Sunset Express

by Robert Crais

  They were getting out of the car when Angie said, “The gate’s open.”

  The big wrought iron gate was open maybe nine or ten inches. You didn’t live behind walls and gates and security cops, then leave the front gate open so that any stray goofball or passing psycho could come inside and make himself at home. Tomsic remembers that his first thought on seeing the open gate was that they would find a body inside.

  They went to the gate and pressed the button on the call box twice, but they got no answers. Angie said, “We don’t need to wait for a warrant, do we?”

  Tomsic said, “Shit.” He pushed at the gate and went through.

  The Westec guy said, “We can’t just walk in, can we?” He looked nervous. “I’ll call the office and they can ring the house.”

  Tomsic ignored him, and Rossi followed Tomsic toward the house.

  The drive was hand-laid Mexican pavers and had probably cost more than Tomsic’s house, his two cars, and the quarter interest he owned in a Big Bear Lake cabin combined. The mansion itself was built of mortar and rough-hewn wooden beams and was finished with an ancient Spanish tile roof. A healthy growth of ivy covered the ground along the east side of the drive, nestling up to a couple of monstrous podocarpus trees before continuing around a four-car garage. Each car had its own door, and the whole effect was more that of a stable than a garage. A large fountain sat just off the front entry, trickling water.

  Tomsic thought that it looked like the kind of house that Errol Flynn might’ve owned. His wife would love the place, but Tomsic knew that most of the old stars, just like most of the new stars, were perverts and scumbags, and if you knew the things that went on in places like this you wouldn’t be so thrilled with being here. Normal people didn’t go into the movie business. Movie people were shitbirds with serious emotional problems who kept their secret lives hidden. Just like most lawyers and all politicians. Tomsic completely believed this, probably because everything he’d seen in almost thirty years on the job confirmed it. Of course, Tomsic had never in his thirty years shared what he knew with his wife because he didn’t want to rain on her parade. It was easier to let her think he was a grump.

  Nothing seemed amiss. No bodies were floating in the fountain and no cars were parked crazily on the front lawn. The massive front door was closed and appeared undamaged. A large ornate knocker hung in the center of the door, but there was also a bell. Tomsic pressed the button, then used the knocker. Loud. The Westec guy came running up behind them. “Hey, take it easy. You’re gonna break it.” His face was white.

  Angie said, “Stay back, okay? We don’t know what we have here.”

  Tomsic glanced at Angie and shook his head. Fuckin’ Westec geek, worried about losin’ the account. Angie rolled her eyes.

  Tomsic slammed at the door two more times without getting an answer and was starting back to the car when the door opened and Theodore “Teddy” Martin blinked out. Martin was a medium-sized man, a little shorter than average, with pale, delicate skin. He was unshaven and drawn with hollow, red-rimmed eyes. Tomsic says that he would’ve bet that the guy had spent most of the night blasted on coke or crystal meth. “Mr. Martin?”

  Martin nodded, his head snapping up and down. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and no shirt. His torso was soft and undeveloped and covered with a thick growth of fine hair. He squinted against the bright morning sun. “Yeah, sure. What do you want?”

  Both Tomsic and Angela Rossi later testified that Tomsic badged him and identified himself as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Angela Rossi noted that Teddy Martin never looked at the badge. He kept his eyes on Tomsic and blinked harder as if something were in his eyes. Angela Rossi thought at the time that he might have allergies. Tomsic said, “Mr. Martin, does a woman named Susan Martin live here with you?”

  When Tomsic asked the question, Angela Rossi says that Teddy Martin took a single sharp breath and said, “Oh, my Christ, they killed her, didn’t they?”

  People say the damnedest things.

  Tomsic took Rossi aside, gave her his cell phone, and told her to call Gibbs and tell him to get over here. Rossi walked out to the drive and made the call. When she returned to the house, Tomsic and Teddy Martin and the Westec geek were inside, Tomsic and Martin sitting on an antique bench in the entry. Teddy Martin was blubbering like a baby. “I did everything they said. I did everything, and they said they’d let her go. Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  Tomsic was sitting very close to Martin and his voice was soft. He could make it soft whenever he wanted to calm people. “You’re saying she was kidnapped?”

  Martin sucked great gulps of air as if he couldn’t breathe. “Christ, yes, of course she was kidnapped.” He put his face in his hands and wailed. “I did everything they said. I gave them every nickel. They said they’d let her go.”

  Angela Rossi said, “You gave someone money?”

  Martin waved his hands, like a jumble of words were floating around him and he had to grab hold of the ones he wanted to use. “Half a million dollars. Just like they said. I did everything exactly the way they said. They promised they’d let her go. They promised.”

  Tomsic gently took Teddy’s wrists and pushed his hands down. He said, “Tell me what happened, Mr. Martin. You want to tell me what happened? Can you do that?”

  Martin seemed to regain control of himself and rubbed at his eyes. He said, “I came home Thursday night and she was gone. Then this guy calls and says he’s got Susan and he puts her on. I think it was around eight o’clock.”

  Rossi distinctly remembers asking, “You spoke with her?”

