The Two Minute Rule

  Holman found Chee’s number in the memory, and was listening to Chee’s line ring when a grey car slid up fast beside him, blocking him against the curb. Holman saw the doors open as Chee answered—

  “Hello?”

  “Hang on—”

  “Homes?”

  Random and his driver stepped out of the gray car as Holman caught a flash of movement from the curb. Vukovich and another man were stepping off the sidewalk, one from the front and one from the back. They were holding pistols down along their legs. Chee’s tinny voice squawked from the phone—

  “Holman, is that you?”

  “Don’t hang up. The cops are coming—”

  Holman let the phone slip to the seat and put both hands on the steering wheel, motionless and in plain sight. Chee’s voice was an electronic squeak.

  “Homes?”

  Random pulled open the door, then stepped aside. His driver was shorter than Holman but as wide as a bed. He jerked Holman out from behind the wheel and shoved him face-first against the Highlander.

  “Don’t fucking move.”

  Holman didn’t resist. The short guy patted him down while Random leaned into the car. Random turned off the ignition, then backed out of the car with Holman’s phone. He held it to his ear, listened, then closed the phone and tossed it back into the car.

  Random said, “Nice phone.”

  “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

  “Nice car, too. Where’d you get a car like this? You steal it?”

  “I rented it.”

  The short guy shoved Holman harder against the car.

  “Keep your face planted.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “Too fucking bad.”

  Random said, “Vuke, run the car. You can’t rent a car without a driver’s license and a credit card. I think he stole it.”

  Holman said, “I got a driver’s license, goddamnit. It came yesterday. The rental papers are in the glove box.”

  Vukovich opened the far passenger door to check the glove box as the short guy pulled Holman’s wallet.

  Holman said, “This is bullshit. Why are you doing this?”

  Random pulled Holman around so they were facing each other while the short guy brought the wallet to his car and went to work on their computer. Three students stopped on the sidewalk, but Random didn’t seem concerned. His eyes were dark knots focused on Holman.

  “You don’t think Jacki Fowler is suffering enough?”

  “What are you talking about? So I went to see her? So what?”

  “Here’s a widow with four boys and a dead husband, but you had to invade her privacy. Why would you want to upset a woman like that, Holman? What do you expect to gain?”

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to my son.”

  “I told you what happened when I told you to let me do my job.”

  “I don’t think you’re doing your job. I don’t know what in fuck you’re doing. Why did you go to my boss? What the fuck is that, asking if he thinks I’m on drugs?”

  “You’re a drug addict.”

  “Was. Was.”

  “Drug addicts always want more, and I’m thinking that’s why you’re leaning on the families. You’re looking to score. Even from your own daughter-in-law.”

  “Was!Fuck you, motherfucker.”

  Holman fought hard for his self-control.

  “That’s my son’s wife, you sonofabitch. Now it’s me telling you to stay away from her. You goddamn leave her alone.”

  Random stepped closer and Holman knew he was being provoked. Random wanted him to swing. Random wanted to take him inside.

  “You don’t have a right to tell me anything. You were nothing to your son, so don’t give yourself airs. You didn’t even meet the girl until last week, so don’t pretend she’s your family.”

  Holman felt a deep throbbing in his temples. His vision grayed at the edges as the throbbing grew. Random floated in front of him like a target, but Holman told himself no. Why did Random want him inside? Why did Random want him out of the way?

  Holman said, “What was in those reports you took?”

  Random’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t answer, and Holman knew the reports were important.

  “My daughter-in-law claims you took something that belonged to my son from her house. Did you have a warrant, Random? Did it list what you went there to find or were you grabbing whatever you wanted? That sounds like theft, if you had no warrant.”

  Random was still staring when Vukovich backed out of the car with the rental papers. He held them out to show Random.

  “He’s got a rental agreement here in his name. Looks legit.”

  Holman said, “It is legit, Detective, just like your warrant. Call’m and see.”

  Random studied the papers.

  “Quality Motors of Los Angeles. You ever heard of Quality Motors?”

  Vukovich shrugged as Random called over his shoulder.

  “Teddy? You get the plate?”

  The short guy was Teddy. Teddy returned and handed Holman’s license and wallet to Random.

  “Vehicle registered to Quality Motors, no wants, warrants, or citations. His DL shows good, too.”

  Random glanced at the driver’s license, then Holman.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “The Department of Motor Vehicles. Where did you get your warrant?”

  Random put the license back in Holman’s wallet but held on to it along with the rental papers. Random had backed off, and now Holman knew the reports were important. Random wasn’t pressing because he didn’t want Holman to make a stink about the reports.

  Random said, “I want to make sure you understand the situation, Holman. I asked you one time nice. This is me telling you a second time. I’m not going to let you make it more difficult for these families. Stay away from them.”

  “I’m one of those families.”

  Something like a smile played at Random’s lips. He stepped closer and whispered.

  “Which family? Frogtown?”

  “Juarez was Frogtown. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You like White Fence any better?”

  Holman kept his face empty.

