Gospel (8 page)

‘Promise me one thing – that you'll never allow me to ponder such lunatic notions again,' he said with his million dollar smile.

‘You got a deal,' laughed David, throwing a twenty dollar bill on the table before getting up to leave.

T
he Idle Hour was a cosy, smoke-filled Irish Pub just off West Broadway in South Boston – or ‘Southie' as the locals liked to call it. Its dark panelled ceilings and stained glass windows gave the small drinking house a feeling of eternal darkness, as if knock-off time was a permanent fixture inside its homely parameters; which of course it was, if you set your watch to the sixty or so clocks that ordained its emerald green walls. They were eternally stuck on 6pm and happy hour ran all day.

‘Nice place,' said FBI Special Agent Leo King, planting himself on a well-worn velvet stool next to his old friend Joe Mannix.

‘I like it.'

‘You would,' said King, removing his wet overcoat and signalling the waiter for a beer. ‘Jesus it's cold out there. The wife has just booked a summer vacation to Florida. I think my skin will go into shock.'

‘You telling me you plan to expose that polar coloured flesh of yours to the good people of the Sunshine State.'

‘They've seen worse,' smiled King.

‘I doubt it.'

In actual fact, King was one of the fittest people Joe knew – trim and athletic with short brown hair and large hazel eyes. His appearance and
name earned him the moniker of ‘Simba' after the lovable lion cub turned hero in Disney's
The Lion King
.

‘So, what's up?' said King, tossing the waiter a five dollar bill and taking a sip of his beer.

‘You tell me,' said Mannix, his no-nonsense demeanour cutting straight to the chase.

‘Look Joe, you invited me here tonight and while I am eternally grateful to you for introducing me to this fine establishment, it's been a long day.'

‘I just don't get it,' began Joe. ‘Well, actually I do. First I am invited into the investigation and then I spend the better part of a week getting stone-walled left and right. Next thing I know I get a call from Assistant Director Ramirez saying the investigation had taken a new tack – something about an independent FBI investigation into Bradshaw's supplier – and our assistance is no longer required.'

‘Come on, Joe,' said King. ‘You're painting me into a corner here. The official line is still death by self-infliction and . . .'

‘Simba,' said Joe, lowering his voice and moving his stool an inch closer to the man next to him. ‘This is me you're talking to. I may have the moniker “Lieutenant” rather than “Agent” before my name, but that doesn't mean I don't get shit.'

‘Like what?' asked King, looking down into his beer and swirling the froth around the lip of the glass.

‘Like the government are in a pre-election hole, like they need something or someone to pull them out – fast.

‘It seems to me the perfect way to do this would be to find a scapegoat for Bradshaw's untimely demise and turn his death into some form of campaign bonus – riding the ex-VP's popular anti-drugs platform all the way to the polls.'

‘Joe, nobody is looking to . . .'

‘Come on, Leo. You know what I'm talking about. Ramirez practically told me as much. The Government want to nail Bradshaw's supplier so that the American public have someone to blame.'

Joe was hoping for a response but King, still avoiding eye contact, said nothing. So Joe went on.

‘Look,' he began. ‘OxyContin may be a prescription pain killer, but it's
a Schedule II, so scripts have to be recorded in triplicate. The DEA keep close tabs on its distribution because it sells on the streets as a cheaper alternative to heroin, and my guess is, right now, they are doing some serious investigations into the 160mg tablet diluted and injected into Tom Bradshaw's veins.'

King looked up and Joe knew he was right.

‘I am not here to break your balls, Simba,' said Joe. ‘It's just that I know you are a thorough son-of-a-bitch and there is no way in hell you didn't fight for an investigation which in the very least considered this was something other than an overdose.' Joe shook his head. ‘Now if you tell me you are one hundred per cent sure that the VP kicked his own bucket then I'll say “Okay, fine”, and shout you another beer because I know you're a stand up guy. But I gotta tell you, Simba, this thing is starting to scream “agenda” – and a political one at that.'

‘Joe,' said King finally, ‘you're forgetting. I'm not the one running this investigation.'

