I nodded. We ended up in silence, enjoying our coffee, and me feeling like a sore thumb someplace I hadn't been a part of for years. It wasn't long before Gray and Villacorta came back with Germain and Ruby. They took them into two separate rooms and came back out lonely.
"Seems those two do know each other. We found her at his apartment," said Gray.
"Yeah, we got a two for one deal for that trip," said Villacorta.
"What's in his jacket?" I asked.
Villacorta looked at me funny, like I was a grandfather using teenage slang.
"He's got priors for battery, robbery, assault and a few misdemeanor pimping charges," said Gray. "We also picked up a Glock 30."
"That takes a .45. Same as what killed Hartley," said Roberts.
Gray nodded.
"What about Ruby Tuesday?" I asked.
"A couple of prostitution misdemeanors, paid by her pimp, Germain," said Gray.
"What did I say?"
I looked at Roberts and he shrugged.
"Nothing worth listening to. Let's go hear what she has to say. You guys see what you can find out about Germain," Roberts said to Gray and Villacorta.
I walked with Roberts to the interview room which held Ruby. I looked at him and stopped before we walked in.
"You up for this? You think you can be impartial?" I asked, grinning at him.
"Depends what she's offering up," he said to me, winking.
We walked in and Ruby looked up and smiled sweetly at the Captain. She batted her eyelids for good measure too.
"Captain," she said, and she almost sounded excited to see him again.
Roberts wasn't having any of it. He sat down without looking at her and opened up a folder. After a few seconds of silent pause during which I eyeballed her and she kept her eyes on Roberts, he looked up at her.
"I tried to play nice the first time we spoke, Ms. Aponte. I gave you every opportunity to be honest with me. Instead you lied to my face. And now you're in here facing murder charges, and next door is your pimp. How long do you think he's going to sit there before he folds like a used condom and gives you up."
Ruby started to cry. This time I didn't know if it was real or forced. Maybe she was finally getting scared. As she should.
"Now I don't believe you killed him, but I think you had something to do with it. Still that makes you an accessory. And if you help me out, I'll speak to the DA on your behalf."
Ruby shook her head.
"I didn't shoot him, I swear it. Germain didn't shoot him either," she said.
"That's hard to believe, Ms. Aponte, because when we picked you two up we also found a Glock 30. That's the same kind of gun that was used to kill Mr. Hartley."
Ruby started getting hysterical, saying she didn't do it. Saying Germain didn't do it. I told her to get a hold of herself.
"You're going to have to help us out or things are looking real bad for you," I said.
She stopped crying for a moment and I looked at her scary clown face with black mascara streaked down from her eyes. She dabbed at them with a tissue she had up her sleeve.
"I can't tell you what happened because I'll get into trouble," she said. "You don't know what he's like."
"If you don't tell us, we're going to charge you with murder. That's gonna be a lot worse," I said.
She breathed hard a few times, and nodded her head.
"But you have to swear not to tell him," she said.
I nodded my head.
"Okay. Germain wanted to rob him. He had his gun in his car, and the deal was, I was going to go upstairs and have sex with Mars and get him more drunk and then I was going to leave and get Germain and let him back in so we could rob him. I had to do it or Germain was going to beat me. I had no choice."
"So what happened?" asked Roberts.
"Well, I left the room telling Mars that I needed to get something from the store in the lobby. When I came back with Germain we opened the door to Mars' room and saw that he had been shot dead. He was just lying there on the floor. We panicked and ran out. Germain took me back to the casino. We didn't even think of robbing him because we knew it would look bad and we knew the cops were coming."
"What time was this?" asked Roberts.
"Just after midnight. I was only gone maybe five minutes."
"Did you see anything or anyone when you left to get Germain?"
"Well yeah, there was this one guy who was coming down the hallway, and I passed him. He was kinda scary looking. His face was all scarred up..."
"Like he had been cut?" I asked.
Ruby shook her head.
