Dr. Death (29 page)

"On our way," said Demetri.

Richard said, "Demetri. Greek?"

"American," said Demetri, too quickly. Then: "Lithuanian. A long time ago. Let's get going, sir."

No one can make "sir" sound like an insult the way a cop can.

Stacy started to cry. Eric held her tight.

Richard said, "I'll be okay, kids, you just hold on— I'll see you for dinner. Promise."

"Daddy," said Stacy.

"It'll be fine."

"Sir," said Korn, taking hold of Richard's arm.

"Hold on," I said. "I'm going to call Milo."

Both detectives grinned, as if on cue. I was the perfect shill.

Demetri moved behind Richard as Korn kept his grip. The two of them shadowing the much smaller man.

"Milo,"
Demetri said, "knows."

21

THE BIG, PALE palm of a hand hung inches from my face, a fleshy cloud.

"Don't," said Milo, barely audible. "Don't say a thing."

It was 5:23. I was in the front reception area of the West L.A. station and he'd just come down the stairs.

I wanted to knock his hand away, waited as it lowered. His jacket was off but his tie was tight— too tight, reddening his neck and face. What did
he
have to be angry about?

I'd been waiting in the lobby for over an hour, most of it alone with the civilian clerk behind the desk, a pasty, overly enunciative man named Dwight Moore. I knew some of the clerks. Not Moore. The first time I'd approached, he'd looked wary, as if I had something to sell. When I asked him to reach Milo upstairs, he took a long time to put the call through.

For the next sixty-three minutes I used every anger-reduction trick I knew while warming a hard plastic chair as Moore answered the phone and moved paper around. Twenty minutes into the wait, I stepped up to the desk and Moore said, "Why don't you just go home, sir? If he really does know you, he's got your number."

My hands clenched below the counter. "No, I'll wait."

"Suit yourself." Moore got up, walked into a back room, returned with a large cup of coffee and a glazed bear claw. He ate with his back to me, taking very small bites and wiping his chin several times. Minutes dripped by. A few blues came and went, some of them greeting Moore, none with enthusiasm. I thought of Stacy and Eric watching their father taken away by LAPD's finest.

At five-fifteen, an elderly couple in matching green cardigans walked into the station and asked Moore what could be done about their lost dog. Moore adopted a skeptical look and gave them the number for Animal Control. When the woman asked another question, Moore said, "I'm not Animal Control," and turned his back.

"What you are," said the old man, "is a little prick."

"Herb," said his wife, easing him toward the door.

As they left, he told her, "And they wonder why no one likes them."

Five-twenty. Eric and Stacy were nowhere in sight. If they'd made it, I assumed they'd been allowed upstairs, but Moore wouldn't confirm it.

I'd sped over in the Seville, following Richard's black BMW as Eric gunned it down from the glen and wove through Westwood traffic. Easy to follow: the car was a blade of onyx cutting through dirty air. The car that I'd wondered about as the match to the vehicle Paul Ulrich had spotted on Mulholland. Richard, Eric . . .

The boy drove much too fast, took foolish chances. At Sepulveda and Wilshire, he ran a red light, nearly collided with a gardener's truck, swerved into the center lane, sped away from a chorus of honks. I was two cars back, got caught at the light, lost sight of him. By the time I reached the station, I couldn't find the BMW on the street. No parking space for me in the police lot this time. I circled several times, finally grabbed a spot two blocks away. Jogging the distance, I arrived huffing.

Remembering the fear in Stacy's eyes as Korn and Demetri placed their father in the back of a dung-brown unmarked. Tears striping her face. As Korn slammed the door of the police car, she mouthed, "Daddy." Eric dragged her to the BMW, opened her door, nearly shoved her into the passenger seat. Flashing me one furious look, he ran to the driver's side, started the car up hard, shoved the RPMs to a defiant whine. Fishtailing and burning rubber, he took off.

"Where are the kids?" I asked Milo.

Something in my voice made him wince. "Let's talk upstairs, Alex."

