by Steve Garcia
“There’s been a shooting at the council offices.”
“At the City Council?” Wallace asked.
“I’m afraid so. This one is going to be front-page grist, so be ready.”
“Great. Do you have an ID on the victim?”
“His name is Theodore Simons. He’s one of the council members.”
9
The city council building on North Spring Street was already surrounded by press vans. “Damn, these guys don’t miss a trick,” said Wallace.
They parked as near the door as possible and found the lobby jammed with people, half trying to get out, the other half, mostly media, trying to get in.
“God, what a madhouse,” said Reyes. Wallace could tell he was still a little pissed about the call they’d just received from the sergeant. The GSR on Davey had come back negative.
The officers who had responded to the call had reinforced the security staff and were carefully limiting access to everyone but staff and police. Wallace and Reyes squeezed forward until they reached the metal scanner—the sole entry point.
“Detective Wallace? Jimmy Dunn, Hollywood News. Can you tell us anything?” The reporter jammed a microphone in her face.
“You can have my no-comment comment now,” Wallace said. “Or you can wait until later.”
Another voice from behind him in the mob of microphones and recording devices shouted: “Do you any information yet as to what caused Councilor Simons to kill himself?”
Wallace spoke fast. “Folks, right now, I know nothing. I’m on my way up. Hopefully, the next time you see me, I’ll know something. Thank you.”
“Oh, come on,” the new Times beat reporter Terri Snowden called out. “You have to know something, officer.”
“Ask around. You’ll find that’s not the case,” Wallace replied and slipped through the scanner, setting off lights and buzzers. They flashed and buzzed again as Reyes followed quickly behind.
“Fourth floor,” a uniformed officer by the elevator told them.
“Thanks.” Wallace stepped inside and pushed the button for the fourth floor. The doors closed, shutting out the chaos in the lobby.
“I know they have to report the news, but damn, can’t they be more civilized about it?”
“You’re getting pretty good at dodging questions,” said Reyes.
“I’ve learned to give them double-talk. By the time they figure out that I didn’t say anything, I’m usually behind the yellow line.”
The doors opened on the fourth floor and an atmosphere like a wake. A dozen people stood in worried groups of two or three in the hall outside the council offices. Two women holding tissues leaned close together, one with mascara smudged under her eyes.
A uniformed officer directed them toward the council office.
Inside, more small groups of staff members milled around in the reception area and down the hallways. Their whispered conversations halted as the detectives passed. Officers who had responded to the nine-one-one call stood near the door to Simons’s office.
Wallace recognized an old friend, DeMarcus Mason. “DeMarcus, how are you, my man?”
“Hey, Phil. Pretty good. You guys going to handle this one?”
“Yeah. You in charge?”
“More or less.” He turned and looked down the hall. “The ADA is here. I have no idea why. She’s over with the other council members. Away from the riffraff and staff.”
“You know my partner, Sal Reyes?”
“Hi, Sal.”
Reyes nodded.
“I know you don’t like to waste time, Phil, so let me get right to it. It appears that Theodore Simons, a city council member involved with construction, shot himself in the right temple sometime this morning, although no one heard the shot.”
“Maybe he used a silencer?” Reyes said. “Or someone else did.”
“Not likely. The gun is lying on the floor. No silencer.”
“Keep an open mind,” Wallace said. “You never know.”
“Good luck with that theory,” Mason said. “We don’t have an official guess on the time of death as yet, but based on some initial interviews, we think he got in early, which is not unusual by the way, and was dead some time before noon. His secretary, Muriel Parks, discovered the body a few minutes before twelve, when she checked to see if he wanted her to get him anything for lunch. The supporting cast should be here any second.”
Behind him, Wallace saw Barclay-Jones at one end of the hall.
“The ADA’s following us around today, Sal.”
“We’d better look busy,” he replied. “DeMarcus, are all these other people staff?”
Mason gestured to a uniformed officer. “Sampson, verify that we have everyone ID’d. If
they don’t belong on this floor, get them into a side office and let me know.
“Will do,” she said.
“You really think it’s not suicide?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know,” said Reyes, “but if it isn’t, I don’t want someone slipping out of here without us knowing who the hell they are and why they’re here.”
“Point taken,” Mason said. “Of course, there was plenty of time for a killer to have escaped before we got here. But better safe than sorry. We’ll check out the folks down the hall. Oh, and when you’re ready, Simons’s secretary is down the hall in the other direction.” He pointed. “She’s pretty shaken up.”
“Can we talk with her?”
“Sure, follow me.”
Mason led them toward the two women holding tissues. He addressed the one wearing a lilac skirt and maroon blouse.
“Mrs. Parks, these are Detectives Wallace and Reyes. They’re investigating Mr. Simons’s suicide.”
Muriel Parks nodded meekly and muttered something to the younger lady beside her, who squeezed her hand and walked away. “I’ll help in any way I can, detectives.”
“Perhaps you can tell us what alerted you to Mr. Simons’s office,” said Wallace. “Had he seemed all right earlier this morning?”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you,” said Mrs. Parks. “You see, I came in only just before twelve. Theo…Mr. Simons…had told me I could take the morning off.”
