The First Cut (27 page)

“That’s what you
can’t
do,” Early said. “What
can
you do?”

Vining was glad she wasn’t the target of Early’s testiness.

“I took it to a dental lab here in Pasadena,” Ruiz said. “It’s first-rate work. Porcelain overlay. Close to a grand to have it made and set. We’re not dealing with someone on public assistance, which we already knew. Whoever lost that crown has probably gone to the dentist to be fitted for a new one and had a temporary put in. Having a jagged crater in your mouth is no picnic. I need a warrant to access dental records. I need a suspect before I even know what dentist to search. Unless someone has a brilliant idea, I don’t know where else I can go with this.”

He seemed to challenge Early to confront him again.

“Speaking of suspects, what about the good Lieutenant Moore?” Early asked. “Our profile doesn’t exclude him. The crown is a way to clinch it or take him off the table for good. Do we have enough for a warrant?”

“What’s your fact pattern?” Dunn asked.

Kissick gave her an overview of their history with Kendall Moore.

“It’s circumstantial,” Dunn said. “Even the most generous judge would have a problem issuing a warrant for dental records.”

“What if we just ask Moore?” Caspers suggested. “Hey L.T., how ya chewin’ lately?”

There was scattered laughter.

Kissick said, “If Moore is our guy and we start asking questions about his teeth, he’ll have a sinking feeling about where he might have left that crown and make his dental records disappear.”

“His wife would know,” Vining said.

They all looked at her.

Early raised an eyebrow. “Nan’s right. The wife always knows. She probably made the dental appointment.”

“How do we finesse that out of her?” Kissick asked.

“Bet I can do it,” Vining said. “A little woman-to-woman chat.”

Kissick raised his chin. “You’re on.”

“What else?” the deputy chief asked.

“We’re fielding leads,” Early said. “Tracking down each one that seems legitimate.”

She was spreading sunshine, Vining thought. People had called from all over the country and even from foreign cities with Lolita sightings. Lolita could be in there somewhere, among the calls about runaway wives, hitchhikers on the highway, and clerks in Rite Aid drugstores. It sometimes happened like that. The most mundane lead rocked the case open. Or maybe they’d merely collected refuse from the public’s overactive imagination.

Early said, “Caspers. Sproul. You make any progress with Randall Mattea or Dustin Lamb?”

Mattea and Lamb were men Frankie had recently arrested who had long and violent criminal histories.

Caspers jumped to respond, grabbing the opportunity to be in the spotlight in front of the brass. “Sproul and I brought them in for questioning. Both have alibis for the early morning of June six. We followed up and the alibis check out.”

“We think they’re telling the truth,” Sproul added.

Lutz distractedly tapped a pencil against the table. “We’ve got shoes, we’ve got dental crowns, we’ve got shadowy security tapes. What we don’t got is names. When are you going to produce some names?”

“Nan’s working an angle at the Huntington Hotel,” Kissick said. “The Police and Citizens Awards Luncheon that was on April fourteenth. Frankie was there to see her dad get his twenty-five-year award.”

“What are you saying? She met the couple who killed her at our heroes’ luncheon?” Santoro snorted. “That’s great for P.R.”

Vining defended her theory. “She might have. Frankie’s paper trail shows her life took a turn around then. Jones was running down the guest list.”

Jones spoke up. “I ran the names that Vining highlighted through NCIC, NCIS, and DMV. Several had criminal records but they were either from years ago or the guys are too old for our profile.”

Ruiz said, “That luncheon angle is a dead end. Just because Frankie was text messaging Moore from there, so what?”

Early agreed with him, to Vining’s dismay. “We don’t need to spend more time on it.”

Vining tried to keep it alive. “It’ll take me ten minutes to talk to the catering manager today, then it’s done.”

Early flicked her hand. “Fine.”

Jones started sniggering. “You know Officer John Chase?”

Early scowled at him. Her fuse was short. She was in no mood.

Vining knew Chase well. He was the rookie who was with her when she’d shot Lonny Velcro.

Jones continued. “In my background search, I found out that Chase pulled over one of our citizen heroes who got an award that day. Gave him a fix-it ticket because his car windows were tinted too dark.”

Caspers broke out laughing. “The Chaser. Gotta love him.”

