The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  “Of course I was. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “When she walked out, how long did it take before you called Tremell? A day? An hour? Or was she still on her way out the door? You’re the one who called him. You told Tremell who Jennifer Bloom really was. You’re the one who told him that she played him for a fool.”

  She could see his soiled mind working behind his eyes. The gears inside his head spinning round and round even though they were warped and bent and out of alignment.

  “He couldn’t keep his dick in his pants,” West said. “Ten percent of my stock portfolio was wrapped up in his lousy company. The share price had already nose-dived because of all the rumors. If Bloom’s story had been made public, it would’ve taken years for the price to bounce back.”

  Lena stared at him in disbelief. “That’s why you ratted her out? Because of your stock portfolio?”

  “That’s right, Detective. For the money. For my money. She didn’t trust me to see it through. A former member of the United States Senate. She walked out of my office, met Ramira, and told him everything. And I mean everything. And so I made Denny Ramira my new best friend. It was the only way I could keep an eye on him. He had this thing for you, you know. He felt guilty about what happened to you last year. That story you gave him about your brother’s murder. He felt guilty that he won so many awards and you nearly lost your career. He wasn’t holding out on you because of the book or anything he was doing for the paper. He wanted to hand you this one on a plate. Everything wrapped up and ready to go. He thought he owed you that. But as you can see, timing is everything in life. Denny waited a day too long.”

  The SUV made a right turn onto Sherman Way. They were less than two miles off, approaching the airport from the rear. Lena glanced at the patrol cars. West’s bodyguards didn’t seem concerned that they were surrounded and she turned back to the senator.

  “Denny was ready to talk,” she said. “So you went over to his place. What clinched it for him? And don’t tell me that it was because he ID’d Cava. Denny didn’t ID Cava. You fingered him to cover yourself.”

  West smiled at the memory. “The lost witness,” he said after a moment. “Denny thought he’d figured it out last Sunday. That the witness was really the target. That the witness was Jennifer all along.”

  “But it took until Wednesday before he confirmed it,” she said.

  “That’s right. It took three days to find her. She was living at a friend’s house, the one that Cava murdered. She made a mistake and answered the phone. Denny heard her voice.”

  “And you called Tremell again. You sold her out twice.”

  “That’s right. I let everybody know. Then I went over to Denny’s and tried to convince him to wait. I told him that we needed to find her and talk to her. But he wouldn’t listen and he got angry. When he reached for the phone to call you, things got out of hand. Then I cleaned out his office, and drove home. Obviously, I missed a single file. The one Klinger found. But you’re right, the pin was more important to me than the file. And that’s why I sent him there.”

  Lena shook her head, silently counting the number of people who had lost their lives because this man was worried about the price of a share of stock. This man who had served three consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate representing the State of California. This man who had been appointed to the police commission by the mayor of Los Angeles and approved in a unanimous vote by the City Council in an attempt to restore public trust in the department.

  This horrible man sitting right in front of her. Somehow he had managed to rat out Jennifer Bloom twice. And he’d ratted out Cava, too.

  “What about Cava,” she said. “How did you make contact?”

  “I was a senator at the time. I spent a few days in Iraq, then toured a facility in Eastern Europe. Cava was there and we met.”

  “What facility? Are you talking about the secret prisons? The Black Sites?”

  West eyed her face, choosing his words carefully. “It was a facility,” he said. “Cava had been transferred there as a medical officer. His role changed over time, but he didn’t have the temperament for it.”

  “You fucked him up is what you’re saying.”

  “I didn’t do anything to him.”

  “How did you talk him into killing for you?”

  “I told him what you tell every soldier. That his efforts would be for the greater good. That his sacrifice would be seen as contributing to a better world. Then Tremell backed it up with cash. Cava was so fucked up he bought it. At least in the beginning he did.”

  The van slowed down and Lena watched as the five patrol cars in front of them shut down their flashing lights and pulled ahead. When she looked out the window, she saw the five cars behind them passing on the left and vanishing up the street. The kid driving the Suburban switched off the radio, making a right turn into a parking lot, passing a guard at the gate, and cruising swiftly onto the tarmac. Lena spotted the private jet, felt the burn, and read the sign on the hangar.

  BARNES AVIATION.

  She turned back to West and caught the broad smile on his face.

  “Did you really think we were flying Southwest?” he whispered.

  The senator’s bodyguards chuckled. As the van stopped, Lena tried to pull herself together. She could see a handful of private aviation companies on this side of the runway, but every one of them was closed. The lights from Burbank Airport were cutting through the light fog a half mile across the tarmac. West’s pilot was inspecting the jet, and after circling the plane, appeared ready to go. Then the young driver climbed out of the Suburban and began helping a member of the grounds crew transfer the bags.

  Lena turned back to West. His eyes were on her. He had been watching her take it all in.

  “My apologies for keeping you in the dark,” he said. “I’m sure you understand that it was the only way. You thought that you could rely on the Sheriff’s Department once we reached the airport. You thought that you could milk what happened out of me, and West Hollywood’s finest would back you up. And just like Denny Ramira, you got your story but guessed wrong.”

