Fair Warning - Jack McEvoy Series 03 (2020)

by Connelly, Michael

  Also by Michael Connelly

  Fiction

  The Black Echo

  The Black Ice

  The Concrete Blonde

  The Last Coyote

  The Poet

  Trunk Music

  Blood Work

  Angels Flight

  Void Moon

  A Darkness More Than Night

  City of Bones

  Chasing the Dime

  Lost Light

  The Narrows

  The Closers

  The Lincoln Lawyer

  Echo Park

  The Overlook

  The Brass Verdict

  The Scarecrow

  Nine Dragons

  The Reversal

  The Fifth Witness

  The Drop

  The Black Box

  The Gods of Guilt

  The Burning Room

  The Crossing

  The Wrong Side of Goodbye

  The Late Show

  Two Kinds of Truth

  Dark Sacred Night

  The Night Fire

  Non-fiction

  Crime Beat

  Ebooks

  Suicide Run

  Angle of Investigation

  Mulholland Dive

  The Safe Man

  Switchblade

  First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2020

  Copyright © Hieronymus, Inc., 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76087 798 9

  eISBN 978 1 76087 397 4

  Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

  Cover photography: Jonny H. Walrus/pxhere.com (background); Alexander Potapov/Adobe Stock (bird)

  To Tim Marcia, Detective

  Many thanks for your service to the City of Angels

  Who is not at once repulsed and attracted by a diabolical act?

  —David Goldman,

  Our Genes, Our Choices

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  JACK

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  HAMMOND

  13

  14

  15

  JACK

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  THE SHRIKE

  24

  JACK

  25

  26

  27

  28

  THE SHRIKE

  29

  JACK

  30

  31

  32

  THE SHRIKE

  33

  JACK

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  THE SHRIKE

  40

  THE FIRST STORY

  FBI: “DNA Killer” on the Loose

  JACK

  41

  42

  THE LAST STORY

  FBI Kills Armed Man in “Shrike” Takedown

  JACK

  43

  44

  45

  THE END

  46

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  She liked his car. It was the first time she had been in an electric. All she could hear was the wind as they cut through the night.

  “So quiet,” she said.

  Only two words and she had slurred them. The third Cosmo had done something to her tongue.

  “It’ll sneak up on you,” the driver said. “That’s for sure.”

  He looked over at her and smiled. But she thought he was just checking on her because she had messed up her words.

  He then turned and nodded through the windshield.

  “We’re here,” he said. “Is there parking?”

  “You can park behind my car,” she said. “I have two spaces in the garage but they’re like … one behind the other. Totem, I think it’s called.”

  “Tandem?”

  “Oh, right, right. Tandem.”

  She started to laugh at her mistake, a spiral laugh she couldn’t get out of. The Cosmos again. And the drops from the green pharmacy she took before heading out in the Uber that night.

  The man lowered his window and crisp evening air invaded the comfort of the car.

  “Can you remember the combo?” he asked.

  Tina pulled herself up in the seat so she could look around better and get her bearings. She recognized that they were already outside the garage gate at her apartment. That didn’t seem right. She could not remember telling him where she lived.

  “The combo?” he asked again.

  The keypad was on the wall and within reach from the driver’s window. She realized that she knew the combo that would open the gate but she could not remember the name of the man she had chosen to take home.

  “4-6-8-2-5.”

  As he punched the numbers in she tried not to laugh again. Some guys really hated that.

  They entered the garage and she pointed to the spot where he could pull in behind her Mini. Soon they were on the elevator and she pushed the correct button and then leaned into him for support. He put his arm around her and held her up.

  “Do you have a nickname?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Like, what do people call you? You know, for fun.”

  He shook his head.

  “I guess they just call me by my name,” he said.

  No help there. She dropped it. She could figure out his name later, but the truth was she probably wouldn’t need it. There would be no later. There almost never was.

  The door opened on the third floor and she led him into the hallway. Her apartment was two doors down.

  The sex was good but not extraordinary. The only thing unusual was that he didn’t push back against her requirement of a condom. He had even brought his own. Kudos for that but she still thought he would be a one-timer. The search for that indescribable thing that would fill up the emptiness inside would go on.

  After he flushed the condom he got back into bed with her. She was hoping for an excuse—early start in the morning, wife waiting at home, anything—but he wanted to get back in bed and cuddle. He roughly moved in behind her and turned her so her back was against his chest. He had shaved himself and she could feel the tiny spikes of returning hair pricking her back.

