When Last Seen Alive

by Gar Anthony Haywood

  Poole snorted, said, “Yeah, well, if he did, he wasn’t sharin’ it with me. Every time I tried to ask him about the work you had him doing, he dummied up on me, started actin’ like he was in too much pain to hear the question or somethin’.”

  Gunner had to chuckle at that, the idea that he had company in giving Poole a hard time. “Like I said. The kid’s got initiative.”

  “Right. He’s a real go-getter. So let’s hear your second thing, wiseass.”

  “My second thing?”

  “Your other reason for Everson not ‘jibing’ with you. You said ‘for one thing’ a minute ago, remember?”

  “Oh. That one’s easy. My ‘second thing’ is, you’re not having this conversation with a corpse. Everson has Sweeney shoot Sly to retrieve the photographs, then leaves me around to tell you about it? Doesn’t sound very likely, Lieutenant.”

  Poole thought about this a moment, said, “You know what? After careful consideration, I don’t give a shit. If the councilman didn’t put Sweeney up to hitting Cribbs, he ought’a be able to prove it. In the meantime, Sweeney’s mine. Only reason he’s not in custody now is, he and Everson are out of town. They’re up in—”

  “Sacramento,” Gunner said. “I know, I talked to the councilman’s secretary on Friday.”

  “Then you know they’ll both be back tomorrow. When I’ll be waitin’ for ’em at the gate at LAX. You feel like ridin’ shotgun, you’re welcome to come along.”

  Gunner couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Any other time, Poole would be promising him a year in the Gulag if he didn’t take his act for a walk. But since Gunner had planned to do something of a more urgent nature with his time Monday …

  “Or were you thinkin’ about helping the boys out in Hollywood work the Covington homicide? Or is that the Selmon homicide now?”

  Before Poole had explained his reasons for leaving Gunner five phone messages in two days—two at Mickey’s, and three at Gunner’s residence—he’d demanded to know what had kept the investigator from answering any one of them until now. So Gunner had told him: Friday, he’d been meeting the Defenders of the Bloodline up close and personal, and Saturday he’d been watching the LA. County Sheriff’s Department exhume Thomas Selmon’s body.

  “Actually, Poole, I—”

  “Forget about it. They wouldn’t appreciate the assistance, I can assure you.”

  “No, probably not, but—”

  “You said you already gave ’em a statement, right? Yesterday, out at the grave site?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Then they already know what they need to know to work the case on their own, without any interference from you. Don’t they?”

  Knowing the question was one Gunner could only answer one way, Poole didn’t bother to wait for a response, just asked the investigator one more time what it was going to be: Did he want to ride shotgun when Poole picked up Sweeney and Everson or not?

  Gunner said he did.

  Monday morning, Southwest Airlines Flight #313 arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Sacramento, California, a little over five minutes early, just before 11:00 A.M., and Councilman Gil Everson was among the forty-seven passengers aboard. His bodyguard, Rafe Sweeney, however, was not.

  “Mr. Sweeney is no longer in my employ,” Everson said calmly when Poole and Gunner inquired about him. Poole looked like a boiler on the brink of exploding.

  “What the hell does that mean?” the detective asked.

  “It means I fired him. What do you think it means?” He was talking to Poole, but his eyes kept cutting over to Gunner, the actual focal point of his rising anger.

  “Fired him for what? When?”

  “In Sacramento. Saturday night. Look, what the hell is this all about?”

  They were still standing at the gate he’d emerged from, the crowded terminal buzzing with activity around them, and Everson was clearly concerned that someone watching might recognize Poole for what he was: a policeman intent on questioning him.

  “Where is Mr. Sweeney now, Councilman?” Poole asked, ignoring Everson’s question.

  “I have no idea. He checked out of our hotel immediately after I let him go. I assumed he flew back here.”

  “Shit!” Poole said.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or do I have to guess?”

  “We might want to talk about this somewhere a little more private,” Gunner said, speaking to Everson for the first time.

  “Like my office at City Hall, you mean? Not a chance, Mr. Gunner. Not until I hear what it is you gentlemen want with me.”

  Gunner looked at Poole, who glanced around quickly, said, “Looks pretty deserted over by terminal five. Come on.”