“I see,” said Wallace. “Is that usual?”
“Mr. Simons is a very considerate employer, detective,” said Mrs. Parks, dabbing at her eyes, “but he doesn’t often suggest such an arrangement, no.”
“Do you know if he was meeting someone this morning?”
“I’d have to check his calendar. Mr. Simons is…was…” Tears began to flow again. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “Mr. Simons was a busy man.”
“I understand, Mrs. Parks, and thank you for your help. If we could see that calendar, I’d be very grateful.”
“Of course.” Muriel Parks turned and walked away.
Wallace turned back to Mason. “I think we’ll go peek in on the vic.”
Wallace pushed on the partially closed office door. She and Reyes stepped in and closed the door behind them. The air-con hummed, but the smell of blood was still in the air. Theodore Simons sat slumped down and obviously very dead in his chair. His head was cocked to the right side and slightly forward. He had bled profusely all over the right shoulder of his jacket and his shirt front.
Wallace walked around the desk and stood next to the dead man. Reyes joined her on the other side. Wallace reached in her pocket, took out a pair of latex gloves, and pulled them on. She squatted down in order to get a look at the wound.
“Hmm. There appears to be a single entrance wound. Accurate, too. I’d guess the gun was a couple of inches from the temple at most.”
The gun was lying on the floor, right where he would have dropped it if he’d shot himself.
“How is it that not one person heard anything?” said Reyes.
Wallace inserted a pencil into the barrel of the gun that lay on the floor, directly below the dead man’s right hand. She stood back up and ex
amined it. “I’m not sure.” She stared at the markings on the dull-gray barrel of the semiautomatic. She read: Made in Russia by IMEZ.
The door opened and Sean Nazer from forensics came into the office. “Got room for one more?”
“Your timing couldn’t be better,” said Wallace. “You boys are familiar with all sorts of weapons. Do you know what kind of gun this is?”
Nazer walked over, took one look, and said, “That’s a Makarov PM. Russian.”
“Ah. So that’s what Made in Russia means. We don’t see many of these around here.”
“Nope. A while back narcotics busted up a Russian gang operating down near the harbor area. Smuggling mostly. They had a butt-load of these, but we must have missed a previous shipment. They’re becoming more common on the streets, especially farther east.”
“I wonder how our boy Simons got one,” Reyes said.
Wallace experienced a vague feeling of unease thinking back to her conversation with David. Guns. This couldn’t be connected, could it?
“They pop up now and then. For a councilman to have one is kind of strange, though. The few I’ve run across have been taken from the cold, dead hand of some Hispanic gang member.”
“You come alone or is everybody here?” Wallace asked.
“Alone. I imagine the others will be here in a minute. Checking out the reported suicide of a city official usually brings out the A-team.” He picked up a photograph from the councilman’s desk. “Nice looking kids.” He placed it back on the desk and looked at Wallace. “You done or do you want me to wait?”
“Give us a few more minutes.”
“I have a bullet hole over here in the wall,” Reyes said. He pointed at a small hole about six inches to the left of a Cézanne print that hung over the credenza. There was another pale space on the wall beside it, where a picture had once hung for some time.
The middle drawer of the desk was blocked by Simons’s corpse. Wallace opted to wait for the forensics crew before moving the body and turned instead to the top right-hand drawer. “Oh, what have we here?”
“Find something interesting?” Reyes asked.
Wallace pulled out the pistol from the drawer. Its ivory handles were beautifully polished. “Now, this one I recognize,” she said. “It’s a good old American Colt .45 Peacemaker.”
“Son of a bitch,” Nazer said. “Now that’s a gun. You would think that if he killed himself, this is the one he would have used. It would have guaranteed that he did the job right.”
Wallace laid the gun on the desktop, checked the rest of the drawer, and then opened the large bottom drawer. She removed a wooden box and read the inscription on the brass plate fixed to the top. Captain Theodore Simons. A Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th U.S. Cavalry, DOU6, Desert Storm.
Wallace opened the box and ran her finger over the red velvet liner.
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t use it,” Reyes said. “It was special. A souvenir.”
“Then you have to ask yourself a question. If it was that special, why wasn’t it in the box? Why was it lying unprotected in the top drawer?”
“Maybe for protection,” Reyes said. He was rummaging through some files.
“That’s what I was thinking but…”
“But what?” Nazer asked.
“What does a man who is about to kill himself need protection from?” Wallace laid the box aside and reached into the drawer. “Here’s a good companion to a loaded weapon.” She pulled out an almost empty bottle of Vat 69 Scotch and two tubs of pills.
“He seems to have had a lot of issues,” said Reyes.
Wallace finished checking the drawer and turned her focus to the desktop. There was an eight-by-ten photo of a red-haired woman—his wife most likely—in a silver filigree frame. On the back was a gold sticker on which was stamped Al-Jahiz and some Arabic-looking scribble below that. The second photo, the one Nazer had looked at, was in a smaller but similar frame. A blond boy and a redheaded girl. Both kids dressed to the nines. The little girl looked about seven, the boy no more than ten.
You’re the man of the house, now, thought Wallace.
