One on One

by Michael Brandman

  “Will do.”

  I noticed that the Rabbi was rubbing his lower back.

  His face was a portrait of discomfort. I attempted to distract him. “We’ll also check the hardware and paint stores for any large recent spray-paint purchases. I’m not hopeful because, unless the tagger was a rank amateur, it’s not likely his supplies were purchased in the same town whose buildings he was planning to deface.”

  “Or her,” the Rabbi offered.

  “Or her,” I agreed.

  A smile served to relieve some of his suffering. “You’ll let me know what you uncover?”

  “Absolutely. Be it him or her.”

  Johnny went off on his quest to identify the tagger. No sooner had I revved up my cruiser and pulled away from the temple than my cell phone rang again.

  “We may be witnessing the start of an epidemic,” Marsha Russo said when I picked up the call.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Binder and Klein Outlet.”

  “What about it?”

  “Big warehouse.”

  “I know it.”

  “Graffiti.”

  “Painted on the warehouse?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The Binder and Klein Furniture Outlet was a brick-and-mortar box store on Highway 16, the route from Freedom to White Sands. It, along with several other giant stores, formed the equivalent of an outlet mall row along the heavily trafficked stretch of freeway between the two beach communities.

  I was greeted by Harry Binder. He’d been standing in front of the store, puzzling over how he was going to get rid of the gigantic mess of graffiti that now desecrated the entire wall of the building that faced Highway 16.

  “What a mess,” Harry said to me as I stood beside him taking stock of the damage. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Likely a tagger who calls himself Robber Xmas.” I pointed to the lower case letters that spelled that name.

  Harry Binder stood shaking his head. “It’s a plague. Everywhere you go. Wherever you look these days you see graffiti. In doorways. On storefronts. On roadway fencing. And now Freedom. And who is it cleans this crap up? Who pays for it? It’s become so prevalent that the authorities appear to have simply given up on trying to control it. The loonies have taken over the bin.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Binder looked at me. “Which means?”

  “They’re not going to win the Freedom battle.”

  “Yeah, well good luck with that one, Buddy.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Each new day brought another complaint about graffiti having appeared overnight on buildings, in parking lots, on monuments, roadways, overpasses... and as Harry Binder had pronounced, pretty much everywhere.

  More and more signatures were now adorning freshly painted, sizable, and hideous-looking wall illustrations. Portraits of the likes of Johnny Depp and Lady Gaga had been elaborately spray-painted in a variety of colors on once-pristine walls, situated on both public and private property.

  Landscapes of moon craters and subterranean cities stood side-by-side with walls full of ghastly cartoon characters and terrifyingly deformed gargoyles. Every conceivable surface was a potential target for vandals who considered themselves street artists, some of whom had now come to roost in Freedom.

  Where they came from and why they chose this particular township was a mystery. They sprouted up overnight and the time had arrived to be more aggressive about apprehending and punishing them.

  The Freedom Town Council occupied a neo-Classical building from the nineteen fifties. I made my way through the ornate lobby and hurried to my appointment with Council President Helena Madison.

  President Madison had graduated magna cum laude from Stanford Law School and, before relocating to Freedom, was a partner in the prestigious Los Angeles branch of the Wincor, Harris, and Colton Law Firm.

  When an unexpected death vacated the office of Freedom Council President, she was persuaded to run for the position and won in a landslide.

  She stood to greet me when I entered her large yet modestly appointed office. She was nearly as tall as I, dressed in a black pantsuit, her unruly mop of pitch-black hair now tied in a severe bun. She was a woman of color who had also made a reputation as one of California’s leading female athletes, a basketball standout at both Hollywood High and Stanford.

  A mile-wide smile adorned her handsome face as she stepped out from behind her desk and gave me a welcoming hug. She pushed away from me and gave me the once-over.

  “Not too bad for a geezer,” she pronounced.

  “Ditto,” I said.

  She laughed and kissed me lightly on both cheeks. We made ourselves comfortable in the sitting area overlooking the small park that stood in front of the Council building.

  She took a sip from a bottle of mineral water. “Okay, Buddy. First I have to know how he’s doing.”

  “It’s tough for him, Helena. His faculties are diminishing. He fights, but it’s not a battle he’ll win in the long run.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure he’d welcome a phone call. He’s very proud of you. He brags about you as if you were his second daughter.”

  She smiled. “Must be nice for him having you around.”

  “I hope so. But it’s not always a two-way street.”

  “Your fault, no doubt.”

  “No doubt.”

  Helena Madison and I had met at the basketball court adjacent to Muscle Beach in Venice, California. She was then a young attorney and I a police recruit. We found ourselves playing on opposite sides of a pick-up game which, on that particular day, also included former Laker greats James Worthy and A.C. Green.

  Helena was teamed with Big Game James, I with A.C. None of us had anticipated a game of much intensity, but it was a beautiful Los Angeles Sunday, a large crowd was watching, and we played as if there was something at stake.

