Fallen Angels

by Connie Dial

  “Wanna sit in on the Goldman interview at 1800?” he asked.

  “Where’s it going to be?”

  “Here, where else would it be?”

  “Chief Bright didn’t talk to you?”

  “The chief and me don’t converse much. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, I’ll let you know if I can stay.”

  For a moment, she thought maybe Bright had a change of heart and wouldn’t try to manipulate the interview of Councilman Goldman’s son, but Josie knew better, and it didn’t take long to find out what he had in mind.

  Half an hour later, Bright called her and said he was giving the Hillary Dennis investigation to Robbery Homicide division. He reasoned that RHD was better able to handle the high profile case, and he didn’t want to burden Hollywood’s detectives with “the time-consuming, politically challenging investigation.”

  “Great,” Josie said, and to her surprise actually meant it. She knew the bureau and the chief of police couldn’t keep themselves from interfering in this case. They would drive her and her detectives crazy, and then blame them when it all fell apart. Behan wouldn’t like it, but she knew giving this can of worms to RHD would save her and her people a lot of heartburn.

  Later that day, Behan, always the loyal soldier, sat quietly with Josie in her office as she transferred what evidence and interviews they had to the RHD detectives. Behan meticulously recited every aspect of the investigation before handing over the homicide book. As they were leaving, the RHD detectives mentioned they would interview Cory Goldman at his father’s house that evening. She and Red exchanged a quick smirk before wishing them good luck.

  “Those poor slobs don’t have a teenage boy’s chance at Neverland,” Behan said, when they were alone again.

  “Better them than you,” Josie said.

  “Still, this thing has possibilities.”

  “Such as?” she asked.

  “How do you shoot the prettiest girl in a room full of people and nobody sees it or hears anything? There’s no trace of drugs or alcohol anywhere near her but she doesn’t struggle with the killer, who probably shoots her from no more than a foot away while she’s smiling at him, then drops the gun and walks away. That kind of stuff piques my Irish curiosity.”

  “You interviewed everybody who was there?”

  “According to the caretaker, there were about half a dozen people. We’ve ID’d them, but the interesting ones are her agent, a filmmaker, and two aspiring actresses, aka porn stars.”

  “Whose party was it?”

  Behan grunted. “That’s the twist. Nobody knows. They all got one of those text message twitter things, or whatever the hell they call them, about a party that day. When they get to the Hollywood Hills house the door’s unlocked. They raid the liquor cabinet and the fridge . . . like magic they got a party.”

  “Did any of them remember Goldman’s kid being there?”

  “Nope. I got our computer geek trying to back-track on the message, but it’s a dead end. Maybe RHD will have better luck,” Behan said and rolled his eyes back. Neither one of them believed the downtown detectives were as good as Behan and his people.

  “Guess it’s not our problem anymore,” Josie said, but didn’t like the way that sounded. There was something offensive about finding a dead body in her division and then asking RHD to track down the killer. It was a little like bringing in the snooty neighbors to clean your toilets.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna let Fricke do his thing for a few nights. He’s got some good snitches. Whatever he digs up we can pass on to RHD.”

  Josie didn’t mind. Actually, she was curious to see what Fricke and his partner could uncover. Hollywood was crawling with snitches. Prostitutes, addicts, parolees, they all quickly learned the secret of Fricke’s get-out-of-jail-free card—give up a bigger fish and swim away to be caught again another day.

  Any other night, she might’ve stayed a few hours to see if anything turned up, but now the murder investigation was somebody else’s headache, and she was tired. It was nearly eight p.m. and rush-hour traffic should have cleared. She called home hoping Jake was there. Maybe he wanted to go out to dinner, some place noisy where they couldn’t argue and then get to bed early. David answered the phone.

  “You’re home,” Josie said, instinctively. Her son rarely spent any time at home these days. He had a part-time job at a thrift store and slept in a shabby one-room apartment above a friend’s garage. He was a twenty-two-year-old artist and musician. Two completely impractical professions Josie thought, but she had to admit he was talented if unsuccessful.

