by John J. Lamb
The Hall of Justice was on Bryant Street. When we arrived, Colin turned and drove down a driveway marked “Police Vehicles Only.” I continued around the complex and parked in the lot for the general public. We walked toward the large building that had been my professional home during the fifteen years I’d worked homicide. I was relieved to see that, at least outside, things still looked pretty much the same. The one sad exception was the new names engraved on the granite shrine dedicated to SFPD officers slain in the line of duty. I paused to read the fresh entries, acutely aware that if the guy who’d shot me had taken a second to really aim, my name might have been included on that roster of death. Ash knew what I was thinking. She took my hand and squeezed it.
Envisioning another name carved on the wall, I glanced at Heather. “You didn’t wear your vest, like I asked.”
“I couldn’t. Not dressed like this,” said Heather.
“Should I tell the department to put that as an epitaph under your name?”
She took my hand. “Daddy, a man I admire very much told me that cops are paid to take risks.”
“He wasn’t talking about his daughter . . . even if she is a damn good cop.”
We left the shrine and approached the entrance to the Hall of Justice. Near the doors, we passed a sign that told you in five different languages that you had to go through a metal detector and that it was a bad idea to try and bring a gun inside. We went into the building and Heather got Ash and me visitor ID tags. Then we rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, where Gregg, Aafedt, and Colin were waiting for us in the Homicide Bureau.
The office was pretty much as I remembered it—right down to the buzzing overhead fluorescent lights and the ghostly scent of the thousands of cigarettes that had been smoked there before the building was declared smoke-free. That’s what made it so weird. Gregg’s work area was still decorated with racing memorabilia and photos of him and Susie at the Indianapolis Speedway. My work space hadn’t changed much either. Aafedt had replaced the photos of Ash and me with pictures of him and his wife, but the police shoulder patch collection I’d started and later abandoned was still on the wall behind my desk. It became even more déjà vu-ish when Ash took a seat in the same chair she used to sit in when she’d occasionally came to the office to join me for lunch.
Going to my old desk, I asked Aafedt, “You don’t mind?”
“Make yourself at home. You broke that chair in.”
“Who says you can’t go home again?” I asked, sitting down.
“Yeah, and it’s nice to see you managed to get here without having to request the SWAT Team,” said Gregg. He turned to Colin and Heather. “And if I heard correctly over the phone, congratulations are in order. When’s the date?”
Heather looked uncomfortable. “Thanks, but no offense, Uncle Gregg; we’re trying to keep our relationship quiet for now.”
Heather and Colin had a good reason for wanting to keep their relationship secret for the time being. Like most police agencies across the country, SFPD strongly discouraged married and cohabitating couples from working as street partners.
I said, “My bust. I should have kept my mouth shut . . . not that I’ve ever had to say that before.”
Gregg gave me a look of bug-eyed astonishment. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Don’t worry, Heather, I never heard anything.”
Aafedt said, “Me, either. But you’ll have to excuse Colin and me for a second. We’ve got Bronsey in an interview room and we may have to hold him down so that a tech can collect DNA samples from him.”
“Need some help?” asked Heather.
“The more the merrier,” said Aafedt.
“Hang on,” said Gregg as he pulled an eight-by-ten sheet of photo paper from a folder. “If he’s cooperative, show him the photo lineup and see if he can pick Vandenbosch out.”
As the three detectives went down the hall, Gregg said, “You’ll be pleased to learn that your information on the victim was correct. Latent prints called us just before you got here to confirm they matched our dead guy’s prints to Uhlander’s knowns.”
“Here’s something else that might help.” I pulled Bronsey’s business card from my shirt pocket and gave it to Gregg. “The number on the back is what Bronsey called to contact Kyle.”
“Good, because it was an utter waste of time getting the warrant to activate the GPS on Kyle’s cell phone. It hasn’t been turned on since Wednesday.”
“And Bronsey was given that number on Thursday.”
“We’ll call this one from the cold line in a little while and see if someone is interested in going on a trip.”
