Calculated Risk (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)
Page 17
“So what I want from you,” Hastings said, “is the name of whoever hired you to order the attack on Hardaway.”
“I’ve got nothing to say.”
“You’re a criminal lawyer, Mr. Weston. You know how the game is played. I’ll give up a little fish to get a bigger fish. I made a deal with Hubble to get Delbert Gay. And I’m giving up Gay to get you. If you cooperate, I’ll make the same deal with you. Tell me who told you to take Hardaway out, and you’ve got a free ride.”
Weston’s well-bred snort was contemptuous. “You’re incredible, Lieutenant. How do you know the office isn’t wired?”
“I figure this isn’t a conversation you want on tape.”
A frosty amusement touched the corners of Weston’s mouth. “Let’s suppose,” he said, “that I do decide to make a deal. I don’t mean to insult you, Lieutenant, but any deal I make, it’d be with, say, a deputy chief.”
Hastings shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be happy to set it up. You should know, though, that if you do business with me, you’ve got a better chance of keeping the deal quiet.”
As he’d done during their first interview, Weston rose and went to his window, standing with his back to the two detectives. Catching Hastings’s eye, Canelli smiled, nodded cheerful encouragement, turned up an optimistic thumb.
Finally, still with his back turned, Weston said, “At first—the first few months—all I was asked to do was get money to Charles Hardaway. Period.”
“You didn’t ask why?”
“In politics, at these levels, one never asks why. Never.” As he said it, Weston turned to face them. In the few minutes he had stood looking out the window, his face, at first so urbanely composed, had become haggard, visibly etched with fear. It was a dramatic transformation.
“Did Sobel pay you for getting the money to Hardaway?”
Weston shook his head in asperity. “You don’t understand. With people like the Bests, you don’t take money from them. You do them favors. Then they do you favors. No money ever changes hands.”
“So,” Hastings said, “you handled the payoffs to Hardaway. As a favor to the Bests—or maybe Forster?” Weston looked at Hastings as if he’d touched a nerve.
“And then,” Canelli said, “Sobel told you to hit Hardaway. Another little favor.”
“If by ‘hit’ you mean kill, then the answer is no. He wanted Hardaway worked over, that’s all. It was meant as a warning. Nothing more.”
“So you took care of it,” Canelli said.
“I took care of it.”
“Have you talked to Sobel since the murder?”
“Twice. On the phone. Once immediately after I learned that Hardaway had been killed. Then I called Sobel again, when I got word that you’d questioned Delbert Gay.”
“What was the second call about?”
“It was to say that we could be in trouble. I identified myself as Robert Brown, which was a code we’d agreed on if there were problems.”
“How’d he respond?” Canelli asked.
Weston shrugged. “Minimally. A few words, nothing more.”
“When I first interrogated you,” Hastings said, “did you think you might be in trouble?”
Frowning, Weston considered the question. Then, thoughtfully: “Not really. To be honest, I thought I’d run right over you. As it turns out …” He smiled ruefully. Repeating: “As it turns out, I was wrong.”
“As it turns out,” Hastings said, “you were.”
36
“MY GOD,” FRIEDMAN SAID, “this gives new meaning to ‘white-collar crime.’” Then, ostensibly as an afterthought and actually as a rare compliment, Friedman said: “I’m impressed that you opened Weston up. He must not know that the case against Hubble is pretty shaky without any physical evidence or any witness that can identify him.”
“He knew we’d opened up Delbert Gay, don’t forget.”
“Except that Gay’ll probably die before he can testify in court.”
“Maybe Weston doesn’t know Gay is dying.”
Friedman nodded thoughtfully as he drew a cigar from the pocket of an ash-smudged vest. He allowed himself two cigars a day, usually smoked in Hastings’s office while the two co-commanders discussed tactics. Pointedly, Hastings did not provide an ashtray. As a result, much to Hastings’s annoyance, Friedman flicked his cigar ashes into the wastebasket.
