by Matt Coyle
“You needed a favor?” Not as gruff as the words, but not cheery, either.
“Sorry for the interruption earlier.” Silence. “What did I interrupt?”
“Nothing.”
This time I stayed silent.
“I’m moving in with Jeff.” Soft, like it was a secret. I liked the silence better.
“I guess that would be the next logical step,” I said. Magnanimous. Unfazed. Dishonest. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Ricky.” Warm. The “Ricky” hurt, but I wasn’t sure why. She was the only person who I’d ever let call me that. It seemed too intimate now. Something from the past. Something I’d miss. Something I’d no longer earned.
“When’s the big move?” I almost sounded like I was about to volunteer to help. Not quite.
“In the next couple of weeks. We want to be able to spend Christmas morning together.”
Christmas was Kim’s favorite holiday. It used to be mine too. She went into full, winter-wonderland decorative mode, right down to the Dickens’ Village. She even decorated my house after we broke up. It would be up to me alone this year.
“Well, I’m happy for you.” I wished I was. A better man would have been.
I warned her that Detective Denton might call and ask about me. Kim told me she wouldn’t talk to Denton or anyone else at the Brick House. She had her own reasons and bad memories to dislike LJPD.
I gave her the addresses to the two houses where I’d seen the Raptor, Eric Schmidt, drop off the thin man. Well, where I’d guessed he’d dropped him off. Kim must have been in front of her computer because I heard the rattle of a keyboard. Ninety seconds later, I had the names of the owners of the two homes.
“Thanks, Kimmie. I owe you one.”
“No, Rick. You don’t owe me anything.” Light. Like a stone had been rolled off her chest and she could breathe again. “Good luck with your case.” She hung up.
Kim might as well have said “good luck with your life.” She’d finally get the separation she needed to move on while I idled in neutral. Would she have changed her mind if I’d asked her not to make the move? Could I be that selfish? Or that smart? Apparently not.
I went upstairs to my office and dropped down in front of the computer. Donald Adam Briscoe was the first name Kim had given me. The names on homeowner deeds generally had the middle name included. Just like the press did with serial killers. I googled Donald Adam Briscoe and eight pictures of eight different men showed on the list. None looked like the man I’d seen tonight. I pulled the Adam out and got another eight pictures, only two of which were of men who hadn’t been in the first set.
I tried the second name, Alan Wilson Rankin. Eight pictures again. Again, none of the thin man. I dropped the middle name and tried again. This time, all eight photos were of one man. The thin man.
I scrolled down the search lists and found a number of posts about Alan Rankin. I read them all. Alan Rankin was a criminal defense attorney and had defended a number of bad boys. Mexican Mafia soldiers and Carnales, Southeast San Diego crews, and biker-gang shot callers.
The Raptors.
I read and scrolled and clicked, oblivious to time. Newspaper links from the San Diego U-T and Los Angeles Times carried stories of a few of Rankin’s high-profile cases. He got a Mexican Mafia Carnal, a full-fledged member, three years for manslaughter instead of murder two.
A more recent article about him featured his defense of a Raptor captain named Raymond Oscar Karsten. Rankin hadn’t been as successful this time. Five years ago, Karsten had gotten life without parole for beating a rival gang member to death with a tire iron. The article said he was doing his time up in Corcoran State Prison. Some outlaw website had gotten hold of crime-scene photos and posted them. Blood and bone and skin. None of it recognizable as belonging to a human being.
My pulse quickened. Not from the horror that I’d forced myself to look at, but from the modus operandi of the murder. Bludgeoned to death. Beyond recognition just like Thomas Eddington. The outlaw website had called the MO of the murder a Raptor signature. Could what the cops and I took for rage at the Eddington crime scene really been a Raptor signature? If we ever got Randall that second trial, this would be evidence in his favor.
