Furth burned me in the rearview but her eyes softened.
“Could happen.”
The Police Administration Building was a beautiful glass-and-concrete building with a triangular atrium that looked like the prow of a crystal ship. The cops who worked there called it the Boat. The opposite side looked like a Borg mothership.
Furth stayed with the car while Redmon took me up. I never saw her again.
The Major Crimes squad room was large, bright, and filled with partitioned cubicles. Conference rooms lined an inner wall. Offices with views lined the outer wall. One office was open but the others were closed. Three of the cubicles were currently occupied, and three detectives stood by the open office.
Redmon said, “Here we go. The show.”
A tall, slim male detective with receding blond hair came forward to meet us. He wore tan slacks and a blue pin-striped shirt with suspenders. Redmon hooked his thumb at me.
“This is him.”
Redmon turned, and left without another word. I never saw Redmon again, either.
The new guy smiled and put out a hand the size of a king crab.
“Brad Carter. You’re Mr. Cole?”
“Yes, sir. Elvis Cole.”
He clutched my hand like a king crab, too.
“Thanks for coming. Let’s talk in here.”
He guided me toward a conference room.
“Coffee or tea? Earl Grey. It’s my private stash.”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Need the bathroom?”
The world’s most hospitable cop.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
The conference room was small, but pleasant, with an oval table and a glass wall. Drapes were drawn to cover the glass. Carter told me to pick a seat and took a chair across from me. He left the door open.
“Would you identify yourself for me, and let me see your DL?”
I rattled off my name and address, and showed him my driver’s license and my California private investigator’s license. He put them aside as if he planned to keep them, then recited the Echo Park address.
“Okay, Mr. Cole. At or about eleven tonight, you saw a man leave this residence?”
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“I’m told you chased him.”
“Yes, sir. Was he caught?”
“Not yet, but we’ll find him. Can you describe him for me?”
I described the man in the sport coat to Carter exactly as I had described him to Alvin. He scratched at a notebook a couple of times, but mostly he watched me, and mostly he stared at my mouth, as if he needed to read my lips to understand what I was saying.
“Not a lot to work with, but it is what it is. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“I didn’t see his face. He was too far away, and it was dark. I can’t even say if his sport coat was dark gray or dark blue or dark purple.”
He jotted another note.
“All right. So tell me, why did you chase him?”
“An officer named Alvin told me a homicide suspect was in the area. The way this guy crept out of the house, I thought he was probably the suspect. I was closest, so I alerted the officers and tried to catch him. I might’ve been able to run him down, but I don’t know. An officer ran out from behind the house, pointed a gun at me, and that was that.”
“This was Officer Alvin?”
“No, a K-9 officer. He had a dog. Alvin and the other officers were behind me.”
Carter’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He read it, picked up my licenses, and pushed to his feet.
“I’ll make copies of these, and get them back to you. You sure you don’t want something? Coffee or tea?”
“How about an answer. What happened tonight?”
Carter shook his head like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
I said, “The neighborhood was evacuated. The Bomb Squad showed up. What was in the house?”
“I’ll be back in a few. Wait here.”
Carter closed the door and left me for over an hour. I got up at the thirty-minute mark. Locked. I didn’t bother to check it again. Carter would speak with Alvin. He would check my story through incoming field reports and on-scene investigators, and wouldn’t return until he had more questions or no questions.
One hour and twenty-six minutes after he left, Carter returned with an attractive African-American woman wearing jeans and a blazer. She carried a cup in one hand and a silver laptop in the other. Carter had a cup, too, but it was hidden by his enormous, crab-sized hand.
The woman introduced herself as Detective Glory Stiles and flashed a beautiful smile.
“Man, crazy night. Is this off the hook or what? Sorry you had to wait.”
“Worth the wait, seeing you.”
The smile amped a thousand watts.
“My! Aren’t you the charmer?”
“They call me Mr. Charm.”
Glory Stiles was a tall woman with close-cropped natural hair and immaculate bright blue nails. Carter returned to his original seat and Stiles took a seat nearby. I glimpsed a flick of gold on her right thumbnail when she opened the laptop, but couldn’t make out what it was.
Carter was different. The offers of tea were history. His expression was stern with conviction, and designed to intimidate. It’s a look I’ve seen before, and seen done better.
He said, “Okay, Mr. Charm. Tell me again about the man you chased. Describe him.”
“I just described him.”
“Maybe you remembered something while you were waiting. Start at the beginning.”
I smiled nicely and leaned toward him.
“Tell you what, Carter, I’ve been here for hours. You want to arrest me, get to it.”
Glory Stiles said, “Now there’s no reason to be like that.”
I didn’t look at Stiles. I stared at Carter.
“You want me to sit here, tell me what happened tonight.”
Carter sipped his tea.
