Last Shot (2006) (36 page)

"She was pregnant," Guerrera said. "A DNA test could've put Chase on the hook."

"So why wouldn't they just pay her off?"

"Rich people are assholes?" Guerrera offered.

"The prosecution rests."

"Didn't Freed mention that Chase was engaged?"

"Yeah, but still. You'd think you'd rather get caught with your dick wet than face a murder one."

"So maybe there was evidence. Maybe that's what they stole her hard drive for. Scanned photos or something."

Bear looked skeptical. He used his thumb to flick dirt from under a fingernail.

Tim said, "That hard drive housed something with more bite. Remember, Sam's participation in that drug study got Tess a full-frontal of Vector."

"Yeah," Bear said, "she had to have something that would make their shareholders pucker." He gestured at the mansion behind them. "Dean ain't risking all this to avoid a rape trial for his boy."

Guerrera took in the span of the massive house. "You think Walker'll strike here again?"

Tim said, "Not with the security Dean'll have in place here come tonight. He'll wait them out. They won't hide in their compound forever."

"Funeral?"

"'The Kagans aren't big on personal ceremonies,'" Tim quoted dutifully, "'nor public displays of private emotion.'"

"So where?"

They stood eyeing the ripples in the pond, and then Guerrera spit in the flowers, said, "Catch you at the post," and headed to his car.

Tim and Bear moved single file to cut through the workers still dissecting the crime scene. Dean was in his study where Tim had left him, but now he sat alone, the inevitable banker's lamp lending a nauseous tint to the dimness. Behind the desk a framed poster showed the miracle cure in a vial, floating through space. XEDRAL. THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED. THIRTY DAYS AT A TIME. For once Dean had no paperwork, no phone calls, no assistants. Just a tired man sitting in the dark.

Tim said, "We'd like to assign some men to stay. For your protection."

"We can handle our own security."

"I understand that, sir, but we've spent a lot of time guarding judges and--"

"And I've spent fifty-plus years running businesses. To say I trust private sector over public servants would be an understatement."

Bear said, "I'm sure Keating would be flattered."

Dean took in Bear with an irritated sweep of the eyes before returning his focus to Tim. "Why do you think he's coming after me?"

Tim said, "We suspect you know why already. If you'd tell us, we could do a better job of apprehending him."

"You seemed awfully cozy when you spoke to him on my phone. You sure he didn't mention something?"

"Quite," Tim said. "I think you should stay holed up here for a while. With Dolan."

"I can't. We have our pre-IPO presentation in two days. Chase would've wanted us to see it through."

"That's where Jameson is most likely to make his next attempt. It's certainly where I would."

"Would you close down your whole operation in fear of some...terrorist, Deputy?" Dean waved his hand in a terse dismissal.

Tim debated asking where Dolan was but didn't want to put the old man on alert. Instead he nodded at Bear, and they left the study with the assertion Tim had gone there to get--the dog and pony show for investors would go on, hell or high water. Finally a point of reentry for Walker they could count on.

In one of the dark halls, they bumped into Speedy, the worker they'd interviewed after Walker's first assault on the house. Tapping down a pack of Marlboros, he told them how to get to Chase's and Dolan's former rooms on the second floor of the south wing. The directions involved more turns and half flights of stairs than seemed possible for a residence.

After twice getting lost and having to be redirected by various workers, available at every turn, they entered the immense game room. Bear leaned back on his heels, whistling as he regarded the high ceiling. The doors to both bedroom suites were ajar. Tim called out Dolan's name but, hearing no response, entered the room to the left. King bed, satin sheets, a walk-in closet deeper than some trailer homes Tim had kick-entried. A shaky penned dedication split a framed photo of the Greatest himself--To Chaisson, Sting like a bee. On a drawerless desk rested a laptop, a roaming James Bond Walther barrel as the screen saver. Cables snaked off to various peripherals. A line of glass cubes formed the mantel over the vast fireplace. Centered on it was an urn, Mary Chaisson etched in scrolled letters. Tim stepped up onto the hearth and raised the burnished silver lid. Cocktail napkins and glossy matchbooks filled the inside. Tim pulled out the top matchbook and flipped it open. Jenni. 451-1215. Peering in, he saw where ink had bled through the napkins--more telephone numbers rendered on the paper between beer-company logos and condensation rings.

