Hard Bite (19 page)

"Yes sir, she's lying right inside Apartment 512. Door's open."

The female detective walks down the hall while Coltson stays with me. She opens the door. The body is clearly visible. Then something unexpected happens. Out of her messed-up face, Orella Malalinda groans.

***

Patrol shows up first and takes me into custody. They swab my hand for gunshot residue and transport me to Pacific Division. An officer pushes me past well-worn benches with steel cuffs dangling.

Before an audience of deputies, the Watch Commander searches my pockets. "That come off?" he asks, pointing to my hook. "There's a nylon harness under my shirt," I reply. It feels kind of creepy having him undo my shirt. I shrug off the strap and ease my arm stump out of the carbon fiber mold, gather it all in my good hand, and hold the apparatus out. It's not lost on anybody in the room, the oddity of a man handing over part of his body. A white cotton sock is over my stump. I peel that off, too, and hold it out. The deputy who takes it doesn't meet my eyes. "Anything else?" I query.

"Are you sick or injured?" says the WC in an official tone. Am I sick or injured? It's a procedural question and everybody in the rooms gets the irony.
What does it look like to you?
floats on the air unsaid. "You mean, did I get new injuries during this incident? No."

"Put him in the cooler till Coltson gets here." I'm pushed out of there, past another sign that says:

Arrestees are entitled to three free local telephone calls upon being booked.

One to a bail bond agent.

One to a relative or other personal contact.

One to an attorney.

There's nobody I want to call. An attorney can wait till they appoint me one. My holding cell has a new camera installed in it—the only thing new in the whole place. The cell has a cement bench; I'm glad I have my chair. There's a big window looking out on the hallway that leads down to the jail, and officers go back and forth, trying not to look interested in me. Everybody in the squad room's heard by now that the reason Orella Malalinda offed herself in my apartment was because I killed her son. They're all going by, trying to look disinterested in me but rolling their eyes around to get a good look.

I have some time to consult my conscience but it's crashed; just a blank blue screen with no cursor blinking. I try to remember the good that was supposed to come out of this. Mrs. Marshall's voice comes back to me. On the phone she said, "Thank you." She said it and she meant it. An inspired thought comes through my gut:
redemption.
Maybe an act of atonement would even my moral balance sheet. Do I have enough juice left to attempt one last good thing?

After a couple hours, Detective Coltson arrives at my door. He invites me to an interview room which is a friendlier term than
interrogation
room.

"I've seen your face before," I say nicely.

He raises both brows.

"On TMZ. The Sherryl Lynn Hollywood story."

Coltson looks like he wants to spit. I might've just trashed a promising start. Detective Leone is waiting for us, and the room is filled with her cinnamon and Starbuck's coffee smell. I breathe through my nose as she and Coltson ogle me like two barristas about to grind a fresh pound of Arabica beans, and I'm the beans.

"Did patrol tell you I confessed already?" I offer helpfully. "Marty, Sherryl Lynn and Ambrose?"

"What about the others?" Coltson says.

It dawns on me that Colston and Leone are used to forcing information out of suspects. They're not used to willing participants.

"There are no others."

"That so?" says Leone. She wields her voice like a club, heavy with accusation.

"I want to help you get the Malalindas off the streets."

There's pushback in their silence. They don't react.

"You can use me as bait. I don't care about the risk."

The look on Coltson's face. He thinks I'm making a power play. He's got me figured for just another senseless killer. He and Leone are focused on things that aren't there—more, secret victims. He's not open to the possibilities of the situation. At least right now. I've got to go slowly with them. Shit, it's going to be a long interview.

Wind has picked up in Venice, with gusts blowing straight off the sea. It's just another night at the beach as Marcie Blattlatch pulls up to the side of Del Rey Tower. The building is surrounded with cops and yellow crime-scene tape. She flips off her show tunes and notes the officer at the door signing everyone in and out. Grumbling, she pulls around the block, squeezes into a street space and walks back.

"This is a crime scene, lady."

"I need to check on a resident in here. Mr. Dean Drayhart."

"What's your business, ma'am?"

Marcie draws herself up smartly. "I'm his nurse. Mr. Drayhart is a paraplegic. The news said there was an incident down here and I'm worried about him."

The PO flicks his eyes over the license she holds out. "Okay Miz Blattlatch, a detective would probably like to speak with you."

"What's going on? This has nothing to do with Mr. Drayhart, does it?"

"Can you wait a few minutes?"

"Sure."

"Why don't you sit in your car and when we're ready, I'll call you.

Let me get your address and number, first."

Marcie trudges back to her Taurus and settles in for a wait. She turns the ignition key to ACC so the radio can play, and as the theme song from
Cats
blares on, hard steel presses into the back of her neck. A voice whispers close to her ear, "Drive."

***

The little interview room is stuffy after three hours of questioning and Doug sizes up how Dean Drayhart is doing. Jumping around in Doug's head is the unsettling feeling that things are going Drayhart's way. The guy should be down and out with his arm taken away, freedom gone. He should be belligerent or arrogant or scared shitless. Instead he's calm and centered, like he still has cards to play. This crippled, damaged guy still has a foundation, some kind of compass. He's helpful, logical, rational. In fact, Doug shares some of his views on hit-and-run drivers. Drayhart's outside all of Doug's experience with homicidal perps. The guy violates the laws of reality. He's likeable as hell. It makes Doug's scalp itch.

A tap comes on the door.

"'Scuse me." Doug steps out.

