The First Cut (36 page)

Lesley put his hand to his ear. “I believe I hear Lieutenant Beltran calling you home. Back to sweet, stupid Pasadena. Home to the Rose Parade, the Rose Bowl, and a police department that doesn’t know their rosy asses from their elbows.”

“You finished?” Kissick asked. “Get it all out? Feel better?”

“Where’s your wife?” Vining asked.

“I told you she is not well.”

“You told us she was shopping or having her nails done,” Vining said.

“Whatever.”

“Why don’t we go inside and talk?” Kissick said.

“Where’s your warrant?” Lesley smirked.

Vining sidled closer to him. She detected his scent. The way it made her heart beat faster both disgusted and encouraged her. “Why won’t you let us inside just to talk, John? There are no secrets. There’s nothing to hide. We don’t know our asses from our elbows anyway, so what difference does it make?”

“You’re on my property and I’d like you to leave before I call the real cops. And oh, by the way, I have friends there, too.”

K
ISSICK AND SERGEANT EARLY BRIEFED CASPERS AND JILL HENDRICKS, A VICE
detective, who would go undercover to Reign that night to attempt to learn whether Lesley possessed firearms. Two officers were dispatched undercover to surveil Lesley’s home. If any of them saw Pussycat Lesley, they would take her into custody for questioning. Same thing went for Lesley’s domestic help.

Vining and Ruiz would drive to Pomona to talk with Pussycat Lesley’s family.

Making a quick stop by her desk, Vining glanced at memos that had landed there in her absence. She retrieved Frankie’s grade school photo from her pocket and was looking at it when Ruiz came by.

“Ready?” His lips were set in a line.

Vining didn’t know if it was the trip to Pomona in traffic or the amount of time he’d be confined in a car with her that had ticked him off. Probably both.

She stuck Frankie’s photo on top of Emily’s school portrait and left to join Ruiz, who was already standing by the elevators.

Vining didn’t want to make the two-hour round-trip drive in stony silence. She offered to drive and that slightly defrosted Ruiz. The freeway traffic was light, which helped, too.

“Tony, how did you make out tracking down Frankie’s arrests?”

“Other than those two guys Caspers talked about who had alibis, everyone’s either in jail, dead, moved out of state, or are honest taxpaying family men who got caught soliciting prostitution.”

“It’s the only time I’ve ever done this, Officer.” She affected a distraught voice. “My wife has cancer—”

“My wife left me.”

“My wife had a sex change operation.”

They laughed.

“Then you call up their rap sheet and see this is the twentieth time they’ve gone down for solicitation.”

“But you live for this, Vining.”

“I do. You grind through hundreds of hours of bullshit living for the day when those cuffs go click. It’s like childbirth. You forget the pain the moment they put that little baby in your arms.”

“That’s beautiful, Nan.”

“Didn’t know I had a poetic side, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“How’s Caspers doing?”

“Pretty good, as long as he can keep his dick in his pants.”

“I heard he dated a couple of girls he arrested.”

Ruiz imitated Caspers. “I pinched them for misdemeanors. Nothing big.”

“Glad to know he has his standards. It’s not just about having two legs and a hole.” Vining shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t care if they have two legs.”

Ruiz chortled. “There was this time we were all at Manny Wilson’s retirement party. Caspers was all over Wilson’s daughter. Wilson got pissed and Chase and a couple of guys had to separate them. Course, we’d all had plenty to drink by then.”

“Did she have two legs?”

“Who? Wilson’s daughter?” Ruiz guffawed. “Yeah. She did.”

“Speaking of John Chase, you ever roll with him?”

“The Chaser. Yeah. A couple of times.”

“I was his FTO. I haven’t ridden with him since. Does he still carry a micro recorder on the street?”

“Hell yeah. He’s the CYA man.”

“Sure would like to know if he got John Lesley arguing with him on tape. Heard Chase is in Cabo until Monday. No cell service where he is.”

“Call him at his hotel.”

“I don’t know where he’s staying.”

“I bet Caspers knows. He runs with that group.”

Ruiz called Caspers on his cell phone. John Chase was staying at the El Conquistador. Caspers offered to give Chase a call.

