Cold Hit

by Stephen J. Cannell

  I hung up and pondered this strange new fact while I waited for Fey Ray to finish the stomach analysis. When he finally gave me the results, the case got even more confusing.

  5

  I returned to my cluttered desk at Parker Center. Zack wasn’t there, but Captain Calloway had left a SEE ME FORTHWITH note propped on my phone. I picked it up and headed through the teeming, linoleum-floored squad room packed with cubicles and old desks. Thirty detectives answered phones and worked at computers. We had taken over a space once occupied by the expanding Crimes Against People section. Assaults in L.A. were so high that CAPS had been forced to move to larger quarters on the second floor. We inherited their old area and some of their furniture. The squad room was divided into different criminal sections by colored wall partitions stolen from other floors. No effort had been wasted on decor and no two pieces of office furniture seemed to match, but a lot of good police work was done here. I walked toward Cal’s corner office, the only enclosed room on our section of the floor. After I knocked, he yelled for me to come in.

  I stepped inside and he barked, “Shut the fuckin’ door.”

  Trouble.

  An angry scowl dominated his massive face. Jeb Calloway was short, about five-eight; but he weighed two hundred fifty pounds, all of it muscle. He was an African American who always looked to me like he should be working event security at a rap concert. He had a shaved, torpedo-shaped head, coal-black skin and the ripped build of a comic-book hero. Intimidating under normal circumstances, when he was pissed it was major pucker factor.

  “Here,” he said. “This is yours.”

  He handed me a thick blue LAPD binder. I instantly recognized it as our Fingertip murder book. It was supposed to be locked up in Zack’s desk.

  “One of the guys found that in the Xerox room,” he glowered, answering my silent question.

  “Come on…no way. How’d it get left in there?”

  But I already knew how. Zack was copying the crime scene drawings and had just walked off without it.

  “You know how much somebody could get for this at one of the local news stations?” Cal growled. “The whole case is in there—crime scene pictures, wit lists, pictures of the chest symbol. The entire fucking investigation could a been compromised. And even though I know it was Zack who left it in there, I’m holding you responsible ’cause you’re the lead man. Anything that goes wrong on this case is on you.” He took a deep breath. “What the hell is going on with that guy anyway? Since he got back from visiting his mother in Florida, he’s been a total fuck-up.”

  “He’s…he’s just…going through some rough water, Cap. The divorce and all. He’ll sail out the other end.”

  He frowned. My sailing metaphor didn’t seem to cut it for him.

  “When you came in six months ago and asked to partner up with him, I was getting set to throw him outta here. I figured you guys were partners once before so maybe you knew how to straighten him out. This is an elite unit. We’re supposed to be the best of the best, but this guy’s spent the last two months flying up his own asshole.”

  “It’s just things in his life are piling up.”

  “You’re on the Fingertip murders ’cause the chief and the head of DSG both wanted it. I don’t know if I would’a made that assignment because a homicide team has to work as a team, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re working alone. This is the biggest red ball we’ve had around here in ten years. If you muff it, we all go back to traffic.”

  “Captain, I’ll talk to him. I’ll get him straightened out.”

  “Yesterday, I heard a rumor that the sixth floor is thinking about setting up a Fingertip task force. When that happens, this case turns into a cheese fart. Every cop working it will be dreaming of book and movie deals. They’ll all start hoarding information. Worse still, a bunch of blow-dries from media relations will get assigned down here to arrange news conferences and press interviews and we’ll be up to our asshole in assholes, not to mention the platoon of narrow-shouldered FBI agents who’re bound to show up. The head of DSG needs to be told not to form a fucking task force, ’cause they never work.”

  In my presence, Calloway always referred to Alexa as the head of DSG.

