by Paul Bishop
“When little Miss Brains started law school.”
“You think there's a connection?”
Fey shrugged. “It's hard to tell. What else do you have?”
Monk went back to his notes. “Taking on Cordell's case and getting him paroled was a big deal. There had to be coverage.”
“And?”
“And after exhaustive research—”
“I get the point,” Fey said. “My heart bleeds. What did you do? Have the law library librarian find the stuff? Quit messing around and spell it out.”
Monk only looked slightly chastened. “A month ago there was an in-depth profile of Ryder in The Recorder—the daily legal newspaper for the Bay area.”
“Compiled as a result of her winning parole for Cordell?”
“Yeah. MacGregor, the cop you talked to in San Francisco, was right. Cordell's case was high profile in Bay area society ten years ago, but interest dwindled until Ryder began fighting to get him paroled. Cordell had been a model citizen up until he supposedly murdered his wife, but he had not done his prison time quietly. He'd twice been turned down for parole down due to the violent nature of his behavior inside. He was suspected in two prison stabbings and a long list of minor offenses. When Ryder finally convinced the parole board to spring Cordell, the prison hierarchy must have breathed a sigh of relief.”
“Did the article cover the motives behind Ryder taking on Cordell as a cause?”
“Not much. She'd done a lot of pro bono work in private practice, and a reputation as a liberal cause carrier.”
“I can't think of anything the world needs more.”
“She did pay her dues on the way up. After she passed the bar, she spent two years with the public defender's office then jumped over to the DA's office for another two years.”
“What do you think made her change colors?”
“I'd say a bad marriage.”
“What? Miss Brains isn't completely perfect?”
Monk chuckled. “Make you feel better?”
Fey shrugged. “Who'd she marry?”
Monk went back to his notes. “A hotshot private lawyer named Howard Ryder. Corporate type. Entertainment law, contracts, civil stuff. They were married shortly after she joined the PD's office. They lasted a year together. His profile indicates he had big bucks, but didn't want to spend them on his wife's liberal causes.”
“I bet she took him for a bundle when they split.”
“Are you talking from experience?”
Fey’ face clouded. “Don't start. I get enough crap from Colby. I don't need you chipping in.”
“Sorry. Didn't know it was a hot button.”
“Now you do. Who was this bimbo before she married a bank?”
“You mean her maiden name?”
“Yeah. Where did she come from?”
Monk flipped through his notes. “It's mostly sob-story stuff. Her mother abandoned her when she was eight. Left her in Daddy's care and ran off with the mailman or someone similar.”
“Rough.”
“Then things got worse.”
“Make me cry,” Fey said.
“When Janice was eleven, Daddy married again. This time to a woman named Madeline Walsh.”
Fey felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
“Two years later,” Monk continued, oblivious to the change in Fey's attention focus, “daddy died in a car crash, and wicked step-mommy split with the insurance money, leaving Janice to be brought up by her grandparents—”
Fey leapt to her feet. She grabbed Monk's notes and started scanning them. “Where do you have her maiden name written?”
Monk reached for the cards. Fey thrust them back at him.
“Come on. Come on.”
Monk was getting flustered. “Er...Here it is. Fletcher. Her maiden name is Fletcher.”
“You’re making my head hurt,” Fey said, flopping back in her chair. She stared into space, her mind whirling.
“What? I don't get the connection.”
Fey was still looking thoughtful. “The conniving spawn sprung Cordell from jail and pointed him like a gun at our victim.”
“What are you talking about?”
Fey focused her eyes on Monk. “Yesterday at the bank, Colby and I talked to an IRS agent named Craven. He's been tracking our victim for years. According to Craven, she was a black widow killer who drained her mates financially before bumping them off for the insurance money.”
“Okay. So?”
“One of the identities Craven uncovered for our victim was Madeline Fletcher—a woman who took off with an insurance policy after her husband died in a car crash. Craven told us, she left a penniless thirteen-year-old stepdaughter behind to be raised by grandparents.”
“And you think—”
Fey leaned forward. “I don't know how she managed to track her stepmother through all her various identities, but I have no doubt she either sprung Cordell and pointed him right at the woman, or she killed the victim herself and set Cordell up for the rap again.”
Monk nodded. “After she set him up, she planned to use this double jeopardy hocus-pocus and get him off.”
“It needs hammering out, but the scenario fits,” Fey said. Her heart was racing at the same pace as her brain.
She needed time to bring the situation into perspective, but she wasn't going to get it. The lightning storm started at Jake Travers's office was about to splatter all over her.
Earlier, Fey had noticed two suit-and-tie types go into a closed-door session with Mike Cahill. She'd recognized one of the visitors as an Internal Affairs investigator, but she'd been too busy to think much about it. Even when Cahill interrupted her thought process and motioned for her to join him, Fey's first thoughts were directed toward which of the other detectives on the homicide unit might be the focus of IA's attentions.
The instant she entered Cahill's office, however, she felt the atmosphere close around her like an ice-cold fog. When Cahill closed the miniblinds covering the windows into the squad bay, she knew there was big trouble brewing.
