by Paul Bishop
“What was he arrested for?” I asked.
“That’s the point,” Lancaster said. “They had nothing substantial on him and he refused to talk. He finally gave up his name, but not where he lived or anything further. They booked him into Juvenile Hall for evading.”
“No way was that going to stick,” Pagan said.
“It didn’t. I made some calls to the Hall. Because he refused to give anything other than his name, he was turned over to Child Protective Services.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “I can guess the rest. They put him in an unsecured foster home from where he immediately ran away never to be heard from again.”
“End of story,” Lancaster agreed. “But it’s still a surprise he’s never been contacted again.”
“Do us a favor,” Pagan requested. “He must have been printed when he was booked for evading. Can you get those prints pulled and run them through the system to see if they match up with any other records?”
“Sure, but it will take time.”
“Thanks, Chris,” Pagan said, and disconnected.
“Are you thinking he might have been arrested under other names?”
“I don’t know. I think he slipped when he used the name Benny White. This was only a year after he’d originally run away. Maybe he was back in the area because he was homesick, or wanted to check up on Chad or Sophie. When the cops nabbed him, he didn’t want to use Connor Martin in case they connected the dots. Benny White was safe, but it was too close to the truth for him to feel comfortable using it if he got popped again.”
“How did he even know the name Benny White?”
Pagan shrugged. “Maybe he found the adoption papers, maybe Jack Martin taunted him with it while he abused him. I don’t know…yet.”
I connected some dots of my own. “He’s probably been checking up on Chad and Sophie when he could over the years.”
“Probably wondering if his uncle was doing to them or to Gerrard what Jack Martin had done to him.”
I kept following the train of thought. “And if he suspected Harvey Martin was molesting Gerrard…”
“He’d want to do something about it.”
“And Unicorn?” I asked. I’d never before had this wavelength lock with a partner. A lot of good detective work is kicking over the traces of the case to see what turns up, but doing it with a partner like this was new for me. It was exhilarating.
“Smack Daddy lied,” Pagan said.
“To us? Come on…”
“What we do is not a science, Randall. It’s an art – an imperfect art. Think about how you’ve changed your perspective on your gift in just the past couple of days.”
“Point taken,” I said, realizing the truth of what Pagan said. “It’s always been with me, a burden, something to ignore. Now, I’m paying precise attention to it and finding out I don’t know what every nuance of color actually means. It will take a while. But I still don’t see how or about what Smack Daddy lied about.”
“Lie catching is not just preparation, manipulating anxiety, and asking questions. It’s also asking the right questions and catching lies of omission – what isn’t said.”
I thought about omissions and flashed to the last encounter we had with Smack Daddy. “When we discovered the recording device in Smack Daddy’s house,” I said. “You asked if either he or Judith had bought or installed it. Judith answered, but Smack Daddy didn’t say anything.”
Pagan nodded. “Actually, I screwed up. I didn’t ask it as an effective question. I just said, I take it neither of you bought nor installed this. It was lame. I gave Smack Daddy an easy out. I didn’t even wait for him to respond, just let Judith’s answer stand.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. It’s such a little thing.”
“There have been a lot of little things. In the back of the Navigator, I gave Smack Daddy a way to keep his self-esteem, but it was only in thinking about it later that something he said struck me as off-kilter.”
I suddenly remembered that exactly as well. It was when I missed the mottling of the colors in the streamers attached to Smack Daddy’s words. “When he asked, then who took her? Who took the money?”
Pagan eyebrows shot up. “Yes. You knew?”
“Only in retrospect. When he spoke, I wasn’t concentrating. I missed something in the colors attached to his words. They were mottled, muddied up. It was only for a second. Sometimes colors linger, but usually they appear and disappear as fast as the words themselves. I’ve seen the mottling of colors before, but never thought about what it meant.”
“It was put on,” Pagan said. “He doesn’t know for sure who took the money and his daughter, but he’s got a very strong idea.”
“Changeling?”
Pagan nodded again. “If we’re right, Changeling is the connector between the two cases. And Smack Daddy is our connection to Changeling…”
“Because, since he signed him to a contract, he must know how to contact him,” I said.
Pagan nodded. “It’s time to peel Smack Daddy like a grape.”
Pagan put his seat back again and closed his eyes.
I left him to nap and concentrated on fighting traffic. My own subconscious was going over all I’d heard and seen, trying to put it all together.
There comes a point in every investigation where everything either unravels or ties itself into a hopeless knot to be tossed aside as an unsolved cold case.
This case had reached that point, and I was bound and determined we weren’t going to lose two children to a knot of bad leads, lies, and greed. This case was going to unravel if Pagan and I had to pull it apart thread by thread.
Chapter 28
“There are only two people in your life you should lie to. The police and your girlfriend.”
- Jack Nicholson
Hollywood Area station is an institution. In the span of a day, the whole spectrum of the human experience usually walks through its doors. Hollyweird. The nickname is more than appropriate. If you work Hollywood Area long enough, you can legitimately claim to have seen it all.
