Old Poison

by Joan Francis

  Showered, medicated, and bandaged, I returned to the PD station with Barbara and was given a brief introduction to a detective named Walsom. He was medium height, heavy set, with a considerable paunch. His gray hair and lined face made him look ready for retirement. Either he had been around long enough that he had lost his need to maintain a stony-faced image, or he was more at ease because I came with Barbara on a case that was of little interest to him. In a friendly and casual manner he invited Barbara to sit in on the interview and offered us coffee. After a few preliminary identification questions, he asked me to tell him how I was acquainted with the two men in custody.

  “About two months ago a man named Borson asked me to help an environmental activist named Evelyn Lilac with research material for a science fiction book. It was all about Martians polluting Mars, then coming to Earth. It all sounded like such nonsense that I am afraid I didn’t treat it as professionally as I should have. In fact, I don’t even have a contact number or address on Borson.”

  Walsom nodded. I knew that he would understand this because police must deal with vast numbers of people who are half a bubble off. When Governor Ronny Reagan closed the mental hospitals, the effective result was that the mentally ill were dumped out on the streets. The police were left to deal with them, but were given no resources to do so. Doing a sort of criminal triage to sort serious cases from frivolous is now a large part of their job. Within the police culture there is an almost proverbial story that most young recruits hear at some point in their training. It usually tells of a crazy who comes to the station complaining that the Martians are sending rays into his brain. It ends with the older cop telling his recruit, “So I told him to wear a hat lined with tinfoil so the rays couldn’t hurt him, and he want off happy as a lamb.” It’s not the police who must be blamed for the callous lack of concern taught by this proverb. A helpless shrug and a tinfoil hat are the only tools society gives them.

  Having danced gingerly around the fact that I had not obtained proper ID on my subjects, I moved on to my next mistake, failure to report the incident on the bike trail.

  “Evelyn was in town very briefly to speak at an environmental expo in Long Beach. Since her time was so limited, I agreed to meet with her and talk about her book during her bike ride. That’s where I first saw the two guys you have in custody. When I caught up to Evelyn on the bike trail, the long-haired guy had pulled her off her bike and was trying to load her into a waiting speedboat. The guy with the shorter haircut was at the steering wheel of the boat. I ran my bike into the one on shore, knocked him down the embankment, and the two of them took off in the speedboat.”

  Here, of course, I failed to mention that I’d had a concealed weapon in my bike bag and that I had drawn and brandished it.

  “Evelyn and I had a talk back at her motel and she concluded, quite rightly, that I knew little about the environmental movement. She decided she didn’t need my help and rode off in a yellow cab.”

  Walsom asked the obvious question. “Did you report this attempted kidnap?”

  “I’m sorry, no. Evelyn wouldn’t even talk about it, much less file a complaint with police.”

  “Did anyone else witness the incident on the river?”

  “No.”

  Despite his years of straight-faced practice, I could read the “no case here” look in his expression.

  “However, the whole case took on new significance this week when the FBI asked me to come to Arizona to identify a body. It was Professor Lilac, and she had been murdered by someone chopping off the top of her skull like they were opening a coconut.”

  Now I had his attention. “If you happen to find a machete in the Venezolanos’ belongings or at White’s Boatyard, you might want to check it for a murder weapon. If you find anything to tie them to that murder, the guy in charge of the case is Special Agent Camas in Flagstaff.” I paused and smiled for effect. “I’m sure the FBI would love to have the LAPD clean up its case for them.”

  He returned my smile and said, “Well, if we do, you can be sure that won’t be the way it will hit the papers.”

  Good. That little aside placed Walsom and me in the same camp and gave me an opening to explain my little problem with Camas. “I’m afraid I was quite shaken by seeing Evelyn’s body, and I never thought at the time to mention the incident on the river.”

  His poker face was betrayed by a slight lifting of the eyebrows.

  “After I got back home I started thinking about it. I dug out the case file, looked up my notes and saw that I had the CF number of the boat. I was trying to check that out to see if I could find anything for the FBI when I ran into the Venezolanos again.”

  Now the old pro locked down his face in a perfect expressionless mask. I had just admitted to having a piece of information that could have been useful in preventing or solving a murder and had not reported it. That is the sort of thing that makes cops have little respect for private investigators.

  In my defense I said, “Evelyn flatly rejected any and all assistance and disappeared. If I had brought in that tale, with no victim, you guys would have processed and filed it. How could I explain that I had this potential client who didn’t hire me, who disappeared, and had been trying to hire me to chase down Martians?”

  That defense might have had some validity if I had told Camas the truth once I learned of the murder. There was no way to explain that I held out on Camas because I thought he would ridicule me or because he was an asshole. His insular, macho, superior attitude may be the sort of thing that makes private investigators have little respect for many police officers, but that wasn’t going to wash here. Walsom nodded but now maintained his professional distance.

  I continued my tale of how I ended up in the container, but knew that any consideration or cooperation I might have gotten from this guy had just gone out the window. With the amount of the story I was admitting to, there was no reasonable explanation for my use of an undercover identity, so I left that out and also failed to mention the bit about the phony subpoenas. As I fluffed over this part, I stole one surreptitious look at Barbara, but her face gave away nothing. Walsom asked no questions about my methods. He probably had guessed and didn’t really want to know.

