The prostitutes ball ss-10

by Stephen Cannell

  "Stop writing and listen to me," I insisted.

  He tapped his foot impatiently. "I'm listening, but can I have my book back?"

  I gave it to him, then posed a question.

  "If Vulcuna checked the gun out of the prop room and brought it home on Christmas Eve, and if the L. A. homicide cops found him dead with a 7.65 bullet shot through his head upstairs, then how come we found the 7.65 slug in the backyard by the trash shed? It should be in a wall upstairs in the master bedroom."

  "I don't know. Maybe he test-fired the gun in the backyard first," Hitch said. "I can tell you this much, it isn't simple. Which means Dahlias gonna freak with all her KISS bullshit. We say anything about this, she's gonna try and get our bosses to transfer us to a traffic detail."

  "I know. Too much collateral info for her Sladky jury."

  "So we can't tell her, right?" Hitch continued. "We do what she wants, go up to Skyline right now, get the evidence techs working on a grid and graph, let them wave the little metal detector 'til there's no more joy in Mudville. While they do that, we work on this."

  "Except what are we working on?" I said. "Is this somehow still part of the Sladky triple or are we now just working on Thomas Vulcuna's double murder / suicide, which was closed by our own department over twenty-five years ago and doesn't even have a case number?"

  "1 don't know," he said. "But you gotta admit, this is as intriguing as hell." He was excited; his foot was tapping maniacally. "By the way, this is exactly what happened on Mosquito. Things kept turning up, making the story better and better."

  "You're saying we got two separate crimes here, but they're somehow connected? They happened twenty-eight years apart, both are triple killings, both occurred within days of Christmas, at the exact same location. In both instances, the guy who owns the house where the murders took place also owns the same Hollywood production studio, except because of the time span they're completely different guys and one wasn't even born when the first crime happened? I'm gagging here, Hitch."

  "I don't know the answer, but it's certainly provocative."

  "We need to get inside that house," I said, running the problem in my mind. "Except nobody's gonna write us a warrant. Vulcuna was solved years ago. That case is down. No need for further investigation. With the video we found of Sladky shooting up the party, that case is also down. Since both cases are solved, we got no PC to investigate that mansion. Sheedy will fight a search warrant saying the crime didn't occur inside the house and our spineless political hack DA will fold like a deck chair. So if we want to go in there we'll have to do it without a warrant."

  "Right. Good one. Kiss your ass good-bye."

  "I think we need to take a vow of silence," I said. "We pledge to keep this between us. Nobody knows. Not Jeb. Nobody. At least not until we figure out how we want to play it."

  "That also include your wife?" he asked.

  I didn't like keeping things from Alexa but Hitchens was standing there, his body language going more and more rigid by the moment, so I finally nodded.

  Then his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his holster and answered. "Yeah, sure… you bet." He hung up and put it away.

  "Sadly, I won't be able to join you for the fabulous Dahlia dig up on Skyline Drive, which we've scheduled for this afternoon. That was the skipper. IA wants me over at the Bradbury Building ASAP for my shooting review board. I'm counting on you to handle my end of this search, bro. I want you to find every last piece of missing evidence for our exalted prosecutor. I wish I could be there cause I live for this shit, but sadly I'm needed elsewhere."

  He shot me a peace sign, got in the Porsche and powered off, leaving me standing in the street.

  Chapter 25

  The week after Christmas is when all LAPD department heads have to prepare the year's budget review. They have to work up an annual cost-of-operation estimate for the coming twelve months and tender it to the chief, who then assembles the overall department budget and submits it to the mayor's office the first week of January.

  Alexa is always completely buried by this fiscal process so I knew she would most likely be working until well past midnight.

  I was thinking about what I would do for dinner as I faced six angry CSIs up on Skyline Drive, trying not to communicate my own displeasure about being forced to be here.

  It didn't seem to be working because after I told them what Dahlia Wilkes wanted, they were glaring at me like I'd just delivered the wrong pizza.

