by David Chill
“So, what happened with Cody? I know he got that knee injury.”
“Yeah, that was tough last year. A speed guy with a knee injury is no longer a speed guy. Hard to come back from that. But Cody had a little trouble adjusting to the hits, too. When you run a slant over the middle, you’re gonna get popped. But I know that if I focus, I can bring the ball into my body, and absorb the blow. It still hurts, no question, but I’m prepared. Cody took a few big hits in practice, and after that, he started hearing footsteps. Started dropping passes. Can’t do that in the league. He got a rep for bad hands.”
“And even if he were to rehab the knee, he’s pretty much done with playing football?”
“Pretty much, and it’s gotta be disappointing, but his future’s in the business world. I told him this is where his head needs to be.”
“I hear you were an early investor in WAVE.”
Marcellus smiled that big smile again. “You do your research, huh? Yeah, I like to put my money with smart people. Invested a hundred large, got a million shares of stock in return. If WAVE goes public, my ten cents a share is going to skyrocket. Be kind of like winning the lottery. I’ll be in another level of wealth. I got a lot of assets, but I’m nowhere near the top. Especially not in L.A.”
What he said was very true. There were various levels of wealth here. A millionaire was nothing; if you owned a house in L.A. you were likely a millionaire, or close to it. But in a place like this, the A-list movie stars could earn tens of millions from a single film, and moguls could make a lot more. The top-end tier had assets that skyrocketed into the billions.
“Tell me something. How close are you to the WAVE business?” I asked carefully.
Marcellus shrugged. “I’m an investor. So I don’t do the day-to-day, but Cody and I talk maybe once a week. We stay in touch.”
“Did you hear about what happened last night?”
He shook his head no. I told him the details. He stared at me. “That shit sounds serious.”
“Any idea of who might have a score to settle with Cody?”
“We all got enemies,” he pondered. “But you know, Cody might be a little bit like me.”
“In what way?”
“He got a weakness for women, too.”
I looked over at the young woman in the Jacuzzi. She had her feet up on the edge of the deck and was reaching for a wine glass. I started to wonder just how well I really knew Cody.
*
One of the biggest treats of summer is that the days are longer. Even at 7:30 in the evening, the sky is still blue, and the air is still warm. The only tell-tale signs of the waning day are some purplish shadows creeping in from the nearby canyons, and a soft orange sunset starting to form over the ocean. Traffic heading back from Malibu was minimal, but on a narrow two-lane stretch of PCH, that didn’t mean it moved fast. It was, however, far more congested on the other side of the road, as hordes of Malibu residents headed home from work, or golf, or whatever they had been doing that day.
I pulled into my driveway, tired from my long day but feeling at least some of my efforts had been productive. My case was nowhere close to being solved, nor even understood. It felt like I was barely scratching the surface, but at least I was learning some things. I got out of my air-conditioned Pathfinder, and the warmth of the evening hit me right away. I liked the fact that it was still nice out, even though the day was turning into dusk. I walked across the little stone path on our front lawn, past the final wisps of lavender blossoms that fell from our mostly bare Jacaranda tree, another sure sign that we were in summer mode.
Marcus was busy watching a video about colorful frogs from Costa Rica. The only frogs I’d ever seen were an unflattering shade of green, but some of these were full-on rainbow, from red and orange all the way to blue and purple. When he saw me, he gave a whoop, jumped up, and ran over and hugged my leg. I ruffled his hair and wondered at what age he’d stop being so thrilled to see me. My guess was this enthusiasm might start to dwindle at seven or eight, but I was already dreading it. Moments like these were the best aspects of fatherhood.
“Daddy!”
“How was your day, Marcus?” I asked, lifting him up and hugging him.
“Good,” he said, and then he stopped for a moment and looked at me. “How was your day, Daddy?”
I burst out laughing, and Gail walked in to see what the commotion was all about. “I had a productive day,” I told him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” I said, giving Gail a kiss, “I got some things done.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I met with someone from a scooter company, and I’m going to work them for a few days. Kind of like a spy. Then I went and had a Cuban sandwich near the airport. Then I drove down to Laguna Beach and then up to the beach at Malibu.”
“Oh,” he said. “What did you do there?”
“Just talking to people. But you know something? I think I may have found a gelato shop down in Laguna Beach. We may not need to go all the way to Rome to have some Italian ice cream.”
“Yay!” he yelled. “I want to do what you do when I grow up!”
I started to smile, too, then I caught a glimpse of Gail out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t think she was smiling.
“There’s a little more to it than that, Marcus,” I gently pointed out.
Gail smiled warily. “And that’s good we’re not going to Rome, because I hardly have any vacation time yet. Laguna is an easier destination.”
Marcus settled back into watching his video, and Gail and I walked into the little nook which served as our dining room. Gail had set out two plates, and there was a large bowl of what looked like Chinese chicken salad. The final Costco leftovers were being put to good use. I opened a bottle of Sierra Nevada from the fridge and offered it to Gail. She thought for a moment and then reached for it. I grabbed another, opened it, and sat down.
