The Mercedes Coffin (6 page)

He knocked again, tried the door handle, which, not surprisingly, was locked.

His watch now read 9:10.

Vitton’s driveway was empty.

Who the hell did he think he was, avoiding the police? Cal must have been an idiot to think that an amateurish dodge would discourage Decker. With an angry scrawl, he wrote on the back of his business card that he’d be in touch! He dotted the exclamation point angrily and was two steps away from his car when something tickled his brain.

The house had a one-car garage sealed with a plank door that contained a glass inset. Decker turned around, walked up the empty driveway, and peeked through the window. Inside sat an old black pickup next to a workbench area.

Would a guy like Vitton own two vehicles?

He looked at the gray cement driveway. Although it wasn’t pristine, it wasn’t spotted with oil stains or fluid leaks.

Again he glanced around, biding his time while his brain fired ideas.

Someone could have come by and picked up the old man.

Cal could have gone out for a walk.

But Decker was bothered. Cal was first and foremost a cop. Career detectives didn’t miss appointments without explanations. If Vitton hadn’t wanted him to come, he would have phoned Decker and told him so. And if there had been an emergency, Cal would have left a note or a message on Decker’s cell. No-shows were irresponsible. More than that, they were cowardly, and Calvin Vitton didn’t impress Decker as a coward.

There was a six-foot wooden gate that separated the front and back yards. Decker peered over the top and noticed that the gate was secured by a bolt lock. He called out and when nothing answered him back, Decker decided to jump the fence. He found a purchase for his foot on a low cinder-block wall, but his hands still had to do the majority of hoisting up his big frame.

Up and over.

He landed awkwardly on his right foot, but shook it off with a couple of steps.

Vitton’s backyard was small and dry and backed up against a spill-way that was fenced off by cyclone wires. As Decker peered through the metal, he noticed a few shallow pools of stagnant water basking in the heat of the spring. They were green with algae and white with mosquito larvae. He made a note to himself to call County Pest Control or the area was going to have an infestation.

The back door to the house was also locked. Decker knocked hard, but the noise elicited no response. He checked the windows. The shades were down. Nothing seemed awry: no broken glass, no locks that seemed jimmied, and no signs of forced entry.

He gave himself a moment to think.

The sun was climbing higher. Decker could feel the heat on the back of his neck. Competing with the ravens’ calls was the buzzing of insects: the hum of dozens of gnats, the drone of bees foraging for pollen, the high-pitched whine of mosquitoes. And the flies… lots of flies.

He swatted the pests away from his face and regarded his surroundings. A splintered chaise longue with a faded cushion sat on a patch of crabgrass. A few small trees languished around the fence of Vitton’s property. There was a Weber barbecue that looked in pretty good shape. A white plastic table and chairs were off to one side. The top of the table was thick with dirt and bird droppings.

When Decker returned his attention to the house, he noticed that a heavy funnel of flies had congregated near one of the back windows.

That was
not
a good sign. Investigating further, Decker was hit with a strong whiff of decay, violently sparking his olfactory nerve.

He exhaled forcibly while holding back a gag.

He knew why Cal hadn’t answered the door.

He called 911.

THE RULE WAS
by no means foolproof, but generally women took pills and men ate the gun.

Calvin Vitton had done both.

The shot had, among other things, taken out the old cop’s eye. His mouth was agape, and his other eye was wide open. An open vial of oxycodone was spilling its contents onto the blue bedroom carpet. Near the pills lay a half-dozen empty beer bottles. His right hand had been singed with powder burns and blood spatter. The .32-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun was lodged between the bed frame and the wall and had landed about two inches from Cal’s knee. Blood had turned the white sheets red and was still dripping crimson onto the carpet.

The old man had thin gray hair with blue eyes, although the remaining one looked black because the pupil was dilated and fixed. He had been wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans. His feet were bare. Rigor had set in; lividity was pronounced. Although a warm temperature could speed up the biological processes — and it had been sweltering inside when the Simi Valley cops had busted inside — Decker had a sense that the deed had been done shortly after the phone call.