  When I finished, Walsom sat back and considered my statement. “Too bad you had to go through what you did the last twenty-four hours, when a call to Agent Camas could have put it all in his court.”

  “Yes sir,” I answered contritely.

  “Well, with your testimony we can probably get the DA to go for charges related to your kidnaping, but if their attorneys come up with any illegal actions on your part, the perps will probably walk.”

  He began picking up the paperwork on the table and then with a dismissive air added, “Better have our photographer get some pictures of your wounds and bruises.”

  In the moment of silence that followed, I realized he wasn’t going to chase any phantom case regarding the FBI and a dead body in Arizona. Reason told me I was just going to dig myself in deeper, but I couldn’t let it alone.

  “What about the murder of Evelyn Lilac?”

  “What about it?”

  “I think these two Venezolano thugs you have in custody killed her, and I think they are tied to Blue Morpho Petroleum.”

  I could not read his face. The stakes were now higher and his professional demeanor more rigid. “Do you have further evidence that you forgot to tell us to support that allegation?”

  “No, but there are three things in the information I just gave you. First, the speedboat used to snatch Evelyn was registered to Offshore Deep Driller, Inc., and the lien holder is Blue Morpho Global Investments. BMGI is the financial arm of Blue Morpho, and Deep Driller is probably some drilling subsidiary. Second, the guy who was in the room at White’s boatyard giving orders after they grabbed me was wearing a Morpho company cap. Get these guys to ID him and you have a direct connection to the corporation. If you can find him, I could ID him too. And third, that container I was in was
filled with supplies for my journey and with personnel papers from Morpho’s Paso Nuevo plant. You could check on how these Venezuelans got into the country and who set them up to live in the old house at the boatyard. You could search for a murder weapon and try to get these guys to cop to the murder or implicate their boss at Morpho.”

  In the silence that followed, I realized that as my frustration boiled out, my voice volume had risen. Walsom made no response.

  I was making the mistake of telling him how to do his business, a fatal error, yet I couldn’t stop. It was like picking at an itchy scab until you scratch it off and bleed all over yourself.

  “If nothing else, you could start with asking Morpho why their container was used to Shanghai someone and why all their personnel records were being shipped out.”

  Barbara had been sitting quietly in the corner listening, her presence an unofficial courtesy. She spoke for the first time. “I can answer part of that question. The whole Paso Nuevo plant was shipped out. Most of the cans left over two months ago. That ship was taking the last few cans to the new Morpho research facility in Costa Rica.”

  That surprised me. “Costa Rica, not Venezuela?”

  She nodded. “Yes. The ship will dock in Venezuela eventually, but that can you were in stops in Limon, Costa Rica.”

  The casual, friendly tone that Walsom had used at the beginning of this session was replaced with cold, professional reproach. “Thank you for your statement, Ms. Hunter. In regard to that Arizona murder case, I would advise that you contact the proper jurisdiction and report all the information you have.”

  * * * * *

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  As Barbara drove me back to the dock I slumped down in the passenger seat in a silent blue funk. She was enough of a friend not to chastise me, but her silence spoke volumes.

  Fortunately for me, the rental car had been ignored in the convergence of jurisdictions. Neither the CHP, Customs, nor LAPD had thought to tow the thing or even take the keys out of the ignition. I thanked Barbara, reclaimed the car, and retrieved the Walther I had left in the trunk.

  Unfortunately, the oversight of my rental car was extended to the container and the ship. The ship’s captain had the container loaded and the ship under power and out through Angeles Gate to the open sea. Whatever information was in that container, it was on its way to the new plant in Costa Rica.

  Like a mauled kitten, I slunk away. I drove my damaged reputation and wounded pride toward Sam’s house in San Pedro.

  In Sam’s guest room I enjoyed the best night’s sleep I’d had in a week, then gave myself the next morning off. I slept in late and had a leisurely breakfast with Sam. Always clear-sighted and pragmatic, Sam guided me through a post mortem of both my errors and the flaws inherent in the police and FBI systems. His suggestion was that I write a well-worded report to Camas and send it by email to minimize my exposure and maximize the information I could provide.

  I spent two hours composing the report, aided by Sam’s expertise on cover-your-ass writing. Once done and polished, I made a copy for my files and hit send.

  For the afternoon, I drove into Bluff Beach, picked up my cleaning and a deli picnic, and returned to Sam’s. We loaded the picnic and some wine onto his boat, motored slowly to one of the oil islands in the harbor and put down an anchor. While I fished and sunned, he played with his underwater robot, taking digital pictures of the pollution on the harbor floor. The pictures he got guaranteed the fish I caught would be gently released. No way would I want to eat anything that swam in that water.

  For dinner we motored over to the Bluff Beach dock and tied up, then treated ourselves to a wonderful fish dinner at the Ocean Way Grill. I reassured myself that their fish had all been caught somewhere that was safe from pollution, and shut my mind to the nagging suspicion that there was no such place on the planet.

