Flipping Out (4 page)

'He
came in as soon as I opened,' she said. 'He was about five foot eight, late
fifties, curly grey hair, wearing a nice suit, no tie, gold band on the third
finger of his left hand.'

'I
appreciate the description,' I said. 'But what I really need is his last name
and his address.'

'I
never saw him before, and he paid cash.'

'Not
what I wanted to hear,' I said, 'but it makes sense. A guy with a wedding ring,
sending flowers to someone else's wife—'

She
interrupted. 'But I told him I needed his cell in case there were any
problems.'

'Well,
Ms Freem, I guess you could say there's a problem.'

She
gave me Roger's number.

Terry
and I figured if Roger shot Jo last night, he probably wouldn't have sent
flowers in the morning, along with a mea culpa for getting drunk. So we sent a
backup team to track him down and question him.

The
two of us drove back to the station and sat down with Reggie.

'I
spent the night on the boat,' he said. 'You guys left at ten or so. Jo called
me around eleven. She was on her way home from the wedding.'

'Did
she say if anything happened?' I asked.

'Like
what?'

'Like
people at weddings get drunk. Did she have an argument? A fight over the bill?
Anything out of the ordinary?'

'No.
She said it was real good. The bride was happy. Her mother was happy. It was a
wedding. Everybody had a good time.'

'Who's
Roger?' I said.

He
shrugged.

'Some
guy named Roger sent Jo flowers this morning. He apologised for his bad
behaviour last night.'

'Never
heard of him,' Reggie said. 'But I sure as hell would like to meet him as soon
as I get my gun back.'

'Jo
didn't mention anything about it when she called?'

'No,
that shit happens all the time. She's a good-looking woman...' He stopped, put
his hand over his eyes, and turned away. 'Give me a minute.'

I
see it a lot. That excruciating moment when someone realises that the present
tense no longer applies.

Reggie
took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. 'I'm OK,' he lied. 'Jo was
beautiful. She'd orchestrate these big parties, guys would get shit-faced, and
sometimes make a pass. Pretty harmless. Usually she would tell them her old man
was a cop, and that would be the end of it. She wouldn't tell me, because she
said I'd just get all bent out of shape. I mean, who wants to hear that some
guy is grabbing his wife's ass?'

'Was
that phone call the last time you spoke to her?'

'Yeah.
I drove home from the boat around six thirty this morning. Jo had borrowed my
pickup last night. I parked her Tercel in the driveway, took a quick look
through the garage window, and I could see my truck. I walked to the front
door, grabbed the paper, and went upstairs. The bed was made, so I figured she
was out jogging. I took a shower, got dressed, but she still wasn't home, so I
left her a note on the kitchen table and went to the garage to get my truck.
That's when I found her. She was cold. Dead a long time. I called 911, then I
called Kilcullen direct.'

'Let's
talk about who might have it in for you - did you bust anyone who could be that
pissed?'

He
shook his head. 'Come on - they're low-level sex peddlers. They get busted,
they do a little time, they go back on the street again. It goes with the
turf.'

'What
about johns?' Terry said.

'You
passed the detective exam,' Reggie said. 'Cops don't arrest johns.'

'I
know. But I wonder if maybe you nailed one you shouldn't have, and caused him a
problem.'

'Who
knows? Some of these guys are pretty twisted. Just ask the hookers. Maybe we
could go over my case file. Something might jump out at me. You think I was the
target?'

'We're
gonna look at everything,' I said.

'Maybe
you're right,' he said. 'There was no robbery. It's not a crime of opportunity.
They're laying in wait for me, but it's dark out, Jo comes home in my truck,
and they shoot her by mistake.'

'Reg,
the lights go on in the garage when you open the door. Jo got out of the truck
and the killer came up behind her. She was wearing a dress. They didn't shoot
her by mistake.'

'What
if they came to shoot me, but I was too fat and lazy to get off the boat, so
they killed her instead?'

I
doubted it. The fact that the killer cut off a lock of Jo's hair made me pretty
sure she was the intended victim, but that was one of the crime scene details I
wasn't about to share with my primary suspect.

'You
may be right, Reggie,' I said. 'So just in case you are the target, Kilcullen
assigned someone to keep an eye on you.'

'Bullshit.
If I need protection, why did Kilcullen take my gun? He's not assigning someone
to protect me. He knows I have other guns at home. He's just tailing me to make
sure I don't go out and use them.'

'So
he's protecting you from yourself,' Terry said. 'This is your time to say
goodbye to your wife, to grieve for her, not to go vigilante on us.'

'Did
you even bother asking Kilcullen if I could work on the case?'

'For
the record, we asked,' Terry said. 'The three of us agree.'

Reggie
slumped in his chair. His tie was hanging loosely around his neck. There were
dark sweat circles under the sleeves of his yellow shirt. 'Who lost the coin
toss?' he said.

'What
do you mean?' Terry said.

'My
wife was murdered. I'm an automatic suspect. Somebody's got to ask the nasty
questions. I was just wondering which one of you drew the short straw. I'll
tell you what - I'll spare you the embarrassment.'

He
stood up and looked down at the vacant chair. 'So, Reggie, who were you
banging?'

He
sat back down and answered. 'Nobody, Detective. I loved my wife.'

Back
on his feet again. 'How about Jo - all those guys hitting on her - you think
she ever got involved?'

He
sat down and shook his head. 'No. Never.'

He
got up one last time. 'So there were no marital problems?'

This
time he didn't bother sitting down. He just stood there and stared at me and
Terry. 'Just the one problem,' he said. 'She snored, but I wouldn't say it was
loud enough to shoot her. So stop wasting time and find out who the fuck did.'

He
walked out the door. The interview was over.

