Flipping Out

by Marshall Karp

  'We have a few questions about Nora Bannister,' I said.

  'Nice woman. Damn shame.'

  'Why did she pay you ten grand?'

  'She didn't.'

  'Gaff, according to her financial records—'

  'Mike, I know the money came from Nora's checking account, but she wasn't the client. Marisol Dominguez was.'

  He blindsided me. 'Marisol was your client?'

  'She hired me to tail her old man.'

  'You were following Tony? Why?'

  'The usual. WDS.' He smiled, knowing I'd never figure it out. 'Wandering Dick Syndrome. It's my bread and butter.'

  'There's an unfortunate metaphor,' Terry said. 'Question: if Marisol hired you, how come Nora paid you?'

  'Lot of wives want to spy on their hubbies, but they don't want to get tripped up by writing cheques from the joint checking account. So they funnel the money from an outside source. In this case, Martin Sorensen worked it out with Marisol. The way I understand it, she was going to pay Nora back from her profits in their real estate deal. It happens a lot. Somebody hires me, somebody else makes the payments. Whatever. If the cheque clears, the van rolls.'

  'What reason did Marisol give you for following her husband?'

  'You gotta understand that some of these angry babes don't always tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth when they hire you,' he said. 'But in her case she told me he asked for a divorce. She had no idea why, so she hired me to find out who he's banging.'

  'And?'

  'As far as I could tell, nobody.'

  'Nobody?' Terry said. 'Maybe you just didn't catch him.'

  'Hey, Detective, I can smell sex from a hundred yards away.'

  'There's some more imagery I could do without,' Terry said. 'I wasn't saying you couldn't catch him. I'm just saying Tony is smart. Maybe he saw you shadowing him.'

  'He didn't. Ever. And I dogged that guy on and off for a full month. Tony Dominguez wasn't banging anyone,' Gaffney said. 'Including his old lady. Which, between you and me, was his loss. She was one hot tamale.'

  'Do you know the other two cops whose wives got murdered?' Terry asked. 'Drabyak and Knoll.'

  'No,' Gaffney said. 'The only cops' wives I worked for were Marisol Dominguez and yours. But I gave your old lady her money back, because I followed you for a week, and I realised you couldn't find your dick with a flashlight and a pair of tweezers.'

  'All right, all right,' Terry said. 'I take it back. You're the world's greatest hound dog hunter.'

  'I'm glad you came around to my way of thinking,' Gaffney said. 'I'd bet my license that Tony Dominguez wasn't having an affair. That said, he was up to a lot of strange shit, but him being a cop, I could never tell if it was personal-peculiar or just the kind of covert ops you gotta do on the job.'

  'Strange shit like what?'

  'Like meeting people on the sly. But who knows? It could be cop stuff. Like when you go out to pump a CI, you don't sit down for coffee at Starbucks. You sneak off and talk in private.'

  'Can you give us a specific?' I said.

  'I can do better than that. I can give you a pound of specifics.' He opened a drawer in the console and pulled out a folder.

  'This is a log of all the places I tailed Tony to. It's an interesting collection of venues,' he said, 'but none of them look like a romantic tryst.'

  He swivelled in his chair, tapped on a keyboard, and a printer started humming. 'I'll run you off a copy. If it helps you guys, good. I'm not one of those guys who gets all hung up on that client-confidentiality shit. Especially since my client is dead.'

  He reached into a drawer and came up with a handful of DVDs. 'And if you really want to knock yourselves out, I've got video on Tony Dominguez.' He handed them over to Terry. 'You watch him, Detective Biggs, and tell me if I missed any secret girlfriends.'

  'All this plus pizza,' Terry said. 'We should come here more often.'

  'Thanks, Gaff,' I said. 'You've been a big help.'

  He smiled, and I could make out the wrinkles that were slowly encroaching on his baby face.

  'I don't think so,' he said. 'I saw your reaction when I told you Marisol hired me to tail Tony. You're trying to dot your i's and cross your t's for the department, but for some reason you're off the clock tonight and flying solo. Now I give you this new information, and instead of tying things up in a neat little package, it opens up a whole new can of shit. But whether I helped or not, it's always a pleasure to work with you guys. Plus, you know what they say in the surveillance biz: one hand washes the other.'

