by M. Z. Kelly
“I’ll be there in ten. I want a piece of the booger eating moron.”
Edna spoke up. “Stay right where you are. I’m coming over to the hospital to join you in a few minutes.” I ended the call as Edna said to me, “All we need is for Glade to get in the middle of this.” He motioned to the interview room where Bix was handcuffed, waiting for us. “The shooting’s been all over the networks so let’s try and get some answers before the media realizes the shooter was Jezzie’s brother and all hell breaks loose.”
We decided to let Pearl do the questioning, thinking that Bix might respond better to him. Charlie and I sat behind Pearl in the corner of the interview room as he read our prisoner his Miranda rights.
I held my breath until I heard the magic words, “I’ll talk to you.”
Pearl then got right down to business. “I’m not going to sugar coat any of this son. You’re in a world of trouble. Your best chance now is to be honest with us and clear up a few things.”
Bix had his arm bandaged and had a couple of scrapes on his forehead. Otherwise, he was in pretty fair shape considering his afternoon escapade. Pearl had removed his handcuffs before the interview.
Our suspect didn’t look at Pearl for a full minute before finally fixing his eyes on him and answering. “I knew the guy on the street was a cop. I’d seen him before with another detective when Jezzie was killed. I realized it was a set up and made a bad decision.” He blew out a ragged breath. “It was a stupid move.”
“That’s a good start, Bix,” Pearl said. “Just so you know it looks like the detective will recover.”
“Thank God.” His brown eyes held on Pearl. “What about the woman on the sidewalk?”
“We haven’t heard anything yet but we think her injuries are minor.” Pearl took a moment and offered Bix some water that he declined. “Let’s begin by talking about steroids. Tell us how you got involved.”
Our prisoner closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again they were heavy with tears. “I needed money and heard about a supplier, someone who had a contact at one of those anti-aging clinics. It was a way for me to make a few extra dollars.”
“And you sold to members of the track team?”
Bix shook his head. “I only sold to Jezzie’s agent. Chucky Wilson became a regular buyer so that he could supply some of his athletes.”
“And Jezzie?” Pearl said. “We know that she was taking MTP.”
Bix’s eyes filled again and his chest heaved. “Jez came to me one day and said Wilson was giving her something that helped make her more competitive. She knew I was providing the drugs to him. She said that Wilson was always hitting on her and asked me if I would supply her directly.” He wiped his tears on the sleeve of his shirt.
“And you agreed to what Jezzie asked?”
Bix nodded. “I’d heard about MTP, how it’s impossible to detect. I got some of it through my connection at the clinic who got it from overseas. I began providing it to her.” He sighed. “It probably sounds crazy but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do, a way to help my sister.”
“And Jezzie started winning.”
He nodded. “And once that happened it became impossible to stop. Jez was America’s sweetheart, the girl who was unbeatable.”
“What about Wilson? Did you continue to supply steroids to him?”
“He was a bully. Jez got tired of him blowing her money on drugs and giving her a bad time, so we made a decision. I stopped selling to him and Jez fired him. When that happened, Wilson got crazy angry with her, even hired some guy to come around and make threats.”
“Jeremy Shulman?”
Bix shrugged, his gaze moving away from Pearl. “I guess. I don’t know his name. All I know is that he was hassling Jez after her practices. He wouldn’t leave her alone.”
Pearl took a sip of water, then asked the question we’d been waiting for. “Did Wilson kill Jezzie?”
Bix blinked several times, tears spilling from his eyes as he looked back at Pearl. “I think it was either him or the guy he hired.”
“Is that why you shot and killed Wilson the other day?”
Bix’s tearful eyes fixed on Pearl. “It wasn’t me, I swear it.”
“But the shooter left Wilson’s office on a motorcycle identical to the one you were riding today.”
Bix’s voice pitched up. He brushed away his tears and pleaded with Pearl. “It wasn’t me. You’ve got to believe me.” He broke down crying, his voice becoming garbled. “Maybe it was one of Wilson’s former clients. The guy was an asshole who probably pissed somebody off.”
Pearl made a couple of notes on his pad, giving Bix a moment to compose himself before continuing. “Let’s talk about Shane Mumford. The gun that killed your sister was found in his possession.”
Bix took a moment, regaining some control over his emotions. “He and Jez dated a couple of times but it didn’t go anywhere. Maybe Wilson set him up by putting the gun in his locker. I don’t think Mumford had anything to do with Jezzie’s murder.”
Pearl stood up and walked over to the one way mirror. After a moment he turned back to Bix. “What about the drug tests, Bix? I know that MTP is undetectable but it raises the red blood cell count. How did Jezzie beat the doping tests?”
Bix folded his arms. His chest rose and fell a couple of times as he tried to maintain control of his emotions. “Jez had some help.” Pearl came over to him and sat down again. Bix’s eyes came up to him as he told the elderly detective something I never expected to hear. “From my father.”
My eyebrows shot up as Pearl glanced over at us, back to Bix. “How was your father involved?”
“My dad loved every second of Jezzie’s career. He craved the fame of being her father, the network interviews, having a daughter who was a superstar athlete.” His gaze drifted away. “He’s a bastard.”