On Wilcox south of Sunset Boulevard, the sidewalk outside the station is itself surreal. A little further north, Hollywood Boulevard sports the well-known tourist attraction of stars implanted into the sidewalk sporting the names of Hollywood’s entertainment heroes – and more recently, any celebrity with the ego and cash to make it happen. The sidewalk outside Hollywood Station sports the same stars in the sidewalk, only these bear the names of real heroes – those officers assigned to Hollywood Area who gave their lives in the line of duty. There are a lot more stars for dead cops than there should be.
As I pulled the Escalade into Hollywood Station’s official vehicles only secured parking lot, Pagan sat bolt upright in the passenger seat. He appeared to have the ability to go from sleep to hyper-alertness in an instant.
“What is it?” I asked. Clearly Pagan was experiencing some kind of revelation.
He looked at me, eyes clear yet distant.
“We are running out of time,” he said. His word streamers were an intense red. Blood red. Not the pastel red I was used to seeing attached to his words. There was so much about my condition to which I had never paid attention. I inwardly cursed myself. How could I stop Pagan from making another mistake as he insisted, if I didn’t even know what all my colors meant?
“Okay,” I said, unsure of where his statement was leading.
“No,” Pagan insisted. “I can feel him.”
“Who? Changeling?”
“Yes.” There was no purple tinge to the deep red attached to his words, nothing to indicate he wasn’t telling the truth.
Pagan’s eyes focused on me. “Don’t ask,” he said. “Just believe. We have to get to Changeling fast.”
He got out of the SUV with purpose and I scrambled after him, my new cane feeling curiously smooth and natural as I prodded it along.
“What are you planning?”
Pagan opened the backdoor to the station
. “Nothing. Just a little parlor trick to grease the truth along.”
The first thing Pagan did was head into the station’s video room. We checked the video and sound equipment for the interrogation room we chose to use. The room was currently dark. Once we started the video running, I went to the room, opened the door and turned the lights on. I then made a show of searching the room by checking under the small table anchored in one corner, turning over both chairs to show there was nothing underneath, stood on one of the chairs and checked the drop ceiling tiles for any concealed contraband left behind by a prior suspect. When all was clear, I exited the room leaving the lights on.
I’d learned early the value of doing a lights on to lights off check of the interrogation room to make sure a defense attorney couldn’t claim anything had been planted on his client or that improprieties took place in the room before or after the video was turned on or off.
When we were done, I followed Pagan as he scooted through the back corridors of the station and out the doors leading to the station lobby, where Pagan had asked the patrol officers to bring Smack Daddy to meet us.
The lobby, usually filled with a bright array of Hollyweird citizens, was surprisingly empty except for two desk officers and the two uniformed officers standing on either side of Smack Daddy. The record producer was wearing dark sunglasses, a de rigueur tracksuit, and too much bling. He was looking particularly disgruntled.
“What’s this about?” he asked as soon as he spotted us.
I was watching Pagan closely. He had a wide smile slapped across his face and he seemed to glide as he closed the distance to his quarry.
He stopped just to Smack Daddy’s left and extended his right hand. Predictable human behavior caused Smack Daddy to extend his own right hand. Pagan’s hand engulfed Smack Daddy’s, but he didn’t shake it.
Instead, at the same instant his right hand grasped Smack Daddy’s, Pagan raised his left hand and touched the tip of its extended index finger just below his left eye.
Pagan spoke softly, “I hope you had a goodnight’s…” In a smooth movement, he moved his finger from below his eye to touch a point on the top of Smack Daddy’s right shoulder. At the moment his finger touched Smack Daddy’s shoulder, Pagan gave a short, sharp, pulse-like tug to Smack Daddy’s right hand, and finished his sentence with the word, “…sleep,” delivered more sharply than his other words.
The tug on Smack Daddy’s hand had been almost imperceptible. I was sure neither of the patrol officers on either side of Smack Daddy, or the desk officers, even registered it.
However, the effect of the tug caused Smack Daddy’s head to nod forward in a narcoleptic movement. I even saw his eyes snap shut.
Keeping hold of Smack Daddy’s right hand, Pagan moved in close. He smoothly moved his hand from Smack Daddy’s shoulder to the back of Smack Daddy’s neck, pushing the man’s head down to rest on Pagan’s right shoulder. To anyone watching, the movement looked like a variation on a bro-hug shared by two good friends.
Pagan’s mouth was now positioned next to Smack Daddy’s right ear. I saw a short burst of color slip out of Pagan’s mouth. He had clearly spoken, but too softly for me, or anyone else, to hear.
He then dropped his left hand from Smack Daddy’s neck, stepped back, and shook Smack Daddy’s sharply. Smack Daddy’s head jerked up as if on a puppet string, and his eyes flew open.
A second later, Pagan was thanking the patrol officers for bringing Smack Daddy to the station and asking them to wait to take him home again.
Without losing physical contact, Pagan used his left hand to encircle Smack Daddy’s right wrist and led him away as if Smack Daddy was a child following his mother.
Pagan led the docile Smack Daddy to an interrogation room and opened the door. Inside, the ghastly yellow walls welcomed us home. I moved to stand very still in a corner to one side. Pagan guided Smack Daddy to one of the chairs and allowed him to sit down.
