Fallen Angels (2 page)

In less than an hour, Josie had made all the notifications and had press relations handling the calls. She found a full pot of fresh coffee in the detective’s squad room and felt her headache dissipating as she drank from an almost clean oversized mug. Detective Red Behan was at his desk scribbling on a yellow pad. He was tall and lanky, a redheaded Ichabod Crane who looked as if he’d slept in his jeans and short-sleeved blue plaid shirt. His fourth wife had thrown him out of the house a few weeks ago, so he probably had. His unruly red hair needed combing and his puffy eyes were an indication that he had spent a good part of the night drinking, again. He was in his forties, but was one of those boyish guys who would never look or act his age, but lately, Josie worried her friend seemed a bit frayed around the edges.

She sat at the desk next to his and waited until he finished writing. He had a new computer but preferred writing everything in longhand first.

“Morning, boss,” he said, not looking up. “Did my fearless leader get you out of bed for this mess?” he asked. Josie realized she probably looked like a train wreck, too. Ibarra’s phone call woke her from a restless sleep. She didn’t bother to shower or brush her teeth, and dressed in the jeans and sweater she’d thrown on a chair next to her bed late last night. She and Jake had stayed up arguing about their son again. David wasn’t the only subject they disagreed on lately, but he’d become the favorite.

Eventually, she’d take a shower at the station and change into her uniform. Before driving from her house to Hollywood, she managed to brush and twist her long black hair into something resembling a messy French twist. Makeup wasn’t anything she needed or ever wore. Nature had blessed her with thick eyelashes and a clear olive complexion, but over all, she figured the best description of her appearance this morning was chaos.

“Tell me important stuff,” Josie said. She knew the big redhead didn’t like long stories either.

“Miss underage, never-gonna-see-eighteen movie star goes to a party, gets shot in the head by unknown assailant and dies. Nobody saw or heard anything, and it looks like there’s no prints on the gun.” He stopped and looked at his watch. “As of 0630 hours, detectives are baffled.” He glanced up at her and grinned. “There’s nothing important to tell yet.”

Josie stretched her long legs and pulled herself up. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s what I figured.”

“Happy to help, boss,” he said to her back.

“Asshole,” she mumbled and heard him chuckling as she walked away. Red Behan was one of the good guys. He couldn’t be politically correct even if she threatened him. He said what he thought, and Josie always went out of her way to protect him because he was as loyal to her as an old hound dog and the best detective in Hollywood. Ten years ago, when she was a detective, they worked and drank together. These days he consumed enough alcohol for both of them, and she preferred to do her drinking alone, but they remained friends.

When Josie got back to the captain’s office, her adjutant was watching her television. The local news station was showing pictures of the party house surrounded by yards of yellow crime scene tape. Reporters were interviewing neighbors, gardeners, any live body they could find in the neighborhood. A studio photo of Hillary Dennis in an evening gown was set in a corner of the screen, as an Asian woman questioned the pool cleaner from next door. Josie was grateful there was no sign of Ibarra.

Josie turned off the television and sat on the couch across from her desk. She had slept on this couch for more nights than she could remember, and it was tempting to stretch out now and sleep for a couple of hours. Jake had accused her of pretending to have call-outs so she could sleep here instead of in their bed. Sometimes, he was right.

“You okay?” the adjutant asked, sitting in the chair behind her desk. Sergeant Bobby Jones was a young stocky black man with an easygoing manner, a smooth, youthful face and big brown intelligent eyes. He liked to talk and was smart, but she wasn’t in the mood this morning.

“Call West bureau and find out what time I can brief the chief on this Dennis thing. I’m going up to roll call.” She got up and left him in her office. Josie hadn’t been to roll call for a few weeks, and she knew the uniformed patrol officers liked to have her there so they could find out what was going on in their division, especially on mornings like this. Besides, a few minutes with them always left her energized.

Half an hour later, she had answered every question she could about the morning’s events and made a mental list of all the officers’ complaints, including those problems she couldn’t solve. It was important to make contact because their lives were tied to her. She had a son, but was ashamed to admit she never worried about him as much as she worried about these young men and women. They might die doing what she asked them to do every day. A few had. David was . . . David wasn’t likely to expose himself to danger for anyone, especially his mother.

Behan was waiting in her office when she got back. He was sitting on her couch shuffling through a pile of photos.

“You’ve got a visitor,” he said without looking up. “Mrs. Joyce Dennis, Hillary’s mommy, is waiting in Ibarra’s office. She wants to talk to you.”

Josie groaned. “What for? I can’t tell her anything more than you or Ibarra.”

“I mentioned that, but she thinks talking to you will inspire us to solve her little girl’s murder.”

“What are those?” Josie asked, attempting to see the pictures Behan kept mixing up.

“Shots of the killer, according to Mrs. Dennis,” he said, handing her one of the photos. “Looks like it was taken at a club. Quality’s not good. It was printed on one of those cheap digital printers.” He pointed at a tattooed young man with a shaved head standing beside a somber, glassy-eyed Hillary Dennis. She was wearing a rhinestone-studded tank top, silk shorts, and knee-high white leather boots. “Mom says this handsome guy threatened Hillary yesterday morning, swore he would blow her brains out.”

“Does he have a name?” Josie asked.

“Cory Goldman.”

“Any relation to . . .”

“His son,” Behan answered before she could finish. “The honorable Los Angeles City Councilman Eli Goldman’s first born.”

