Kill the Messenger (10 page)

                        
      14

What’s your opinion?” Parker asked as they eased back into traffic.

“That I’m glad I don’t have a shit job like that,” Ruiz said, checking her hair in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. It was frizzing from the humidity.

“So now we know where the suspect works,” she said. “But he’s not going back there anytime soon. We know where he gets his mail, but we don’t know where he lives. There’s nothing to make much of.”

Parker made the rude sound of a game-show buzzer. “Wrong. First of all, we could have his prints on the job ap. We know his name, or an aka at least. We can kick up his sheet if he has one. Scrutinize his prior bad acts. And there’s a good chance he has priors. He keeps to himself, gets paid in cash, mail goes to a box; no address, no phone. He operates like a crook.”

“Maybe he’s homeless,” Ruiz pointed out. “And what if he doesn’t have a sheet?”

“If Latent can pull a clear print off the job ap, and if they can match it to a print on the murder weapon, we’ll have that. And the dispatcher knows more than she’s saying.”

“Yeah, but she’s not saying it.”

“She’s got a conscience, she doesn’t like breaking rules. But she’s protective of her messengers. They’re like a family, and she’s the mom. We’ll give her a little time to think about it, then go back to her. I think she wants to do the right thing.”

“I think she’s a bitch,” Ruiz grumbled.

“You can’t take it personally. You make it personal, you lose your perspective. It worked well in this situation to play her off you. You make a good bad cop, Ruiz,” he said. “You’ve got good tools. You have to learn not to throw the whole box at the head of every witness or perp you run into.”

From the corner of his eye he could see her watching him. She didn’t know what to make of him. She bristled at his suggestions, and didn’t trust his compliments. Good. She needed to be kept off balance. She had to learn how to read people and how to adapt. She should have learned it day one in a uniform.

“Jesus,” he mumbled. “I sound like a teacher.”

“You are a teacher. Allegedly.”

Parker didn’t say anything. His mood had turned south. Most of the time he tried to keep a narrow focus on his goal in the department. He didn’t think of himself as a teacher. He was waiting for the chance to make a comeback.

He could have quit. He didn’t need the money or the hassle. The job he had on the side had paid off his debts, bought him his Jag and his wardrobe. But he was too stubborn to quit. And every time a case took hold of him, and he felt the old adrenaline rush, he was reminded that he loved what he did. He was old-fashioned enough to be proud that he carried a badge and did a public service.

And every time a case took hold, and he felt that adrenaline rush, he was reminded that somewhere deep inside him he still believed
this
could be the case that turned it all around. This could be the case where he proved himself, redeemed himself, regained the respect of his peers and his enemies.

But if this was the kind of case with the potential to turn his career around, Robbery-Homicide was sure to muscle in and take it away from him.

He turned the car into the tiny parking lot of a little strip mall with a collection of food shops: Noah’s Bagels, Jamba Juice, Starbucks. The driver picked the radio station, the passenger picked the restaurant. Parker usually chose a cop hangout for breakfast, not because he liked too many cops, but because he liked to eavesdrop, pick up the mood of things on the street, catch a scrap of gossip that might be useful. Ruiz picked Starbucks. Her order was always long and complicated, and if it didn’t turn out exactly to her liking, she made the barista do it over, sometimes by making a scene, sometimes by batting eyelashes. Bipolar, that girl.

Parker went into Jamba Juice and got a fruit smoothie loaded with protein and wheatgrass, then went into Starbucks and commandeered a table in the back with a clear view of the door, took the corner chair, and picked up a section of the
Times
a previous customer had abandoned.

He kept thinking about the fact that Robbery-Homicide had come sniffing around his crime scene. There had to be something to that. They were front-page guys working front-page cases. Lenny Lowell had not made the front page. The
Times
probably wouldn’t waste any ink on him at all.

“Watching your girlish figure?” Ruiz asked as she joined him.

Parker kept his attention on the newpaper. “My body is a temple, baby. Come worship.”

He hadn’t seen or spoken with anyone at the scene resembling a reporter, and he was the detective of record . . .