  Terry pointed at the monitor. The guy Gaffney was tailing had dipped his finger in his wine and touched it to the girlfriend's lips. We watched as she leant in and sucked it off.

  'And seeing the kind of sleaze you have to deal with,' Terry said, 'I'll bet your hands need a lot of washing.'

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  'Gaffney is right,' Terry said, as we drove home.

  'You mean that crack about you not being able to find your dick with a flashlight and a pair of tweezers?'

  'Cute. No, our boss is pacing the halls with a Case Closed stamp in his fist, and we keep coming up with new information that says something stinks, keep it open. First, Charlie tried to get over on us, now it looks like Tony was lying through his teeth about being the happiest married man in the kingdom.'

  'And if you go back over your notes, I'm sure you'll find Nora lied, Marisol lied, and Martin lied. That's what people do,' I said. 'They lie to cops. Didn't we just lie to Kilcullen? Hell, I do it every time I tell you you're funny.'

  'You're right,' he said. 'Those DVDs of Gaffney following Tony will take us forever to wade through. Why don't I just toss them out the window?'

  'That's one option,' I said.

  'You got a better one?'

  'We could run them over to Muller's house and get him started on looking at them.'

  'Call him, and tell him we're on the way.'

  I called Muller's home number. His wife, Annetta, answered.

  'Robert's not home,' she said. 'He's got a gig tonight. He's playing at Spazio on Ventura Boulevard.'

  When he's not hacking computers or pretending to conjure up the dead, Muller plays jazz piano. He's not just good, he's good enough to play at Spazio, one of the top jazz supper clubs in the Valley, maybe even all of LA. As luck would have it, it's in Sherman Oaks, about two minutes from Terry's house.

  He was finishing up a set when we got there. We told him what was going on, gave him the DVDs, then ordered a couple of beers and sat through his next set. It was a great way to unwind from the day.

  We got home at eleven. Marilyn and Diana were in the kitchen eating ice cream. Actually, Marilyn was eating. Diana was keeping her company.

  'You OK?' Terry said.

  Marilyn waved a spoon at him. 'Nothing a half gallon of Rocky Road can't cure.'

  'What's bothering you - I mean, besides the obvious?'

  'Do you think Martin would have killed me next?'

  'I don't know, baby. I don't even know why Martin killed Marisol.'

  'Maybe she figured out that he killed the others,'

  Marilyn said. 'And once he realised she was on to him, he had to shut her up.'

  'Her husband is a cop,' Diana said. 'If she suspected Martin, she would have told Tony.'

  'Don't bet on it,' Marilyn said, getting up and putting her empty bowl in the dishwasher.

  'What is that supposed to mean?' Terry said.

  Marilyn hesitated. 'Well, seeing how she's dead, it's not going to hurt anyone to let the cat out of the bag. Marisol was having Tony followed.'

  Terry and I both came up with the same knee-jerk response. 'You knew about that?'

  'Well, that sure hit a nerve,' she said. 'Yes, I've known it for a while.' She went back to the table and ate another spoonful of ice cream direct from the container.

  'How did you know,' Terry said, 'and why didn't you tell me?'

  'Martin told me, but he swore me to secrecy. M
arisol suspected there was another woman.'

  'There wasn't,' Terry said. 'We just talked to the PI she hired. Marisol claimed that Tony wanted out of the marriage, but there was no other woman.'

  'Ha!' Marilyn said. 'There's always another woman.'

  'I wish we could find her,' Terry said. 'Ninety-nine percent of the guys who ask for walking papers have another woman to walk to. And since there doesn't seem to be one, the question is, why was Tony leaving her'

  'I don't like to speak ill of the dead,' Marilyn said, 'but in case you hadn't noticed, Marisol was a total bitch.'

  'Or maybe she just had her own reasons for tailing him,' Terry said, 'and she invented the affair as a cover.'

  'If only I actually cared,' Marilyn said. She put the lid on the Rocky Road. 'Are you coming to bed, or do I have to take this ice cream with me for emotional support?'

  'Give me five more minutes with Mike, and I'll be in.'

