"Yeah, I know what it all means," I said. "That's the way Walt talked."
"Don't fuck us up," Cole said, telling me with that sentence that he'd grown tired of me.
"There's nothing here," I assured them. "You guys got this exactly right. Suicide, pure and simple."
They watched me with suspicious eyes.
"Can I have a copy of this?" I asked, holding up the note.
"You can have that one. We still have the computer with the original. We had a guy in the electronics division do a computer dump. Nothing useful." Cole dropped into his chair and kicked his file drawer closed. Meeting over.
I drove out of the parking lot and headed east. I had almost two hours before the six o'clock pallbearers' meeting in Boyle Heights. I decided to use the time to stop by Huntington House. I had a few more questions, which I hoped Diamond Peterson could answer.
The suicide note was open on the seat beside me as I drove. At traffic lights, I kept looking down at it, rereading the seven lines. It certainly sounded like Pop, but somehow it felt bogus. I don't know what about it made me suspicious. Maybe it was because it had been written on a computer. I would have trusted it more if it was handwritten. But Kovacevich and Cole said only Pops fingerprints were on the keyboard, and we get a lot of electronic suicide notes these days, so that in itself wasn't enough.
Maybe it was all the surfer babble. Would Walt choose surf lingo for his last communication? Could it be that someone else had written it and was trying to make it sound like Pop, or was I just grasping at straws again, trying to find something where nothing existed?
I had agreed to go to a meeting with five people who didn't know what the fuck they were doing and were expecting me to solve this for them. I was the police expert. The professional. Yet I kept hoping they'd be able to explain it to me because I didn't have a take.
I was as confused as I was all those years ago when Pop first rescued me.
Chapter 14
I got to Huntington House at four thirty, pulled into the parking lot, and walked around the side of Sharon Cross Hall to the rec center, where Diamond told me yesterday she'd set up the temporary office.
As the dirt playground came into view, I stopped for a moment and watched ten boys playing baseball on the diamond. Five up and five in the field. Not enough for two full teams. This was a take-no-prisoners game where you needed to hold your ground on the baselines, put a shoulder down, and watch out for your nuts if you wanted to survive.
The kids seemed angry. They swung from the heels trying to pulverize the ball. With each crack of the bat, they ran on skinny legs, pumping their arms. There was a lot of shouting, way too many violent collisions on the base paths, one or two of them always on the verge of a fistfight.
For a second, I was back on that diamond with them. Little Shane Scully finding a few minutes away from my loneliness as I tried to get rid of my anger by knocking the shit out of somebody, the violence more important than the game.
"Shane, whatta you doing here?" Diamond's voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned and found her standing behind me. She had just come out of the rec center and was carrying several thick folders and a clipboard with a list of some kind written on it.
"Hi," I said. "I thought I'd drop by for a minute to talk before the six o'clock meeting at Vargas's office. I assume you're going."
"I think we're wasting our time with that, but yes." Like me, she seemed resigned to the exercise. "What did you want to talk about?"
"You keep saying you don't think Pop killed himself, but I get the distinct feeling you don't really believe that. I wanted you to go over your feelings again and see if you could explain why."
The sun was lowering directly over my shoulder, forcing her to squint into it as she studied me. She glanced down at her watch.
"Let's go inside," she said.
I followed her into the rec center. She led me across the large basketball court into a temporary office that was located in a coach's room. They had set up brand-new metal filing cabinets that still had the Staples stickers on the sides. I could read the price tags--one hundred and forty-nine dollars apiece. Diamond saw me studying the cabinets.
"We're trying to rebuild our financial records. It's slow going, but with this state audit coming, we'll need to show them something."
She sat behind a card table that served as her desk. It was stacked high with papers that looked like accounting spreadsheets.
"I'm sort of looking into Pop's death on my own," I told her. "I need to know what you really think. You were around him the most, and I keep picking up this vibe that you disagree with the others."
She took a moment to consider this before answering.
