by Tyler Dilts
“I hope you didn’t get in trouble or anything,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you must have pissed somebody off to get stuck with babysitting duty.”
She looked puzzled. “Babysitting? I don’t know what you mean. Ruiz said Jen recommended me for this. I was happy to help.”
“You heard what happened the other day, right? Nobody’s very pleased with me right now.”
“Where did you get that idea? Everybody’s just glad you’re okay.”
“Maybe not everybody.”
“Stop it,” she said firmly, surprising me.
“That’s a lot of attitude for a rookie.”
“I’m not a rookie anymore.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And Jen told me not to put up with any of your shit.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FORGOTTEN
The lecture I’d been expecting from Ruiz since I had left the hospital never came. Instead, he sat me down in his office with his hand on my shoulder and said, “Jesus, I’m glad you’re back. You had us worried.” He stepped around behind his desk and sat down. There was a rare smile on his face. “How’s your head?”
“Not too bad,” I said. The constant headache had become so normal at that point, I barely paid attention to it anymore. It’s surprising how quickly you can become used to pain once you have some experience with it.
“Good,” he said. “Traumatic brain injury is serious business.”
That was the first time anyone had mentioned TBI to me, even though it had been worming its way around my imagination since I woke up in the hospital. I had Googled it, but was hoping my self-diagnosis had been off base. It wasn’t. My grade-three concussion qualified.
“I seem to be doing okay,” I said, hoping it was true.
He said “Good” again and I could tell he was preparing himself to say something he didn’t want to say. I was pretty sure I knew what it was going to be.
“Yesterday, I officially took you off the Denkins case and made Jen the primary.”
“I understand,” I said.
He sighed and seemed relieved that I didn’t argue with him. “I’m sorry I had to do it. But there’s clearly a link between the bombing and the suicide investigation.”
I still didn’t want to acknowledge it, but my attacker warning me off of the interview with Lucinda couldn’t have meant anything else. But I also knew that until the case was closed—or, failing that, until it cooled down considerably—I’d still be considered a target. What I was unsure of was what that meant.
“We’ve got two choices,” Ruiz said. “You can use some vacation time, but only if you want to get out of town for a while. We don’t have the manpower to keep someone with you 24-7 if you’re just going to be hanging out at home.”
Maybe Julia would want to take a week and go away someplace. We hadn’t taken a trip together yet. It might be good for us. The thought left as quickly as it had come. It would be hard enough for me not to be working the Denkins case, but to walk away completely? I couldn’t do it. At least if I was here I’d be able to follow Jen’s progress, maybe keep a toe in the water.
I didn’t really need to ask about the other choice, but I did. “And the alternative?”
“Administrative duty, keep you at your desk for a while. Besides, that’s all the doctor has cleared you for at this point. That’s what you’d be doing anyway.”
“Okay,” I said.
He nodded. I imagined he thought things were going much more smoothly than he had anticipated. “How do you feel about Officer Terrones?”
“She’s good. Jen’s right. I like her. Why?”
“I’ve gotten her temporarily reassigned from patrol. She’ll be backing you up whenever you’re not in the station. It’ll work out well with you staying at Jen’s house.”
“You think I should still be there?”
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t you?”
I did, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe Jen would agree. She wouldn’t even return my texts. But that’s not what I told Ruiz. “If he was keeping close-enough tabs on me to know when I got in the shower, I’m sure he knows I’m staying at Jen’s house. I’m worried about putting her and Lauren at risk.”
“I don’t know,” he said, chewing on the idea. “You had a bag over your head, but did you get an impression of the guy? Think he was a heavy hitter? He the kind of guy who’ll drive by with a car full of bangers and AK-47s?”
“I couldn’t tell, not really. He didn’t sound street, or foreign. But he apparently has access to South African antipersonnel mines.”
“He does,” Ruiz said. “But if he’s that serious, why didn’t he just kill you when he had the chance?” He let that sink in, then added, “If he doesn’t want one dead cop on his hands, it doesn’t seem very likely he’d want three.”
“Still.”
“Danny, somebody’s got to watch your back for a while. They’re up for it. They want to do it.”
I wondered if he’d talked to Jen recently. “All right,” I said.
We talked for a few more minutes about my other open cases and how I’d prioritize things now that the Denkins case was out of my hands.
“One last thing,” he said. “Patrick and Jen will need to consult with you, but give them the space they need. You’re going to want to keep your fingers in the pie, but don’t. Let them work.”
There’s always more work to do. When a new case comes in, it jumps immediately to the front of the line. Often, there’s little actual investigative work required. It’s perfectly clear who killed whom, and it’s just a matter of documenting the incident and passing everything up the line to the prosecutors. Other times, it will take a few days or weeks of sorting through the evidence until we reach the conclusion that was more or less forgone the moment the body of the victim was discovered. There are others still, fortunately a small minority, that don’t offer answers to our questions of who and why. We run out of leads, or don’t have any to begin with. We follow the stream of evidence until it runs dry. Every homicide detective has a backlog of these cases, waiting for either that new bit of information that will bring them back to life or the lack of it that will eventually consign them to the open/unsolved files.
