Red Light

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "The meat of this story is how you caught him. Help me out here, Merci."

  "I'm under a gag, Gary. As the case progresses, I'll be able to give you more."

  "You haven't given me a damn thing. Come on, Sergeant—put yourself in my position. I've got a story. A sheriff's deputy arrested for the murder of a prostitute he was working with. I've got sheriff investigators—one of them the suspect's ... friend—finding him out. How? What was your first break? How'd you even start looking at one of your own?"

  She thought before she spoke. "The crime-scene evidence led us to suspect him. Interviews confirmed the suspicion. A search warrant turned up crucial evidence. There. Want me to write it for you?"

  "What crime-scene evidence?"

  "I can't be specific, Gary. We're trying to build a case right now. I don't want to hang him in the Journal. We want a fair trial."

  "He was banging her, and she was going to blackmail him, right?'

  She felt the anger jump into her face, fought the instinct to clutch the reporter's throat with both her hands and pinch his head off.

  "I can't comment on that."

  "I think you already have."

  "What in the hell do you mean?"

  "I thought you were tipping me that way."

  Merci stopped and looked at him. "I just told you I can't comment on that."

  "Well, can you explain this?"

  Gary Brice reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a stapled collection of papers. He stepped forward, to her side, holding them firm in both hands but out in front of her, so she could see them. He flipped slowly through the collection. There were eight pages in all. Each was a photocopy of a greeting card or letter—the ones between Mike and Aubrey Whittaker. Merci recognized some of them from Whittake apartment, others from Mike's home in Modjeska. One was the card that went missing from the lab almost one week ago. Reflexively, she reached out for them, but Brice snapped them away and folded them back into his pocket.

  "Don't mess with my living," he said.

  "When?" she asked quietly. "How?"

  "U.S. mail, yesterday afternoon. They made about half sense then. Full sense now."

  "Do you still have the—"

  "Yeah, it's a standard legal size, no return address, a regular stamp. The handwriting is childish or wrong-handed. It came to my home. I got it for you in the car if you want it. It's in a plastic bag that locks D.C. stands for Dark Cloud—that's Mike. Aubrey or AW are self explanatory. Right?"

  Merci nodded but said nothing. She turned and started off around parking lot, Brice beside her. The morning air was cool and she jamrmed her hands into her windbreaker. She tried to make her voice as convincing as possible, but even Merci could hear the emptiness of her promise.

  "Gary, you sit on those for one week, and I'll make sure you get something better."

  "There is nothing better. What I've gotten from you so far is the honor of sitting in a press conference with every other reporter in the county, watching Mel Glandis sweat peanut butter. Thanks. That was a real help."

  She shook her head, stopped and turned. "I can impound those letters as evidence."

  "I already copied them. I got copies of the copies. Come on."

  She studied him, wished she had a fire hose to blow him out into the street. "All right. You've got the letters. You've got the front-page story for two weeks. And I'm going to ask you not to write it."

  "Why?"

  "Because you're obstructing justice. You're trying a man in the press. It's wrong and you shouldn't do it."

  Brice laughed quickly. "It's my job."

  "This is more important than your job."

  "Wrong. This is what I have: Mike McNally, good cop, a single man, tries to help prostitute, prostitute does what prostitutes do—she tries to make a profit on it. Suggests blackmail. We can now factor in Merci Rayborn, a lady cop who was the staunch friend and lover of Mike. She heads the investigation for a while, then gets called off it when the arrows start pointing to her guy. That's a damned good story, and you know what? It's the truth. So don't tell me I'm a bottom feeder for wanting to tell the truth. There are people out there in this world— known as citizens—who've got a right to know. I happen to believe in that right. I happen to believe it's part of what makes this country great. I'm writing the story. I'm using file photos of you and Mike and Aubrey Whittaker. I just need two things from you."

  She said nothing. Brice backed up a step. "One—tell me the whole thing, start to finish, in your own words. I'll use them and I won't change them. You can help me edit the copy to protect Mike, protect your case against him, whatever you want. I've never made an offer to let anybody edit my copy before, just to let you know."