  “She was crying. She said she couldn’t see anything and then the guy came back and he told me that if I didn’t give them the five hundred thousand they’d kill her. I could hear her screaming. I could hear her crying.”

  Tomsic said, “Did you recognize this man’s voice?”

  “No. No, I asked him who he was and he said I should call him James X.”

  Tomsic glanced at Rossi and raised his eyebrows. “James X?”

  “He said they were watching the house. He said they would know if I called the police and they would kill her. Oh, Jesus, I was so scared.” Teddy Martin stood, taking deep breaths and rubbing his stomach as if it hurt. “He said I should get the money and he would call tomorrow and tell me what to do with it.”

  Angie said, “Tomorrow was yesterday?”

  Martin nodded. “That’s right. Friday. I got the money just like he said. All in hundreds. He wanted hundreds. Then I came back here and waited for his call.”

  Tomsic said, “You just walked into the bank and got five hundred thousand dollars?”

  Teddy Martin snapped him an angry look. “Of course not. My business manager arranged it. He cashed bonds. Something like that. He wanted to know why I wanted the money and I told him not to ask.”

  Rossi saw Tomsic frown. Tomsic prompted Martin to continue. “Okay. So you got the money, then came back here to wait.”

  Martin nodded again. “I guess it was around four, something like that, when he called. He told me to put the money in a garbage bag and bring it to a parking lot just off Mulholland at the four-o-five. They have a little lot there for people who carpool. He told me that there was a dumpster, and I should put the money into the dumpster, then go home. He said they would give me exactly twelve minutes to get there, and if I was late they’d know I was working with the police and they’d kill Susan. They said I should just drop the money and leave, and that after I was gone they’d pick up the money and count it and if everything was okay they’d let Susan go. They said it probably wouldn’t be until nine or ten with the counting.” He sat again and started rocking. “I did everything just like they said and I’ve been waiting all night. I never heard from them again. I never heard from Susan. When you rang the bell I thought you were her.” Teddy Martin put his face in his hands and sobbed. “I made it in the twelve minutes. I swear to God I made it.
I was driving like a maniac.”

  Tomsic told Angie to take the cell phone again, call Gibbs, and this time tell him to have someone check the dumpster. She left, and Tomsic stayed with Martin and the Westec guy. Rossi was gone for only four or five minutes, but when she returned she looked burned around the edges. He said, “You get Gibbs?”

  She didn’t answer the question. Instead, she said, “Dan, may I see you, please?”

  Tomsic followed her outside to the ivy alongside the expensive Mexican drive. She took out her pen, pushed aside some leaves, and exposed a ball-peen hammer clotted with blond hair and bits of pink matter. Tomsic said, “I’ll be damned.”

  Rossi said, “I was just looking around when I saw it. The handle was sticking up out of the ivy.”

  Tomsic stared at the hammer for several seconds, noticing that a single black ant was crawling in the pink matter. Tomsic made the same whistling sound that he’d made at the Stone Canyon overlook when he’d seen the body. Angela Rossi then said, “He killed her, didn’t he, Dan?”

  Lincoln Gibbs and Pete Bishop turned into the drive as she said it. Dan Tomsic, who had a million years on the job and whose opinion as a professional cynic almost everyone valued, glanced at the mansion and said, “The sonofabitch killed her, all right, but now we have to convict him.”

  “Hey, we’ve got this guy, Dan! He’s ours!”

  Dan Tomsic stared at her with the disdain he reserved for shitbirds, defense attorneys, and card-carrying members of the ACLU. He said, “It’s easier to cut off your own goddamned leg than convict a rich man in this state, detective. Haven’t you been around long enough to know that?”

  It was the last thing that Dan Tomsic said to her that day.

  Susan Martin’s murder made the evening news, as did the events that followed.

  I was able, months later, to piece together the events of that Saturday morning from police reports, participant interviews, court testimony, and newspaper articles, but I couldn’t tell you what I was doing when I heard, or where I was or who I was with. It didn’t seem important.

  I did not think, nor did I have reason to believe, that Susan Martin’s murder and everything that grew from it would have such a profound and permanent impact upon my life.

  1

  Jonathan Green came to my office on a hazy June morning with an entourage of three attorneys, a videographer, and an intense young woman lugging eight hundred pounds of sound recording equipment. The videographer shoved past the attorneys and swung his camera around my office, saying, “This is just what we need, Jonathan! It’s real, it’s colorful, it’s L.A.!” He aimed his camera at me past the Mickey Mouse phone and began taping. “Pretend I’m not here.”

  I frowned at him, and he waved toward the lawyers. “Don’t look at me. At them. Look at them.”

  I looked at them. “What is this?” I was expecting Green and an attorney named Elliot Truly, but not the others. Truly had arranged the meeting.

  A man in his mid-forties wearing an immaculately tailored blue Armani suit said, “Mr. Cole? I’m Elliot Truly. This is Jonathan Green. Thanks for seeing us.”

  I shook hands with Truly first, then Green. Green looked exactly the way he had the two times I’d seen him on 60 Minutes, once when he defended an abortion rights activist accused of murder in Texas and once when he defended a wealthy textile manufacturer accused of murder in Iowa. The Texas case was popular and the Iowa case wasn’t, but both were victories for the defense.