‘Maybe not, and neither am I, but your guys invited me to this party, and now that I'm a guest, I plan to stay the duration.'

King shook his head allowing the few remaining droplets of rain to fall from the ends of the tiny spikes of his number two buzz cut. ‘What if I said you know everything we know?'

‘I'd say somehow, I don't think so. I may have been allowed into the Presidential Suite but this talk of cooperation is just lip service. I was denied access to the video surveillance in the hallway and refused permission to question his staff. What about a list of the last people to speak with him? I was told one was Dick Ryan but your guys won't allow me to interview him.'

‘He's CIA, Joe. They talked strategy on South American drug operations. It's classified information. It was just a briefing, nothing more.'

‘So that's it? You'll find some two-bit dealer and throw him to the lions and that will be the end of it?'

King said nothing, just stared straight ahead.

‘Simba?'

‘The death of the Vice President is a matter for Federal investigators but we appreciate your valued input and . . .'

‘Don't give me the Bureau line, Leo. You know me better than that.'

King took another sip of his beer before turning to his friend. ‘Look Joe, we go way back and you know I don't bullshit so . . . there is one other possibility.'

‘I'm listening.'

‘Another visitor to Bradshaw's suite – later, after Ryan. But it's not what you think. At this stage we are just asking questions, tossing around a few ideas.'

‘Wait a minute. Are you talking supply or something else?'

Simba did not answer, just looked at his friend and shrugged.

‘But who had the access?' asked Mannix, now leaning into his companion. ‘Who was in that room and why don't I know about it?'

‘Because it's a sensitive issue,' answered King. ‘The person concerned is, shall we say, an icon in his own right.'

‘Who was it, Leo?' asked Joe, his voice now low, his expression intense.

‘Okay, but this one stops here, at least until I clear it with Ramirez.'

‘Okay.'

‘It was Stuart Montgomery,' said King at last, looking his detective friend squarely in the eye, ‘the heart guy from Washington, Bradshaw's personal physician.'

‘But he was in the ballroom,' said Joe confused. ‘I saw him myself.'

‘Yeah,' nodded King. ‘But he made a quick stop to the VP's room between 8.17 and 8.21pm, an impromptu consultation according to the good Professor. He and Bradshaw had had a falling out – a fairly public one, according to our early investigations.'

‘You're talking motive?'

‘Maybe, maybe not,' shrugged King again. ‘Perhaps the VP begged his doctor friend for a hit and the good Professor was too ambitious to deny him.'

‘Shit,' said Joe.

‘Yeah,' said Leo, picking up his glass to drain the last dregs of his lager.

‘So what happens next?' said Joe after a pause. ‘I get the feeling Maxine Bryant is not one to sit on her laurels. This administration needs a political lifeline and a conviction for administering a lethal drug to the country's favourite President-in-waiting could be just what they're after.'

‘Your words not mine,' said Leo.

‘Of course, it could be nothing,' said Joe, picking up a coaster and tapping it on the bar. ‘Maybe the dear old doc was just taking his blood pressure and Bradshaw took the hit as soon as he left the room.'

‘Maybe,' said King. ‘But considering it's an election year, it plays better the other way, don't you think?'

Joe shook his head, the close-cropped curls of his thick dark hair casting irregular shadows on the bar in front of him.

‘So you are going after Montgomery – and not just for supply.'

‘We're watching him,' said King, ‘making discreet investigations. He certainly had access to the narcotics. He's ambitious, arrogant and he has the dough to hire some serious legal cohunes. In other words, we can't afford to stuff this up. We have to be careful. We have to be sure.'

‘Sure of what – his guilt or of winning a conviction?' asked Joe.

‘Both,' replied King.

‘And what about the Boston PD?'

‘You want in on this, I'll see what I can do. But remember I warned you against it.'

‘I'm a big boy, Leo.'

‘I know, but you're honest and somehow I get the feeling this one ain't gonna sit too well with your preference for squeaky clean justice.'

‘Maybe that's why I
should
be in.'

