11th hour wmc-11

by James Patterson

  Cat was now beginning her lectures on the value of rest, on how I could burn out, on how my workload wasn’t good for the baby. I couldn’t argue with her. I just had to take it.

  Then a call-waiting signal beeped in my ear. I checked the caller ID, and if I hadn’t been trying to get away from my sister, I never would have taken the call from Jason Blayney.

  I told Cat I had an urgent call, said good-bye, and then put on a frosty voice for the crime reporter from the San Francisco Post.

  Chapter 38

  “It’s late, Mr. Blayney. And listen, don’t call me again. The person you want to talk to is Bec Rollins in Media Relations. She’ll be happy to speak with you. Use my name.”

  Blayney ignored me, pressed on. “We got off to a bad start, Sergeant, and I know it was my fault. I get a little carried away. Does that ever happen to you?”

  “Does what ever happen to me?”

  “Do you ever get a little carried away when you’re really into a case? In my situation, when I’m on a story, I want to live it, breathe it, dream it.”

  Blayney was trying to bait me into saying Yes, I sometimes get carried away. Did he think I was stupid?

  “I understand that sometimes reporters who are living, breathing, and dreaming their stories get carried away. They should take care that what they consider enthusiasm isn’t actually stalking or assault.”

  Blayney laughed. “Okay, okay, you win, Sergeant. But I still have an offer for you.”

  “Oh, really.”

  I was tired. Unlike the dealers who’d died tonight, I had inhaled smoke. And unlike Chuck Hanni, I’d gotten soot all over me. I looked charred. I felt charred.

  “Good night, Mr. Blayney.”

  “Listen, I don’t think you’ll go to hell if you call me Jason. And here’s my offer.”

  I sighed loudly.

  “Have lunch with me. I want to tell you what I’m trying to do at the Post. I think you’ll see that I’m not a bad guy. I’m on your side. I could be even more on your side if we work together.”

  I laughed at him. It was a genuine laugh. The guy was actually funny. I recognized a journalist’s trick of the trade: make friends with your subject and gain trust — then betray that trust.

  “I want to give you my number,” he said. “I sleep with my phone next to my pillow.”

  I said, “Who doesn’t?”

  “I never miss a call.”

  “Sweet dreams,” I said. I heard him calling my name as I moved the receiver toward the hook.

  I said, “What is it?”

  “Just take my number, okay? You may change your mind about talking to me.”

  I said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” pretending to write down his number, then I hung up. I was dying for a Corona, but instead I had a big glass of full-fat milk, got into bed with Martha, and put my feet up on some pillows.

  Martha put her head on my belly, about where I thought the baby’s little butt might be. I talked to them both for a few minutes, laughed at myself, and then turned on the news.

  I fell asleep with all the lights on. I hadn’t set the alarm. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth. And then came the call from the crime lab, from Charlie Clapper, who was pulling a double, maybe a triple shift.

  Clapper said, “We found a gun inside the car. Thought you’d want to be the first to know.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  “A twenty-two. The number had been filed off, but we recovered it with acid and traced it. We already know all about that gun.”

  “It was one of the guns stolen from our evidence room.”

  “Well, you took all the fun out of that,” said Clapper.

  “Brady is going to want to know.”

  “He’s next on my call list.”

  I thanked Charlie, said good night.

  I stared at the ceiling until six, then got dressed and took Martha for a run. The killer Jason Blayney had nicknamed Revenge had taken out seven people, one of them an undercover narc.

  Revenge was on a spree, and he was stepping up his timeline, doing multiple homicides. He was growing into his job as an executioner and he was becoming fearless.

  These days, I couldn’t walk through the Hall of Justice without looking at every cop and wondering, Did you do it? Are you the one who’s gone rogue? I had the sense that I knew Revenge, that he was a regular cop, hiding in plain sight.

  Chapter 39

  At 8:00 A.M. we were in an unmarked Chevy Malibu, Conklin at the wheel.