He was referring to a special phone line in the Homicide Bureau. Crooks and reluctant witnesses tend not to answer the phone if the screen says the call is coming from a blocked ID or, even worse, SFPD. However, they do respond at least once to calls from H&B Tours Inc. The initials stood for Homicide Bureau and the investigators are in the travel business, after a fashion. Over the years they’ve sent thousands of folks to places all over California, such as Folsom, Pelican Bay, and San Quentin.
“What about Kyle’s Toyota?” I asked.
“We got the license plate from DMV and put out a BOL to patrol, telling them about the million-dollar warrant. We haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“You might want to contact dispatch right now to let them know he should be considered armed and dangerous.”
Gregg grabbed the phone and called the dispatch center with the new information. When he was done, he tossed me a manila evidence envelope and said, “Okay, so what did Bronsey tell you?”
I looked down at the envelope. “What’s this for?”
“Is your wrist broken? If you’re so committed to helping us investigate this murder, you can also fill out the evidence paperwork for the business card.”
“But I only want to do the fun stuff.”
“Just like at home,” Ash said sotto voce.
As I filled in the boxes on the evidence envelope, I brought Gregg up to date on what Bronsey had told us.
I hadn’t gotten very far into the story when Gregg held up his hand for me to halt. “Some guy from a toy company threatened to kill Bronsey?”
“We’re not dealing with elves in Santa’s workshop. Like I said before, toys are a multibillion-dollar international industry.”
“Any chance we can find out which company?”
“Not unless the phone at the Paladin records local outgoing calls. Even then, I’ll bet the phone company’s records will show that the number was issued to an imaginary person—”
“—who paid for his installation and first month’s service with a forged check.”
“You’ve heard this story before.”
Later, Gregg interrupted again. “Kyle paid Bronsey to rob and terrorize his own mother? What is this guy? The brother of The Bad Seed?”
“You’re making him sound like such a monster,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm. “Kyle made it clear that he didn’t want Merv to actually injure her.”
“Well, then I guess that makes it all okay.”
By the time I’d gotten to Bronsey’s version of the robbery, Heather and the other detectives had returned to the office. They looked unflustered, so I supposed that meant Bronsey had surrendered to the inevitable and provided the DNA samples.
Returning the photo lineup to Gregg, Aafedt said, “Bronsey made a positive ID on Vandenbosch.”
I resumed my story, and when I got to the part about Bronsey accidentally shooting Uhlander in the back, Gregg muttered, “Nice shooting, Tex.”
“His story explains the scene,” Aafedt said. “Uhlander gets hit in the back, goes down, and our unidentified guy wearing the mask finishes him off with the twenty-two.”
“You recovered a projectile from his head?” I asked.
“Yeah. It wasn’t too dinged up, so we’ll probably be able to match it to a gun . . . if we ever find the weapon.”
“And there were no forty-five slugs
recovered from the scene.”
“Nope. Just nine-mils and twenty-twos.”
“So, Kyle never fired a round. That may give us some leverage.”
Gregg shook his head in amusement. “Uh oh. He’s got that look on his face again.”
“Brad, honey, we are done for the day. We are going to brunch with Heather and Colin.” Ash sounded like a judge handing down a stiff jail sentence.
Heather gave Ash an embarrassed smile. “Actually, we can’t, Mom. Colin and I have to cut paper on Merv’s arrest. We’re going to be here for hours.”
After twenty-seven years of marriage, Ash and I can carry on whole conversations without saying a word. Her expression clearly said: This is your fault. I replied with a tranquil look that asked: And whose idea was it to go into that freaking dive and interview Bronsey? She responded with a puckish smile that said: I’ve quite forgotten. I closed our little telepathic chat with: Funny how that famous steel-trap memory of yours has conveniently failed.
Turning to Gregg, I asked, “So, what are you going to charge Bronsey with?”
