Perfectly Good Crime

by Dete Meserve

  My phone began ringing, ruining the take. I pulled it from my purse. Jake Newton.

  “Hey,” I said, careful not to say his name.

  “I can get you five, maybe six minutes here in the Villa,” he said hurriedly. “There’s a back entrance down the hill. No cameras. Hurry.” He hung up.

  I stifled the urge to do a little jig and quickly filled in Josh about what was ahead. We drove down the hill until we saw a multicar garage secured behind another set of ornate iron gates. Josh dropped me off several dozen yards farther down the hill so I could walk up without being seen getting out of the news van. I raced up the steep hill, and by the time I got to the back entrance, Jake was waiting for me.

  “We have five minutes,” he whispered and whisked me inside.

  We stepped through the gate and into a large fountained motor court that led into a six-car garage occupied by a cardinal red Bentley.

  “Wow,” I said under my breath.

  “And that’s the one they left behind. Because it’s worth a mere one hundred seventy-five thousand. The other five cars stolen were worth much more.”

  “The thieves stole five other cars? How?”

  I scribbled notes as he spoke. “The keys were inside the house. That’s why the haul here was so big. At least five million. They stole five luxury cars, including an Aston Martin Vanquish, which costs around three hundred thousand, a Mercedes-AMG, a Ferrari FF, a Maserati Ghibli, and a Porsche Carrera. That’s well over a million dollars in cars alone. We suspect they took them straight to the port.”

  “To be sold where?”

  “China is the fastest-growing country for billionaires. Many of them obsess over luxury cars. The thieves will be able to sell these cars within hours.”

  He hurried me out of the garage into a large marble-lined foyer and then pressed a button on the wall to summon the elevator.

  “What makes this heist so spectacular is that the estate has sophisticated surveillance cameras and breach sensors. The system was set up by one of the world’s foremost security experts, a guy named Bruce Rennert, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces and designed surveillance at maximum-security military prisons. Bruce can’t figure out how they were able to breach his system.”

  A mahogany-paneled elevator arrived. We both got in, Jake pressed 3, and the elevator began its descent. “How did they do it?”

  “Same as before. The security system went down. Bruce has already confirmed that no wires were cut and the system’s black box wasn’t compromised. And get this. The thieves didn’t enter a security code to turn off the system. At 11:17 last night the system went down. Then came back on at 11:30.”

  “The thieves turned the security system back on as they left? Without a security code? How? Could the people who installed these security systems be behind it?”

  He shook his head. “We’re already on that. The estates have different security companies, with no common thread between them.”

  When the elevator doors opened, my breath caught in my throat. In front of us was a Moroccan-style Turkish bath with a cobalt blue lap pool decorated in 24-carat-gold tiles and fountains. It was more lavish than any hotel spa I’d ever seen, even those I’d only dreamed about while looking at photos on the Internet.

  “This is where the thieves got their biggest haul. The owners put a safe in the sauna—the last place where you’d expect to find a safe—but the thieves made a beeline for it, broke in, and stole over a million in cash, watches, and jewelry there alone.”

  “It’s like they knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it.”

  He nodded.

  I spotted two cameras overlooking the pool area. “There are cameras everywhere,” I said, worried we were being watched.

  “The techs have taken them offline while they test the system.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re good for about another three minutes. But here are the rules, Kate. Don’t mention that you’ve seen the crime scene. We’re under strict orders from the chief not to show or talk about the crime scene. A full cone of silence.”

  I scanned the room. “Why? What’s here that could compromise the investigation?”

  He ignored my question, guiding me back to the elevator. “This is the last access I can get you on this story. You’ve got to be especially protective of my identity.”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I’m putting you at serious risk.”

  “You’re worth it, Kate.”

  His words hung in the air. His blue eyes met mine, imploring me not to look away. “Someone is spending a lot of time and money to orchestrate these burglaries, and it may not be for the reasons we all suspect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He drew a deep breath. The expression on his face was more anxious than I had ever seen before.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. “The cameras go online in two minutes. Get in the elevator and press 1. When the doors open again, walk out the door. We never had this meeting.”

  “There is something. What is it?”

  He tapped on his watch. “You need to get going.”

  The elevator arrived and I stepped inside. As the doors began to close, he added, “Remember what I told you about the Hidden Mickey.”

  Chapter Four

  The Hidden Mickey is a silhouette of Mickey Mouse, concealed in plain sight by park designers in dozens of rides, murals, light poles, manhole covers, and plantings throughout the Disney theme parks. Guests might look at something dozens of times until they finally recognize the Hidden Mickey within it.

  When Jake and I were working on the investigation into the murder of the flight attendant whose severed head was found in the Hollywood Hills, he’d told me that many cases had a “Hidden Mickey,” a piece of evidence hiding in plain sight. Once it’s found, the whole case cracks open. In that grisly case, once police found the Hidden Mickey—some shards of glass and a half-smoked cigarette inadvertently left at the crime scene—they had a solid suspect.