The chair was positioned so Pagan was able to rest Smack Daddy’s right forearm on the small table beside them. Pagan still held Smack Daddy’s right wrist, turning it slightly so the back of Smack Daddy’s right hand was also flat on the table. I could see Pagan’s left index finger was pressing firmly to the central point of Smack Daddy’s inner wrist.
Pagan used his right hand to pull his own chair in behind him, sitting on its edge. His right leg was between Smack Daddy’s legs, his left leg to the outside of Smack Daddy’s right leg.
“Theo,” Pagan said gently, using Smack Daddy’s given name. “I want you to know you are not under arrest. You are free to leave at any time. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Theo said. Surprisingly there was a twist of a smile on his lips.
This was known as a Beheler admonition. Miranda warnings are not appropriate in every situation where police question an individual, not even if the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is someone whom the police suspect. However, use of a Beheler clarified the situation when Miranda was not required. Too many detectives, not sure of their legal standing, misused Miranda and often caused themselves to shut suspects down unnecessarily.
“Do me a favor, Theo, take off your sunglasses,” Pagan said.
Smack Daddy complied almost instantly, taking off the sunglasses with his free left hand.
Pagan took the glasses with his right hand and set them on the small table. Then, still cradling Smack Daddy’s upturned right hand, Pagan tapped his left index finger several times on the center of Smack Daddy’s right wrist. I was surprised Smack Daddy wasn’t questioning the contact, but it was as if he was completely unaware of it.
“Theo, I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with us have you?”
“What do you mean?”
Pagan tapped his finger on Smack Daddy’s wrist several more times. “You were worried about the people to whom you owe money, but you didn’t really think they took the money or Unicorn. Did you, Theo?”
Smack Daddy remained silent, the small smile still on his face.
“Tell me about Changeling,” Pagan said. As he finished his sentence, he lifted Smack Daddy’s wrist enough to raise the attached hand off the table and then released it.
Smack Daddy’s hand hit the table and he blurted out, “He ripped me off! He was my ticket back to the big time, and I was his ticket to stardom, but he ripped me off! Everybody is so damned greedy.” Smack Daddy shook his head. “Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to find this guy? Nothing but a gutter kid with a laptop, a sound machine, and a microphone. You’d think he’d jump at the first chance of a record contract.”
“How did you find him?” Pagan asked.
“Tracked him through the IP address attached to his YouTube channel. Found the lawyer who was paying his bills. He eventually set up a meeting.”
“Where?”
“My house. The kid was shut down. There was something not there about him, but the lawyer tried to help him understand the chance I was offering him.”
“But he wasn’t interested?”
“Didn’t want to do anything but play his music. Liked the anonymity of the Internet and YouTube. He had no idea how big a star he was becoming – how big a star I could make him.”
“What happened next?”
“Unicorn came into the room and the kid lit up like a Christmas tree. Thought I could show him what signing with Smack Records could bring him, but he was only interested in playing with Unicorn. They made each other laugh. Thought I was dealing with another Michael Jackson. Changeling was childlike, just like Unicorn. It was like they had instantly bonded.”
“But you needed the money he could bring in,” Pagan stated, his tone nonjudgmental.
Smack Daddy’s face became animated. “He opened the vault, man.”
“Did you know he took Unicorn?”
“Who else?” Smack Daddy said. “He took my money and my little girl.”
“Why?”
“Because it was
five million dollars!”
Smack Daddy was being Smack Daddy – thinking it was all about the Benjamins.
“But why take Unicorn?” Pagan pressed.
“How should I know? Maybe he’s a creep, a pervert, likes little girls. You should have seen him playing with her – like two kids on a playground.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you thought Changeling took her?”
“Because I didn’t want to lose the money. You guys weren’t getting anywhere. I thought I could find him. Get the money back. Have you seen him? He’s nothing but a scrawny street kid. I’d crush him and get my money and my daughter back.”
Again his priorities – money first, then Unicorn.
“Did you find him?” Pagan asked.
“Tried calling him. No answer. Tried calling his lawyer. No answer. Left messages, but no response.”
“Did you go looking for him?”
“Didn’t have anywhere to look. Only had phone numbers. The lawyer doesn’t have an office listed. Was waiting for him to make contact.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Tell me what went wrong with making Changeling a star?”
Smack Daddy looked taken aback, a little scared. “Nothing went wrong.”
“Theo, you know you want to tell me the truth, don’t you?”
Smack Daddy now looked confused. “Yes,” he said, but it was like he couldn’t stop the word from escaping his mouth. The streamer attached to it was the pastel blue of truth.
“Then tell me what went wrong,” Pagan said.
“How do you know?” Smack Daddy asked. It was as if he was fighting with his words, the colors of the streamers tightly intertwining.
“Because of the way you’ve been manipulating the media,” Pagan said. “Nobody has been allowed access to Smack Records’ new star. Every press release has been handled and manipulated by you. Even the tracks you’ve released have been nothing more than reworked versions of his YouTube videos.”
