The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin (4 page)

T
he next morning after a nice, mostly traffic-free drive, I got to the downtown Los Angeles police station around 10:45. I went up to the detectives' floor and told a tired, cynical female police officer who I was and that I was there to see Mike Ott.

“You have an appointment?”

“Yep. It's for eleven.”

She picked up a phone, got Ott on the line, told him that a man named John Darvelle was here for his eleven o'clock.

I mouthed to the officer, “Tell him I'm early.”

She ignored me. Then hung up. “Ott says you're three hours late. He's not available now. You're going to have to wait. Sit over there.”

She pointed me to an area in front of her desk but also off in a corner that could only be described as cripplingly depressing. Two little blue grammar-school-style chairs, both with cracks in them, and that's it. No coffeemaker. No coffee table. No out-of-date magazines. Nothing.

But I'd known that Ott would make me wait. I was prepared for it. So I went over and sat down in one of the little blue chairs, then pulled out a book I had brought, a book I had already read, a book I like to reread from time to time. It's called
Sizzling Chops and Devilish Spins
. It's a book about Ping-Pong and how to get better at it. I read it for about fifteen minutes, then peered over the top of it and said meekly to the officer, “Can I get some water in a small paper cup?”

She glared at me.

Thirty-seven minutes after that, the officer said to me, “Ott's ready. You can go on back. You know where he sits?”

“I'll just look for the perfect hair.”

Truth is, I did know where he sat. I'd been there lots of times. I walked behind the officer's desk, then back through the detectives' floor until I found him. He was on the phone, but he motioned for me to sit down.

Detective Mike Ott was fifty-three. And he did, in fact, have one of those heads of hair that just defy logic. Gray now, but thick, literally as thick as the hair on the head of a teenager. It pissed me off. I looked at the sharp part running down his head, a plethora of hair going one way, a plethora of hair going the other way. I thought, He's probably one of those guys who has a comb at his house. I've literally never used a comb. These days, I zip my hair down
with a head shaver to about a half inch all over. Keeps my receding hairline looking tight, as opposed to the other option: sickly and sad. But even before my Oster head shaver became one of my closest friends, I still never used a comb. A brush, maybe, or my hands, but never a comb. Not once.

I watched Ott finish up his call. Below the hair was a face carved out of stone, a face made up of right angles, with smallish gray eyes and bone-dry skin made even drier and older-looking by years of stress and smoking.

He hung up the phone. “You're late.”

“I was early. Got here at 10:45.”

“You know, I know I asked you to be here early, which was inconvenient for you. But, bottom line, I'm giving you business and you're still a pain in the ass.”

Ott looked at me for a long time with that strong but tired stone face. I didn't say anything. I didn't defend myself against his accusation. I just sat there. Eventually he picked up a big file on his desk. “Here's the situation.”

He didn't open the file. He put it back on his desk and continued. “Case is over a year old. Well over. Fifteen, sixteen months. You may remember it. It got a little press. Short version is this: Rich guy walks out of his house in Hollywood one morning, about to get into his car, takes a bullet to the chest. Bullet came out of a pistol from seventy-five, eighty yards away. Guy drops dead. Now, that kind of kill shot isn't a heat-of-the-moment thing, some kind of goddamn blowup argument, or anything random. You know that. One shot with a pistol, from a stakeout point pretty darn far away. Premeditated murder. And not easy to pull off.

“Anyway, we looked into it carefully. Turns out, this guy was the worst kind of little shit. A rich asshole who spent his life letting people down and shitting all over everyone. So initially, we thought we'd have plenty of possibilities right off the bat. Thing is, though, everyone in his world, all the people you talk to when somebody gets it, had alibis. Interestingly, and maybe because they had alibis, none of the people in his world was particularly shy about being truthful about the dead man's character. His family barely liked him. Nobody seemed to be hiding anything with respect to their feelings. Well, his parents didn't outright
say
he was a shit. But most of the people we talked to said what I just said. Guy was a shit. So, again, you have all these people who openly didn't like the guy, who had been wronged by him, whatever, so you'd think we'd find a suspect, right? But no. Everybody's story was airtight. Airtight. We never named a suspect. Case went cold.”

“I remember this,” I said. “He had a pretentious name. Keagon. Keaton.”

“Yeah. That's it. Keaton. Keaton Fuller.”

“Okay. What else?”

“As I mentioned on the phone, family wants the investigation to continue. But I got to tell you, Darvelle—”

I interrupted, “You've got about three hundred more murders to look into now, and those have a chance of being solved.”

He gave me his stone face. “Yeah. That's right.” He picked up the file again. “You still want it? Family's open to a private guy. And believe me, they've got the money to pay you.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He slid the file over toward me. “The parents' names and number are in there. Call them and tell them I referred you.”