  Now he was saying that there was a Hidden Mickey in these heists. Had they found some piece of evidence that cracked the case wide open? Is that why the police chief had clamped down on all communication with the media?

  Josh and I went back to the main entrance and reshot my report. While I laid out the exclusive information Jake had given me about what had been stolen, I didn’t mention anything about the crime scene.

  In the news van, Josh and I assembled the report. After we finished the edit, Josh went to pack up the camera equipment and I switched the monitor to the network news feed. The images of Hurricane Juanita’s huge path of destruction flickered across the screen—flooded neighborhoods, downed power lines, homes gutted and flattened into rubble, cars crushed under debris, and storm-torn buildings.

  I turned up the sound. “Hurricane Juanita pummeled the East Coast with strong winds as high as seventy-five miles an hour, bringing widespread flooding, fires, and power blackouts,” the anchor was saying.

  I checked my phone again for a text or a call from Eric. Still nothing. I had texted him several times since he left, hoping he’d respond, even if it was with a simple emoji. Now the cold ache of missing him rattled through me.

  In the three months we’d been seeing each other, we’d been in touch every day. I always felt a buzz of excitement when I was with him—even if it was just his text flashing up on my phone. I’d become intoxicated by that feeling—the surge of excitement when I was with him or heard his voice on the other end of the line. I pulled up a photo of him that I kept on my phone. Dressed in uniform, he’s sitting at a table, resting his chin in his left hand, smiling a boyish grin at me. Like I was the only woman in the world.

  “At least three rescuers are trapped at this hour in an under-construction school building in Wilmington as high winds from Hurricane Juanita batter the South Carolina co
ast,” the anchor said. “Urban search and rescue team members saved two people trapped inside Argyle High School then went back in to search for more victims when the roof collapsed on them.”

  My mouth went dry as I imagined the worst. Could Eric and his team be the rescuers trapped in the building?

  “High winds and blinding rains have hampered efforts to rescue the firefighters,” she continued.

  My apparent fearlessness, David Dyal says, is what makes me one of the best at breaking news. But as I watched the storm images flash across the screen, that façade crumbled.

  I called Eric’s phone but the call went straight to voice mail. I managed a smile when I heard his warm voice on the outgoing message, “Hey, it’s Eric. Leave a message.”

  My next call was to Hannah. “Rescuers are trapped at Argyle High School in Wilmington,” I said, but my tone was high-pitched, on the edge of panic. I steadied my voice. “Can you find out if any of them are from the LA County Fire Department?”

  The sales guys at Channel Eleven rarely talk to the reporters. Maybe it’s because their offices are in a different wing of the building, separated by the lobby and a warren of hallways that lead to the newsroom. But it’s also because there is supposed to be a clear separation between what the news department reports and what the advertisers would like us to talk about.

  There’s one exception to this rule at Channel Eleven: the station is owned by a major Hollywood movie studio, so the lines between delivering the news and promoting the studio’s latest movie releases and television shows are constantly blurred. But otherwise, the guys selling airtime rarely interact with the reporters and anchors. So when one of the sales executives approached me as I walked into the newsroom that afternoon, I had no idea who he was.

  He extended his hand. “Kate? I’m Marc Beck. National Sales.” He was dressed in a navy blue suit and a crisply ironed white oxford. His precision-trimmed hair was slicked back in a style reminiscent of Gordon Gekko without the cigar.

  He offered me a stick of gum but I declined. “Thought you’d like to know that Frank Tepper is quite the Channel Eleven News junkie and a big fan of yours.”

  “Frank Tepper?”

  “CEO of Tepper International. They’re the single largest owner of companies that put security systems in homes and businesses. He loves the heist stories. Says they’re very entertaining and have already begun to boost business for him.”

  “I don’t need to know what Frank Tepper likes about the news.”

  “Hey, I only wanted you to know. He’s a big fan of yours, that’s all.”

  “Are you new here, Marc?”

  “Been here three months actually. Came from the New York station.”

  “Let me explain something. News reporters don’t have fans. We are not celebrities. We have viewers. We have audience members. We don’t cater to advertisers, even if they call themselves our fans.”

  He looked at me as if I had just fallen off the turnip truck. “If it helps you sleep at night, you keep thinking that way, Kate. Because the truth is a lot uglier than that. Why do you think that you report on breaking news? The tragedy, the robberies, and the disasters? You think that’s what viewers want? That’s what viewers are demanding?” He looked around to see if anyone could hear him and then lowered his voice. “Crap. It’s because that’s what the advertisers want. They want to sell cars, appliances, and other products that make people feel safe and secure after they’ve seen all the crime and mayhem you’ve just reported on.”

  I shook my head. “Damn, I thought I was cynical. But you—”

  He shrugged. “I only speak the truth. Great meeting you, Kate.”

  Marc Beck had gotten under my skin. I don’t cross police lines and secure exclusive access to sometimes dangerous crime scenes to satisfy advertisers’ needs to sell products to frightened viewers. I do it because they are important stories. But it made me wonder. Were crime stories and tragedy really what viewers wanted, or were viewers searching for something more?

