Try Dying

by James Scott Bell

  I could see Jacqueline’s face as she told me how much she loved this episode. I could see the tears in her eyes.

  “They take her up to a room,” I went on, “and Mr. Death is going to go get her at midnight. The pitchman and Death are sitting outside the building, waiting, and the pitchman, very slowly, starts showing Mr. Death his wares. He lays a line on him, and the next thing you know, Mr. Death is buying a tie. And then some other things. In fact, the pitch is so good Death can’t stop buying. And he keeps buying and buying until the stroke of midnight. When he hears the bell toll, Death knows he’s missed his appointment. The little girl is going to live. Of course, the peddler has now made his pitch for the angels. And, as per the agreement, must go away with Mr. Death. He asks Death if he’s going ‘Up there.’ Death says, ‘Yes, you made it.’ And off they walk.”

  Al nodded. “That tells me a lot about Jacqueline.”

  “Yeah it does,” I said.

  31

  I DECIDED TO drive out to Reseda to check on Fran. It was getting toward dinnertime, and I had the feeling she might need to see me. I took Sepulveda through the pass, trying to avoid the freeway traffic.

  Somewhere past the Getty Center, a car started hugging my rear. It had a tinted windshield, and the way the light was in the canyon I couldn’t see a face.

  A guy too anxious to get home. In a blue Lexus. He could afford to wait.

  But he didn’t want to and kept close.

  After the game, after the nose thing, I wasn’t into this. Road rage is a cliché, especially in L.A. The Honk While I Reload bumper sticker was born here.

  Only I was feeling like I wanted a gun in my hand for real. This was starting to freak me a little.

  I thought about slamming on my brakes, letting the guy rear-end me the way those scam artists do to get the insurance.

  Paranoia is mental illness, unless everybody is after you. Sometimes you feel that way in the city, especially when your head’s working overtime trying to get a handle on lies and murder.

  The car was still behind me as I passed the Galleria. And then I got a call from Detective Fernández. He said he could see me in the morning.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  When I looked in my rearview mirror, the Lexus was gone.

  32

  “THANKS FOR COMING in.” Fernández seemed the slightest bit more friendly to me. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Not missing anything.” His attempt at humor seemed more like a dodge, as if he didn’t have good news coming my way.

  “I got whacked on the head again,” I said. “As you can see.”

  “How’d that happen?” He lowered himself into a chair and positioned himself to listen. We were back in the same interview room. It looked even more sterile, like they did the occasional autopsy here.

  “The guy who did it the first time, I saw him again. And he did it to me one more time. Do you find that an amazing coincidence?”

  “Same guy? The homeless guy?”

  “That’s right. I was talking to one of Bonilla’s neighbors. Mrs. Salazar.”

  Fernández shook his head.

  “You don’t know who that is?” I asked. “On a murder case?”

  “Mr. Buchanan, we’re not treating this as a murder.”

  “Can I ask why not?”

  “Lack of evidence. That’s all it is.”

  “Well, can’t you look around and find some?”

  He shifted in his chair. “We did get three witness statements from the scene, but none of them saw anything we can determine is criminal. It was raining, you’ll recall. Incredibly, there wasn’t any contact with other vehicles. Ms. Dwyer’s vehicle came to rest straddling the two and three lanes. There was apparently a lot of confusion. One guy did have the presence of mind to call 911. None of the wits got out of their cars. They were on the freeway, after all and—”

  “Who are these people? Can I talk to them?”

  “Of course I can’t give you the names—”

  “Help me out here.”

  “Mr. Buchanan—”

  “Please. There’s more to this. You’ve got to press it.”

  “We have eight detectives, three trainees, and seven hundred unsolveds. We just don’t have the manpower to—”

  “What about me? I just gave you some new evidence here.”

  “Mr. Buchanan, what you’re telling me has no relation to the death of Ms. Dwyer.”

  “I am the relation. I’m sitting here telling you what happened.”

  “I understand that. But—”

  “Listen, I went to see a woman named Salazar. She lives across from the Bonillas. She was going to tell me about them. Now why should the guy who tracked me down at Jacqueline’s funeral be there, too?”

  “I still don’t see a connection.”

  “What more has to happen to me before you do?”

  “Last thing I want is to see you hurt. Don’t go messing around as if you’re trying to solve a murder. This isn’t TV. There are very bad people out there that if you happen to ask the wrong question at the wrong time, well, we can’t be there to help you.”

  “You haven’t been much help so far.”

  Fernández’s face hardened. I took my foot out of my mouth and said, “Look, I’m tired of getting hit. I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on. There is something out there, and I want you to know about it. I don’t know what else to do.”

  After a long moment, Fernández said, “If anything changes from my end, I will certainly let you know. But my advice is this, that you let go of the thought that this was anything more than a bizarre accident. I mean, a man commits suicide and falls off an overpass and hits your fiancée’s car. That could not have been planned. And the word of some mysterious homeless guy just isn’t going to change that.”