. . . but there it was, a couple of sentences stuck in a lower corner on a left-hand page beside an ad for a sale on tires.
ATTORNEY FOUND DEAD.

Leonard Lowell, the victim of an apparent homicide, found by his daughter, Abigail Lowell (twenty-three, a student at Southwestern Law), bludgeoned to death in his office, blah, blah, blah.

Parker stopped breathing for a moment as he called up his memory of the night before. Abby Lowell arriving on the scene, carefully controlled. Jimmy Chew had said the call had been phoned in by an anonymous citizen. Abby Lowell said she’d received a call from an LAPD officer notifying her of her father’s death while she was waiting for him at Cicada.

It was too early to call the restaurant to check her alibi.

The byline on the story was “Staff Reporter.”

Ruiz was paying no attention, too busy sipping her extra-hot double venti half-caf no-whip vanilla mocha with one pink and one blue sweetener, and making eyes at the hunky barista.

“Ruiz.” Parker leaned across the table and snapped his fingers at her. “Did you get a name for that phone number I gave you to check out? The number from Abby Lowell’s cell phone call list?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it. Now.”

She started to object. Parker slid the paper across the table and tapped a finger on the piece. He got up from his chair, dug his phone out of his pocket, and scrolled through the address book as he went out the side door into the damp cold.

“Kelly.” Andi Kelly, investigative reporter for the
LA Times.
A fireball in a small red-haired package. Tenacious, wry, and a lover of single malt scotch.

“Andi. Kev Parker.”

There was a heavy silence. He pictured confusion then recognition dawning on her face.

“Wow,” she said at last. “I used to know a Kev Parker.”

“Back when I was good for a headline,” Parker remarked dryly. “Now you never call, you never write. I feel so used.”

“You changed your phone number, and I don’t know where you live. I thought maybe you’d gone to live in a commune in Idaho with Mark Fuhrman. What happened? They didn’t approve of your smoking, drinking, womanizing, arrogant ways?”

“I repented, gave all that up, joined the priesthood.”

“No way. Cool Kev Parker? Next you’ll be telling me you’ve taken up yoga.”

“Tai chi.”

“Fuck me. Where have all the icons gone?”

“This one crumbled a while ago.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said soberly. “I read that in the papers.”

Nothing like a public flameout to win friends and influence people. The cocky, arrogant Robbery-Homicide hotshot Parker had been made the whipping boy by an equally cocky, arrogant defense attorney in a high-profile murder trial.

The DA’s case had been good, not watertight, but good, solid. A mountain of circumstantial evidence had been gathered against a wealthy, preppie UCLA med student accused of the brutal murder of a young female undergrad.

Parker was second on the team of detectives sent to the crime scene, second lead in the investigation. He had a reputation for shooting his mouth off, for riding the edge of the rules, loving the spotlight, but he was a damn good detective. That was the truth he had held on to during the trial while the big-bucks defense team shredded his character with half-truths, irrelevant facts, and outright lies. They had impugned his integrity, accused him of tampering with evidence. They couldn’t prove any of it, but they didn’t need to. People were always eager to believe the worst.

Anthony Giradello, the ADA set to make his career on the case, had seen Parker dragging down his ship, and had done the cruel and certain thing any ADA would have done: He took up his own whip and joined in the beating.

Giradello had done everything he could to distance his case from Parker, to downplay Parker’s role in the investigation. Sure, Parker was an asshole, but he was an
unimportant
asshole who hadn’t really had anything much to do with the investigation or the gathering or handling of evidence. The liberal LA press had joined in the feeding frenzy, always happy to eviscerate a cop doing his job.

Andi Kelly had been a single voice against the mob, pointing out the defense was employing the shopworn but tried-and-true “When All Else Fails, Blame a Cop” strategy. A shell game devised to draw attention away from overwhelming forensic evidence, to plant a seed of doubt in the minds of the jury. All they needed was to convince one juror that Parker was some kind of rogue, that he wouldn’t think twice about planting evidence, that he had some kind of racial or socioeconomic bias against the defendant. One juror, and they would hang the jury.