  “Big surprise, you’re not.”

  Smartass, Josie thought, but said, “I’m on my way; is your dad there?”

  “No, there’s another big surprise.”

  “Has he called?” She wasn’t going to play this guilt game. He was a big boy now, too old to be crying about his neglected childhood. Maybe she hadn’t been the perfect mother, but hell’s bells, she hadn’t beaten or starved him either. He had more than most kids and was old enough to get on with his life.

  “What’s the story on Hillary Dennis? Did she kill herself?”

  “Did your dad call?”

  “He’ll be here in twenty minutes. Did she?”

  “It’s not my investigation. You want to stay for dinner?” The last thing she wanted was to talk about Hillary Dennis. She knew he’d stay. The only time David got a good meal was when she or his father cooked it or paid for it.

  It took half an hour to drive from Hollywood to Pasadena. She loved the house she and Jake had purchased sixteen years ago on a shaded street within walking distance of Old Town Pasadena. The homes here were anywhere from fifty to a hundred years old. They were multi-story and sat back on the properties. Theirs was a white, three-story craftsman with a screened-in front porch. Jake’s Porsche was in the driveway parked next to her son’s piece-of-junk Jeep Wrangler convertible, leaving no room for her city car. She was annoyed and almost called to have David move his car, but instead parked in the street. The department wanted command officers to park their city cars in the garage for a lot of good reasons, but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with her son’s infantile pouting if he had to come out and move his car.

  David was in the family room watching a Dodger play-off game and drinking a beer he must’ve brought with him, because she and Jake only had wine and a few bottles of hard liquor at home. He waved at her, but didn’t stop staring at the television screen. She walked behind him and kissed him on top of his head, felt his soft brown hair rub against her cheek. He was a grown man, but she couldn’t touch him without feeling as protective as she had the day the doctor placed him in her arms for the first time.

  “You need a haircut,” she said, gently tugging on his stubby ponytail. He was wearing the same worn Levi’s he wore everyday, and she worried he was too thin. “Where’s your father?”

  “Kitchen,” he said, pointing over his head.

  She threw her briefcase and coat on the recliner and went upstairs, unbuckling her gun belt to slide off the holster with her .45 semi-auto before she reached their third-floor bedroom. Home was the only place she didn’t wear her gun. If she was too dressed up to wear it on her belt, Josie carried it in her purse. Whether it was the Philharmonic, a baseball game or shopping for groceries, the gun went with her. Having been a cop for so many years and having dealt with the horrors one human being could inflict on another, Josie vowed she was never going to be a victim or let anyone she loved be a crime statistic, not without a hellacious battle.

  She put the gun on a nightstand near her side of the bed. Jake hated seeing it there, but she kept telling him if a burglar tried to break in, he’d be very grateful after she saved them from getting murdered in their sleep. Jake thought that scenario was pretty funny and unlikely since earthquakes couldn’t wake her. He’d moved the telephone to her side of the bed because she got so many calls from her station in the middle of the night, but she rarely heard the r
inging unless he shook her. They’d been married nearly twenty-three years, and sometimes she wondered why the man put up with her three-ring-circus career, and lately worried maybe he was wondering the same thing.

  As a deputy district attorney with a passion for the law, Jake seemed to be her perfect life partner. They both worked hard and disliked criminals, but she suspected in the last few years he wanted a real wife who wasn’t too tired to cook and keep house, and would spend more time with him. Their sex life was fine, that wasn’t the problem; but she was afraid the occasional intense intimacy only made him crave more. They were growing distant, but neither of them wanted to talk about it, so they rarely talked about anything and pretended nothing was wrong.

  Jake was in the kitchen with his shirtsleeves rolled up making marinara sauce and pasta.

  “You hungry?” he asked, and when he turned she saw his apron was covered with several large red stains.

  “You have to kill the meatballs?”

  Jake laughed. She was crazy about his laugh. It always made her smile. He was ten years older than her. His hair was grey but still thick like his father’s, while David’s hair was already thinning. Wrong gene selection. Jake came from Sicilian ancestry and had the dark skin and ebony eyes of all the Corsino men. A six-footer, he was bigger than most of his family, but David was both taller than his father and ten pounds skinnier.