  “You know …”

  She got no further with the complaint. He pivoted his body and now she was on her back completely on top of him. His chest was like sandpaper. His arm came around from behind her and he bent it at the e
lbow into a V. He then used his free hand to push her neck into the V. He tightened his arms and she felt her air passages collapse. She could not yell for help. She had no air to make a sound. She struggled but her legs were tangled in the sheets and he was too strong. His hold on her neck was an iron vise.

  Darkness began shading the edges of her vision. He raised his head off the bed and brought his mouth to her ear.

  “People call me the Shrike,” he whispered.

  JACK

  1

  I had called the story “The King of Con Artists.” At least that was my headline. I typed it up top but was pretty sure it would get changed because it would be overstepping my bounds as a reporter to turn in a story with a headline. The headlines and the decks below them were the purview of the editor and I could already hear Myron Levin chiding, “Does the editor rewrite your ledes or call up the subjects of your pieces to ask additional questions? No, he doesn’t. He stays in his lane and that means you need to stay in yours.”

  Since Myron was that editor, it would be hard to come back with any sort of defense. But I sent in the story with the suggested headline anyway because it was perfect. The story was about the dark netherworld of the debt-collection business—$600 million a year of it siphoned off in scams—and the rule at FairWarning was to bring every fraud down to a face, either the predator’s or the prey’s, the victim’s or the victimizer’s. And this time it was the predator. Arthur Hathaway, the King of Con Artists, was the best of the best. At sixty-two years old, he had worked every con imaginable in a life of crime centered in Los Angeles, from selling fake gold bars to setting up phony disaster-relief websites. Right now, he ran a racket convincing people they owed money that they didn’t really owe, and getting them to pay it. And he was so good at it that junior swindlers were paying him for lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays at a defunct acting studio in Van Nuys. I had infiltrated as one of his students and learned all I could. Now it was time to write the story and use Arthur to expose an industry that bilked millions each year from everybody from little old ladies with dwindling bank accounts to young professionals already deep in the red with college loans. They all fell victim and sent their money because Arthur Hathaway convinced them to send it. And now he was teaching eleven future con men and one undercover reporter how to do it for fifty bucks a head twice a week. The swindler school itself might be his greatest con of all. The guy was truly a king with a psychopath’s complete lack of guilt. I also had reporting in the story on the victims whose bank accounts he had cleaned out and whose lives he had ruined.

  Myron had already placed the story as a co-project with the Los Angeles Times, and that guaranteed it would be seen and the Los Angeles Police Department would have to take notice. King Arthur’s reign would soon be over and his roundtable of junior con men would be rounded up as well.

  I read the story a final time and sent it to Myron, copying William Marchand, the attorney who reviewed all FairWarning stories pro bono. We didn’t put anything up on the website that was not legally bulletproof. FairWarning was a five-person operation if you counted the reporter in Washington, DC, who worked out of her home. One “wrong story” spawning a winning lawsuit or forced settlement would put us out of business, and then I’d be what I had been at least twice before in my career: a reporter with no place to go.

  I got up from my cubby to tell Myron the story was finally in, but he was in his own cubicle talking on the phone, and I could tell as I approached that he was on a fundraising call. Myron was founder, editor, reporter, and chief fundraiser for FairWarning. It was an Internet news site with no paywall. There was a donate button at the bottom page of every story and sometimes at the top, but Myron was always looking for the great white whale who would sponsor us and turn us from beggars into choosers—at least for a while.

  “There really is no entity doing what we’re doing—tough watchdog journalism for the consumer,” Myron told each prospective donor. “If you check out our site you’ll see many stories in the archives that take on powerful kingpin industries including auto, pharmaceutical, wireless, and tobacco companies. And with the current administration’s philosophy of deregulation and limiting oversight, there is nobody out there looking out for the little guy. Look, I get it, there are donations you could make that might give you a more visible bang for your buck. Twenty-five dollars a month keeps a kid fed and clothed in Appalachia. I get that. It makes you feel good. But you donate to FairWarning, and what you are supporting is a team of reporters dedicated to—”

  I heard “the pitch” several times a day, day in and day out. I also attended the Sunday salons where Myron and board members spoke to potential white-hat donors, and I mingled with them afterward, mentioning the stories I was working on. I had some extra cachet at these gatherings as the author of two bestselling books, though it was never mentioned that it had been more than ten years since I had published anything. I knew the pitch was important and vital to my own paycheck—not that I was getting anywhere close to a living wage for Los Angeles—but I had heard it so many times in my four years at FairWarning that I could recite it in my sleep. Backward.