  “How’s your friend Gary Moreno—L’Chee?”

  “I haven’t seen him in years. Maybe I’ll look him up.”

  Random tossed Holman’s wallet and rental papers into the Highlander.

  “You’re fucking me up, Holman, and I cannot tolerate that and will not allow it. I will not allow it for the four men who died. And I will not allow it for their families in which, as we all know, you are not included.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “You claim you want answers, but you have made it harder for me to find those answers, and I take that personally.”

  “I thought you knew the answers.”

  “Most of the answers, Holman. Most. But now because of you an important door just closed in my face and I don’t know if I’ll be able to open it again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maria Juarez disappeared. She split, man. She could have told us how Warren put it together, but now she’s gone and that one is on you. So if you feel like undercutting me with your daughter-in-law again, you get the urge to make these families doubt what we’re doing and keep their grief fresh, you explain to them how you delayed the case by being an asshole. Are we clear?”

  Holman did not respond.

  “Don’t try my patience, boy. This isn’t a fucking game.”

  Random went back to his car. Vukovich and the other guy vanished. The grey car pulled away. The three kids on the sidewalk were gone. Holman climbed back into the Highlander and picked up his phone. He listened, but the line was dead. He got out again, went around to the passenger side, and felt under the seat. He checked the floorboards and glove box and panel pocket in the door, then checked the rear floors and back seats, too, worried that they had planted something in his car.

/>   Holman didn’t believe Random’s false concern for the families or even that Random believed he was looking to score. Holman had been fronted and leaned on by a hundred cops, and he sensed something deeper was at play. Random wanted him out of the way, but Holman didn’t know why.

  24

  POLLARD WAS ON her way downtown to check out the crime scene. She had picked up the Hollywood Freeway and dropped down into the belly of the city when April Sanders called.

  Sanders said, “Hey. You get the faxes okay?”

  “I was going to call you to say thanks, girl. You really came through.”

  “Hope you still think so after I tell you the rest. LAPD froze me out. I can’t get their file.”

  “You’re kidding! They must have something in play.”

  Pollard was surprised. The Feeb’s Bank Squad and the LAPD’s Bank Robbery team worked together so often on the same cases they shared information freely.

  April said, “I don’t know why they wouldn’t come across. I asked the putz—you remember George Hines?”

  “No.”

  “Probably came on after you left. Anyway, I said, what gives with that, I thought we were butt buddies, what happened to agency cooperation?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said they didn’t have the case anymore.”

  “How could they not have the case anymore? They’re the Robbery bank team.”

  “What I said. After they closed the file someone upstairs pulled the whole damned thing. I’m like, who upstairs, the chief, God? He said it wasn’t their case anymore and that’s all he could tell me.”

  “How could it not be Robbery’s case? It was a robbery.”

  “If those guys knew what they were doing they would be us, not them. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Pollard drove for a few seconds, thinking.

  “But he said the case was closed?”

  “Those were his words. Shit—gotta run. Leeds—”

  The line went dead in Pollard’s ear. If LAPD had closed the book on Marchenko and Parsons, it increased the odds that Richard Holman had been involved with Fowler and the others in something off the books. It was bad news for Holman, but Pollard already had bad news to share—April’s witness list had included the names and numbers of thirty-two people who had been interviewed by the FBI in the matter of Marchenko and Parsons. Marchenko’s mother, Leyla, had been among them. Pollard had checked the thirty-two telephone numbers against the outgoing numbers appearing on both Richard Holman’s and Mike Fowler’s phone records and come up with a hit. Fowler had phoned Marchenko’s mother twice. It was highly unlikely that a uniformed field supervisor would have a legitimate reason to contact a witness, so Pollard now felt sure Fowler had been conducting some kind of rogue investigation. Fowler’s contact indicated Holman’s son was almost certainly involved in something inappropriate or illegal. Pollard didn’t look forward to telling Holman. She found his need to believe in his son moving.

  Pollard dropped off the Hollywood Freeway at Alameda, then cruised south down Alameda parallel with the river. When she reached Fourth Street, she used the Fourth Street Bridge to cross over to the eastern side of the river. The east side was thick with warehouses and train yards and congested with eighteen-wheel cargo trucks. Pollard had been to the river only twice before, once as part of a task force targeting the importation of Iranian drugs and the other as part of a task force tracking a pedophile who brought children from Mexico and Thailand. Pollard had arrived on the scene in the drug case after the body had already been found, but she hadn’t been so lucky in the pedophile case. Pollard had discovered the bodies of three small children in a container car, one boy and two girls, and she had not slept after that for weeks. It wasn’t lost on Pollard that here she was again, drawn back to the river by death. The Los Angeles River left her feeling creeped out and queasy. Maybe more now because she knew she might break the law.

  Pollard was a cop; even though she had left the Feeb eight years ago, she still felt like part of the law enforcement community. She had married a cop, most of her friends were cops, and, like almost every cop she knew, she didn’t want to get in trouble with other cops. The L.A. River was a restricted area. Jumping the fence to check out the crime scene would be a misdemeanor offense, but Pollard knew she had to see if Holman’s description held up. She had to see for herself.