  "I won't do that and I never will."

  "I understand. Two—how do you feel right now?"

  "Oh, crap, you're down to that level?"

  "Believe it or not, it matters. How does this make you feel?"

  "On the record or off?"

  "Gimme both."

  "On the record, Gary, it saddened me to see him arrested. Off the record—it broke my fucking heart."

  He looked at her a little strangely then, like he was seeing some part of her for the first time. "How do you spell that modifier?"

  She turned and started back. Brice caught up and walked along beside her, not speaking.

  "Gary? I'll make you one last offer. You kill that story and I'll give you something better."

  "What's better than this?"

  "The truth."

  "What's not true here? Name me one thing I've said that isn't the truth? One thing!"

  She bit her lip and walked. She had no answer for that, other than the obvious.

  "You're being used."

  "But I'm enjoying it quite a bit."

  "Something bad is going to come."

  "Oh, and don't tell me—you don't want to see me get hurt."

  "It's not that. I wish you were in a guillotine right now. I'd drop blade."

  "I might have to work that into my story."

  "I tried, Gary. I tried to get through to you."

  "Hey, don't give up on me. You've got my numbers."

  At the steps to the Sheriff's Building entrance Merci could see group of reporters around Mike's defense attorney, Bob Rule. He looked' at her, then back to his group.

  She broke in off the other direction, following Gary Brice to car. The handwriting on Brice's envelope looked to her just like writing on the envelope with the key inside. She guessed there'd be prints.

  One source, she thought: leading me to Bailey, and using the press to punish Mike.

  Crisis mode in the Sheriff's Building. Merci could feel it when she walked in: grim looks, all business, and a tightness in the air that seemed to amplify sound while everybody tried to be quietly efficient. Brighton's door was closed. Glandis was locked to a telephone, sweat rings advanced from armpit to chest. The captains conferred around the desk of the undersheriff and the uniforms all seemed to have their chests out.

  She found Zamorra in the conference room alone, slouched in a chair at the big table, a cup of coffee steaming in front of him. She shut the door behind her and sat across from him.

  "Someone leaked to Brice at the Journal," she said. "I think it's the same party who sent me the Bailey key. Brice now has copies of Mike's letters to Whittaker. Of Whittaker's letters back. He's going to run with the three-way romance gone bad—Mike, her and me."

  "Get Brighton to call his publisher."

  "I'll try. But it won't work. This is meat and potatoes for the Journal. It's a great damned story."

  "Can you lean back? What do you have on Brice?"

  "Nothing."

  She sighed, then spoke very quietly. "Look, Paul. We're off the Whittaker case, right?"

  "Right."

  "But we've got some loose threads, right?"

  Zamorra smiled just a little. "Loose threads are exactly what we have."

  "So we can tie them up, our way of helpi
ng Wheeler and Teague, right? Our responsibility?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Okay. Good. Then what did you get?"

  "Some kind of coat, maybe a heavy shirt, on the floor of Aubrey Whittaker's kitchen. Man's or woman's, they can't say. But they can say its got dark gray, purple and sea-green fibers in it. In the struggle, the garment got caught on the corner of the drawer. I pulled eight strands out of the wood. Found two more on the floor."

  "Who's they?"

  "Friends on the San Diego P.D. I ran the fibers down there Tuesday, got the call last night. I documented it all, everything. So the chain evidence is tight."

  Merci wondered how Zamorra had time for a three-hour drive to San Diego and back when he didn't have time for anything else. She banished that thought as suspicious and mean-spirited.

  "Then I went through the Whittaker evidence list again—nothing like that in her wardrobe. I double-checked the dry cleaning you picked up—nothing there, either. Now, how about Mike? Does he have a coat or shirt like that—gray background, with purple and green-accents?"

  She got out her blue notebook and made a note of her partner's findings. "No. Mike doesn't have anything like that. Not that I know of."