"You're getting that vibe because you're right. I hate to admit it, but I think it's real possible he killed himself," she said flatly. "It s an unpopular opinion, but like you said, I was close to him. I saw how much stress he was under. God knows, I don't want to believe it because he also had a life-insurance policy for half a million dollars. Me had no surviving relatives. The beneficiary was Huntington House. It doesn't pay off on a suicide, so obviously, I desperately wanted it to be something else because we need that life-insurance check.
"With that money we could have gotten straight with the state and out of debt with our nonprofit owner, Creative Solutions. ... It would have made a huge difference. But since the police listed Pop as a suicide, it's not coming.
"Same thing happens to the insurance if the Arson cops say he burned down the administration building. For all those reasons, and because I don't want to believe he was so tortured inside he'd kill himself, I don't want this to be a suicide. But, damn it, I was there. I saw how messed up he was at the end. How out of control. Besides, who would have murdered Pop? Everybody loved him." She rubbed a hand on her forehead, then leaned back in the chair. She looked exhausted.
"Are you okay?"
"No," she said softly. "Creative Solutions has just appointed me to be the temporary executive director of the home. I don't want the job. It's more than I can handle. But somebody has to run this place, and I guess I'm the best choice. But it means I have to step down as secretary-treasurer because, according to California nonprofit law, I can't hold both the executive director and secretary-treasurer positions at the same time. It's to protect the home from the possibility of fraud, so I can't write checks to myself or something.
"That means I need to get a new secretary-treasurer, like immediately. Nobody wants the job, and with all this financial turmoil, I don't blame them. I got this damn state audit coming. I'm way short-handed as it is, and now I've got the head of Creative Solutions all over me to reassemble these fiscal records for the state auditor. I'm not sleeping, my stomach is on fire. I think I'm getting an ulcer or something. So no, I'm definitely not okay."
She almost seemed upset enough to commit suicide herself. When I lived here, it never occurred to me how much stress was involved in running this place.
"Can't Creative Solutions send somebody over to step in as secretary-treasurer?" I asked.
"That's what I'm trying to get them to do. But they think we're about to crater and they manage other foster homes, so they don't want to get their fingerprints on anything that could cause legal problems for them with the state."
Just then, a very large, tattooed, fair-skinned, muscular man with reddish-blond hair stuck his head into the office. He was about thirty years old and had a cruel flat-nosed face, and shoulders like a water buffalo.
"Diamond, I'm waiting," he snapped. "I've been standing over by-Sharon Cross Hall for ten minutes. Whatta you doing?"
"Mr. O'Shea, this is Shane Scully. He dropped by unannounced and I . . ."
"We need to go through this physical inventory," the man interrupted. "I have to get out of here." He moved into the room, and I saw that he had a trim thirty-inch waist to go with those huge shoulders. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and his elaborately tattooed arms rippled with muscles that you can only get
with an intense workout routine.
"I'm Shane Scully," I said, standing to greet him, putting out my hand.
"Good for you. Come on, Diamond. Let's do this." He ignored my handshake and left abruptly. Diamond stood up.
"See what I mean?" she said, glowering at the door he'd just gone through. "It ain't easy."
"Nice guy. Who is he?"
"That's Rick O'Shea. President of Creative Solutions." She sighed. "My boss."
I was looking at the empty doorway where, moments before, two hundred and thirty pounds of tattoo-enhanced gristle had been standing.
"That's the president of your nonprofit corporation?" I said. "Kinda not what you'd expect, is he?"
"He's a very difficult man." Diamond sighed again. Then she gathered up the folders she'd been carrying before, grabbed the clipboard, and turned to face me in the doorway.
"Listen, Shane, I gotta go. I'll see you at Sabas's place at six."
"Great."
We both left the rec center together, and I split off to go back to my Acura. Before getting in, I walked the lot. I was looking for a car that didn't belong here. The kind of ride a thirty-year-old tattooed gym rat might drive.
