by Otto Penzler
They talked for a while. She found their company pleasant, their wit sharp. Bill did an imitation of the captain's voice. The captain was an Irishman, from the North of Ireland, and he talked in such a way as to give the final word of each sentence a strong emphasis. Everything he said sounded like a threat or warning. "That's how he got ahead at sea," said Bill. "There are lots of threats and warnings at sea. He had the voice for it."
She found herself laughing, and when Tom suggested that they play cards, she said that she thought it would be a good idea.
"Poker?"
"I don't know how to play," she said. "But I suppose I could learn."
"Of course you could," said Tom. "You're a teacher, after all."
She wondered how he knew that, but then realized immediately that they would have seen her trailing about with the teenagers; it was so obvious. And I look like a teacher, she said to herself. I can't get away from that.
She played poker with them the next day, and the day after that. They played for small amounts of money, then for slightly larger sums, but still not very much.
"It's the challenge of the game," said Geoff. "Not the money."
Geoff paid attention to her and his manner was flirtatious. He asked her to join him for a drink after the band had finished playing one evening, and she accepted. She waited for him in the bar, feeling as nervous as a teenager on the first date. He came up to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He had bay rum on his cheeks and it was the smell of the islands, of where they were.
"We're going to have a game tonight," he said. "In Bill's cabin. Would you like to join us?"
She hesitated. It would not do for her to go to a man's cabin, but they would all be there and so that made it all right. She accepted.
"Good," said Geoff.
They called in at Kingston the next day. The children were due to go ashore, and she and Mr. Gordon had to be vigilant.
"This place can be a bit dangerous," he said. "We'll have to watch the kids like hawks."
She had nodded, but she did not say anything. He noticed this; she had been rather quiet all that day, and he wondered whether there was anything wrong. Women were like that, he thought; they can be moody, and there would be no point in trying to find out what was wrong.
The group visited a plantation and saw an exhibition about the use of slave labor. Mr. Gordon shook his head; he found it difficult to believe that his people had done this.
"But it wasn't just us," said Miss Hart. "Everybody did it. The Arabs were the big slave-traders. The Africans themselves suffered slavery at the hands of their own people. Everybody."
"But it still makes me feel bad," Mr. Gordon said.
They moved out of the room in which the exhibition was mounted. The vegetation around the building was lush and green; sea-grape trees, cane, creepers. They stood under a tree while he smoked a cigarette. She did not like the smell of smoke, but that was not the reason why, as she stood there, she started to sob.
He was no good with displays of emotion, especially feminine ones. He dropped his cigarette. "Elspeth," he said. "What on earth is wrong? Are you all right?"
She did not reply immediately, and he stood there awkwardly. He wondered whether he should put an arm about her shoulder, to comfort her, but he felt inhibited. He could not touch her, a colleague.
She had not intended to tell him, but she found herself compelled to do so. She had to tell somebody, and there was nobody else. "I have been humiliated," she said. "Humiliated."
He was puzzled. "I don't understand."
She took a handkerchief out of her pocket. He noticed that it had embroidery on the corner; a palm tree and the initial E. There had been handkerchiefs like that for sale on Grand Cayman; a fat woman in a blue-checked dress had tried to sell him one.
"I have been very foolish," she said. "It is my own fault. I have had my money taken away from me. All of it."
He drew in his breath. "Your money? You've been robbed?"
"In a way," she said.
She told him, and he listened in astonishment, as did one of the boys, who had gone out of the building on the other side and was standing behind a half-open door on the veranda. He stood there, unseen, hearing everything that was said between the teachers.
The ship stayed in Kingston for a day longer. As it left, she stood on the deck with a group of the teenagers. Alice was there, as was Rachel.
"I liked Jamaica, Miss Hart," said Alice. "Did you?"
"Yes," she said. "I enjoyed it."
There was silence. The band had not been on deck; now the members appeared and took up their places. She did not want to look; she wanted to move away, so that she would not see him. But she could not detach herself from the children; so she glanced quickly in the band's direction. There was no trombonist.
Alice and Rachel were looking at her. They had noticed her anxious glances.
"We don't like to see you unhappy," said Alice. "We really don't. So that man has been punished."
She caught her breath. How could they possibly have known? And what did they mean by being punished?
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Please explain yourselves."
"The boys helped us," said Alice. "You don't have to worry."
She stood completely still.
Children.
One-Dollar Jackpot
Michael Connelly
The call came in after the usual killing hours. Bosch checked the clock as he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. It was 5:45 A.M. and that was late for a murder call.
It was lieutenant Larry Gandle with the news.
"Harry, you and Ignacio are up. Pacific is turning over a case to us. Female, thirty-eight years of age, name of Tracey Blitzstein. She got shot to death this morning in her car. One in the head. She was parked in her own driveway."
The name sounded slightly familiar, but Bosch couldn't immediately place it.
"Who is she and why are we getting it?"