  The trio crossed over to the empty terminal, Poole leading the way, where the aircraft beyond the glass walls there stood to be the only possible witnesses to their discussion.

  “Well?” Everson asked.

  “He knows about the photographs, Councilman,” Gunner said. “He knows everything I know, and maybe a little more.”

  Everson flinched once, but only once. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’ve got a witness who says it was Sweeney who shot Mr. Gunner’s assistant last Wednesday night,” Poole said, “and we know it was you who put him up to it.”

  “What?”

  “We talked about it at the Acey Deuce Thursday, remember?” Gunner said. “The carjacker who capped my young photographer friend? That was your boy Rafe.”

  “Rafe? I don’t—”

  “Like I said. We’ve got a witness,” Poole said.

  Everson closed his mouth, let whatever he was about to say die on the vine.

  “You must have wanted those photos back pretty bad,” Poole told him.

  “That is an outrageous accusation! I had nothing to do with Rafe shooting that kid!”

  “No?”

  “No! I wanted those photos back, yes, but—” He cut himself off in mid-sentence, as if he’d been close to admitting something he’d only regret later.

  Poole turned to Gunner, said, “Here it comes.”

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I don’t think I’ll say anything further without an attorney present,” Everson said.

  Poole shrugged, so accustomed to hearing the words, they only barely disgusted him now. “Your call, Councilman,” he said.

  Gunner never actually read it, he only had its general content described to him by Poole, but the official transcript of Gil Everson’s interrogation down at Parker Center that afternoon went something like this, shortly after Poole had introduced all of the parties involved:

  POOLE: Were you aware that Rafe Sweeney committed an aggravated assault against a young man named Sly Cribbs, late last Wednesday night?

  EVERSON: No, I was not.

  POOLE: Mr. Sweeney did not commit that assault on your behalf?

  EVERSON: No, he did not.

  POOLE: You didn’t instruct him to retrieve the photographs Mr. Cribbs had taken of you and a female acquaintance earlier that evening by any means necessary?

  EVERSON: Absolutely not. No.

  POOLE: Who was that female acquaintance, Councilman?

  (a beat)

  EVERSON: No one. Just a friend.

  POOLE: A friend?

  EVERSON: Yes. A friend.

  POOLE: You don’t recall her name?

  EVERSON: I … her name is Shelby. It was Shelby.

  POOLE: Was? I don’t—

  EVERSON: I only saw her that once, and all she gave me was her first name.

  POOLE: She was a one-night stand?

  EVERSON: Yes.

  POOLE: Where did you two meet?

  EVERSON: At the hotel. That afternoon, at lunch.

  POOLE: The Marina Pacific Hotel?

  EVERSON: Yes. How—

  POOLE: We took a second statement from Mr. Cribbs about an hour ago, he told us that was where the photographs were taken. The Marina Pacific Hotel in Marina Del Rey.

 
(Everson does not respond.)

  POOLE: Are you always in the habit of picking up strange women at the hotels you visit, Councilman?

  DAVID GOLDBLUM (Everson’s attorney): I’m sorry, Detective, but that question is out of line.

  POOLE: I was merely wondering if a pattern of such behavior exists for the man, Counselor.

  GOLDBLUM: The relevance being?

  POOLE: The relevance being that his wife seemed to know over two weeks ago that he might indulge himself in this manner. It’s been that long since she hired Mr. Cribbs’s employer, a local private investigator named Aaron Gunner, to provide her with photographic evidence to the effect that your client was doing the do with a prostitute of this Shelby woman’s general description.

  (Goldblum and Everson confer for a moment.)

  EVERSON: My wife and I have been married now for almost thirteen years, Detective. She knows my likes and dislikes pretty well.

  POOLE: In other words, it’s a thing with you. Picking up prostitutes.

  EVERSON: Yes.

  POOLE: Prostitutes with a limp.

  EVERSON: A limp?

  POOLE: Your wife also suggested your friend would have a pronounced limp. Ms. Shelby doesn’t?

  (Everson does not respond.)

  POOLE: Councilman?

  EVERSON: I didn’t notice if she limped or not. I’m sorry.