Tim returned Mary to her rightful post and nosed through the nightstand drawers. The top held a variety of condoms and lubricants and a tray filled with single earrings. Tim wondered if whatever house Chase shared with his fiancee was as well stocked. A leather-bound notebook in the second drawer held an anthropological accounting that might have put Kinsey to shame. Silver-dollar areolas. Landing-strip trim. Faint blond down across lower back. Tim flipped through May and June searching for one name. No mention of Tess. Was Chase too smart? Did she not make the best-of reel?

When Tim glanced up, Bear was standing before the swung-open doors of the armoire, regarding a wall of gift-wrapped boxes. Pulling out the top package, he tilted it to show Tim the Frederick's of Hollywood logo on the paper. Lingerie. Outcall party favors?

Below, a carved see-no-evil monkey served as a bookend to a row of generic DVDs, his two simian cronies bracing similar collections on the shelves below.

Bear plucked out a DVD and plugged it into the player underlying a massive plasma screen. Chase's naked ass bobbing up and down, the limbs of a woman crabbing up around him. Bear regarded the footage as if considering Chase's form, ready to hold up a judging card. The woman's face popped into view over Chase's shoulder, her mouth open in a moan, but the DVD seemed muted. Bear raised the volume, but the bars already stretched across half the screen. Tim backtracked the camera angle to a wall-mounted mirror. He pressed his fingertips to the glass. No separation between his nails and their reflection. "One-way," he said.

"There goes the obvious motive." Bear ejected the disk. "I don't think Chase was worried about news of Tess leaking to his fiancee. Nor do I think a knocked-up broad from the high desert would throw his world into Puritan uproar."

"No, he doesn't strike one as the most discreet individual." Tim looked from the urn to the DVD in Bear's hand and thought someone could probably write a treatise on the psychology stretching between them. "Can we take the DVDs as evidence?"

Bear stared at the seventy or so unlabeled DVDs. "You're thinking Tess makes a guest appearance?"

Though the notion of enduring a review of Chase's humping through the twelve seasons was less than palatable, Tim nodded. "It'll give Guerrera something to do while his cafe cubano congeals."

"If there was footage, I doubt Chase would be reckless enough to keep it after Tess was killed," Bear said. "We can talk to the AUSA, but even at Camarillo Vet-n-Law, we know prosecutors won't green-light a warrant for the DVDs anyway. Not with the Kagan lawyers and various elected allies weighing in from around the country. Think ahead to how appalled--appalled--they'll be about the way our pursuit of unrelated sensitive materials undermines the murder victim's dignity."

"Unless the tapes themselves are illegal," Tim said. "Then we could seize them and avoid an ass chewing from Tannino." Bear shrugged. Also unfamiliar with state statutes, Tim flicked open his Nextel and dialed home. "Is it illegal to videotape yourself having sex with someone without their consent?"

Dray said, "Babe, all you have to do is ask."

Tim laughed, then said, "Seriously."

"That's one of those laws that makes you wonder what they're smoking in Sacramento. Video without consent is perfectly okay in California, but audio without consent is illegal."

"Clever prick kept the sound off," Tim said.

"Who's this clever prick you've been cheating on me with?"

Edwin floated into view at Bear's shoulder, and Tim muttered, "Gotta go."

"You seem to have lost your way en route to the door?" Edwin suggested.

Bear slotted the DVD back into the row and closed the armoire. "We need to speak with Dolan."

"He's quite upset."

"Us, too. Distraught, even." Bear took a step forward, forcing Edwin's head to tilt back until his Adam's apple bulged out. But if Edwin was intimidated, he didn't show it. A man practiced at contending with the whims of plutocrats didn't scare easy.

"Mr. Kagan has gone to the indoor pool."

"Where's that?"

