The White Angel Murder (13 page)

Stanton waited patiently for forensics to finish. Though not police officers, since the airing of
CSI
they carried a sense of self-importance and condescension with them. They weren’t even allowed to carry firearms but applications to the police academy had declined in recent years and applications to forensics schools had skyrocketed. One forensic investigator had attempted to interview a witness and he was promptly fired and lost his state licensure. But because of a television show people now looked to them to solve crimes.

Stanton bent down and looked at the hole in Francisco’s head. It was large and there were gunpowder burns on the skin over his face, meaning he had been shot at close range. No defensive wounds anywhere, no sign of struggle.

“
Did you know him?”

Stanton turned to see Chin standing there, staring at the body as one would stare at something that puzzled but didn’t interest.

“
You could say that.”

“
I don’t know why the chief gave this to me. I think it’s really pissing off some of the locals.”

“
It’s just yours tonight. Mike knows everyone’s emotional and when they’re emotional they make mistakes. They’ll calm down by tomorrow and that’s when he’ll call you into his office and tell you he’s under pressure to keep it local.”

“
Huh. Smart move I guess. So what’dya think?”

“
Not typical gangland. These guys are crazy but I don’t know if they’re crazy enough to kill a cop and make a big deal about it. They know a lot of theirs would be next. Then again, I haven’t worked Gang Unit since the early nineties. I hear they’re a lot less scared of police now.”

“
They would want to send a message though. You send us undercovers and this is what happens. But check this out.” Stanton followed him down the hall to the bathroom. Chin turned the lights off and grabbed a portable black-light from one of the forensics investigators. He switched on the light and turned the bathroom light off. Splashes of blood lit up like glow in the dark stickers. It was over the toilet, the wall, the bathtub and the floor. “Shot in here but there’s only droplets on the hallway carpet.”

“
More than one?”

“
That’d be my guess. Probably three. Two to hold him and one to pull the trigger while his head was down in the bathtub. Then they carried him to the living room and let him bleed out.”

“
Why not leave him here?”

“
No idea. But they tried cleaning the blood with bleach.”

“
Everyone knows that doesn’t work.”

“
Well these guys think it does.”

“
Where’s the entry?”

“
No damage we can find. These guys were invited in.”

Stanton shook his head. “I was careful.”

“
Not careful enough.” He saw his face and added, “That’s not what I meant.”

“
It’s all right.”

Stanton left the bathroom and watched as the body was placed in a black bag and zipped up. The lifters from the ME’s office were quiet when they carried it away. They were the low men on the totem pole. Typically they were either young and looking to apply to forensics school or to become pathologists, or they were old and they had grown comfortable with the silence of the dead. Live customers were much more difficult to deal with.

The officers stood still and didn’t speak out of respect until the body was out of the apartment.

Stanton walked outside. The air was warm but there was no breeze and the warmth sat on you and made the skin feel sticky. Harlow had left. This was his rebuke. Rather than tell him about it tomorrow he had him come down to show him what he had done.

But the scene didn’t make sense. They had attempted to clean up blood in the bathroom but wanted to leave a message on the living room wall. There was a disconnect between what happened in the bathroom and what happened in the living room. Something had not gone right.

Stanton saw out of the corner of his eye Young speaking with another officer. Young said something and the officer looked to Stanton and nodded.

26

Stanton went surfing the next day before the sun was up and stayed on the beach well into late morning. Someone with a large truck was selling tacos out the back and he bought two breakfast tacos and a horchata and ate near the surf, letting the water foam at his ankles. He then slept, the sun warming his cheeks and neck, and showered in one of the public showers provided by the city before heading into the office.

The entire building was quiet. No one laughing or telling stories and only speaking when absolutely necessary. Officers would quietly nod to each other in understanding when passing in the halls, to everyone except Stanton. Word had already gotten around.

He went to his office and shut the door. He turned on Pandora and listened to the Enigma station as he let his thoughts drift for awhile before turning to his computer. There was an email from Chin:

Hey, you were right. Taken off the case this morning.

C H

When he was through checking his emails, he saw he had two voicemails. One was from Melissa, wondering if he had the number to a doctor they liked to use when they were married. It was an odd little fact they shared and it tugged at him to be reminded of it. They would both have to use the same doctor. No, one of them would change. They would have to.

The other was a hang up. He turned away from his desk and spun the chair around so he could look outside. There were no clouds and the sun was cooking the city. He wished desperately he could’ve spent the whole day at the beach.

Tommy buzzed him. The chief would like to see him.

Harlow was not on the phone and was not even flipping through paperwork or a magazine when Stanton walked in. He was sitting quietly at his desk looking at his monitor. He turned toward Stanton as he sat down and smiled.

“
I’m not a bullshitter, Jon. You know that.”

“
I know.”

“
So I’m not going to bullshit you. This is bad. One of my detectives was killed because you didn’t follow the orders of your superior. The media’s gotten hold of it already. Hunter wrote an op/ed in the
Trib
.”

“
Yeah, I’m sure he did.”

“
George wants me to refer this to the DA to see if there was any criminal negligence. I don’t think there was and I’m not going to do that. But I can’t have you on the unit anymore. It would taint everything we do.”

“
I know.”

“
I’m going to put you on administrative leave, with pay, until this thing blows over in the papers. Won’t be long I’m guessing. Some meth-head will shoot up a party cause he thinks the CIA’s out to get him and people will forget about this.”

