Yesterday's Echo

by Matt Coyle

  “I am innocent.”

  “Then why not turn over what you have to the police?”

  “The police haven’t always been fair with me.” I looked toward the parking area. All clear. “I’m hoping for better treatment from you.”

  Heather studied me some more. She gave me a flat poker face, but I got the feeling she was hiding something. Something I needed to know. My antenna stayed up. That fence Heather was straddling might be leaning over to the police’s side. If I pushed her on it, both feet might just fall into their camp. If I didn’t push at all, she might end up there anyway. I needed to get all she was willing to give me now and move on. I’d figure out what to do with it later.

  “Time to trade, Heather.”

  “Okay. Let’s see this ledger you told me about.”

  I opened my backpack and pulled out Adam Windsor’s payoff ledger and set it in front of me on the table, just out of Heather’s reach.

  “Windsor’s Nevada Department of Corrections number first.” I pulled a pen and notepad out of my backpack that I’d picked up at a Walgreens on my way over from the bus station.

  Heather rolled her eyes and then opened her notepad and read the number off to me. I wrote it down, then slid Windsor’s ledger over to her. She studied it quietly for a few minutes, scribbling down a few notes. Finally, she closed the ledger and looked at me.

  “There’s no mention of what the dollar amounts are for, and the nicknames could apply to anyone, not just police officers. In fact, there’s no mention of the police anywhere.” She pushed the ledger back at me. “This is hardly a smoking gun. If I took this to my editor, he’d put me back in the food section tomorrow.”

  “You can’t tell me you don’t know what this is.” I slapped my hand down onto the ledger, thankful that I’d made Heather give me the NDOC number before I showed her the payoffs.

  “Sure, this could be a record of payoffs made to police officers.” Her hands went up in supplication. “I just can’t prove it. Neither can you.”

  “You’re an investigative reporter. Go investigate.” I raised my eyebrows and my voice. “Did you even try to find information on cops nicknamed Stamp and Scarface?”

  “Yes.” An angry hiss. I’d struck a nerve. Good.

  “And?”

  “What about this birth certificate? Did you bring that?”

  “Yes, but you haven’t told me everything you know about Stamp and Scarface.”

  She measured me for a couple beats, let out a sigh, and then flipped back a couple pages of her notebook. “Okay. There was a cop who worked for LJPD who was nicknamed Stamp.”

  “Built like a brick shithouse with a blond crew cut?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “This is where you show me yours and I show you mine.” I tapped the ledger and then learned across the table. “If this thing breaks ugly, your byline will be page one above the fold for weeks. Probably get picked up by the wire services. ‘Corruption in the Jewel by the Sea’ or even better, ‘Paradise Lost.’ Some bullshit like that. Maybe even get you some talking head TV time. I can help get you there, but you gotta help me too.”

  “What do you get out of all this, Rick? What’s your angle?”

  I glanced out the window and saw a red-tailed hawk rise out of the canyon with something furry and limp in its talons.

  “I stay out of jail.”

  “That’s it?” She cocked her head and gave me raised eyebrows. “You wouldn’t get even a little satisfaction bringing down LJPD on corruption charges after they retired your father for the same offense?”

  “My father’s epitaph was written long ago. Nothing’s going to change that. Tell me about Stamp.”

  She gave me a poker face again. I gave it back.

  Finally, she looked down at her notes. “Robert Heaton. Retired from LJPD years ago. Came from NYPD ten years before that. The rumor is that he used to wear a big gold ring with the initial ‘H’ on it. Supposedly, suspects he arrested sometimes had bruised ‘H’s stamped on their bodies. Thus the nickname. He was quietly asked to retire from both departments. He’s a PI now. Discreet Investigations of La Jolla.”

  I’d been right. The head goon was the bad cop in Windsor’s ledger. Stamp Heaton. I thought of my own bruises and Heaton’s threats. He’d eighty-sixed the ring and the “discreet” part of his investigations when he worked on me. “Who was his partner fifteen years ago?”

  I waited for her to say Tony Moretti. The Pacino-size Scarface with the cleft lip scar hidden by a mustache.

