Free Fall (28 page)

“There’s Garcia.”

Mark Thurman sighed. “If he makes it.”

“There’s me and there’s Pike.”

“Yeah. But that’s just words. You weren’t there that night.”

“No. But we’ll offer what we can. If no one believes, then there it is.”

A nurse came and told Mark that it would be just a minute more.

I said, “What do you want to do, Mark?”

He looked at Jennifer, and she nodded, and then he looked at me. “I don’t care about the tape. I want to go forward. I want to tell them what happened to Charles Lewis Washington. Can you set that up?”

I patted his shoulder and the orderlies came and took him away.

Jennifer Sheridan and I went into the little waiting room they have there and I bought her a cup of coffee. Then I went to the pay phone and called Lou Poitras. It was eighteen minutes after six, and he wasn’t happy to hear from me. “You’re late. I got half a dozen people sitting here waiting for you and your boy Thurman. You getting cold feet?”

“The tape’s gone, Lou. Dees burned it.”

Lou Poitras put me on hold. A couple of minutes
later he picked up again. “I had to change phones. I didn’t want those people to see me have an aneurism.”

“Dees is dead. So is Riggens. Garcia and Thurman are under the knife now, and Pinkworth ran. I’d guess he’ll go home. He’ll think about it for an hour, then call in with a story.”

Lou Poitras said, “Jesus Christ.”

“Thurman wants to come in, Lou. Tape or no tape. He wants to make a statement about what happened in the pawnshop, and what’s been happening since, and he’s willing to testify.”

Lou Poitras made a soft sound, but said nothing for several seconds. “There’s no deal without the tape, Hound Dog. None of these people will make a promise on verbal testimony. If he comes forward, he takes his chances.”

“He knows that. He wants to step forward anyway. If Garcia makes it, he’ll probably be willing to corroborate.”

“That would help.”

“But even if Garcia doesn’t, Thurman comes forward.”

“I understand.” There was maybe just a little bit more respect in Lou Poitras’s voice than there had been. “We’re going to have to bring you in. Tell me where you are.”

I told him.

When I hung up, Joe Pike was sitting beside Jennifer Sheridan. He was holding her hand. I sat on the other side of her and took her free hand. She didn’t look happy. She said, “I can’t believe I killed a man. I just shot him.”

“Yes.”

“A man I’ve known and talked to. Before they were divorced, the four of us had dinner once. We ate at the Sizzler.” She was staring at a point in the middle space, somewhere very far from here.

I said, “You shot a man who was going to murder Mark Thurman. If you hadn’t shot him, Mark would be dead. Do you see that?”

She nodded.

“It’s what you have, and you must use it. You’re going to hurt. You’re going to miss sleep, and you’re going to feel guilty, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but you can survive it. You helped Mark survive, and now he will help you. He is alive because of you. When you hear him breathe, when you see him smile, it is because of you. Tell yourself that and know that it’s true. Tell it to yourself as often as you need. If you forget, call me and I will tell you.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder and we sat like that. A few minutes later I told them about the call to Lou Poitras and the way it was going to be.

When I finished, Jennifer Sheridan said, “I don’t want to leave Mark.”

I rubbed her hand. Joe still had the other. “You’ll be fine. They’re going to want to talk to you, and to Mark, but probably not until later. Joe and I will go now.”

She looked down at our hands, then up again. “What will I say?”

“The truth.”

“Will they put him in jail?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t know. A lot of people out there are going to want his head.”

She nodded again, and this time smiled sort of sadly. “He just wanted to be a police officer.”

“Yes. But now he’ll have to move on, and so will you.”

“It’s going to be such a big change. What will he do?”

“Something.”

“Well, we still have each other. We can make it.”

“Yes,” I said. “If you want to make it, you can.”

She smiled again, and this time the smile didn’t seem so sad. “Thanks for sticking it out with me.”

“Jennifer, you’re worth it.”

Twenty-two minutes later a couple of California Highway Patrol cops in khaki uniforms came into the waiting room. The shorter of the two said, “Who’s Cole?”

“Me.” I stood, and Pike stood with me. Jennifer got up with Pike and took my hand.

The same cop said, “We’re supposed to take you down to L.A. Is this guy Pike?”

Pike said, “Yeah.”

“Okay. The both of you.”