  POOLE: What about drugs? Did you notice if she used any drugs while you were together? A little crack cocaine, or some heroin, perhaps?

  EVERSON: No. Certainly not.

  POOLE: And again, you never saw this lady before your meeting Wednesday.

  EVERSON: No.

  POOLE: Or after.

  EVERSON: No. Never.

  POOLE: Then you wouldn’t know where we could find her today, I guess.

  EVERSON: No, I would not.

  POOLE: Were you aware that Mr. Cribbs had photographed the two of you together that evening, Councilman?

  EVERSON: That evening? Do you mean—

  POOLE: Did you know that same night that you and the lady had been photographed together?

  EVERSON: No, I did not. I didn’t know anything about the photographs until Gunner left one of them on my car the following day. Thursday.

  POOLE: You didn’t know Cribbs had taken them the night before?

  EVERSON: No. I told you.

  POOLE: Then Mr. Sweeney discovered this on his own that night. And took it upon himself to follow Mr. Cribbs from the hotel in order to get them back.

  (Everson and Goldblum confer again.)

  GOLDBLUM: Mr. Everson can only assume that that is the case, based solely upon what you’re telling him Mr. Sweeney has done.

  POOLE: I see. Can Mr. Everson offer any explanation for Sweeney taking such drastic action so independent of his instruction, Counselor?

  GOLDBLUM: Having no prior knowledge of Mr. Sweeney’s intent, and being no more capable of reading the man’s mind than you or I? No, he cannot, Detective, I’m sorry.

  POOLE: (to Everson): But you can venture a guess, can’t you?

  EVERSON: Rafe always took his work very seriously. He probably thought he was doing me a favor.

  POOLE: By shooting a seventeen-year-old kid.

  EVERSON: By keeping him from using the photographs against me in some way.

  POOLE: Like in a divorce action, for instance?

  EVERSON: A divorce action? (shakes his head) No.

  POOLE: You weren’t afraid your wife might use the photographs against you in divorce court, Councilman?

  EVERSON: First of all, as I’ve said several times now, I didn’t know anything about the photographs. But if I had, I wouldn’t have been concerned about Connie using them against me in divorce court, no.

  POOLE: No? Why not?

  (a beat)

  EVERSON: Because we signed a prenuptial agreement before we were married. It would have done Connie no good to try and use those photographs against me.

  POOLE: A prenuptial agreement?

  EVERSON: Yes. Fifty thousand dollars is the most Connie could get if she ever filed divorce proceedings against me.

  POOLE: Fifty thousand dollars?

  EVERSON: Not a penny more, not a penny less.

  POOLE: Even if you—

  EVERSON: Committed adultery? Yes, Detective. Even then.

  (After a long beat)

  POOLE: Okay. Let’s forget the prenuptial agreement and get back to Sweeney for a moment.

  EVERSON: What about him?

  POOLE: It’s your contention that he retrieved the photographs from Mr. Cribbs on his own. Without your knowledge or consent.

  EVERSON: Yes. Apparently.

  POOLE: You’re telling me he’s that gung ho?

  EVERSON: He can be, yes.

  POOLE: Is that why you fired him? For being too gung ho?

  EVERSON: I don’t …

  POOLE: Let me rephrase the question. Did you fire Mr. Sweeney in response to his assault on Mr. Cribbs?

  EVERSON: No. I didn’t know anything about any assault on Mr. Cribbs.

  POOLE: You didn’t?

  EVERSON: No. I told you.

  POOLE: Sweeney didn’t simply overreact to your instructions to get the film in Cribbs’s camera back for you?

  EVERSON: No. I never told Rafe to go get anything back for me that night.

  POOLE: Then why was he fired, Councilman?

  (Everson does not respond.)

  POOLE: What did he do in Sacramento so terrible that you couldn’t wait two days to give him his pink slip here in Los Angeles?

  EVERSON: I’d rather not answer that. That’s a private matter between Rafe and myself.

  POOLE: Excuse me?

  EVERSON: I had reason to believe he couldn’t be trusted anymore, so I let him go. It’s that simple.

  POOLE: He couldn’t be trusted anymore? Trusted how, Mr. Everson?

  (Everson does not respond.)