  “Jerry Manley. Retired last year.”

  I tried to hide my disappointment.

  “What does Manley look like? Any scars on his face?”

  “No.”

  “Was Heaton ever partnered with Tony Moretti?” I wasn’t ready to give up on my theory yet. Maybe she had the chronology screwed up.

  “No. Why?” She seemed to be trying hard with the poker face again, but her eyebrows wandered upward and her eyes followed after. “Do you think Detective Moretti is somehow involved?”

  I thought about telling her about the break-in, Midnight’s poisoning, and the stink of Moretti’s cologne on my carpet. But I held it in. The mention of Moretti’s name made her tense. I thought back to the Windsor murder scene at the Shell Beach Motel and Heather’s demeanor while questioning the detective. The easy familiarity between the two. Possibly more than acquaintances? Then back to the day Moretti and Coyote grilled me at the Brick House. Heather had been the only reporter who knew I was there. Her inside information had to have come from somewhere.

  Moretti.

  Sweat popped up on the back of my neck.

  “How long have you been sleeping with Detective Moretti?”

  Her face went crimson and her eyes hit the table. A denial now would have been an insult. “This was supposed to be about police corruption.”

  I had too much to risk to worry about the propriety of infidelity. I needed an edge. “Does his wife know?”

  The red in her face turned to anger and her eyes went tight. “Are you going to blackmail me now, Rick? Is that what this is all about?”

  “I need to know if you told him about our meeting today.”

  Her silence was my answer.

  I grabbed the ledger, stuffed it into my backpack, and stood up.

  “Rick, wait. It’s not what you think—” Her cell phone donged in her bag. She pulled it out and looked at a text message. “Please, just wait. I have to make a quick call and I’ll be right back.”

  She left the room and closed the door behind her. I slung the backpack over my shoulder, ready to leave, then noticed Heather had left her notepad on the table. I glanced at the door and reached for the notepad when my eye caught movement on the walkway from the parking area below. A man hurried toward the library with a cell phone to his ear.

  Short. Porn mustache. An attitude I could feel five stories up.

  Moretti.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I grabbed Heather’s notepad, tape recorder, and batteries, and shoved them into my backpack. Then I checked the window. Moretti was still visible, no longer talking on his phone. He’d make it to the entrance of the library in less than a minute and then up the elevator to the fifth floor. I bolted for the door, but it opened before my hand reached the handle. Heather stood in the doorway, phone in hand, a surprised look six inches from my face.

  “I need to borrow your phone.”

  “Wha—”

  “Your phone.”

  I grabbed it from her hand. “Thanks. Be right back.”

  She stood stunned, and I scrambled away from her and punched numbers into the phone while I held my other thumb on the end button. I put the phone to my ear, pantomiming waiting for a call to connect, and circled around the center column out of Heather’s view. If she thought I was coming back, it would give me a bit of extra time before Moretti went on the hunt. Even if she didn’t believe I was coming back, she wouldn’
t have a phone to warn Moretti that I was on the lam.

  I put the phone in my pocket and pushed through the door into the stairwell and hyper-hobbled down the stairs. Each step, a jolt to my swollen ankle. By the time I reached the first floor, my shirt was damp with sweat from exertion, pain, and fear. I pushed through the door, eased around a corner, and waited. Ten seconds later Moretti entered the library and made for the elevator. He got in, the door closed, and I sped out of the building.

  I shuffle-gimped up the stairs and across the concrete walkway to the parking area. Out from under the main body of the library I was exposed, hurrying to avoid human stares through spider eyes on the fifth floor.

  I made it to the cover of the eucalyptus trees that separated the street from the overgrown canyon on the right. A rust-colored slick-top Crown Vic sat twenty yards in front of me. I froze, then ducked behind a tree trunk and peered into the unmarked cop car. Empty. Either Moretti had come alone or Detective Coyote was out there somewhere watching and waiting.