He rose. “Can I go?”

“
Sure. I’m sorry about this, Jon. I wish this could’a turned out different.”

“
Me too.”

*****

Stanton waited by the fence at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary as his son walked out. He was carrying drawings he had done and Stanton wondered who they were for.

“
Hey champ.”

“
Dad!”

Mathew ran up and threw his arms around his father. Stanton hugged him back and kissed the top of his head, smelling his hair. He remembered the day at the hospital when Mathew had a fever of 103 and wasn’t yet a year old. He remembered rocking him late into the night and the smell of his skin and hair and the fear that was inside him as he looked at his boy’s cherubic face.

“
What’re you doing here?”

“
I just wanted to come by and see you. So what’s going on?”

“
I got picked for soccer today and Josh kicked the ball really hard and it hit me in the face.”

“
Oh no.”

“
Yeah but I didn’t cry. I just kicked the ball back and said I was fine.”

“
Good for you.”

“
There’s mom.”

Melissa drove up in her car and parked. She saw Stanton and waved, a slight smile on her lips as she saw them walk toward her.

“
Hey,” she said.

“
Hey. I just wanted to see him. Where’s Jon Junior?”

“
He’s at day care.”

“
Since when do you put him in day care?”

“
Just a few times a week so I can do my yoga.”

“
Melissa, we talked about this.”

“
Not now, Jon. I don’t want to hear it. I have a life too. It can’t all be spent at home.”

Stanton looked down to Mathew who was hugging his leg. He had moonlighted early in his career as a bodyguard, a bouncer and even a night watchmen at a warehouse so that they would never have to put their kids in day care. He had done two years in Special Victims and had seen the videos of what happened when monsters were left alone with children and thought nobody was watching.

“
Let’s go Matt.”

“
I want to go with dad.”

“
You’ll see him on the weekend. Come on.”

Mathew begrudgingly let go of his father’s leg and got into the car. He smiled and said bye and watched Stanton as they pulled away. Stanton turned toward his own car when he saw some boys in football uniforms assembled on the school’s field. On the sidelines the parents had gathered and were chatting. He walked onto the field and stood farther away than the other parents but close enough to listen in on their conversations. It was mundane and obvious but he ached to join them. To brag about his son’s time in the forty meter dash or how they had been practicing tackling in the backyard. But he knew that wasn’t his destiny. That was now Lance’s … if he wanted it.

27

Stanton went home and flopped on the couch. He thought about turning on the television, the mindless banter might distract him, but decided against it. He just lay there, listening to the sound of traffic outside and children yelling as they got home from school.

He was twirling his keys in his hand when he suddenly realized that he hadn’t checked the mail in a long time. There was nothing he was expecting and he had no inclination to see anything anyone had sent him, but there was a purpose in it that he wanted right now. Like crossing something off a to-do list. He rose and went outside and downstairs to the line of metal boxes. He opened his and saw that the mailman had crammed everything inside, wrinkling and folding most of his mail. He pulled out the advertisements and mailers and threw them in the trash the complex provided next to the boxes. As he walked back to his apartment he flipped through the rest of the mail. It was primarily bills, one letter from the UCLA psychology department asking him to donate as an alum. There was a handwritten letter addressed to him with his last name misspelled. He opened it as he climbed the stairs.

Before anything else, the signature line screamed to him and the rest of the mail dropped out of his hand:

Sincerely,

Francisco Hernandez

*****

Stanton sat on his couch and read the letter twice before laying it on the table and going out to the balcony. He watched some children playing in the complex’s playground and then went inside and read it again.

I’m sorry it had to come to this. This fucking department don’t have room for cops like us. Assistant Chief Anderson was the one that told me not to put in that stuff about the vic and the cop.

Sincerely,

Francisco Hernandez

The return address was the Orange County address for Disneyland and no name was listed. Stanton folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He knew Anderson. He came up through Vice; An eleven year stint when most detectives could only put in two or three. He was known in the department for his undercover work until he began to go prematurely bald and wrinkles began to show on his face. The end came when every prostitute on the street would greet him as “Officer.” He took a desk job after that and rose through the ranks with old fashioned brown-nosing and putting in long hours. But Stanton knew him to be a by-the-book policeman. There was a story that had come down about him: when he was a patrolman in Indiana he had promised his Captain that he would be back to the precinct at a certain time to chauffeur the governor to a function. He was running late and speeding to catch up. He glanced down for a second to change the radio and hit a cow in the road. The cow bounced off the car but not before shattering the windshield and emptying its bowels over the car.

Anderson, unwilling to break a promise to a superior, drove the remaining ten miles to the precinct, cow feces flying off the car and into his face. That was always how Stanton had pictured him; a serious expression over a face covered in cow dung.

Stanton picked up the letter and slipped it into his pocket before heading out the door and to his car.

28

Assistant Chief Rodney C. Anderson was in the men’s room when Stanton checked in with his secretary. He took a seat on one of the couches and waited. There was a coffee table in front of him and issues of law enforcement magazines from across the country lay across it. There were a few issues of Guns and Ammo and a hunting magazine called The Happy Outdoorsman. On the cover was a man dressed in full camouflage hunting gear holding up the severed head of a buck. Stanton turned it over.