Vigilante (10 page)

Hitch and I took a moment outside the Advocates Section to agree on our interview technique.

“I’ll take point,” I said. “If you think of anything, jump in.”

“Got it.” He smiled ruefully at me. “First Lita Mendez, then Nix Nash, and now Stephanie Madrid. Who’s next, Fenrir?”

“Who the hell is Fenrir?”

“Famous Norse monster known as the ‘World-Destroying Wolf.’”

God knows where he comes up with this stuff.

“Just follow my lead,” I said.

We walked inside the office, gave our names, and were informed by her terrified male adjunct that Captain Madrid kept her appointments short, with only fifteen minutes allotted to each.

Ten minutes later the adjunct led us through a door into a very small outer office with one window looking out on the Dumpsters in the alley. I certainly didn’t want to be here. I would have loved any reason to escape and attend to easier police business downstairs. Where was Lord Ding Wallace when you really needed him?

From there, we were shown into the chief advocate’s spacious office. Captain Madrid rose to meet us.

She was fifty-five, short and abrupt, with absolutely no overtly feminine qualities. Her ash-brown hair was cropped short in a kind of pageboy helmet. She wore almost no makeup, no jewelry, and had a stocky but muscular athletic frame. I’d seen her a few times working out on the track at the Police Academy field. She was a choppy, earnest runner. Pugnacious face, pushed out over hard-pumping arms and pistoning legs. She’d be chugging the oval, relentlessly eating up the miles on our new graphite track. I wondered if she and Lester ever did the nasty and, if they did, who got to be on top.

“Sit,” she commanded.

“Thank you, Captain. I’m Detective Shane Scull—”

“I know who you are,” she interrupted. “You too, Detective Hitchens. Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely, settling into the second guest chair.

“So you two got the Lita Mendez kill.”

Not homicide, not murder. Kill.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I understand you’ve made an arrest already. That’s good.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hitch said. We sounded like terrified Catholic schoolboys who’d just been dragged in front of the Mother Superior.

“I was expecting you to come by,” she said. “It was no secret that I had my share of problems with Miss Mendez.”

“Yes, ma’am. That fact has sort of bubbled to the surface,” I said.

“It’s what?”

“It has come to our attention,” I corrected.

“Hm-m-m-m,” she said, and tipped back in her swivel chair, looking at each of us in turn. “I’m curious what you’ve heard.”

“That you recently filed a criminal case against her for filing a false police report and won a restraining order against her last June.”

“That woman was eating up my advocates’ budget on frivolous complaints. Almost a third of our Hollenbeck Division hearings last year were because of her. She was wasting an important department resource. IAG has legitimate police improprieties to adjudicate.”

“I see,” I began. “So it would be fair to say that you had a healthy personal dislike for Miss Mendez?”

“Grow up, Detective,” she said, then handed me a piece of paper. “I’ve made up a sheet. A log, if you will, attesting to my whereabouts minute to minute for the last forty-eight hours. All of these meetings can be confirmed by the people I’ve listed to the right. I realize that the several loud arguments I’ve had in public with Miss Mendez over the years will certainly make me the subject of some interest in the press. I’m counting on you two detectives to use that sheet to deflect any such nonsense.”

“Excuse me, Captain, but this isn’t your interview. It’s ours,” I said. I’d run out of patience for this. “I intend to conduct it according to my guidelines.” I saw her flinch. Hitch groaned softly under his breath.

“I beg your pardon?” She seemed astonished.

“You are not running this investigation; we are. I intend to treat this the same way I would if you didn’t carry a badge. You are on my suspect sheet. I’ve got questions. I intend to get answers to those questions, in the way and order I want.”

She sat looking at me, her face a stony visage.

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” she said coldly. “But go on if you must. Ask.”

“When was the last time you saw Lolita Mendez?”

“Day before yesterday, in court. As you just noted, I had a felony case pending against her for making a false police report. We had the preliminary meetings in Judge Amador’s chambers along with attorneys to arrange for trial dates, depositions, and the like.”

“How’d that go?”

