the frame and the video began to play. Harrington saw an older but still recognizable Daniel Luna speaking to the camera, admitting he had a gun the night William Richards shot him and that he intended to use it to kill the detective, if he’d gotten the chance.
After thirty seconds, Harrington had heard enough. “Have you asked yourself what motivated Daniel to confess now? I suspect Davie Richards paid him to make up that story to get herself off the hook.”
Gossett closed the lid of the iPad, silencing Daniel’s voice. “Luna is facing felony drug charges. I guess he figures after fifteen years nobody cares about William Richards’s civil case, so he has nothing to lose by confessing, and maybe his cooperation will nudge the DA to downgrade the charge to a misdemeanor.”
“Davie Richards has no authority to promise Luna anything. No wonder he decided to fabricate—”
“Get out of the car, Malcolm. Now. I need to fix this mess you’ve created.”
Gossett’s words felt like a punch in the gut and the coldness in the mayor’s expression told him the sentiment was real. He opened the car door and staggered onto the sidewalk, glad to be away from the heat and the smell of citrus. Gossett’s SUV pulled away from the curb.
Harrington stood motionless under the mesh of leaves and branches that covered him like a shroud. For the first time in years, he didn’t know where to go or what to do.
50
Another winter cold front had blown into town. Lawyers, bankers, and file clerks cranked up car heaters as they inched through the early-morning chill toward the Meccas of commerce—downtown L.A. and Century City. Undocumented day laborers huddled at staging areas, hoping for a day’s work for a day’s pay. Shelter employees nudged the homeless from their warm beds and cast them onto Skid Row streets to fend for themselves until nightfall. Grape Street gangbangers plotted burglary capers over latte macchiatos at Starbucks.
Davie Richards sat at her desk in the Pacific Division squad room, applying hand sanitizer to her desk telephone receiver. It had been nearly two months since she’d entered the station and there was no telling how many people had used her phone during that time. For good measure, she swabbed the desktop and the drawer handles too.
The books on the shelf above her workstation had fallen over again. She had meant to buy bookends but never got around to it. Maybe she’d go shopping after work.
She had left a message for Jason Vaughn the night before to let him know she’d be back at work. He was in training for the next two weeks but invited her out after end of watch to celebrate. He promised there would be team building and adult beverages.
Several people came to her desk and welcomed her back. Lieutenant Bellows wasn’t one of them. He was with the Captain at a COMPSTAT meeting, spinning tales of lowered crime rates and patting himself on the back for solving the Beau Fischer and Anya Nosova homicides. She doubted he’d bother to mention the detectives who had done the actual work.
The Police Commission had finally ruled the Hurtado OIS case was within policy, clearing her of all wrongdoing. Everything had moved quickly since the case had been thoroughly investigated months before, and for that she was grateful.
After the Daniel Luna video surfaced, Malcolm Harrington resigned as Inspector General of the Police Commission to “spend more time with his family.” She wondered if he planned to return to his former law firm and start suing the LAPD again. Maybe Mrs. Hurtado could be his first client. There might even be some gold to mine by investigating the death of that inmate Cal Rogers had assaulted in County jail.
A gust of air brushed past Davie’s cheek. She turned to see Detective Giordano wearing a starched white shirt and a tie with palm trees and ukuleles on it. She hoped it wasn’t his retirement tie. Life on the Homicide table would not be the same without him. She stood as he reached out to shake her hand. At the last minute he pulled her into a hug that nearly squeezed the air from her lungs. The move surprised her. There was an unwritten rule in the station that hugging could be misinterpreted as sexual harassment and therefore was strictly verboten.
He gave her a stern look as he let her go. “Good to have you back, kid.”
Most cops go through their entire careers without firing a weapon in the line of duty. Davie knew she was an outlier and that knowledge weighed heavily on her. After Rogers’s death, she questioned whether she had the temperament to be a cop or even to own a gun. She worried what would become of Norah Rogers and her children, and felt shattered that her work had jeopardized the life of her grandmother. Guilt strained all her relationships, and she realized once again why the department forced cops to see a psychiatrist after a shooting. Justified or not, killing another human being messed with your head.