“You’re still upset with him.”
Bix’s eyes narrowed on Pearl and he spat out, “I hate his guts.”
Pearl lowered his voice a notch. “Tell me about that, son. Tell me why you hate your father.”
The tears came again, this time harder until they streamed down Bix’s cheeks. “Jezzie and I both hated him. She knew that taking the drugs was wrong, but our father wanted a winner. She couldn’t disappoint him. Everything she did was for him.” He brushed his tears away and fixed his eyes on Pearl. “My dad knew about everything that was happening.”
“He knew about her steroids use?”
“Of course. He even helped with the testing.”
“Tell me how that worked.”
“My father knows a lot of people. He called in some favors, someone who had a contact with NADA.”
“The National Anti-Doping Agency?”
Bix nodded. “He got information about the testing schedules for all the races, exactly when Jez would be tested. We developed our own schedule around the testing. We basically had it down to a science. We did transfusions, avoided testing when we couldn’t find a work around, even cancelled a few races. When she gave a sample we made sure that Jez was clean.” His voice became firmer. “When my father wants something, he can be very controlling and persistent.”
“What about Jezzie’s coaches? Did any of them suspect she was using?”
He laughed. “Everyone suspected but no one would say anything because they knew it would end their career. As I said, my father knows a lot of people and some of them are pretty powerful.”
“Who are you talking about, Bix?”
He gave Pearl a hard stare. “Tom Baylor.”
“But how would the school’s athletic director know about the testing schedule?”
“He had someone on the inside, someone who worked for NADA.”
“Any idea who that was?”
Bix shook his head. “All I know is that it was someone who knew all about the testing.”
Pearl stood up and walked over to us. We huddled for a moment in the corner as I told him and
Charlie that I had one final question for Bix.
I came over to our suspect and sat down. I waited until Bix’s watery eyes came up to me. “I have just one more question. We know that your sister was pregnant but she miscarried. She lost the baby shortly before she was murdered. Who was the father?”
Bix’s eyes filled again. “Jez wouldn’t tell me. But a few weeks after she’d told me about the pregnancy I found her alone in her room crying. She had cuts and bruises everywhere. The next day she lost the baby.”
“Do you think the guy who was the father was angry about the pregnancy?”
“I don’t know but he’s not the one who beat her up.”
I glanced over at Pearl and Charlie, then back at him. “Who was it, Bix? Who hurt Jezzie and ended her pregnancy?”
I saw the hatred in his eyes as he said, “My father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Charlie drove as we headed to the Rose’s house in Glendale after booking Bix on a multitude of charges, including the attempted murder of a police officer. As our interview was ending Bix told me that his parents had moved back into the family home. When my partner turned off the freeway, I mentioned to him that Bix also said his parents had been fighting ever since his mother learned about Jezzie’s miscarriage.
“Maybe she suspected that her husband had beat Jezzie up, caused the miscarriage,” Charlie said. “Not the kind of thing that makes for a happy family life.”
I felt nothing but disgust for Al Rose, remembering how he’d pretended to be upset when we’d talked to him and Flo about the miscarriage. “From what Bix said, his father thought that Jezzie’s pregnancy would mean the end of her athletic career. So the bastard beat her so badly that she lost the baby.”
“He ends the pregnancy and tells Jezzie that she can never say anything about what happened.”
Bernie came up from the backseat and nuzzled my neck so I cracked the window. “Yes, but we still don’t know who got her pregnant.”
“Maybe the father of the year can tell us.”
“One way or another, if Al does know, I’m going to get it out of him.”
Charlie glanced at me. “Maybe he also knows who killed Jezzie.”
I was about to say something about Shane Mumford sitting in jail, charged with a crime he probably didn’t commit, when I heard the thump of rotor blades overhead. When we turned onto the Rose’s street I realized what was happening.
“Son of a bitch,” Charlie said. “It looks like half the TV crews and news choppers in LA are here.”
A couple of patrol cars arrived about the same time we did and started doing crowd control. We parked up the street and began walking to the Rose’s house. As I approached a police line being set up, I saw that Haley Tristan was already on the air, going live with the information about Bix Rose’s arrest.
Tristan turned to me as I was passing and said, “We’ve just seen Detective Sexton arriving at the Rose’s house.” She called over to me. “Detective, can you tell us why the department withheld information about Jezzie Rose’s use of steroids? What role did her brother, Bix, play in everything? Why did he shoot one of your officers?”
I pushed past her, ignoring the questions. I said to Charlie, “I guess there was only so much Walter Stanwich could do to keep her quiet.”
When we got to the front lawn we met up with Pearl at the same time Bernie began to whine. I immediately went on high alert, worrying about the Rose’s being in the house virtually under assault by the press.
I knocked on the door and called out, announcing my name. There was no response, but from somewhere inside I heard music playing. I knocked again without success.
Above us half a dozen helicopters continued their dull roar. I turned to Charlie and Pearl. “Flo let me in through a side door a few days ago. Let’s see if it’s unlocked.”