“Like all my meetings with Lita Mendez. It was contentious. She called me a bull dyke, which I’m obviously not. I called her a liar and a gangster, which she obviously is.”

I looked over at Hitch. This wasn’t going well at all.

“These personal insults were witnessed by a
judge
?” Hitch asked, slightly appalled.

“Listen, boys. Let’s get something straight right now. I’m an easy target, but I’m the wrong target. You made this stop to talk to me, which I guess was necessary. You’ve done your job, covered this base; now move the hell on. You have my time line in your hands. It clears me. I wasn’t anywhere near Hollenbeck for days before the murder. If you have any further questions, consult that list.”

“You willing to take a polygraph just so everybody feels all warm and fuzzy?” I asked. She was still riling me up.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Detective, I don’t believe police officers should be asked to take polygraph tests on less-than-solid legal grounds. If you should ever get enough actual evidence to charge me with anything, then we’ll talk about it. If you want a supporting opinion on the legality of police submitting to polygraphs, talk to your own union reps. The POA has come down very strongly against law enforcement being asked to take these things and I certainly agree. Next.”

“This sheet attests to your whereabouts,” I said, holding it up. “You got one for Lester?”

“My husband has nothing to do with this.” She leaned forward and put her muscled forearms on the desk. “You’ve got half a dozen better starting points. All those Hispanic gangs she dissed. There’s over forty criminal sets in Hollenbeck. They’re all at war over street corners. Then, after that, you can check her brother Homer’s old enemies. Some of those murderous
vatos
might want her dead, and of course there’s Carla and Julio Sanchez, who you’ve already arrested. Concentrate on all that.”

She held my gaze with hard eyes.

“Interview’s over, Detectives.” Captain Madrid stood, then walked to the door and opened it. Hitch and I filed out obediently, but she stopped us in the outer office.

“If you have any further questions, put them in writing and submit them to my adjunct, Joseph, here.” She pointed at the terrified detective. “Good day.”

We left her office with almost as little info as we had going in. We were quickly back in the hall, overlooking the magnificent atrium.

“That was fun,” Hitch said. “We should vacation up here.”

“Who the hell was Fenrir again?” I asked.

CHAPTER

15

When we got back to the PAB, we divided up Captain Madrid’s time line for the prior two days. She had set it up like her appointment schedule, in fifteen-minute increments. Each day started at 7:00
A.M.
and ended around ten when she went to bed. Of course, the time line was mostly useless, because our preliminary time of death was around midnight. Once she and her husband were in the sack, Lester was her alibi witness, and I had no hope that he’d contradict her version of events.

“What’d you make of that crack about Lita using up a third of her advocates’ budget on frivolous complaints?” Hitch asked.

“Captain Madrid seems like she lives for her job. Maybe that rises to the level of a motive.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t end up on
V-TV.
She comes off like Marge Schott.”

We sat at our desks in Homicide Special and I started making notes on our interview with Captain Madrid.

“You wanta go talk to Judge Amador?” I asked Hitch.

“Sure. I’ll see if I can track him down. What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to keep working on the murder book.” I pointed at my computer. “According to this e-mail from Detective Becker, the neighborhood canvas turned up nothing. Not surprising considering it’s a gang block, but I’m also gonna go through all the patrol officer’s notes and see if I can spot anything she missed. Then, once it’s dark, I’m gonna go back to Lita’s house and do my Jigsaw walk.”

Hitch nodded. He was already familiar with this piece of my crime scene methodology. A Jigsaw walk was something I’d learned from one of the most fabled detectives to ever work a crime beat in Los Angeles. In his over twenty years as a homicide investigator, Jigsaw John St. John had cleared a surprising two-thirds of his murder cases. Now we’re lucky if we clear 25 percent. Admittedly, that was before all these senseless drive-bys where the shooters don’t even know their victims, but even so, Jigsaw was an LAPD legend.

John had retired and was living in Washington near Seattle. When I first got into Homicide I’d actually made a trip up there to spend some time with him, pick his brain, and learn his tricks.