  The videographer scrambled backward across the office to fit us into his frame, the woman with the sound gear hustling to stay behind the camera as they captured the moment of our first meeting. Armstrong steps onto the moon; the Arabs and the Israelis sign a peace accord; Jonathan Green meets the private detective. The woman with the sound equipment bumped into my desk and the videographer slammed against the file cabinet. The little figures of Jiminy Cricket on the cabinet fell over and the framed photo of Lucy Chenier tottered. I frowned at him again. “Be careful.”

  The videographer waved some more. “Don’t look at me! Not at me! You’ll ruin the shot!”

  I said, “If you break anything, I’ll ruin more than the shot.”

  Green seemed embarrassed. “This is tiresome, Elliot. We have business here, and I’m afraid we’re making a bad impression on Mr. Cole.”

  Truly touched my arm, trying to mitigate the bad impression. “They’re from Inside News. They’re doing a six-part documentary on Jonathan’s involvement in the case.”

  The woman with the sound equipment nodded. “The inner workings of the Big Green Defense Machine.”

  I said, “Big Green Defense Machine?”

  The videographer stopped taping and looked me up and down as if he found me lacking but wasn’t quite sure how. Then it hit him. “Don’t you have a gun?” He glanced around the office as if there might be one hanging on a wall hook.

  “A gun?”

  He looked at Truly. “He should be wearing a gun. One of those things under the arm.” He was a small man with furry arms.

  Truly frowned. “A shoulder holster?”

  The woman nodded. “A hat would be nice. Hats are romantic.”

  I said, “Truly.”

  Jonathan Green’s face clouded. “I apologize, Mr. Cole. They’ve been with us for the past week and it’s becoming offensive. If it bothers you, I’ll ask them to leave.”

  The videographer grew frantic. “Hey, forget the gun. I was just trying to make it a little more entertaining, that’s all.” He crouched beside the watercooler and lifted his camera. “You won’t even know we’re here. I promise.”

  Truly pursed his lips at me. My call.

  I made a little shrug. “The people who come to me usually don’t want a record of what we discuss.”

  Jonathan Green chuckled. “It may come to that, but let’s hope not.” He went to the French doors that open onto the little balcony, then looked at the picture of Lucy Chenier. “Very pretty. Your wife?”

  “A friend.”

  He nodded, approving. When he nodded, the two lesser attorneys nodded, too. No one had bothered to introduce them, but they didn’t seem to mind.

  Jonathan Green sat in one of the leather director’s chairs across from my desk and the two lesser attorneys went to the couch. Truly stayed on his feet. The videographer noticed the Pinocchio clock on the wall, then hustled around to the opposite side of my desk so that he could get both me and the clock in the frame. The Pinocchio clock has eyes that move side to side as it tocks. Photogenic. Like Green.

  Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right’s. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister’s voice. He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, “Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you?”

  “You represent Theodore Martin. You need investigators to help in the defense effort.” Theodore “Teddy” Martin had been arrested for Susan Martin’s murder and was awaiting trial. He had gone through two prior defense attorneys, hadn’t been happy with them, and had recently hired Jonathan Green. All the hirings and firings had been covered big time by the local media.

  Green nodded. “That’s right. Mr. Cole, I’ve spoken at length with Teddy and I believe that he’s innocent. I want your help in proving it.”

  I smiled. “Moi?”

  The videographer edged in closer. I raised a finger at him. Unh-unh-unnh. He edged back.

  Truly said, “We’ve talked to people, Mr. Cole. You’ve an outstanding re
putation for diligence, and your integrity is above reproach.”

  “How about that.” I glanced at the camera and wiggled my eyebrows. The videographer frowned and lowered the lens.

  Jonathan Green leaned toward me, all business. “What do you know about the case?”

  “I know what everybody knows. I watch the news.” You couldn’t read the Times or watch local television without knowing the business about James X and the five hundred thousand dollars and the dumpster. I’d heard Theodore Martin’s sound-bite version of it ten thousand times, but I’d also heard the DA’s sound-bite version, too, that Teddy and Susan weren’t getting along, that Susan had secretly consulted a divorce attorney and told a friend that she was planning a divorce, and that Teddy had offed her to keep her from walking away with half of his estimated one-hundred-twenty-million-dollar fortune. I said, “From what I hear, the police have a pretty good case.”

  “They believe they have, yes. But I don’t think all the facts are in.” Green smiled and laced his fingers across a knee. It was a warm smile, tired and knowing. “Did you know that Teddy and Susan loved to cook?”

  I shook my head. That one had slipped right by me.

  “Teddy arrived home early that night, and they had no engagements, so the two of them decided to cook something elaborate and fun. They spent the next couple of hours making a pepper-roasted pork tenderloin with wild cherry sauce. Teddy makes the sauce with fresh cherries, only they didn’t have any, so he ran out to get some.”

  Truly took a step toward me and ticked points off his fingers. “We have the receipt and the cashier whom Teddy paid. That’s where he was when Susan was kidnapped.”