He replied, “Until we have some other version of the shooting, I think we’re going to book him for attempted One-Eighty-Seven. For all we know, the shooting wasn’t an accident. Bronsey and Uhlander might have gotten into an argument over the bear.”
“Good thinking.”
“We’ll also charge him with receiving stolen property, conspiracy, and the attempted kidnapping of Ash. That ought to be enough to keep him in jail at least until he’s arraigned.”
“And the more you stack up the charges, the greater the chance that Bronsey will decide to cut a deal and become a helpful witness.”
“I prefer to think of it as a way of encouraging Merv to do the right thing,” Gregg said piously.
“Uh-huh.” I said, “Okay, since we can’t have brunch at the Mark Hopkins, who’s up for carne asada burritos? I’ll buy, if someone wants to fly.”
Colin and Heather volunteered to make the food run and our daughter wrote down our orders. Since it would be difficult to transport the food on a motorcycle, Aafedt tossed Colin the keys to his unmarked car. I gave Heather the cash and the affianced couple headed for the elevator.
Gregg asked, “So, you were saying something about leverage.”
I tilted the chair back and put my hands behind my head. “You and I both know that it’s academic whether or not Vandenbosch pulled the trigger.”
“He’s still a principal in a murder committed during the commission of a robbery.”
“Exactly. But Kyle’s mom doesn’t know that. If we talk to her again, we might be able to paint him as an accessory who’s in a world of trouble because of his trigger-happy partner.”
“Who’s we?” Ash asked.
“You and me,” I replied. “She’s paranoid about the cops, but she might respond to us—or you. You’re both teddy bear artists.”
“And she might listen if I explain to her that Kyle was responsible for the harassment and robbery.” Ash thought aloud.
“God help us. Now they’ve both got that look on their faces,” said Gregg.
Twelve
Later, as we ate our burritos, I said to Gregg, “Hey, you never told me what Lieutenant Garza’s reaction was to our little expedition.”
Gregg swallowed and replied, “She said, and I quote: ‘As long as we’re going to have to bring him back for court anyway, make him an official consultant and work him like a dog.’ ”
“I can live with that, if it’s our dog she’s talking about. By the way, where is Garza?”
“On her way to Fresno.”
“Now, there’s a garden spot, especially in September.” With its oppressive heat, smog, and humidity from agricultural irrigation, Fresno, in the Central Valley, is so close to Hell that you can see Lucifer’s mailbox if you stand on a reasonably tall ladder.
Gregg nodded. “She isn’t going there by choice. She’s a POST instructor now and she’s scheduled to teach a class tomorrow in critical incident management.”
I wasn’t surprised that, along with her duties as a police lieutenant, Garza was also a lecturer for the California Peace Officer’s Commission on Standards and Training. She was brilliant, hardworking, and self-motivated. More importantly, she possessed the street credentials needed to instruct other cops, who are always on the lookout to torment a back-office pogue teaching a subject he or she has only read about. In fact, I expected that before another ten years passed, I’d get a phone call from Gregg telling me Bobbie Jo had been hired as the chief of police for a Bay Area city. For that matter, someday she might even end up as the chief of SFPD.
Ash said, “Gregg, as long as you’re going to use us as consultants, maybe I could examine the bear once we’re done with lunch.”
“Sorry, but I’ve already logged it into evidence and taken it to the crime lab. I want the cyber criminalist to take a good long look at him first.”
“Very wise,” I said. “Bronsey told us that Kyle turned Patrick on just before the robbery. The bear obviously has some memory capacity. If we’re lucky it might still have a digital recording of Kyle’s voice.”
“When are you flying back to Virginia?” Gregg asked.
“Early Wednesday morning,” said Ash.
“If the lab guys finish with Patrick before then, I’d be happy for you to look at him and tell me whatever you can.”
Gregg’s desk phone trilled and he grabbed it. Apparently, he was expecting a call but this wasn’t it, because he began rolling his eyes. He concluded the call by thanking “Deneb” and telling her that he’d be sure to run down the lead right away. Meanwhile, Aafedt had begun to laugh.