Others who’d worked with Chase, including Vining, laughed along. The young officer had a reputation for aggressive policing, writing citations, and making arrests for minor violations that more seasoned officers would let go. He wanted to show he was tough and working hard as his goal was to move into the street gangs unit.

“Who did Chase cite?” Lutz asked.

“Last name Lesley,” Jones said. “Jerry? John?”

“No way,” Lieutenant Beltran exclaimed. “Not John Lesley?”

Vining repeated the name to herself.

Beltran indignantly went on. “I sat at the table with him and his wife. He’s a great guy. He was the one who saw the elderly couple being robbed in a minimall on Altadena Drive and Orange Grove. Was driving back from a meeting, took a wrong turn looking for the freeway, and encountered this robbery in progress. He jumped out of his car, engaged the suspect in a foot pursuit, tackled him, and held him down until we got there. His wife is as cute as a button.” He turned to Lutz. “You remember them, Dwight. You were at our table.”

“Right,” Lutz said. “Nice guy. Owns a nightclub in West Hollywood.”

“I don’t know where you’re headed with this banquet business, Vining,” Beltran said. “Investigating our citizen heroes. I mean, John Lesley. You’ve got to be kidding. That means his wife is this Lolita you’re looking for. Ridiculous, in my humble opinion.”

Ruiz hid his smile.

“Lesley fits the broad profile.” Kissick defended Vining’s pursuit of a lead that he never thought viable in the first place. “We’ll wrap it up today.”

“You ought to drop it today,” Beltran said. “There is no way the Lesleys are involved in this.”

Early said, “Vining, tie up your loose ends with that and move on. Okay. Jones and Sproul have been pulled to work the robberies last night at Dinah’s Diner and Mack’s Chicken. To bring the rest of you up to date, at about twenty-two fifteen last night, six masked and armed gunmen entered Dinah’s Diner on Foothill near Sierra Madre, ordered the patrons to the ground, made off with cash and jewelry. Twenty minutes later, the same group, apparently, did the same thing at Mack’s Chicken on Mountain near Lake. Thank you for your contributions, Louis and Doug.”

The restaurant robberies were horrific crimes and difficult to process because of the number of witnesses and victims, but pulling investigators off to work them signaled that the brass thought the Lynde case was going cold. Inevitably, new homicides would occur, stealing more resources, each one pushing Frankie Lynde’s file back even further. In time, Kissick would get to it when he could, following trails that had grown dusty or evaporated altogether, reluctantly putting his faith in luck.

Vining glanced at him. His game face was inscrutable, as always, but he looked weary.

Early stood. “Be safe.”

Outside, Early stopped Vining and Ruiz. “I’m going to need you to put in extra hours tracking down leads tonight and tomorrow. They should start to peter out after that.”

“I’ll make arrangements at home,” Vining said.

Ruiz uttered an abrupt, “Oh-kay.”

Early didn’t give him a second look but headed to her office.

At her desk, Vining called her grandmother. She didn’t like Emily staying home alone again. She realized it bothered her more than it did her daughter.

Ruiz sidled up to her as she was shoving papers into a portfolio.

“What’s Early got a bug up her butt about?”

There was nothing like having a difficult supervisor in common to ameliorate hostilities between coworkers.

“She’s got a lot of pressure on her from upstairs.”

“Because of Ms. Attitude, I’m going to miss my son’s athletic awards banquet tonight. I told her about it yesterday. He’s a senior. This is his last banquet in high school, he’s getting an award, and I’m going to miss it. She could bring in two patrol officers on their regular shift. No overtime. Shows she’s not thinking. She’s in over her head with this thing.”

“It’s a tough case.” Ruiz had annoyed Vining so much lately, she had a hard time feeling sympathy for him. She didn’t know how long ago he’d tripped the odometer and became a jaded cop, but she suspected he could no longer see that milestone in his rearview mirror.

Ruiz hadn’t expended his venom. “And Kissick…He’s milking this for all it’s worth. He’s building his legacy on this case.”

Vining showed no response.

He cussed and retreated to his cubicle. Within a minute, he was bitching on the phone to his wife.

Vining made a promise that she would quit the Job before she turned into Ruiz. She did wonder why Lieutenant Beltran spoke so well of John Lesley. Everyone’s a suspect until it’s proved they’re not. She knew Beltran liked to rub up against celebrities. Whenever Pasadena was used as a location for a movie or TV show, Beltran liked to hang out at the scene. He often spoke of the screenplay he’d written. Everyone knew he’d had his teeth whitened. It wouldn’t surprise Vining at all if Beltran had extracted an invitation to John Lesley’s club that day at the luncheon.