  I was guarding Helena, who began the festivities by introducing me to both of her sharp elbows, which would dog me for the entire game. At first I was reluctant to mix it up with a woman, but within the first few minutes of the game, she made me forget that fact by bumping, grabbing, and generally harassing me from one end of the court to the other.

  At half-time, she sidled over to me and shoved her hip against mine and in the doing, pushed me slightly off-balance. “Nice to meet you.”

  I resisted the urge to shove her back.

  “I’ll be thinking of you tonight when I’m applying the heat packs,” she said.

  “Perhaps you’d like some cheese to go with that whine.”

  “A wise guy, huh?”

  “If you think heat packs are exclusively your domain, perhaps you’d like to take a closer look at my thigh?”

  “Not in this lifetime, big boy. I just wanted to warn you that I’m a second half girl.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Wait.” She winked at me and ambled over to her bench. Once there, she turned back to me.

  I flashed her a lopsided grin and rubbed my extended middle finger along the side of my nose.

  She glared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. We’ve been friends ever since.

  When she married and moved to Freedom, she and her husband, Gregory, stayed at my father’s house until they found a place of their own. My stepmother was godmother to their first-born daughter, Vanessa. My dad was godfather to their first-born son, Greg, Jr., or Little Greg, as he was currently called, despite the fact he was already tall for his age.

  “So, what did I do to warrant this visit?” she asked.

  “Graffiti.”

  “What graffiti?”

  I told her of the developing crisis. “I’m going to have to step up my efforts to wrangle this puppy, and I need your help.”


  “How?”

  “The current penalty for defacement of property is a thirty-dollar fine.”

  “So?”

  “I want to petition the Council to raise it to twenty-five hundred.”

  “Twenty-five hundred dollars? That’s some fine.”

  “And that would be just for openers. First offense.”

  “And for subsequent offenses?”

  “Thirty-five hundred for the second. And a bump of a thousand dollars for every additional one.”

  “You know what, Buddy,” she mused, “I’m beginning to think you may be off your rocker.”

  “There’s more.”

  “What more could there be?”

  “Thirty days in jail.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Have you looked at what’s going on here?”

  “At the graffiti?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “Then I’d like to arrange a tour. For you and the other Council members. I’d like you to see where we stand now, and then again in a week from now. If we don’t create meaningful penalties, we’re sunk.”

  “When do you want this tour to take place?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  She sat silently for a while. “Let me take it up with the others. I’ll get back to you.”

  “When?”

  “This is going to be a hard-sell, Buddy.”

  “When?”

  “I hope you realize what a pain in the ass you are.”

  I stood. “I’m counting on you, Helena.”

  “This isn’t going to be any kind of a slam dunk.”

  I grinned at her and rubbed my nose with my extended middle finger.

  “Get some new material,” she said with a laugh.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Johnny Kennerly had been my father’s first hire when he became Sheriff. Not exactly a hire. During his junior year at Roosevelt High in North Freedom, after his class had toured the station and my father had given them a lecture on police work, Johnny started hanging around, offering to do odd jobs. He expressed his interest in law enforcement and, when the Sheriff offered him a summer internship, he jumped at it.

  They became close, Johnny and my father, who saw him as the son he wished I was, a son who sought his counsel and was influenced by his opinions and his wisdom. He earned a special place in the Sheriff’s heart. Burton, Senior, came to know Johnny’s family—his single parent mother and younger sister.

  Impressed and proud that Johnny was a high school honors student, my father used his influence to gain him admittance to Cal Poly, the San Luis Obispo branch of California Polytechnic State University, and paid the tuition out of his own pocket. Upon Johnny’s graduation, my father hired him and, following a couple of years of general police work, elevated him to Deputy status.

  When the old man was diagnosed with ALS and I joined the department as his Chief Deputy, Johnny went out of his way to put me at my ease. He innately understood the complicated nature of my relationship with my father, and he made a point of being a friend to us both.

  Although Johnny and I did our best to conceal it, there existed an unspoken tension between us—more so since I’d returned to Freedom. He had been the favored probationer. I was the prodigal son. As a result, a measure of uneasiness permeated our association.

  “They’re like cockroaches,” Johnny said to me over burgers and fries at Marley’s Malt Shoppe. “They come out at night and move around unseen by human eyes.”

  “How poetic of them.”

  “I’m serious, Buddy. No one claims to ever have seen any of these taggers. In the morning, when people discover their handiwork, they’re shocked and surprised.”

  “That will definitely have to change.”

  “Have you any suggestions as to how we can effect such a change?”

  “We outsmart them.”

  “Oh, that old ruse.”

  “You got anything better?”

  “Have you?”

  “Let me get back to you on that.”

  I was sitting in my office with my feet up, watching the rain cascade down the window, when Marsha Russo strolled in and parked herself on one of the two visitor chairs in front of the desk.

