A Death In Beverly Hills (26 page)

Chapter Forty-One

Steve poked his head into the Detectives' Squad Room and, like an escaping convict caught in a searchlight, was immediately speared by Simon Katz's gaze. Katz rose slowly from his desk by the window. Steve gave him an embarrassed smile and advanced to meet him in the center of the room.

"I've got to have a talk with the desk sergeant about letting civilians in here without an escort," Katz said, ignoring Steve's outstretched hand. "What do you want?"

Steve glanced around the almost deserted room. "Is Furley around?"

"You need to stop going behind my back to my weak-minded partners. You want anything in this office, you come to me."

"Can we at least sit down?" Steve gestured toward Katz's battered steel desk. Without grace Simon waived him to the equally battered visitor's chair. Janson felt his temper beginning to rise.

"What do you want?" Simon demanded.

"I'm still trying to get Tom Travis a fair trial."

"Aren't we all."

"Not necessarily," Steve shot back. He could feel his cheeks beginning to burn. Katz always could push his buttons.

"Oh, now Tom Travis is Dreyfus and you're Emile Zola."
Always the intellectual
, Steve thought but somehow managed to keep the comment to himself.

"No, Travis is a jerk, but he's an innocent jerk."

"Yeah, yeah, and you're the only one interested in finding the 'real' killer."

"I didn't used to be. It used to be that you wanted to find the real killer just as badly I as I did. When did that change?"

"I found the real killer. His name is Tom Travis and the jury's going to back me up."

"Sure, because juries have never convicted an innocent man because the cops only looked for evidence that made the guy look guilty."

"If you've got something to say, say it straight out," Katz demanded, an ugly hiss in his voice.

"Fine. I've been killing myself trying to find out who might want to hurt Travis enough to do this and now I find out somebody gave him a hard time and he arranged for a friendly cop to have the guy busted for drugs. End of problem. I think a year in the slam might be a good motive for someone to want to get even with Travis, don't you?"

"Are you saying we planted drugs on somebody?" Katz asked in a soft, dangerous voice.

"No. I'm saying that the guy on the wrong end of that bust had a good motive for revenge and I'd like to talk to him."

"Who's stopping you?"

"I need his name."

"Ask your client."

"The stupid son-of-a-bitch thinks that the person in question knows something that will make him look bad so he's convinced himself that the person couldn't have anything to do with his wife's murder and he won't tell us shit."

"This is rich! Your own client won't give you the time of day so you want us to do your dirty work for you? I don't think so."

"I didn't ask you to."

"No," Katz said, thinking hard. "You asked for Furley. What's he got to do with it?"

"Who do you think helped out Travis by making the bust?"

Katz's mouth drew into a hard thin line, his gaze focused on a point in the vague distance as he remembered the second day he partnered with Jack Furley.

* * *

"There's something I've got to know if we're going to work together," Simon told Furley in their car at the beginning of the shift.

"Sure, what's that?"

"If I'm going to have your back, I've got to know where you're coming from."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen, Jack, I've been at this a long time. I've had partners who were drinkers, partners who were chasers, partners who were born-again racists, and I could deal with all of that because I knew what to expect. If you have a drinking problem, tell me now. You've got a woman problem, a gay problem, a sex problem, tell me now and I'll do my best to cover for you as long as it doesn't interfere with the job. If I get blind-sided, I'm telling you right now, you're on your own. Are we clear?"

"Clear."

"You got anything you need to tell me?"

Furley just laughed. "I'm straight, not on the sauce, not a redneck, not born-again."

Simon gave him a hard stare then a nod. "Okay, just remember what I said. I don't like surprises when it comes to my partner."

"Sure. I understand. You want--"

"One more thing," Katz cut in.

"Yeah?"

"You got any on-the-job issues I should know about?"

"I don't get you."

Katz sighed as if talking to a slow third grader. "Any of the bosses got it in for you?"

"No."

"Have you gotten into any trouble that any of the bosses know about, anything they could hold over your head?"

"No!"

"So there's no sexual harassment complaint that your Lieutenant made go away but maybe kept the paperwork in his personal private file?"

"I told you no."

"How about civilians who you did favors for? Is there anybody who might think you owe them a pass?"

"Jesus, what's this all about?"

Ah
, Simon thought,
I've struck a nerve
.

"This is homicide, Jack. The Big Time. We deal with killers. We don't let anything, ever, get in the way of nailing a killer. I don't care who did it, the Chief of Police, the President, the Pope, I don't give a good God Damn. He's going down. Nobody gets a pass, on my watch, ever. You think I'm a Boy Scout, fine. You think I'm a fanatic, fine. But that's my rule -- nobody skates on a murder no matter who they are."

"I'm not disagreeing with you. What's that got to do with--"

"Jack, if you owe somebody and we trip over them in an investigation, I need to know that now. I don't want some scumbag lawyer to surprise me with a claim we blew the case because you owed some guy a favor and gave him a pass. If you worked security for a nightclub off the books, tell me now. If you banged some would-be movie star instead of busting her for grass, tell me now. If you fixed your uncle's parking ticket, tell me now."

"Jeeze, Simon, I--"

"Of course, if you want to partner with somebody else, that's fine with me."

"Nobody's talking about switching partners."

"Good, then let's have it, because I swear to God that if I ever trip over somebody you so much took as a free sandwich from, I will make it my business to get you transferred to the Forgery Division out in the Valley."

Katz leaned forward and stared into Furley's eyes. It took about three seconds.