  'I'm putting a clock on it,' Marilyn said. 'Any longer than five minutes, and the two of you can sleep with each other.'

  'I'm going to bed too,' Diana said to me. 'I don't have a five minute rule. Just show up.'

  The two women left.

  'I'm going to bed too,' I said.

  'You don't want to talk this through just a little more?'

  'Terry, we're not going to resolve anything in five minutes. And I'm not sleeping with you.'

  'The case is closed, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.'

  'I think they had the same problems with the Kennedy assassination.'

  'I'll make you a deal,' he said, if you look me straight in the eye and tell me to drop the case and stop being such an obsessive-compulsive asshole, I will.'

  'Fair enough,' I said, looking him straight in the eye. 'I want you to drop the case and stop being such an obsessive-compulsive asshole.'

  He looked hurt. He hadn't expected me to give up that easily.

  'Then tomorrow morning, when you wake up,' I said, 'you can reopen the investigation, because if you weren't such an obsessive-compulsive asshole, I'd start looking for a new partner. Good night.'

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  'I feel human again,' I said to Terry as we got into the car the next morning. 'Six hours' sleep, a hot shower, and two cups of coffee work wonders.'

  'It's all part of the service at Chez Biggs. Picking up where we left off last night, how much longer do you think we can stall Kilcullen on the paperwork?'

  'Actually, Diana had an interesting idea last night,' I said.

  Terry smirked. 'So did I, but by the time I got my clothes off and climbed into bed, Marilyn was snoring like a bull moose with a deviated septum.'

  'I'm being serious.'

  'Me too. Do you know how much sexual tension builds up after spending the day talking about how hot Marisol was?'

  'Diana made me realise that we're swimming in uncharted waters, and we can't see the forest for the trees.'

  Terry put on his tough cop voice. 'Back away from the metaphors, Lomax. I'm with the Logic Police. Plain English, or I'll shoot.'

  'Think about it,' I said. 'The pressure is always on us to close a case. This time, we're slow dancing, hoping to keep it open. But what if we finished the report real fast? What would happen next?'

  'We'd get assigned another dead body. It's kind of what we do, and like the boss said, there's never a shortage.'

  'But what happens to the paperwork we turn in?' I said.

  'The DA's office reads it, blesses it, closes up the case, and feeds the report to the political piranhas.'

  'Exactly. Cops don't close cases. District attorneys do. Unless...' I stopped and let it hang.

  'Give me a break, Mike. Dramatic pauses are worse than metaphors. Spit it out.'

  'Unless the DA who is assigned to the report zeroes in on the same inconsistencies that bother us. The case would stay open.'

  He didn't say anything, which with Terry is always a good sign.

  'Of course, we'd need a real smart deputy DA,' I said. 'Someone we can trust, who will send us back to dig deeper, instead of accusing us of sloppy police work.'

  'Someone like Anna DeRoy,' he said.

  'Now you're getting the hang of this uncharted-waters thing,' I told him.

  Five hours later we walked into Kilcullen's office with the good news.

  'The report is done,' I said.

  'About time,' he said. 'Let me take a quick look.'

  'Anne Batchelor is typing it up as we speak.'

  Anne is a civilian employee and the fastest typist in the department, maybe even on the planet.

  'Good call,' Kilcullen said. 'That'll move it along. Last night I thought you were going to start dragging your heels on me.'

  'We were just trying to be totally buttoned up,' I said. 'With all these politicians looking over our shoulder, we didn't want anything to come back and kick us in the ass.'

  He snorted out a laugh. 'My shoulder. My ass.'

  We laughed along with him.

  'As soon as it's typed, we'll hand-carry it over to the DA's office,' I said.

  'Let's just hope they assign it to someone good,' Terry said.

  Kilcullen looked up. The possibility that the DA's office could somehow assign it to the wrong lawyer and screw up the process had never crossed his mind. 'You would think those guys know this is a hot potato,' he said.

  'I'll tell you who would be right for this,' I said. 'Anna DeRoy. She's fast, she's smart, and she won't let you give the mayor anything less than perfect. If we're lucky, she'll catch the case.'

  'Fuck luck,' Kilcullen said, picking up the phone. 'I'll call ahead and make sure they assign it to DeRoy.'