  "I also sent down human hair—two samples I got from the kitchen floor. Dark and wavy. One is an inch long, the other an inch and a half. Whittaker's hair was blond. So is Mike's. I think our kitchen man left when he fought, left his prints on the drawer runner and the floor, snagged his jacket or shirt."

  "Moladan's got dark hair."

  "No. CAL-ID's got him, but there was no hit on the prints."

  "Lance Spartas?"

  "I got him to volunteer a full set, right and left. No."

  "Del Viggio?"

  "His alibi washed with Molodan's girl, Cindy. It wasn't him. Ok we know this guy was in her apartment that night. We know he's not a crook with a sheet because AFIS and CAL-ID would have them. Merci spoke before she thought it through, and the words sound strange when they came out. "What about a woman? Women wear sport coats. They leave fingerprints."

  Zamorra looked across at her. "Coiner?"

  "She paid Mike a visit in jail late last night. She brought him food. I'm just fishing now, Paul. It sounds wrong."

  Zamorra went silent again. Then, "We know she likes him. Maybe we don't know how much. Or what she was getting back. Or not getting. But if you take it that way, you have to figure maybe they weren't struggling on the floor. Maybe they were getting it on ten feet from a from corpse. You factor in Coiner and you've got special circumstances. That's lying in wait and conspiracy. That's the death penalty."

  Merci stood and walked once around the room. She could feel the strong, dark currents moving around inside.

  "They ... that wouldn't bend the drawer runners."

  He said nothing, implying that maybe it would.

  "Why would she give up the brass, Paul? Why not overlook it?"

  "Because someone was going to find it. This way, it would take suspicion off of her."

  "And put it on Mike."

  Zamorra looked down at the table, then back to Merci. "Insurance, in case you and Mike came through all this intact."

  "Did you include females in the CAL-ID search?"

  "No. But I can do it that way, easy enough."

  "Go ahead. It still doesn't make sense to me, Paul. The prints won't come up as Lynda's. And her hair is light brown."

  Zamorra shrugged. "He wasn't alone in that apartment. Someone else was there. They did something in the kitchen. Mike knows. He

  wasn't alone. I'd bet my life on it."

  • • •

  Merci walked Gary Brice's envelope down to the lab just before ten that morning. A deputy she'd never seen before stopped her at the front desk, asked her to sign in and state reason for visit. She waited ten minutes for Gilliam to come out and get her. He closed his office door behind them and they sat.

  "Sorry," he said. "We've got a full lockdown while we examine the evidence from Mike's place."

  "What did they take in the search?"

  "A homemade sound suppressor, one pair of chukka boots, his forty-five Colt and seven rounds of ammunition. Also some correspondence—cards and letters."

  "I need to see them, the letters."

  Gilliam frowned. "You're off the case, Merci. Why see the letters now?"

  She told him what Gary Brice had received in the U.S. mail yesterday afternoon. She set the plastic bag with the legal-sized envelope in it on Gilliam's desk.

  "If you've got the originals in evidence, I'll know they weren't just taken from Mike's place and copied to be sent to Brice. I'll know that were taken from Mike's place, copied and returned for us to find. Wheeler and Teague might want to know that."

  Gilliam looked at her with something close to disbelief.

  "James, Gary Brice is going to write his story. It's going to be about a vice cop, a homicide investigator and a prostitute. I'd like to know who set us up for that."

  "The originals are in the fuming chamber right now. Here, I'll take that."

  Gilliam snagged the plastic bag a little impatiently, Merci thought

  The pressure is making fools of us all, she thought.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later Merci knew what she wanted to know: Four of cards and one of the letters collected from Mike's had been photocopied earlier, mailed to Brice, then returned to Mike's Modjeska Canyon home.

  And there wasn't a trace of a fingerprint on any of them. Yet.

  "Give it time," said Gilliam. "Six more hours, minimum. I'll set the envelope to Brice right now."

  Lynda Coiner, bent over a microscope, looked aside at Merci, then back to her instrument.

  Evan O'Brien, scientifically clad in a white lab coat, stood beneath a bright overhead examination light, looking down at a small bundle wrapped in what Merci recognized as her own underwear.