I controlled Bernie as Charlie and Pearl took the lead, moving ahead of us down the driveway. When we got to the side entrance Pearl moved up, turning the knob and finding the door unlocked. The roar from one of the media’s helicopters flying low overhead suddenly grew louder.
“This place feels like a fucking war zone,” Charlie said as we entered the house. We unholstered our weapons as Bernie continued to whine. “Let’s take this slow and easy. Got a bad feeling.”
We took our time, moving through the house, turning on lights, and calling out as we went. In the living room I found that a CD of Charlie “Bird” Parker was playing something called K.C. Blues over the stereo. I listened to the soulful saxophone for a minute, before killing the music. Overhead I again heard the muted roar of helicopters.
It wasn’t until we got to the master bedroom that Bernie stopped whining. I put my gun away and audibly sighed. Al Rose was on the bedroom floor, face down. He had two bullets in his upper torso. His wife was on the floor of the adjacent bathroom with a good portion of her brain splattered across the white tile. The gun Flo had used in the murder-suicide was at her side.
Charlie came over to me after we stepped away from the scene. “What were we saying about Flo being angry since learning about Jezzie’s miscarriage?”
I looked at him, shaking my head. “It looks like she also knew who caused it and it was too much for her to bear.”
As Charlie and Pearl called the lieutenant and the coroner’s office I walked away with Bernie, trying to gather myself. The death of Jezzie Rose, and now her parents, was an American tragedy, one that I was sure the press would be talking about for years.
I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping to clear my head. With Al Rose dead it now seemed unlikely that we’d ever solve the murder of his daughter. The thought even crossed my mind that maybe Al had murdered Jezzie to cover up what he’d done to her. When Flo had learned about her pregnancy and miscarriage, maybe it confirmed her suspicions that her husband had beaten their daughter.
Whatever had happened, one thing was for sure. Flo had learned the awful truth about what happened to Jezzie and it was so devastating that she couldn’t let her husband or herself go on living.
The shattering of the Rose family brought my own family issues back to the surface again. Ryan Cooper was out there somewhere enjoying his freedom after destroying the lives of my father and birthmother. My relationship with my adopted mother had also been impacted by what Cooper had done, maybe forever. Despite our differences, Mom and I had always shared a special bond. Would things ever be the same between us again?
I realized now that I was living a lifetime in the deep shadows of loss. It was probably affecting me in ways that I’d never fully understood, even impacting my relationships. Maybe on some level men realized that I was a lost soul, a wounded survivor, and that had caused them to turn away from me.
A heavy cloud of depression settled over me as I glanced over at a bedroom that was being used as an office. I walked over with Bernie in tow, found the light switch just inside the doorway, and we entered. I took a moment, glancing at the many photographs on the walls of the Roses with their smiling gold medal winning daughter. The images of the dead girl and her parents were heart wrenching. I brushed a tear from my eye, thinking about the shattered family, as well as my own losses.
I was about to turn off the light and leave the room when something caught my eye. I walked over and picked up a framed photograph that was sitting on a filing cabinet. It looked like the group photograph had been taken sometime in the past couple of years. Al Rose was standing next to Westridge University’s athletic director, Tom Baylor.
As I scanned the faces of the man and woman standing next to Baylor something struck me. “His sister,” I said, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. “Maybe she was the one who was on the doping panel, providing the inside information.”
I removed the photograph from the frame and slipped it into my pocket before leaving the room with Bernie. I saw there were now other officers in the house, securing the crime scene. While we waited for the lieutenant and the coroner I took a few minutes and use
d my phone to search the Internet.
A few minutes later my heart began racing when I realized that I’d been right. “Oh my, God. What if…”
I found Charlie in the kitchen with Pearl and walked over to them. “I think I know who was providing the information to the Roses about the testing schedules. I also have a pretty good idea who was the father of Jezzie’s unborn baby and maybe her killer.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
At eight the following evening Bernie and I stood on the doorstep of Brian Hamlin’s house in Westwood. When he answered the door the handsome yoga instructor seemed surprised that my dog was with me.
“I thought maybe Bernie could try a couple of poses with us,” I explained, smiling at him. “He’s got a mean downward dog.”
Brian laughed. “He’s more than welcome. Let me put out a bowl of water for him.”
Bernie and I followed him through the living room into the kitchen. The home was modern, in an expensive area of the city, with lots of white furnishings. It reminded me of something I’d seen on one of those real estate shows about minimalism.
After he set out the water for Bernie, I got a tour of the home. I found that the other rooms were all decorated in the same manner as the living room—lots of clean lines, empty spaces, and white walls.
“You must hire a cleaning service,” I said as we walked through the home. “Most guys I know aren’t nearly this neat.” Charlie came to mind.
“I guess I’m a bit OCD,” Brian said, turning to me and smiling. “A shrink would probably say something about my childhood issues not being resolved.”
I chuckled. “You’ve got nothing on me. Someday maybe I’ll tell you more about my family history while you clean house.”
I followed him into what looked like a room addition that had high ceilings, workout mats, mirrors on the walls, and a row of high windows that during the day would allow sunlight to filter in.
Brian pointed out the reflection pool and bamboo gardens in the backyard beyond a door that led from the studio.