  His eyes strayed to the TV hanging on a bracket in the corner of his office. It was tuned to Channel Four with the volume muted. On the screen, Alexa was standing next to Tony Filosiani behind a podium displaying the LAPD seal. They were holding a news conference to officially notify the press about the discovery of the fourth Fingertip victim. The media room looked packed. Every news station in town was there plus one or two people from each of the networks. This could only be viewed as a bad development. Intense network coverage would amp up the pressure on all of us because no division commander wanted to get his balls busted coast-to-coast by Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer. Cal glanced at his watch, grabbed the remote off his desk and turned up the volume. Tony was in midsentence speaking with his trademark Brooklynese accent.

  “…the facts are known, but as of this moment, we’re listing this as the fourth Fingertip Killing. I’ll take two more questions.” Tony shifted his weight. He was bowling-ball round, short, pink, and bald. Humpty-Dumpty in pinstripes.

  “Chief Filosiani, it’s only been eight days since the last body was found. Is this killer shortening his time frame, and what does that indicate?” It was the field reporter from Channel Five.

  “It would be foolish of me to seize on that one fact, Stan, and say that because the time frame is shortened from two weeks to eight days, this murderer is degenerating or becoming more unstable. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”

  “Lieutenant Scully, isn’t it about time you set up a Fingertip task force?” Carmen Rodriguez asked Alexa.

  Both Cal and I groaned.

  “We are not contemplating an organizational change in the investigation at this time,” Alexa said. “We’ll take that into consideration if, and when, circumstances become substantially altered.”

  “Thank you,” Tony said, anxious to end it.

  They both turned and walked off the stage. Alexa was almost two inches taller than the chief even wearing the flats she kept in her office for news conferences so she wouldn’t tower over him.

  “We’re fucked,” Cal said. He turned off the set angrily. “Once they start asking about a task force, it’s only a matter of time. You got anything promising from this new kill to head that off?”

  I looked out into the room full of detectives, then hesitated. I was reluctant to give him my suspicions and he picked up on it.

  “I ain’t gonna go blabbin’ it to anybody. I’m your boss, asshole. You got somethin’, put the shit down.”

  “I think there’s a chance that this last kill might not be the work of our original unsub.”

  “When am I gonna catch a break here?”

  “Lotta things seem off, Cap. For one, the vic had a contact lens in his right eye. How many homeless guys you ever met who wear contacts? I’m trying to trace it back. We’ll see where that takes us. But I’m betting he’s not homeless.”

  Cal furrowed his brow. “Maybe the vic used to have dough, became a wino but still wears his contacts.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But when Rico opened the stomach, his last meal, consumed less than an hour before he died, included eggplant, parsley, and caviar. So unless he was dumpster diving behind a gourmet restaurant, this is not what we generally refer to as homeless guy food. Also, he doesn’t look like a wino on the inside. His liver and kidneys were pink and healthy.”

  “Maybe this one time our unsub killed outside of his normal victim profile,” Cal countered. “Bundy killed a few girls who weren’t college kids. Son of Sam didn’t just do long-haired girls with their hair parted in the middle. All of the Green River hits weren’t runaways or prostitutes.”

  “We also recovered the bullet,” I went on. “That fact in itself is unusual, but there’s something else. It turns out to be a five point four-five millimet
er, which is a caliber mostly used in a PSM automatic.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a small-caliber gun issued to KGB officers behind the Iron Curtain in the eighties.”

  “But it could also be the same murder weapon used on the other three ’cause this is the first bullet we’ve recovered.” Cal’s voice was getting shrill. He was frustrated with me.

  “Except Rico says this guy might have been beat to death before he was shot. There’s blunt force trauma and bruising on the right side of the ribs and a busted spleen. The coroner listed the other three victims as death by gunshot, so the methodology surrounding the death looks different.”

  “So maybe it just means the unsub is degenerating,” Cal argued. “Beating his victims first, becoming more violent.”

  But his tone seemed desperate now. After seven weeks of nothing, he certainly didn’t want the first body found that had any worthwhile clues to be classified as a copycat. Neither did I, but that’s where the evidence seemed to be pointing.

  “Any one of these things alone, I could live with. But all together, they make me think—”

  “It’s another shooter.” Cal finished my sentence. Then after a long pause, he added, “But Zack said the vic had the figure-eight symbol on his chest. The oval thing. So how could it be a copycat? Nobody but a few people in the department and a few in the ME’s office know about that.”