  “I slept on the couch again last night,” he told me. “If this keeps up, I’ve got to upgrade to a king-size couch. Or cut my feet off.”

  “Cindy’s upset, you’re saying?”

  “She said it was because I stunk and whatnot, but it wasn’t the smoke in my hair, Linds. She’s pissed.”

  “I know. I know. What should we do? Tell her we’re looking for a cop who’s taking out drug dealers? Then she’ll get the scoop, and we’ll be whistling and wearing white gloves directing traffic.”

  Conklin laughed. “That’s not funny.”

  “She’ll get over this.”

  “When?”

  “Sorry I can’t do more to help your love life,” I said. “She’s mad at me too, you know.”

  Conklin laughed again, said, “Yeah, but you’re sleeping in your bed, am I right?”

  He made the turn onto the wide and beautiful stretch of Vallejo Street, now barricaded and three reporters deep on the sidewalks. I saw the local guys as well as some press displaying decals of various countries’ flags on their satellite vans.

  There was nothing like severed heads at the home of a movie star who’d once been tried for murder to bring out inquiring minds from all nations.

  I was recognized and a small mob stampeded toward our car even as a uniformed cop pivoted a sawhorse to let the car through.

  “There’s your friend,” Conklin said to me, indicating the young guy at the front of the barricade who was taking pictures and looking very pleased with life. It seemed like Jason Blayney didn’t ever have bad days.

  “Yeah. My friend.” I snorted. “Wants to have lunch with me.”

  “You going to do it?”

  “Be serious.”

  We drove up to a space in front of the mansion, left the car under the protection of the men and women of the SFPD, then went through the gate.

  Ricky Perez, Harry Chandler’s gardener, was sitting on the front steps of the Ellsworth house waiting for us. He was in his twenties, and his massive upper-body musculature showed under his sweatshirt and plaid flannel jacket.

  He also had a great smile.

  This kid was in charge of the trophy garden. He was too young to have been caretaking the Ellsworth garden when the heads were first buried there. But I hoped he could lead us to a killer with the sensibility of a department-store window dresser and the bloodlust of Jeffrey Dahmer.

  Chapter 40

  I introduced myself and my partner to Ricardo “Ricky” Perez, then asked him what he knew about the heads that had been presented on the back patio of the house, garnished with chrysanthemums.

  Perez said, “All I know is what I read and what Janet Worley told me. She grilled me, for God’s sake. You ought to consider hiring her for your rubber-hose-and-third-degree department.”

  He looked for a laugh, didn’t get one. He appeared surprised. Big, good-looking kid, worked for a movie star. He was probably used to adoration and he seemed to like attention.

  I asked Perez where he’d been over the last week, and he had no trouble remembering. He’d been out with three different girls over the weekend and had slept in with Miss Early Monday Morning in his flat.

  He was awoken by a call from Janet Worley, who’d filled him in on the shocking events. According to Perez, the whole story was from “the planet Weird, man,” and he had no idea how these heads could have been buried right under his feet without him knowing it.

  He was either genuinely perplexed or a pathological liar. I asked, “When w
as the last time you were in the back garden?”

  “Last Friday. I work Tuesdays and Fridays. There were absolutely no heads lying around when I weeded the flower beds. And I didn’t see any sign of digging. Nothing. At all. When do you think I can get in there and get the place cleaned up?”

  “You work exclusively for Mr. Chandler?”

  “No, but he’s my main job.”

  The three of us took a stroll along the outer path of the garden. The tape was still up, and so was the main tent just off the patio. The piles of dirt were casting shadows over the pachysandra.

  The kid told us that he’d had this job for only three years, but he was attached to the place. He got agitated when he saw what the forensics team had done to the garden.

  “Look at this mess. Just look. I’m pretty freaked out, if you want to know the truth. Whoever did this knows this garden. He could be someone I know.”

  I said, “Who, Ricky? Who do you know who could have done this?”

  “Look, I want to tell you something, but not officially.”

  “Okay,” Conklin said, playing along.

