Kill the Messenger

by Tami Hoag

“That only happens in the movies, doll,” Parker said. “The kid got sent to your father’s office by chance. I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Even through the sunglasses he could see she was livid.

  “Oh, I see,” she said curtly. “He came into my home and attacked me, but he’s just an innocent bystander? And I’m, what? The scheming femme fatale? Talk about fantasy. You have me cast in your own little film noir.”

  “It works that way,” Parker said. “The way I see it is this: Lenny was blackmailing somebody and he got killed for it. And yes, I think you’re in it up to your pretty little chin.”

  “I’d slap you if I didn’t think you’d arrest me for it,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t bother,” Parker said. “If you don’t come clean with this, I think I’m going to have plenty of better reasons to arrest you, Ms. Lowell.”

  She shook her head and looked away. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “No? Well, you certainly seemed to take in stride the fact that someone beat your father’s head in. I’d say you have a pretty skewed way of looking at things if you think I’m your worst problem.”

  She slapped him then, hard. The sting on his cheek and the ringing in his ear seemed to be one and the same.

  Parker shook it off. “Well, I can’t say I didn’t give you permission to do that.”

  Her lips flattened in a line of disgust. “I am so through with you, Detective Parker.”

  She turned like a soldier and marched away, her crocodile bag clutched tightly under her arm. She was parked five cars down. A blue BMW 3 Series convertible. New. She turned and faced him before she got in.

  “Your captain will be hearing from me.”

  “I’m sure he’ll look forward to that.”

  Parker watched her back out and drive away, the first thing on her agenda to get him kicked off the case.

  “Sorry, doll,” he muttered, climbing behind the wheel of the Sebring. “Somebody already beat you to it.”

  32

  Parker turned in at the gates to the Paramount Studio lot and waved to the security guard.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Parker.”

  “You too, Bill.”

  “You here to see Mr. Conners?”

  “Not today. I need to see Chuck Ito. He’s expecting me.”

  The guard made a note on his clipboard and waved Parker through.

  Chuck Ito’s office was a building toward the back of the lot. He worked as a film editor, but his hobby was still photography, and he had collected all the latest gizmos in his studio and had declared them as business expenses on his tax forms.

  “Look what the cat dragged in.” Ito’s greeting. Parker had known him going on five years, and this was always his opening line.

  “My suit takes offense at the implications of that remark,” Parker said.

  “So? It only speaks Italian,” Ito said. “It doesn’t know if I’m insulting it or not.”

  He checked his watch and grimaced. “We have to make this quick, Kev. I’ve got a meeting in ten with someone much more important than you.”

  Parker looked perturbed. “Who’s more important than me?”

  “Just about everyone.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  Parker dropped into a chair and tossed the envelope from Lenny Lowell’s safe-deposit box onto the desk.

  Ito reached for it. “What have you got for me, Kev? Something I’ll get arrested for?” He plucked the negative out and held it up to a light. “Who’s in it?”

  “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  “So it’s got something to do with your secret life as a woman?”

  “I’m letting that slide in the interest of time,” Parker said. “I’ll knock you on your ass later. I need this developed ASAP.”

  Ito looked at him like he was stupid. “Go to the mall. They can do it in an hour.”

  “Or some kid making minimum wage will accidentally run it through a shredder. This is evidence in a homicide.”

  “Then why aren’t you taking it to the LAPD lab if it’s evidence?”

  “You’re kidding, right? I’d be lucky to get it back by Christmas, if ever. I think they have one person and he’s only up to date on equipment through the tintype machine.”

  A mixture of truth and exaggeration. The general public has been led to believe that every crime lab in every city in the nation is just like the one on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, when in truth none of them are. The great majority are understaffed, underfunded, and overloaded. In LA County, famous for making DNA evidence the talk of the world during the O. J. Simpson trial, there are three people who deal with DNA evidence. Most of the time their findings aren’t even in until well after a trial is over.

  Besides, Parker couldn’t tell Ito he wasn’t exactly supposed to have this piece of evidence. If he could get the thing developed, he could see who he was dealing with and have a bigger jump ahead of Robbery-Homicide. That was why he hadn’t bagged and tagged the negative at the bank. He figured to get the thing developed, then seal it in the bag to be taken in as evidence, and no one would be the wiser.

  “I need it ASAP.”

  “ASAP for me today is going to be more like late in the day. Dinnertime. I can have one of my assistants—”

  “No. I can’t have a lot of people handling this thing.”

  “I could go to prison for this, couldn’t I?” Ito said.

  Parker made a face. “Prison? Nah . . . the work farm, maybe. You don’t have a record of prior convictions, do you?”

  “Some friend you are,” Ito said, pretending to be upset.

  Parker got up and started toward the door. “It’s fine,” he said with a casual wave of the hand. “Just don’t tell anyone you have it. If you get caught with it, I don’t know you.”

  Blackmail. Parker stirred the word around in his mind as he drove back toward downtown. If Eddie Davis turned out to be one of the people in the photograph, then that gave Davis a strong motive to kill Lowell. If the two of them had been in on something together, one might have turned on the other out of greed. Another good motive.

