One on One

by Michael Brandman

  “Don’t go upsetting me, here, Buddy. A deal is a deal. Don’t even think about weaseling out of it.”

  I felt myself filling with rage.

  “Get a grip.” He struggled to stand. “More than once you told me you came back here for the father-son dynamic. To do your part in resolving our issues before it’s too late. Be sure to keep that in mind as you weigh your part in our mutual future.”

  He glowered at me. “Now get the fuck out of here so’s I can get some rest.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Having been provided with his address by Marsha Russo, I pulled up in front of Bobby Siegler’s house in West Freedom.

  Located in one of the better neighborhoods, the Siegler house sat on what looked to be at least half an acre of land. It was a Colonial, with rows of hedges and a pair of heritage oaks in the front yard.

  It was eight-thirty on a Saturday morning and the doorbell was answered by an unshaven middle-aged man still in his pajamas.

  He stared at me. “Sheriff?”

  “I’m looking for Robert Siegler.”

  “I’m him.”

  After a moment, I asked, “Is there perhaps a Robert Siegler, Jr?”

  “There is.”

  “Would he be at home?”

  “I think he’s still asleep.”

  “Would you please let him know I’m here to see him.”

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  A flash of alarm briefly registered on the elder Siegler’s face. “Forgive me, Sheriff. Excuse my manners. Would you care to come in?”

  “Might be better if I did.”

  “Please.” He stepped aside to admit me. “I’ve just made fresh coffee. May I offer you some?”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  He led me into a den that appeared to serve primarily as a TV room. A sofa and several lounge chairs stood facing a giant-screen home entertainment center.

  “Please have a seat. I’ll go get Bobby.”

  I wandered around the room, stopping to look at the contents of the wall-sized bookcase that was bolstered by forty or so leatherbound classics ranging from Dostoyevsky to Steinbeck. A separate section was reserved for more contemporary books, novels by the likes of Michael Chabon and Paul Auster; nonfiction by Michael Lewis, David Halberstam, and Malcolm Gladwell.

  The Sieglers, Senior and Junior, stepped into the room. Junior was also in his pajamas, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, trying to recall just who I was and where we had met.

  “Sheriff Buddy Steel,” I said. “Good morning, Bobby. Sorry to wake you up so early.”

  Bobby Siegler stared at me questioningly.

  “I want the names of the two football players,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The two football players that Coach Hank brought aboard to provide security.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” To his father he said, “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  My gaze wandered from Junior to Senior. “This can go easy for him or it could go hard. He knows what I’m talking about and he has about a minute and a half to give me the information I’m requesting. If he continues to play dumb, I’ll sure as hell arrest him and make certain he enters the system which will be a lifetime stain on his record.”

  Mr. Siegler looked at his son. “Do you have the information the Sheriff is seeking?”

  Bobby lowered his head and nodded.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” the elder Siegler said.

  Bobby nodded again.

  “Then tell it to the Sheriff. Now.”

  Tears appeared in the corners of Bobby’s eyes. “They’ll fuck me over if I do.”

  “Who will?” I asked.

  “Them. They’ll beat the crap out of me.”

  “They won’t,” I said. “I promise. Tell me their names.”

  He pleaded with me. “I’m no squealer.”

  I looked at his father. “I’m going to take him downtown to Sheriff’s headquarters. I’ll book him and request he be held without bond. You might want to contact a lawyer.”

  I approached Bobby Siegler and removed the handcuffs from my service belt.

  “Are you crazy?” Mr. Siegler said to his son, the intensity of his voice on the rise. “Tell the man what he wants to know. This could mess up your entire life.”

  Bobby Siegler looked at me. “Ronnie van Cleave and Paulie Henderson.”

  “Seniors?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at Mr. Siegler and said, “Good call.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  I phoned Marsha Russo from my cruiser. “Two seniors. Members of the football team. Ronald Van Cleave and Paul Henderson. I want you to pick them both up and hold them without bail. Separately. Bring along some backup in case they cause trouble. Let me know when you’ve got them.”

  “Charge?”

  “Murder.”

  “They killed Hank Carson?”

  “Uncertain. Were I a betting man, I’d say no. But they’ve got information that in all likelihood relates to the killing.”

  “Do I need to involve the D.A.’s office?”

  “Eventually. But not yet.”

  “Got it. I’ll be back to you when it’s done.”

  After the call, I drove around aimlessly for a while. I stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts and picked up coffee and a cruller. I wandered over to Freedom Park and pulled up in the shade of a live oak, in a red zone, within sight of the statue of the former California Governor and later Supreme Court Justice, Earl Warren.

  The base of the statue displayed Warren’s most notable quote, It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

  An axiom I admired.