  The whole thing did sound outlandish, like a bad Oliver Stone movie. I couldn’t blame the LAPD for not spending time and resources looking into it.

  So I stood and thanked Detective Fernández and walked out of Southeast Division thinking there would be no resolution and maybe I’d better just forget it. Bury the dead and get on with living. Get rid of the headaches for good.

  But when I got out on One Hundred and Eighth Street I kicked a wire trash can so hard I almost broke a toe. And I knew then there was no way on God’s asphalted earth I could forget it.

  33

  WHEN I GOT back to the office, I was surprised by the news that Jonathan Blake Blumberg was in the conference room wanting to see me.

  McDonough was in there with him. He didn’t look happy. He was used to his associates being in the office sharp and early, unless they were in court.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Blumberg said.

  That much I gathered.

  “Alone,” he said. McDonough, without a word, left the room. I felt like I’d been called into the principal’s office.

  “Something wrong?” I said.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?” His eyes were like blue laser beams. I could understand how he melted his opposition. But he was supposed to be on my side.

  “I can only assume because you’re here,” I said. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Is there something I should know?”

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Think again.”

  Feeling under the gun after my fruitless visit downtown wasn’t doing much to chill my brain. I told myself to take it easy.

  “Mr. Blumberg, I am open to anything you have to say, but—”

  “You think I’m a liar.”

  “What?”

  “Buchanan, there is something I do that I do better than anyone I know, and that’s get inside heads, and when you were in my office that’s what you were thinking.”

  “Would it make any difference if I told you I wasn’t thinking that?”

  “You’re denying it?”

  “I was trying to get your
statement,” I said. “Like a real lawyer.”

  “And do what with it?”

  “I don’t really follow you, Mr. Blumberg.”

  “When I checked with McDonough, he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about your recent work.”

  “That’s news to me.”

  “I don’t care if it’s news or not. I want to know if you can do the job.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but what exactly are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about my daughter’s lawsuit against your client.”

  “Yes, I can do the job.”

  “I hear you saying that. But I don’t see the hunger. You have to get mad. You have to hunt meat. That’s what separates the calves from the bulls.”

  What era was this guy born in? He was like some Victorian patriarch set loose in Africa with an elephant gun and pith helmet. “Mr. Blumberg, I am a lawyer representing a client, and my interest is in doing everything I can to win the case. And I will—”

  “Everything?”

  “Well, within the ethical guidelines.”

  “Guidelines are drafted by the folks who finish second.”

  “What is it exactly you want me to do?”

  “I want you to get mad. I want you to get mad at the right people, like Kendra Mackee and my ex-wife. Have you been to see her yet?”

  “No, and I—”

  “Go see her. That’ll tell you a lot.”

  “I can’t just go see her. I have to wait to depose—”

  “Find a way, Buchanan. Have you done anything else?”

  “It so happens—”

  “Tell me.”

  “Give me a chance, will you please?”

  He folded his arms. He had his sleeves rolled up, and the dark hairs on his forearms looked like they could scrape a ship’s hull.

  “It just so happens,” I said, “that I interviewed a priest who had a run-in with Dr. Mackee. He was accused of molestation by a guy who got his memory unjogged, so he said, by Mackee. Only it never got to the trial stage ’cause the archdiocese settled the matter. But this priest insists it was all fabricated, and I think I believe him.”

  “Is any of that admissible? I mean, can you legally use it?”

  “Not his statement alone, I’m afraid.”

  “But this accuser, maybe you could find him?”

  “I can try.”

  “Don’t say try Buchanan.” He slapped the conference table. “Come on!”

  I stood up. “With all due respect, sir, you can call me Mr. Buchanan. No, I take that back—you cannot call me at all. You are not a party to this lawsuit and you’re getting in my way. If I need anything from you I will get in touch.” Signing your own professional death warrant is perversely cathartic. My little speech had spewed out of my mouth like lava. Something kicked in, and I couldn’t control it. Now all Blumberg had to do was walk down to McDonough’s office and tell him what I said and my future at Gunther, McDonough & Longyear would go up in a cloud of dust.

  Instead Blumberg just sat there staring at me, letting me stew in my juice for a moment. Then he smiled and stood up. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “Mad! Good. Now go get some meat.”

  34

  MEAT.

  I kept thinking about it. Whatever else B-2 was, he had this kind of primal scream personality that made me think of pounding drums.

  Maybe Blumberg was right about me, I had to get a little down, a little dirtier. In a lot of ways.

  There was a time when I was snowboarding in Mammoth with Al, and my good buddy challenged me to air one out like never before. He was laughing at me, too, he being the expert, me the novice. But the time had come. And as I headed for the booter to make the jump I got nervous, but in a split second chucked it away and told myself I had to do it.

  I did, and wiped out big-time. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck. But between the time I jumped and the time I biffed, I was living in the zone and went back and did it again.

  You have to get back up and try again, and now was the time. If I biffed now, maybe I’d end up with more than a broken neck, but I didn’t care. I just wasn’t into caring at the moment, thank you very much.