It was easy to spot. A one-year-old, custom-painted maroon Escalade with expensive chrome spinners. I looked in the passenger window and saw a gym bag. On the side, it said: RICK "RICOCHET" O'SHEA. I walked around to the back of the SUV and wrote down the plates.
O'Shea was about to get a little piece of my unofficial investigation.
Then I got into my car and, even though it was early, headed on out to the twelve hundred block on Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights.
An hour ago I'd been feeling like this case was loose. But something had just shifted. At the beginning of any investigation, what you're looking for are the little inconsistencies that may be hiding an important fact. Tiny pieces of the puzzle that don't quite fit. You're looking for the slight but unmistakable odor of deceit.
Like Alexa, I'm also pretty good on cop reads. Rick "Ricochet" O'Shea was definitely coming off as a false note. He didn't belong in this picture.
Besides that, he was an asshole.
Chapter 15
As I drove toward the six o'clock meeting in Boyle Heights, I checked in with Sally Quinn. She wasn't there so I left her a message to call me. I was going east on Whittier Boulevard, heading deeper and deeper into East L. A. Tagger art announced the gang blocks. MS-13's graffiti gave way to East Side Surenos, then 18th Street Locos, and finally to Latin Kings. The letters were angry black slashes made from thousands of Home Depot spray cans.
If you're uninitiated, this jagged tagger script can be almost impossible to read, but after a few weeks in a squad car, you get pretty-good at it. Driving the East L. A. ghetto was a little like riding through hostile Indian country in an open wagon. If you didn't want an arrow in the back, you'd better scan the rocks for signs of danger.
Since many of these Hispanic gangs had different countries of origin, their cultural differences tended to define their behavior. Knowing which bunch you were up against could affect your survival.
I finally pulled up in front of the address Seriana had given me. I had been expecting an office building, but instead found a small, badly maintained Spanish-style bungalow in the middle of six blocks tagged as Latin Kings turf. I looked at my watch. It was still early, and I didn't see Jacks Harley or any other car I recognized from before. I figured I was the first to arrive, so I sat at the curb and cased the run-down block and house. A small sign propped in the window read:
SABAS VARGAS
ATTORNEY AT LAW
A few minutes later, I saw a white woman dressed in a tailored cream-colored pantsuit, carrying an expensive-looking, oversized shoulder bag, walking up to a porch six houses away. She looked completely lost.
I watched as she knocked, waited for the door to open, then spoke for a moment to somebody inside. The door was abruptly slammed in her face.
I knew even before she turned that it was Vicki Lavicki walking around down here in her summer suit and sensible shoes like a Jehovah's Witness who drew the short straw.
Then a lowrider with four young thugs inside glided by, pulling to a stop where she was standing. She stupidly crossed to the lowered Chevy and started asking for directions.
The four teenaged vatos in the lowrider didn't seem to be paying much attention to what she was saying. They were busy taking inventory of her jewelry.
They got out of their axle-dragging mother ship and surrounded her on the sidewalk like a pack of wild coyotes about to shred a defenseless poodle.
I couldn't hear what was being said, but Ms. Lavicki didn't seem to appreciate the danger she was in. She had one hand in her purse fishing around for a pen or something, while four Latin Kings in black and gold head wraps were fanning out, going into attack mode.
"Shit," I muttered and got out of my car, pulling my badge, while moving quickly up the block toward her.
"Hey, Vicki!" I called out to distract them, holding up my creds as I ran. The four vato thugs spun to check me out, trying to decide whether to add me to the party or just roll on. I pulled back mv jacket as I ran, showing them my sidearm in its clip-on holster. Because they were just teenagers, I didn't want to draw down on them. I was pretty sure they were all packing but was trying not to initiate a gun-fight. I kept my right hand near my gun and my left holding the creds high as I ran to let them know they'd be firing on a cop.
They hesitated for a minute, decided they didn't want that kind of trouble, got back into their lowered hood mobile, and pulled slowly off. They took the corner at the end of the block at an insolent five miles an hour.