The last photo was in a black plastic frame with the words Disney Cruise embossed across the bottom. Simons, his wife, two kids, and two older people. Maybe his parents, or hers. The group was standing together by a railing, all grinning.
Wallace spun the desktop calendar to take a look at his appointments for the day. Something skittered across the desk. Reyes caught it, then held it up.
“Found the shell casing.” He unzipped an evidence bag and placed it inside.
Wallace returned to the councilman’s schedule.
7:00: Duke
14:30: Jackson Pilar
15:45: Antonio and Maria Mendez
17:00: Call Rev. Turner
19:00: Dinner at Le Cochon qui Vole. Confirm!
There were three Post-it notes stuck to a writing tablet. Wallace picked up the notes. The top one said: Mr. Lambeau @ Le Cochon qui Vole wants you to confirm dinner reservations for tonight.
“Hey, Sal,” said Wallace. “Why make a note to confirm your dinner reservations if you were going to kill yourself?”
“Beats me,” said Reyes. He was going through a filing cabinet on the other side of the room.
The second phone message: “Dwayne called. He has an opening first thing. Do you want it?”
Dwayne? Dwayne Duke? A breakfast meeting maybe.
Wallace noted the name. She’d speak to Muriel again later.
Reyes walked to the desk and laid several folders on the corner. “Too many folders to go through now. We’ll probably need to box ’em and bring ’em downtown. However, I did pull out these.”
“Anything of interest?”
“Pearl Construction and Sphinx Construction.”
“No shit. And?”
“Well, if the paperwork is anything to go by, I’d say Pearl was the bigger outfit. It looks like they bid on a hell of a lot more projects than Davey. They also got a lot more. Pearl has three folders. Most of the others have one, including Sphinx.” He flicked through one of the files. “In fact, Davey’s work seems to have pretty much dried up about six months ago.”
“Maybe it’s all the forms,” said Wallace.
“You weren’t buying that either, huh?” Reyes went back to the cabinet and looked again.
“If Davey’s family has been in the business as long as he says, I would have thought they were fairly used to paperwork.”
“There won’t be records here for the studio builds, of course. Those don’t pass through the city, except for the license.”
Wallace eyed the files. “Why don’t you see if you can find jobs where they bid against one another? Check out phase one of the Green Cheese job.”
“We need to take his computer. It would make this a lot easier.”
A strident voice from the hallway penetrated the office. “Move aside, officers.”
Wallace glanced at Reyes. “What the…” She walked to the door. “What in the hell is going on out here?”
A tall, thin, redhaired man with wire-rimmed glasses and a badge clipped to his jacket pocket stepped up to her—too close.
Wallace put her hand on the man’s chest. “Hold it right there. Who the hell do you think you are, barging into my crime scene like this?”
The man pulled out his identification. “Riley O’Conner, FID. And your crime scene is now our crime scene. We’re taking over this case.”
“O’Conner. Aren’t you part of David Wallace’s team?”
“Yes. And yes, I know who you are, detective.”
“Where’s David?”
“Not with us right now. You have your orders. Vacate the scene.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Red. You got something in writing? If not, I’ll call in before surrendering the site to you and your…squad.”
“Be my guest.”
Wallace eyed the FID team,
all suited and hovering behind their asshole of a boss like a gang behind the schoolyard bully. She pulled out her cell phone and hit two, the auto dial for the station. The phone rang twice.
“Wagner. Hollywood.”
“Wagner? Where’s Brooks or Captain Siley?”
“Shit. They’re…er…”
“Come on, man. I’ve got a problem here. FID is claiming they have orders to take over the investigation. I have to know where this is coming from and I need to know now.”
“Phil, your husband is here.”
David was at the precinct? This had to be connected with the guns.
“Is he looking for me?” she asked, hopeful still that there was an innocent explanation for all this.
“No. He and his FID boys came in, talked to Siley for a minute or two, and then took Brooks into IR one.”
10
Wallace lunged from the car. She slammed the door and stormed over to Wagner and Kahn, who stood in the shade of a ginkgo tree. “What in the hell is going on?”
“We figured if anybody knew, it’d be you,” Wagner said.
“Me? Why would I know? Some FID prick threw me off my own crime scene not thirty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, well, it’s your worse half leading the inquisition in there.” Wagner threw his cigarette down and stomped on it. “We thought maybe you knew this was coming so you made sure you weren’t around.”
“You dumb…” Wallace said. “Look, the only reason I wasn’t here is because Sal and I had to cover while you two explained why you messed up some kid during an arrest. Otherwise, you would have been over there and we would have been here.”
“Bullshit,” Wagner said. “You trying to tell me your husband didn’t clue you in about whatever the fuck is going down in there?”
He had a point, but Wallace wasn’t in the mood to tussle with Wagner today. “Have you ever dealt with FID?” she said. “They’re so tight-lipped they wouldn’t tell their mommas if they shit in their pants as a baby. David and I don’t lie in bed at night and make pillow talk about internal affairs. I’m as clueless as you are.”
“No one’s as clueless as Harlen …” said Kahn, then looked hurt when no one smiled.