  I sipped and ate and stared sightlessly out the window. I didn’t like this murder case. It depressed me. Which had to do with the demeaning play parties Henry Carson had organized.

  But without having even spoken with them, I didn’t make the football players for the murder, even though their involvement had more than likely changed the game. They understood they could control Hank Carson because his job was at stake. By threatening to blow the whistle on him, they gained the upper hand.

  At the outset I’m sure they didn’t grasp all that was in store for them, but when they became participants and realized that a play party was, in reality, a sex party, they seized their opportunity.

  Steffi Lincoln told her mother that her informant friend claimed things had gotten rough. Consensual sex was no longer de rigueur. The football thugs were in charge. Roughhousing had become a factor. Rape was a regular occurrence. Somewhere in that dynamic lay the answer to who murdered Henry Carson.

  I’d have to present this case to the District Attorney pretty soon, but the last people I wanted to deal with just now were D.A. Michael Lytell and his whipping boy, Skip Wilder.

  I acknowledged to myself that often the trials and tribulations of a big city police force were a whole lot less personal than those of a small town. This case was a striking example of that dictum.

  Then there was the issue of my father. I knew I had to involve him in these goings-on, but sitting in front of the deteriorating old man, forcing myself to once again watch him fruitlessly standing up to his mortality, always took the starch out of me.

  I finished the cruller, took a last sip of coffee, waved goodbye to Earl Warren, and headed for the station, where the idea of making the lives of a pair of malevolent idiots more miserable than my own was suddenly very appealing.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “The BMW is registered to a Gustavo Noel who lives in Beverly Hills,” Marsha Russo told me when she picked up my call.

  “Gustavo Noel, the movie mogul?”

  “Is there another one?”
/>   “Are you currently on your computer?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Look him up.”

  “Gustavo Noel?”

  “Yes. I want to know about him and his family.”

  “One moment, please,” she pronounced in her faux official voice.

  I waited.

  She came back on the line. “You’re going to love this, Buddy.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Robaire,” she said.

  “What Robaire?”

  “The son.”

  “Robaire Noel?”

  “None other.”

  “Robaire Noel,” I muttered. “Robber Xmas?”

  “You know what, Buddy? You’re a lot smarter than I give you credit for.”

  My mind was racing. Our tagger Robaire Noel is the son of Gustavo Noel, the movie industry giant.

  “Catarina and Francesca,” Marsha added, interrupting my preoccupation.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Two daughters. Catarina and Francesca.”

  “Sisters of Robaire?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do me a favor.”

  “Only if you ask nicely.”

  “See what you can learn about all three of the children. And get me Pere Noel’s address. And any other information you think might be relevant.”

  “My pleasure.” She ended the call.

  “Gustavo Noel,” I exclaimed to myself. “How about them apples?”

  Gustavo Noel was the modern-day equivalent of the old-time movie mogul. His story was the stuff of Hollywood legend. Born the son of aristocratic parents in Mexico City, he had been educated both there and later, when his parents moved to Los Angeles, here.

  It was while he was studying at The University of Southern California that he fell in with the motion picture crowd. He subsequently took film classes and produced several short movies, which connected him with such USC luminaries as Lucas, Coppola, and Spielberg.

  After graduation, young Gustavo joined his father’s vast industrial complex but quickly lost interest. When he convinced the old man to finance his dream of becoming a filmmaker, he was off and running.

  He proved himself a smart and cunning executive. Capitalizing on his USC connections, his debut feature, The Lonely Hunter, cast and staffed with his college chums, won Gustavo an Oscar nomination. His second film, Galaxy Wars, grossed in excess of seven hundred million dollars.

  His purchase of Nexus Film Studios, a prolific low-budget production company possessing a backlot and a notable film library, coupled with his own bounteous annual output, qualified the fledgling Noel Films International as a mini-major.

  With more than enough money to fund his myriad projects, plus an A list address book, Gustavo Noel soon became Hollywood royalty.

  The bleating of my cell phone interrupted my musings.

  “You’ll be pleased to learn that both Catarina and Francesca Noel occupy lofty positions in the hierarchy of Noel Films.”

  “I’m sensing a but in there somewhere.”

  “Robaire Noel, the prodigal son, is the family black sheep. He flunked out of USC after a single semester. Although he still lives on the family dime, he’s estranged from them.”

  “What else?”

  “He fancies himself a great artist.”

  “Don’t tell me. Graffiti?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Where on the family dime does he live?”

  “Cell phone tracking narrows the search to two locations. One in Beverly Hills. The other here.”

  “In Freedom?”

  “Yes.”