The taller guy began to dig out his cuffs, but the shorter guy waved them away. “We don’t need that.”

Jennifer’s grip on my hand tightened. I gave her the smile and squeezed her hand back and said, “Everything’s going to be fine.” Mr. Confidence.

The high desert sky was turning a nice purple when the state cops loaded us into a black-and-white highway cruiser and blasted off down the Antelope Valley Freeway. Less than an hour later, the sky was dark when we pulled into the parking lot of the Seventy-seventh Division in South Central Los Angeles. I thought they’d take us to Parker Center, but there you go. Criminals always return to the scene of the crime. Even if we have to be taken.

They were expecting us. The Seventy-seventh’s halls and squad rooms were jammed with cops and reporters and lawyers and handcuffed young black men who looked like they were Eight-Deuce gangbangers. A couple of them I recognized. I didn’t see Akeem D’Muere, but Harold Bellis was talking to the homicide lieutenant, Stilwell. Stilwell looked bored, but Bellis looked confident. He also looked like he had just been called away from dinner. L’Orangerie, no doubt. Des
Oeufs de
Poule au Beluga
, no doubt. The appetizer alone would’ve cost more than Stilwell’s take-home for the day.

Stilwell saw me, went to a closed door that said
WATCH COMMANDER
, then opened the door and stuck in his head. Lou Poitras came out with two women and four men. The squad room was so crowded that if any more people came out of the office, they’d have to kick out the bad guys to make room for the good guys. One of the women was a prosecutor in the DA’s office named Murphy, and one of the men was a uniformed captain who was probably the watch commander. I didn’t recognize the others.

A guy in a wrinkled pinstripe with no tie said, “Is this Cole?” He said it like he was in charge.

Lou Poitras pointed at me, then Pike. “Cole. Pike.”

The pinstripe said, “Let’s go through it. I want to wrap this up.”

The pinstripe was a guy named Garvey from the chief’s office and the other woman was a muck-a-muck named Greenberg from the city council. Of the two other guys, one was named Fallon, also from the DA’s, and the other was from the mayor’s office. The guy from the mayor was named Haywood. Fallon and Haywood took Joe Pike into an office down the hall, and Greenberg went with them. Garvey and everybody else took me into the watch commander’s office. When we were settled, Murphy said, “You’re not under arrest at this time, Mr. Cole, but we reserve the right to prosecute you for anything that you might admit to or say during this interview.”

Lou Poitras said, “Jesus Christ, Murphy.”

Garvey made a take-it-easy gesture. “At ease, Sergeant.”

Murphy said, “Who’s your attorney?”

“Charlie Bauman.”

She nodded. “I know Charlie. I’d advise you to call him.”

I took her advice. An uncharacteristically smart move.

Everyone left for coffee while I called Charlie, told him where I was, and told him that I wouldn’t say anything until he arrived. When I was done, I opened the door and saw Lou Poitras standing in the squad room with his boss from North Hollywood, a lieutenant named Baishe. Baishe has always looked shriveled and tight to me, sort of like a daddy longlegs, and he’s never liked me much, but when I opened the door, he was jabbing the street cop Micelli in the chest and telling him that he’d acted like a goddamned bush-league asshole. Micelli said he didn’t have to take this shit from some North Hollywood dick and jabbed back, and when he did Lou Poitras slapped his hand to the side and told him to step away. Poitras was maybe five inches taller than Micelli and eighty pounds heavier, and he looked like he was itching to use it. Micelli told Poitras to fuck himself, but he stepped away. Stilwell was over by a couple of uniforms, staying out of it. I said, “Christ, Baishe, were you defending me?”

When Baishe saw me grinning, he scowled and said, “Hell, no. I always knew you’d fuck up big time. I’m just surprised it took you this long.” A man with friends is the wealthiest man in the world.

Poitras told me to wait in the office, then asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I told him that I did and waited in the open doorway for him to bring it. While I was waiting two Hispanic cops brought in Akeem D’Muere. His hands were cuffed, but he walked tall and defiantly, as if he were in some way larger than life, as if he were above all this and impervious to it and amused by it. Harold Bellis went to him, immediately complaining to the officers about the handcuffs. No one jumped to take them off. Stilwell went over to the uniforms, and they led D’Muere and Bellis toward the interrogation rooms. When they led D’Muere past, he saw me. I made my
hand into a gun, pointed it at him, and dropped the hammer. He smiled. Amused.