  Lena had been holding her .45 in her hand ever since she set eyes on the jet. Now she lifted it out of the darkness and pointed the muzzle at West’s face. The senator laughed at her.

  “It won’t work, Detective. You’re a hell of a man, but it won’t work.”

  The two bodyguards drew their pistols in unison. Another stretch of silence passed with everyone making eye contact and trading heavy secrets.

  West shrugged. “It really won’t work here, Detective. You’re outmanned and you’re outgunned. Bringing me in to face my sins just isn’t in the cards tonight. And let’s face it. It isn’t worth losing your life over when you could live to fight the fight another day. You better hand me that. My friends get nervous and even a private aviation company has a thing about people pointing guns.”

  Lena didn’t move, her Smith & Wesson up and ready. “Where are you going, West?”

  “Paradise,” he said. “Now, hand over the gun. There’s no sense dying tonight.”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. After a long stretch, she passed the gun over and felt her body shudder. The senator grinned, but took a deep breath, too.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Much better.”

  The driver returned to the Suburban and climbed in behind the wheel. “Everything’s ready,” he said. “You’re all set, sir.”

  West offered the kid Lena’s .45. “Thanks, Juan. Thanks for everything. You’ll need to keep this until we take off. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”

  The kid stared at the weapon and was clearly nervous. But when West handed him the gun, he looked at Lena and pointed it at her.

  She sat back in the seat, watching the two bodyguards file out ahead of West. When the senator turned back and shot her a parting glance, she remembered the card in her pocket and dug it out.

  “You forgot this,” she said.

  We
st didn’t seem to understand, but stepped closer as she extended her hand.

  “Your business card,” she said. “I won’t be needing your help anymore.”

  He glanced at the card, then slipped it into his pocket and smiled at her.

  “You never know,” he said.

  And that was it. Lena sat in the van keeping one eye on the nervous kid with the loaded .45 in his hand, and the other on the jet taxiing down the runway en route to paradise. After about five minutes she heard the roar of the engines and looked out the window as the jet rocketed down the short runway and strained to make the steep climb out over Hollywood Hills. It sounded a lot like thunder. A lot like a passing storm. When it was over, when the jet carrying West and his bodyguards finally faded into the heavens, the kid tossed her the .45 and asked if she wanted a lift home.

  53

  She had spent the last four days thinking it over and couldn’t decide who was worse. Both Tremell and West were responsible for the murders. Both had been motivated by greed and had a hand in the deaths that resulted from the marketing and use of Formula D. The only real difference between the two was that West sold out everybody. That Tremell was in a jail cell on suicide watch, while West was free and clear and probably living large.

  It was Christmas Eve. A cold, grim afternoon in Hollywood Hills.

  Tracking West’s escape over the past few days had proved fruitless. The jet flew directly to the Cayman Islands. According to the pilot, who returned to Burbank the following morning, West and his companions boarded another plane waiting for them on the tarmac. No flight plan was available—the plane never returned—and the FBI had taken over the case.

  Lena closed the tray on her CD player and adjusted the volume. She had loaded it up with some of her favorites. Nat King Cole because it was Christmas Eve. Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Stephen Stills’s Super Session for reasons she couldn’t explain, Gerry Mulligan and Astor Piazzolla because she was thinking that West probably made a run for South America and the music might trigger something in her imagination that would help, and that import CD she had heard Cava listening to. Hope Radio by Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters. She had ordered the album on the Internet three days ago and had been listening to it ever since it arrived.

  She sat down on the couch and looked at the Christmas tree on the porch outside the slider. The tree was alive. Although she didn’t have any ornaments, she had spent the afternoon stringing white lights through its branches. The tree was a rental from a company in Hollywood who delivered it to her door and would pick it up after the new year. The rental fee covered their expenses for planting the tree in the hills that had been destroyed by the wildfires last spring.

  But her mind wasn’t really on the holiday right now. There were still too many things to remember. Too many things that she could learn from. And too many images she wanted to forget.

  Rhodes was with his sister in Oxnard, so she didn’t really have anyone to talk to. Jennifer Bloom had been released from the hospital and was with her brother in Vegas. The family of Beth Gillman, the girl Cava had abducted from the Cock-a-doodle-do and murdered in the garage on Barton Avenue, had been located in Portland and notified of their daughter’s death. And Vinny Bing the Cadillac King had been found hanging from the garage at his dealership, his cable TV show still running because network executives thought that they might get a ratings boost.

  It might add up, Lena thought. But it played havoc with the soul.

  Someone knocked on her front door. She walked over and pulled it open, then gazed at her visitor for a long time.

  It was Chief Logan, dressed casually in a sweater and a pair of slacks. And he was holding a bottle of Pinot Noir in his hand.

  “A friend of mine lives just west of Pasadena,” he said. “He’s got a great wine cellar. He said that he knows you and thought you might like this. I guess you ate dinner together in the kitchen at Patina once. He was celebrating the birth of his grandkids. I was hoping we might share it.”