He stood up. I stood up.

“All right,” he said.

We shook hands. I said, “Your niece is an actress, right?”

“Off-fucking-limits, Darvelle.”

“No, no. She having any luck?”

“Not really.”

“Think I can help. Can probably get her a speaking role on a network show. Buddy of mine's a big TV director. You got a number for her?”

He looked at me. For a brief moment I pictured myself with a hammer and a chisel, chipping away at his concrete face like a sculptor, eyeing my work, chunks of slatelike concrete falling off his face and crashing to the floor. I have no idea why.

Ott plucked a gold Cross pen from the pocket of his suit jacket. He then produced his little spiral notebook from the same pocket, wrote down his niece's name and number, and ripped out the page. He handed it to me.

“Done,” I said.

I thought he was going to smile. But I was wrong.

I
took the case file back to my office. I sat at my desk, slider open, the sun slanting in and popping off the slick blue surface of my Ping-Pong table.

Keaton Albert Fuller, thirty-five, had been shot once in the chest by a Smith & Wesson M&P nine-millimeter handgun. From seventy-five yards away, as Ott had mentioned. The “M&P” stands for “military and police.” And a lot of military and police use the weapon. In fact, it's the pistol issued to the LAPD. That being said, it's also available to the general public, and the part of the general public that buys guns seems to like it. A lot. It's one of the best-selling guns on the market.

At 6 a.m. Keaton Fuller had been walking to his car,
when he was shot. His clothing suggested that he had been on his way to the gym.

Keaton's house was in the Hollywood Hills, just a few blocks above the Sunset Plaza section of Sunset Boulevard. An expensive part of town. A lot of celebs live there. And a lot of celebs, wannabe celebs, and people who want to soak in the Hollywood scene in a somewhat obvious, somewhat bridge-and-tunnel way kick around the coffee shops, bars, and restaurants in the area.

The two lead detectives on the case, Rick Harrier and Michelle Martinez, determined that the shooter had been positioned just slightly higher up in the Hills than Keaton's place, in a little clearing off the side of Rising Glen Road, which starts at Sunset Boulevard and twists up the minimountain. Crime-scene pictures showed a clear shot right down to Keaton Fuller's driveway.

Harrier and Martinez had interviewed the following people extensively: Fuller's parents, Jackie and Phil; his brother, Greer—yes, definitely also a pretentious name; his ex-girlfriend Sydney Scott, formerly Sydney Frost, who was now married to a man named Geoff Scott; and a former business partner named Craig Helton. They had also talked to a handful of other people less extensively.

As Ott had said, all of them had alibis, airtight alibis, and most of their statements were not particularly sensitive. Keaton, according to everyone but his parents, was a shit.

I looked at a picture of him premurder. Straight, dark hair that he wore kind of long. Blue eyes. And a pretty big guy. The picture was only the top half of him, but I knew
from the file that he was just under six feet, so I filled in the rest of him in my mind. He wasn't fat but just sort of soft all over, fleshy looking. Interesting, I thought, that he'd been headed to the gym when he was shot. Maybe he was one of those guys who go to the gym all the time but never seem to get much done. But that softness—it was especially pronounced in his face. He had a little double chin that sat underneath a smug smile, and there was a smug, contemptuous look in his eye.

I put down the picture and called the number for Jackie and Phil Fuller.

“Hello,” a cautiously friendly woman's voice said.

“Hi, is this Jackie Fuller?”

“Yes, who's calling?”

“My name is John Darvelle. I'm a private investigator. Detective Mike Ott, with the LAPD, contacted me and told me you were looking for some private help to investigate the murder of your son.”

Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Yes, that's right.”

“Would you like to talk? In person?”

“Yes. Would tomorrow work for you? I realize tomorrow is Saturday, but my husband isn't home from work right now and I'd like him to be here when we talk.”

“Tomorrow's fine.”

I like working on Saturdays. When you work on Saturday, there's an energy present that says: Nobody's working today. In fact, the notion of
you're not supposed to work on Saturday
has essentially been hammered into us. So when you do, it's almost as if everyone around you is frozen. Not literally. People are moving, of course, going to the
beach, hitting yoga classes, even
working
on little personal projects, puttering around the house, maybe screwing in a fresh lightbulb or two. But they're not working-working. So when you
do
work on Saturday, it can be quite freeing, even energizing. You've got the day to yourself, and because no one else is doing much, the feeling of progress intensifies. Add to that, people aren't usually calling you, annoying you. You've got this uninterrupted pocket. You've got hours and hours gifted to you. It's like you're stealing time.

“Thank you,” Jackie Fuller said. “What time works for you?”

“Any time.”

We settled on noon. Jackie Fuller told me that she and Phil lived in Hancock Park, then gave me her exact address.

