L. A. Mischief (10 page)

“Buy you a Bud, copper.”

“You trying to bribe an officer of the law? That’s a serious offense.”

Chris held out his arms, palms out. “Cuff me then.” He dropped his voice. “Or better yet, maybe you could model that leather rig and I’ll cuff you.”

David never would have thought such a promise would have aroused him, but it did. He was instantly hard. Chris knew it too.

“Interesting.” Chris licked his lips. “I’m tempted to take you home.”

“Except the leather is at my place,” David said softly.

“I can change that fast enough.” Chris held out one arm. “Come on, let me get you that beer—and maybe a burger. Ready for lunch?”

They entered the bar and instantly every eye in the place was on them. The bouncer, a big burly bear who had often caught David’s eye, though neither of them had ever acted on their desires, looked Chris up and down with interest then met David’s smoldering gaze. He smiled and dropped his eyes, acquiescing to David’s proprietary glare.

At the bar the bartender greeted David with an effusive, “Davey, you’re back. Good to see you. Heard you got into a spot of trouble.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

No one looked at Chris. Until David put his hand on his arm and introduced him, no one wanted to be caught looking at the pretty boy. They all assumed he was David’s. He wasn’t about to disabuse anyone of the notion.

Chris ordered two Buds and followed David into the dark back pool room. David put his beer down on a small table and gestured toward an empty pool table.

“Game?”

Chris shrugged and set his beer beside David’s. “I’ll warn you, I play it about as well as I bowl.”

“Well then I guess I know who’s going to win, don’t I? Want to lay down some coin?”

“Bet with you? Are you nuts?”

David waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

Chris grinned. He sauntered over and picked up a cue. “Maybe I will.”

David ran the table on the first round. Chris looked up to find the late lunch crowd had gathered, watching them. He pretended to glare at David. “You’ve been practicing.”

“Of course.” He racked the balls again and took the first shot, scattering the balls over the felt topped table. This time it took him a little longer but he still won handily. Someone else claimed the next game and Chris was sidelined. He stood over the table holding his beer and watching as David challenged and won the next two games. Finally he lost and joined Chris.

David was all too aware of the eyes on them. Or rather, on Chris. Even without his designer suit Chris stood out everywhere he went. David had never gotten used to the attention he garnered. He had never been the jealous type but Chris seemed to bring out the worst in him. One more reason he needed to distance himself from the man.

So what was he doing here? Worse, what was he doing here enjoying himself and wanting the day to never end?

He glanced at his watch. It was nearly four. He tipped his beer back and drained the bottle. “Can you run me home?”

“Sure, of course.”

“Let’s go then.”

Chris turned in behind David’s Chevy and climbed out. He met David under the gabled front door and stood with his hands folded over his chest. David stood awkwardly in front of him. When Chris stepped forward to kiss him, David sidestepped the contact.

“I’ll call,” David said, knowing he wouldn’t. Just like he wanted to invite Chris in, but wouldn’t.

“Okay. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

David waited until Chris rolled back out to Piedmont before he unlocked the door and went in to greet Sweeney.

DAVID SLIPPED HIS jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair. Flipping on his computer he pulled out the blue murder book they had started for the John Doe found at Forest Lawn. Martinez had been busy. The body had been IDed as Augustus “Gus” Crowley, a known hustler who worked out of West Hollywood. A canvass of the area had come up with one of Gus’s buddies who had recognized Bitterman from a photo lineup. So that was one tie.

The body in the garage had indeed been Meredith Luxton Bitterman, wife and mother who had discovered her husband’s extramarital activities when she had returned early from a business trip where she demonstrated and sold medical supplies. She had discovered the theft of her Stryker saw and immediately suspected her husband, though David doubted she’d guessed what he wanted the tool for. Bitterman had panicked at her unexpected return, seeing his whole life crumble around him and he had lashed out, striking his wife on the head, resulting in a subdural hematoma, meaning she had bled out into her brain. He hadn’t had time to turn her own saw on her before the police had started sniffing around him about his stolen car containing the body parts from another homicide.