“So,” Friedman said as he began reflectively to unwrap the cigar, “we’ve got the net spread.” He found matches in another pocket, lit the cigar, and tossed the still-smoking match into the wastebasket. Stoically, Hastings stared after it as Friedman settled back in his chair. Hastings recognized the portents. Friedman was about to pontificate: “Since Hardaway managed to contact Best without telling Randy, the odds are he went through Best’s campaign organization. He obviously got to Sobel. Who, let’s assume, realizes he has a very, very hot political potato on his hands, and he’s got to get rid of it. So what can he do? There’s only one reasonable course of action: he contacts someone with real authority. Who, when you think about it, has to be either Best himself or his wife. Or, on top of the pyramid, James Forster.”
“Right.” Hastings realized that Friedman was speaking tentatively, almost reluctantly. Why? Was it the mention of names that represented enough political power to ruin him? Was that the bottom line?
“Let’s assume,” Friedman said, “that Sobel tells Carolyn Best there’s a blackmail problem. That’d be logical. In the chain of command, Carolyn would probably be Sobel’s immediate superior. So let’s say she agrees: they’ve got a major PR problem. Then let’s assume that she decides to pay Hardaway off, accedes to his demands. For a few months, everything’s cool. Hardaway collects his money, which the Bests don’t really miss. But then Hardaway gets greedy. He threatens to go public with what he knows unless he gets a lot more money. Carolyn is suddenly in over her head. She goes to her father. Maybe she admits that she screwed up, maybe not. In any case, Forster decides to have Hardaway worked over, as a warning. If Hardaway doesn’t take the hint, then they’ll have him killed. To people like Forster, people like Hardaway are nothing more than insects.”
“If we tackle Forster, we do it together. Right?” Hastings asked.
“Right,” Friedman replied.
“When?”
“How about tomorrow? We fly down first thing in the morning.”
“Saturday?” Hastings frowned.
“I’ll set the whole thing up,” Friedman said. “We’ll meet at the airport in the morning.”
“Will we be working with the LAPD?”
“No. This is all off the record.”
“You think that’s smart?”
“Smart, I don’t know. But it could be fun.”
“Fun?”
“Fun.”
37
WHEN SHE HEARD HER son’s door open, Janet Collier unconsciously braced herself. For the last half hour, with the telephone cord trailing under his closed door, Charlie had been talking to Gordon Browne, his most trusted friend. Now, at eight o’clock on a warm Friday evening, Charlie was advancing down the hallway to the living room. His stride was purposeful.
“Gordon wants me to stay over. Tomorrow his dad’s taking him to the Sports and Boat Show at the Cow Palace. I can go with them.”
“What about your game tomorrow?”
“I’d rather go to the Cow Palace.”
“But you’re starting at second base.”
“Gordon’s dad promised they’d get two jet scooters, though, for when they go on vacation. He might even buy them tomorrow, at the show.”
She experienced a brief, recognizable pang of envy. An office machine salesman, Alfred Browne regularly earned six figures in commissions. Lois, his wife, taught special education classes. Gordon, age fourteen and indulged, was their only child. Whenever the two mothers met, invariably to arrange activities for their sons, Lois Browne always managed to suggest that she didn’t consider police work suitable for women.
“Yeah, well, I’ve only been to the Sports and Boat Show twice in my whole life.” In his voice she could hear an edge that could mean trouble. Beyond all doubt, Gordon Browne made the Sports and Boat Show every year.
“Charlie …” Janet rose from the couch, went to him, looked down into his eyes. He stood in the entrance to the hallway with his legs spread wide, unconsciously bracing for confrontation. His eyes were hazel, like hers.
“Tomorrow’s opening day for the season. And you’re starting at second. That’s a big deal, Charlie. It’s something you’ve worked for—hard. I think you should consider that.”
“And besides,” she might have said, “I want to see you play. I want to root for you, Charlie. I want to yell my head off.”
For a short but definitive moment, he made no reply; in his eyes she saw an almost imperceptible flicker of hesitation. This flicker, she knew, was her edge. But how to capitalize on it? “When you’re older, you’ll understand”? Would that work? To herself, she shook her head. No. If she’d read the flicker of hesitation correctly, he’d realized that he should play second base tomorrow. But how could he play ball without appearing to admit his mother was right?