"She's sort of a TV star. She plays poker. Uses the name Tracey Blitz. Her husband plays, too, I'm told. So if you watch that sort of thing on cable, then you've probably seen her a few times. She gets profiled. They use her on the commercials. She was good-looking and apparently the best thing the female species had to offer in the arena of professional poker."
Bosch nodded. He watched poker on TV only when he had insomnia and the World Series of Poker reruns were on ESPN. He knew it was popular. But that wasn't why he knew the name Tracey Blitz. Years earlier, the name would come up from time to time with his ex-wife, who also played poker for a living. Eleanor Wish, his ex, had always called the world of professional poker a men's club and maintained that no woman would ever win the World Series. She said a woman named Tracey Blitz had the skills and reads to win poker's greatest tournament, but the men would simply never allow it. They would subconsciously pool their testosterone, if needed, and gang up and eliminate her if she ever got to the final table. It was about dominance of the species, Eleanor Wish said.
Now Tracey Blitz would never get the chance to win the big one. She had been eliminated from competition in a different and more permanent manner.
Bosch asked Gandle for the location of the crime scene and was given an address in Venice on the canals.
"What else, Lieutenant?" Bosch asked. "We got any witnesses?"
"Not yet—we're not even an hour into this. I'm told the husband was home asleep. He woke up and came out and found her in the car. He saw no suspect or getaway vehicle."
"Where is the husband?"
"I told them to take him downtown to Parker Center."
"Who is he? You said he's a player, too?"
"Yeah, just not at the same level as his wife. His name is David Blitzstein."
Bosch thought about things, his mind becoming sharper as he left sleep behind and concentrated on what he was being told.
"Is it just going to be me and Ignacio?" he asked.
"You guys are lead. I'l
l bring in Reggie Sauer and he can coordinate from Parker Center and babysit the husband till you get in there. You also have the Pacific team for as long as you need them."
Bosch nodded. That wouldn't be much help. Usually when divisional detectives were replaced by Homicide Special, there was resentment It was hard to get them to hang in and help.
"You got any names from Pacific?"
"Just one."
Gandle gave him the name and cell number of the lead Pacific Division detective who had gotten the first call out at 5:01 that morning. Bosch was impressed that decisions were made quickly and he was now on the case less than an hour into it. That was a good sign. He told the lieutenant he would be in touch as the case progressed and then hung up. He called Ignacio Ferras immediately, woke him from a sound sleep, and got him moving. Ferras lived more than an hour from Venice, and Bosch told him to waste no time.
He then called the Pacific detective whose name Gandle had given him. Kimber Gunn picked up the call quickly and Bosch identified himself and explained he had just been tapped to take over her case. He apologized but said he was just following orders. The transfer of the case wasn't news to her, but Bosch always liked to tread lightly in such situations. He had never worked with Gunn before and she surprised him. She offered her help and said she was awaiting his direction.
"I could use the help," Bosch responded. "I'm probably a half hour from the crime scene and my partner lives out in Diamond Bar. He'll be even longer."
"Diamond Bar? You might want to redirect him. He's closer to Commerce than to Venice."
"Commerce? Why Commerce?"
"According to the vic's husband, she spent the night playing poker at the card casino in Commerce. He said she called when she was leaving and told him she had won big."
"Did he say how much?"
"He said she won more than $6,000 cash. My partner and I, well..."
"Well, what?"
"We don't want to jump your case, but we were thinking that it looks a lot like a follow-home from the casino."
Bosch thought about that for a few seconds before responding.
"Tell you what. Let me call my partner and send him that way. Then I'll get right back to you."
He closed the phone and called Ferras, who had not left his home yet. Bosch told him what he had just learned and instructed him to drive to the casino in Commerce and begin his part of the investigation there.
He then called Gunn back. "What else did the victim's husband say, Detective Gunn?"
"He said he fell back asleep after she called. He then woke up when she pulled into the driveway—she's got a tricked-out Mustang with glass pipes. It makes some noise. He was lying in bed and he heard her kill the engine, but then she never came inside the house. He waited a few minutes and then came out to check. He found her in the car, dead. He didn't see anybody and didn't see any vehicles. That was it. You can call me Kim, by the way."
"Okay, Kim. Anybody put the husband through the box?"
"My partner. No record."
"What about ATF?"
"We checked that, too. He owns no firearms. Neither did she."
Bosch was holding the phone in the crook of his neck while buttoning his shirt.
"Anybody swab him?"
"You mean GSR? We figured that was a call you should make. The husband's cooperating. We didn't want to mess with that."
She was right in waiting for Bosch to make the call. Conducting a gunshot residue test to determine if a person had fired a weapon had become trickier and stickier in recent years. It was in a legal gray area, and choices made now by detectives would be questioned and reviewed repeatedly down the line by supervisors, reporters, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and juries.
The issue at hand was that such testing put the subject on clear notice that he was a suspect. Therefore, he should be treated as a suspect—Mirandized and given the opportunity to seek legal counsel. This put a chilling effect on cooperation.