David studied the report Martinez had written up while he’d been hospitalized and recuperating. None of it had come from Bitterman who had lawyered up the minute he hit the interview room. So Martinez had gone back to the house where Scientific Investigation Division had gone over the whole house for forensic trace. They found it in abundance. The Stryker saw found in the trunk with the body parts and a regular saw found in the garage, which both held DNA from Gus and Bitterman’s fingerprints. It was pretty much a slam dunk case.

Martinez had left a note saying he wanted to reinterview Bitterman. David figured he had been waiting for David to return to work. Martinez rolled in at seven-thirty and clapped David on the back.

“Good to see you back in the saddle, cuz. You ready for this little get together with our confused boy?”

“Confused?”

“Yeah, he don’t seem to know if he’s gay or straight. No offense.”

“None taken,” David muttered. “At least I never had that problem.”

“Guess not...”

David and Martinez never talked about David’s orientation, though at least Martinez had stopped asking about his hot dates as a single guy. Probably didn’t want to hear what really went on in David’s bedroom. He had accepted David and their working relationship had never been stronger. Even their social life, Angel’s games and the bowling league had picked up again after a lag following David’s outing.

He still got the odd remark from other cops, usually the older ones who were a lot less tolerant than their younger counterparts. But the people who mattered, his Captain and Lieutenant were supportive, even if they didn’t understand. As long as he did his job to their satisfaction, they were more concerned with meeting the Federal consent decree’s draconian rules than hassling one gay cop.

Knowing Bitterman had lawyered up, David asked, “His mouthpiece going to be there?”

“Sure, gotta earn his fee, don’t he?”

David had to give the guy credit, he was a bulldog, though he was fighting a losing cause. Bitterman’s lawyer, Joel Stiller, went on the offensive even before David and Martinez had pulled up chairs to sit across from the shackled Bitterman. The ADA, Ann Marie DeSoto, was already present and had clearly been the subject of Stiller’s blandishments before their arrival. She did not look impressed, which did not bode well for Bitterman.

“What are you offering my client?” Stiller demanded.

David looked from DeSoto to Bitterman, then blandly met Stiller’s belligerent gaze. “Considering what your client is facing, nothing.”

“He’s prepared to cooperate.”

“Sweet of him,” Martinez said. “We’ve got him dead to rights on two counts of aggravated first degree homicide.” He started ticking things off on his thick fingers. “Weapons used to commit, motive, opportunity, instruments used to dismember the corpse of Augustus Crowley—really, man, what do you think the male jurors are going to think about that little number you pulled on him? I can see them holding themselves right now.”

“The jury will never hear any of that. I intend to file a motion to suppress all the evidence seized in the house.”

“Don’t count on it, counselor,” DeSoto said. “The search of the garage was legitimate, and it’ll stand up to any attempt to rule it inadmissible. Forget it, counselor, your client’s got only one chance to avoid the death penalty—”

“Death penalty!” Bitterman went from slouching sullenly in his seat to sitting bolt upright, his face white under his sunburn. “What did I do to deserve the death penalty? It was an accident. I never meant—”

David got into it this time. “You stole equipment from your wife that had only one purpose—to cut bone. You reported your car stolen after witnesses placed you in West Hollywood with the victim the night he was last seen by any of his friends. A jury might discount the report on the car, but the Stryker saw? That smacks of premeditation. You meant to bring Crowley back to your place to make sure he didn’t carry out his threat to tell your wife. You probably would have succeeded too, if your wife hadn’t chosen to come home early from her trip.”

Bitterman shook his balding head sorrowfully. “She was supposed to be away until Friday. None of this would have happened—”

His lawyer put his hand on Bitterman’s arm, but it was too little and too late to stem the tide of words that poured out of the broken man.

“He was just a cheap hustler. Why would someone like that think I loved him? Loser...”

“But what about your wife, man?” Martinez asked softly. “She didn’t deserve that, did she? Now your kids are at county.”

Tears filled Bitterman’s eyes and he stared down at his manacled hands. “She shouldn’t have come home like that. She was trying to catch me up. She was always jealous of me. Always thinking the worst.”