  And so, at four-forty-five in the afternoon, I entered the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Kendra Mackee. From a legal standpoint this was a fool’s errand. She was the chief witness for Claudia Blumberg in the litigation. Didn’t matter to me. I wanted to look her in the eye just once before I deposed her. Once without a lawyer in the room. Except me.

  Her receptionist was an expressionless twenty-something with a silver stud in her eyebrow. In all other respects she was a classic Beverly Hills presence. Perfect skin and makeup, clothes that probably came from one of the high-priced boutiques on Rodeo Drive.

  “May I help you?” she said tonelessly.

  “The name’s Buchanan. I’d like to speak with Dr. Mackee for a moment if I may.”

  “You don’t, like, have an appointment, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “I, like, don’t. I’m here on semiofficial business. It involves the Claudia Blumberg matter.”

  That got her eyebrow to rise. It looked like an effort.

  “Can you wait a moment?” she said.

  “I got nothing but time,” I said.

  She left the reception area. I sat in a chair that would have been an unaffordable luxury in most homes. The overhead on this location had to be killer.

  The maple door next to the reception window opened. Dr. Kendra Mackee, even though she was no taller than five-four, seemed to fill it.

  “I don’t appreciate your coming here.” Mackee seemed almost the opposite of Lea Edwards—short, with dark hair, and deep brown eyes. She wore a black suit with a multicolored scarf around her neck. For a moment, it seemed to be the only color in the place. She was a coil of energy, too.

  If Lea Edwards was a waltz, Kendra Mackee was a tango.

  “My name is—”

  “I know what your name is. Buchanan. You represent Lea.”

  “First-name basis?”

  “I wouldn’t dignify her name with Doctor.”

  “Is there a place we can talk?” I said.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I thought maybe you could enlighten me on some things.”

  “Oh please.”

  “Like repressed memory, for instance.”

  Her eyes sparked. “You think I’m going to give you anything?”

  “Relax, doctor. I’m just trying to find out the facts.”

  “The facts are that Lea Edwards is a liar and a slanderer, and when Claudia gets through with her I’ll sue her myself. Now please leave.”

  Not moving, I said, “You wrote a book about repressed memory, didn’t you? I can’t recall.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Didn’t mean it to be. I read The Memory Book by those guys, you know . . .”

  Kendra Mackee looked at the receptionist. “Call Vince,” she said. “Tell him we have an unwelcome presence.”

  Vince, I took it, was security. To the receptionist I said, “No need to call Vince. I’m, like, gone.”

  “Get me Barton Walbert on the phone,” Dr. Mackee said, then leveled a glare at me that was not one you’d want to mess around with. It also told me what I wanted to know.

  Kendra Mackee was a little well-dressed bomb, and given the right prodding she’d blow. That would make for a very nice cross-examination.

  35

  THE WORKDAY WAS over after my little visit to Mackee’s. And the hunting of meat, as B-2 had put it, had given me the taste for more.

  I drove east, then south.

  Mrs. Salazar was shocked to see me standing at her door. I didn’t wonder, considering what happened at our last meeting.

  “Go away, please,” she said.

  “Mrs. Salazar, please, only a minute.”

  “Why?”

  “I need your help.”

  “No, no.”

  “But why?”
<
br />   “I am afraid.”

  “I am afraid, too, Mrs. Salazar. I’m really afraid I’ll never find out what happened. And I’m running out of places to turn.”

  Her forehead creased. “Come in.”

  I went inside the small, warm house. Noticed again the crucifix on the wall above the sofa. In front of the sofa was a small, round table with a sewing kit on it. Some fabric was next to the kit.

  Mrs. Salazar might have been your friendly neighborhood seamstress.

  “You must go,” she said. “I no want no one to see.”

  “Who?”

  “The men.”

  “What men?”

  “With Ernesto.”

  I took the folded copy of the police report from my back pocket. “Is one of those men someone named Tomás Estrada?”

  “Cómo?”

  “Estrada. Tomás Estrada.”

  “No know.”

  “What men are you talking about, with Ernesto?”

  “Malo. Bad.”

  “In what way?”

  “The gangs.”

  “Ernesto was a gang member?”

  “I think.”

  “Do you know the name of this gang?”

  She shook her head. “Please to go.”

  I made no move toward the door, and a flicker of fear moved across Mrs. Salazar’s face. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her any more than she already was. As I was thinking of my next words, I glimpsed the crucifix on the wall.

  “Last time you said that Alejandra Bonilla was a woman of God.”

  “Sí.”

  “As are you.”

  She said nothing.

  “As was my fiancée.”

  Mrs. Salazar’s features softened. “I pray for her.”

  “You can do more, for both of them.”

  “How?”

  “Help me find this man, Tomás Estrada.”

  “I do not know this man.”

  “Be my interpreter then.”

  “Eh?”

  “I don’t speak Spanish. I’m going to call this number and say there is a legal document to be hand delivered to Tomás Estrada. It’s from the Los Angeles Police Department. I want to get an address. But I’ll need you to interpret. Will you do that for me?”