King let out a sigh. ‘Yeah, maybe you're right.'

‘W
hat have we got?' asked LAPD Homicide Detective Samuel J. Croker.

Croker stepped around the overturned trash can and followed the freckle-faced officer towards the back of the alley. The ‘kid', who looked no more than twenty, started rattling off the ‘details' like they were items on a shopping list.
That was life on the South Central beat
, thought Croker who worked Hollywood Homicide and was helping out down South for the night.
Murder by the minute
.

‘Vic is fifty-two-year-old Kevin Walker,' said Freckles, whose real name was Officer Adam Kirk. ‘Cause of death a lethal knife attack to the neck, or more specifically the guy's throat was cut in a perfect semi-circle from his left ear to his right. He was discovered in the early hours of this morning,' Kirk read from his notepad. ‘By a county garbage collector, and the vic's still dressed for work so our guess is he was done some time last night on his way home to the missus.'

Kirk stopped then, mere inches from the body, and crouched down, pulling the plastic cover sheet away from the victim's face. Croker bent too, his knees squeaking in protest, to observe the bloodied face of the conservatively dressed man – his head twisted at an ungodly angle, his face frozen in a mock expression that said: ‘
Well, I'll be damned
.'

‘This his suitcase?' asked Croker, pointing at the Louis Vuitton, his detective's instincts also taking in his shoes, which were new, and Italian.

‘Yeah. He's an income tax fraud investigator for the IRS. Works out of the Burbank office. He lives at Redondo Beach and he's married,' Kirk pointed to the bunch of white roses which lay soaking in blood, ‘with one kid.'

Croker stood up and looked around. Freckles took the cue to continue. ‘There were no signs of struggle, and no sign of the murder weapon. But the ME,' he said, pointing to a woman in a Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office windbreaker at the far end of the alley, ‘. . . she says it was most likely a double-edged hunting knife, sharp enough to slice through the carotid artery and long enough to sever the spinal cord.'

‘So what's your take on this, Kirk?' asked Croker who never underestimated the eyes of the first on the scene.

‘Who knows,' said Kirk. ‘Looks like another case of random street violence. Walker's watch was missing, his wallet had been emptied, but if robbery was the motive they weren't very thorough – missed the chunk of spare change in his pocket.'

‘And that's unusual down here?'

‘Unusual?' said Kirk. ‘Detective, down here there is no unusual, the gangs around here have murdered for a lot less than a decent timepiece and a coupla credit cards. Hell, they once killed a woman for a packet of cigarettes, and then there was that time when a kid lost his arm for not handing over a half-eaten ju ju fruit. It's called capitalism, Detective, supply and demand and in the case of this victim, a poor choice of thoroughfare on his way home from work.'

‘But you said the guy works up in Burbank.'

‘And investigates suspect returns all over the city.'

‘Has the wife been informed?' asked Croker.

‘Not yet. We kinda figured, you might wanna . . .'

‘I got it,' said Croker, looking upwards to note the sun was already on the rise. ‘You'll copy me in on your report?'

Kirk nodded.

‘And I'll want to speak to the scientific guys when they're done processing the scene, and the ME after the autopsy.'

‘You got it.'

‘Anything else, Kirk?'

‘Nah,' said the young officer, looking back at the victim's twisted body. ‘Kinda frustrating though. I mean, you'd think a guy like this would know better than to trawl the back streets of gang-infected South Central. But stranger things have happened and in the end he was probably just unlucky.'

Kirk shook his head before leading Croker back down the littered passageway towards his car.

‘Frustrating thing is, the guy'd probably never even seen a bona fide weapon in his whole entire life. Most likely figured he'd die from eating too much takeout. Most of the time these gang members are happy with just killing each other, but not always – this guy looks quiet, meek, mild . . . you know what I mean?'

And Croker did.

His wife, however, was another story.

Detective Sam Croker had been a cop for twenty-five years and, as such, had met all types. He had, however, never encountered a woman like Rita Walker – nor seen anyone respond to a ‘death knock' as Rita Walker did.