  Myron stopped to listen to his potential investor and muted the phone before looking up at me.

  “You in?” he asked.

  “Just sent it,” I said. “Also to Bill.”

  “Okay, I’ll read it tonight and we can talk tomorrow if I have anything.”

  “It’s good to go. Even has a great headline on it. You just need to write the deck.”

  “You better be—”

  He took his phone off mute so he could respond to a question. I gave him a salute and headed toward the door, stopping by Emily Atwater’s cubicle on my way out to say goodbye. She was the only other staffer in the office at the moment.

  “Cheers,” she said in her crisp British accent.

  We worked out of an office in a typical two-story plaza in Studio City. The first level was all retail and food, while the second floor was walk-in businesses like car insurance, manicure/pedicure, yoga, and acupuncture. Except us. FairWarning wasn’t a walk-in business, but the office came cheap because it was located above a marijuana dispensary and the venting in the building was such that it brought the aroma of fresh product inside our office 24/7. Myron took the place at a heavy discount.

  The plaza was L-shaped and had an underground parking garage with five assigned spaces for FairWarning employees and visitors. That was a major perk. Parking in the city was always an issue. And sheltered parking was an even bigger perk for me because this was sunny California and I rarely put the top up on my Jeep.

  I had bought the Wrangler new with the advance on my last book, and the odometer served as a reminder of how long it had been since I was buying new cars and riding bestseller lists. I checked it as I fired up the engine. I had strayed 162,172 miles from the path I had once been on.

  2

  I lived in Sherman Oaks on Woodman Avenue by the 101 freeway. It was a 1980s Cape Cod–style apartment building of twenty-four townhomes that formed a rectangle enclosing a courtyard with a community pool and barbecue area. It, too, had parking underneath.

  Most of the apartment buildings on Woodman had names such as the Capri and Oak Crest and the like. My building stood nameless. I had moved in only a year and a half before, after selling the condo I had bought with that same book advance. The royalty checks had been getting smaller and smaller each year and I was in the midst of reordering my life to live within the paychecks from FairWarning. It was a difficult transition.

  As I waited on the sloping driveway for the garage gate to lift, I noticed two men in suits standing at the call box at the pedestrian gate to the complex. One was white and middle fifties, the other a couple of decades younger and Asian. A little kick of wind opened the Asian man’s jacket and I got a glimpse of the badge on his belt.

  I drove down into the garage and kept my eyes on the rearview. They followed me down the slope and in. I pulled into my assigned space
and killed the engine. By the time I grabbed my backpack and got out, they were behind the Jeep and waiting.

  “Jack McEvoy?”

  He had gotten the name right but had pronounced it wrong. Mick-a-voy.

  “Yes, McEvoy,” I said, correcting him. Mack-a-voy. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m Detective Mattson, LAPD,” the older of the two said. “This is my partner, Detective Sakai. We need to ask you a few questions.”

  Mattson opened his jacket to show that he, too, had a badge, and the gun to go with it.

  “Okay,” I said. “About what?”

  “Can we go up to your place?” Mattson asked. “Something more private than a garage?”

  He gestured to the space around them as if there were people listening from all quarters, but the garage was empty.

  “I guess so,” I said. “Follow me. I usually take the stairs up but if you guys want the elevator, it’s down at that end.”

  I pointed to the end of the garage. My Jeep was parked in the middle and right across from the stairs leading up to the center courtyard.

  “Stairs are good,” Mattson said.

  I headed that way and the detectives followed. The whole way to my apartment door I was trying to think in terms of my work. What had I done that would draw the attention of the LAPD? While the reporters at FairWarning had a lot of freedom to pursue stories, there was a general division of labor, and criminal scams and schemes were part of my turf along with Internet-related reporting.

  I began to wonder if my Arthur Hathaway story had run across a criminal investigation of the swindler and whether Mattson and Sakai were about to ask me to hold the story back. But as soon as I thought of that possibility, I dismissed it. If that were the case, they would have come to my office, not my home. And it probably would have started with a phone call, not an in-person show-up.

  “What unit are you from?” I asked as we crossed the courtyard toward apartment 7 on the other side of the pool.

  “We work downtown,” Mattson said, being coy, while his partner stayed silent.

  “What crime unit, I mean,” I said.

  “Robbery-Homicide Division,” Mattson said.

  I didn’t write about the LAPD per se, but in the past I had. I knew that the elite squads worked out of the downtown headquarters, and RHD, as it was called, was the elite of the elite.