Murder Season (6 page)

The usual morning banter had been replaced with muffled voices and dull eyes pinned to the ground. The read she picked up was disappointment. But she thought that she could see fear and uncertainty, too.

The mood followed her into the captain’s office, only it was more pervasive here. As she slipped into an open seat and listened, Deputy Chief Ramsey was standing at the head of the table, laying it out for anyone who might have missed it. His audience was a select group that included the two prosecutors from the district attorney’s office who had failed, Steven Bennett and Debi Watson, another deputy DA Lena recognized but had never worked with, Greg Vaughan, along with their boss, District Attorney Jimmy J. Higgins. Aside from Ramsey, the only other LAPD official was her supervisor, Lieutenant Frank Barrera. That could only mean that Lena really was on her own.

She pushed the thought away and tried to concentrate on what the deputy chief was saying. Most of it was a repeat of her conversations with Rhodes and Escabar. But Ramsey had found his voice—gravel rinsed in an ashtray—and spiced things up with new details.

“We’re making news again,” he said. “Department of Justice attorneys will be meeting with the judge in two hours. Every reform we’ve made under Chief Logan—the progress we’ve achieved, the performance records we’ve broken—everything we’ve stood for over the past few years burned up with this case. This trial. And now, two men murdered in Hollywood. Termination of the consent decree has been tossed to the side of the road. Another monitor will be selected to look over our shoulders and report to the judge. The department is under the microscope again. You are, too, Higgins. We’re in this mess together. And right now, we’re roadkill. We’re fucked.”

The deputy chief’s words settled into the room sharp as broken glass. When Higgins didn’t react, Lena looked around the table and wondered what she’d missed over the past forty-five minutes. Bennett and Watson were sitting with the district attorney directly across from her. Barrera was on her left, but seemed to be focused on Greg Vaughan who was in a chair by himself at the far end of the table.

Something was going on. The more she thought it over, the more convinced she became that Vaughan’s presence was out of place. And from the grim expression on his face, it seemed obvious enough that he didn’t want to be here, either. Of all the prosecutors in the DA’s office, Greg Vaughan was the total package and could have worked for any law firm in the city. Lena had only met him in passing, but was well aware of his reputation. He was an exceedingly bright and gentle man, and looked to be about forty. His hair was more brown than blond. His frame, lean and athletic. When she had seen him in the past, he walked with an easy confidence. But it had been his eyes that set him apart. The glint and energy in those light brown eyes.

Today it looked like the lights had been shut down.

Lena glanced at Higgins, then back at Vaughan jotting something down on his legal pad. Vaughan had been shut out of the Jacob Gant trial early on when it looked like the kind of high-profile case that could make a deputy DA instead of breaking one. Higgins had kept Vaughan away because it was well known that he had become the district attorney’s chief rival. To Vaughan’s credit, he didn’t seem to have an interest in the rivalry and had made no attempt to compete with Higgins for his job. Roy Wemer, a deputy DA Lena had worked with over the past few years, once told her that Vaughan would never give up being a prosecutor. In spite of the years he’d put in, in spite of the overwhelming support he would have received from his colleagues, Vaughan still enjoyed presenting a case at trial and working in front of a judge and jury.

The deputy chief opened a file folder, tossing a photograph on the conference table. Everyone leaned in for a closer look. It was a single frame from the street camera that had picked up Tim Hight driving away from Club 3 AM. Although the image had been taken at night, the clarity was good enough to make an ID. Tim Hight’s face showed clearly through the windshield, looking triumphant and completely mad, along with a dark shape on the passenger seat that could easily have been the murder weapon.

Ramsey rolled a chair over, turning to Lena as he sat down. “SID has already made a preliminary review of the security tapes from the club,” he said. “Unfortunately, the fire escape is a blind spot. Hight could have been waiting out there all night and never been picked up on camera.”

Lena thought about the way the building was configured—what the cop with the clipboard had called
ass backward.
“The fire escape is on the far side of the building,” she said. “Out of the way and facing north.”

“Exactly. No one can see it from either the street or the parking lot.”