Could she help him save face? Certainly, it was worth a try. “When’s the boat show run?” she asked. “All weekend?”
He nodded cautiously.
“Well, tomorrow’s Saturday. Why don’t you play ball tomorrow? Then, on Sunday, you and I can go to the boat show. We’ll go in the afternoon, and afterwards we’ll have pizza.”
“I’d rather have Kentucky Fried.”
Realizing that the demand was tactical, she debated the wisdom of conceding. Finally she said, “We’ll see.”
For a final moment he held his position, also a tactical maneuver. Then: “Gordon’s still on the phone.” He turned away, walked down the hallway to his room. One more mother-son confrontation resolved.
She returned to the couch, eyed the silent TV, eyed the paperback of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, open face-down on the couch. Was she up to a few more pages of Morrison’s incredibly dense, compelling prose? Beloved, the story of a mother’s love, a mother’s guilt, finally a mother’s defeat.
From the hallway, she heard Charlie’s door open. He would be returning the phone to its shelf in the hallway. And, yes, he would now return to his room and the TV. In an hour or two, she would suggest that he go to bed early, because of the game tomorrow. He wouldn’t take her advice. But he would expect her to offer it. The game started tomorrow at nine o’clock. Sharp.
At nine o’clock tomorrow, the two lieutenants, Friedman and Hastings, would be on their way to Los Angeles. Frank had waited until four o’clock to tell her. She’d been Xeroxing a summary of the Hardaway homicide. The Xerox machine, one of several, was in the basement of the Hall of Justice, next to the cafeteria. With the copies collated, she’d stopped in the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. At four o’clock, the cafeteria had been almost deserted. Someone had left a newspaper on one of the tables, and she was sipping coffee and reading the paper when she realized that someone was standing beside her. Frank.
“How about a doughnut,” he’d said, “to go with the coffee?” Caught unaware, she’d smiled up at him—not the official smile she’d trained herself to greet him with, but the intimate, female-male smile that was always her first instinct whenever they met.
He brought the doughnuts, refilled her cup of decaf from the cafeteria urn, filled his own cup, then sat facing her—and smiled deep into her eyes.
“Hardaway?” he asked, pointing to the stack of Xeroxes.
Carefully unsmiling, she nodded.
“My report on what happened in Los Angeles—it’s almost finished. First of the week, it’ll be done.”
She nodded again. Her eyes strayed to the rear of the cafeteria, where two Bunco inspectors were talking over empty coffee cups. One of the men, Brian Russ, was staring at her. Before she’d made Homicide, when she was in Bunco, Russ had briefly been her partner. Meaningfully, Russ nodded to her, quizzically raising his eyebrows. The implied question: Had she gotten into Homicide on her back—with Hastings on top?
For almost an hour, facing each other across the cafeteria table, they talked about the Hardaway homicide—and about Hastings’s trip to Los Angeles. In detail, he described the sequence of events: the conversation with Sobel, the go-go campaign manager, followed by the interview with Carolyn Best. Followed, finally, by the confrontation with Harold Best, almost certainly California’s next United States senator. As he talked, Frank’s manner changed. He became more animated—less the calm, stoic policeman, more an ordinary starstruck citizen who’d brushed shoulders with celebrities.
Listening to him, questioning him, she tried to control the envy she felt—and, yes, the frustration. She was the officer of record on the case. Frank was her superior officer. As long as the case had appeared to be nothing more than a street crime or a gay-bashing gone wrong, she’d been free to work the case as she pleased.
But then, when the trail had led to Bruce Weston, Hastings had taken over. Hastings, and now Friedman. Tomorrow, while she was watching Charlie play second base, the two detectives would be on their way to Los Angeles. Objective: to interrogate James Forster.
Frank was apologetic. Yes, protocol dictated that he should have taken the officer of record to Los Angeles, even if only as a witness during interrogations. And, yes, he and Friedman had talked about it. But, he admitted, “it just wouldn’t’ve worked.”