"My hero," Vicki said dryly as I approached. "Very John Wayne, but I had that handled."
"You were seconds from getting unzipped," I told her, but she waved this off as she glanced clown at an address in her hand.
"I must ve gotten the wrong street number from Diamond," she said. "Where the hell is Vargas's office?"
"Listen, Ms. Lavicki, in the future it might not be such a good idea to wander around down here alone."
Her hazel eyes cut holes in me. "I was okay. You were the one causing the problem."
"You were not okay. Those guys were packing."
"Me too." Then she pulled her right hand out of the purse. The whole time she'd been holding a snub-nosed .44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog with a wood-checked grip, aiming it at them from inside her purse.
"You're supposed to be a damn accountant. What kind of adding machine is that?"
"It subtracts to six, but there were only four, so you do the math," she said. Then, because I frowned deeply, she added, "Get over it, Scully. I sometimes carry cashier's checks for my firm. I have a permit."
"You were gonna shoot them?"
She stuffed the Bulldog back into her purse and smirked at me. "That was just a little chest bump. Those guys were only sniffing."
"And you re some kind of expert on street action," I shot back.
"Before I got put in Huntington House, I was raised in South Central," she replied. "I was the only white face on my block. The shit jumped off in that hood almost every night. We didn't have bars in our windows, we had MAC-lOs." She seemed tired of discussing this and abruptly changed the subject, showing me the slip of paper in her hand. "You know where Vargas's office is? These all look like houses. I was expecting a building."
"I'm glad you're not doing my taxes. This three should be an eight." I pointed to the bungalow half a block away.
Alexa had called Vicki a brass cupcake, and she was right. I now had a tough-talking pistol-packing CPA and ex-South Central hood rat from Kinney and Glass to worry about. I got my briefcase out of the MDX, and we walked up the path to the front door of Vargas's bungalow and rang the bell.
A minute later, a tough-looking male teenager opened up. He was dressed in Latin Kings colors, wearing a black and gold New Orleans Saints football jersey, a hairnet, and four-hundred-dollar Air Jorda
ns. He also had a big LK emblazoned on the side of his neck and two teardrop tattoos under his right eye, indicating that, despite his tender age, he'd already lost two homies in the street.
The man-boy stared at us insolently but made no move to step out of the way. His attitude wasn't going to do much for the walk-in trade.
"We're here for the six o'clock meeting," Vicki said, not wavering under his malevolent stare. "You wanta go tell Mr. Vargas we're here or just stand there acting like a dickhead?"
Jesus ... I thought. But he just stepped aside and let us in.
I followed Vicki into the house. The bungalow looked to be entirely devoted to Sabas Vargas's legal practice. There were several hard-looking Hispanic women in their mid-twenties to thirties typing legal documents on computers and answering phones. Most of them also had teardrop tattoos. It wasn't like any law office I'd ever been in before. This staff looked like a bunch of parolees. Then one of the chica warriors stood and confronted us.
"What is it?" the tall, angry presence demanded.
"We're here to talk to Sabas." I fished out my trusty badge again. She glared, shrugged, then turned and, without a word, left us there, heading into the back.
"Put that thing away," Vicki whispered. "Nobody cares."
A moment later, Sabas came down the hall in shirtsleeves. Without the jacket and with his cuffs rolled up, I could see that he was heavier than I had originally thought. A roll of fat pressed at his belt line, a faded marine tattoo decorated one forearm.
"I'm just wrapping up a client conference," he said, and I noticed a very slight Mexican accent that I'd somehow failed to detect at the reception. "Some of the others are already gathered in the conference room. Follow me." We headed toward the back of the house.
I could see into the guest bedrooms that opened off the hall. They were full of records and supplies. One was outfitted with a copy-machine and file cabinets. He led us into a den, which looked out over a small weed-choked backyard that surprisingly contained a cracked and empty kidney-shaped swimming pool. Then he left us, heading back down the hall to finish his meeting.
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