  “321 Meeker Street.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m the Sheriff’s Chief Deputy. I know everything.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Get yourself some new material. Oh, and Messrs Van Cleave and Henderson are cooling their jets in separate cells.”

  “The football players.”

  “Them.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “They’ll be pleased to know that. One of them has already threatened to rip the bars out of the wall.”

  “Terrifying.”

  “Wait until you lay eyes on them.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  It’s not that they were so terrifying, it’s that they were so mesmerizingly deformed.

  Perhaps at one time Ronald Van Cleave and Paul Henderson looked like regular humans, but now they resembled a pair of overly developed cartoon characters. There wasn’t an inch of fat on either of them. Their horribly swollen musculature looked to have been attained not only to administer deadly punishment, but to fend it off as well. High school football for them likely served as the training ground for a future filled with even greater violence.

  Van Cleave was the larger of the two, six-three or four, weighing at least two-fifty. His feral, gunmetal gray eyes were constantly on the move, scanning his environment for threats, real or implied. Even behind bars, he projected a kind of animal restlessness that threatened to erupt into violence at any moment.

  Henderson was the more circumspect of the two, standing taller than six feet and weighing in at not less than a couple of hundred pounds. His guarded black eyes reflected evil, plus an all-encompassing hatred that labeled him as someone to avoid.

  Both were charismatic, however, exuding an unexpected sensuality that was both fascinating and repellent. It’s no wonder Henry Carson feared them. He should have exercised better judgment in selecting them.

  I chose to interview them separately and when Deputy Al Striar and I entered the small, windowless conference room on the basement level of Freedom Town Hall, Ronald Van Cleave, his hands cuffed in front of him and his feet chained to a bolt in the floor, sat at the interview table glaring at us.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said by way of greeting.

  Our introductions served to raise his temperature. “I want a lawyer.”

  “Soon enough. You’re not under arrest and you’re not a suspect. I wanted to have a little tete-a-tete with you in an effort to confirm a few facts.”

  “What’s tattatat?”

  “An expression,” I said. “French.”

  I called out to the guard who was stationed outside the door. “Would you be so kind as to remove Mr. Van Cleave’s shackles?”

  Van Cleave’s eyes registered surprise.

  The guard asked, “You want me to unchain him?”

  “Please.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “I am.”

  “Okay.” The guard did as he was asked.

  Striar and I sat down opposite Van Cleave. “Can we get you anything?”

  Van Cleave looked at us warily and said nothing.

  I instructed the guard to bring us a few bottles of cold water. When he did, Van Cleave accepted one. “What do you want from me?”

  “I was just getting to that. My apologies for any inconvenience we may have caused you. I hope to get through our business quickly.”

  “And then I can go?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked first at Al Striar, then again at me. “Okay.”

  “What can you tell me about these so-called play parties?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Even though you were a participant.”

  “I never participated in anything.”

  “You’re saying you never attended or took part in any of the play parties that were arranged and supervised by Henry Carson?”

  “Who’s Henry Carson?”

  I sat silently for a while, closely monitored by Ronald Van Cleave’s malevolent stare. I leaned across the table and lowered my voice. “May I confide in you?”

  Van Cleave continued to stare at me. He said nothing.

&nbs
p; I went on. “This is a pretty informal conversation we’re having here, Ron. It is Ron, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry to say that I’m not respecting the answers you’ve been giving me. Should you continue to be evasive and uncooperative, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to change course here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that if you don’t start answering my questions, I’m going to arrest you and charge you with the murder of Henry Carson. Perhaps you remember him now?”

  “I never murdered anyone.”

  “That’s District Attorney business. Who, by the way, is a whole lot less pleasant than I. But whatever happens, it’s bound to be a stain on your record. We can prove you were a player in a series of parties that ultimately resulted in Henry Carson’s death.

  “By participating, as you indeed did, in a number of these so-called play party events, and by serving as Mr. Carson’s enforcer, you’re implicated and you’ll be duly charged. My guess? At the very least it would spell the end of your athletic career. Amateur and pro.”

  He sat mulling for a while. Then he said, “Okay. I played.”

  “At the play parties?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means?”

  “Me and Paulie, we made it with a few of the girls.”

  “Swim team members?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Against their wills?”

  “No. Not on your life. Paulie and me ain’t into rape.”

  “Okay.”

  “Some of them other guys, them swimmers, they were into roughhousing. Coach Hank, too.”

  “Did you assault Steffi Lincoln?”

  “You know what,” Van Cleave said, “regardless of what you said, I think I’m done talking to you. Either bust me or cut me loose. I know my rights. I want a phone call.”

  “Okay.” I summoned the guard. “Please place the restraints back onto Mr. Van Cleave and return him to his cell.”

  “What about my call?”

  “I’ll consider the request.”