  After dinner we returned to Sam’s house and sat up until the wee hours of the morning. We sipped brandy while Sam told stories of the Cold War and the Drug War, some wonderful, some horrifying. If we had known what was going on at the LAPD station across town, we could not have had such a pleasant and relaxing evening.

  I was awakened the next morning at 10:37 by the angry, no, furious voice of Agent Camas, leaving a message on Sam’s answering machine.

  “Hunter, God-damn you, pick up the fucking phone!”

  I stared at the machine a moment like it was part of a bad dream. How did he find me at Sam’s? Then the fog lifted and I remembered that Sam had rigged my phone to forward calls to his house.

  Sam was standing in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. He smiled and said, “Sounds a wee tad upset, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he does.”

  He stood staring at the wall a moment, and I knew his computer-like brain was going through all the variables. “Shit, I thought that was a damn good report. Wonder what bee got in his skivvies. Don’t think you want to talk with him while he’s this hot. He’d probably toss you in a federal cell on so many charges it would take you a year just to sort out a defense. Think I’ll pay a quick trip to your apartment and remove the call-forwarding program. The way it’s rigged, I don’t think he would even detect it, but just to be sure–”

  He turned to leave and looked back. “When he sees the condition of your apartment, he’ll probably give up on chasing you down, but just in case, you better clear the decks for action. Get showered and dressed and ready to roll. I’ll call you after I check your pad.”

  My shower took just two and a half minutes, but Sam was gone and the house quiet by the time I got to the kitchen for that first cup of coffee. I jumped at the sound of a phone ringing, but this time it was Sam’s phone and his J. Edgar answered it.

  The little robot took a message and then turned to me. “Sam says I should turn on the radio for Diana to KWSP, right now.” The news announcer’s voice began immediately from one of J. Edgar’s speakers.

  “. . . his statement later. At this time all we have is a brief announcement from Lieutenant Patrick Marshal, saying that two prisoners were shot by a sniper late yesterday evening. The unidentified men, who were taken into custody yesterday, were being transported from the San Pedro police station to the jail at Parker Center. The officers loading the prisoners into the car were not harmed.”

  “Fascinating report, Dick. Any information on who these men were or why they were being held?”

  “None, Mark. An earlier report that they were in custody on smuggling charges has now been denied. We have also heard that the FBI is involved in this case, but we have no verification of that at this time.”

  “Great report, Dick. We will be back to you for any updates.”

  As the announcer cut to commercial, I sank down into a chair. The dead men had to be the two Venezolanos, and I’d bet my last dollar that Special Agent Camas made that call to me from San Pedro. He must have gotten my report and flown straight to LA. No wonder he was breathing flame when he called me. Murder suspects he could have had if I had given him that boat CF number, murdered. He was going to want a lot more than my license, and I don’t look good in striped suits.

  “J. Edgar, please keep that station on, but mute the volume. I want to hear more on that same story. Also, check both radio and television for other reports. Turn up the volume if you find something, and make audio and video records of all reports.”

  Without a clue as to where I would be going, I began packing. Fortunately there was little to pack: a few clothes and toiletries, stun gun, fanny pack, Walther and bullets. I saved the entire Evelyn Lilac file to a CD and packed it in the laptop case.

  The volume came up on the TV as J. Edgar played an ongoing report. Detective Walsom stood just outside the station door, looking worn and haggard. A semicircle of reporters clamored around him with mikes, cameras and video cams as he read from a prepared speech.

  “Two men being held on kidnaping charges at LAPD’s San Pedro Division were shot and killed by sniper fire while officers were attempting t
o move them to Parker Center last night at 9:45. Their names are being held until their identities can be confirmed and their next of kin notified. The investigation into this matter will be handled jointly between local authorities and the FBI with help from INS. Further information will be released as it becomes available.”

  He folded the notepaper and, ignoring shouted questions, returned to the station house.

  Wonderful. Camas undoubtedly would have treated the PD to a royal flaying for letting his suspects get killed right under their noses. I hoped Walsom would remember that he’d told me to report any information I had to the FBI. Whether he blamed me for Camas or not, he would want my hide. Since the station was letting Walsom play “Meet the Press” he was probably tagged to take the fall for this mess. Poor guy looked ready for retirement, but nobody wants to go out under a cloud. Now I would have a second law enforcement officer who would be happy to toss my ass in jail forever.

  I was about to have J. Edgar mute the TV when something caught my attention. In the back of the crowd was a baseball cap with an iridescent blue butterfly on it. “J. Edgar, play back the last thirty seconds of that report. Freeze frame right there.”

  I walked over to the screen. “Can you blow up this section here?” The screen filled with a closeup of the man in the cap. “Can you give me better resolution?” The picture cleared and became slightly smaller. “Oh, my God! Print that, J. Edgar.”

  I could clearly read the name Blue Morpho and identify this man as the same person who ordered me canned for shipment to Costa Rica. The possibility of coincidence was out of the question. “The arrogance of it. He doesn’t even worry about wearing his company logo to the scene of the crime. Is he that stupid, or is he so untouchable he doesn’t have to be careful?”