One of the IA investigators stood up. “Detective Croaker, I'm Lieutenant Baxter, and this is Sergeant Hilton.” He indicated the younger man next to him, who hadn't bothered to stand. “We're with Internal Affairs.” His last pronouncement had been merely routine. IA cops wore an air of paranoia as a protective cloak. If possible, they dressed even more conservatively than cops who carried rank. No striped or colored shirts. No wildly patterned ties. No pointed shoes or boots. No sport jackets. Only dark blue, single-breasted suits with white shirts, dark ties, and polished wing tips.
“We've met before,” Fey said to Baxter. When he didn't acknowledge her, she switched her gaze to Cahill. He was fiddling with something on his desk and refused to meet her eyes.
Oh, no, she thought. We've got big trouble right here in River City. She couldn't understand why one of Colby's favorite sayings popped into her mind, but she couldn't help thinking it was appropriate.
“What can I do for you?” she asked. Her voice was strong, belying the tremors in her knees.
“Have a seat.” This came from Hilton, the younger IA officer. He had short-cropped dark hair, bushy eyebrows growing together across the bridge of his crooked nose, and an unsmiling mouth with thin lips. Heavy eyelids gave him a hooded look, as if he were a vulture waiting for something to die.
Fey sat, but kept her mouth shut. She realized she was taking the first steps into an uncharted minefield. This was IA’s show. She would gain nothing by charging ahead.
“Are you currently in charge of investigating the murder of Miranda Goodwinter?”
Fey looked at the two oversized black briefcases on the conference table in front of the IA investigators.
“Is this interview being taped?” she asked.
Hilton scowled and started to say something, but Baxter beat him to the punch. “Yes,” he said calmly. Baxter's sun-seamed face held the weary wisdom of knowing too many dirty cops. Fey kne
w his reputation. Most cops bucking for promotion put in an eighteen-month tour with Internal Affairs and then get out. Investigating dirty cops is not a job for a weak stomach or a thin skin. Baxter had been with IA for fifteen years. He was a crusader. He was also fair—a tough reputation to earn in IA.
The them against us syndrome cops developed was magnified a thousand times when you worked IA. Nobody trusts an IA investigator. Even clean cops can’t walk through the sewer of a big city and not have crap rub off.
If IA targets you, it doesn't matter how good a cop you are, they'll find something. If a cop couldn't be had for something, then he or she wasn't doing the job properly.
Citizens' complaints, beefs as they were called, were part of a cop's everyday life. Even if a cop did everything properly, there were people who made complaints—suspects with a grudge; victims who did not get everything they wanted; citizens who felt they were unfairly ticketed because nobody ever stops for that stop sign; witnesses to an arrest who had no idea what they were seeing but felt a cop had been far too harsh on the nice man who had tried to kill the cop's partner. All of them made life rough for cops through the offices of Internal Affairs.
There were legitimate complaints. Cops on the take; illegal use of force; cops taking or selling drugs; cops involved with gambling and prostitution; and many other variations. The real heavy-duty stuff came in the form of cops who became assassins for hire; organized cop burglary rings taking down thousands of dollars a week; political corruption; protection rackets; and a myriad of other stomach-turning activities besmirching the badge, making Internal Affairs a necessary evil.
Fey had been under the microscope several times, but all charges had been cleared as unfounded. It had been a number of years since her last beef, however, and Fey did not feel like going through the routine again without a fight.
Most good cops had a tendency to go overboard when trying to clear themselves with Internal Affairs, allowing their rights as a citizen and a police officer to be trampled. Fey had been around too long to not protect herself. She wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know now.
“What are the charges against me?”
“Nobody has said anything about charges, Fey,” Mike Cahill spoke up.
Fey immediately shot him down in flames. “These guys aren't here to interview me for officer of the month.” She looked back at Baxter. “Well?”
Baxter tried a smile, but it didn't seem to fit on his face. “There are no formal charges. We are simply investigating a conflict-of-interest allegation in your investigation of the Miranda Goodwinter case.”
“There is no such thing as an informal Internal Affairs investigation,” Fey said. “I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm not saying anything until you advise me of my rights and I get defense rep.”
“Detective Croaker, there's no need for this,” Baxter told her.
“The hell there isn’t,” Fey replied evenly. “Don't give me this father figure, good guy crap. Either you let me get a defense rep and then read me my rights, or I'm walking.”
“Listen, lady.” Hilton half rose out of his chair, but Baxter put a restraining hand on him.
“Can it, sonny,” Fey told him. “Mind your elders or we'll send you out onto the freeway to play with the traffic.”
Hilton's face turned bright red, but he sat down.
“Get yourself a rep,” Baxter said.
Fey stood up and opened the door to the office. She scanned the squad bay until she spotted Nate Collins. Like Fey, he was a detective supervisor, but he was also a lawyer. “Nate,” Fey called out. “I need you.”
Every cop was entitled to have a defense representative present when being interviewed by Internal Affairs. A defense rep was a fellow officer, usually with advanced legal skills, who would sit in on the interview to advise the cop who was being questioned.