"I'll be happy to escort you." The impeccable white glove unfurled toward the door, and for not the first time, Tim wondered if Edwin might be holographic. L.A.'s rich loved their musty props, but even for the town that produced Citizen Kane, Edwin seemed a stretch.

Bear and Tim hung back on one of the endless halls that conveyed them soundlessly across the mansion.

"What kind of idiot has an indoor pool in Los Angeles?" Bear whispered.

"The kind of idiot who has an outdoor one already."

They arrived at an unimposing door off a dank corridor, and Edwin rapped on it once and pushed it open. Diffuse green light undulated around the dark walls like sheets of gauze. Dolan's form streaked through the water, swimming laps with punishing exertion. When he came up for air at the near end and spotted them, he was gasping.

Tim and Bear stepped down onto the tile, and Bear thanked Edwin and shoved the door closed in his face. They'd have limited time before Edwin's situation report would bring Dean's interference.

Dolan swiped his thin brown hair out of his face and squinted, handicapped without his glasses. "Hi."

Tim reached the edge of the pool and crouched, looking almost directly down into Dolan's face. "We know about the rape in the limo. We know everything. Your brother's dead. You can't protect him anymore. We want to hear your side of what happened--it's Jameson's motive, but it's also what makes you an accessory."

Dolan's chest was still heaving from the laps. For a moment it seemed he might cry, but then he slapped the water with both arms and sank down so his head bobbed on the surface. "Chase keyed to Tess the minute he saw her. Sitting outside her house with his stupid guitar. He likes older women. Milfs, he calls them. He told me Tess turned him on even more since she had"--he blushed at the memory--"a fuck trophy."

Resting on the poolside towel, a cell phone put out a classical-music ring--Bach's haunted-castle organ riff shrilling off the hard tile. Dolan tensed. Tim looked down at the hot-orange caller ID screen. DadStudy.

"I program rings for certain people." Dolan's face said the rest.

Eager to get him back on track, Tim said, "And 'fuck trophy' would be slang for...?"

"A kid."

Bear gave Dolan the stare he'd perfected from years of playing bad cop in interrogation rooms.

"Look, Chase was Chase. He was a dick. But he was charming when he wanted to be. He was my brother, but I didn't...No one could..." Dolan trailed off, staring at the rippling water. When he spoke again, his words were pressured, almost eager. "I didn't see much at the shoot. He'd followed Tess out to the garage. I went to get him because he was supposed to be overseeing the producer. I could...I could hear some banging from the limo, but I thought...I don't know what I thought. Percy was there, outside, like he was standing guard. I started for the limo. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. When I got close, Percy squared himself toward me, said, 'Let's give a man his space.'" Dolan made a faint sound of disgust. His face was wet from the pool water; Tim couldn't distinguish tears on it. "I heard her...kicking on the window, you know, then her hand, fingers spread. I could see it even through the tint, the shadow of her hand. Banging." Dolan raised a dripping arm and imitated the gesture, perhaps unknowingly. "You know when you freeze?"

Tim wanted to say no but opted for silence.

"I'm not like them. I never know what to do." Dolan looked shrunken and feeble in the pool. "So I left." His gaze dropped again to the water. "I left. I waited around the corner by the elevator. A few minutes later, I heard the door open. I peeked around the corner. I saw her bloody mouth in the crack of the door before it closed. Chase straightened his shirt. The front pocket, the monogrammed one, was ripped. The driver rolled down the window and said, 'She okay?' and Chase said, 'She's fine. I'll get her son as soon as we wrap. Then you can take her home.' And he thumped the roof like a pit-crew guy sending off a race car. I went upstairs before he reached me and pretended like nothing had happened."

"And Tess threatened to prosecute?"

"I can't--how did you...?--I can't discuss that. I can't discuss anything involving the trials."

"Trials?" Bear was mystified. "What trials? The drug trials?"

A boom startled Tim upright and jerked Bear 180 degrees. The door vibrated on its hinges, stunned, where it had struck the tile wall. Backlit by the light of the corridor and centered in the doorway was Dean's silhouette, somehow conveying the strength of a man with enormous power at his disposal, a man assured of his place on the planet.