Killer Ambition

by Marcia Clark

  “I need help. We’ve got a warrant for an apartment and a car.”

  Harrellson knew better than to ask on a cell phone whose place we were about to hit. “Send me the address. I’ll get a team together.”

  I e-mailed him Averly’s address and the license plate of his car. We got lucky and hit a pocket of light traffic, so it didn’t take us long to get there. I noticed that Jack Averly’s apartment wasn’t far from Brian’s place geographically. But otherwise it was a world away. Though Brian’s place had been impersonal, his building was alive with working people still dialed in to the world. Averly’s looked like a broken toy abandoned in a vacant lot. Worn down and used up. The lobby’s glass door was dingy, the paint on the splintered wood frame was peeling and bare in places, and the carpet runner was stained to the point where it was impossible to tell what color it had been originally. Even in shoes, walking on it was gross.

  Averly’s apartment was even worse. Nothing more than a Dumpster with running water. A plastic ashtray overflowed onto the cheap particleboard coffee table with smoked-down roaches, and a baggie of weed lay on the floor next to a beanbag chair. Against the opposite wall, on top of an old, dusty television set, was a pizza box. The buzzing sound coming from inside it told me the flies were taking care of Averly’s leftovers. The bedroom was exactly that: a room with a bed—or rather a mattress—on the floor. Not even a dresser. He’d stacked some of his clothes in U.S. Postal Service plastic bins—the kind you see left next to mailboxes on the street—and the rest he’d just thrown around the room. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to it, just a matter of whim that likely depended on his state of sobriety. I left the bathroom and kitchen to the cops and didn’t even look. It was bound to be the stuff nightmares are made of. Not having to search places like that was a perk of being a DDA. I noticed the cops were happier than usual to glove and mask up before tossing this sty. And they only had to do the general combing for the big, obvious things that might link Averly to the kidnap and murders—like Hayley’s or Brian’s property, or the ransom money. I couldn’t even think about what the criminalists would have to endure when they dug for the fine-point search.

  I watched them work for a while, but the place smelled so gamy that eventually I had to get outside. Even the smog and monoxide were a vast improvement over the fetid air in that stink pad.

  The luckier officers got to stand watch over Averly’s car, which was parked outside in the carport. It was an old blue Mustang and in only slightly better shape than his apartment. Inside, I could see that the backseat was strewn with McDonald’s bags, Taco Bell wrappers, plastic cups, and empty beer bottles. Surprisingly, the front seat was relatively tidy—just a couple of Coke cans on the driver’s seat.

  Bailey was standing behind the car, examining the tires. “Hey, Bailey,” I called out. “We can add a charge of open container if we need to hold him longer.” I pointed to the empty beer bottles. She gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up.

  Just then, Dorian’s Tacoma came roaring up the street.

  Dorian strode up with her box of magic tricks. I’d never seen someone so short have a stride so long. As she opened her box and gloved up, Bailey came over and asked her to check out the tires and undercarriage in particular. She did it respectfully, but of course it didn’t matter.

  Dorian stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Wait a minute. You think you need to tell me how to do my job?”

  “I just wanted to make sure—”

  “Do I remind you to sign your search warrant? Get a witness’s phone number? Run a rap sheet? Or—”

  “I apologize.” Bailey held up her hands.

  “Go help them”—Dorian gestured to a couple of young officers guarding the crime scene tape around the carport— “and let me do my job.”

  As Bailey backed away, Dorian shined her flashlight into the front seat of the car. She’d brought a crime scene photographer with her, and he moved around the car, taking pictures at her direction. When he’d finished, she dusted the driver’s and passenger’s doors for prints, then pulled out a slim jim and popped the driver’s door open. After photographs of the interior were taken, Dorian began to work over the seats with some kind of tape. I left her to it and walked up the street to get a sense of the neighborhood. None of the other buildings looked as bad as Averly’s, though one or two came close. But overall, it was a typical lower-middle-class hood on the east side of Hollywood: struggling actors, office workers, mechanics, a smattering of families, and sketchily employed twenty-somethings splitting the rent on a studio.