Collins looked questioningly from where he was sitting at his desk. When he saw the expression on Fey's face, he instantly knew what was going on. He'd been a defense rep enough times to recognize a cop in trouble.
“What's up?” he asked when he reached Fey.
“I don't know yet, but there's a couple of IA butt hairs who are going to railroad me given a chance. I need you to sit in as my defense rep.”
“You got it,” Collins said. He followed Fey back into the office.
When everyone was settled, Fey asked the recorder briefcases be opened so she could be sure they were working. Baxter sighed heavily, but complied.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Hardly,” Fey said. “As I told you, I have no idea what you want to talk to me about, but I know not to give Internal Affairs an even break. It's nothing personal, understand.”
This time Baxter simply grunted.
“If there's any chance criminal charges may result from this interview, you need to read Detective Croaker her Miranda admonition.” Collins spoke up for the first time.
Baxter looked Collins over calmly. “Hilton,” he said to his partner, while still maintaining eye contact with Collins.
The younger IA investigator pulled a small officer's notebook from his pocket and read verbatim from the Miranda admonision printed on the cover. He knew the admonition by heart, but should he ever be required to testify there could be no technicality problem if he could say he read the rights directly from the card.
“You have the right to remain silent,” his voice droned. “If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you so desire and cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you without charge.” He paused for a second and looked up from the card. Everyone in the room remained silent.
“Do you understand these rights?” he asked.
Fey's reply was a simple, “Yes.”
“Do you wish to give up your right to remain silent?”
“No.”
“Do you wish to give up your right to have an attorney present during questioning?”
“No.”
Hilton sat back as if he were a well-trained puppy, and Baxter took over the interview again.
“As you have refused to waive your constitutional rights—” Baxter was as formal in his speech as Hilton had been in reading the rights “—I must advise you to answer our questions for administrative purposes only.”
“Are you ordering me to answer your questions?” Fey asked, playing her part in the game of well-rehearsed Q and A.
“Yes.”
“By whose authority are you ordering me?”
“By the authority of the Chief of Police of the Los Angeles Police Department. I must also advise you any refusal on your part to answer our questions may result in departmental charges being brought against you for insubordination.”
“I will answer your questions as ordered,” Fey said. “But only for the purposes of this departmental investigation. In no way should my answering of these questions be construed as a voluntary waiving of my Miranda rights.” She leaned forward to check the briefcase recorders were still working. She then turned toward Collins, who was sitting next to her. “Okay?” she asked him.
“Letter-perfect,” he replied, indicating Fey had protected herself correctly.
Fey sat back and tried to relax the stiffness in her neck. “The ball's in your court,” she said to Baxter.
“What was your relationship with Miranda Goodwinter?”
Fey opened her mouth to speak, but Nate Collins put his hand on her arm to stop her. “Hold on,” he said. “Bad question. It's like asking, have you stopped beating your wife? You're making the assumption Detective Croaker had a relationship with this Miranda Goodwinter.”
Baxter's expression soured. “Let me rephrase. Detective Croaker, have you at any time had a relationship with Miranda Goodwinter?”
Fey shook her head. “You've sent your dog up a bad trail. Beyond investigating her murder, I have never had any sort of rel
ationship with Miranda Goodwinter.”
Baxter took Fey’s declaration in stride. “You never had contact with Miranda Goodwinter prior to the beginning of this investigation?”
Fey nodded. “The first time I saw the woman, her blood was leaking all over the floor.”
“Real sensitive,” Hilton chipped in.
“Comes with the territory. You'll catch on after a while.”
“Fey.” Nate put a restraining hand back on her arm.
“This is crap, Nate,” Fey said to him. She turned back to Baxter. “Make your point.”
With a deliberate movement, Baxter removed a photograph from his jacket. It was a duplicate of the photo Janice Ryder produced in Vanderwald’s office earlier.
Baxter held the photo toward Fey, but Nate reached out and took it.
“If what you are telling us is true, Detective Croaker, how do you explain this photo?”
Nate took a quick glance at the print and handed it to Fey.
Fey's hands were trembling slightly as she took it. Her eyes glanced down. It was a photo of two women with their arms around each other in a nightclub setting. They were both smiling.
One of the women was Miranda Goodwinter.
The other was Fey.
Chapter 33
Fey placed the bottle of vodka on the bar as soon as she'd arrived home. She'd been sitting and staring at it for the past hour without cracking the seal. Her mind was running on overload—spinning and spinning, but unable to process. Anger and despair buzzed through her in alternating fits and starts. Absently she stroked Brentwood's coat as the cat nestled in her lap.
Finally, rousing herself from the depths of the recliner, she placed the complaining cat on the floor and walked to the bar. She threw ice in a glass, opened the vodka, and poured a healthy measure over the cubes.
She brought the glass to her lips and gulped. The alcohol tasted foul, but succeeded in washing away the traces of bile regurgitating from her stomach. The back of her throat felt raw when the alcohol hit, making her wince. After the one swallow, she banged the glass down so hard two ice cubes bounced out and slithered away.