They managed to convince all twelve. A murderer walked free.

The political fallout had been ugly. The DA’s office had pressed for Parker to be fired, to continue to deflect the spotlight away from the fact that they had lost and a killer had walked free. The chief of police, who loathed the DA and feared the police union, had refused to get rid of Parker, despite the fact that every brass badge in the department wanted him gone. He had been painted as a problem, a loose cannon, insubordinate. The public spotlight was on him. He was a black eye on a department that couldn’t take another scandal.

The only interview Parker had granted during all of it was to Andi Kelly.

“So how you doing, Kev?” Kelly asked.

“Older, wiser, like everybody,” Parker said, slowly pacing the sidewalk.

“Know anything going on in the Cole case?”

“You’d know more than I would. You’re the one at the courthouse every day. I’m just a peon now, you know. Training the next crop of wolf cubs,” Parker said. “For what it’s worth, I have it on good authority Cole is an asshole.”

“That’s news? He beat his wife’s head in with a sculpture worth three-quarters of a million dollars.”

“He came on to a friend of mine with the missus standing right there.”

“Everybody knows he cheated on her. Robbie’s not smart enough to pull off total discretion, despite his best efforts. Everything Tricia Crowne put up with with that clown, it’s hard to believe she didn’t pull a Bobbitt on him years ago,” Kelly said. She released a big sigh. “Well, if you don’t have a scoop for me, Parker, to hell with you.”

“That’s harsh. Now that I’m down on my luck, living in the gutter, eating out of garbage cans, can’t you do an old friend a favor?”

“If you’re such a good old friend, why didn’t you stop me from marrying Goran?”

“You married a guy named Goran?”

“I believe you just made my point,” she said. “But never mind. I managed to divorce him without you too. What do you want, Man-I-Haven’t-Heard-From-In-Years?”

“It’s nothing much,” Parker said. “I’m working a homicide. Happened last night. There’s a couple of lines in the
Times
this morning. I’m curious who wrote it. Can you find out?”

“Why?” Like every good reporter, Kelly was always keen for the scent of a story. If she’d been a hunting dog, she would have been on point.

“It just struck me as odd,” Parker said casually. “No one spoke to me. I was on the scene half the night, and I didn’t see any reporter.”

“Probably some staff flunky picked it up off the scanner. Who’s the vic?”

“Low-end defense attorney. I’m surprised the
Times
wasted the space.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And why do you care it was in the paper if the guy’s a nobody?” Kelly asked.

“They got a couple of details wrong.”

“So?”

Parker sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ, I don’t remember you being such a pain in the ass.”

“Well, I always have been.”

“It’s a wonder your mother didn’t put you in a sack and drown you when you were two years old.”

“I think she tried,” Kelly said. “I have issues.”

“Honey, I can trump your issues any day of the week.”

“Now you’re making me feel inferior.”

“Why did I call you?” Parker asked, exasperated.

“Because you want something, and you think I’m a whore for a good story.”

“You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”

“Which brings us back to my last question. What do you care about two sentences buried in the
Times
?”

Parker glanced back into Starbucks. Ruiz was still on her phone, but was making a note. He considered and discarded the idea of telling Kelly about Robbery-Homicide’s unofficial appearance at the scene. He believed in playing his cards one at a time.

“Listen, Andi, it’s nothing I can put my finger on yet. I’m just getting a weird vibe here. Maybe I’m just hinky because they don’t let me out of my cage enough.”

“Still in the minors, huh?”

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? They wanted to get rid of me because they thought I was a rotten cop, so they sentenced me to train new detectives.”

“Management at its finest,” Kelly said. “There’s a method to that madness, though. Anybody else they would have sent down to South Central to work drug murders and body-dump jobs, but they knew you’d thrive there. They had a better chance making you quit by boring you to death.”

“Yeah, well, I showed them,” Parker said. “So what do you say? Can you make a couple of calls?”

“And if this turns into something . . . ?”

“Your number is in my phone, and I’ll buy you a bottle of Glenmorangie.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks.”

Parker stuck his phone in his pocket and went back into the coffeehouse.