  “I dropped the first can of tomato sauce. Luckily most of it hit my apron. You done for the night?”

  “Keep your fingers crossed,” she said, and told him about the Hillary Dennis homicide. She explained how the investigation had been taken from her detectives and given to RHD, and she could see the relief on his face.

  “They’re transferring me downtown next week,” he said, putting the lid back on the sauce pot. “Wanna whip up some garlic bread?” he asked, making room on the already crowded tile counter.

  “How can they do that? I thought you were next in line to take over Santa Monica.”

  “So did I, but the D.A. says he needs to put me in the Central division snake pit, again. Caseload’s huge, and he’s got too many baby lizards. Most of them can’t figure out how to find the right court, let alone prosecute a case.”

  She felt bad for him. In Santa Monica he’d had a lighter caseload and a better class of clientele. Jake liked getting home early, playing tennis and sitting in their second floor den drinking his Napa Pinot. His hours and workload were about to change drastically. If it were Josie, she’d have welcomed the change, but they were different that way.

  “Maybe it’s just temporary,” she said, thinking that was a pretty lame consolation, but in a way the adjustment wasn’t all bad. He’d be working so late he’d never notice her hours, and stop complaining about how much time she spent at the office.

  “It is temporary. I’m retiring at the end of the month.”

  She stopped slicing bread and stared at him. It wasn’t often she had difficulty finding the right words, but this was one of those rare moments. “When did you make that decision?” she asked after several seconds of tense silence.

  “Right after the D.A. made his.”

  “Can we afford your retirement?” She heard the testiness in her voice, but it really wasn’t about the money. Didn’t she get a say in something as big as this that affected both their lives?

  “I’m going into private practice with Bob Steiner’s firm.”

  “Defending rapists and murderers?” she asked and thought, this just keeps getting better. Steiner had a reputation as a highpriced sleazy ambulance chaser.

  “Defending people accused of crimes. I’ll make more money and work fewer hours.”

  She slid the baking sheet with the garlic bread into the oven and asked, “Can you really do that after you’ve been prosecuting dirtbags for the last twenty years.”

  “For fewer hours and a couple hundred grand a year, yeah, I think I can do that.”

  “We make enough money.”

  He didn’t respond and poured the sauce over the pasta. He’d made up his mind, and when Jake made up his mind the discussion was over.

  The aroma of sautéed garlic and onions filled the dining room as Josie set dishes and silverware on the table. She opened a bottle of Chianti, took a wineglass from the china hutch, poured herself a full glass and took a long drink. David came into the room and watched her finish that glass and fill it again.

  “He told you,” David said, smirking.

  “Sit down, dinner’s ready,” she ordered, as she smelled bread burning in the kitchen.

  The garlic bread was ruined, but the pasta, Italian sausage and salad were good. Josie ate and drank too much and didn’t revisit the subject of Jake’s retirement. They weren’t connecting anymore. He didn’t need or want her input for important decisions, but had no problem telling her how much he loved and wanted her in those wonderfully sweaty romantic moments while they made love. It was frustrating and confusing.

  David was in a good mood. Josie wasn’t. The day’s events mixed with wine had snowballed into a gigantic headache. Losing the Dennis case was just the teaser. Jake’s revelation on top of her son’s practiced sarcasm shifting into high gear was almost enough to send her back to the couch in her Hollywood office. Her son was a talented pianist who knew his mother wanted him to play with a reputable orchestra, so he was bragging about joining forces with a blues guitarist and lining up a couple of jobs that gave him a lot of exposure but no money or future. One of his drawings had sold at a local art show for almost a hundred dollars, so he boasted he wouldn’t be borrowing as much cash from her or Jake for a few weeks.

  She stared at her husband, hoping he might start a discussion on his decision to retire, but it didn’t happen. She knew if she brought it up he’d dodge any meaningful conversation. He sat quietly or talked to David about his music. Josie must’ve tuned out her son because she felt him touch her hand, and when she glanced up he was looking at her.