"No, like acne scars."
I turned to Roberts and he nodded at me.
"And when you came back up with Germain, did you see this man again?"
Ruby shook her head.
"No, we didn't see anyone else. But I thought I heard the door next to Mars room close as we came up the hallway, but that might just be my imagination."
"Okay," said Roberts. "You wait here. If Germain tells the same story you'll be free to go."
Roberts and I got up and exited the interview room. Ruby was looking at her lap when we left. We walked into the observation room where, behind the one way mirror, Gray and Villacorta were interrogating Germain.
"You better start helping yourself here, Germain," said Villacorta. "We've got your Glock and we're testing it. It carries the same .45s that were used to shoot Hartley."
"I'm telling you I didn't do it," he said, his cool façade starting to crack a little under the pressure.
"Listen," said Gray, "my captain's in the other room speaking with Ruby. You think she's gonna say the same thing."
"If she ain't lying she'll say the same thing. Like I told you, we were gonna rob him, I'll admit to that. But when we got to the room he was already dead. We got the hell out of there, man. I knew the cops would be coming and we didn't take nothing because how'd that look if you found his ring on me when you came and picked me up?"
"Ballistics will tell us if your gun was used to shoot him," said Villacorta. "And ballistics doesn't lie."
Roberts knocked on the mirrored window.
"Good," said Germain, "then I'm free to go, because I haven't used that gun in a long time."
Villacorta and Gray walked out of the interview room and came round to where we were. Germain was left alone in the small room looking around for something to grab his attention. Problem was, these rooms were kept sparse and drab on purpose, to get him to sweat a little.
"Is he saying he saw a guy with bad skin?"
Villacorta shook his head.
"No, but he's saying he heard the neighbor's door close just as they were walking up the hallway towards the victim's room."
"Did he say which side of the hallway it was?"
Gray nodded.
"Same side as Hartley's. Figure it's probably room 301."
"That's where McSpadden was staying," said Roberts. "I want you to get back to that hotel and scour McSpadden's room again. I want the murder weapon, and I want everything you can get on him and get it to me by the end of the day."
Villacorta and Gray nodded and left the room. I looked at Roberts.
"I think we're getting somewhere now," I said to him.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"But we've gotta figure out motive here. Without that we might not have anything."
"Motive or weapon," I said. "If we find the murder weapon and it's got his prints on it, to hell with motive, that's enough to hang him."
Roberts looked at me for a while.
"I'd still like motive," he said.
"I gave up on motive a long time ago. Sometimes people just do bad things because they can, or they get caught up in the moment. Looking for motive all the time will drive you mad, John. It near ruined me. It's nice to make sense of the screwed up world we live in, but sometimes things are just unraveling into chaos."
"I hear you, but I think there's motive here someplace."
"Y
ou're probably right. Maybe they were army buddies and McSpadden has a hate on for Hartley. Your guys will find a connection. I'd much rather like evidence, it's easier that way than trying to coerce a confession. You'll call me when you have something on him?"
Roberts nodded and I left the room and the police building and walked to my car. I drove down to the pier to watch people again. It was another hot day. Young woman in torn jean shorts and tank top rollerbladed by me and I felt better for a bit. Youth is optimistic, supple and oblivious to the decay that's ever trying to creep further in from the sidelines.
I smiled at a young woman in a summer dress walk by with her dog. She was young and blonde and her skin as soft as pudding. She smiled back at me and I let her walk on by. I'd had enough of plucking flowers only to watch them die in my hands.
All In: Chapter Eight
Sunday evening was as quiet as church. I decided to finish my painting and make an early night of it. That worked out perfectly because at eight on Monday morning I got a call from Roberts. It woke me up.
"Is it even morning?" I asked him.
"Have you even gone to bed yet?" he asked.
I leaned up on my elbow and opened my eyes.
"You've obviously got good news," I said.