  Whichever way it went, Davis was after the negative. That was why he had ransacked Lenny’s office, busted out the windows of his car. He would have done the same to Lowell’s condo if not for the fact that it was in a secure building. It was probably Davis who had tossed Abby Lowell’s place. The missing negative probably explained the implication in the note he had scrawled in lipstick on her bathroom mirror. Next You Die . . . If you don’t give up the negative.

  But there had to be more than one. Parker figured the one in the safe-deposit box would have been insurance, something Lenny could hold on to, just in case. And Parker had a hunch that the person holding them was J. C. Damon. He wondered if the kid had any idea what he had.

  Parker’s phone rang, breaking him out of his thoughts.

  “Parker.”

  “Well, since you don’t have any friends, I called one of mine.” Andi Kelly. “There is no one named Davis in Robbery-Homicide.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?” She sounded offended not to have the scoop.

  “Because I’m better than you are, doll.”

  Kelly laughed. “What bullshit.”

  “I know it because a witness identified Davis in a mug book this morning.”

  “He killed that woman last night?”

  “Not my case,” Parker said. “You’ll have to talk to Ruiz.”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “Nobody likes her,” Parker said. “She’s rude and abrasive and bratty. And she’s not a woman’s woman.”

  “How do you know about that? Men never get that.”

  “I’m in touch with my feminine side,” Parker said.

  “She’ll sell you out for a dime and give back change,” Kelly said.

  “Well, there’s definitely some truth in that,” Parker muttered, wondering if Ruiz wasn’t
even at that very moment selling him out to Bradley Kyle, describing in detail every piece of paper Parker had taken with him when he’d gone.

  “You’re her training officer,” Kelly said. “Usurp her power. Grab the case for yourself. What do you care if she hates you?”

  “She already hates me.”

  “See?”

  “Okay,” Parker said with resignation. Kelly was like a Jack Russell terrier. If she wanted something, she was relentless in her pursuit. She would bite into a story and hang on, no matter what. “Yes, I like Davis for the murder last night.”

  “Why? What’s his motive?”

  “I’m still working on that,” he hedged. “But it’s a good bet that he went to Speed Couriers to get a line on the bike messenger.”

  “The bike messenger. Wasn’t he a ‘person of interest’ last night?”

  “He’s still a person of interest. I just don’t consider him to be a suspect. I need to get with him, talk to him, before RHD barges in and blows everything. They’re taking the Lowell case.”

  “You’re kidding. Why would they be interested?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “And you’ll let me know when you do?”

  “You’re the only pal I’ve got in this, Andi,” Parker said seriously. “I’ve got bogies all around me. Don’t make me think you’re just using me like a cheap gigolo.”

  “I think you should know better, Kev,” she said. “Nothing about you is cheap. I’d say I have your back, but I’d rather have your front. And I do like the idea of you playing the gigolo.”

  “You shameless tart.”

  “Yes. You know I’m pushing forty. I don’t have time to mess around. Anyway, have I ever let you down?”

  Parker ignored the opportunity to keep the innuendo going. “No. You haven’t,” he said on a sigh. “The head of Robbery-Homicide told my captain they feel the Lowell murder might relate to something they have ongoing.”

  Kelly was silent for long enough that Parker thought she might have lost the connection.

  “And we’re back to Bradley Kyle and Moose Roddick talking with Tony Giradello, your name coming up in the conversation,” she said at last.

  “That’s right,” Parker said. “I’m looking at a blackmail scheme here, Andi.”

  “Who versus who for what?”

  “I don’t know yet, but two people are already dead. And there’s only one case Bradley Kyle has ongoing with stakes that high.”

  “Tricia Crowne-Cole.”

  33

  Jace chained The Beast to a parking meter and went inside the bar. It was a small, dark, dank place with fishing nets and buoys and life preservers nailed to the walls. The place reeked of beer and cigarettes, blatantly defying the state’s antismoking laws. A table of regulars felt free to stare with disapproval at any newcomer. They watched Jace all the way from the door to the bar.

  Jace kept his head down and took a stool at the far end of the bar. He ordered a burger and a soda, ignoring his need for a good stiff belt of something to dull the physical and emotional pain.

  The television that hung from the ceiling on the other end of the bar was tuned to Court TV. They were all over the Cole murder trial. Martin Gorman making a statement from a podium adorned with a bouquet of microphones. Then cut to ADA Giradello doing the very same thing in a different location.

  A motion had been made by the defense to exclude any mention of Rob Cole’s past—the drugs, the money, the women—on the grounds that evidence was only going to prejudice the jury. Giradello argued Cole’s past should be admitted into evidence to establish a pattern of behavior. The judge ruled for the state. A serious blow to Gorman’s case. He was complaining about Norman Crowne trying to buy justice, and complaining harder that it seemed to be working.

  The burger arrived. Jace took a bite of it, still looking at the television. The ruling should have gone in favor of the defense, he thought. The probative value of the evidence didn’t outweigh the prejudicial nature of the facts of Cole’s past.

