37
“Hey, Richards.”
Davie was in the hallway outside Records. She turned and saw the jailer holding up a property bag.
“Your partner was in such a hurry to beat traffic he forgot to take this.”
The stench of sweat and decay radiating from that paper bag roiled her stomach. “I hope that’s Vaughn’s gym bag and not his lunch.”
The jailer chuckled. “It’s his suspect’s watch cap and a couple of old newspapers. You want me to ship it to the county jail or are you headed that way?”
Downtown L.A. was out of her way, but delivering the property to the jail would give her a chance to check on Rags. She reached for the aromatic bag. “I’ll drop it off on my way home.”
When she returned to the squad room, she retrieved her gun from the desk drawer. She checked her desk but the phone company had not returned Anya’s call records. The room was nearly deserted. She checked the sign-out sheet. Giordano was at a doctor’s appointment, Garcia was on a regular day off. Vaughn and Montes were on their way downtown to book Rags. She assumed detectives from other tables were on follow-up calls or in court.
She slid Rags’s bag under her desk. Then she picked up the phone and dialed Spencer Hall’s cell. He had worked as a Hollywood MAC detective during the time Anya was assaulted. It was a long shot, but she hoped he remembered the incident or knew somebody who would. He didn’t pick up, so she left a message.
While she waited for Hall’s callback, she made notes on her interview with Rags. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on her part that Rags had information about Anya’s killer, but she couldn’t ignore the idea.
The stench from the property bag was fracturing her concentration, so she put it inside a large plastic sack she found in the cabinet under the shredder and sealed it with flex-cuffs. Five minutes later she went a step further and locked it in the trunk of her Camaro. She hoped the seal held and Rags’s crap didn’t stink up her car.
When Davie got back to her desk, the phone was ringing. It was Spencer Hall. She didn’t waste time exchanging pleasantries.
“My victim was involved in an assault in Hollywood about four or five months ago. I’d like to show you her photo and see if you remember her.”
“Come on, Davie. I have file drawers full of assault cases. Search DCTS if you want details.”
The Detective Case Tracking System was a searchable database that held a detective’s notes, witness statements, and other details about a case, including the final disposition.
“I couldn’t find anything. She may have used an alias.”
“Look, I’m at the DA’s office dropping off a case. I’m too jammed to drive to Pacific today. Just email the photo. I’ll look at it when I get back to Hollywood.”
“We don’t have a scanner here, and color won’t show up on a fax,” she said. “What if I meet you halfway?”
She could have scanned the photos from the app on her cell phone and sent them electronically, but she preferred to conduct important interviews in person, even when that interview was with a fellow cop. She wanted to watch Hall’s expression when he looked at Anya’s picture to see if and how he remembered her. Or maybe she just wanted to see him again.
He hesitated. “I can be at Café G’day in about twenty minutes.”
The coffee shop had been a regular hangout in the early days of their romance. She’d prefer someplace neutral, but it was more important to show the photos to Hall than to nurse her bruised ego, so she agreed. She slipped the two photos of Anya into her notebook and headed to the parking lot.
On the drive to meet Hall, she detoured past A to Z Liquors, checking her rearview mirror for a tail. If anyone was following her, she didn’t spot him. The liquor store now looked abandoned. Lana Ivanov and her buddy Boris were probably in Mexico on Marchenko’s yacht or at one of Reuben Quintero’s safe houses. She hoped Q wasn’t still mad at her because she still needed access to Lana’s purple notebook and hoped he knew where it was. After her meeting with Hall, she would have to call Quintero and make nice.
Café G’day was a small storefront on Pico Boulevard near Fairfax, dwarfed between a chain drugstore and a multistory office building. Maroon-striped awnings and wood-paned windows graced the façade. Inside, baristas served organic coffee to Millennials looking for a quaint Aussie-village experience in the middle of commercial sprawl.
The only other patron in the place was a young man wringing his hands over a computer screen. Hall was waiting for her on the patio outside. If the dark smudges under his eyes were any indication, he hadn’t been sleeping well. She wondered if a guilty conscience was causing his insomnia. Two lattes sat on the table, one in a paper container, the other in a ceramic cup and saucer. Just like old times.
The metal chair scraped across the brick pavers as Davie sat a comfortable distance away from Hall. She accepted the ceramic cup he pushed toward her and noticed the barista had crafted a heart in the foam. It made her think of Anya Nosova.
Hall smiled. “Nonfat. Right?”
He already knew the answer, so she didn’t bother responding. She pulled John Bell’s photo of Anya from her notebook and held it up. “She look familiar?”
Hall studied the picture. “Yeah, I remember her. It wasn’t my case, but I was there when patrol officers brought her into the station. She said her name was Tiffany something. Jones, I think. We all figured she was lying. Not many Russian girls with a name like that.”
“You have a good memory.”
Hall glanced at Davie. “Hard to forget a face like that.”
“What was her story?”
“Boyfriend troubles. She was vague about the details.”