As
a kid growing up in Manchester, England, Detective Chris High had two passions.
Football and surfing. Manchester has two football teams but no oceans, so at
seventeen Chris moved to LA, bought himself a board, and became an all-American
surfer.

It
was, as the Beach Boys say, fun, fun, fun. Until he broke his neck. After nine
months in a halo brace and a year in therapy, he decided that becoming a cop
would be a safer bet than being a surfer dude.

Chris
runs the Hollywood Apprehension Team. When a detective gets a warrant, the HAT
squad does the legwork and makes the arrest. Today they were called in to
canvass the area where Jo Drabyak was murdered.

At
six o'clock Kilcullen pulled a dozen detectives into the break room to kick
around different perspectives on the case. Chris High led off with a No
Progress Report.

'Nobody
bloody saw anything,' he said. 'One bloke walking his dog heard a garage door
at 23:15 hours, which is when the victim was expected home, but he didn't see
anything, so he can't be sure if it was her.'

'Is
that all you came up with?' Kilcullen said.

'We've
only tracked down half the neighbours. We'll be sweeping the area again at
19:00 hours. But so far, nothing. Whoever did this was a bloody pro.'

'What
about this guy who sent the roses?' Kilcullen said.

Terry
and I had sent Detectives Pat Sutula and Andy Langer to interview the guy who
sent the flowers. They're known around the squad room as Penn and Teller. She
does all the talking. Langer is stony silent.

'His
name is Roger Levinson,' Sutula said. 'He's an accountant in Burbank. His
daughter got married last night. Mrs Drabyak planned the wedding. Levinson got
drunk, came on to her, then tried to make nice with two dozen roses. He has an
alibi for the time of death.'

'Which
is when?' Kilcullen asked.

'Keating
gave us a two-hour spread this morning,' I said. 'I just spoke to her, and
she's narrowed it down to somewhere between ten forty-five and eleven thirty
last night. We might be able to narrow it down even more. According to Reggie,
his wife called him at 11:00 p.m. She was in the car on her way home.'

'Where
was he when she called?' Kilcullen asked.

'His
boat on the marina. It was cell to cell.'

'Verify
his location with cell tower records. If we can prove that he took the call on
his boat at eleven that would eliminate him as a suspect.'

'Isn't
he already eliminated?' Tony Dominguez said. 'Does anybody here actually think
Reggie murdered his wife?'

'Nobody
thinks he did it,' Kilcullen said. 'But I
was alone on the
boat
is not
an alibi, and the DA will crucify us if we cut him loose based on the nice-guy-
we-work-with defence. I need cell records to back up his story.'

'Can
we talk motive?' Charlie Knoll said. 'I knew this woman. I can't think of any
reason why somebody would want to kill her. Does anyone think this might be a
vendetta against Reggie?'

Hands
went up, including mine and Terry's.

'We're
working two paths,' Kilcullen said. 'We're digging into Jo Drabyak's life, and
we're also looking at Reggie's cases.' He turned to Detective Burns. 'Wendy,
your hand wasn't up. You don't think this is about Reggie?'

'I
wouldn't rule it out. You never know who might have it in for a cop,' Wendy
said, 'but the killer brought a pair of scissors and cut off a piece of Jo's
hair. To me, that says it's about her, and it's personal.'

'A
boyfriend?' Kilcullen said.

Wendy
smiled. 'Most men don't sneak up and shoot women in the back of the head. A
pissed-off boyfriend would want to confront her face to face and say, "You
see what you made me do, you bitch?'"

'Which
brings us back around to her business,' Kilcullen said. 'We can look into every
event she ever planned, but I can't imagine killing somebody over a wedding
reception gone wrong.'

'What
about that house renovating business she's involved in?' Wendy said.

'What
about it?' Tony Dominguez said.

'We
should look into it,' Wendy said. 'Construction breeds a lot more crime than
party planning.'

'Are
you suggesting that the women in this real estate venture are into something
crooked?' Tony said.

'No,'
Wendy said. 'I'm saying it's just another part of Jo Drabyak's life that we
should be looking into.'

'Thank
you for clarifying, Detective,' Tony said, 'because my wife is part of that
group, and whatever else you might say about her, she's not involved in
anything shady.'

'I
didn't realise Jo was one of the Flippers,' Kilcullen said.

'She
was,' Tony said. 'Charlie's wife, mine, Terry's. Us guys, we play poker and
lose money to each other. Our wives get together and make a nice little
profit.'

'Excuse
me, but I am completely flummoxed,' Chris High said. 'Will somebody clue me in.
What's a flipper?'

'The
LA Flippers,' Charlie said. 'It's a group of five—'

'I
know,' Chris said. 'They play basketball.'

'That's
the Clippers,' Charlie said. 'A bunch of our wives have a business together.
They call themselves the LA Flippers. You know my mother-in-law, Nora
Bannister?'

High
gave him a dubious look.

'For
God's sakes, Chris. Nora Bannister. She's the queen of the murder mystery
writers.'

'I
didn't realise you Yanks had a queen,' High said. 'I thought that's why you
left England in the first place - to get away from all that monarchy rot.'

'Are
you telling me you never heard of Nora Bannister?' Charlie said. 'She's like a
cherished American writer.'

'So
she's more like Shakespeare than the Queen.'

'You're
yanking my chain, right?'

High
waggled his finger. 'Yes, Charles, I know who Nora Bannister is. I'm just not a
big fan of the drivel she writes.'

'To
each his own, Detective High and Mighty,' Charlie said.

'Anyway,
five years ago, Nora helped set up my wife, Julia, and Tony's wife, Marisol, in
a house-flipping business. They bought a run-down house in a good
neighbourhood, hired a contractor, renovated the shit out of it, then flipped
it for a profit.'