Guess she was right on that. David kept his thoughts to himself. If the guy hadn’t seen the irony of his complaint David wasn’t about to point it out.

Stiller conferred with his client, who if anything, looked glummer.

“What are you offering us?”

DeSoto took over the negotiations. “I’ll take the death penalty off the table in exchange for a full written confession. Life without parole for both counts, to run concurrently.”

“My children—” Bitterman moaned.

DeSoto shrugged. “I can see you’re put in LAC, Cal State prison up in Lancaster. Your children can visit, provided their legal guardian brings them.”

Bitterman moaned again. “The bitch shouldn’t have done this to me. I was a good husband. I took care of my kids. Why’d she have to go do this?” His voice drifted off, despondent.

DeSoto pulled out some forms from her briefcase and slid them across the table to Stiller, who glanced at them. “Our deal. He gives us full disclosure on both crimes. He’ll be expected to depose in front of a judge. In return for pleading guilty on both counts of second degree murder, you sidestep a murder one with special circumstances—and trust me, we can prove premeditation if you insist on going that road—and the state’s saved the waste of a trial. Win-win all around.”

“Win?” Bitterman whined. His one free hand swept the papers back toward the other side of the table. “You can’t send me to jail forever. I don’t deserve that!”

“Tell that to your wife and your motherless sons,” DeSoto snapped. She pushed the paper back across the table. “Talk to your client, counselor. Talk some sense into him. If you want I can have the detectives outline our whole case for you. Maybe that will convince you.”

Bitterman’s shoulders slumped. He nodded, whether in defeat or acquiescence, David didn’t know or care. His lawyer picked up the agreement DeSoto had drafted and flipped through them. Seeming to have given up any argument, he nodded as well and passed the papers and a pen to his client. Without hesitating Bitterman signed where he was told to and handed the papers back to his lawyer who added his signature.

DeSoto slid them back into her briefcase. “We’ll set up a court date for you, counselor. Your client will be held in remand until that time.”

“Can I talk to my children?”

“Your brother’s on his way, right?”

“Y-yes,” Bitterman said. “Karl and his wife, Rhonda...”

“He’ll be able to contact you. Whether he wants the children to talk to you will be up to him,” DeSoto said. She did nothing to soften her words, reminding David that he’d heard her called Iceberg DeSoto on the courtroom grapevine.

David and Martinez took Bitterman’s confession, a tape of which would be transcribed and signed by all parties before he went in front of a judge to do it all over again. Then they left DeSoto and Stiller to finish up their legal wrangling and picked up their weapons from check in. Back on the road in their unmarked David sighed and sagged back in the passenger’s seat. His side had started aching half way through the interview. He resisted the temptation to take any of the pain meds the doctor had prescribed for him. He didn’t want Martinez on his case for pushing too hard, too soon. Back at Northeast David pulled the murder book out one more time and finished up the report. One more case filed under closed. He still had two sixty-day reports to finish up for Lieutenant McKee. McKee had reminded him of them before he and Martinez had headed out to interview Bitterman. And there was the Drew Street drive by which was looking like another sixty-dayer, though that could change.

The paperwork gave him some much needed respite. Even with two weeks out of work, he was still sore. Before lunch he broke down and took one of the pain meds. For his first day back he met Martinez at El Tepayac, the Mexican restaurant in Boyle Heights where rumor often had Joseph Wambaugh, the ex-LAPD cop who had made it big selling stories about cops and helping to redefine the LAPD ate with some of his cop friends. There they ran into some Hollenbeck division detectives who joined them around a big back table. Wambaugh was a no show. David ordered the signature Hollenbeck burrito and sweated through the fiery salsa. Martinez never had anything but the chicken taquito loaded down with guacamole he swore his own mother couldn’t make.

Back at the division station he went back to his reports. All around him phones rang and voices filled the detective’s squad room. Light from the noon sun bled through the dirty windows and low smog that blanketed the city since early morning and had only thickened as the day waned.