“Not who you wanted it to be?” I asked.
“No, that was Lady Deneb. I think her real name is Phyllis and she really wants to be a psychic detective like on TV. Anyway, she was scrying and—”
“Scrying?”
“That’s apparently the word you use to describe gazing into a crystal ball and pretending you see something,” said Gregg. “And I’m happy to announce that Lady Deneb has solved the case for us. She called to let me know that the shooting victim from the Paladin is actually a clone that escaped from the secret government labs in Fort Ord.”
Ash stopped chewing and stared at Gregg.
“A clone. God, I miss this place,” I said in a homesick voice.
“But there’s more. The Tri-Lateral Commission and the Illuminati hired an assassin to kill the clone, because they don’t want anyone to see how he was bioengineered by the aliens.”
“Huh. His insides looked pretty normal to me,” Aafedt said thoughtfully and then took a big bite of burrito.
I said, “And aliens? I thought the guy was produced at Fort Ord.”
“He was, but the aliens and army are working together. And . . .” Gregg paused for dramatic effect. “She told me to look for a . . . silver car.”
“Well, that’s helpful. There are probably only a hundred thousand of them in this city alone.”
“And we saw a silver car on the way back from lunch.” Colin’s voice was full of faux dread.
“Yeah, and I hope you’re happy.” Heather gave her fiancé a very realistic look of exasperation. Then she turned to us. “I told Colin we should stop that silver car, because it had a bumper sticker on it that read MY LITTLE ILLUMINATI ASSASSIN WAS AN HONOR STUDENT. But no, he just blew me off.”
Colin hung his head, pretending to be ashamed. I joined in the laughter, trying not to let the sudden ache of loss affect me. There were so many things I missed about being a homicide detective. The investigative work was fascinating, intellectually demanding, and exciting. But this was something else I yearned for: the irreverent cop humor, greasy and delicious Mexican food eaten at desks, and the warm atmosphere of camaraderie.
I took a sip of horchata, the chilled Mexican cinnamon-and-rice milk drink, to make the tiny lump in my throat go away, before asking, “So, who were you hoping was actually on the phone?”
“Burgess Fleet Leasing. We faxed them a search warrant a little while ago to get the information on who has that Dodge Avenger.”
“But they’re taking their sweet time getting back to us,” Aafedt added.
Gregg finished his burrito, picked up the phone receiver, and pressed for a different outside line than the one he ordinarily used. “As long as we’ve got a moment, I’ll try that cell number you gave me.”
We sat quietly as he pressed the number and waited for an answer. Then Gregg tilted his head and listened.
He hung up a second later and said, “It rolled right over to voice mail.”
“So, Kyle’s either on the phone or the thing has been turned off,” said Aafedt.
“My money is on off, and probably in the bay.” I glanced at my watch. “I guess we’d better be heading over to Vandenbosch’s mom’s house. What are you guys going to do while we’re at Lauren’s?”
Gregg pulled some legal paperwork from a file. “We’re heading down to Redwood City to search his apartment. Maybe we’ll find something that the Lycaon security guys missed.”
I looked at Ash. “Considering how our last interview ended, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to just show up on Lauren’s doorstep. How would you like to call her home number and test the waters?”
“I’d be happy to.”
However, before we could call, Gregg’s phone trilled. The conversation was succinct and culminated with Gregg telling the caller that he’d pick up the paperwork tomorrow morning.
Hanging up, he said, “Our investigation just got murkier. That was Burgess Leasing and they say that the Dodge Avenger is part of the car fleet they lease to Lycaon. Unfortunately, they can’t tell us who it was assigned to.”
“I don’t need Lady Deneb’s freaking crystal ball to tell you it’s someone from their security department,” I said.
“This was the car parked down the block from the motel?” Ash asked.
Heather said, “That’s right, Mom. We recovered digital video that shows someone running to the car and jumping inside right after the shooting.”
