The Watchman (16 page)

Now she eyeballed Chen with equal suspicion. She still hadn’t touched the coffee.

“What do you want, John?”

“You know the shootings we had in Eagle Rock? I need to see the guns.”

Mr. Nonchalant. Mr. Just Another Day at the Office.

Her eyes narrowed even more.

“You didn’t cover the Eagle Rock case.”

“Nah, but something came up in one of my old Inglewood cases. I think they might be connected.”

LaMolla peered at him even harder, then took the coffee. She smelled it, but didn’t taste, then went to the door. She locked it, then leaned with her back to the door, blocking his exit.

John got an unexpected, more-than-a-little-hopeful notion that maybe she wasn’t a lesbian after all; that maybe his luck in all things was about to forever change, and he smiled even wider—

—but then she dropped the mocha into a trash can.

She said, “What the fuck is going on?”

Chen didn’t know what to say, and wasn’t even sure what she meant.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

“Eagle Rock.”

Her beady eyes made her look like a bird of prey. Chen was confused. He tried to cover it by looking, well, confused.

“Yeah, Eagle Rock. I gotta see the guns, Chris. No biggie.”

She studied him, and Chen felt himself squirm. He knew if she kept it up much longer his nervous twitch would fire up like a chain saw. He shrugged, and did his best to look innocent.

“Hey, all I wanna do is see the guns. What’s going on?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Whattaya mean, you wanna know? Jesus Christ, you gonna let me see the guns or not?”

She slowly shook her head.

“The feds took them.”

Chen blinked.

“The feds?”

“Mmm. The three semi’s and the wheel gun bagged in Eagle Rock. Here’s what’s really weird. They took the wheel gun last night—a .357 Colt Python. But then they came back this afternoon for the semi’s.”

Chen saw his chances for a Carrera upgrade circling the drain. Visions of his lost opportunity with Ronda flashed like lightning at the edge of his horizon. But mostly he imagined Joe Pike beating his ass. Pike wasn’t a man you let down. Pike would get even.

Chen blurted, “But that was LAPD evidence! The feds can’t just take our stuff. That’s
our
stuff!”

“They can when Parker tells us to let them have it.”

“Parker Center gave them permission?”

LaMolla slowly nodded, still watching him with tiny eyes.

“All I know is, Harriet got the call, and she wouldn’t tell me anything about it, John. She said the sixth floor says let’m have what they want—”

The sixth floor of Parker Center was the power floor—the realm of the Assistant Chiefs.

“—so we did. They took the guns.”

John was frantic. His mind was racing for some angle or explanation that might appease Joe Pike when a desperate idea came to him.

“What about the shell casings? Did they take the casings?”

Spent casings would have been gathered at the scene, and like the guns, they could be compared and analyzed.

But Christine was shaking her head, her eyes boring into him now as if searching him.

“They took everything. Even the casings.”

Chen wondered why she was looking at him that way, and then he felt a last dismal shred of hope.

“Chris—you didn’t, you know, keep one of the casings, did you?”

She slowly sighed.

“I kept two, but they went through the evidence list. They checked off every item we recovered, so I had to give them up. But you know what was really weird?”

Chen shook his head.

“They wouldn’t sign an evidence receipt.”

Any time evidence was transferred or moved between departments or agencies, a receipt and an acceptance of possession had to be signed. It was standard operating procedure. This ensured that the chain of evidence remained intact. This prevented evidence tampering. This prevented evidence from being lost. Or stolen.

Chen said, “But they
had
to.”

LaMolla simply stared at him.

“No, John, they didn’t. And now here you come, wanting those same guns. And the casings. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

LaMolla, who clearly didn’t believe him, said, “Mmm.”

Pike had hinted at some kind of conspiracy, but Chen figured he was talking about a couple of crooked cops. Now it looked like the feds and Parker Center were involved, and no one seemed to know why, or what they were doing, even though they were doing things that no legitimate police agency would do. The chain of evidence was sacrosanct, and now the evidence was gone.

John Chen grew afraid; afraid in a way to which his earlier, over-wrought, overly melodramatic fear could not compare.

No Carrera was worth this. No job in TV as a technical advisor, or even the smokin’ hot ’tang that would follow.