Two coroner’s office investigators — a woman and a man — were about ready to wrap the stiff body in plastic. The crime scene photographer had done his job. A tech was dusting for fingerprints, but almost everyone agreed that it looked like suicide. Cal had taken booze and pills to self-anesthetize. Before Cal totally passed out, he put a gun to his head… more to his face. Or maybe his hands slipped and that’s how he took out his eye. There were powder burns around the affected area, but there was also powder scatter. The investigators thought that the nose of the gun had been fired from about a half foot away.

Simi Valley was an incorporated city of Ventura County, and although it contracted out to the county for fire, the city was patrolled by its own police department. The detective assigned to the case, named Shirley Redkin, was a pixieish woman in her fifties with short black hair and round dark eyes. Suicide was worked under a homicide detail until the coroner made his ruling. She flipped over the cover on her notebook, and then pointed to the open vial. “First the pills, and when that didn’t happen, he went for the gun.”

Decker said, “It looks kind of staged.”

“Yeah, there is something a little overly dramatic about it with the pills
and
the booze
and
the gun. But killing yourself is a very dramatic act.”

“Of course.”

“Can we go over the phone call one more time?” she asked Decker. “I keep feeling I’m missing something.”

“Join the club,” Decker told her. “I never got a sense that the guy was ready to pop himself. More angry than upset.”

“Angry about what?”

“That I wanted to go over the Bennett Little case with him.” He explained the details to her. “It had been cold for a number of years. I think it was a personal affront to the man.”

“But every homicide cop has a number of cold cases.”

“This one was very public… played out in the papers. To a guy like Vitton, maybe it represented failure.”

“Why would he shoot himself now?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to feel humiliated if the case got solved.”

“Was he obstructionistic?” Shirley asked.

“He clearly wasn’t interested in digging up bones. Maybe he was more involved than he was letting on.”

“Meaning?”

Decker threw up his hands. “Cal was known as a guy who played it close to the vest. His own partner said it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Maybe someone paid him off not to look too carefully into the homicide. If his dirt got exposed… that might drive a lonely man to pull the trigger.”

“Anyone specific in mind for the payoff — if there was a payoff?”

“No, just talking in generalities. I’ll look a little deeper into Cal’s life, starting with his ex-partner, Arnold Lamar.”

“He sounds like someone I should talk to.”

Decker gave Shirley Redkin his phone number. She said, “How close are the two of them?”

“I think they were very close once, but they each went their separate ways. But he needs to be told. I’d like to call him up after you’re done with me. Do you mind if I break the news to him?”

“Go ahead. What I’d like is for him to come down to the station for a chat.”

“I’ll set it up. This afternoon sound okay, Detective?”

“That sounds fine, Lieutenant.”

“Mind if I sit in?”

“Fine with me. Maybe we’ll both learn something.” Shirley closed her notebook. “The cold case must be very important for a detective lieutenant to devote so much time to it.”

Decker smiled enigmatically. “I do my job; I’ve got no complaints. Life is good for some of us. Then there are guys like Cal Vitton who harbor different opinions.”

“
W
HAT
?” MARGE SHRIEKED.

“You heard right.” Decker was sitting in the cruiser, parked two blocks away from the crime/suicide scene. The air-conditioning was going full blast, but because the car wasn’t in motion, it wasn’t as cool as it could be. He was sweating under the collar. Talking to Marge over the line, he was trying to keep his voice even, cop style, and then he wondered why. The tragedy of the situation demanded emotion, yet after all these years on the job, it was somehow respectable to be blunted.

“Oh my!” Marge was still registering shock. “And it looks like suicide to you?”

“The gun was fired at close range. He dulled his senses with drugs and booze. The big question is how and if it’s related to the Bennett Little case. I’m meeting with Arnie Lamar at Simi Valley headquarters this afternoon to get a better feel for Vitton.”

“Well, this certainly changes the complexion of the investigation.”

“It adds another layer. What’s on your agenda?”