Additionally, a recent directive from the district attorney's office concluded that GSR testing was an invasive evidence-gathering technique that should only come voluntarily or after a search warrant had been approved by a judge, another move that would clearly put an individual on notice that he was a suspect. So gone were the days when a detective could casually tell an individual of interest to submit to GSR testing as a routine part of an investigation. A GSR test was now an indisputable means of tagging someone as It.
As Gunn had explained, David Blitzstein was cooperative at the moment. It was too early in the investigation to tag him as It.
"Okay, we'll hold that till later," Bosch said. "Where's your partner?"
"He's driving Blitzstein downtown. He'll come back after."
"What's his name?"
"Glenn Simmons."
Bosch didn't know him. So far he didn't know anybody on the case and that was a rub. So much of the work came down to personalities and relationships. It always helped to already know people.
"Forensics at the scene yet?" he asked.
"They just rolled in. I'll keep an eye on things till you're here."
Bosch checked his watch. It was now 6:00 A.M. and he knew his promise of being there in a half hour was a stretch. He'd have to stop on the way to get coffee.
"Better yet," he said, "why don't you knock on doors before we start losing people to work and school and the day. See if anybody saw or heard anything."
He almost heard her nod over the phone.
"I've got a number of the neighbors already standing in the street here watching," Gunn said. "Shouldn't be too hard to scare up some wits."
"Good," Bosch said. "I'll see you soon."
The crime scene was already a hive of activity by the time Bosch got there. He parked half a block down the street and as he approached on foot he got his bearings. He realized that the houses on the left side of the street backed up against one of the Venice canals while those on the right, smaller and older, did not. This resulted in the houses on the left being quite a bit more valuable than those on the right. It created an economic division on the same street. The residents on the left had money; their houses newer, bigger, and in better condition than those right across the street. The house where Tracey Blitzstein had lived was one of the canal houses. As he approached the glowing lights set up by Forensics around a black hardtop Mustang, a woman stepped away from the gathering and approached him. She wore navy slacks and a black turtleneck sweater. She had a badge clipped to her belt and introduced herself as Kim Gunn. Bosch handed her the extra coffee he had brought and she was almost gleeful about receiving it. She seemed very young to be a homicide detective, even in a divisional squad. This told Bosch that she was good at it or politically connected—or both.
"You've got to be a cop's kid," Bosch said.
"Why's that?"
"I was told your full name is Kimber Gunn. Only a cop would name a kid that."
She smiled and nodded. Kimber was the name of a company that manufactured firearms, in particular the tactical pistols used by specialty squads in law enforcement.
"You got me," she said. "My father was in LAPD SWAT in the seventies. But I got it better than he did. His name is Tommy Gunn."
Bosch nodded. He remembered the name from when he first came on the department and was in patrol.
"I heard of him back then. I didn't know him, though."
"Well, I've heard of you. So I guess that makes us even."
"You've heard of me?"
"From my Mend Kiz Rider. We go to BPO meetings together."
Bosch nodded. Rider was his former partner, now working out of the office of the chief of police. She was also recently elected president of the Black Peace Officers Association, a group that monitored the racial equality of hiring and firing as well as promotions and demotions in the department.
"I miss working with her, and I don't say that about too many people," Bosch said.
"Well, she says the same about you. You want to take a
look at the crime scene now?"
"Yes, I do."
They started walking toward the lights and the waiting Mustang.
"Did you get anything from the neighbors yet?" Bosch asked.
Gunn nodded.
"No shortage of witnesses," she said. "When David Blitzstein started yelling in the street, he woke up the neighborhood. I had the best of the lot taken to the station to give formal statements."
"Anybody hear the gun?"
"Uh-uh."
Bosch stopped and looked at her.
"Nobody?"
"Nobody we've found—and that includes Blitzstein himself. I've been up and down the street, and nobody heard a gunshot. Everybody heard the guy screaming, and plenty of them looked out their windows and saw him standing in the street. Nobody heard or saw a gun. Nobody heard or saw the getaway vehicle, either."
"You mean if there was one."
"If there was one."
Bosch started back toward the Mustang but then stopped again.
"What was your take on the husband?" he asked.
"Like I said, he's been nothing but cooperative so far. You thinking the husband?"
"At the moment, I'm thinking everybody. What was this guy wearing when he was in the middle of the street yelling for help?"
"Blue jeans. No shirt, no shoes."
"Any blood on him?"
"Not that I saw."
Bosch's phone buzzed. It was his partner.
"Harry, I've been talking to the manager of the card room. He said Tracey Blitz won a lot of money last night."
"How much is a lot?"
"She cashed in $6,400 in chips."
That jibed with what David Blitzstein had told Kimber Gunn.
"Do they have cameras in the parking lot?" Bosch asked.
"Hold on."
Ferras put his hand over the phone and Bosch heard a muffled back-and-forth conversation. Then Ferras came back on the line.