The use of my name made Moore look up. "Hey there, Detective Sturgis," he said. "This gent's been waiting for you."

Milo grunted and led me to the stairs. We climbed quickly to the second floor, but instead of exiting, he stopped at the fire door and leaned against it. "Hear me out. This was not my decision—"

"You didn't send those two—"

"The command to pick up and question Doss came from downtown.
Command
, not request. Downtown claims they tried to reach me. I was out in Venice, and instead of trying harder they went around me and gave the order to Korn."

"Demetri said you knew."

"Demetri's an asshole." Neck bulging against the collar. Unhealthy flush. I was three steps below him and he probably didn't mean to glare down at me. But the effect was there— looming bulk, volcanic rage. The stairwell was hot, gray, soupy with the steel-and-sweat pungency of a high-school corridor.

"Would I have done the same thing?" he said. "Yes, it was a command. But not at your house. So please. I've got plenty to deal with."

"Fine," I said, not sounding fine at all. "But cut me some slack, too. I saw the looks on those kids' faces. What the hell's the emergency? What's Richard done?"

He exhaled. "Upsetting his kids is the least of his problems. He's in serious trouble, Alex."

My stomach lurched. "On Mate?"

"Oh yeah."

"What the hell changed in two hours?" I said.

"What changed is we've got
evidence
on Doss."

"What kind of evidence?"

He ran a finger under his collar. "If you breathe a word of it, you're essentially decapitating me."

"Heaven forbid," I said. "Without a head, you couldn't eat. Come on, what do you have?"

He stretched a leg, sat on the top step. "What I have is a pleasant fellow named Quentin Goad, locked up at County, waiting trial on an armed robbery beef."

He fished a mug shot out of his pocket. Heavyset white man with a shaved head and black goatee.

"Looks like an overweight Satan," I said.

"When Quentin's not holding up 7-Elevens, he works construction— roofing and sheet-metal work. He's done a lot of work for Mr. Doss— apparently Mr. Doss likes to hire cons, pays them under the table to avoid taxes, which tells you something about
his
character. The way Goad tells it, two months ago he was roofing a project out in San Bernardino— some big shopping center Doss bought cheap and was refurbishing— when Doss approached him and offered him five thousand bucks to kill Mate. Told him to make it nasty and bloody so everyone would think it was a serial killer. Gave Goad a thousand up front, promised four when the job was finished. Goad says he took the dough but never intended to follow through, saw it as a perfect way to con Doss and cut town with a grand. He'd been wanting to move to Nevada anyway, because he had two strikes against him in California and it made him nervous."

"Don't tell me," I said. "Before he left, he decided to give himself a going-away party."

"A month ago, hamburger joint in San Fernando, late at night, just before closing time. Mr. Goad, a .22, a paper bag. Eight-hundred-buck haul. Goad already had the counter boy facedown on the floor and the money in the bag when the security guard appeared out of nowhere and took him down. Gunshot to the leg. Flesh wound. Goad spent two weeks at County Gen getting free medical care, and then they moved him to the Twin Towers. The .22 wasn't even loaded."

"So now he's facing three strikes and he's trying to deal by selling out Richard. He's claiming Richard gave him money two months ago and didn't mind no follow-through. The Richard I know isn't high on patience."

"Richard bugged him, all right. About three weeks in, wanting a progress report. Goad told him he needed to plan it just right, was watching Mate, waiting for the perfect opportunity."

"Was he?"

"He says no. The whole thing was a scam."

"Come on, Milo, however you look at it, this guy's a liar and a—"

"Low-life moke. And if it was only Goad's story, your pal would be facing a much brighter future. Unfortunately, witnesses saw Doss and Goad meet at one of Goad's hangouts— ex-con bar in San Fernando, only a block from the hamburger joint he tried to rip off, which tells you how smart Goad is. The thing is, Doss didn't act too smart, either. We've got three drinkers and the bartender who saw the two of them having a serious head-to-head. They remember Doss because of the way he dressed. Fancy black duds, he didn't fit in. The waitress saw Doss pass an envelope to Goad. Nice, fat envelope. And she's got no reason to lie."

