by David Chill
"You finally get used to it?"
"I suppose. But I can't say as I like it."
"No one likes getting yelled at. You know, there used to be a coach in the NFL named Paul Brown. Long, long time ago. Brown had a star player who would get upset when he got yelled at. So when the coach was mad at his star, he went over and yelled at the guy sitting right next to him, usually a bench-warmer. Got the message across without hurting the star's feelings. Weird, but it worked."
Noah Greenland smiled briefly. "I'd have hated to be that bench-warmer," he said, showing a surprising amount of sensitivity. He looked up at me in a curious way. "Why'd you leave USC?"
"Not my choice. Johnny Cleary went to the NFL and the new coach wanted to start fresh with a new bunch of assistants. College sports is a business. Things change."
The smile vanished from Noah's face. "So's high school nowadays. We've got De La Salle coming in to play on Friday. Someone told me they actually have a betting line on the game. It's freaky."
"Yeah. Look, try not to let this stuff get to you. Practice hard, play hard, enjoy what you can enjoy," I advised him. "This period in your life will go by faster than you think. You've got the talent to make it in the NFL. That's when things get challenging."
"I guess," he shrugged.
"Is that what you want to do?"
"I wouldn't mind being rich," he responded, with slightly more determination then he'd shown throughout the conversation. "It's tough seeing people struggle. With money, you know."
"Sure," I said, not entirely certain where this was coming from. I decided to change the subject and pointed to the school. "So tell me something. This incident that happened this morning. Did you ever have Mr. Fowler for a teacher?"
"I was in his class this semester. A.P. Euro."
"What'd you think of him?"
Noah shrugged again. "It's only been a couple of weeks. He was okay, I guess."
"Any thoughts on who might have done this?" I asked casually.
Noah looked off in the distance for a moment. "Could have been a lot of people."
"Really?" I said, resisting the temptation to ask for names. "I met Mr. Fowler. Struck me as a nice guy."
"Yeah, I think that might have been the problem. Lot of girls thought he was nice. He'd flirt with them all the time. Even in class. Tease them a little. Couple of my teammates didn't like it."
"He was flirting with their girlfriends?"
"Not so much that. They just didn't like him flirting with any girls. It was kind of like, you know, go after a woman your own age. Leave ours alone."
I frowned. "You think Mr. Fowler was actually involved with any of the girls?"
Noah looked down. "I don't know for sure. But a lot of the girls liked him. Wouldn't have surprised me. There were rumors. But hey. It's high school. You know."
"Any names?" I asked, unable to resist the temptation any longer, and also knowing I was stepping out-of-bounds here. I was no longer on any police force, but I still maintained a healthy curiosity.
"I don't know. I'd be just guessing."
I was all set to tell him to go ahead and take a guess, but a middle-aged woman approached at the most inopportune moment and called Noah's name. She was tall, slender, and had red hair that was short and parted to one side. She wore a teal blue pantsuit and a white top, and looked like a polished professional.
"Hi, Mom," he said, glumly, looking like he'd rather be elsewhere.
"Honey, are you all right?"
"Sure. Someone else died today. I'm fine."
The woman stopped and stared at him. "That's a terrible thing to say, Noah. Why would you even think of saying something like that?"
"I don't know."
The woman continued to stare at him for a long moment and then turned to me. "Hello," she said. "Are you with the school?"
I took a breath. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not," I said and handed her my business card. "Name's Burnside. I'm a private investigator. I'm looking into something. Unrelated to what happened today. I hope so, anyways."
"Oh," she said. "Oh, my. Why are you talking with Noah?"
"Mom. Please."
"No, no, honey, I want to find out."
"Look, Mrs. Greenland," I began.
"Dr. Greenland," she corrected me. "I'm a psychotherapist."
"Doctor, then," I continued. "I met Noah last year when I was with USC. I'm not with the team anymore. I was just chatting with Noah. Catching up. That's all."
"An investigator? What are you investigating?"