  “Nigel Worley doesn’t like Mr. Chandler. And I know why, because Janet confided in me. She had a thing with Mr. Chandler when the Worleys first moved in, like ten years ago.”

  “A ‘thing’?” Conklin said.

  “Janet told me it was just a fling and that she didn’t hold that against Mr. Chandler. She was married. He was married. It went on for a couple of months.

  “She said that she still loves him in a funny way.”

  “That’s the word she used? Funny?”

  “She said odd. Do I think that she killed people and dug up their heads? Honestly, I don’t see it.”

  “And Nigel?”

  “Nigel has a temper and he’s not subtle. If he was going to kill someone, he would just freakin’ kill him. And I think first up would have been Mr. Chandler.”

  Perez showed us the gate that opened onto a narrow concrete walkway on Ellsworth Place and he showed us the lock for the gate. He said that he had the only key.

  It was a simple lock, could have been picked, but there was no evidence to show that it had been tampered with.

  I took out the sketch of Jane Doe.

  “Do you know this woman?”

  Perez took the drawing, looked at it for a long few seconds.

  “Is she one of the victims?”

  “Yes.”

  “Her head was cut off?”

  “Do you recognize her?”

  “She looks familiar, but I don’t know her. It’s like, maybe I saw her in a coffee shop or something like that.”

  He handed the drawing back to me, then said, “You know who you should talk to? Tom Oliver, Mr. Chandler’s driver. He’s been with Mr. Chandler for about twenty years. He’s gonna be your expert on Harry Chandler. And maybe he’ll recognize this woman.”

  Chapter 41

  I pressed the bell marked T. L. OLIVER at number 4, one of the four identical six-story brick houses on Ellsworth Place that bounded the mansion on its west side.

  “Mr. Oliver?” Conklin said into the intercom. “This is the police.”

  T. Lawrence Oliver buzzed us in and we climbed the flights of stairs up to the top floor and found Harry Chandler’s driver waiting for us at his front door.

  He was forty-something, white, looked like he could bench-press three hundred pounds. He wore jeans and a print shirt, earring in his left ear, which in the nineties would have meant he was straight. Now it only meant that he liked earrings.

  We took seats in the run-down apartment with no view of the back garden, and Conklin started asking the questions. Oliver answered, but he was edgy. He fidgeted with a watch; it looked like a gold Rolex.

  “I take time off when Mr. Harry is away,” he told us. “So I dropped him and Kaye off at the boat on Thursday afternoon, then I drove to Vegas. I was gone the whole weekend.”

  “Where’d you stay?” Conklin asked.

  “The Mandalay Bay. I played a lot of blackjack. I didn’t win and I didn’t lose, but I did get lucky,” he said.

  “Write down the name of that lucky person for me, will you?” Conklin said.

  “Aw, jeez. Her name was Judy Lemon or Lennon, something like that. She’s a cocktail waitress at the casino. Oh. Wait. I have her phone number.”

  He wrote down the number for Conklin, then said, “Anything else?”

  “Relax, Mr. Oliver. We’ve got a lot of questions.”

  “Can I get you a beer? Mind if I have one?”

  Oliver was drinking at nine in the morning. What did he know? What had he done? He dragged a kitchen chair into the living room, and Conklin and I took turns throwing questions at him.

  He told us that he had worked for Chandler since long before the trial. While Chandler was in the system, Oliver had taken a job in LA driving for a friend of Chandler, a TV producer. He’d come back to the Ellsworth compound when Chandler was acquitted.

  He said he knew nothing about the severed heads except that it was creepy, and his vote for Most Likely to Commit Murder was Nigel Worley, although he couldn’t come up with a motive.

  He also didn’t recognize our Jane Doe.

  Oliver said good things about Chandler, how generous he was, how there was no way the movie star had ever killed anyone. He said Chandler’s only vices were women and nice things.

  “He gave me this watch when he got tired of it,” Oliver said, showing off the seven-thousand-dollar Rolex.

  I didn’t like Oliver, but was he a killer? I told him we’d be checking out his alibi and I gave him my card. He wanted us to leave so badly that I pushed back one more time.