“A man was murdered.”
“Not that. Why did the Bomb Squad roll out?”
Carter sipped more tea and did not answer. Glory Stiles answered for him.
“Explosive materials were found with the body, Mr. Cole. We don’t have a full account as yet, but they are being removed and disposed of. It’s a dangerous situation.”
I nodded, thinking about Amy Breslyn and her government contract work.
Carter stared over the top of his cup.
“Maybe Mr. Cole can give us an account.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
Glory Stiles said, “I know Detective Carter already asked, but I’m going to ask, too. What were you doing there, and why on God’s beautiful Earth did you chase this man?”
I told them I was looking for a writer named Thomas Lerner. I had not mentioned him before and did not like putting Lerner on their radar, but sooner or later they would learn I asked about Lerner from the neighbor, and might already know. Carter gave no reaction. Glory Stiles took notes by typing, and her fingers blurred over the keys. I had never seen anyone talk and type at the same time, but she did, as if she had two brains. It was a hell of a thing to see. I repeated my conversation with the neighbor, and our conversation with Alvin, and again described when and how I saw the man in a sport coat exit the house. I used the word ‘furtive.’
Carter said, “So you were in your car while the officers did the door-knocks.”
“Yeah. I asked Alvin if I could leave, but he told me they didn’t have anyone to move the cars.”
Carter appeared to believe me, which meant they had already spoken to Alvin.
“You see anyone enter or leave the house besides the man you chased?”
“No.”
Stiles asked the next question as she
typed.
“When you were at the door, did you hear anything inside? Voices or noise or whatever?”
“Nothing. I knocked a couple of times. I tried the bell. It didn’t work.”
Stiles glanced briefly at Carter. Someone had told them the bell didn’t work.
Carter leaned forward.
“Did you smell anything?”
“Like what?”
“You tell me. You either smelled something or you didn’t.”
I wondered if this had something to do with the explosives, and shook my head.
“No.”
Carter leaned back as if he doubted me.
“Who was it you went there to see?”
“Thomas Lerner.”
“Did someone hire you to find him?”
“No.”
“You’re a private investigator.”
“I wasn’t working. I wanted to see if he’d like to collaborate.”
Glory Stiles spoke as she typed.
“No shit! Now wouldn’t that be cool?”
Bright and bubbly, but she didn’t believe a word.
“How do you know Mr. Lerner?”
We were getting down to it, and the ice was thin. I had painted a target on Thomas Lerner and the more we talked about him the larger the target would grow. Carter would want to find him just to check out my story, and pretty soon I’d be in a race to find him first.
“We met at the Times Festival of Books four or five years ago. He wanted to ask about my work, so we swapped contact info. He never called. A few days ago, I found his info and gave him a call. The phone was no good, so I tried the address.”
I looked from Stiles to Carter.
“That’s it.”
“Could we have the phone number?”
I put an edge in my voice, like my patience was thin.
“Tossed it when it turned up bad. Why would I keep it? Had the address, so I gave it a shot.”
“Tonight.”
I had copied Lerner’s address onto my business card. I dug the card from my pocket and slapped it onto the table.
“Yeah, tonight. And if not tonight, it would’ve been tomorrow or the day after or next month, but I picked tonight and here I am stuck with you, only guess what, Carter? The me being stuck part is over.”
I stood.
“I’m done and I’m leaving.”
Carter slowly turned the card, read it, and left it on the table. I snatched it back. He wasn’t angry or threatening. He looked patient.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Cole. I’m sure we’ll talk again.”
He stood and went to the door.
“Finish up, Glory. I’ll get a ride for Mr. Cole.”
Glory Stiles closed her computer and stood as he left.
“Okay, Mr. Cole, I’m going to print a written statement documenting what you’ve told us. I’d like you to read it, and if you believe it to be a true and accurate representation of what you told us, we’d like you to sign it. That okay?”
It wasn’t okay, but I went along. The police almost never asked a witness to sign a statement. They preferred to incorporate witness statements in their reports, which were signed by them and not the witness. This allowed more wiggle room for the prosecutor if the case went to trial. If a witness signed, every error of fact or difference in testimony became red meat for the defense.
I followed Stiles and her laptop out to the squad room.
“Hang here for a sec, and I’ll be right back.”
She left me hanging and quickly crossed the room. Carter had joined two detectives outside an office. One of the two glanced at me and stepped inside.
Three hours after Redmon and Furth delivered me, the Major Crimes squad room was now crowded and busy. A dozen detectives who looked like they would rather be home in bed were working in cubicles or locked in conversations with uniform officers who floated listlessly along the walls.
An officer at a nearby desk sat with his legs out and arms crossed. He was watching me as if he’d had a long day and it was going to be longer.
He said, “Dude, you’re lucky you’re alive.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Have we met?”