Meaning that squadroom gossip would have them shacked up together in Los Angeles.
Meaning that, because she was a woman—because, yes, she and Lieutenant Frank Hastings were attracted to each other—she’d been denied her professional rights.
And Frank had let it happen.
Very deliberately, she put her coffee cup down, turned both ways to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. Then, furious, her eyes locked with his, she spoke in a voice both soft and yet so tight it caught in her throat: “I guess it isn’t the time or the place,” she said, “but I’ve got to tell you this. I don’t have a choice. I’m not going to leave here without telling you—speaking my piece.”
“I know what you’re going to say. And—”
She raised an angry hand, silenced him. “This whole thing between us is crazy. We held hands once at the scene of a crime, we once kissed each other in the police parking garage, and we drank tea in a Chinese restaurant while we admitted that, if you weren’t already in a relationship, and if I didn’t have a son and a mother who need me, then we’d probably be lovers, you and I. That same night, if we’d been free, we could’ve gone to a motel. God knows, I would’ve done it. Except that Charlie was expecting me to cook his dinner, and Ann was cooking dinner for you. So we did the right thing, you and I—the honorable thing. We said good-bye. We didn’t kiss each other good-bye—we said good-bye. It was like a Jane Austen novel, what we did. It’s—God—it’s Victorian. We’ve hardly kissed each other. But those goddam jerks in the squadroom, they’ve got us in bed together. They—”
“You’re wrong,” he said. “That’s not what they think.”
“It is what they think. Otherwise, you’d’ve taken me to Los Angeles with you.”
He didn’t reply directly, didn’t deny it. He only looked at her with his somber brown eyes. As if he were bewildered, he slowly shook his head, saying, “My God, it’s like we’re teenagers. That’s the way I feel. Except that I wouldn’t be saying this, if I was a teenager. I’d be too shy.”
In spite of herself, she smiled. “You haven’t said anything, Frank. I’ve been doing all the talking. You’ve just been listening—and looking sheepish.”
His first reaction was irritation. Followed, almost immediately,
by a rueful, aw-shucks smile. But then, speaking slowly and somberly, musing, he said, “If I lived alone, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Except that you’d be living alone.”
“But we’d have a place to go, the two of us. We’d have my place.”
“I don’t want to be the one who breaks up your relationship, Frank. I’ve never met Ann. But she and I are single moms. We’re both trying to raise teenagers without fathers. And that’s hard enough, without someone stealing your man.”
“Jesus, talk about Victorian novels. Is that the way you’re thinking about this—that you’re stealing me?”
“I’m just saying that—”
“I like Ann. I respect her—all those things that you’re supposed to feel for someone. But whatever it is, it isn’t love. It’s—in a way, the whole thing was an accident that we’re living together. We’d been dating for about a year. I had a place in the Marina, and once a week, generally, she’d come over. Sometimes we’d eat in, sometimes we’d go out. Sometimes Ann’s ex-husband took her boys for weekends, and Ann and I might go away overnight. Or she’d come over to my place for the weekend. That didn’t happen often, though.”
“Did you go to her place overnight?”
“Never when the boys were there. When she was first divorced, Ann tried that a couple of times—had men stay over. It didn’t work. Once, in fact, it was a disaster.”
“The more you talk,” she said, “the more Ann sounds like me—maybe like most single moms. The first year or two after you’ve divorced, you go crazy. At least I did. I thought I had to have sex. It’s all I thought about—finding a man, making love. But then there was Charlie. Parenthood, in other words. And there was my mom, too. A few times, when Charlie was little, I’d have my mom baby-sit while I slept over at some guy’s house, mostly on Friday or Saturday. But my mom didn’t like it. She isn’t a prude, that’s not it. She just has the absolute conviction that if a couple screws up their marriage—well—it happens. But then they’ve got to take care of their children. Love is a mystery, she used to say. But raising a kid, that’s no mystery. That’s hard work.”