“See you tomorrow,” I said. And hung up.

I called my friend Gary
Delmore. Gary's a TV director. A big one. Directs all sorts of shows for all sorts of networks. He's done really, really well in that world. And he's made a dump-truckful of money.

He's also very openly decided to be a lifelong bachelor and use his Hollywood clout to “date” as many actresses, and other attractive women who just might be impressed with his success, as he possibly can before he dies. He's forty-six, tan, and has big, sort of eighties hair and too-white teeth. He's a walking midlife crisis. And he'd be the first to tell you that. And that's why Gary's great. He knows who he is. We hang out from time to time. When we do, it usually involves beer and Ping-Pong. He beat me
once. That fact annoys me to an astonishing degree. And that fact gives him an astonishing amount of pleasure. The other thing that's usually involved when it comes to me and Gary is insults. Specifically, insulting each other. We enjoy doing that for some reason.

“Gary, what's happening?”

“The Darv is calling. To what do I owe this distinct pleasure?”

“Oh, before I get to why I'm calling . . . you're not in the middle of a spray tan, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Teeth whitening?”

“No again.”

“Are you sleeping with a woman who's only interested in you to advance her career?”

“Not right now, no. I will later, but I'm not currently doing that.”

“Great. Then you can talk.”

“Well, I am in the middle of something. I'm at a toupee store. Looking at a couple of models I think would be good for you.”

“I don't need a toupee,” I said with a hint, just a hint, of actual defensiveness. “That's why I have a barbershop-level head shaver. When I zip it down, it looks good.”

“As good as it can. But I'm looking at a number here I think would look real nice on you. It's called the Ferret.”

“Ha,” I said. Had to give Delmore that one.

Gary said, “So, what's up?”

“Need a favor. Can you give a part to the niece of a cop
friend of mine? Just a line or something in a show. I owe him one. His niece is a young actress. Probably mid-, late twenties or so. She needs a break.”

“Um. Is she
talented
?” Gary added a salacious spin to the word “talented.”

“Off-limits. If you sleep with this girl, this guy, her uncle, will shoot me. He literally will. He will sacrifice his badge, his career, his life, and shoot me. He already wants to shoot me. You bang his niece and it will happen.”

“Then I might do it just for that.”

“I walked into that.”

“Yeah, you did. But Darv, truth is, I can't just promise you that I can give this girl a line. I'm going to have to audition her. She has to have some actual talent. I know you like to tell me how bad some of the shows I direct are, but at the end of the day you have to have talent to get a part in one of them.”

“Gary. You're currently directing a show that stars MC Hammer as a preschool teacher.”

And he was. It was called
Grammar Time!!!
And yes, there are three exclamation points in the actual title.

I continued, “I mean, let's face it, I know some of the shows you do are good. But a lot of them—we're not exactly talking about
Apocalypse Now
.”

“Listen. I'm on set—”

“I thought you were at a toupee store.”

“I left and came to set. And while I'd love to listen to you insult me some more, I've got to go print some money while you follow around some guy's wife who's banging her tennis pro. Text me the girl's info. I'll get her in something.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. And you will not sleep with her. Right?”

“I will most likely not sleep with her.”

That would have to do for now.

I hung up, sat at
my desk, looked out onto the lot, head still, eyes not really focusing on anything, almost in a trance. I'd say that about seven minutes later the trance was broken. The gray Mercedes sedan that had been sitting at the exit to my lot the evening prior appeared, pulling right up in front of my office. The big grille was pointing at me once again. The car wasn't technically in a space; those were around the corner from the entrance—my spot was there, and a couple of guest spots. No, the Mercedes sat rudely right in front of me like it might lurch forward and come at me. It was staring at me, threatening me.

I didn't like it.

The same man I'd seen behind the wheel the night before got out of the driver's side. The slicked-back hair, the goatee, the big, bronze-tinted glasses. I was able to see now that he was on the short side, maybe five-six. He was in pressed gray pants, Gucci loafers, a crisp white shirt, and a thin, expensive-looking brown leather jacket.

The guy who got out of the passenger side of the car was definitely not on the short side. He was large, very large. I'd say six-six. And big, muscular. In jeans, black biker boots, and a white V-neck T-shirt. He had dirty blond, semicurly, longish hair. Nineties hair.

The two men shut their doors simultaneously. I heard the car doors lock and the alarm engage as they walked into my office.

I looked at the older man. Again, no expression. None.

I looked at the big guy. One of his eyes sat just a bit higher in his head than the other. It gave him an inbred, psychotic look.

The older man said, “John Darvelle?”

“Yep.”

The older man continued to give me his expressionless expression. The big guy didn't give me much more. A faraway but wild-eyed, almost ravenous, stare.

These two had confirmed who I was.

But I wouldn't say they were glad to see me.