She looked back at the photograph of Hight in his car. “What about this shape on the passenger seat?”

“They’re working on it,” Ramsey said. “But don’t get your hopes up. At this point, they think it’s a flashlight.”

Lena settled back in her chair. Something about the way Bennett and Watson and even Higgins were looking at the photograph bothered her. She wasn’t a mind reader, but she began to get the feeling that they were trying to
appear
interested. That it required an effort and that they couldn’t quite get there. Bennett’s eyes were emerald green, his body short and stocky. He was old enough have grown up at a time when “supersize me” sounded like free food instead of garbage, but young enough to have two kids in daycare and worries about what he and his wife might do with his career sinking to the bottom of the pool. Watson looked as if she shared the same unnatural lack of concern. She was about Lena’s age, with blond hair and a sleek body hidden beneath her business suit. Every time Lena had ever seen Watson, she was dressed conservatively. Only rumors stood in her wake: rumors of a boob job last year while on vacation, and rumors that she and Bennett were having an affair—one reason among many why they’d lost the Jacob Gant trial and a murderer had walked free.

As Lena’s eyes moved to Higgins all puffed up in his pinstripe suit—his weak, pudgy face and a haircut that looked over processed and more like a do—it suddenly occurred to her what was going on.

All three of them were running away. Greg Vaughan would be left behind to sit on the hot seat. Higgins had picked his rival in the office to handle the case because he knew that it would destroy whoever sat in the chair.

No one prosecuting the father of a murdered girl would ever have a political future in Los Angeles.

Higgins had picked Vaughan, not to save the office, but to save himself and possibly even his protégés: Steven Bennett and Debi Watson. Vaughan’s face would be attached to the prosecution of Tim Hight, a father who sought justice for his only child, rather than the prosecutors who had blown the trial, or the district attorney who claimed to have overseen them.

The move was ice-cold and vicious. As Lena looked Higgins over, she wondered if he hadn’t worked out the details with his political consultants last night. It had seemed more than odd to her that he hadn’t shown up at the crime scene. Especially when one of the victims was someone he called a friend.

She turned away and caught the deputy chief scrutinizing her. His face remained completely expressionless, yet it felt as if he knew what she had been thinking. He pushed a second copy of the photograph her way and cleared his throat.

“Here’s what we need to make happen, Detective. You and Mr. Vaughan are now partners. You need to work together to build a case against Tim Hight. You need to do it quickly and with as little noise as possible. Hight’s arrest must occur without incident. I’m sure that the district attorney hasn’t had a chance to think about what a deal might look like. There’s Bosco’s murder to consider, which complicates everything for everyone. Your case must be strong enough that Hight and his attorney are willing to listen—the deal from the DA good enough that they just might be willing to avoid a trial. Admittedly, we’re talking about a best-case scenario. Hight will have public opinion on his side. More than likely, he’ll choose to roll the dice in front of a jury. People will say that if we had done our jobs, if we hadn’t been asleep at the wheel, if we hadn’t fucked everything up, none of this would have ever happened. So the odds would be in his favor. Chances are, he’d win. That being said, the key words here are speed and building the case against him quickly. That’s really the only option we have left. The longer this goes on—the longer Hight’s in the news—the deeper the wounds will be for all concerned. Is that clear? Does everyone here understand exactly what’s at stake?”

Vaughan didn’t move or say anything.

The district attorney ignored his silence and turned to Ramsey. “I’ve been talking to some people,” he said. “They think that if we work quickly, everyone will forget about what happened in six months.”

A moment passed. Then another, as Ramsey measured the DA with complete dissatisfaction showing on his face.

“Six months?” Ramsey said finally. “We’re talking about restoring the public’s trust, Higgins. The people you spoke with should have told you the truth. Nobody’s gonna forget this one. By the time they do, you’ll be dead.”

His words hung there. The room darkened as the sun slipped behind a cloud.

Higgins took the hit and blinked. “I need to speak with the chief,” he said.

Ramsey shook his head. “He’s out of town on business.”

“But I have a problem. I need to talk to him.”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

“Then I need to speak with you privately.”