I looked at Noah and then back at her. She was moderately attractive and Noah resembled her quite a bit. But while her son was shy and considerate, her manner was off-putting and I didn't like it. I wasn't surprised Noah didn't like it much, either.
"I'd like to speak with you about it," I said, my eyes surreptitiously darting to Noah. "But this isn't the best time."
She concurred. "No, I suppose it isn't," she said and turned back to her son. "Noah, come on. I'll give you a lift home."
"I can't," he said. "Coach says practice is still on."
Dr. Greenland's jaw dropped. "After what happened here today?" she asked, incredulously.
"I don't make this stuff up, Mom," he said, throwing his hands in the air and walking over to the group of football players. He didn't blend in with them, rather, he stood on the outskirts of the group and resumed looking down at his phone. His mother stared at him for a long moment before stalking off and not bothering to say goodbye to me.
I did notice, however, that Dr. Greenland stopped to talk with a few other moms, one of whom was Skye Farsakian. Quite naturally, all looked upset and wore worried expressions. I would have liked to speak with Mrs. Farsakian again, but decided to wait until she was alone. I began feeling a little self-conscious standing by myself, but that feeling was about to change.
A pair of rumpled detectives stood near the curb, their identities made obvious by the shiny gold shields clipped to their belts. They wore identical short-sleeved shirts and cheap, narrow ties. They were both looking straight at me, and one was pointing a finger in my direction as he spoke into a cell phone. One was short and stocky, the other was of average height, average build, and had an average face. The average detective looked like he might have a budding career as an extra in movies one day. They finally approached.
"You Burnside?" asked the short, stocky detective, who, upon closer inspection, was sporting a pencil-thin mustache.
"I am. How'd you know? My picture on the post office wall or something?"
"Wise guy, huh? No, Principal Mularkey pointed you out. Said you've been snooping around campus the past couple of days. He thought it was suspicious."
"Lots of things around this school are suspicious," I countered. "In fact, the more I look, the more suspicious it all gets. Even you two look suspicious."
They glanced incredulously at each other. The stocky detective spoke again. "You got quite an attitude for a person of interest."
I stared back at them. A person of interest was police-speak for a prime suspect, the one they believed was responsible for the crime; they just didn't have enough evidence to act on that belief yet.
"Person of interest," I mused. "And just how did I acquire that designation?"
"Like I said, because you've been snooping around all over the school. Because you were seen leaving the victim's office last night. And because you were one of the last people to have spoken with a one Jason Fowler. And you've also been harassing people all over campus. Coaches, football players, parents, even the principal himself."
"Harassing?" I said, my voice starting to rise. "That's a stretch if I ever heard one. You actually think I had something to do with what happened here today? You have any proof of that beyond innuendo and whatever distorted info you've been fed?"
"We're the police, we don't need any proof right now," the average-looking detective said, and motioned to a squad car on the corner. "But you've got some explaining to do. Let's go do it down
at the station house."
*
Pasadena police headquarters was located a block away from City Hall, across from a courthouse, with a firehouse down the street. The police station was merely one more government edifice, tucked away on a cul-de-sac where most residents ventured only when they needed to handle a traffic ticket. The room they led me into was small, poorly lit, and without windows. A lighting fixture holding a single naked bulb hung down from the ceiling. It felt like I had entered a 1940s noir movie. I wondered if there were any rubber hoses nearby to beat suspects who didn't cooperate.
The two detectives took turns interrogating me. The average-looking detective was named Al Diamond, and the short, stocky one was named Hugh Turco. They mostly asked the same questions in different ways; Diamond asked things in a bored, pro forma manner, while Turco acted like a sarcastic dork. Typical small-town police exercise, a variation of good cop-bad cop. They asked what type of soda I wanted, and when I told them a Coke, they brought me a can of ginger ale. Just to inform me who was running the show here. After an hour of relating the same story in the same way, I finally decided to give them something to chew on.
"You know," I said. "I didn't want to tell you this."
"Oh?" Turco said, his demeanor adding some interest. "What's that?"