  He looked at her, then at the underwear, then back at her again. No expression. He shrugged.

  One of the younger technicians walked past with a tray of vials filled with blood. He looked at Merci with controlled alarm, like she was a leper.

  "Let us get on with our work," said Gilliam, taking her arm. "Do I get to know the results on the storage payment envelope stamp? The one I brought in with the gun? This is Bailey I'm talking about now, not Whittaker."

  "Negative," he said. "No latents. Now, I imagine you want to get on your way to Aubrey Whittaker's apartment pretty quick. For Wheeler and Teague, of course."

  He escorted her to the door. "Tell Zamorra we've got better facilities than San Diego P.D.," he said. "Tell Zamorra we're on his side here. We'd like to know whose side he's on."

  "I'll tell him."

  • • •

  Merci stepped into the cold, bright apartment. Through the windows she could see the Pacific, brown with runoff. Her eyes went to the dark chalk outline on the carpet, Aubrey Whittaker's final silhouette.

  Everything looked the same. She stepped around the chalk and went down the hall to the bedroom. Nothing looked disturbed. In the dresser she found the collection of notes and letters, recognizing two from the copies sent to Gary Brice—stolen from a sealed crime scene, copied, returned.

  She stood on the front porch for a long moment, picturing what had happened for what seemed like the thousandth time. She wondered if Hess would have been proud of her. Then she excused herself from Hess and closed her eyes and tried to see what had happened that night, just over a week ago, Tuesday, December the eleventh. She pictured Mike coming up the stairs. He's dressed in trousers and a sport coat and his black sweater, the one that shows his muscles and contrasts with his golden hair. He's purposeful but unhurried. His hands are empty but his coat is open. The forty-five is tucked into his left armpit, because the silencer makes it too long to fit in the holster. He stands in front of the door and wipes his right hand through his hair before he knocks. It's a quiet knock. The yellow porch light is on. Aubrey comes to the door, looks out. She se
es it's Mike, wonders if he's left something. She opens the door. She smiles—half a greeting, half a question. Mike reaches under his coat and draws the gun, fires once and pushes her back into the room as she falls. She's dead before she hits. He walks around her, gets her under the arms and drags her a few feet further in—so he can shut the door. He shuts it. The look on his face one of wild fear.

  After that Merci saw nothing.

  • • •

  She opened her eyes, surprised to see Wheeler and Teague starting the stairs, followed by Chuck Brighton.

  Wheeler, the thin one, got there first. Teague lumbered up behind him, followed by Brighton, whose eyes were hidden behind dark aviator shades.

  "Orange County Sheriff," said Wheeler.

  "Prove it," said Merci.

  Wheeler badged her with a sly grin and walked past her into apartment.

  Teague said hello and told her he wanted to talk later.

  "Any time."

  Then Brighton, who stopped and looked at her. She saw sky and clouds where his eyes should be. "Thought I'd see this for myself."

  "Someone's been in here, messing with evidence. It's the second time this week, if I've got it figured right."

  Brighton peeled off the glasses. He looked a hundred years old. "Gilliam showed me the letters. The ones to Gary Brice."

  "They came from here—bedroom dresser, top right drawer. Who ever took them brought them back here for us to seize."

  "Rayborn, what in the hell is going on?"

  "Maybe Wheeler and Teague can find out. I've got some ideas, they're not good ideas."

  "No mas on this, Merci. No more involvement from you. When Bob Rule finds out about you and Mike—"

  "I understand."

  "So keep it clean. We've got a case to make."

  "Yes, sir."

  Brighton nodded. "Unbelievable zoo back at headquarters. You stay away from it if you can. Nobody's asking about you and Mike, for what that's worth. So far."

  "They will, when Brice's article hits the paper."

  "You and Zamorra take the murdered jogger and the chopped-up boy. Those will keep you busy."

  Inwardly, Merci cringed at the words "chopped-up boy." She thought of a couple of things she'd like to say, but she didn't.

  "I need deputy time cards for the Bailey case," she said.