"Yeah, okay, there was this one thing, nothing illegal . . . ."

"Sure, whatever, let's have it."

Furley glanced out the window then, slightly embarrassed, turned back to Katz. "When I was in uniform I went out on a call, domestic violence. The guy was Tom Travis, the movie star."

"Yeah, I know who you mean."

"I talked to the girl, Clare Cantrell. She was shook up but when she calmed down she didn't want the bad publicity any more than Travis did. I told her that the D.A. would prosecute even if she didn't push it, but that if she and Travis said it was a mutual dispute and Travis agreed to apologize and go to anger management class and if she told the D.A. she was good with that, then the whole thing would go away."

"Did you bang her?"

"No!" Furley paused for a couple of seconds, then smiled. "Wanted to, but," he shook his head, "I didn't get the chance."

"But she was good with it, you didn't push her?"

"Hell no! She didn't want Travis pissed at her. He was a lot bigger star than she was back then. She didn't want the old boy's club on her back."

"So, is that it?"

Furley again shook his head. "No." For an instant his fingers patted his pocket searching for a nonexistent pack of smokes. "Travis figured I had done him a favor talking her out of it. I let him think that. He played it cool but once he finished Anger Management and the case was dismissed, he called me and we went out on the town. Serious partying."

"He picked up the tab?"

"Oh yeah. And the babes."

Katz's eyes tightened.

"All he had to do was look at a couple of hotties and smile, and they'd be all over us. It got to be kind of a regular thing. Went on for, oh, maybe six months."

"Why'd it stop?"

Furley rubbed his chin and glanced away. "It started getting in the way of the job. He'd call up, eight, nine o'clock. 'Hey, Jack, let's get a drink." Next thing you know we're closing the bars and I've got an eight a.m. roll call."

"So, you put a stop to it."

Furley's face grew slightly pink. "My sergeant did. We, Travis and me, made the
Tattler
. The Sarge gave me a choice, pick either the job or Travis." Furley shrugged.

"So, is that it?" he asked, but he knew it wasn't.

Furley paused as if deciding how much to admit, then shrugged. "No, there are a couple of things more."

"Go on."

"First, about those parties with Travis, the thing was, he more or less liked to watch."

"Watch?" Katz asked, suddenly thinking about his thirty plus years married to the same woman and cringing at the thought of anyone watching them.

"Yeah, he'd like to get the two girls in the room and then--"

"Stop. I get the picture," Katz said, disgusted. "Were any of these girls under age?"

"No, of course not!"

"Okay, what's the second thing?'

Furley glanced uneasily out the window at the police cars jammed into the back of the lot, then began to speak without looking at Katz.

"It was about a year and a half ago. I had been working plain clothes a couple of years and out of the blue Travis gives me a call.

* * *

The only part of Travis's phone call that made any sense to Furley was his claim that one of the crew on his movie set was dealing drugs.

"I tried to look the other way," Travis told him, "but now I'm worried that somebody's going to get stoned on the job and get themselves or somebody else killed."

"Killed?"

"We've got scenes with guys racing jeeps, riding horses, gun fights, a couple of explosions. . . ." Travis sighed. "One mistake and somebody could get fucked up real bad. I don't want that on my conscience."

"Have you talked to the director or studio security?"

"I can't afford to get branded as a snitch with the crew. Besides, if they fire him, he'll just pick up where he left off on his next gig. I've tried to talk to him--"

"You confronted him?"

"Not exactly confronted. Without proof you can't flat out accuse somebody. I sat down with him and said, you know, 'I I've seen some suspicious stuff. I'm not pointing any fingers but if you're involved with that stuff, you need to stop it.'"

"What did he say?"

"Pretty much what you'd expect. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have anything to do with drugs. . . .blah, blah, blah.' So I said, 'Good' and that was the end of that."

"But you think he's still at it?"

"Oh, yeah."

"And you want me to arrest him?"

"I guess."

"With what for evidence?"

"He's dealing every day. He's got to have the drugs on him or in his car."

"Are you willing to give me an affidavit so that I can get a warrant?"

"This can't get back to me. The crew would sabotage my scenes until I couldn't get work any more. This is a union business for God's sake."

"Then how am I supposed to bust this guy?"

"If he had a broken tail light couldn't you search his car?"

"I'm not a traffic cop and no."

"So, you're not going to do anything?"

"I didn't say that."

* * *

They were shooting on location out near Lancaster with Joshua trees as far as the eye could see. Travis had tried to explain the movie's plot to Furley, something about a bank robbery and a double cross, money hidden in the desert, a small town crime lord and a crooked sheriff but it all gave Furley a headache. After ten minutes of back and forth Travis finally agreed to get him and a Sheriff's investigator by the name of Bob Chiappari passes to the set.

Furley and Chiappari showed up in boots, blue jeans, blue cotton shirts and baseball caps. They told anyone who asked that they were friends of the caterer and otherwise kept their mouths shut and stayed out of the way.

The location was split into two parts. In front of the camera was a sandy wasteland covered in a forest of fifteen to thirty foot tall Joshua trees all the way to the horizon, the wilderness broken only by a weathered cabin in the foreground and a faint scratch of power lines three or four miles in the distance. The second part was a ragged line of cameras, lighting reflectors, booms, motor homes, catering vans, a commissary tent, portable toilets and the miscellaneous detritus that accompanied any group of contemporary humans. Travis had explained that they would be on location for several days of exterior shots, desert chases and a shoot out.