“That’s not gonna happen either, Jimmy. What’s your problem?”

Higgins remained quiet, checking the door, then glancing from face to face until he came to Lena and Barrera. He was tossing something over in his head and rubbing his polished fingernails across his chin. His eyes appeared dull and watery. Several moments passed before he seemed to come to a decision. Then he reached down for his briefcase and pulled out a copy of
The Los Angeles Times
. As the paper splashed onto the conference table in front of the deputy chief, Lena read the headline:

Double Murder At Club 3 AM:

Jacob Gant and Johnny Bosco Dead

Head shots of the victims were included above the fold, along with shots of Lily Hight and her father. But Higgins was pointing at another photograph in a box to the right of the lead story. It was the same picture Lena had seen hanging on the wall beside Johnny Bosco’s desk. A shot of Higgins and Bosco together.

Higgins met the deputy chief’s eyes, his voice low and shaky. “Bosco’s life needs to be cleaned up. The drugs that were found at his place. They need to go away.”

Ramsey actually smiled as he took it in. Lena had never seen him like this before. The smile matched his hardened face and shaved head. There was a vicious underside to it—a slow, dark curl—like he was holding a knife to Higgins’s throat and ready to make the cut.

“This is a no-win situation for all of us,” he said. “Everybody’s gonna lose something this time around.”

Higgins grimaced and looked frightened. “The drugs are a real problem. They’re a negative we can’t beat.”

Ramsey leaned over the table, still working that tainted smile. “You mean, a negative
you
can’t beat, Jimmy. When are you gonna stop talking to your asshole consultants? When are you gonna realize that what we’re facing isn’t about you?”

9

The meeting ended quickly with Higgins
chasing the deputy chief down the hall and pressing the man for a private moment that Lena knew he’d never get. Bennett and Watson had stayed behind to talk to Vaughan. Lena could see them through the plate-glass window as she hung up the phone from an empty desk in the staff room. She wanted to verify that everyone was ready while Barrera checked on the progress of the warrants. She had also placed a call to SID and received preliminary confirmation that a 9-mm weapon had been used to murder Jacob Gant. Because the slugs had fragmented as they broke through his skull and entered the wall, no exact determination could be made until the medical examiner removed the additional slugs from each victim’s body. With any luck, they were lodged in soft tissue and remained in decent shape. The autopsies would occur simultaneously and were scheduled for early this evening.

Lena wrote the time down in her notebook and glanced back at Vaughan through the glass. His conversation with Bennett and Watson appeared heated. Returning to her notebook, she went through her checklist.

The group heading out to Hight’s place included Barrera and six additional detectives from the division. Of the six, Joe Carson and John Street had the most experience working high-profile cases. Both were RHD bulls known for being extremely thorough. A team of seasoned criminalists from SID would roll out as well. Three patrol units were already there keeping watch from the street. According to the patrol supervisor, both Tim Hight and William Gant had refrained from killing each other last night. Hight had passed out in his chair by the window, while Gant fell asleep on the kitchen floor.

The situation was more than tragic. But Lena pushed it aside, listening to Barrera finish his call with the chief’s new adjutant, Abe Hernandez, and hang up.

“The judge gave us a break,” he said. “The warrants are signed. I guess it didn’t hurt that they were shepherded through by the chief’s office. You ready, Lena?”

“As soon as Hernandez gets here with the paper, we’ll head out.”

“Good,” he said.

Barrera exited the staff room, heading for his desk at the other end of the section floor. Lena glanced at her watch, guessing that she had ten or twenty minutes and weighing her options as she examined the beat-up coffeemaker on the counter. She was starting to feel the sleep she’d missed last night, but a run to the Blackbird Café wasn’t an option because she needed to speak with Vaughan. She gave the glass pot another look, then poured a cup and took a short first sip. The thick syrupy brew tasted like it had been sitting on the burner for a week or two. It may have even qualified as the worst cup of hot java ever poured. But none of that really mattered right now. All she wanted was the fix. She took another sip—longer this time—letting the burned caffeine wash through her system. Then she crossed the room to the captain’s office and pushed open the door without knocking.