  When I got back to the carport, Dorian was opening the glove box, and I saw her remove a small notepad. After she’d put it into a plastic bag, I asked to see it. “Don’t open the bag,” she ordered.

  “I wasn’t going to.” I looked at the writing on the top page. It was a phone number.

  Bailey peered over my shoulder and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call it in,” she said, and moved away.

  I went back to watch Dorian, being careful to stand out of her line of sight and, therefore, fire. Seconds later, Graden pulled up. Damn. I suddenly remembered that he’d asked me to text him when I landed.

  “I was just about to text you,” I said when he walked over to me.

  “No you weren’t.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  Graden waved off the apology. “You’ll remember next time.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “I will shamelessly bribe you.”

  “That could work,” I said. “With?”

  “Admission to the Police Academy shooting range.”

  I love the outdoor shooting range at the Police Academy in Elysian Park. The entire facility was originally built for the 1930 Olympics and the buildings have old-style charm, plus the setting is lush and arboreal. In short, it was a great bribe. Damn: Graden was good.

  “I’ll think about it,” I lied—I was already on board. “What brings you out here?”

  “I wanted to see what you got.”

  “And?” I looked at him expectantly.

  “And I have news for you guys.”

  “And?” I was losing patience.

  “And, of course, it was a transparent excuse to see you.”

  “Finally, the truth.”

  “I’m a little rusty. I’ll get better.” He signaled to Bailey and she walked over to us. “I got the report back on those texts we pulled off Hayley’s phone—the ones between her and Brian. They were all sent on Boney Mountain.”

  Bailey and I exchanged a look. We’d thought so. It was the most logical explanation for all the evidence we’d seen so far.

  “Good to have that confirmed,” Bailey said. “Now I’ve got news.” She told Graden about the numerous calls we’d found to and from an unknown caller on Averly’s cell phone. “I just found out whose phone they came from.” Bailey paused, her expression unreadable.

  “Who?” I asked impatiently.

  “Ian Powers.”

  “Russell’s manager? No way.”

  What on earth would a high-powered manager and co-owner of one of the most successful production companies in town be doing with a little pissant like Averly?

  “Yep—way. And the number on that pad in Averly’s glove box?”

  “Ian’s?”

  Bailey nodded.

  “What the hell…?” I gave voice to the only explanation that came to mind. “So he’s Ian’s dealer?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Averly have a rap sheet for drugs?” Graden asked.

  “Minor league, but yeah,” Bailey said.

  “Did ‘unknown caller’ show up at other times on Averly’s phone?” I asked. If so, it would mean they had an ongoing connection—the kind you’d expect to find between a dealer and a regular customer.

  “We’re still working on it.”

  Graden shook his head, his expression troubled. “Did you know that Powers set up a charity that sends underprivileged kids to summer ca
mps?”

  “No. How come you do?” I asked.

  “The group coordinates with LAPD to target the toughest neighborhoods. The idea being to get the kids out of harm’s way while school’s out and they have too much time to get in trouble.”

  “Good idea,” I said. When I’d first met Ian Powers at Russell’s house, I’d had a vague memory of his name being connected to something in a legal context but couldn’t remember what it was. Now it came to me. “Didn’t he sponsor some legislation to protect child actors? Something about putting counselors on sets where there were child actors so they could act as monitors and prevent abuse…”

  Graden squinted for a second before answering. “Sounds familiar.”

  I looked at Averly’s car, pictured the dump of an apartment just beyond. “So what the hell is he doing hanging around a guy like Averly?” I asked.

  We all stood in silence as the question hovered in the air.

  Bailey’s phone rang and she stepped away to take the call, leaving me alone with Graden. I had to admit I enjoyed having him involved in the case. I wondered if I’d be pushing it to ask him out for a bite tonight. Until Dorian processed her evidence, there wasn’t much else we could do. “Graden, do you have any plans for dinner tonight?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “I’m taking out a smokin’ hot prosecutor.”