Davie wrapped her hands around the cup to fend off the cold air, inhaling the fragrance of espresso and frothed milk. “Did she mention the boyfriend’s name?”
“Nope. Said she didn’t want to get him in trouble.”
“Did she need medical treatment?”
“We asked, she refused. She had a bruise on her arm. Other than that, it didn’t look like she had any serious injuries.”
Davie took a sip of the latte. When she returned the cup to the saucer, she noticed the heart had dissipated into stringy trails of milk and foam.
“Did you figure her for a hooker?” she asked.
Hall seemed deep in thought. “Why? Was she?”
She held up the racy photo of Anya taken from the Marina del Rey apartment. Hall frowned, somehow disturbed by the image. Most cops on the job had seen dozens of smuttier pictures. Maybe he was taking the moral high ground now that he was back with his wife, but his reaction struck her as odd.
She ignored his question and asked another of her own. “Why did the officers bring her to the station?”
“I guess they thought she’d be more talkative.”
“Where did the incident happen?”
“Some no-tell motel on Hollywood Boulevard, I think.”
“Anybody follow up?”
“The case wasn’t assigned to me, but I can tell you there was nothing to follow up on. The girl was uncooperative. You know the DA’s office isn’t going to file a case if the victim refuses to identify the suspect or testify in court.”
A small brown bird landed on a table nearby and began pecking at the remains of a muffin on a plate. Davie studied its scrawny legs and thought of Anya’s fragile limbs tangled in the jaws of the Hyperion grinder.
“Who picked her up from the station?”
“Nobody. She said she was a student at UCLA. The detective handling the case asked a couple of patrol officers to drop her off on campus.”
“Where Troy Gallway found her and invited her to stay at his condo.”
“Who?”
“Forget it. Too bad I didn’t have this information earlier.”
Hall’s body tensed. “I told you she g
ave a phony name. How was I supposed to know it was the same girl? I’ve never seen either of those pictures before.”
“Was she involved in other incidents?”
“None that were assigned to me.”
Davie pushed back her chair and stood. The bird was startled by the noise and flew away with a small chunk of muffin still in its beak.
She put a five-dollar bill on the table to pay for the latte. “Thanks for your help.”
Hall stood too. “Davie—”
“What?”
His lips parted, about to say something. Instead, he glanced toward the bird, but it had already disappeared. “Nothing. Good luck with the case.”
On the drive back to the station, Davie thought about Hall’s behavior. Gone were the sense of humor and charm she had once found so attractive. She reminded herself that he had the police commission’s gun pointed at his temple just like she did. Added to that was the pressure of mending the relationship with his wife. Still, she was sure he had wanted to tell her something before she left the café. She wondered what it was.
When Davie returned to the station, several faxed pages were waiting on her desk: Anya Nosova’s telephone records. Before she could flip through them, she sensed somebody walking toward her. She turned and saw Lieutenant Bellows.
He leaned on the wall partition of her cubicle. “Davie, I’d like to have a word with you in my office.”
His tone was soft, almost fawning. Bellows had rarely spoken to her since she arrived at the division. When he had, he was businesslike, almost curt. He had certainly never used her first name before. His behavior didn’t fit the pattern. Minutiae.
Something was wrong.
38
Two uniformed officers were already seated at the round conference table in Lieutenant Bellows’s office. One wore the triple chevron of a Sergeant-1, the other’s uniform sported captain’s bars. Both men’s facial expressions were rigid and unreadable. Bellows closed the door and lowered the mini blinds on his office window. That meant only one thing: he didn’t want anybody in the squad room to see what was about to happen.
Bellows gestured for her to sit. The knife creases in his Class A uniform pants flattened as he lowered his trim five-eight frame onto the chair. She knew it was petty, but that small imperfection pleased her. The standard attire for detectives was a business suit. The department term was “soft clothes.” Wearing the uniform was just one more way the lieutenant set himself apart from the people he supervised.
Bellows introduced the two men, a sergeant from Personnel and a captain from Internal Affairs. On cue, the sergeant flicked a piece of paper toward her, like he was skipping a stone across a polluted pond. The gesture seemed dismissive and disrespectful. She didn’t look down, not wanting to take her eyes off the men in that room. Her concentration was too fractured to read the words anyway.
“What’s that?”
“A letter,” the sergeant said, “advising you that you’re being relieved of duty.”
Davie could almost smell the pungent zest of ozone after a lightning strike. “Why?”
“The Inspector General has reopened your OIS case.”
“The department already ruled the shooting was within policy.”
“The victim’s wife has offered new evidence. She claims you made false statements on the police report.”
“What are you talking about?” Davie’s voice sounded thin and brittle even to her.
“Mrs. Hurtado claims you murdered her husband and then lied about it.”
She wanted to tell them the allegation was absurd, but she no longer had breath to support the words. She flashed back to the day of the shooting, to Mrs. Hurtado’s bloody face, her hysteria, and her gratitude. The woman had thanked Davie over and over again for saving her life. Now she had changed her story, and it didn’t take long to come up with a theory as to why—money.