  Without turning around, I said, “What?”

  “You’re so cordial. No wonder I’m awed in your presence.”

  “What is it you want, Marsha?”

  “Some analysis.”

  “See a shrink.”

  “Not that kind of analysis. Investigative analysis.”

  I removed my feet from the windowsill, whirled my chair around, and faced her. “There’s no rest for the weary.”

  “Perhaps you should try another line of work.”

  “What kind of investigative analysis?”

  “The Chrissie Lester kind.”

  I leaned closer and said, “Did you know there was such a thing as a Hank Girl?”

  “That’s what she told you?”

  “Some girls were and some girls weren’t.”

  “What was the criteria?”

  “Looks.”

  “Sounds sexist to me.”

  “To Chrissie, also. She was reluctant to talk about it.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “I don’t really know yet. It appears to play into the reasons Kimber Carson gave for wanting to leave the guy. But it’s too early to jump to any conclusions.”

  “You’re thinking sex ring, aren’t you?”

  I admired the way Marsha retained information. If she didn’t exactly have a photographic memory, what she had was the closest thing to it. She had been at my father’s side for nearly his entire reign as Sheriff. In fact, her service began with his predecessor who had hired her as a dispatcher. But once my father took charge, he recognized her talent and bumped her up to the command unit as Staff Captain.

  In her early forties at the time, divorced with a grown daughter out of the house, Marsha welcomed the unexpected promotion and took the job seriously. Her duties were far-ranging but mostly she kept track of whatever was going on at any particular time and was the Department watch dog when it came to administration, assignments, and protocols.

  She was an inherently curious person and frequently adopted the role of Inquisitor General. Which she was now playing.

  She and I had bonded early on, a bond that had grown stronger since my return to Freedom. She took great pleasure in ragging on me, but because of her good-heartedness, I gladly accepted the role of victim but never failed to seek the opportunity to strike back.

  “There’s no proof of the existence of a sex ring. There’s only Kimber’s supposition,” I told her.

  “Where there’s smoke?”

  “Smoke in the form of?”

  “Hank Girls. I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Perhaps it would be beneficial were you to have chats with a few of the Not Hank Girls. Gauge the level of their resentment. See if any of them might reveal something untoward to another woman.”

  “My, aren’t we the wordsmith this morning?”

  “Would the question ‘Why are you still here?’ have any resonance with you?”

  She stood. “Not that I can readily say. But I’ll mull on it and get back to you.” Without so much as a glance in my direction, she strolled out of the office.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wilma Hansen, the longtime dispatcher and occasional phone operator, buzzed me. “Your father on line two.”

  “Isn’t he in the building?”

  “He is.”

  “And he wants me on the phone?”

  “Hey, I just work here. I don’t do family counseling. Are you going to take the call or should I tell him to go shove it?”

  �
��I’ll take it. Thank you for your kindness.”

  “No problem.”

  I picked up the call. “Your presence is requested,” the Sheriff said.

  “Where?”

  “Judge Hiller’s office. He, the D.A., and Murray Kornbluth are about to decide your lady friend’s fate.”

  “My lady friend?”

  “You know, the widow.”

  “You mean Kimber Carson?”

  “Yes. Her.”

  “My lady friend?”

  “Figure of speech.”

  “You know something, Dad, not only are you profane, you’re also perverse.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t meant as a compliment.”

  Judge Franklin Hiller’s office was located in the County Courthouse and the hearing was just starting when I stepped into his chambers.

  Beleaguered by neatness, Hiller’s office was always immaculate. It wasn’t out of character for him to saunter over to a bookcase in the middle of a meeting to straighten an offending, ill-placed volume or even do a little dusting.

  Wearing a blue-checked suit and a red bow tie, he stared daggers at me when I entered. The meeting had already begun and I was late. “Good of you to join us,” he said with the slightest edge of annoyance in his voice.

  I nodded sheepishly and gazed briefly at Michael Lytell and Murray Kornbluth, both of whom eyed me warily.

  We were seated in front of the judge’s desk in the cavernous, dark-wood and rich leather office that abutted his courtroom. Lytell and Kornbluth were in the two stuffed armchairs. A Bentwood chair had been pulled over for me.

  “There’s been a motion to reduce bail for Kimber Carson,” Hiller plowed forward. “Are there any objections to this motion?”

  Michael Lytell raised his hand.

  The judge noticed him. “Mr. Lytell?”

  “As I said at the initial hearing, I regard Mrs. Carson as a flight risk and believe she should be held without bail.”

  Judge Hiller turned to Murray Kornbluth, who ventured, “She’s a grieving widow, Your Honor, who had not been informed she wasn’t permitted to leave the state. She returned to her family home in New Jersey to mourn with them. She’s not a flight risk. She’s not a murderer. She’s a young widow who suffered a grievous loss.”