"I used to be a cop. Just like you."
"I'm not a cop," he sneered.
"Oh, what are you then?"
"I'm a detective."
"Could have fooled me," I said.
Turco looked at me and went over to the corner. He picked up a telephone book. It was big and thick and looked like it was about 25 years old. Turco slapped it against his palm a few times.
"How'd you like to learn some manners?" he asked.
I was not in handcuffs, and figured I could disarm him and pummel him mercilessly if I chose to. Turco was smaller than me, didn't look especially tough, and I wouldn't have been surprised if the last fight he engaged in was during puberty. But I also knew that if I laid a hand on him, it would not only lead to assault charges and jail time, but would unleash a cavalcade of police officers bursting into the room to stomp me.
"Look," I started, "it's been a long day for both of us. I apologize for my behavior. Maybe we can start fresh. But I've told you everything."
"Everything? I'm just learning now you used to be on the job."
"All right. Fair enough. You knew I was a licensed P.I. because I showed you my papers. And that I'm licensed to carry that gun you took off me earlier. I guess I figured you would have done a database search on me by now. The part about being on the job? I usually don't bring that up outside of the LAPD jurisdiction. Not every local police force is fond of LAPD. I didn't think it would help matters."
"Uh-huh. So you figured some small-town dipshits like us would resent a former big-city cop?"
"Something like that."
Turco shook his head and walked out of the room. He wisely took the phone book with him. No need to leave it here where I could pick it up and have it at the ready when he returned.
It took him about 45 minutes to come back, and this time he did so with Diamond in tow. The pair of them sat down across from me. Diamond continued to remind me of a cardboard cutout. Turco reminded me of a smarmy cop I used to work with named Andy Wax. The ongoing joke in the Broadway Division was that even Wax's best friends couldn't stand him.
"Now I know why you didn't tell me," said Turco, holding up a sheaf of papers.
"Yeah?"
"You were kicked off the force. I wouldn't be proud of that either."
"It's complicated," I said weakly.
"Sure. Says here that you were arrested for running a child prostitution ring. Those things are always complicated, aren't they?"
I swallowed hard. That happened almost ten years ago, and it was the worst period of my life. I had tried to help a teenage runaway start a better life, and I made a critical error in judgment. Judy Atkin was seventeen years old at the time I arrested her, but she looked thirteen, with the bluest eyes you ever saw. She had left Iowa to escape an abusive father, and when she arrived in Los Angeles, she fell into a situation that was actually worse. A pimp took her in, treated her nicely for a while, and then put her to work on the streets, threatening to kill her if she tried to leave. After we arrested the pimp and put him away for five years, Judy was still left with the problem of having no money and no home.
"I wasn't running anything," I said hotly.
"Your rap sheet says different."
"Does it say there that I wasn't convicted? That all charges were dropped?"
"Sure. But you know and I know, where there's smoke, there's fire."
"That's quite a leap."
"You were never fully exonerated, were you?"
What he was saying was technically true, but patently false. I had made the critical mistake of taking Judy in, giving her a place to live, albeit a temporary one. I wanted to give her the opportunity to get a fresh start on her own. She wouldn't go back to Des Moines, and I couldn't let her go back on the street. The only other option was putting her into the County's juvenile care system, and I had seen the devastating effects that had on kids. I tried to make a difference in her life, but turning tricks was what she knew. And when she began bringing johns into my apartment, my world came crashing down. She was scared, and the detectives who busted her said she accused me of being her pimp. I was carted unceremoniously off to jail, and the only reason I got off was because Judy skipped town and disappeared into the wind. With no witness, there was no case against me. Charges were dropped, but it was true, I did not get exonerated, only released. And my career in law enforcement spiraled downhill from there.
"That doesn't mean I was guilty. I wasn't."
"Yeah, they all say that, don't they? Come on. You were on the job. You must have heard every perp yapping about how they were innocent, huh?"
"Once in a while it's true," I managed.
"Sure. And you were a model policeman. L.A.'s finest."