  She looked at the label trying to buy time. It was a bottle of Williams Selyem—out of her price range and hard to find. And she could remember the man the chief was talking about. It had been an evening of great food and conversation with someone who had changed the face of the city. Lena hadn’t been aware that the two men were friends. When she finally spoke, her voice cracked.

  “Come in,” she said. “Please.”

  A warm smile spread across the chief’s face as he entered the house. She didn’t know what to make of it, and switched over to automatic pilot. She managed to set two wine glasses on the counter without breaking the stems. Then she watched the chief pull the cork and marveled at the rich color of the grapes as he made the pour. They clinked glasses and took their first sips. It may have been the best first sip she had ever tasted.

  “Would you mind if we drank this outside?” he said. “I’d like to sit by your tree and enjoy the view.”

  Lena shook her head. “Not at all,” she managed.

  The chief opened the slider and set the bottle on the table. As he grabbed a chair, Lena pulled the grill over, loaded it up with charcoal, and lit a fire to keep them warm. She took another sip of wine and opened the pack of cigarettes. There was only one left, and she remembered the night she had bought them. The night she ran into Dobbs and Ragetti in the parking lot. The last time she saw Denny Ramira alive. She knew that it would be her last cigarette for a long time.

  “You watch much television, Lena?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Me either,” he said. “How ’bout movies?”

  “I like them a lot.”

  “How many times have you seen The Godfather?”

  “More than ten.”

  “Then maybe you’ll understand why the first thing I did was make Ken Klinger my adjutant.”

  He turned and looked at her with those dark eyes of his. And for the first time since they had met, she got a decent read off them, caught the spark, and everything clicked like a crystal ball.

  “Keep your friends close,” she said. “But keep your enemies closer.”

  The chief raised his glass as if making a toast to her.

  “I knew that Klinger was a piece of shit the moment I met him,” he said. “I’d been waiting for something to happen. I never thought that it would break this big. That so many lives would be lost. But that’s the way it is, I guess. When he told me that he thought you should be assigned to this homicide case, I knew that something was up. But most of all, I knew that Klinger was a moron. He wanted you because he, and the DA, and his lousy friends at Internal Affairs all thought you were incompetent. I agreed to give you the case and called Barrera because we knew that you weren’t. After the way you handled yourself last year, I knew that I could trust you. That I could count on you. That once you got started, you’d put yourself on the line and see it through. That you could take the bullshit I had to deal out for what it really was. A high-stakes gamble by a new chief to clean up our house. That’s why I gave you all those Officer Involved Shooting cases. It wasn’t punishment. I needed to know who was who. And that’s why I had to be so hard on you in my office. Klinger was listening. I needed his confidence, and he needed to hear me knock you down. All I can offer is my apology. By the way, you’ll be receiving the Medal of Valor for this, Lena. No chief has ever been more proud.”

  She heard his voice break and felt something deep inside her give way. She tried to hang tough. Tried to keep her game face on. But none of it was working this afternoon. She jammed the unlighted cigarette into the pack and turned her face away.

  “Cava’s a cop killer,” she said. “And West’s a former senator. The water’s cloudy, Chief. Both of them got away.”

  “For now, at least. But we’ve started to clean house. And sleeping with one eye open every night takes its toll. The world isn’t as big as it used to be, Lena. Sooner or later they’ll run out of road.”

  She took a sip of wine, then sat back
and finally lit her last cigarette. She looked at the chief’s chiseled face, his gray hair, the intelligence in his eyes, and felt herself begin to relax.

  “What about the DA?”

  The chief set down his glass. “He’s friends with Tremell. The press can already smell blood in the water. I don’t think he’ll survive. And even if he does, I doubt he’ll be reelected. Before I came over, I checked on Tremell. He’s off suicide watch.”

  “That was quick.”

  The chief grinned at the thought. “He’s hired one of those consultants to the stars to help him cope with prison life. You know, learn to blend, don’t ask for favors, and don’t make friends with the guards.”

  His voice suddenly faded and Lena followed his gaze off the porch to the city below the hills. Something was falling out of the sky At first she thought that it might be ash from another wildfire. But when it seemed to pick up, she realized that it was snow.

  She watched the flakes touch the ground and melt away. She looked at it with amazement and thought about Jennifer Bloom’s keepsake from her husband who died in the war.

  It was snowing in Los Angeles. Anything could happen here.

  “I love this city,” the chief whispered. “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t born here. Maybe that’s why I can’t take it for granted.”

  Lena’s cell began vibrating. After checking the display, she turned the phone so that the chief could read the name.

  VINNY BING THE CADILLAC KING.

  The chief gave her a look. “When a dead man’s on the other end of the line, I guess you’ve gotta take the call.”

  Lena flipped the cell open and switched on the speaker phone, then listened as Nathan G. Cava said hello.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t matter because I won’t be here for very long.”

  “Then why did you call?”

  Cava laughed. “To let you know that I figured it out.”