  Pollard drove along Mission Road, following the fence past trucks and workmen until she found the service gate. She parked beside the fence, locked her car, then went to the gate. A dry breeze came out of the east that smelled of kerosene. Pollard was wearing jeans and Nikes and had a pair of Marty’s work gloves in case she had to climb. The gate was locked and had been secured with a secondary chain, which she had expected. She also expected that security patrols along the gates had been increased, but so far she hadn’t seen anyone. Pollard had hoped she could see the scene well enough from above, but as soon as she reached the gate she knew she would have to climb.

  The riverbed was a wide concrete plain cut by a trough and bordered by paved banks that were crowned with fences and barbed wire. She could see the Fourth Street Bridge from the gate, but not well enough to envision the crime scene in her head. Cars crossed the bridge in both directions and pedestrians moved on the sidewalks. The bright morning sun painted a sharp shadow beneath the bridge, cutting across the river. Pollard thought everything about the scene was ugly and industrial—the nasty concrete channel with its lack of life; the muddy trickle of water that looked like a sewer; the weeds sprouting hopelessly from cracks in the concrete. It looked like a bad place to die, and an even worse place for an ex-FBI agent to be arrested for unauthorized entry.

  Pollard was pulling on her gloves when a white pickup truck drove out from one of the loading docks and beeped its horn. Pollard thought it was a security patrol, but when the truck drew close she saw it belonged to one of the shipping companies. The driver braked to a stop by the gate. He was a middle-aged man with short grey hair and a fleshy neck.

  “Just letting you know. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “I know. I’m with the FBI.”

  “I’m just telling you. We had some murders down here.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Thanks.”

  “They have security patrols.”

  “Thanks.”

  Pollard wished he would get the hell on with his business and leave her alone, but he didn’t move.

  “You have some identification or something?”

  Pollard put her gloves away and walked over to the truck, staring at him the way she had stared at criminals she was about to handcuff.

  “You have some authority to ask?”

  “Well, I work over there and they asked us to keep an eye out. I don’t mean anything by it.”

  Pollard pulled out her wallet, but didn’t open it. She had turned in her badge and FBI commission card—which agents called their creds—when she left the Feeb, but her wallet had been a gift from Marty. He had purchased it at the FBI gift shop in Quantico because it was emblazoned with the FBI seal. Pollard kept her hard stare on the driver as she tapped her wallet, making no move to open it but letting him see the red, white, and blue seal.

  “We got a report someone down here was taking tourists on tours of the crime scene. Tourists, for Christ’s sake. You know anything about that?”

  “I never heard anything like that.”

  Pollard studied him as if she suspected him of the crime.

  “We heard it was someone in a white truck.”

  The fleshy neck quivered and the man shook his head.

  “Well, we got a million white trucks down here. I don’t know anything about it.”

  Pollard studied him as if she was making a life-or-death decision, then slipped her wallet back into her jeans.

  “If you want to keep your eye out for something, watch for the white truck.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “One more thing. Are you down h
ere at night or just during the day?”

  “The day.”

  “Okay then, forget it. You’re doing a good job keeping an eye on things. Now move on and let me do my job.”

  Pollard waited as he drove away, then turned back to the gate. She climbed the gate without much difficulty, then walked down the service drive. Entering the riverbed was like lowering herself into a trench. Concrete walls rose around her, cutting off the city from view, and soon all she could see were the tops of a few downtown skyscrapers.

  The smooth flat channel stretched in both directions and the air was still. The kerosene breeze couldn’t reach her down here. Pollard could see the Sixth Street and Seventh Street bridges to the south, and the First Street Bridge beyond the Fourth Street Bridge to the north. The channel walls in this part of the river were twenty-foot verticals topped by the fence. They reminded Pollard of a maximum security prison and their purpose was the same. The walls were designed to contain the river during the rainy season. During the rains, the normally pathetic trickle would quickly overflow its trough and climb the higher walls like a raging beast, devouring everything in its path. Pollard knew that once she left the safety of the service ramp, the walls would become her prison, too. If a rush of water surged through the channel, she would have no way out. If a police car rolled up to the fence, she would have no place to hide.

  Pollard made her way to the bridge and stepped out of the sun into the shade. It was cooler. Pollard had brought the Times ’s drawing of the crime scene and Holman’s sketch, but she didn’t need them to see where the bodies had lain. Four shining irregular shapes were visible on the concrete beneath the bridge, each shape brighter and cleaner than the surrounding pavement. It was always this way. After the bodies had been removed and the crime scene cleared by the police, a hazmat crew had disinfected the area. Pollard had once seen them work. Blood was soaked up with absorbent granules, then vacuumed into special containers to remove all human tissue. Contaminated areas were sprayed with disinfectant, then scoured with high-pressure steam. Now, more than a week later, the ground where each man died glowed like a shimmering ghost. Pollard wondered if Holman had known what they were. She did not step on the clean places; she carefully stepped around them.