Unpaid Dues (16 page)

The program even had a provision in the twelve steps
to cover this contingency Step nine was the amends step, and like all
of the others was written as a suggestion only. In step eight, you
made a list of all persons you've harmed. In step nine you were urged
to make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when
to do so would injure them or others.

A spiritual program with loopholes, you had to love
it.

When the twelve steps were written decades ago, the
transgressions the founders had had in mind were probably more along
the lines of marital infidelity. The confessions of a cheating spouse
would only make the spouse who had been cheated on feel worse. Was
she wrong in how she applied that step to this situation? If she told
all she knew, people would be hurt. There was no statute of
limitations for murder. As she drove away, she absently pawed at her
shirt pocket as if searching for a pack of cigarettes. This was
especially weird since she'd been quit for years. She assumed she was
over them. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe that addiction was just one
more wolf snapping at her door, looking to chew her up if she let her
guard down.
 

Chapter 15

Saturday morning was St. John's honey-do day.
Caroline had on her yellow rubber gloves and was scrubbing the
bathroom. St. John's duty was trash and anything that could be washed
clean with the hose. He adjusted the nozzle to its smallest aperture
and aimed the stream toward the eaves of the house where cobwebs
gathered. The pleasure he derived from directing the water's force
had to be a guy thing.

"
Hey master blaster," Caroline called from
the doorway

He kinked the hose. "Yeah, hon."

"I need your big, strong muscles in here."

He smiled and flexed his arm. "Yes, ma'am. A gal
in need is what we tough guys are all about."

"
Impress me with the sofa. I'm vacuuming? St.
John shut off the hose and followed his wife into the house.

They pulled the couch away from the wall together.
Caroline bent down to work the pipe attachment in the corner. St.
John grabbed her ass. "Not bad for an old married lady."

She pushed his hand away. Her rubber glove on his
skin brought up unwanted images of the dead woman, Jane Ferrar. He
had not been able to learn any more about her. His queries had not
turned up friends or a work history. There were relatives back East,
but they hadn't had contact with her for years and were not stepping
forth to claim the remains. Jane Ferrar had been a ghost, it seemed,
long before she died.

Sensing his mood, Caroline shut off the vacuum.

"
What's up?"

"Just thinking about something."

The phone rang and Caroline went in the kitchen to
answer it.

"Hi, kiddo. The eighteenth? We'll be there."

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Munch," she said, not bothering to cover
the mouthpiece.

"
Does she want to talk to me?"

Caroline listened for a moment and then shook her
head no. St. John went back in the living room and pushed the
furniture back against the wall. Caroline was saying, "Uh-huh"
and "That sounds nice" and "just be careful."

St. John wanted to pick up the extension and listen
in, but had to content himself with standing near the doorway When he
heard her hang up, he hastened outside.

She came to the back door a moment later looking
thoughtful.

"Is she all right?" he asked.

"I hope so. Rico's taking her to meet his
daughter."

"
On the eighteenth?" ·

"No, that's Asia's play Next month. She's
getting us tickets."

"
Sounds fun" St.
John liked kids in theory. Asia's occasional visits, his and
Caroline's attendance at the kid's various performances and
graduations suited his comfort level. St. John had been an only child
and Caroline was the oldest female sibling of a large family. Helping
care for the brood most of her yormg life had cured her of the desire
to have her own children. It was not a subject they argued about.

* * *

On the way to Nunn's retirement party St. John told
his wife about Cassiletti and what he'd revealed about himself.

"We're lucky" she said, reaching for his
hand. He kissed her fingertips, loving the delicate softness of her.
"I think that every day."

"I hope Munch isn't setting herself up for a
fall with this Rico."

"She's a big girl."

"Big girls get hurt too."

They didn't speak again until they arrived at the
restaurant. He liked that about them, that they could be comfortable
with each other's silence, didn't have to intrude or be privy to
every single thought.

The party was in a private room at the Billingsly
Restaurant on Sawtelle, a favorite haunt for Westside cops.

Art Becker and his wife were in attendance; so were
Rico and Kathy. Half the cops there were with different partners than
they'd had at the last shindig. Caroline pointed out with arched.
eyebrows that Rico didn't treat Kathy like some soon-to-be ex, and
Kathy in turn seemed rather proprietary, picking lint off of Rico's
jacket, and generally giving the evil eye to other young women at the
party.

"
I'm going to snub them," Caroline
announced.

"
You do that," St. John said, smiling,
knowing that in his wife's case "snubbing them" meant she
would not offer to cook them a three-course dinner on the next
available Saturday night. They probably wouldn't notice her version
of a cold shoulder.

The men gravitated to the bar, and Caroline joined a
group of women. As St. John walked past, he heard one of the women
say "I love my husband, but . . ."

He didn't need to hear the rest. He stopped to pay
his respects to Bob Numn, the guest of honor. Nunn was holding court
from a bar stool. He had a highball glass in his hand that he was
using like a baton to punctuate his words.

A group of five middle-aged cops that St. John knew
by sight if not by name was Nunn's audience.

"
ln English," he was saying. "In my
day the signs were all in English. My parents didn't come to this
country and expect everyone to speak Russian. No, they learned the
language. They assimilated."

"Shut up, you fucking Commie," a red-faced
narc from Parker Center shot back good-naturedly

"
Hey am I right? Tell me I'm wrong. Fucking
spics are taking over the city. Five more years they'll be running
everything"

"
Yeah, Bob, that's right," St. John clamped
a hand on his shoulder and brought his face in close. "Couldn't
do worse, could they?"