  So Cole was a loser because of the drugs, the money, and the women, so what? None of that pointed to a violent offender. He had never tried to murder anyone before. There had never been any mention in the press of Cole physically abusing his wife. There was no pattern of escalating violent behavior. Jace figured if Cole had ever laid a finger on Tricia, Norman Crowne would have come down on him like a ton of bricks, and the gossip would have run like wildfire through LA.

  But the ruling had gone for the prosecution, and if that was an indicator of how the rest of the trial would go, Martin Gorman had his work cut out for him.

  Gorman was probably right. Norman Crowne held tremendous sway over Los Angeles politics, and his pockets were virtually bottomless.

  Jace thought back to the night he had picked up the package from Lenny. The television had been on with a report on the Cole case, and Lenny had said to him: Martin’s betting against the house in a rigged game. Money talks. Remember that.

  He wondered if Lenny knew those things because he had an inside track to information on the case, or because he was a blowhard who liked to talk himself into believing he had a more important role in the drama than he did or ever would. Maybe both.

  Lenny for sure had the inside dirt on someone. The people in the negatives Jace wore taped to his belly. And what he had, what those negatives meant, was worth a lot to that person, or why bother to blackmail him or her.

  Lawyers like Lenny didn’t have big clients. There were no celebrities, no millionaires on his list. So if he wasn’t defending the people in the negatives, then how would he know what to blackmail them for?

  The only obvious choice was that someone, a client, had let him in on something, and put him in the position to act on it.

  The taped footage cut back to Giradello. He was a tough-looking son of a bitch. Not a man to cross. If Rob Cole had one brain cell in his head, he should be using it to figure out some way to avoid the ADA. Take a plea bargain. Hang himself in his jail cell. Anything.

  Giradello pulled no punches in the courtroom. He went for the throat. He was going to make his chops on Rob Cole, maybe even launch his own political career from his vantage point on top of Rob Cole’s bloody corpse. If he nailed Cole, he would have the undying gratitude of Norman Crowne.

  Crowne and his son were asked to comment on the ruling. The old man was calm and dignified. The son, Phillip, was emotional. Ecstatic over the ruling, then melancholy about his sister, then angry with Cole, then back to melancholy. The display struck Jace as strange. He wondered if the lesser Crowne was on something.

  “I think they should just leave Rob Cole alone,” said one of the barflies, a peroxide blonde in a tube top, apparently so named for accentuating the tubular rolls of fat wrapped around her.

  “You just want to fuck him, Adele.” This from a balding guy who had been wearing the same clothes so long, they were coming back in style.

  “What’s wrong with that? He’s a whole lot cuter than you.”

  “He’s a whole lot cuter than you too. I heard he’s a fag. Anyway, I’m just saying, I’m sick of these celebrities thinking they can get away with murder. I hope the state fries his ass.”

  “They don’t do that anymore, you moron. Now it’s the spike. Lethal injection.”

  “That’s too easy. When they used to strap a guy into ol’ Sparky, he knew he was in for some serious pain.”

  “That’s cruel and unusual.”

  “Who gives a shit? The creep is sitting in that chair because he killed somebody’s kid, or wife, or whatever. Why should we make it easy on them?”

  Jace tuned them out. He couldn’t have cared less about Rob Cole. The guy was a loser. He couldn’t act, and what was up with the lame bowling shirts?

  He polished off the burger, then slid off the stool and went outside to a pay phone. He plugged in a quarter and punched in Abby Lowell’s phone number. She answered on the third ring.

  “Hello?�
��

  “Ms. Lowell. You know me from yesterday in your apartment.”

  Silence. Then finally, “Yes?”

  “I have something I think you might want. A package with some negatives in it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Let’s not play games,” Jace said. “I’ve got the negatives your dad was using to blackmail someone.”

  She said nothing to that, but the silence seemed charged and heavy.

  “I don’t want them,” Jace said. “They’re nothing but trouble to me.”

  “What makes you think I want them?” she asked.

  “Maybe you don’t. Maybe I should give them to the cops.”

  Silence.

  “They’re worth money to somebody. I’m giving you first crack.”

  Another long silence passed. Finally, she said, “How much?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “No, it isn’t. But I want out of this, and that’s what I’ll take for it.”

  Jace waited.

  “Where and when?”

  “Meet me at Pershing Square at five-fifteen. Come alone.”

  Jace hung up the phone and stood there, staring at nothing. The sun beat down on daily life in this nothing part of town. Cars drove past. People walked up and down. Signs in store windows advertised sales in two languages.

  He had just set the stage for himself to commit extortion.

  If Abby Lowell was in on the blackmail, she would pay to get the negatives and buy his silence. If he played it right, Jace could take her money—payback for Eta’s family, and maybe a little insurance for himself and Tyler in case they had to get out of town. He could turn the cops on Abby; through her, the cops could get to Predator and that would be the end of it. He hoped.

  All he needed was a little luck.

  Lenny Lowell’s voice echoed in the back of his mind: It’s better to be lucky than good, kid.

  34

  Tyler ran straight to the fish market after his escape from Detective Parker. He found Madame Chen in her office, crying silently. When she saw his face peering into the room from behind the door, she swiped a tissue beneath her eyes and pulled herself together. Tyler had never seen her cry. It made him feel even more afraid than he already was.