  Silver-tongued devil. He wasn’t that rusty.

  36

  I didn’t want to be too far from home or have too much to drink, just in case something broke and I had to jump, so Graden suggested we go to “our” place, the Pacific Dining Car. The host automatically took us back to our favorite booth in the Club Car. I’d worried a return to our old stomping grounds might be unsettling, but it actually felt good to be back in familiar surroundings together. Over Bloody Marys, I gave a more detailed report on our trip to New York, and then pondered Ian Powers’s possible connection to the case.

  “It does make sense that Averly would deal to him,” I said. “It’s a lot safer to buy dope from a PA on the lot than it is to do business with someone outside.”

  “But it seems like too much of a coincidence—Averly, who just happens to be Ian’s dealer—gets caught with Hayley’s iPad, buys that ticket to Paris in Brian’s name…”

  “Yeah. But Ian’s only link to the murders is that screenplay. The one Russell supposedly stole from Brian’s father. So what’s Ian’s motive? Fear that Brian had proof that Russell stole Tommy’s screenplay?”

  Graden shook his head. “So far, there isn’t any, right?”

  “No. But the thing is, even if we assume there was, it makes no sense.” This had bugged me from the very start. “If Brian had proof, then why wouldn’t he just take it to a lawyer? Why mess around with a fake kidnapping?”

  “And if he didn’t have real evidence, then why would Ian feel threatened? Especially after all these years?”

  “Right.” I sighed.

  “And, just to make your life a little more miserable, why would Brian have evidence when his father obviously didn’t?”

  I shook my head, frustrated. “This case…the further in we get, the less it makes sense.”

  But Graden and I getting back together was making more and more sense. When he brought me back to the room, our good-night kisses were more intense than ever—and it was that, as much as anything, that told me we hadn’t really started over at square one. We were picking up where we’d left off. Not only healed from the fight, but closer than ever. I made myself say good night before I said the opposite, and put myself to bed in a happy daze.

  I woke up early, jangling with nervous energy. Every passing hour gave Jack Averly more opportunity to get his hands on a cell phone and warn his partner in crime. That meant, like it or not, we had to push it. I phoned Bailey.

  “Graden already did it,” Bailey said. “Called Dorian at home at seven this morning.”

  My knight in shining armor. “Did she tell him what they had so far?”

  “She told him what kind of idiot he was and that she already knew it was a priority.”

  “Then maybe she worked late last night.” I looked at my bedside clock. “It’s eight now. Want me to call, or should we just get over there?”

  “Let’s call. It’s easier to take the blast from her on the phone than face-to-face.”

  “You’d know.”

  “Which is why you’re making the call,” Bailey said.

  I reached Dorian on the first ring.

  “Why am I not surprised? You know, if you clowns would leave me alone for thirty seconds, I’d move a lot faster.”

  “So you don’t have anything yet?”

  “I may have. Who’s got red hair?”

  I sat up, eyes wide. I started to say the name, then stopped myself. I wanted to be sure before I answered. Quickly, I mentally reviewed the images of everyone we’d met in the past week. I was right. There was only one.

  “Ian Powers.”

  “Well, obviously I don’t have any exemplars, so I can’t say much more than that the hairs on the passenger seatback in Averly’s car may be consistent with his.”

  This was huge. If it was Ian’s hair, and you added that to all the recent phone calls between him and Averly, we’d have the beginnings of a real connection between Ian, Averly, and the murders. I felt my pulse start to quicken. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing in the apartment so far. But I found soil and plant debris on the undercarriage of his Mustang that looks a lot like what I found on Brian’s car. I’ve already sent it to Numan. He’ll have an answer for you pretty quick.”

  “Did you get any prints inside the car?”

  “A couple of partials on the interior passenger door handle. Might be good enough to give us a match if you get someone in handcuffs.”