John Chen suddenly felt trapped; caught in a claustrophobic nightmare between a homicidal maniac (Pike), the federal government (rife with known assassins), and the shadowy powers within Parker Center (still hiding the truth about the Black Dahlia killer), none of whom could be trusted, and any of which might snuff his life and career without hesitation. Chen’s hands trembled. The tic beneath his left eye sputtered like a fire raging to life as he saw his future unfolding: LaMolla telling Harriet he had asked about the guns, Harriet ratting to Parker Center; Chen suddenly at the center of an investigation. Or worse.

Chen tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. He worked up some spit.

“You’re not—listen, Chris, you’re not going to tell—well, I mean, Harriet doesn’t need to—”

LaMolla, still considering him with her calm, predatory eyes, uncrossed her arms and spread her hands wide like Moses parting the waters.

“This is the gun room. This room is mine. These guns are mine. The evidence here? This is
my
evidence. I don’t like someone taking it. I don’t like
you
knowing something about it that I don’t.”

She lowered her arms and stepped away from the door.

“Get out of here, John. Don’t come back without something to tell me.”

Chen stepped quickly past her and fled down the hall. He ran directly to his car, jumped in, and locked the doors. He started the engine but sat with his hands clenched in his lap, shaking and terrified. Danger was everywhere, just like when he was the tall geeky kid other kids picked on. Destruction might come from any direction. Just like when he was a child—just walking, man; maybe going to his locker or crossing the parking lot, and someone would bean him with a clod of dirt. Hit him just like that, out of nowhere, bang, right in the head, and he never even saw it coming. But it always came. Always.

Chen fished his cell phone from his pocket. The shaking made it difficult to scroll through the numbers, but Pike had told him to call Elvis Cole when he had something. Pike would almost certainly blame Chen because the guns were missing. He might even think that Chen was making everything up, and fly into a murderous rage, but Cole was Pike’s friend. Chen had the vague hope that Cole could convince Pike not to kill him. It was Chen’s only chance. His last best hope. Everyone knew Joe Pike was a monster.

IN THE quiet of the later night, a violet glow from Dodger Stadium capped the ridges as Pike eased up to the Echo Park house. The air was warmer than the evening before, but the same five men still clustered at the car beneath the streetlight, and families still sat on their porches, listening to Vin Scully call a game that many of them knew nothing about only a few years before. Cole’s Sting Ray was missing, but Cole would have left it on an adjoining street. The house was a dim cutout against the blacker night, lit only by the street lamp and the ochre rectangles that were its windows.

Pike parked in the drive and crossed the yard to the porch. The five men glanced over, but not in a threatening way.

The porch, hidden by its overhang from the street lamp, was a cave. Cole opened the door as Pike reached it, and stepped out onto the porch. In that moment when the door opened, Pike smelled mint and curry, and wondered why Cole had come out.

Cole spoke low, hiding his voice from the men.

“How’d it go?”

Pike described the two men who searched his home, and unfolded their pictures. Cole cracked open the door wide enough to light the pictures, then closed it again. This time when the door opened, Pike glimpsed the girl, standing in the kitchen at the far end of the house. She was wearing an iPod. Pike had made her get rid of her iPod in the desert.

Pike said, “Where’d she get the iPod?”

“It’s mine. I made Thai, you want something to eat. That’s what we had.”

Pike put away the pictures. The Thai sounded good. But then Cole moved farther from the door and lowered his voice even more.

“I got a call from John Chen this evening. You talk to him?”

“This morning.”

Cole glanced at the door, as if he suspected the girl had her ear to the crack.

“The feds confiscated everything from Eagle Rock. The guns, the casings, all of it.”

“Pitman?”

“All Chen knew was the feds.”

“John run the guns before they were taken?”

“They moved in too fast. Here’s what’s really wild—they took the stuff without paper. Said Parker called down and told them to let it go, no questions asked.”

Pike raised his eyebrows.

“No questions.”

“Those D-3s at Homicide Special wouldn’t roll over just because Pitman’s a fed, not with five unidentified stiffs on the plate. Someone must have—no pun intended—put a gun to their heads.”