One of the things he’d told me was he used to wait until everybody had cleared the crime scene and then he would return alone, usually at night when it was quiet. He’d stand in the house, clear his mind, and try to think like the victim. He’d walk around the crime scene using the same hallways as the vic, sitting in the same chairs. He’d play CDs from the victim’s music collection and do whatever he thought the vic might have done just prior to death. Basically, Jigsaw would try to become the person whose murder he was trying to solve.

Then, after he’d done that, he would go outside and try to become the killer. Jigsaw used whatever insight he’d gained from the evidence gathering and witness interviews to try to re-create what he thought the unknown subject’s mind-set might be.

Jigsaw told me that nine times out of ten it was a worthless exercise, but then the tenth time he’d hit on something he’d completely missed before and that one hit made the nine misses worth the effort.

I’d been following his routine for almost ten years, and in the cases I’d had in the interim, John’s methodology had actually contributed in a significant way on at least fifteen.

The day went slowly because I was calling potential wits, suspects, or uncooperative neighbors, trying to set up interviews.

At around three, Hitch went to the superior court to interview Lita’s trial judge. Thomas Amador was a crusty old coot. Cops loved this judge because he threw the book at felons. The Public Defender’s office called him Judge Slamador, which might give you an idea of how tough he was.

At five, I took the key to Lita’s duplex from the evidence folder and drove over to Boyle Heights.

I parked up the street from the crime scene, which was still festooned with yellow tape. Then I watched the house for almost twenty minutes trying to feel the vibe of the neighborhood. It was too early for much gang activity, but because the sun sets around five thirty, the streetlights were just coming on.

A few of the living rooms up and down the street were lighting up as residents arrived home. As with most violent hoods, I saw a number of dogs with no tags running around off-leash, scavenging.

After a while, I got out of the Acura and walked toward the house, then stood there looking at it and thinking about Lita Mendez, trying to do as Jigsaw had suggested and capture her mind-set.

How did I feel about the neighborhood where I lived? Was it too dangerous and violent? Did that bother me? Did I like it here? Did I feel safe? Was I angry? Was I sad? What was driving me? What was I looking forward to? What frightened me?

The house was in a complete state of disrepair. A house is an outer covering, just like our clothes. When we dress in colorful clothes, it can signify a bright mood. Dark clothes often signal darker moods. I first noticed this phenomenon when I went to Germany to pick up a murder suspect just after the Berlin Wall fell. It was cold and snowy, and the new Western-style economy hadn’t begun kicking in yet. It was a bleak place. I noticed everybody in the street was wearing gray or dark brown.

John had taken that observation a step further. He had told me that besides clothes, the general condition of a house can sometimes hint at general personality traits of the person who owned it. This lawn was not cut. Was this because Lita had just moved in?

I walked up the drive and around to the backyard, where the grass was brown and dry. More of the same. The garage was padlocked shut, but I looked through a grimy window. Lita’s red Chevy Caprice had already been towed to Impound, where it was being processed by forensic scientists to see if she had possibly been kidnapped somewhere else and brought back here by the killer, who, if he used the Caprice to transport her body, had perhaps left some trace or a latent print behind.

I took the back steps up to the porch, unlocked the door, and entered. Lita had been a troublesome, thoroughly organized adversary, but she was a disorganized housekeeper. The inside of the duplex looked like a fraternity house den. Our CSIs had made it worse, spreading graphite powder everywhere in their search for prints.

I stood in the kitchen where she died and looked down at the square of missing floor that we’d removed to preserve the two 9mm slugs.

I again remembered the garlic smell I’d noticed when I first hit the crime scene at 9:15
A.M.
What had Lita cooked but not eaten the night of the murder that contained garlic? The thought kept pestering me, but I put it aside.

Lita had been fatally beaten, had fallen backward with her arms outstretched. Maybe she’d still been partially conscious as she fell, but probably not. The cerebral hemorrhage and the ME’s report told me Lita was most likely dead when she landed. Then the unknown subject, the killer, had stepped forward and put two head shots into her already-lifeless body. Brutal, cold-blooded, and unnecessary.