“Did you do anything else as important as finding a new ice cream shop today?” she smiled, as she spooned some salad on our plates.
“I spoke with a few former SC players. They started this company called WAVE. One of those businesses that rent out electric scooters. Sounds harmless enough, but there were shots fired last night on their property.”
Gail frowned. “Don’t tell me that’s where you were last night?”
“I was. No one got hurt. Just some physical damage to the building, and a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Any answers materialize today?” she asked
“Not yet. Still putting the pieces of this thing together. Working with a couple of detectives in the Pacific Division on Culver.”
“Ah. Our neighborhood police station. Who are you working with?”
“Paul Rainey and Joe Hartwick. Why?”
Gail shook her head. “I worked with them on a case a couple of years ago.”
“And?”
“And,” she continued, “I can’t say as I was impressed. It was an armed robbery case, open and shut, but the defendant insisted on going to trial. The detectives had to testify, and one of them was totally unprepared, I can’t recall if it was Rainey or Hartwick. They got torched on cross-examination. The defendant was guilty as heck and should have gotten ten years, but in the end, we agreed to a plea deal for eighteen months. I was very ticked.”
I sighed. “Let’s hope they do better this time around.”
“Good luck,” she said and took a long sip of beer from the bottle. “Did you see Dr. Rosenbloom this morning?”
I nodded and took a sip of mine, too. Then a much longer sip. “Yes,” I answered.
“How did that go?”
I paused. “All right. She got me thinking.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She got me wondering about just how much control I have over things. Things like me. I like to believe I have great control over myself. But I keep going back to what happened outside of that Chuck E. Cheese a few months ago. Maybe I don’t.”
<
br /> “Maybe you can. Do you think she can help?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, it sounds like it’s mostly on me. We also talked about some childhood issues I had growing up. I don’t relive my past much. Lot of tough times there. But I just got back from seeing Marcellus Williams a little while ago. You remember him?”
Gail laughed. “Do I ever. That time you got us sideline passes to an SC game. After the game, he came over and gave me a great big hug afterward. I don’t think you liked that.”
I laughed. “Anyone else, maybe not. But you know what? He gave me a bear hug today, too. I guess that’s his thing. And seeing him today reminded me of something. Lots of kids I coached at SC were raised by their mothers. Like me, Marcellus’s dad wasn’t around, and he had no siblings. It was just him and his mom. But they had it a little tougher. His mother was a housekeeper, she barely made ends meet. And he grew up in a nasty part of Miami, in Overtown. I had it better than he did. Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you had, until you talk to someone who’s gone through a situation that was worse.”
“Interesting that he got you thinking about your situation.”
“I’m sure it has something to do with my therapy session. Marcellus told me he bought his mother a nice house after he signed his NFL contract. You know, I never got to pay my mother back for raising me. For working hard and making me the focus of her life. She worked, she took care of me, that was pretty much what she did.”
“I don’t know that it’s necessary for the kids to pay the parents back,” she said. “It’s what parents sign up for.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged.
“I know you were just eighteen when she died. But did you ever express your appreciation?”
“At the end, yeah,” I said. “A few days before she died. She was in the hospital, awake only for brief periods, it seemed like she was in and out of consciousness from the morphine drip. But I thanked her for being so good to me. I know she heard me. I saw her nod in acknowledgment. And I think I saw a tear form in her eye. I wasn’t sure exactly why she was getting emotional. I was the one crying my eyes out that week.”
“Maybe she was sorry she had to leave you. She probably was worried who would take her place.”
I thought about this. “It’s funny because I started at USC literally a few weeks later. I needed to pack up our apartment. My father had a couple of sisters, they lived in Nebraska, and they drove out to help. Took her things and stored them back there, they had a big farmhouse. They said I could have any of it back whenever I wanted, but I just never saw the need. I told them to keep what they wanted, sell things, whatever they thought best.”
“You wanted to move on.”
“My life just took a new path after that. I talk to them once in a while, but less so now. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave that part of my life behind, but I mostly wanted to live in the present. And maybe I tried not to think too much about my mother because it was just so sad for me when I did. Just like she didn’t want to think much about my dad’s passing. I know I don’t like feeling sorry for myself.”
“I get it. It’s funny because I come from such a different background. Growing up in a big house in the suburbs, with two brothers and a sister, I was the oldest. There was always commotion in our house. Nothing bad, but there was just all this energy with six people. And two dogs.”
“Opposites attract, I guess.”
“We are kind of opposites,” she agreed and took another sip of beer.
“How was your day?” I asked. “You feeling settled in at the law firm?”
Gail picked at her salad and didn’t answer for a minute. I took a bite of salad. For leftover chicken, this was a pretty good ending. I took another.
“It’s different,” she started. “I’d have preferred being City Attorney, of course, but the voters thought otherwise.”
“You never know until you try,” I said. “Best to try and see if you can win. If it doesn’t work out, there’s always going to be a Plan B. But you knew working in private practice would be a different world.”