When I finally moved my eyes from the Internet to the clock on the bottom right of the computer screen, I saw that it was after two a.m. I pushed my hands against the table, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling. A big-time defense attorney who had defended a Raptor boss had apparently given Trey Fellows something out of his briefcase. Another jagged puzzle piece I didn’t know where to put in the game Trey was playing on the side.
What was it? Money? Had Trey agreed not to testify against Raptor Steven Lunsdorf for cash? Was he waiting until the last minute to pull the rug out from under Randall Eddington for a few pieces of silver? I wanted to go back to Trey’s hideout and squeeze him against the wall until some truth popped out. But Buckley would have to make the call on when to confront Trey. I just hoped he didn’t wait too long.
I typed up a report about the night’s events: my skirmish with LJPD and the visit to Trey by Raptor Eric Schmidt and Raptor lawyer Alan Rankin. It was almost three a.m. by the time I emailed the report to Buckley.
One more search to run before I called it a night, or maybe a morning. I hadn’t gotten a match for a Brad Larson on a Google search earlier that fit the man in Trey’s and Dianne Wilkens’ photographs. This time I tried Brad Wilkens. Hundreds of names. None that linked with Trey or Dianne Wilkens. Brad Larson remained a mystery to be solved another day.
Time for bed. If not sleep.
I stared through the dark at the ceiling of my bedroom. I thought about Trey, Kim, Colleen, and the empty bedroom next to mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I bolted upright in my bed. The recurring nightmare hadn’t awakened me this time. My own stupidity had. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Midnight shadowed me, ears up, ready to protect and defend. I whipped out the camera from the backpack on the table and opened the slot that held the memory card. Empty. Shit. Sergeant Castro must have pulled the card from the camera when he stashed the bag of sugar in my backpack at the Brick House. The planted cocaine/sugar ruse had panicked me enough that I’d forgotten to check the camera for the memory card at the police station.
I grabbed my cell phone and called Trey. Voicemail. I called again. Voicemail again. Two more times. The same. Finally, on the fifth call, he answered.
“Bro, it’s four o’clock in the morning.” Groggy. “What the hell?”
“Where are you?”
“In bed, bro. Trying to sleep.”
“Where in bed?”
“What’s going on?” Now wide awake.
“Tell me where you are and don’t lie.”
“I’m at my sister’s.” Anxious. “Why?”
“Why are you at your sister’s? Tell me the truth, Trey.”
Silence. Then, “A couple of cops knocked on my door tonight and I got scared.”
Probably Castro and Ives after they dropped me back at my car. Castro had seen the pictures of 5564 Candlelight I’d taken earlier that night after he stole the memory card from my camera.
“Did you talk to them?”
“No. I pretended I wasn’t home. Why? What’s going on?”
“This was at your house?” I wanted to see how long he’d keep up the charade.
A quick pause. “Yeah.”
Now wasn’t the time to call him on his lie. He was spooked enough already. “Where is your product?” The weed.
“I got rid of it like you told me to.”
“Cut the shit, Trey. Where is it?”
Silent. “I left it…” The liar’s pause. “…at home.”
So, the weed was still at the Candlelight address. I’d figure out what to do about that later. “Leave it where it is until this thing blows over, and stay at your sister’s at least through tomorrow.”
“What’s going on, Ric
k?”
“The police know you’re a witness now, and they’re going to try to discredit you if the case goes back to trial. As long as you don’t do anything stupid, you’ll be fine.”
“But I need to make a living, man.”
“I’ll see if Buckley can get you something to live on until this thing’s over. Go back to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up.
Sergeant Castro had stolen the memory card to my camera to find out who was staying at 5564 Candlelight Drive. Detective Denton had gotten her answers to her questions without me answering them.
Now they had photographs of the Raptor Eric Schmidt and the Raptor attorney Alan Rankin. I thought back to zooming in on the two with the camera. I’d only gotten profiles and the images hadn’t been very clear. Hopefully, LJPD wouldn’t be able to enhance the photos enough for anyone to recognize either of the men. If the cops started asking Schmidt or Rankin questions, they might find Trey again and force him to rabbit. If he hadn’t already. And maybe it didn’t matter if he was getting paid not to testify. I had to talk to Buckley first thing in the morning. Just a few hours from now.