"But she never actually saw money changing hands."

"What?" he said. "Doss was passing him Halloween candy?"

"Goad claims Richard passed him cash, right out in the open?"

"The bar's a con hangout, Alex. Dark dive. Maybe Doss figured no one was watching. Or that it wouldn't come back to haunt him. For all I know, this isn't the first time Doss paid a con to do dirty work for him. We've also recovered some of the money. Doss paid Goad ten hundreds, Goad spent eight but two bills are left. We just printed Doss, should know soon if anything shows up. Want to take bets on that?"

"A dumb psychopath like Goad actually held on to loose cash?"

"He says it was Greyhound money. Something to tide him over until he pulled off the hamburger heist. What's the alternative explanation, Alex? Everyone in the bar's lying? Some grand conspiracy to frame poor Richard because maybe one time he played golf with O.J.? Come on, this is crime as I know it: tawdry, predictable, stupid. Doss may be a hotshot businessman but he was out of his element and he screwed up. He's been on my list, along with Haiselden and Donny. Now he's moved up to number one man."

"Does Goad claim Richard gave him a reason to kill Mate?"

"Goad says Richard told him Mate had murdered his wife. That she wasn't really sick, that as a doctor Mate should have known that, should have tried to talk her out of it. He told Goad he'd be doing a public service by getting rid of the guy. As if Goad cared about doing good— your boy thinks he's street-smart but that shows how out of his element he was. Mr. Brentwood slumming with the lowlife . . . It sounds damn real to me, Alex."

"Even if you do find Richard's prints on the money, what would that prove?" I said. "Goad worked for Richard and you just said he paid his workers under the table."

He looked up at me wearily. "All of a sudden you're a defense attorney? In my humble opinion, your time would be better spent dealing with those two kids than constructing excuses for their daddy. I'm sorry for you that it worked out this way, but as the guy who's been slogging this case, I'm happy as hell to have a real lead."

He didn't look happy.

I said, "Once more with feeling: where are the kids now?"

He hooked a thumb at the door. "I put them in a victim's family room. Assigned them a nice, sensitive female D to keep them company."

"How're they doing?"

"Don't know. Frankly, I've been spending my time on the phone with my alleged superiors and trying to talk to Daddy— who's clammed till his attorney gets here. I can't promise you the kids won't be interviewed eventually, but right now they're just waiting. Want to see them?"

"If they'll see me," I said. "Having the gruesome twosome show up at my door didn't do much for my credibility."

"I'm
sorry
, Alex. Goad's PD called Parker Center direct, ready to deal, and a big brass hard-on developed. Try to forget the kids for a second and see this for what it is: major unsolved homicide going nowhere and along comes credible evidence of a prior threat against the victim from someone with means and motive. At the very least, we've got Doss on conspiracy to solicit murder, which might be enough to hold him while we go looking for goodies."

"How'd Korn and Demetri figure out where he was?"

"Dropped in on his secretary." He chewed his cheek. "Saw your name in the appointment book."

"Great."

"You of all people should know it's not a pretty job, Alex."

"When's Richard's lawyer due?"

"Soon. Big-time mouthpiece named Safer, specializes in getting the upper crust out of scrapes. He'll advise Doss to stay clammed, we'll try to hold your boy on conspiracy. Either way, it'll take a long time clearing the paperwork, so figure on his being here overnight, at least."

He stood, stretched his arms, said, "I'm stiff, too much sitting around."

"Poor baby."

"You want me to apologize again? Fine, mea culpa, culpa mea."

I said, "What about Fusco's file? What about the painting? What does Doss have to do with that?"

"Who's to say the painting has anything to do with the murder? And no, nothing's forgotten, just deferred. If you can still bring yourself to do it, read the damn file. If not, I understand."