P
USSYCAT’S PARENTS AND TWO YOUNGER BROTHERS LIVED IN A MODEST, NEAT
home in a nice area of Claremont. Her mother was petite and had likely been pretty but had aged early and not well. Her father was overweight with slicked-back hair and a beard. He volunteered that he was on disability from an accident at his job as a warehouse foreman. He spent his time restoring and showing classic Chevrolets and was delighted to show Ruiz the cars in his garage workshop. Her brothers seemed typical good high school kids growing up in difficult circumstances. Vining knew something about that.

“You call her Pamela, not Pussycat?” Ruiz asked.

The mother became grim. “That’s her stage name. She’s Pam to us.”

The family hadn’t noticed anything unusual about Pam over the past weeks. But then she called a couple of days ago.

“She seemed upset,” her mother confided.

Her father waved off the comment. “She was fine. You’re always looking for trouble. John Lesley was the best thing that happened to Pam. He gives her everything. She’s living large. Have you seen that house? The land alone is worth a mint.”

He frowned and shook his head as if it was too much to comprehend.

Vining looked around at the high-end electronic equipment and noted the new cars in the driveway.

“Does Pam help you out financially?” Vining asked.

All her father would admit to was, “It’s happened.”

O
N THE WAY BACK TO PASADENA, THEY STOPPED AT PUSSYCAT’S SISTER’S HOUSE
in West Covina. Rosemary was three years younger than Pussycat and similar physically, but not as pretty. They didn’t need to press her for opinions.

“Something is very wrong with Pam, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was when I had lunch with her last week. She was teary. She said her dog was sick, losing weight, and not eating, and the vet can’t figure out why. I told her I didn’t believe her. That there was something going on with her, not the dog. I asked, ‘Is he hitting you?’ I know he tries to keep her from seeing me.”

“What did she say?” Vining took notes.

“She said, ‘Oh no. John would never do that. John’s great to me.’” Rosemary showed her disgust.

“When did you last talk to her?”

“Day before yesterday. She called. Sounded like she’d been crying again. Said she had a cold.”

“Why did she call?”

“To say hi. To let me know she was okay.”

“Did she normally call just to let you know she’s okay?”

“Not really. There’s usually more to the conversation. What are you doing? I’m doing this. When do you want to get together? You know, like that. It was strange. She definitely didn’t sound right.”

“Could you call her for us? Just sound normal without mentioning that we’re here?”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Umm…Sure.”

Rosemary tried both Pussycat’s private line and cell phone. She left messages.

“See, that’s what’s weird. Pam lives by her cell phone. She always has it with her and leaves it on.”

“Is there anyone else who might be in the house besides John Lesley?”

“Their housekeeper, Lolly. She’s worked for John for years. Long before John hooked up with Pam.”

“She live-in?”

“No. She’s there from seven in the morning until four or so. Monday through Friday. Pam always said Lolly was sort of clueless, or pretended to be.”

“Do you know where she lives? Her phone number?”

“I don’t. I know she’s married and has a couple of teenagers. I don’t know her beyond that.”

Vining handed Rosemary her business card. “If your sister calls you back, please call me right away?”

A
T THE STATION, RUIZ TOOK OFF FOR HOME AND VINING WENT UPSTAIRS.

Kissick was in the conference room working on the search warrants with Mireya Dunn, the deputy district attorney from CAPOS. Everyone else was gone.

Vining stuck her head in the door and filled Kissick in on her and Ruiz’s progress.

On her way to her desk, Vining noticed a new flyer on the bulletin board—a missing person notice issued by the Hermosa Beach Police. Hermosa resident Lisa Shipp was last seen leaving a meeting at Pier Avenue and Tenth Street just over a day ago. A photograph showed a smiling Lisa standing against a tree, long hair pulled over one shoulder. Her eyes were deep-set and sparkling. The description said she was twenty-six years old. Five feet five inches tall. One hundred twenty pounds. Blond hair. Brown eyes.

“Kinda soon,” she mused aloud.

Maybe that’s the response he expected.

She took down the flyer, made a photocopy, and tacked it up again.

At her desk, she organized for the next day. It was eight p.m. Sixty hours had passed since they’d found Frankie’s body. She had an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach that wasn’t entirely bad. It was that same tense anticipation and excitement with a hint of dread that accompanies a joyous yet life-altering event, like one’s wedding or a child’s departure to college. Something was about to happen, about to change. She didn’t know what, but she felt it like a breeze blowing past, leaving its mark in her hair and on her skin.