  "Is she kidding? We went through this place very carefully/' Lyn Wei, the lead CSI, said. She was a twenty-nine-year-old Asian woman with a round face that wasn't helped by her severe helmet-shaped hairstyle.

  "I don't think she was kidding," I told them. "Look, it never hurts to be thorough. I know you guys started with an inward spiral search pattern when you first got up here, then yesterday did a grid and graph, so why don't we try a parallel search today?"

  Lyn Wei wrinkled her nose. "Did you and Hitchens do something to piss her off?"

  "Miss Wilkes is a fine prosecutor," I said. "She tends to be a little obsessive on evidentiary and procedural stuff but let's bear in mind the terrific results she gets."

  While they went to work, I sat on a pool chaise and looked at the big, empty house.

  I thought about a distraught Thomas Vulcuna coming home all those years ago with that old prop Luger in his briefcase. Maybe coming out here half drunk to test-fire it, his hands shaking as he held a pillow on the barrel so he wouldn't alert his family inside. Then getting into an argument with his daughter, Vicki, killing her and his wife with a ball-peen hammer. Ugh.

  A lot about that didn't track.

  If he had the Luger, why use a hammer? I guess if it wasn't in the same room with him when he snapped and started swinging, you could find a way to get there. But still, I was suspicious of it.

  Then after committing those ghastly murders he goes upstairs to the master bedroom where he opens The Divine Comedy to an underlined passage about death before he shoots himself.

  I didn't like the Divine Comedy suicide note at all. I've been working homicide and suicide cases for a long time. Never seen that one before. People who write suicide notes are usually communicating important last thoughts to someone. Its something you do in your own words, not with a passage out of a book.

  I also wondered if Thomas Vulcuna had removed his shoes before shooting himself. I'd noticed that on a large majority of suicides I'd worked, the victim had removed his or her shoes before doing the deed. It happened something like seventy percent of the time.

  Td asked a psychologist about it once and was told that the act of removing ones shoes prior to death was a ritual. This doc told me when we remove our shoes and socks before bed at night it symbolizes an ending. A suicide victim is involved with a final gesture the end of life. By performing this task, the vie was subconsciously acknowledging the end of one state and the beginning of the next. At least that's what the shrink said.

  I don't know how much of that I believed, but I certainly believed the overwhelming statistic I'd observed. It made me want to examine the autopsy and crime-scene photos of the Vulcuna murder to see if his shoes were on or off.

  Of course, the fact that the '81 murder-suicide was closed almost thirty years ago was going to be a problem. But I'd find a way to deal with it.

  I dialed Alexa to check on her schedule. She told me what I'd already suspected.

  "I'm not going to make it home 'til very late," she said. "I'm collecting budget estimates from my division commanders right now and I'd like to get a preliminary worksheet done by the end of the night."

  "Okay. I'm gonna pick something up," I said. "See you when you get home."

  "If I get home," she sighed.

  I stayed true to my promise to Hitch and didn't tell her about what we'd found out from Beverly Bartinelli, but I felt guilty as hell about it.

  After I hung up with Alexa I called the Records Division and talked to an old sergeant named Le
roy Porter.

  I'm looking for an eighties case file," I told him. "It was a murder-suicide that occurred in December of eighty-one."

  "Vulcuna?" he said without hesitation.

  "How'd you know?"

  "Guy came in here and checked it out an hour ago. Two boxes. They were in the old evidence warehouse. That case was before we went on computers and it was stored in the hard copy room."

  "Was Detective Hitchens the one who took it?"

  "He'd be the one," Sergeant Porter said.

  Damn, I thought as I hung up. Hitch had swung by on his way to IA. He beat me again.

  My partner had a reason to be AWOL from our crime scene. He had his shooting review board. I, on the other hand, was stuck here. I didn't trust Dahlia Wilkes not to unexpectedly drop by to make sure we were following her instructions to the letter. She was gunning for us and certainly wasn't above that. I asked Lyn Wei when her team was scheduled to go into overtime.

  "Six P. M.," she said.

  It was four in the afternoon, so that meant I had to cool out up here for two more hours while Hitch was doing god knows what with the Vulcuna evidence boxes.