"We're going to wrap up this case, Anthony. You wanna come in and be a part of that and earn another couple of hundred dollars?"
"You always know how to push my buttons," I said.
Thanks to the good citizens of Los Angeles I had already earned five hundred bucks off of them. Today would be another two fifty and rent could be paid. I would live to die another day.
"Alright," said Roberts, "I'll see you in ten."
"More like at ten," I said.
"Early bird gets the worm, if he's brought in I'm gonna wrap it up tight without you."
"Fine, I'll see you in an hour."
He hung up and I got out of bed and sat on the edge of it for a moment. I thought about having a cigarette but decided against it. Time was of the essence. I went into the kitchen to feed Pirate so he'd give me some peace in the bathroom. He could wail and meow and cry like the best of them if he thought service was slow. In fairness, from his perspective it probably was.
I was in my car by eight thirty, which meant I was going to get there before nine. Wonders never cease. But then I got stuck in traffic and ended up at police headquarters a little after nine.
I found Roberts in his office going over some paperwork. He looked up from his desk and grinned at me.
"You're late," he said.
"Got stuck in traffic."
"Yeah, I thought you might have forgotten about that one now you're self-employed."
"Self-employed bum you mean."
"Hey, I keep you in the lifestyle you've become accustomed to."
"I'd rather become accustomed to something a little more upscale."
I sat down across from him.
"What have you got?" I asked.
"Motive," he said.
"Just like you wanted."
"Yeah, McSpadden's boy, Stephen junior was under Hartley's command and it appears McSpadden held Hartley accountable for his son's death."
"What happened?"
"The son was in Afghanistan and Hartley sent them in for a sweep when they were ambushed. The six of them were killed by Afghani rebels. McSpadden wrote at least half a dozen letters, from what I can see, to the Army asking for Hartley's termination and restitution for his son."
"I thought the Feds paid death benefits for those killed in action."
"They do, but in this case the money goes to McSpadden's grandson who it appears he never gets to see. It's a bit of dog's breakfast. Stephen junior has a son called Aiden out of wedlock. From all accounts Aiden's mother moved on to Colorado and he lost contact with her and his son."
"There's probably a story there," I said.
"There is. We were called on a couple occasions for domestics, but no charges were ever laid. Seems she might have left him for that."
I nodded. If only the world were a little more reasonable. If it were, I'd be homeless.
"So the kid, Aiden, is getting the benefits."
"Yeah, with his mother apparently holding it in trust. I imagine old man McSpadden's not gonna like that."
"Did he make any threats?" I asked.
"Sort of."
"What do you mean sort of?"
"Well his final letter to the Army and Veteran's Affairs says that if Hartley isn't going to have to pay with his career then he should pay with his life. But the guy I spoke to said they get this kind of thing all the time from grieving relatives. Especially fathers. They can't take them all seriously."
"And I suppose the icing on the cake is that McSpadden owns a .45?"
"An M1911A1. Irony is, it's not his own. At least not directly. It was his son's and he managed to get ownership of it when his son was KIA."
"I love irony," I said. "So old man McSpadden thinks justice is served by killing his son's commander with his son's own gun. I bet that gave him great pleasure."
Roberts nodded.
"Probably. Villacorta and Gray are out picking him up now. Thing is, old man McSpadden's whole life went sideways after his son's death in 2001. His wife left him, he lost his job and as you could probably tell he's been hitting the sauce pretty hard. You must have smelt it on him when we interviewed him."
I nodded.
"I did. But something else concerns me. He said he only got back to the hotel at around twelve thirty."
"I thought you might say that," said Roberts, handing me a picture to look at.
It showed what looked to be McSpadden leaving the casino just after Hartley. Roberts handed me another one. This one showed McSpadden entering the hotel at eleven seventeen.
"Looks like him," I said, "but I wouldn't want the DA to rest his case on it."
Roberts nodded at me.