She had been relieved of duty a second time for shooting Cal Rogers, pending an inquiry by the Force Investigation Division and an evaluation by a department shrink. FID detectives presented the case to the DA’s office, but only as a formality. The shooting was justified and they declined to file charges.
Giordano told anybody who’d listen that she deserved the Medal of Valor for what she’d done, but the department still gave her an eight-day suspension without pay for the unauthorized use of a weapon while relieved of duty. Giordano had no control over the process but he stood by her throughout the ordeal and lobbied the Captain and Lieutenant Bellows to expedite her return to Pacific Homi-
cide.
“Thanks for everything you did for me,” she said. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Like I told you before, you’re one of my peeps.” Giordano walked toward his workstation. “I also want you to know I smoothed things over with Detective Quintero. He was mighty pissed you messed with his case. I took him out for a few beers and an attitude adjustment. He’s fine now. Q’s a good guy. You should call him and make nice in case you have to work with him again.”
She nodded. “Will do.”
“How’s your grandma?”
“Doing better every day. Thanks for asking.”
“Rags?”
She shook her head. “Gone.”
“He’ll turn up.”
Davie wasn’t so sure. It troubled her not knowing where he was. She just hoped he was in a safe place.
Giordano snagged a package from his desk and handed it to her. The wrapping paper had cartoon cars on it and looked like a committee had assembled it.
“What is this?” Davie worked off the bow and slid her finger along the seam to loosen the tape.
“Just a little something.”
Inside, swaddled in tissue paper was a set of heavy stainless steel bookends, each forming the numbers 187—the penal code for a homicide.
“A few of us chipped in and had ’em made,” he continued. “We got tired of the mess on your desk—not to mention all the racket your crap makes when it falls over. Now maybe we can have some peace and quiet.”
Her chest felt tight as she set the bookends on her shelf. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t waste the oxygen. You have work to do. The watch commander just called. We have a body at Mar Vista Gardens. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a heart attack. Take the green Crown Vic. Keys should be in my desk drawer.”
“Who’s going with me? Garcia?”
“He’s in court.”
“Montes?”
“Broke his arm last night at his son’s soccer game. And no, he wasn’t punching out the coach. He was reaching in the cooler for a beer and fell off the bleachers.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry. I can handle it alone.”
“No need for that. Bellows gave us Detective Hall on loan from Burglary. He’ll be your partner until Vaughn gets back. You got a problem with that?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I didn’t think so. Go work your magic, kid.”
Davie was walking
to the kit room to check out a fresh battery for her radio when her cell phone, which Vaughn had rescued from the Chula Vista trash can, pinged with an incoming text. It was from Spencer Hall: I have the car keys. Meet me at the garage.
Davie grabbed the battery and a notebook from her desk and made her way to the parking lot, past a crop of low spiky weeds that had erupted at the base of a cinder block wall. Just past the bank of fuel pumps, she found Hall washing the car.
When he heard her footsteps, he glanced up. “Since we’re working together again, I thought we’d celebrate with a clean ride. Just like the old days.”
Water bounced off the windshield like a vintage Los Angeles rain. A fine mist drifted over and settled on her face. “The old days are gone, Spence.”
He turned the faucet off, dipped a brush into a bucket of soapy water, and began scrubbing the tires. “Just so you know, Malcolm Harrington got nothing from me. I told his rat squad I wouldn’t speak to IA without my department rep. If Sloan had bothered to call back, I would have told him there was nothing to say that wasn’t on the police report you wrote. Guess he didn’t want to know the truth.”
Davie grabbed a chamois off a shelf and swept water off the front windshield. “You could have warned me.”
Hall turned the water on again and hosed off the tires. “Sloan ordered me not to talk to you. I had no choice.”
Davie paused. “You always have a choice.”
“Look, the department put us both through hell. The shooting was righteous. Everybody knows that now.”
“Except for the people who think I panicked. The rumors will follow me my whole career. Nobody will want to work with me.”
Hall hung up the hose and turned to her. “I think it was Becky.”
Behind him, dark cumulus clouds had muscled out all but a few patches of blue sky.
“What does your wife have to do with anything?”
“The other night when I got home, Becky was hammered. She started busting my chops about you.”
Pacific Homicide Page 26