I was sitting at my desk sorting through my open cases and prioritizing them, making lists of things to review and follow up on, looking for new questions to ask or new threads to pull, when Patrick and Jen came into the squad room. He said something I couldn’t quite hear and she laughed.
“Hey, guys,” I said, raising my hand in a halfhearted wave.
“Danny,” Patrick said. “How are you doing?”
They came over to my desk, Patrick more enthusiastically than Jen.
“Not too bad,” I said. “Still have a headache.”
Nobody said anything, and I wondered if the silence felt as awkward to them as it did to me. To break it, I said, “I talked to Ruiz. I’ll be riding the desk for a while. I made copies of all my notes and files for you. The murder book’s on your desk, Jen.” It took every bit of willpower I could muster not to ask them about the investigation. They must have had something new. How did Jen’s interview with Lucinda Denkins go? Did they get anything from the van? What about Joe? Had they talked to Dave about Kobe’s case? Was there any progress on identifying S. Wise and C. Shepard? I kept my questions to myself, shoved them down into that deep empty pit where I keep my emotions. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Patrick said, “Thanks, we will.”
“I’ve been listening to I Was There Too,” I said. “Napalm smells best in the evening.”
He laughed. “Have you gotten to the one with Stephen Tobolowsky yet?”
“That’s my favorite so far. Groundhog Day and Deadwood. Doesn’t get better than that.”
“We’re getting takeout for lunch,” he said. “Anything sound good?”
I smiled as pleasantly as I could. “Whatever you gu
ys are getting is great.”
Patrick went back to his desk. Jen remained where she stood, leaning against a file cabinet, arms crossed in front of her chest. She stared at me, frowning, her expression impossible to read. “How long until you follow up with the doctor about your head injury?”
While I was trying to decide whether to eat the second half of the pastrami sandwich or save it for later, Jen sent me an e-mail. The body of the message was blank, but the subject line said “Interview” and there were two attachments. The first was a written report, the second an audio file. I opened both files, put my earbuds in, and read while I listened. Cross-referencing between the words and Jen’s description was the next-best thing to being there.
Jen had met Lucinda downstairs and brought her back up to the squad room. Marty was the only one there. Jen’s phone rang, and she looked at the display and said, “Could you excuse me for a minute? I really need to take this.” She answered the call and asked whoever was on the other end to hold on. “Marty?”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Could you do me a favor and get Ms. Denkins set up for her interview?”
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “No problem.”
Jen stepped out into the hallway and ended the call while Marty led Lucinda into the small interview room and sat her down at the table pushed up against the wall. The carpet and the walls were the same dull gray. The table and two chairs were gray as well, just a few shades lighter. The walls were bare, and the light fixture recessed into the ceiling flooded the room with a harsh fluorescence.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked her. “Coffee, water?”
“No,” she said. “I’m okay.”
He closed the door and joined Jen back in the squad room. “How long are you going to make her wait?”
“Not long,” she said.
Seven minutes later, Jen opened the door and found Lucinda waiting patiently. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she said.
Lucinda looked up at her and said, “Oh, that’s okay.”
Jen sensed she was a bit apprehensive, but didn’t detect any traces of anxiety or fear. “I’m not sure why Marty left you in here,” she said. “I wanted him to show you into the conference room. Why don’t we go in there? It will be more comfortable.”
“All right,” Lucinda said. She picked up her purse and stood to join Jen, who led her out and down the hallway to the conference room.
It wasn’t anything special, just a big rectangular table with eight chairs around it. But the table was wood and the chairs had fabric on the seats and backs, and there was a poster of the Long Beach skyline on one wall and a window on the other. And there was a clock. It was just like thousands of other conference rooms. It was only after someone had spent a while in the claustrophobic cell of the interrogation room that the conference room seemed warm and inviting.
That was the effect Jen was counting on. “What would you like to drink? Coffee? Water?”
“Just water would be okay.”
Jen went to the break room next door and came back with two bottles of Aquafina.
“Here you go,” she said, sitting down next to Lucinda. She put her phone on the table beside a notepad. “I just need to record this,” she said, reaching over and touching the screen.
She started with small talk, asking Lucinda how she was holding up, about work, whether she’d been able to get into her father’s apartment without any trouble. She went on for a few minutes, until it seemed more like a conversation than an interview. Subtly, Jen led her to more discussion of her father. Lucinda didn’t seem to notice the transition.
“How is Joe doing?” Jen asked.
“I don’t know. He seems like, in some ways he’s taking it even harder than me.”
Jen let the opportunity for a direct question about Joe pass, and instead went at it obliquely. “Your dad liked Joe, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Lucinda said. Her voice was weighted with sadness. “He worried about him businesswise, but he really cared about him.”
“That’s why your father invested in the restaurant?”