I went back upstairs and stared at the ceiling until it was time to get up.
I left Buckley messages on his cell phone at 7:00 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:00 a.m., and 8:30 a.m. He returned none of them. I needed to talk to him about the events of last night, but he was ignoring me. He wasn’t at his office when I got there at 9:00 a.m. I’d gone from pissed to worried.
I sat in the outer office where Jasmine ignored me too. She sat with her Doc Martens propped up on the desk, reading a Rolling Stone magazine.
“Jasmine, can you give me Buckley’s home address?”
“No.” She didn’t look up from the magazine. I got the soles of her boots up on the desk and black eye shadow from her downcast eyes.
“He’s not answering my calls and he should be here by now.” I held my irritation in check for the greater good. “I’m worried about him. I need his address.”
“That’s against the firm’s policy.” No change in posture. “Sorry.”
The sorry had a lilt in it as if she was enjoying herself.
“Then call him on his home line. I only have his cell phone number.”
“Mr. Buckley doesn’t like to be disturbed in the morning.”
Somehow, I kept myself from slapping her feet off her desk. Instead, I went around to the keyboard of her computer, which was paused on Solitaire. Jasmine sprang out of her chair faster than seemed possible with her feet propped up on the desk.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Terror in her eyes. She whipped open a desk drawer and pulled out an oversized purse.
“Whoa.” I put my hands up and spoke calmly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just trying to find Buckley’s address.”
“Stay the fuck away from me!” She pulled a small canister of pepper spray out and aimed it at me.
I knew what damage pepper spray could do. From firsthand experience. A canister malfunctioned on me back on the job in Santa Barbara. My eyes swelled shut and I blew snot bubbles out of my nose for an hour. I backed up with my hands out in front of me.
Buckley finally arrived in the middle of our standoff. “What in the G.W. Bush is goin’ on?”
“He came at me.” Jasmine kept the pepper spray pointed at me.
“No I didn’t.” I kept my hands in front of me to ward off flying pepper juice as long as she had the spray pinned on me. “I wanted to use her computer to find your address.”
“Jasmine, darlin’.” Slow Texas drawl. “Go ahead and put your pepper spray back in your purse. We’ll get this all sorted out.”
“I don’t trust him.” But she did put the canister away. “I don’t want him here.”
“Jasmine.” I tried my calm tone again. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“I’ll handle this, Rick.” Snappy, like he’d been on the phone about me questioning Jack Eddington. “Wait in my office and shut the door.”
I went into his office, wondering what the hell had just happened. I paced the floor, the terror in Jasmine’s eyes stamped into my mind. The fear was real. Was that how people saw me? Through fearful eyes?
Buckley came in a minute later, went to a pale oak credenza next to the window, and poured a cup of coffee. He held up the cup to me.
“No thanks.” I continued to pace.
Buckley turned back to the credenza and opened a drawer. I caught a glimpse of silver, and it looked like he poured something from a flask into his coffee. A little hair of the dog. Or tail of the bull. Buckley drank from necessity, but necessity came from pain. Every alcoholic’s did. My father’s had. I knew his pain. I wondered what Buckley’s was.
“Lemme hear your side.” Buckley sat down behind his desk and took a sip of his spiced coffee.
I stopped pacing but remained standing and gave him my side. The only side. When I finished, he told me to sit down.
“Jasmine may seem tough, but she’s quite fragile. She’s had a hard life.” The red spiderwebs in his eyes seemed to thicken and the corners of his mouth pulled down. “Harder than most. You can’t get aggressive with her.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to use her computer, but I didn’t get aggressive with her. She’s disliked me from Day One and today was a wild overreaction. What’s her problem with me?”
“She thinks you murdered your wife.”
Now the fear in her eyes made sense. The reason most people hated me. Not the only reason for some, but the runaway winner for most. “What do you think?”