  A half hour later we were standing outside Anna's office. Her door was shut. Terry knocked. 'It's your two favourite cops,' he yelled in.

  'Cagney and Lacey?' Anna yelled back.

  'Wrong gender,' Terry said.

  'Batman and Robin?'

  Terry opened the door. 'Oh, you were so close,' he said. 'We're the other ambiguously gay dynamic duo.'

  'I've been expecting you,' Anna said. 'Your boss just called my boss, and I've been told to put this on the fast track. Congratulations on solving it.'

  I handed her the report. 'We didn't solve it,' I said, 'and we're not sure it's really solved.'

  'In that case,' she said, handing the report back to me, 'come back when it's really solved.'

  'It's not that simple,' I said, shutting the door. 'One of the victims hired a PI to spy on her husband. Her business partner, Martin Sorensen, helped her pay the fee, so that hubby wouldn't catch on. But it turns out Sorensen is the killer, and now he's dead.'

  'Who's the wayward husband?' DeRoy asked.

  'Tony Dominguez, the hero cop who shot and killed Sorensen.'

  'Well, isn't that nice and messy,' she said. 'Does your report get to the bottom of that little triangle?'

  'No. Last night the PI gave us the video he shot when he tailed Dominguez, but we haven't had time to go through it.'

  'There are a bunch of other red flags,' Terry said. 'Like one victim's husband suddenly inherited a million dollars from his wife. He and one of the other husbands are planning to take a one-way trip to the other side of the world.'

  'I'm missing something,' she said. 'Explain to me why you're rushing to close this case.'

  'We're not. Everyone else is.'

  'You bastards,' she said. 'You don't have the balls to stand up to your boss, so you come over here and make me the heavy?'

  'Standing up to Kilcullen won't work,' I said. 'There's a shortage of testicles going all the way up the chain of command. Nobody is willing to tell city hall that we need more time, so we decided to finish the report and put it into the system. That'll keep the bureaucrats at bay for a day or two while we try to dig up some more information.'

  'So even though you know the case is full of holes, you want me to spend time wading through it, write up my decision, and then bounce it back.'

  'It's
not what we want. It's the way the system works. Four members of cops' families got killed. One of those cops shot and killed the bad guy.' I held out the report, it's all nice and tidy, ready to be signed, sealed, and archived.'

  'And what makes you think I won't just sign off on it?' she said.

  'Because, Deputy DA DeRoy, you're one of the few people in this flawed fucking system who actually has balls.'

  She took the report from my hand. Terry and I left without saying another word.

  Chapter Fifty

  We spent the afternoon catching up on some of the paperwork we had let slide for ten days since Jo Drabyak was murdered. Around four o'clock Charlie Knoll showed up.

  'I'm turning myself in,' he said. 'I tried to escape on that houseboat, but it doesn't navigate too good once you get past Redondo Beach. If I'm ever going to sail to Australia, I'm gonna have to help Reggie buy something a lot more seaworthy. Especially now that I'm rich.'

  'How you feeling?' I said.

  'The good news is my heart is OK. The bad news is my wife is still dead. You schmucks really thought I killed her?'

  'You inherited a lot of money,' I said. 'All I did was ask.'

  'You didn't ask. You accused.'

  'Sorry,' I said. 'But once we found out about the money, we had to wonder why you never mentioned it.'

  'You're a cop, Charlie,' Terry said. 'Didn't you ever ask an innocent person a question that pissed them off?'

  'It happens all the time,' he said. 'I'll be working a burglary, and I'll say to the victim, "Are you insured for that?" And they'll look at me and say, "Are you accusing me of stealing my own diamond ring for the insurance money?" Usually that's not what I'm getting at. But sometimes, that's what's actually going down.'

  'So tell us why you never mentioned the million,' Terry said.

  'God's honest truth, Thursday when it all happened, I was in shock. It never crossed my mind. The next day in the hospital, it finally dawned on me that I had all this money, but I felt like I had it before Julia was killed. We shared everything. It wasn't half mine, half hers. It was all ours. We weren't even thinking about spending it. It was tucked away, invested. I knew it wasn't relevant to the case. But I also knew if it got public that I had a million bucks, everyone would look at me different.'