  “Maybe the symbol leaked somehow,” I said.

  Suddenly the murder book Zack had left unattended seemed a few pounds heavier in my hands. How careless had he really been with it? I wondered.

  “Maybes and hunches don’t cut it, Shane.” Cal interrupted my thoughts. “You need to give me a theory that holds your suppositions together.”

  “You telling me not to work this case the way I see it?”

  One of Cal’s strengths was he let his detectives run their own investigations. “Okay, it’s your case. If that’s your take, separate J. D. Number Four out from the Fingertip case and work it separately so it won’t contaminate the other murders. But keep this strictly between us. Tell nobody because you could be wrong.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, wondering if nobody included Zack and Alexa. I turned to go.

  “Scully, from now on, you keep the murder book.”

  “Yes sir.”

  I knew from the look on his face he wasn’t finished, so I stood in the door and waited for the rest of it.

  “And Shane…get your partner straight today. Don’t force me to come in here tomorrow and make him piss in a bottle. If I think he’s drunk on duty again, I’ll sink him. One more misstep and I’m sending him to a Board of Rights.”

  “I’ll straighten him out.”

  I walked out and started asking around on the floor for anybody who’d seen my missing partner. In the lobby, I finally ran into two auto-theft dicks heading into the elevator on their way back from lunch.

  “He was over at Morrie’s,” one of them said.

  Morrie’s was a favorite hangout two blocks away on Spring Street. A dark, cozy, Irish pub restaurant with warm green walls and red leather booths. There were always a lot of cops there. Morrie’s was well liked because they poured generous drinks.

  That’s where I found him, sitting at the huge mahogany bar, knocking back shooters.

  6

  “My boys think I’m an asshole,” Zack said without looking over. He had three full shot glasses lined up in front of him as I slid onto the next barstool. “All they see are anger and divorce lawyers. They’ve tuned me out, turned on me.” He picked up a shot glass, studying the amber liquid, holding it so the light shone through. “Zack Junior,” he finally said in some kind of sardonic toast to his oldest son then downed it.

  “It’s only twelve-thirty,” I lectured. “We’re on duty. This place is full of Glass House brass. You’re makin’ us look bad.” Hating the judgmental, kiss-ass words as they came out of me.

  Zack didn’t look over, but frowned.

  “Okay,” I said. “Look…at least let’s move to a corner booth.”

  I grabbed the remaining two full shot glasses and moved toward an empty booth furthest away from the bar in the dark room.

  Wheezing loudly, Zack followed and slid into the booth after me. His eyes were unfocused in sockets that were beginning to turn saffron yellow from this morning’s broken nose. He looked old and used up. As soon as he was settled, he pulled one of the shot glasses toward him. He didn’t drink, but instead, stuck a big, sausage-sized finger into it, then put the finger into his mouth, tasting the single malt scotch. For a moment I didn’t think he would say anything, but then he leaned his head against the wooden back of the booth.

  “Everybody’s reading me wrong,” he sighed. “Even you. I’m in a damn echo chamber. Whatever I say, it comes out sounding louder. People only hear what they already think. It’s hard to get anybody to understand when nobody listens.”

  I decided to stay quiet. I wasn’t sure where he was headed.

  “It’s not enough that Fran and I are getting divorced, or that those pricks at the Galleria fired me and I can’t afford her attorney or Zack Junior’s college next fall. Now Fran says she wants to know my feelings about it. She says she’s worried about me, but she won’t take me back either. How do you explain your feelings when you don’t have any? Mostly I’m just fucking tired. I think if I could just…”

  Then he stopped, and put the heel of his hand up to his forehead and rubbed so hard that when his big mitt came away, he left an angry red mark.

  “Zack?” He wasn’t looking at me. “Zack,” I said again, louder, and watched as he turned his head and focused on me. “Lemme help you, man.”

  “How you gonna help me, Shane?” He stopped studying the shot glass, and downed it. “Just don’t throw me overboard. I need the job…this case. We’ll find some proof.”