“Why, I like you, son.” Another sip.
“That’s not what I asked.” My gut tightened. It mattered. A week ago, it wouldn’t have. Now I cared what Buckley thought. Of me. “Do you think I killed my wife?”
“If you did, Rick, I figure you’re already doing your time with the guilt that weighs you down every day like Atlas waiting to shrug.”
“Do you think I did?” I searched his basset-hound eyes.
“I think you think you’re responsible for her death in some way.” He put the coffee mug down and leaned toward me. “But, no, I don’t think you killed your wife.”
The sense of relief I felt surprised me. But not enough to thank Buckley for believing in me.
“None of this would have happened if you answered your damn phone or returned a message, or if I knew where the hell you lived,” I said.
“Oh. Thanks for reminding me.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a cell phone. “Left the dang thing here last night.” He wrote his home address on the back of a business card and handed it to me. Then he looked at the screen on his cell phone and probably saw my numerous calls. “Now what’s got your chaps cinched so tight?”
“Did you read my report?”
“Not yet.”
I recounted the events of last night: Eric Schmidt and Alan Rankin meeting with Trey, Rankin giving something to Trey, the police taking me to the Brick House, the planted fake drugs, the stolen camera memory card, Detective Denton/West questioning me and her implied threat, and Trey telling me he’d fled to his sister’s.
I left out the picture of Brad Larson in the home of Trey’s hideaway. He hadn’t appreciated that thread earlier. I’d investigate that on my own. I also left out my suspicion that something was wrong with the blood evidence, and that I suspected that Bob Reitzmeyer had some connection to Randall Eddington’s arrest.
Buckley was laser focused on the confession and the murder weapon. He was convinced those were what would get Randall a new trial. The rest was background noise for now. I let Buckley worry about the new trial; I worked best in the background.
Buckley sat quietly while I recounted the night, occasionally raising his eyebrows and writing a note on a legal pad. When I finished, he hit his hard coffee.
“I almost made a big mistake with you, son.” He scratched his beard. “Thanks for talking me out of firing you. You can be a burr under my saddle, but you’re a bulldog and a damn fi
ne investigator. All you care about is the truth, and you’re going to find it no matter what.”
“Thanks, Buckley.”
“Don’t thank me. No matter what is a dangerous way to live.” He tapped his head. “Without wisdom, you’re gonna find your back against the wall more than the prettiest boy in prison.”
“You calling me stupid or pretty, Buckley?”
“I’m telling you to be careful.”
“Will do.” I nodded. “What do you think we should do about Trey? What if the Raptors are paying him to recant his story?”
“That is an Albuquerque conundrum. Right now, we don’t want to do anything to spook him. You and Ms. MacFarlane keep an eye on him and any visitors that show at his sister’s. Once we get the DNA report from the lab, we’ll decide how to proceed with Mr. Fellows.”
“What do you know about Alan Rankin, the Raptor’s attorney?”
“I’ve never had any dealings with him, but I watched him in court one afternoon. A mighty fine trial lawyer.” Another sip of coffee that had lost its steam, but probably not its proof. “And I know a bit about his reputation outside the courtroom. He’s shrewd, aggressive…” his voice trailed off.
“Yeah? What are you not saying?”
“I reckon he probably skates the edge a bit.”
“Ethically? He’s a lawyer. That’s in his DNA.”
“The edge of the law.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Former LJPD Detective Dan Coyote and I met on Torrey Pines Golf Course about four years ago. We’d both been singles and had been paired with a twosome. We got along well and ended up hitting the links together every few weeks for the next two years. That was before Dan found out that I was a never-ending person of interest in my wife’s murder, and that my father had been forced off LJPD under murky circumstances.
He found all that out when the Windsor mess erupted and Detective Moretti zeroed his crosshairs on me. Dan lined up with all the other cops on one side of the thin blue line. I stood alone on the other. Even with all that, I don’t think he liked the way Moretti handled things. I doubted the two traded Christmas cards.