TWO

E
very decision Josie made as the commanding officer of the Hollywood station was potentially explosive in a city full of unmarked special-interest landmines. The chief of police, police commission, her bureau, the diverse community, the ACLU, the officers and their union—all their needs and demands kept in perfect balance like a juggler spinning plates. Josie thrived on the work. Her marriage might be in a tailspin and her son a complete mystery to her, but she knew she was good at her job.

She went to the locker room, took a shower, put on her uniform, and invited Mrs. Dennis to step into her office. The woman wasn’t what Josie had expected, not the hardcore, stage-mother type. Mrs. Dennis was old and ordinary with sparse grey hair and an off-the-rack, faded brown matronly dress. Apparently, Hillary hadn’t shared any of her considerable wealth with her mother.

Mrs. Dennis explained that Hillary, the youngest of her five children, had been spotted by a talent agent four years ago at the L.A. County Museum of Art when she was thirteen. The agent got her a bit part in a B-movie where Hillary’s sultry Lolita look caught on. Bigger parts and more money followed.

“She hasn’t listened to me since she was sixteen,” Mrs. Dennis said. “There was so much money. Shoulda had a firm hand, but they let her run wild. All they wanted was money . . . stole my little girl from me, got her killed.”

“Was she an emancipated minor?” Josie asked. Mrs. Dennis stared blankly at her. “Did the court let her live on her own?”

The older woman nodded. “Too young,” she mumbled and her eyes narrowed. “Her agent’s a whore . . . she’s a evil bitch.”

“Detective Behan’s very good, Mrs. Dennis,” Josie said, a little taken aback by the prudish-looking woman’s profanity.

“I want that boy arrested.”

“If detective . . .”

“I don’t care about no goddamn detective,” she said interrupting Josie. Her eyes were filled with hate. “I want that devil’s spawn and that whore to pay for what they did to my baby.”

She was shouting now. The adjutant got up from his desk in the outer office and came to the doorway, but Josie waved him away. She sat on the couch beside the older woman and touched her hand. The gesture seemed to jolt Mrs. Dennis back to the present.

“I know God’s gonna punish them to burn in hell for what they done, but I need some peace of mind,” Mrs. Dennis whined, looking up at the ceiling and squeezing Josie’s hand.

She blushed as if she had revealed too much, stood, thanked Josie for her time and left. As soon as the door to the lobby closed, Jones was out of his chair and back in the captain’s office.

“Scary old woman,” he said.

“Her kid’s dead. That’ll make you scary.” Josie had never worked juvenile or family crimes, but even she recognized a dysfunctional family. Hillary might’ve had good reason to find a life away from her mother.

“Bureau called. ‘Not So’ wants to see you as soon as you’re available,” the adjutant said, grinning.

“I told you not to call him that,” Josie said, trying to sound serious. She wasn’t fond of Deputy Chief Eric Bright and knew the officers had given him the nickname ‘Not So,’ but she insisted they at least respect the man’s rank. Police officers were intuitive and quick to label. They didn’t trust a leader who lacked experience or failed to demonstrate he or she could make sound decisions. They had decided Deputy Chief Bright fit that description.

Josie wondered if she was the only commanding officer who worried what her officers said about her in the locker rooms or in the privacy of their patrol cars. She knew command wasn’t a popularity contest, but she needed their respect and understood in this volatile police world how little it took—a misspoken word, a moment of indecision—to lose their esteem forever.

It was nearly noon, but Josie called the bureau and was told Bright was eating lunch at his desk today. She drove across the Westside to the Wilshire area where West bureau was located. The prospect of dealing with Bright today wasn’t pleasant, but it had to be done. As one of West bureau’s four division captains, Josie had to report to Deputy Chief Bright every day. Josie thought he ran West bureau like a preschool. She didn’t need or want his assistance or constant input. She knew how to run Hollywood, and her stats confirmed she did a good job, but Bright insisted she report daily on every routine activity. With a high profile homicide, Josie knew the deputy chief’s interference would become intolerable.

The bureau had newer offices adjacent to the Wilshire police station. Unlike Josie, the Wilshire captain spent as much time as possible hanging around the bureau. He and Bright had lunch together several times a week. Josie was certain if she could make Ibarra appear competent, the Wilshire captain would steal him, and the bureau would bless the deal. Josie would pretend to be outraged, but she already had transfer papers in her desk for a highly respected, talented lieutenant who wanted to move to Hollywood detectives as soon as Ibarra was gone.

Bright’s adjutant Art Perry was a tall, handsome sergeant who looked better in uniform than anyone Josie had ever seen. She didn’t know how successful he’d been as a field supervisor, but she didn’t like him. He was smug, condescending and often acted as if he were speaking for himself rather than his boss, the first cardinal sin of adjutants.

“Morning, Art,” she said, walking past him into Eric Bright’s office. The sergeant mumbled something.

The chief’s office was smaller than Josie’s at Hollywood. It had room for a desk and a few nearly empty bookshelves. The primary reason she never wanted to promote higher than captain was beautifully demonstrated in this office. Any rank above captain had nothing important to do except create meaningless projects and audits, or find other ways to annoy cops with real jobs.

“Here’s all we have on the Hillary Dennis homicide and a copy of the press release,” Josie said, placing a folder on his nearly empty desk as she sat on the only other chair.