  “Mr. Oliver, if you had anything to do with this crime, you should tell us now, before it goes any further. My partner and I can help you. We can say that you came to us voluntarily.”

  “No, no. I haven’t done anything like that. I came back from Vegas and saw all the cop cars outside the main house and thought, Aw, shit.

  “Listen, I drove Mr. Chandler’s Bentley to Vegas. I’m not allowed to. I don’t want to get fired. Please don’t tell him. Check it out with the garage at the hotel. There’s a time-stamped record of the Bentley going in and out all weekend.”

  I told Oliver we’d check out his story and that I wasn’t making any promises about what I would say to Chandler. I told him that if he had any thoughts about what happened inside the walled garden to call me any time.

  “I have a thought right now. Do you know LaMetta Wynn?”

  Chapter 42

  Lametta Wynn was Harry Chandler’s personal assistant. She lived in a small Victorian house in Golden Gate Heights, a residential neighborhood where everyone had his or her own patch of lawn and a porch overlooking the street.

  Ms. Wynn was fifty or so, white, a fading redhead with sharp, pale eyes.

  She asked us to come in, and we sat down in her living room. There were watercolor landscapes on the wall and a shotgun in a rack over the sofa. She answered our questions about her whereabouts, saying that she’d been alone all weekend.

  “I got some sleep, caught up on e-mail, and was in touch with Harry Chandler. You know, he pays me a lot. He expects me to answer the phone when he calls.”

  “Did he call you over the weekend?”

  “In fact, he did. He was in Monterey. Wanted to get the names of some restaurants where he could take Kaye.”

  “I understand that Mr. Chandler has an active social life.”

  “I’m not going to tell you the names of Harry’s old girlfriends,” Wynn said. “Take it from me, there have been a lot of women, but Harry will be happy to give you names and dates, if you just ask him. I want to help you if I can. But I don’t know who could have done this — whatever this is.”

  “All of the heads that were exhumed from the garden were female,” I said.

  LaMetta Wynn sat back in her seat. She seemed to be thinking about that, then she said, “You’re the homicide detectives, so help
me to understand. If Harry Chandler is the killer, why would he bury his victims’ heads in his own backyard?”

  “I guess you’re assuming that killers are logical,” I said. I pulled out the drawing of Jane Doe, a drawing that was getting rumpled from handling.

  Wynn got a glimpse, then seized the drawing from my hand.

  “I know her,” she said. “I know this woman. Is she one of the people who was killed?”

  “Yes. Who is she?”

  “Her name is Marilyn. Varick, I think. She lives on the streets. Occasionally she sleeps in a doorway.

  “I’ve given her spare change. She comes from Oregon,” said LaMetta Wynn. “I didn’t get into any long conversations with her. I mostly brought her soup.”

  “Did Harry Chandler know her?”

  “Impossible. He couldn’t have. And I want to be perfectly clear. I know Harry Chandler well. He isn’t a violent man. He’s a scamp, but, apart from breaking hearts, he’d never hurt anyone.”

  Chapter 43

  Conklin and I took the fifteen-minute drive to the yacht club. I wanted my partner’s opinion of Harry Chandler. And I wanted to see Chandler’s face when I showed him the drawing of the girl whose head had been unearthed from his garden.

  As before, Chandler was sitting in a deck chair at the foot of his gangway when we arrived. He had a big smile for me, shook Conklin’s hand, and said, “I hope you have some news for me.”

  “We do, Mr. Chandler.”

  “Come aboard,” he said.

  I think Conklin’s jaw dropped a little bit when Chandler showed us to the sitting room on the aft deck. I guess my jaw had dropped the same way when I saw it the day before.

  I said, “Mr. Chandler, the remains found in your garden were all examined, and none of them are a match to Cecily Chandler.”

  “Oh, thank you, Sergeant,” he said, his expression full of relief. “I don’t think I was ready to hear that she’d been buried in the backyard all these years.”