“I recommend you get a department rep or a lawyer as soon as possible,” Bellows continued. “For now, I need your department ID, your badge, and your gun, which I will give to the captain to hold. I’ll have somebody box up the personal items in your desk. I’ll see that they are sent to you.”
Davie counted the number of “I”s in the lieutenant’s monologue, but lost track. She figured Bellows loved statistics so much he could probably calculate the total, crunch the numbers, and come up with a theory for why everything was always just about him.
“What about Anya Nosova? While you waste time trying to put a case on me, the investigation stalls.”
Bellows avoided her gaze by reshuffling some papers on the table. “I’ll assign another detective to pick up where you left off.”
“Nobody knows the case like I do.”
Bellows’s ramrod-straight spine radiated impatience, not empathy. “Your notes should be in the Murder Book. Somebody will figure it out.”
Davie leaned into his personal space. “I didn’t lie on that report.”
“I’m not here to argue the merits of the evidence again you. You’ll have a chance to defend yourself at your Board of Rights hearing.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Your ID.”
Davie wanted to slam Bellows against the wall, tell him she was being railroaded and that he was an asshole for not fighting for her. She studied his Beverly Hills haircut. It made him look slick and cunning—a villain in a movie thriller about the evils of Wall Street.
On a deeper level, she knew Bellows was only the messenger. Malcolm Harrington was to blame for this. It was now clear to her that he had a personal vendetta against her family. She thought about telling Bellows her theory, but that wouldn’t change anything, except to make him think she was paranoid.
She pulled out her ID and threw it on the table, ignoring his outstretched hand. Next she gave up her badge.
“Hand over your duty weapon.”
“The forty-five is my personal weapon. If you knew me better, you’d know that. The department-issued firearm is in my locker.”
“The sergeant will accompany you upstairs to get it. Then he’ll escort you out of the building.” Bellows stood. “I think we’re done here.”
His tone was arctic. Davie wasn’t surprised. His blood ran icy blue. The lieutenant worshiped at the altar of the Los Angeles Police Department Manual. She’d heard that his knack for playing politics had rocketed him up the ranks of the LAPD. He wouldn’t let anything tarnish his resume, especially a lowly Detective-1. She might be the latest copper Bellows sent into the jaws of Big Blue Machine, but she wouldn’t be the last. The lieutenant had developed a reputation for eating his young.
Davie knew how things went down from here. Friends would express sympathy, but eventually they would stop calling, afraid that whatever dirt clung to her uniform might rub off on theirs. For the first time, she understood how her father had felt after Harrington filed that civil lawsuit against him: shattered, betrayed, and pissed as hell.
Her gut felt raw. Time would tell if the wound was mortal. For now, all she could think about was surviving and finding a way to keep the department at bay while she continued searching for Anya Nosova’s killer.
The next couple of hours passed in a myopic blur while Davie lay inert on her living room couch. Self-pity clung to her like a one-night stand that refused to go home. She avoided all the mirrors in the house because they reflected the gray complexion and lank hair of a stranger.
She replayed in her mind Lieutenant Bellows’s smug words, the things she had said to him, and the clever, acerbic things she should have said, until she could no longer distinguish between reality and fiction. The sergeant had escorted her out of the station in front of her co-workers like a three-strikes felon.
At some point, the phone rang. It was Jason Vaughn.
“I just heard what happened. Bellows told everybody in the squad room not to contact you. I thought Giordano was going to ream hi
m a new asshole. What’s going on?”
“The suspect’s wife in my OIS case changed her story. She now claims I made false statements on the police report to cover up the murder of her husband.”
“Who’s going to believe her?”
“Malcolm Harrington. I’ll have to get a department rep or maybe an outside lawyer to sort it out.”
“I’ve got your back, Davie. Anything I can do to help, just call.”
After she hung up, she stared at the Wyeth watercolor, imagining she was the tree in the meadow, alone and stripped bare. Her cell phone rang several more times, but she felt too disengaged to answer it or to monitor her voicemail messages. The noise was intruding on her solitude, so when the phone trilled again late that afternoon, she was leaning over to turn it off when she recognized her father’s number on the display. Curious, she took the call.
“Where the hell have you been, Ace? I heard what happened. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
In a raspy voice she had not used in several hours, she said, “Screw the LAPD.”
“You could, but all you’d get is a broken heart and a case of the clap. Look, the LAPD is just four letters in the alphabet. It’s an organization made up of people, good ones and bad ones. Your job is to learn the difference between the two. By the way, you sound like Kermit the Frog.”
“How’d you find out?”
“The better question is, Why didn’t I find out from you?”
“I’ve listened to the lecture, now what do you want?”
“To tell you I’m in your corner and even after being out of that dysfunctional organization for fifteen years, I still know a few good people in high places who might be able to help.”
“How? Lieutenant Bellows won’t let anybody talk to me. They sure as hell aren’t going to talk to you.”
Pacific Homicide Page 20