  But how to get Ian in handcuffs? A sample of his hair, if it matched, would do it, but I had no time to get all espionage-y about snatching one of his crimson locks without him knowing it. That meant I’d need to get a search warrant for his place. Did I have enough to justify one? It was a close call, and I knew judges would be nervous about granting a dicey warrant with someone like Powers, but I had no choice. I’d just have to push it and hope for the best.

  Dorian had no more surprises for me, so I called Bailey and gave her the update. “I know it’s iffy, but I don’t think we can afford to wait for more results. We’ve got to go for it. If Ian’s our guy, he’ll be dumping evidence the minute Averly gets his hands on a phone.”

  Bailey was silent for a few moments. “You’re right. Let’s go to J.D. for the warrant.”

  Being a former cop, Judge J. D. Morgan, Toni’s boyfriend, understood situations like this better than most.

  “I’ll bang out the affidavit right now,” I said.

  “I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”

  She was there in ten, but I’d already made a list of the evidence, so I was waiting downstairs in the lobby, affidavit in hand, by the time Bailey got there. Feeling the pressure with every second that passed, I found myself gulping for air as I jumped into the car.

  J.D.’s clerk, Siobhan Flanagan, said he was in a conference with some lawyers in chambers.

  “Siobhan, it’s an emergency,” I said. “You know I never cry wolf.”

  “Sorry, Rachel. It’s a seven-defendant gang murder and it’s been hell getting all those lawyers in one room. He said no interruptions for any reason. Why don’t you try Lavinia? I know she’s in chambers.”

  Lavinia Moss was the youngest and also the first black female judge to be assigned to handle the high-profile cases. That meant at the very least that she was smart. It probably also meant she was politically savvy. The political part was what worried me. Judges who’re focused on getting elevated to the appellate bench don’t take chances on dicey warrants.

  I thanked Siobhan and we trotted down the hall toward her courtroom, Department 125. I had a vague memory of hearing something about Judge Moss…where?

 
“You know her?” Bailey asked.

  “I think I remember Toni saying she was tough but sharp.”

  The clerk, a young guy I’d never met, got the okay and let us into chambers. Judge Moss hadn’t done much to spruce up the place other than the usual diplomas—Boalt Hall for law school, which meant s-m-a-r-t, and UCLA for undergrad, which meant smart and local. But I didn’t see any glad-handing photo ops with governors. Hoping that was a good omen, I introduced myself and Bailey.

  “Welcome to Department 125,” she said. “So what’ve you got for me?”

  I gave her a thumbnail sketch of the overall case, then explained the situation with a possible accomplice in custody in New York, the need for urgency, and the evidence we had so far.

  “May I see the affidavit?”

  I handed it to her and tried not to bounce my knee or bite my nails while she read. When she’d finished, she put the pages down on her desk, leaned back in her chair, and frowned. Little stars of anxiety burst under my skin as I thought about the time and evidence we could lose if we didn’t get this warrant. It wasn’t an option to hit up another judge. If the defense found out, they’d scream about it, and not only would we look like crap, we’d probably lose the suppression motion. Everything we’d seized would be thrown out.

  “Now the warrant, please.”

  I handed her the search warrant.

  “So you want to search his house and vehicles and you want to surreptitiously place a GPS tracker on his cars?”

  I nodded.

  Judge Moss reviewed the affidavit again, then put down the pages and drummed her fingers on her desk as she stared out her chambers window. “If Ian Powers is your guy, you know he’s going to get himself a heavy hitter,” she said. Bailey and I nodded. “And that lawyer is going to put this search warrant through a meat grinder.” We nodded again.

  Judge Moss looked down at the warrant again. Was she going to turn us down? I calculated the waiting time to get the results on the blood smear on Brian’s trunk, on the hair comparison, and even the fingerprint comparison. Even a best case scenario of a couple of days would give Averly plenty of time to tip off Ian, and give Ian plenty of time to dump evidence. Judge Moss sat up and looked me in the eye. “You don’t have enough.”