“It is. And yeah, I knew it would be. Being a prosecutor is an altogether different job. I’m going from criminal law to civil law. Going from helping to clean up the system to, well, helping to preserve it. I know this is often what attorneys do in their careers, start off in government and then move to a law firm. The perks are nicer, the office is far more plush, I have more resources at my disposal, and heaven knows, the money is a whole lot better.”
I took another swig of beer and discovered I was at the end. I got up and opened another bottle. “I get the feeling there’s a 'but’ that’s about to be voiced.”
“But,” she said, “I miss making a difference. The pace was much faster as a prosecutor, we had so many cases to clear, we had to move fast, decide on which cases to go forward with, and which to kick. Which perps to cut deals with and which ones to draw the line on. Prep for trials, prep all the witnesses, write closing arguments, anticipate what the other side was scheming. Oh, there were plenty of frustrations, don’t get me wrong. I don’t miss seeing obvious criminals go free on technicalities. Nor seeing other people, sometimes cops, bungle evidence, taint witnesses. A few of them didn’t even remember to read suspects their Miranda rights.”
“So this is less exciting.”
“It’s less manic,” she admitted. “But I also play a different role. My clients are now high-powered corporations, not exactly victims of crimes. I’m dealing with executives, who are very sophisticated, but have different agendas.”
“For instance?” I asked.
“One of our clients is a large auto parts supplier. A former employee sued them for work-related injuries, a warehouse accident. The company knew his injuries were legitimate. But rather than settle the case and admit wrongdoing, the executive is insisting on letting it go before a judge. The judge will undoubtedly rule for the employee.”
“And the company knows this?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re wasting everyone’s time because …?”
“If the executive admits wrongdoing, they will look bad in the eyes of their superiors. If a judge rules against them, they have a built-in excuse, they can say they were trying to safeguard the company’s assets, but the judge saw it a different way. Therefore it wasn’t their fault.”
“Ah. And you get to lose the case.”
“The people at corporate understand. They’re not holding us at fault. And we’re logging billable hours, so the firm is happy. The former employee will get their money, and more.”
“And yet somehow there’s a loser out there. The customer, who’ll now be paying a little more when they go to repair their car. Is that about right?”
“Pretty much,” she sighed and finished her beer. “And then there’s me. I don’t feel like I’m winning, so much as I am cleaning up a mess.”
I looked down and rubbed her hand. I wished I had an answer for her. We changed the subject and talked about our Fourth of July barbecue. At nine, we put Marcus to bed, and we each told him a bedtime story. Marcus asked us to make one up, but neither of us had the energy or the creativity at that point, so we each read a book to him. He slowly drifted off, and we spent the rest of the evening being quiet so as to not wake him.
The next morning I woke up at 5:30, made coffee, and scanned the headlines. I tried to plan out what I’d be doing on my first day at WAVE, who I’d talk to, and what I’d ask them. I had finished most of the pot of coffee when my cell phone rang. My schedule suddenly changed abruptly.
“Burnside,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” said a familiar voice, who momentarily pulled the phone away from his mouth and barked an order to someone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s not what’s up,” Detective Rainey finally said. “It’s what’s down.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m here in San Pedro,” he said, referring to the port community where the Harbor freewa
y ended, south of L.A. “Looks like there’s an update to the Cody Groh case. There’s been a death.”
“What happened?” I asked, my stomach tightening.
“Car went over a cliff. Fell a few hundred feet and crashed on the beach.”
“Who’s car?”
“It was being leased by WAVE,” he said. “Apparently it was assigned to Kristy Groh.”
Chapter 6
San Pedro is a harbor town, a community that is technically a part of L.A., a municipality developed largely to give the city access to the Port of Los Angeles, which handles almost one-quarter of all shipping cargo entering the country. It is a multi-ethnic blue-collar town and one I used to visit frequently when I coached at USC. There had been a Greek restaurant called Papadakis, owned by a former Trojan football player, known for good food and a festive time, complete with dancing, breaking plates, and dollar bills being thrown in the air. It was a party every night, and Johnny loved to bring high school recruits there for dinner because it had a family atmosphere, one that reinforced the team culture he had built and wanted to keep on cultivating. It provided a contrast. Other schools would take football players to high-end steakhouses, but Johnny sensed that had become a little boring and a little vanilla. This place stood out, and these were fun evenings. I always looked forward to going to San Pedro. Today, I did not.
It ordinarily took about forty-five minutes to travel down from the Westside, but with the morning commute starting, the trip doubled to an hour and a half. I drove to the dead-end on Shepard Street, a few blocks away from the Point Fermin Lighthouse. The area was sometimes referred to as the Sunken City because of a landslide that happened a hundred years ago, causing several houses to slide down onto the beach. Today it was largely a residential neighborhood, with rows of apartment buildings and small bungalows built during the 1920s. There was a guard rail across most of the dead end, and a tall wooden fence had been erected to protect any errant motorist who might forget where the street ended and a steep cliff began. Once past the fence, there was little more than loose dirt and craggy rocks. But the fence had been breached, and there was an opening just wide enough for a car to pass through.