“Yes, he was really hoping that would work out.” A hint of optimism slipped into her tone, as if the failing of Winter was still something that could be forestalled, but it disappeared just as quickly as she continued. “We all were, of course.”
“But it didn’t?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“How did your dad feel about that? Did he take it personally?”
“He was disappointed, but I don’t think so. I even went to him and asked if he could help a little more. I knew he’d already given Joe a lot, but I thought maybe if he could just see him through a couple more months until the business picked up, that might be all we needed.”
Jen waited before asking the next question, to give Lucinda a chance to continue. She did.
“There was another investor who pulled out at the last minute,” Lucinda said. “After the last minute, really. Right when the opening was happening. Joe thought it was too late to postpone again, that it would cost more than going through with the plan.”
“This other investor,” Jen said, sounding as if the question were an afterthought, “is he someone your dad knew?”
“No. Goran was someone Joe worked with before. At one of the restaurants where he was assistant manager down in Laguna. I think Goran was the co-owner or something.”
Jen hadn’t written anything on the notepad. While Lucinda hadn’t seemed to notice the gradual transition into the formal part of the interview, she was surely aware of it now. Unless Jen wrote constantly, Lucinda might take notice of the specifics she was discussing when the notes were taken and be able to discern what information Jen seemed to find most interesting.
“Did you know him? Goran?” Jen asked.
“I met him once, years ago, when Joe worked for him, but I hadn’t seen him since then.”
“How did your dad take it when the business failed?”
“He was okay. He felt bad, of course, but he was actually really supportive. I never told Joe, but he helped us with mortgage payments a few times afterwards.”
“It didn’t seem to hurt him financially, your dad?”
“No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t rich or anything, but he always told me to never invest anything you can’t afford to lose. So I don’t think he ever did.”
“Are you going to be okay with the house payments now?”
“I hope so. We’re supposed to meet with Dad’s lawyer about his will. I keep putting it off. But I think we’ll be all right.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that,” Jen said warmly. “It sounds like your dad gave you guys a lot of support.”
“He did. But not just money. It wasn’t like that. That wasn’t even the most important part. He was always there for us, you know?” Her voice cracked on the last few words of her sentence. She’d been fine with the financial stuff. This was more abstract. Now, she was dealing more palpably with the loss.
“Do you need a minute?” Jen asked.
“No, I’m okay.”
“I talked to a lot of the tenants in your dad’s building. They liked him. A few of them said he was the best landlord they ever had.”
“Yeah,” Lucinda said. “He was like that.”
“Do you know any of them?”
“Not well. I’ve met Harold a few times. He lives in one of the studios? A few others, but just to nod or say hi to.”
“Did you know Kobe?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She thought about it. “Kobe, like the basketball player?”
“Yes,” Jen said. “He was renting the other studio.”
“Oh, he was the young Asian guy, right?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“I’ve seen him once or twice. Why? Do you think he had something to do with my dad’s death?”
“We don’t know. But we do need to talk to him. He hasn’t been home lately.”
Jen kept talking to
Lucinda, but she’d gotten most of what she wanted. Her goal with the close was to fade out the same way she’d faded in. A few minutes later, she said, “Thank you very much for coming in, Lucinda. It’s really been a big help.”
“I wanted to. I want to help,” she said, sounding almost sad about the interview coming to an end. The dynamic wasn’t unusual. When someone felt like they could contribute to the murder investigation of a loved one, an interview often gave them a way to feel useful, as if they were making a difference, and sometimes they were sorry to let go of that feeling. Unless they were guilty or holding something back. Then they usually felt so glad to be done they couldn’t hide their relief.
When I took the earbuds out and closed the files, I knew Jen had aced the interview. Honestly, she did much better than I likely would have.
I also came away convinced that Lucinda didn’t have anything to do with her father’s death. That gave me some comfort, until I remembered I was off the case and what I thought didn’t really matter at all anymore.
The stack of files and the notes I’d made about them before were waiting for me, but I tried to ignore them while I logged on to Motortrend.com and started shopping for a new car.
I’ve never really cared that much about cars. Megan helped me choose the Camry and I hadn’t really considered another car since then. For most people, a new car is a big deal, a major change. Maybe even a fresh start. This is a big deal, I told myself, it matters. I decided to treat it like what mattered most to me—an investigation. By the time Lauren came to pick me up at five thirty, I’d pretty much narrowed it down to three choices.
One, just get another Camry. It was the easy choice, even if it was lazy. My old Camry had served me well, if not very excitingly. Aside from a single flat tire and a one-time-only dead battery, I’d never had a problem with it. I just got in and started it up, and it took me anyplace I wanted to go for well over a decade. Also, Jen’s dad had spent his entire career working for Toyota and I wasn’t sure I could face him at the anniversary party if I bought another brand. Still, I also wasn’t sure loyalty to the model and a desire to avoid a bit of social awkwardness were enough to overcome my desire to try something new and different.