Her eyes landed on Frankie’s school photo that she had stuck in the corner of a framed snapshot of Emily. Vining plucked it from beneath the frame and again looked at the handwriting on the back, written diagonally across the photo. The script slanted to the left and was done in blue ballpoint with light pressure so as not to damage the photograph: “Frances Ann 11 yrs.”

That inscription may have been one of the last things that Frankie’s mother wrote. That was why it was the only childhood photo Frankie had displayed. It was her “before” photo. Before, when her life had been normal.

Vining looked at Frankie’s bright eyes and genuine smile—innocence that was about to be scrubbed. She slipped the photo into her jacket pocket and grabbed her portfolio to leave when her phone started ringing.

“Detective Vining.”

“Is this Nan Vining?”

“This is Detective Nan Vining. How can I help you?”

“My name is Richard Alwin.”

She sat. She knew the last name.

“I saw you on the news tonight. I put off calling, then decided I had to. My wife was Johnna Alwin. She was a detective with the Tucson Police Department.”

Johnna Alwin. Vining had turned up Alwin’s ambush murder when conducting her off-the-books investigation about female police officers killed while on duty. She’d spoken with the lead investigator at the Tucson Police Department who’d told her the case was closed.

“I’m calling because of the necklace you were wearing on television. A year before Johnna was killed, someone gave her a necklace very similar to the one you had on.”

Vining was silent.

“Hello?”

“I’m here, Mr. Alwin. Go on.”

“I wouldn’t have thought anything of it but for the similarities between your story and my wife’s. See, Johnna had been involved in a high-profile shooting while on duty, just like you. It was all over the news. We had reporters camping out in our yard. I’m sure the same thing happened to you. Shortly after, the necklace showed up in our mailbox. It was loose in a manila envelope with a card that said: Congratulations, Officer Alwin.”

T H I R T Y - T W O

V
INING GOT ALWIN’S PHONE NUMBER AND SAID SHE’D CALL HIM
back. She told Kissick good night and left.

She pulled her car out of the police lot, parked on the street around the corner, and called Alwin on her cell phone.

He asked, “Where did you get your necklace?”

She deflected the conversation. “I’d rather talk about what happened to your wife.”

He told her how Johnna was found stabbed multiple times in a storage closet of a medical building.

“Detective Owen Donahue was in charge of the investigation,” Alwin said. “He was only too happy to hang Johnna’s murder on her informant Jesse Cuba and call the case closed. No doubt the evidence pointed to Cuba. Johnna had enlisted him as a confidential informant a couple of years before her murder. He was on parole for heroin possession and she caught him with drug paraphernalia. He said he could help her out, claiming he knew about illicit activities in the medical building where he was a part-time janitor. He got the job through this do-gooder, help your local ex-con program. To Cuba’s credit, he stayed clean the whole time he worked for Johnna, passing all his drug tests. Johnna felt she had a role in that.”

Vining found something soft and too willing to please in Alwin’s voice. In her experience, that indicated a passive-aggressive personality.

“Johnna had a big arrest based on Cuba’s information about the owner of a medical equipment supply store in the building who was selling stolen wheelchairs. Then Cuba tipped Johnna off about an internist in the building. The good doctor was in over his head, selling prescription drugs to cover his lifestyle. When Cuba called Johnna that Sunday and asked her to meet him, she had no problem going to the medical building alone. She’d worked with Cuba for years by then. It bothered me, but I knew that Johnna didn’t take unnecessary chances. She told me sports gambling had replaced Cuba’s heroin addiction. He probably wanted twenty bucks to bet that day’s game.”

“So why did he stab her seventeen times?”

“Good question. Cuba had never been arrested for a violent crime. Not even a fistfight. Detective Donahue brushed it off, saying, ‘Guess that was the day he snapped.’ But I always felt it went deeper than that.”

“Why?”

“You’ve heard of Louie Louie Lucchi.”

“The Mafia turncoat.”

Louie Louie Lucchi was the underboss of a New York mob family whose testimony brought long prison sentences for the family’s leaders, including the Don. At the time, Lucchi was the most highly placed mobster the FBI had flipped. The once publicity-shy gangster came out of the shadows of the Witness Protection Program to write a book and make the rounds of talk shows. Charming, handsome, and oozing bravado, Lucchi enjoyed celebrity and the public couldn’t get enough of him.