  “Not in here, buddy. The only proof in here is eighty proof.”

  I watched him scowl.

  “I’ve been where you are, Zack. I’ve been on the bottom, looking up. I know what it feels like to be out of options.”

  He was suddenly furious, his face a tight mask of silent rage. I don’t know what I said to piss him off, but this is the way he was now. Sudden heart-stopping anger that would appear out of nowhere, turning his eyes into deadly lasers. Maybe he had come to despise himself so much he couldn’t take friendship or sympathy. I realized as I sat there and watched a vein in his forehead pulse, that he was much closer to the edge than I had imagined. Then he saw the blue binder on my lap.

  “Whatta ya doin’ with the murder book? It’s supposed to be in my desk,” he snapped.

  “You left it in the Xerox room.”

  He sat, dumbfounded. His expression softened. “Naw. Come on…”

  “They found it in there. Cal gave it to me half an hour ago.”

  The anger left as quickly as it came, disappearing like smoke out a window. I wished I hadn’t told him.

  “How could I have left it in Xerox?” he said in wonder. “Shit. Really?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He leaned his head back against the wall. “I am so fucked,” he said softly.

  “Listen, Zack. It’s okay. I squared it with Cal, but I’m taking over the book for a while. I’m taking it home to upgrade it, okay?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “And something else, Zack. Cal thinks Tony is about to form a task force to keep the press off his back. I’ve been on two task forces and both times it was a disaster. The more blue they throw at a big case, the more selfish and political everybody gets. We need to put this down fast. I need your help, buddy. Will you straighten up and help me?”

  “What you really want is to get me outta your way,” he said sadly. “It’s in your eyes. You wish you’d never partnered up with me again.”

  “That’s not true,” I lied. But it was so true it was laughable.

  “Okay, I’m on the case,” he said. “Finish this shot and I’m on the
wagon.”

  “Good. Now you’re talkin’.”

  “This new vic is crawling with clues,” he grumbled. “The contact lens, the bullet, the eyelid tats. We’ll have the unsub hooked and booked in no time. We gotta concentrate on this last kill. Forget the others. Solve this one and we solve them all.” Then he picked up the last shot glass and drained it.

  7

  The Trojan tradition is a lot more than a bunch of brass in the trophy case at Heritage Hall,” Pete Carroll said.

  He was sitting in the living room; our cat Franco was at his feet, looking up, not wanting to miss a word. Alexa, Delfina, and I were sitting across from him on the sofa. Chooch was in the club chair leaning forward attentively.

  “USC is going to expose you to one of the best academic educations you can get anywhere in the country. It’s important to me and to our program to graduate our players. Sixty-one percent of our incoming freshman end up with degrees.”

  Pete Carroll was in his early fifties; youthful, with sandy blond-gray hair and a friendly, engaging smile. His nose had been broken and not set properly, which I thought added character to an already handsome face. The coach had been in our house for forty minutes and hadn’t once talked about football or the two national championships he’d already won. Mostly, he was stressing teamwork and the academic and cultural advantages of the university.

  Chooch was beginning to work his way up to a question, and finally asked, “Would there be any chance for me to play as a freshman, Coach?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t an outstanding quarterback, Chooch. Lane Kiffen went to several of your games and says you have what it takes. I’ve seen your tapes and talked to your coach at Harvard Westlake. He tells me you’re a team leader and an honors student. I like everything I’m hearing. But my job is about more than who gets on the field or just winning football games. What we’re really about is building our young men.

  “I play freshmen when they’re the best at their position, both physically and emotionally. You won’t have to stand in line to get playing time at USC, but I also don’t make promises I can’t keep.” Then he leaned back and smiled at Chooch. “Strange as it seems, your character is more important to me than your time in the forty, because I know a man with good work ethics, a sense of team, and a big heart is going to go out and take care of business not only on the field, but in life. The most gifted athlete isn’t always the best man for the job. Heart, teamwork, and integrity count. A lot of what we do at USC is work on building what’s inside.”