"Yeah, but we'll show that to him and he'll fold like fresh laundry. And if we get the M1911 we're golden. Besides, I've got a good feeling that McSpadden isn't going to need much goading to get this off his chest. A guy like that. I reckon he's proud of what he's done."
"You might be right," I said. "When are your guys coming back?"
"When they find him. You got a hot date or something."
I grinned at him.
"Something," I said.
All In: Chapter Nine
Villacorta and Gray were having a harder time finding old man McSpadden and so Roberts and I went to lunch. We went outside and walked around a bit until we found a hot dog stand that offered us a decent bratwurst in a bun.
We sat outside for a while in the shade enjoying our brats and trying not to spill mustard on our shirts. It was working out pretty good. Cops of all flavors came in and out of police headquarters as if the building was breathing them in and out. Uniforms, plainclothes and SWAT, along with some brass. We paid them no attention.
"How is it going in homicide?" I asked Roberts.
"Good enough," he said, taking a bit of his brat. "This Lee Gray chap, like I said, reminds me a lot of you in the early days. I think he's gonna have a good clearance record."
"Times have changed," I said. "Back in the day we could lean on people harder than you can now. That helped."
"Yeah but he has a way of getting people talking. It's uncanny. It's like he's a priest or something."
"Still, the gangsters aren't likely to spill too easily."
"Yeah, you're right. That's one of our biggest problems. That's why so many of their murders stay unsolved. But it somehow works out in the end. They have a kind of justice amongst their own."
"Now you're sounding like a salty, cynical cop I always knew you for."
He grinned and put the last bite of brat in his mouth. His phone rang and he picked it up.
"Roberts," he said. "Yeah...Good...We'll be waiting."
He hung up and looked at me.
"We hit the jackpot," he said. "McSpadden was picked up o
n a routine traffic stop. Gray and Villacorta have just taken him from the uniform. They also found the murder weapon in the glove box. Can you believe it?"
"I can, sometimes people have a helluva time throwing away their favorite toys."
We threw our garbage in a bin on the way up to homicide and Roberts grabbed his folder on McSpadden. I kept thinking if this was a waste or not. I figured it was. It's always a waste to kill a man. Okay, maybe not always, but most of the time. You never know when someone might make good with their life. It happens. I'm not that cynical yet. I can count on my one hand the number of really innocent people who have been murdered. Now that's the real shame.
We waited in Roberts' office while Villacorta and Gray gave McSpadden the tourists' tour of LA. At least that's what it felt like. I couldn't figure out why I was so impatient. I didn't have anything set up after this. I guess I just liked the last turn in the track when you close out the case. It always gave me a thrill.
I finished my soda and threw it Roberts' trash can for a three pointer when Villacorta and Gray brought McSpadden in. He was dressed in jeans and had on an open short sleeved shirt over a wife beater. He was handcuffed behind his back and he looked as miserable as the day I had first seen him.
Villacorta and Gray came by and saw us after they'd put him into the interview room. Gray held out the M1911A1 in a big baggie.
"The smoking gun," he said, grinning.
"That's great work," I said.
"Lady Luck more like it," said Villacorta. "He was heading out of town when he was stopped for speeding. Because we'd put a BOLO on him the uni did the right thing and called it in."
"Where was he headed?" asked Roberts.
"Hard to say," said Gray, "but looked like Las Vegas."
"The city of broken dreams and that two-faced mistress, Lady Luck," I said.
"Never won huh?" asked Villacorta, looking at me as if I'd just popped his helium balloon.
"I've given them more than I've taken," I said. "I only play poker now. At least then I can see who's getting rich off me."
"I want you guys to get that gun to ballistics and Anthony and I will interview old man McSpadden. By the way did he confess at all?"
Villacorta and Gray shook their heads.
"We told him he was under arrest for the murder of Hartley and we gave him his Miranda. All he said was 'okay'," said Gray.
Four Ways To Midnight (An Anthony Carrick Short Story Collection Book 1) Page 12