  At quarter to six, I let the team of CSIs off fifteen minutes early. The crime scene had now been shrunk to just the property. The press had moved on to sit on another fence waiting to tear the flesh off L. A.'s next juicy disaster.

  We all walked down the drive and got into cars parked by the sagging wood gate. I drove down Skyline and took a left on Mulholland on my way to Sumner Hitchens's house.

  Chapter 26

  According to the detective roster at Homicide Special, Sumner Hitchens lived in the hills above Nichols Canyon in an expensive L. A. development called Mount Olympus, which was only a few miles from Skyline Drive.

  I found I couldn't get there from Mulholland, which was the quickest route, because the feeder road, Woodrow Wilson Drive, was torn up and blocked by sewer repair. I had to go all the way down into Hollywood and approach Mount Olympus using Laurel Canyon.

  Ten minutes later, I pulled through the kitschy, ornate, Olympian-style monument that marked the main entrance.

  Sumner Hitchens, Apollo of Bullshit, appropriately enough lived on Apollo Drive.

  I pulled up across from a very large two-story Georgian. The front lawn was almost an eighth of an acre of beautifully manicured rolling grass. I could see the Carrera parked under the porte cochere that overhung a sweeping circular drive.

  From the look of it, this place had to be worth a lot more than three million, which was the rumored number around the water-cooler at the LAPD.

  I fought back a wave of jealousy, got out of the MDX and walked up the steps to the large front door. Some kind of progressive jazz was playing from a sound system inside the house.

  Before I could bang the brass lion s-head knocker or ring the bell, the large oak door was opened by a barefoot African-American beauty in her midthirties, wearing cut-off jean shorts, a tie-dyed T-shirt, and a commercial-looking chefs apron.

  "So you're the infamous Shane," she said, smiling.

  "I must be putting off a strong vibe," I answered. "I usually have to introduce myself first."

  "Hitch saw you coming. We've got video." She flicked a thumb toward the porch surveillance cameras. "He couldn't come out cause he's in the kitchen, crisping the chickens, and that's the most critical part. We're making galletto alia piastra. He said I should bring you back. I'm Crystal Blake."

  We shook hands. She had an athlete's grace and a dancer's legs, which I couldn't help but admire as she led me into the expensively decorated entry, across a carved plush pile rug, and through a beautiful living room where the walls were rose and the trim white.

  The furniture was eclectic and tasteful, the artwork expensive but not overdone. Hitch had obviously spent a fortune decorating.

  Off to the right, through plate glass, I could see the lights of the city winking and blinking like a carpet of jewels. A big wood deck overlooked the view. I could see patio umbrellas and expensive deck chairs out there along with a king-sized Jacuzzi that was bubbling like a witch's brew.

  Damn, I thought. Maybe I should take this movie stuff a bit more seriously.

  The kitchen was big and professional. There was a center island with a huge leaded skylight overhead, burnished stainless-steel appliances, and spacious, oiled wood counters.

  Hitch was in Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top that showed he was staying in shape. He was pressing an aluminum-wrapped brick down on some filleted chickens.

  "Hey, be right with you, hoss. Crys, hand me the black pepper and that dish of chopped rosemary and sage leaves."

  She grabbed a huge pepper mill and a glass dish with the chopped herbs.

  "This is the tricky part." He grinned. "Can't take my mitts off these little gallettos 'til they're seared."

  "How'd the shooting review board go?" I asked as he cooked.

  "Only took an hour. It's closed. Not even going to call you to appear. Came down as an in-policy shooting because my three shots were determined to be IDOLs." He was talking about rounds fired in immediate defense of life mine. "Your support statement clinched it," he added, sprinkling chopped herbs on the chicken.

  "This is some place," I said, trying to keep the awe out of my voice. It's one thing to hear he bought an expensive house in the Hollywood Hills, it's another to actually see it.