This put her in a difficult situation because there was something about Lesley she liked as a suspect and she couldn’t express why.

On her way out, she passed Jones’s desk. “Did you talk to Chase about the fix-it ticket he gave this John Lesley?”

“Yep. Said Lesley pushed back. Got a little heated. Lesley told Chase, I’ve just been given an award by the Pasadena police and here you are giving me this boo-shit ticket. Chase said it was no biggie, but he’s always pissing off citizens. He’s used to it.”

“Did Lesley take care of his tinted windows?”

“The next week. Had his ticket signed off by a sheriff’s deputy over in West Hollywood near his nightclub. Place called Reign.”

“Did you say Reign?” Caspers’s head appeared above his cubicle. “He owns
that
place? That’s the hottest club in town. I got on their guest list once. My old roommate works with this guy who knows this guy who’s on that new TV show about the blended family and some such crap. What a night. They’ve got these fish tanks with these ultra smokin’ chicks swimming in them. They’re wearing bathing suits, but barely.”

Jones was fascinated. “Like see-through?”

“Ch-yeah. Nearly.”

“No men?” Vining faked confusion. “It is West Hollywood.”

“Nooo.” Caspers grinned. “This club is for guys who love women. There’s no mistaking that.”

Vining had enough. “Okay. Remember Frankie Lynde? Found with her head nearly cut off? So Lesley is clean other than the fix-it ticket?”

“Matter of fact, he’s not. Got a hit on DVROS. His ex-wife got a permanent restraining order against him nearly five years ago. He’s married to someone else now. I didn’t look further.”

The fact that John Lesley was in the Domestic Violence Restraining Order System told Vining that the PRO his ex-wife had put in place was domestic violence related.

Jones added, “His ex-wife is that model, Michaela Michele.”

“No way,” Caspers said. “What a life that bastard has.”

Jones started to hand Vining a sheath of papers. “Here’s your materials back.” First, he drew a line across a name with a red pen.

“When were you going to tell us about the PRO, Jones?” Vining asked.

“Didn’t think it was a good idea in the meeting, seeing how far Beltran was up Lesley’s ass.”

“Coward,” Vining teased. “Thanks for your help, Louis.”

“You’re welcome. I may need your help on my two new cases. You were assigned to robbery when you came back, right? Until this Frankie Lynde murder landed on us.”

“Jim needs all the help he can get.”

“Case is going cold.”

“Right.” She looked at the papers he handed her. The red ink line through John Lesley’s name looked like a knife cut.

T W E N T Y - F O U R

J
OHN LESLEY DROVE HIS HUMMER DOWN VENTURA BOULEVARD WITH HIS
right hand on the wheel, his left holding a cigar out the open window. The huge vehicle dwarfed others on the boulevard even in the SUV-laden San Fernando Valley. He’d had many cars in his day, but he loved this one best even though the windows were no longer tinted to his preference. The car was still an awesome ride.

He turned onto a small residential street. In Valley parlance, he lived “north of the boulevard.” This was a less desirable, less hip address than “south of the boulevard,” in the hills and canyons that stood between the Valley and fashionable West Hollywood, Westwood, and Bel Air. But he lived on the remaining five-acre parcel of a once-expansive citrus grove. Acreage in Encino. That said something. It harkened back to a bygone era of weekend house parties, croquet, and Tom Collinses on the lawn and swan dives off the high board in air scented with orange blossoms and night jasmine. He possessed one of the rarest commodities in Southern California: He never heard his neighbors.

In contrast with the congestion on the Boulevard, the quiet, narrow street felt rural. It didn’t have a painted line. Giant eucalyptus trees grew down the parkways where sidewalks had never been installed.

Most Valley neighborhoods were a series of yards and tract houses. The Valley was farm and ranch land until after World War II when developers bought out the citrus growers and ranchers. Up went acres of cookie-cutter houses on postage-stamp lots for returning G.I.s and their baby-boomer families. Now developers were tearing down the old homes and building mansions out to the property lines. Larger parcels were being subdivided. This property had been doomed to a date with the bulldozers until Lesley bought it after fierce bidding.