  “I asked what the story was on Hillary Dennis.” David said, as he finished the last of the Chianti. “Did she kill herself?”

  “You knew who she was?” Josie asked. Was she really the only person in town who’d never heard of this woman? Why did he care if some underage stranger killed herself?

  “Sure, her name’s always in the news. She’s one screwed-up kid.” David paused only a second before adding, “And Cory dated her for a while.”

  “Cory? Cory Goldman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know him?” Now Josie was paying attention.

  David shook his head trying to remember. “We met years ago, at one of the clubs. We’ve got a bunch of mutual friends, and he likes my music.”

  “Did he ask you to pump me for information?”

  “You make it sound sinister, Mom. He liked Hillary and was curious if the drugs finally got her.”

  “How close a friend is he?” Josie was becoming sober in a hurry. Anxiety always produced that effect. She didn’t like where this conversation was going, and her motherly instincts warned her there was danger ahead for her six-foot-four-inch baby.

  THREE

  Weary from a stressful day and lack of sleep, Josie made a pot of coffee in an attempt to clear her head. It was going to be a long night. She’d pushed Jake’s job situation to the bottom of her priority stack, and he seemed to sense his comments were unwelcome. After a weak attempt to interject his thoughts, Jake faded into a shadowy presence, picking up empty plates and making familiar kitchen cleaning noises. He managed to keep out of their way in another part of the house while Josie and David stayed up until after midnight drinking coffee at the kitchen table and talking about David’s association with Cory Goldman and the murder victim.

  Josie wanted to believe her son was telling the truth about a casual and infrequent relationship, but she was a skeptic and suspicious by nature. David swore theirs wasn’t a close friendship; he liked Cory but hadn’t seen him for days before the councilman’s son called him that af
ternoon. Josie’s gentle but persuasive badgering eventually forced David to admit Cory knew he was a suspect in Hillary’s murder and had asked David to find out what he could from his mother.

  “I refused to do that,” David said. “But I’m still curious. Cory’s screwed up, but I don’t believe he could kill anyone, especially Hillary.”

  “Why especially Hillary?”

  “He dumped her, then changed his door locks and phone numbers to get away from her and her crazy mother.”

  “Mrs. Dennis says Cory threatened to kill Hillary yesterday.”

  “She’s lying. Mrs. Dennis hates Cory . . . the way he dresses and the tattoos and the . . .” David hesitated.

  “Drugs?” Josie finished his sentence instinctively knowing that had to be what he was trying not to say. Josie had made it clear his entire life she had no tolerance for drug users.

  “It wasn’t that way. Hillary was hardcore. Cory only used a little meth and grass.”

  Josie stared at him. “What do you consider hardcore?”

  “Needles, ‘H.’ ”

  “Heroin . . . I didn’t see any tracks on her. Where’d she shoot up?”

  “Don’t know, but she did.”

  She made a mental note to tell Red in the morning. The wine had done its magic, and despite the caffeine and growing concern, Josie was finally tired enough to sleep. She got up and kissed David on the cheek.

  “Stay here tonight,” she said. “Your father’ll make you breakfast.”

  She shut off all the lights and checked the doors. By the time

  she climbed the stairs, she noticed the light was out in David’s old room and she could hear him snoring.

  She’d consumed enough wine to be grateful the watch commander hadn’t called her that night, but wasn’t so wasted she didn’t notice Jake never came to bed. When she got up early the next morning, she looked out the bedroom window and saw his Porsche was gone and her city car was parked in the driveway in its place. Her son’s Jeep was still there.

  Josie took a shower and dressed in a black pantsuit and white silk blouse instead of her jeans. She needed to drop her uniforms off at the cleaners. She put the .45 in her briefcase and wore a smaller 9mm Beretta under her suit jacket. There was a coffee shop near the cleaners where she could get her caffeine fix and something disgustingly unhealthy for breakfast. She peeked in David’s bedroom. He was still sleeping. There was an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched him for a few seconds. It wasn’t hunger.