"I was," I responded, ignoring the jibe. But after my arrest, I did become a changed cop. I used to be a by-the-book police officer. But after inhabiting a cell at the Twin Towers, sharing space with the same slime I had been locking up, my faith in the system disappeared.
"But that wasn't why you got kicked off the LAPD. Looks like you became a cowboy after that. Says here you were working plainclothes in North Hollywood. Some douche bag wouldn't cooperate, so you threw him into the trunk of your car for an hour. In ninety-one degree heat. That your idea of good police work?"
"No," I said. A small child had been kidnapped and the suspect fit the profile. By the time I yanked him out of the trunk, he was not only willing to tell me where the little boy was, but he took me right to him. And then he collapsed from heat exhaustion. The subsequent investigation did not paint my actions in a favorable light and I was written up. The first of a number of such reports. I had indeed gone rogue and it eventually cost me my job.
"You're a piece of work, Burnside."
"Tell me something I haven't heard," I said, starting to not care if he slapped me with a phone book. "But where are you going with this? All that stuff happened almost a decade ago."
"Yeah, and I'm just finding out about that now. You weren't so mouthy about your time on the job. What else are we going to find out here? That you knifed Jason Fowler because you had beef with him? That you put a shiv in his ribs because of some personal disagreement? Wouldn't surprise me. Everything with you seems to be personal."
"I never met him before yesterday. No way you can prove otherwise. And what possible motive could I have had?"
"You'd been on the St. Dismas campus before, right?"
"Only to talk to a couple of football players," I said. "And the coach. That was my only interest in the school."
"Yeah, that's what you keep saying. You used to be a recruiter. Recruiting kids. You're exceptionally good at that, huh?"
I took a deep breath and let it out.
I decided it was a smarter move than telling Turco he was the equivalent of a fat piece of snot and too dumb to even get my drink order correct. But I wasn't going to get anywhere cracking wise. This was the fun part of a police detective's job, and as much as I wanted to throw Turco's pudgy body through a wall, I had no choice but to endure his taunts. These were the moments that small-time gnats like Turco lived for. They didn't have much else.
"I can't help you, Detective. I've told you everything I know about Jason Fowler."
"Okay. Sure. Then you wouldn't mind starting over again. From the beginning."
*
It took another hour, but the Pasadena Police Department finally decided they didn't have any more questions and didn't have anything on which they could hold me. Turco's final admonishment to not leave town was met with a silent nod. My mouth stayed zipped. When I walked out of the police station, the sun was beginning to set, lighting up the distant San Gabriel Mountains with a purplish hue.
I looked at the traffic map on my iPhone, and all freeways leading out of Pasadena were solid red. There was also a Dodger game that was just starting, so passage through downtown would be jammed up for a while. I texted Gail that I missed her and Marcus but wouldn't be home for dinner. She texted back that I'd be missing her baked ziti and a Disney video.
I drove idly around Pasadena for a little while, looking for a place to eat. Over the years, the area had become home to a burgeoning Asian population, and there were now restaurants specializing in everything from Japanese ramen to Vietnamese pho to Taiwanese soup dumplings, and more. I was trying to decide if I was in the mood to experiment when I came upon a familiar site, an oddly named but remarkably good walk-up stand called The Hat. It had nothing to do with Asian cuisine. An old-school pastrami house, The Hat has been a landmark in the San Gabriel Valley for decades. I didn't think their pastrami was quite as good as at Langer's, the reigning king of pastrami purveyors in L.A. but this was a different style. The Hat served a pastrami dip, sliced very thin and stuffed into a roll. It was a little spicier and a little fattier than Langer's. The dip was similar to a French dip, in that the inside of the roll was briefly submerged into the juices in which the pastrami was cooked, making the sandwich soft and moist. Mustard and pickles were automatically added. It wasn't Langer's, but it wasn't bad at all. Just different. The pastrami was a tasty treat, but the prompt service at The Hat meant I only managed to shave 20 minutes off of my waiting-for-traffic-to-die-down time.