  I hung behind the tree and scanned the street. If Coyote was stalking me, he was well hidden. I didn’t have time to count every eucalyptus leaf or the sagebrush creeping up the rim of the canyon. Moretti would come bursting out of the library any second. Or call to alert his hidden partner.

  Time to gamble. I broke from behind the tree and hustled along the street. Nobody jumped out from behind a car or out of a tree. Kim’s Rav4 was still another fifty yards away. Ten feet before I came even with Moretti’s Crown Vic, Streisand’s “Don’t Rain on my Parade” blared from my front jeans pocket. I pulled out Heather’s phone and read the name of the incoming caller. “Tony.” As in Moretti. Instinctively, I whipped around and checked the path to the library. Clear. He must have still been inside and realized that he and Heather had been duped.

  I let Barbara keep singing and set the phone on the hood of the Crown Vic. The next time I talked to the cops would be through a lawyer.

  I made it to Kim’s Rav4 and exited the campus without Moretti catching up to me or being stopped by the campus police. Safe for now, but for how long? If I went home, would there be a black-and-white there waiting for me? Was there already a BOLO for my arrest cycling through LJPD patrol cars?

  Nobody but Kim knew I was using her car. The cops probably hadn’t ferreted out my friendship with her yet, but in time they would. Home and Muldoon’s were out of the question. Kim’s would be a risk.

  There wasn’t a safe play, so I made the only play I had. I headed south on I-5. I’d make the Greyhound bus terminal in fifteen minutes. Adam Windsor’s computer was still in there in a locker. Heather had gotten me his NDOC number. It was time to see if my half-asleep epiphany of last night would work. The password to get inside Windsor’s secrets.

  My eyes were on the road, but my mind was somewhere else.

  Moretti.

  Why had he come to the library alone? If it had been to arrest me, surely he would have brought Detective Coyote with him. Heather had said Moretti hadn’t been Stamp Heaton’s partner back when Heaton was taking bribes from Adam Windsor. But that didn’t completely rule out Moretti as Scarface. He didn’t have to be Heaton’s partner, he just had to have been on the take. Or maybe Heather was covering for him and he had been Scarface to Heaton’s Stamp.

  My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. My breath caught in my chest. Moretti out for a second try? Did he even have my cell number? Easy enough for him to get it if he didn’t. I pulled out the phone and checked the screen. I didn’t recognize the number and let the call go to voice mail. Twenty seconds later, the voice mail tone beeped.

  “Rick, it’s Ellison. I got your call. Call me back right away.”

  Elk Fenton. He’d missed my morning call when I’d considered going to the police station with the evidence I’d stolen from Windsor’s storage locker. Back when things just looked bad, but not horrible. From the urgency in his voice, things may have just gotten worse.

  “Rick! Thank God you called!” Elk’s voice was in my ear before the first ring ended. The normal effete goofiness replaced with red-lined gravitas.

  Nothing good was going to come from this call. I fought the urge to push my foot to the floor and not let it up until I hit Rosarito Beach. Mexico. But ten-dollar lobster wouldn’t taste as good if I didn’t have a country to go back home to. And stealing Kim’s car would be too big an imposition, even for me.

  “Give me whatever it is.”

  I found a parking spot a couple blocks back from the bus terminal. Close enough. I figured whatever Elk was going to tell me, was better heard stopped than at full throttle while in control of two thousand pounds of steel and gas.

  “I must confess, Rick. I’ve been following the Windsor murder investigation very closely since we talked the other night.” A hint of the kid who wanted to be included slipped back into his voice. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve put feelers out to some of my old contacts at LJPD and the courthouse.”

  “And what did you find out?”

  “The DA is impaneling a grand jury Monday morning to try to get an indictment against you as an accessory in the Windsor murder.”

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The world went silent. Grand jury. Murder. Elk’s words hung in the air. A gallows noose waiting to be tightened. I sat back in the driver’s seat and stared, but saw nothing. The sun used the car’s windshield as a magnifying glass. It felt like a laser cutting my heart out of my chest. The ghost of Santa Barbara had come out from the shadows. No more what ifs, no more hoping for the cops to see the truth. They had their own truth, circumstantial evidence knotted up with a wrong past.