Pike agreed. Pitman had used a lot of muscle for evidence that might not lead anywhere. It made more sense to let LAPD run the guns. If nothing came up, the guns didn’t matter. If LAPD found something, Pitman could have used it. Confiscating the guns had only drawn LAPD’s attention to an investigation Pitman wanted to keep secret.

Pike said, “He’s scared.”

“Yeah. Only reason to take those guns is he doesn’t want LAPD anywhere around this. That, or he’s hiding more than this case he’s building against the Kings.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But I know he’s a liar.”

Pike tried to read Cole’s face. Even with the darkness and deep shadows, he could see Cole was troubled.

“Funny that Pitman gave back my gun.”

“He was trying to buy you. Also, your gun can’t hurt him. Your gun can only hurt you. He probably had your gun test-fired so he can match your bullets to the bodies if he needs the leverage.”

“Leverage for what?”

Cole glanced at the door again, then stepped even closer.

“He hasn’t been straight with the girl or her family. Remember what they told her? They didn’t know Meesh was the missing man until she identified him?”

Pike nodded. That was the way both Bud and the girl had told it.

Cole said, “The day they first saw her—that morning before they talked to her—they had already worked her street, and they weren’t only asking about the Kings. They were asking about Meesh. They didn’t use his name, but they already knew or suspected Meesh was in the car.”

Pike glanced at the men under the street lamp. He listened to their serious voices, and realized Cole had come outside so they could talk about this without the girl hearing.

“How do you know that?”

“I heard it from half a dozen people today. Agents from the Department of Justice, they said. One black, one white, showing pictures of two men. I had them describe the pictures, and I’m pretty sure one was King, and the other was Meesh.”

“Pitman and Blanchette did this before they met her?”

“Before. I wasn’t sure about the timeline until I sat down with my notes this evening. Now I’m sure. They knew Meesh was with King, and they knew his identity before she identified him.”

Pike wondered why Pitman and Blanchette had misled the girl. She was clearly important to them, but if Pitman and Blanchette already knew Meesh was with King, maybe she hadn’t been their only witness. Maybe their other witness had been killed. Pike didn’t like it, but none of this affected his mission. Find Meesh. Eliminate the threat. Protect the girl. He could deal with Pitman and Blanchette later.

Pike tipped his head toward the door.

“Does she know?”

“I figure she’s scared enough without being scared of the cops. Not until we know why Pitman lied.”

“Good. Let’s go back to her neighborhood tomorrow. I was hoping we’d pick up Meesh’s trail, but maybe Pitman’s trail is more important.”

“She’s not going to like it. She wasn’t happy when you left.”

Pike turned toward the house, wondering if the girl was still in the kitchen. He wondered what she was listening to on Cole’s iPod.

Cole said, “You told her about Africa.”

Pike glanced back at Cole, and now Cole was smiling.

“You tell someone about Africa, talk about zebras and lions. Don’t tell them about women cutting off their fingers.”

Pike didn’t want to mention the girl’s offer to masturbate. Not because mentioning it would embarrass him, but because he was embarrassed for the girl.

Pike said, “That food smells pretty good. That curry?”

Cole smiled wider, and they went into the house. The girl was stretched out on the couch with the headset fixed to her ears. Her eyes were closed, but she looked up when they entered.

Pike said, “How’s it going?”

She didn’t sit up, and she didn’t speak to him. She raised a hand in a kind of a wave, then closed her eyes again and went back to the music. Her foot bounced with the beat. Pike figured she was still pissed off.

Cole left a few minutes later, and Pike went into the kitchen. Cole had made vegetable curry rice. Pike stood in the kitchen, eating from the pot. He ate it cold. When he finished eating, he filled a paper cup with the plum wine, drank it, then drank a bottle of water. He was drinking the water when the girl came to the door.

She said, “I’m going to bed.”

Pike nodded. He wanted to say something, but he was still wondering why Pitman had put the girl in this position. Meesh was a murderer, but his prosecution would be handled at the state level by the courts in Colorado. For Pitman, Meesh was nothing more than a way to bag the Kings. The Kings were his target, but his case against them was for money laundering. Paper. He had put this girl’s life in jeopardy for paper, and he had somehow gotten LAPD to go along. Pitman had a lot of juice for a mid-level fed running a money case. Pike wondered if Bud knew.