It's the Watch Commander. "The Malalindas just released a tape to the local news. They kidnapped that guy's nurse."

***

8
A.M
. Morning is here but no sunlight gets into Pacific Division jail. A wheelchair-access van arrives to take me to Men's Central. All I can think about is Blattlatch. Sweet, nosey, irritating Blattlatch who never hurt anybody in her life. She must be so scared. I feel sad and terrible.

The van chugs down Vignes Street where every second storefront is bail bonds and lawyers, lawyers and bail bonds. Crime is big business in these parts. Oh the irony, that serving the destitute and criminal is so lucrative.

From a distance, the twin octagonal towers of Men's Central Jail look exotic—like a Las Vegas creation. You can almost hear an advertisement: "Escape the ordinary and experience our stunning views and exceptional lifestyle!" Up close it's another story.

At Bauchet Street, we make a left. From this proximity you can see the imposing towers are made of unglamorous beige blocks. In their shadow along the sidewalk, guys hand out business cards for, you guessed it, lawyers and bail bondsmen. A banner proclaims: Now Hiring, Medical Professionals. I bet they're hiring; down here it's a permanent state of hiring.

Signs flash by: Inmate Reception Center, Public Lobby, Cashier Office, Bail and Final Property Release.

We pull to a stop under a concrete overhang alongside a huge tour busload of other guys. Outside, a CO shouts something about a "fishline," and I realize he's referring to the line of men leaving the bus. Men as fish, get the metaphor? Caught on a hook, forming a line, ready for the can.

My van driver parks me and my chair on the sidelines as fifty men plod single-file into a large room with linoleum so clean and shiny it looks like it's washed and waxed every day. The men line up along the drab, off-white walls behind a row of stainless steel tables.

"Everything outta yer pockets and onta the tables," the CO says, and there's a general rustling of loose change, tissues, pocket tools, nail clippers and the stuff of men's daily lives deposited on the table. An attendant in beige, prison-issue pants and buttonless, pullover shirt hauls in a giant laundry hamper on wheels. "Clothes off and inta the bin," the CO orders again. As the attendant rumbles down the line, pants, shirts and undershorts fly through the air.

I'd rather crawl in a hole than watch this, but complaining isn't a good idea under the circumstances. It'll be my turn soon enough. In case I'm ever asked what a red-blooded heterosexual American man would least like to watch in the whole world, I now have the answer: naked men, under glaring, overhead fluorescent lights, getting strip searched. That's my final answer.

"Lift up yer nutsacks," the CO calls like there's nothing out of the ordinary with the request. The fifty-man fishline moves hands to their crotches and l-i-f-t. A couple of things fall on the floor. One guy was keeping a small stash of money there and I don't look at anything else too closely. All the COs are wearing latex gloves, now I know why. The fallen objects get collected alongside everything else on the steel tables.

"Squat," the CO calls and down everybody goes, knees and joints crackling. "I'm gonna count to three. After I say 'Three,' you all cough. Is that clear? One-two-THREE."

The fishline-fifty rack up a cough.

"One-two-THREE."

Coughs again. Mercifully, nothing falls out of anybody. But it could have and does, with regularity. No pun intended, buddy. All this getting naked, squatting down and coughing is so that if anybody has drugs or weapons stored up their keester, it'll slip out. Now I know why the floor looks washed and waxed every day. It looks that way because it has to be.

Gulley is the corrections officer assigned to shepherd me through processing since I'm "special needs." Deputy Gulley has the patience and fortitude of a saint-in-waiting, the jailhouse cunning of a penal-system lifer, and the drooping eyes and jowls of a bloodhound. He guides me through my own personal strip search, mercifully (again that word) done in private. After that a tiny cubicle where an evaluating psychiatrist finds no evidence of psychotic delusion in my psyche. I take it as a sign of his expertise that the chairs in this section are fastened to the floor, signifying he's seen his share of psychosis and can spot it when it's sitting in front of him and when it's not.

There seems to be some consternation over where to put me. Gulley's face takes on a moon terrain of creased concern. A subacute mental health unit in Twin Towers? The old medical wing of Men's Central, in solitary? Waiting drags out over hours. Then there's a dilemma about my chair.

"What about no chair?" Gulley asks. "Can you manage with no chair for a while?"

"I can't get on the toilet without it."

"Is this about making a weapon? How am I going to extract a piece from the chair and file it down with one hand and no tools?" I say. "You already got my other hand."

"You'd be surprised," he answers. "Take it as a compliment."

Old Gulley gets a smile out of me. Somehow, a geriatric chair from the infirmary appears, and it's deemed "safer" than mine. We switch, and Gulley pushes me onward to my final destination.

900 Max. No inmate contact. Any move outside the cell requires a waist-chain. More bland walls and industrial strength doors and finally I'm rolling through High Power where the sign painted on the cement block reads, "NO TALKING. FACE THE WALL." I can feel Gulley's tension as he pushes me in the creaky old chair. There's a psychological mindfuck to the place. Gulley's just passing through but he knows an officer has to be handpicked for experience with K-10 inmates to work here. He's intimidated and I can feel it.

We reach a floor leading past single, six-by-nine cells all in a row, camera monitored. This is my new abode. As I roll past each cell falls silent. These guys are as predictable as a row of bowling pins. When it comes to a wheelchair, there's no difference between inmates and Beverly Hills beauties—they're all rude as hell. There's nobody here on wheels that I can see. Where are all the disabled guys? Isn't crime high-risk? Nobody gets injured around here?