“Oliver and I have arranged a lunchtime meeting with Phil Shriner. That way it doesn’t take too much out of our working day.”

“Was he cooperative?”

“Not bad. We’ll know more once we talk to him. I do have a question for you. I’ve located the correct Darnell Arlington and he’s willing to talk to me about his high school experiences and Bennett Little. Now I can do a phone interview, but it would probably be better to do it in person. Since I’m not supposed to officially be working on the case, is there a way that you can get funding for the trip?”

Decker said, “Set it up, Marge, and I’ll figure something out.”

“You’re sure?”

“Not a problem. One of Rina’s inherited paintings recently sold at auction for big bucks. We’re feeling flush.”

“You shouldn’t be spending your good luck on departmental obligations.”

“I have no intention of doing that. I’m just saying having the extra money has made us feel a little cockier. Rina teaches because she wants to, and I work because I want to. If Strapp starts to protest too much, I’m outta here. That’s what money does. It allows me to pass the buck and let some other schmuck squirm in front of the brass.”

PHIL SHRINER LIVED
with his wife of fifty years in a retirement home called Golden Estates, not too far from where Calvin Vitton blew his head off. The acreage was beautifully planted, with living quarters consisting of an apartment complex and public areas. There were also small, detached bungalows set around winding walkways.

The community had an on-site cafeteria, two restaurants, a recreation room, a gym, and a movie theater. The grounds included two swimming pools with accompanying Jacuzzis, two tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, and a massage room. It could have been a resort, but most hotels didn’t include a wing of hospital rooms as well as an emergency facility that was manned 24/7 by a rotating team of doctors, EMTs, and nurses.

Shriner and his wife lived in bungalow 58 off the putting green. His wife had gone to her daily exercise class, Phil explained to Marge and Oliver, so he could spare them around an hour. The house’s interior was light and airy with hardwood floors and a fireplace. It was also crammed with furniture.

“We just moved in a few months ago,” Shriner explained. “We’ve downsized our living space and we didn’t have time to sell all of our furniture. Sit anywhere you like.”

Their options were three couches, four big stuffed armchairs, or two ottomans. Marge chose a chair while Oliver opted for one of the sofas. Shriner was of average size and weight, and had thinning silver hair, a liver-spotted complexion, and dark eyes. He wore a blue polo shirt and brown slacks, his wiry arms still sculpted with defined musculature. Orthopedic sandals were on his feet.

He folded his arms in front of his chest, his butt just barely touching the edge of the seat. “So what’s going on?”

Defensive posture, Marge noted. “LAPD is reopening the Bennett Little case. The cops never got too far, and we understand that Melinda Little hired you to look into what happened to her husband. We’re wondering what you remember about it?”

The arms folded tighter across his chest. “Melinda called me, said you might be coming down.”

Marge glanced at Oliver and tried to hide her surprise. “I didn’t know the two of you were still in contact.”

“Haven’t spoken to her for nearly fourteen years.”

“Why did she call you?” Oliver asked.

“She wanted me to lie.” His jaw tightened. “I’m older, I have enough retirement money, I’m sick of games. But mainly, I told her I wasn’t going to do it because it was going to come out sooner or later.”

“You two had an affair,” Oliver suggested.

“I wish.” He sank back into the chair. “The story was she hired me to look into her husband’s death. I didn’t work too hard on it because she was barely paying me. I suppose you want an explanation for that.”

“It would be nice,” Marge told him.

“I’m a compulsive gambler. Nothing that I thought I couldn’t handle until that fateful day when it hit me that I was over my head and if I didn’t get out of debt real soon, I was going to lose everything. So I turned to GA.”

Gamblers Anonymous. “Good call,” Oliver told him.

“It was my only call. The first thing they taught me to do was to admit to my family that I fucked up. Once I did that, my mom, God bless her, bailed me out. It took me time to pay her back, but eight years later, I was all caught up and then some. I had a lot of business. I took on a few employees to help me out.”

“Melinda Little?” Oliver asked.

“No, I met Melinda way before,” Shriner said. “We used to frequent the same casinos.”