  Worrying about Eric added to my gloom. I careened between worst-case scenarios and sound reasoning that it was highly unlikely he was one of the trapped firefighters. But the news reports’ relentless images of destruction, flooding, and pounding rain made the worst-case scenario feel more likely. Meanwhile, Hannah had texted me that the identities of the trapped firefighters had still not been released.

  “Communication from the scene is scarce,” she wrote. “Team here monitoring for updates.”

  I tried to look calm as I returned to the newsroom only to find Susan pacing behind my desk, talking on her cell phone. She was frowning, which isn’t an expression I’d seen on her face often.

  “Okay, then, thank you for trying,” she said and hung up. “Struck out. No luck getting an interview with the La Villa de la Paz owner. I tried his assistant, talked to his corporate PR firm. I even had a friend of mine who knows an executive at his company reach out to him. He’s refused to be interviewed. How’d you do?”

  “Police aren’t talking. Billionaires aren’t talking. Which leaves us in the dark. But someone is spending a lot of money and time to orchestrate these burglaries. Maybe not for the reasons we suspect. Besides ordinary greed, what other reasons could they have to do it?”

  She looked at me as though I’d asked her how to calculate the length of a hypotenuse. No wonder. Most of the celebrity stories she covers don’t ever require her to consider suspects, motives, or evidence.

  “I was thinking we should interview a few celebrities,” she said. “To find out if they’re worried about becoming heist targets.”

  I shook my head. “That’s hyping the story. What we need is to uncover why they are orchestrating these heists. Why these estates? This isn’t an entertainment story.”

  I felt a little guilty for being so direct, but the heist story was my beat, while celebrity news, gossip, and scandals were hers. Seriously, part of her job was monitoring Ashton Kutcher’s and Hugh Jackman’s Twitter feeds. This wasn’t even remotely an entertainment story.

  Except that it was. With all the spectacle of the items stolen and the high-end estates, some of the reports felt a little like the CSI version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Even advertisers were coming aboard for the “entertainment” value of the story. If I had any hope of holding on to my reputation as a news reporter, it was time to dig deeper.

  Shrouded behind a stand of tall palm trees, Matt Wexler’s home looked like any number of stately homes on Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park, an affluent neighborhood in central LA built in the 1920s around a private golf course. Mark was the creator of a 1990s hit sitcom, one of the many about a dysfunctional but loving family. A few years back, he’d hosted a $32,000-per-person fundraiser attended by the president. Today, attendees could pay the relatively paltry sum of $2,500 to meet the candidate my dad was backing for governor of California and hear a brief speech by the Speaker of the House.

  This was the first of three fundraisers my dad had summoned me to attend. Most of the fundraisers were for a specific candidate running for political office in the state—governor, congressman, U.S. senator—but occasionally we attended larger events to raise funds for the political party my dad belonged to.

  Earlier in the day, he had texted instructions. Or, I should say, his assistant had—my dad definitely doesn’t send text messages. The instructions were simple: be on time and remember you’re not a reporter tonight.

  I can’t pretend I’m not a reporter and my dad knew it. People who watch TV news in LA, especially politicians, often recognize me. Even if they’re not sure which station I report for, they know my name. And they definitely know I’m Hale Bradley’s daughter. But what my dad meant was for me not to ask questions like a reporter. He wanted me to listen intently and contribute to the conversations but back off from asking questions. Even gentle confrontation can unsettle donors and politicians in a setting like this.

  When I arrived, a unifor
med valet in a black vest checked my name off a list and took my keys, whisking my silver Acura off to some side street while a gleaming white Lamborghini and a Bentley were prominently displayed in the brick-lined driveway circle.

  Bathed in blue-gold lights and studded with palm tree-inspired chandeliers, the heated tent in Wexler’s sprawling yard had been transformed into a high-end tropical paradise, complete with a luxurious fish tank filled with a rainbow of tropical fish. I recognized a few of the faces—an action movie star, a pro athlete, and a few politicians—but otherwise I didn’t know anyone in the room. Except my dad.

  “There you are,” he said, embracing me in a brief hug. His dark hair, graying at the temples, gave him the look of a distinguished statesman, but he appeared far younger than his sixty-two years. Maybe it was his line-free skin, which was perpetually tanned even though he avoided the California sun. But it was also his strong, sloping shoulders, bolstered by years as a runner, that gave him an active appearance that some of his fellow senators lacked.

  He introduced me to a tall man in his early forties with a thick head of wavy hair that reached to his collar and dressed in a black pin-striped suit. An expensive watch peeked out from his suit sleeve.

  “Stephen, this is my daughter, Kate. Stephen Bening.”

  Stephen shook my hand with a grip that was stiff and formal. He had a commanding presence about him, which made me think he was a senator or a congressman. But his shaggy hair and ten-day beard made it clear he was some kind of tech guru or entertainment executive.

  He looked familiar but at first I couldn’t place him. Then I realized he was the Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose Chateau de Soleil was the first estate robbed in the heists.