“Kinda. You’re the guy who chased our runaway. I almost shot you.”
I saw the K-9 patch on his shoulder, and finally recognized him.
“Thanks for not shooting me.”
“Too much paperwork.”
He leaned forward and offered his hand.
“That wasn’t the smartest move, getting involved, but thanks for trying to help.”
We shook as Glory Stiles reappeared. She led me to a nearby empty desk and told me to read the document. It was only two pages long, but it was an accurate representation of my statements. Even the facts that were lies. I signed and handed it back.
“Okay, Mr. Cole, that wraps it up. We appreciate your cooperation.”
“Carter has a funny way of showing it.”
“We’ll probably want to speak with you again. That okay?”
“Not if I see you coming.”
She flashed the brilliant smile.
“Then I guess we’ll just have to sneak up on you, now won’t we? Your ride is outside. I’ll take you down.”
Carter watched as I left. His eyes held no malice, but I knew I would see him again.
An older officer with a short gray buzz drove me back to my car. The clouds broke open a final time, hammering us with a downpour so fierce the wipers were useless. The officer squinted into the oncoming rain, but did not slow. He could not possibly see the way ahead, but he did not stop.
Neither did I.
The Client
6
Elvis Cole
THE SKIES WERE CLEARING the next morning when I faced Meryl Lawrence across the front seat of her Lexus. The parking lot was on the southwest corner of Sunset and Fairfax, hidden behind a chain pharmacy and a diner known for its breakfast. Meryl Lawrence was pleased with the privacy when she arrived, but angry and shaken when I told her what happened.
“Are you crazy? Why did you get involved?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It wasn’t. It was a terrible idea!”
She dug her phone from her purse. Deep lines creased her face, cutting her skin into armored plates.
“Is it on the news? It’ll be on the news.”
“Check the Times website. You’ll see it.”
She typed with both thumbs, frantic and fast, staring at her phone.
“Did you tell them I hired you? What did you say about Amy?”
“Nothing. I didn’t mention you or Amy or your company, okay? Relax.”
She typed faster. Her eyes wide. Her chest rose and fell.
I touched her arm.
“We have a lot to talk about.”
Meryl Lawrence was in her mid-forties, with sandy hair and the trim, sturdy build of a woman who took care of herself. She wet her lips as she stared at the phone, thinking, and finally glanced up.
“What did you tell them?”
“You’re out of it, but I told them about Lerner.”
She stared at me curiously, as if the words arrived in slow motion, then looked back at the phone.
“Here it is. Jesus.”
“I had to tell them, Meryl. The police will question everyone in the neighborhood. They’ll find out I asked about Thomas Lerner. Better they heard it from me.”
She read a few seconds before glancing up.
“They’ll want him to confirm your story.”
“Yes. They’re suspicious. They don’t like it I was at the house. They’ll come down on me to pick apart my story.”
She went back to reading, touching her lower lip as
if making a prayer.
“Unbelievable. A murder. Someone had to murder this guy last night?”
“Lerner moved out at least three years ago, so I might be able to find him first. They’ll look, but Lerner won’t be their top priority. They have plenty to do.”
Meryl Lawrence suddenly lowered her phone and held out a plain white envelope.
“Forget Lerner. Don’t waste more time with him. Here’s the key and alarm code. Her house is probably filled with clues about her boyfriend.”
I didn’t take the envelope.
“What does Amy Breslyn do for your company?”
“I told you, she’s our vice president in charge of production. What does this have to do with anything?”
“I read her file last night. Your company makes fuels, accelerants, and chemical energy systems. Is a chemical energy system another way of saying ‘explosives’?”
She frowned as if she were getting angry and the armor plates returned.
“Everything we make is explosive. What does it matter?”
I reached across to scroll her phone. The Times posted the original story at 3:20 that morning. I read it at 4:15. The photo illustrating the story showed a Bomb Squad vehicle parked in front of Lerner’s house. An update posted at 3:34 described the munitions removed from the house.
“This is Lerner’s house. This is the Bomb Squad. When the police went in, they found four rocket-propelled grenades, a dozen forty-millimeter grenade cartridges, and plastic explosives.”
I watched Meryl Lawrence stare at the picture.
“Kind of a crazy coincidence, you making explosives and all these munitions and explosives in the house.”
Meryl shook her head and lowered the phone.
“I wouldn’t know a rocket-propelled grenade if I sat on it and neither would Amy.”
“I read the file, Meryl. Her corporate biography makes a big deal out of her experience. Double- and triple-based composite fuels. Slurries, gels, and castable propellants. Plasticized accelerants. I had to Google those things to see what they were.”
“We don’t make weapons.”
“You make what’s inside. You make the bang.”
“You can’t honestly believe Amy has something to do with this nonsense.”