Charlie Bauman came in maybe ten minutes later.

Murphy from the DA and Garvey from the chief saw him before I did, and then Charlie came to me. “You say anything yet?”

“I learned my lesson last time.”

“Okay. These guys wanna have a powwow, so lemme see what I can work out.”

He went back to them, and pretty soon they were joined by Greenberg and Haywood. When Charlie came back, he said, “They want a freebie, and I’m willing to give it to them, but it’s up to you. You run through what you know and answer their questions, but it’ll be off the record. If they decide to prosecute, they can’t use your statements against you. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

We went back into the watch commander’s office, and I went through everything from the beginning, just as I had when I’d gone through it with Stilwell and Micelli, only this time there was more of it to tell. Everyone looked interested except the watch commander, who spent a lot of time saying things like, “I’ve known Eric Dees for ten goddamned years. He’s a fine officer,” or, “Talk is cheap, but where’s the goddamned evidence?” He said stuff like that until Murphy told him to shut up or leave the room.

I told them how Mark Thurman and I had stolen the tape from Eric Dees’s garage, and described what I had seen on the tape and how I had tried to make the deal through Poitras. Poitras confirmed it. Then I told them what had happened at the Space Age Drive-In and what had happened to the tape. Murphy said, “And the tape is destroyed?”

“Yeah. Dees burned it.”

The watch commander said, “Ha.” As if that proved something.

Murphy ignored him and looked at Garvey. He shrugged. “Might be possible to recover some of it. Won’t know until we look.” Garvey picked up the phone and punched numbers. “Where is it?”

I told him.

He repeated it into the phone.

We spent a total of three hours and fourteen minutes on it, and then Murphy said, “Why don’t you kick back for a while. We’ve got to talk with Pike, and then we’ve got to see where we stand.”

“Sure.” Mr. Kick Back. That’s me.

They let me stay in the commander’s office. They left the door open and told me to help myself to coffee or the bathroom, but not to leave the building. Charlie Bauman went with them. The squad room had sort of settled down, with most of the reporters and lawyers gone, and most of the Gangster Boys in holding cells or interrogation rooms. It was closing on midnight, and from somewhere along one of the halls I could hear Jay Leno.

Maybe forty minutes later Charlie Bauman and the others came back. The people from the DA and the mayor and the city council stopped in the hall to talk, and Charlie and Pike came over to me. Charlie looked tired. “There’s a lot of little stuff, but they’re not going to press on the Washington thing. They believe you didn’t do it.”

“What about Lancaster?”

Charlie said, “Man, Lancaster is nothing compared to this other stuff. They need to talk to Thurman, and they need him to testify, but as long as he backs up what you said, you guys can walk.”

“He will.”

“Then you’re done. Go home and get some sleep.”

Lou Poitras broke away from the group and came over and offered his hand. “Well, you’ve squeaked through another one, Hound Dog.”

I nodded. “ ’Tis better to be lucky than good.”

He looked at Joe Pike, and Pike looked back, but neither man offered a hand. “How’re you doing, Joe?”

Pike said, “Fine. Thank you. And you?”

“Good.”

They stared at each other some more, and then Lou cleared his throat and turned away. Awkward.

Joe Pike and Lou Poitras have hated each other for almost twelve years, and in all of that time, this was the first that they had spoken civilly to each other. Crime makes for strange bedfellows.

Joe and I were walking out with Charlie Bauman when Harold Bellis and Akeem D’Muere came out of the interrogation hall. I thought maybe they were leading D’Muere to booking, but then I realized that no one was leading him and that they were heading for the exit. D’Muere saw me looking at him and made his hand into a pistol and dropped the hammer. He didn’t smile. Then he and Bellis were gone. I looked at Murphy and Fallon and the big shots from the city. “How come that sonofabitch is walking out?”

Murphy said, “We can’t file.” Her jaw was knotted and her mouth was a razor’s slash.

Maybe I hadn’t heard them right. “He murdered James Edward Washington. You’ve got my statement.”

Fallon said, “We can’t use it.” He didn’t seem any happier than Murphy.

I looked at Pike. “Did I suddenly lose my grip on reality?”