  POOLE: Did you suddenly begin to doubt his abilities to protect you as a security man? Was that it?

  EVERSON: No. It wasn’t … it didn’t have anything to do with that. His professional duties.

  POOLE: Then what did it have to do with?

  (Everson does not respond.)

  POOLE: It wouldn’t have had anything to do with a woman, would it?

  EVERSON: I told you. I’d rather not say.

  POOLE: Was he shtupping your wife, maybe? Could that’ve been it?

  GOLDBLUM: All right, Detective. Enough, already. I believe the question you’ve been trying to get to here is whether or not Mr. Sweeney’s firing had anything to do with the photographs you allege he assaulted Mr. Cribbs to retrieve, and the answer is no. Let’s move on, please.

  POOLE: After your client gives me a simple yes or no answer to one question, Counselor. (To Everson:) Were Mr. Sweeney and your wife having an affair?

  (a beat)

  EVERSON: Don’t ask me. Ask her.

  POOLE: I think we’ll do that, Councilman. Thanks for the tip.

  The transcript came to an end shortly thereafter.

  Poole learned almost immediately following his interrogation of Gil Everson that Rafe Sweeney had indeed returned to Los Angeles from Sacramento Sunday afternoon. He’d been booked on an American Airlines flight that had touched down at Burbank Airport in the San Fernando Valley just a few minutes after its scheduled arrival time of 2:45. Only Sweeney had not gone home. Poole and Gunner went looking for him at his Studio City apartment and found it unoccupied, his banged-up BMW missing from its parking space.

  When they decided to ask Connie Everson if she and Sweeney had been lovers, as her husband had suggested Poole should, they discovered that she, too, was not home. But unlike Sweeney, her whereabouts were not exactly unknown.

  For a few minutes past 12:30 that afternoon, toward the end of Poole’s vigorous questioning of her husband downtown, Gil Everson’s wife had been found dead at the foot of her bed by the family housekeeper, the victim of an apparent drug overdose. A later autop
sy would reveal that she had consumed a deadly cocktail of phenobarbital and vodka over eleven hours earlier, a recipe for suicide she could have mistaken for nothing else.

  No note explaining her motives was ever found.

  fifteen

  THE LAPD WASN’T CRAZY ABOUT REACQUIRING THE Thomas Selmon missing-person-turned-homicide case, but they had taken it off the Sheriff’s Department’s hands in deference to proper protocol. The two Hollywood Division detectives assigned to the case were named Moreno and Loiacano. Gunner had spoken to them both out on San Francisquito Canyon Road late Saturday afternoon. He didn’t know Moreno, but he and Loiacano had met once before, when Loiacano’s partner had been a far less likable man than Moreno appeared to be. Perhaps this was why Loiacano took the time to call Gunner at Mickey’s Monday afternoon to leave him a brief message.

  “He said he just thought you’d like to know,” Mickey said when Gunner used the phone on Matt Poole’s desk to check in. “Barber Jack’s on the loose. And so is somebody named Byron Scales.”

  “What?”

  “He said they went out to the hospital for Jack yesterday morning and he wasn’t there. He checked himself out Saturday night without anybody knowing, they don’t know where he is.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. And when they went to get this guy Scales, whoever he is, they found his apartment cleaned out. He’s missin’, too.”

  Gunner ran a hand across the top of his scalp, said, “Great. Just great.”

  “Scales I don’t know about, but Jack I know is trouble. I hope the fool’s smart enough to know, he comes over here lookin’ for me, I’m gonna take my bat and bust his fuckin’ head open first, ask him if he’d like a little cream in his coffee later.”

  “If he shows up over there, Mickey, it won’t be to see you,” Gunner said. “But do me a favor: Bust his shit open anyway, will you? Just to give me one less thing to worry about for a while?”

  “Wish I could tell you that’s all the bad news I’ve got for you, man, but there’s one more thing.”

  “Damn.”

  “You also had a couple of visitors this mornin’. One white and one black, both of ’em wearin’ suits and ties. I’ll let you guess what company they work for.”

  “Don’t tell me they were Feds.”

  “They left their business cards. I’m lookin’ at ’em now. ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation,’ agents Leffman and Smith. Smith was the black one, he did all the talkin’.”