  "Check it out, homes." He pointed at the range he was working over. "Wolfgang Puck doesn't even have one of these. Ten burners. This is the NASA Space Orbiter of commercial grills." He grabbed another brick wrapped in aluminum foil and placed it carefully on top of the other two chickens, glancing at his thirty-thousand-dollar Corum watch.

  "Three minutes, we flip 'em. Hardest part is to resist the temptation to peek."

  "You want them to be golden brown," Crystal said. "If you lift them and peek it ruins the color. The bricks hold them close to the grill so they'll sear, but if you go too long they burn. Whole process, both sides, takes about seven minutes."

  "Crystal knows her stuff. She's the pastry chef at Lucques. You should taste her desserts. Killer."

  She put an arm around him and leaned a hip into his side. They were an affectionate, attractive couple.

  "I thought you were a dancer," I said. "You move like one."

  "Used to be," she said, but added nothing more to that.

  Seven minutes later Hitch was pulling the four spring chickens off the grill and wrapping them in a cloth, which he explained was to soak up excess marinade.

  "We're also having pasta ripiena, but it's lagging a bit. Crystal, can you keep an eye on this while I fix Shane a drink?" She nodded and he turned to me. "Let's go into the other room. I'm assuming you'll stay for dinner."

  "Yeah, I guess," I said. "It smells great."

  He led me out of the kitchen into the large den area, where a movie poster for Mosquito and half a dozen framed shots showing Hitch on the set with Jamie Foxx were hung behind the wet bar.

  "I called Records," I said. "I understand you took the hard-copy evidence boxes for the Vulcuna case."

  "Yeah, I did. But before we go through them, you and I need to get a few things worked out."

  "That was gonna be my next suggestion," I said.

  "Good. What are you drinking?"

  "Beer's good."

  "All I got is imported lager. I got a great Paulaner from Germany, okay?"

  I nodded. He uncapped two beers and handed me one. We went out on the deck that overlooked the city. The view was priceless.

  "Okay, homes," he said, "time to get a few things out in the open."

  "You're right, cause this still isn't quite working."

  "We need to make some important partnership decisions."

  "Exactly. Like how we go about doing this case without losing our badges or killing each other."

  "Well, that wasn't exactly what I was talking about," he said. "We got more important issues to discuss."

  "What's mor
e important than that?"

  "The back end on the movie. What we will accept as our definition of net profit. How many profit points we each get, stuff like that. If we do this now, before it gets too pregnant, we'll be cool. If we wait 'til some studio dumps a bunch of cash on the table, it inevitably turns into a brawl. You should have seen the mess my homicide table at Metro got into over the profit split on Mosquito."

  "I don't want to sell this to the movies."

  "Too late. This afternoon I sketched it out to my guys at UTA, who called me back an hour ago. They already have serious interest from Spielberg, Bruckheimer, and Joel Silver. This has just become the greatest of all the Hollywood nirvanas, the Weekend Auction. That's where you have three or more prime players fighting to control a hot project before start of business on Monday.

  "Each of those guys will be desperately trying to keep it from the others, driving our sales price through the roof. A high-dollar auction like this only comes along once or twice a year in Hollywood. I predict Prostitutes Ball is gonna be even bigger than Mosquito."

  He reached out and clicked my beer bottle with his.

  "You're gonna be rich, dawg."

  Chapter 27

  "Hitch, I really don't want to be in the movie business," I said.

  "Doesn't matter. I'm selling this story whether you like it or not. I got two back-end points on Mosquito. My agents at UTA say, because that was such a monster hit, I should be able to negotiate seven on this. Because you're my tight and because I always take care of my posse, I'm gonna carve out two of my seven points for you. That way you'll get the same on this as I got on my first movie."

  "I don't want movie money for doing my job."

  "You can set the money on fire or give it to charity. I don't care. But that's our split, seventy-thirty."

  "And I got nothing to say about whether we sell it or not? Isn't this story half mine?"

  "I don't need you to sell my side of the story. You can't stop me, because I own the rights to my own life. You can also sell yours if you want, but you'll get bupkis because nobody in the biz has a clue who you are. With no Hollywood representation you have no path to the market."