  It was Saturday. I still had two days until Monday.

  Think. Work. Keep moving.

  I turned the ignition on to run the air conditioner. Heat was pulsing inside me as well as out. I needed fresh air just to breathe.

  “Why doesn’t LJPD just get a warrant and arrest me now? Why go through the charade of a grand jury?”

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the precarious position the department and the DA are in with the upcoming vote on their very existence. They don’t want to take any chances on a bad arrest. But,” his voice grabbed the hint of a lilt, “it tells me they don’t have a locked-down case either.”

  “They can’t. I’m innocent.” It wasn’t a plea before a judge or a plea for help from Elk. It was statement of fact. Right now, it was all I had.

  “When I worked criminal defense, I made it a practice never to ask my client about their guilt or innocence, but it always helped to have the facts on our side.”

  The more Elk talked, the more he sounded like a cocksure defense attorney and less like the goofy kid whom I wouldn’t quite accept as a friend seventeen years ago. I think I wanted him as a friend now.

  “I’ve got five grand in cash and no job, Elk. How much time will that buy me as a retainer?” I thought of the fifty Gs Stone had offered me, but wasn’t yet sure how that was going to play out. I wasn’t going to give evidence to a possible murder suspect and have him destroy it so I could pay my legal fees.

  “I’ll do my best to put you together with a top-notch criminal attorney. You’ll have to work out your fee with whomever we get, but as I said the other night, there are a few who owe me favors. I’m sure they’ll make accommodations.”

  “I want you, Elk.”

  “I’m not criminal anymore, Rick.” He paused, maybe thinking it over. “I haven’t tried a case in two years.”

  “I haven’t been arrested for murder in eight. We both have some experience at this.”

  “I guess we do. Okay, Rick. If things don’t go your way on Monday, I’m your man. We’ll work out the money issue if the time comes.”

  “Thanks, Elk. Ah, I guess I should call you Ellison now.”

  “I’ve been using Ellison since I started practicing estate planning. I thought old-money La Jollans would think I was one of them.” An amused exhale. “It is my given name, but I never
realized how silly it sounded until I heard it coming from your mouth. Call me Elk.”

  “Okay, Elk.” Niceties aside, I had to find out where I stood. “Why the grand jury now? I know the cops have my golf hat at the murder scene, but they’ve had that all along. Do they have something new?”

  “In fact they do. A jailhouse snitch named Edward Ames Philby. He claims you contacted him the day before Windsor’s death, trying to obtain heroin. The police are obviously cutting him a deal on his recent arrest for cocaine distribution.”

  Eddie Philby. I’d let my anger get to me and now it was payback time for the punk I bounced out of Muldoon’s two nights ago.

  Elk continued, “There’s something rather odd about the decision to impanel a grand jury, though. Rumor has it that Chief Parks is not on board. And that Detective Moretti went over his head, directly to the DA, because Parks wouldn’t sign off on an arrest warrant.”

  Chief Parks on my side? Hard to believe. During my one face-to-face with him, Parks had looked at me like I was something he’d just blown into a handkerchief. Whatever his reluctance to lock me in a cage, it wasn’t because he’d nominated me for citizen of the year. Something else was at play.

  With his porn mustache and suffocating cologne, Moretti was a junior-size version of Parks. Going against his mentor would create a huge rift in a tiny station house. That could be career death. Was Moretti confident that Mayor Albright would be elected governor and take Parks with him, creating a void for the detective to fill? Was this an early sign to show the powers that be that Moretti wasn’t afraid to make bold moves when justice was in the balance? Maybe the lone wolf routine at the library was an effort to bag new evidence that he could spring on the grand jury to further separate himself from the chief.

  “Philby’s lie can’t be taken seriously by a grand jury or any kind of jury.” I squeezed the cell phone. “He’s obviously dealing to get out of prison time and to get even with me for throwing him out of my restaurant. Anybody under the age of fifty has probably seen the YouTube video of me bouncing him the other night. Hell, they even showed it on the eleven o’clock news.”