"
Hey, St. John." Nunn pulled him into a
boozy hug and kissed his cheek wetly "How the hell are you?"

St. John patted his back. "Looking good, babe.
Let's get some of that chow."

"Nah, I'm not hungry Here, have a drink."

"
In a minute."

Nunn swung his drink hand across the crowded room.
His eyes moistened. "We gave it a good run, didn't we?"

"Sure did, Bob. You done good."

"Not all the time. Couldn't get them all."
Another drink appeared on the bar behind him. Nunn grabbed at it but
missed. Half the booze spilled. St. John figured that was just as
well. Nunn growled in frustration and pulled a bent cigarette from
the pack in his pocket. St. John struck a match and held it steady
while the drunk detective homed in on the flame.

"I won't miss it," Nunn said, his eyes
tearing.

"Sure you won't." St. John blew out the
match, patted Nunn's shoulder, and moved on. Against the far wall
were long tables covered with food. Art Becker had two plates, and
was heaping salad on each, balancing them against his substantial
gut.

"Where's the beef?" St. John said.

Becker looked up and smiled, transforming his
pockmarked face into a mask of creases that all but obliterated his
small eyes. He had to be about the ugliest man that ever walked, and
St. John knew that Becker used that mug of his to good advantage when
he wanted to intimidate a suspect. Becker went out of his way for
victims and their families, even bringing them home on occasion. He
also had all kinds of outside hobbies. That's what saved him, kept
him balanced.

Salvation was a funny thing.

Eight years ago, St. John had had his first
conversation with Munch in a biker bar in Venice Beach. Him playing
the cop, her his drunken prey. They had talked about redemption then
and Munch had said in a tone completely innocent of irony Maybe we
can save you too.

The weird thing was he had understood her and had
even felt an odd stirring of hope.

"
Ahh," Becker said now, "they got me
on all this rabbit food. I haven't trusted a fart for five years."

"
Tell me about it," St. John said, eyeing a
platter of deviled eggs. He envisioned the thick yellow yolk paste
coating his arteries.

With a furtive look to his left, Becker sneaked a
chunk of cheese into his mouth. "I understand you're looking at
a mope named Cyrill McCarthy; street name 'Thor.' "

"
Yeah. I caught a homicide of a woman who used
to hang with him," St. John said. "Someone beat her to
death and dumped her in a storm drain."

Becker shook his head like he was really pained and
sighed. St. John wondered what the guy was still doing in homicide.
Too much empathy was a bad thing in their business. A little was
absolutely necessary.

"I saw the bulletin. You think Cyrill McCarthy
is your guy?"

"
His name keeps popping up. You know him?"

"
Yeah. I always had a sneaking suspicion that he
was involved in a triple homicide in the Oakwood Projects ten years
ago. We questioned him, some witnesses put a car like his at the
scene, but he never broke."

"
Wait a minute," St. John said. "Are
you talking about the Ghost Town Three?" The killing of three
black men in an apartment building in Venice's black section, a
little Watts-by-the-Sea, had been impressively gory rivaling even the
Tate-La Bianca murder scene, but without the fancy zip code. As in
the Manson tribe killings, the murder weapons had been knives. St.
John remembered looking at the photographs and being amazed at the
sheer volume of congealed blood in the bedroom, ponds of human
gelatin. He saw the image of a blood trail across a wooden hallway in
his mind's eye, but couldn't be sure if he was remembering photos
from the murder book or confabulating with the help of Stacy
Lansford's letter and her description of a murder victim crawling
down a hallway with an open jugular.

"Shit," he said, popping a naked carrot
stick into his mouth, "that takes me back. We were up to our
eyeballs in gang wars. The All Black Shoreline Crips versus the
V-Thirteen Homeboys. I thought the wisdom on that one was that it was
a turf dispute.

McCarthy is a white guy a biker. What makes you think
he was messing around in Ghost Town?"

"We found scales and bags of cut at the scene.
It was probably a dope rip-off."

That made sense,
St. John
thought.
Even the most color conscious doper
would overlook race when it came to copping a fix
.
"How'd he do in a lineup?"

"
We never got that far. Our witness became
unavailable. The case fell apart, and we got busy with other
investigations."

"
I've come across something you're going to want
to read," St. John said, "another case involving McCarthy
where the witness disappeared. He bragged about having a hand in some
murders when threatening a woman he was involved with. I'll bring it
by Monday and take a look at the Ghost Town Three murder book."

Across the room, Rico Chacón said something to Kathy
and she laughed loudly too loudly, St. John thought. He found
Caroline's eyes, and her expression told him that she had noticed as
well.

"How's your partner working out?" St. John
asked Becker.

"
We're not together anymore."

"Is that a good thing?"

Becker grew wary. "Chac6n puts in the hours.
He's been on the rotation, working cold cases. We still talk. That's
why McCarthy's name rang a bell."

"
Hey look, I wouldn't ask, but a friend of mine
has been, uh, getting involved with him and I'd hate to see her get
hurt."

"The mechanic? What is it, Munch?"

"Yeah, Munch."

"She helped us out on the Summers's double
homicide last month. Brave girl."

"
Yeah, she's got heart all right."

"What have you heard about Chacón?"

"Something about him accepting gratuities from
the wrong kind of people"

Becker's face puckered as if he'd bit into a raw
olive.

"We got deputy chiefs flying to Vegas with their
families for three-thousand-dollar weekends—all expenses paid."
He bent his nose sideways with a stubby finger and gave St. John a
knowing look. "But a cop gets a few front-row seats at a
middleweight bout and people get all shook up."