May 2018
Rampart Division, Homicide Special Section, LAPD
(110 North to West Sixth Street, DTLA)
Mercedes Royce thought he was an idiot. That much was clear from their first five minutes together—when she’d all but called him that. And also, the rest of the minutes, when she’d called him just about everything else a person could be called.
He had to admit it. She was a firecracker, and she could hold her own in a police precinct—that was for damn sure.
She was rolling her eyes at him now, and he couldn’t even remember why.
This time.
“Let’s get to it, shall we? I’m not my children, Detective. I’m not as generous as they are, not as optimistic, and not as naive.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Mrs. Royce?”
“It means, I know the ever-despicable Jeff Grunburg has you on his payroll. I know that, in fact, because he has me on his payroll. I also know that because it’s my show, and I see every dollar that comes in or out of my budget, including your weekly check.”
“There’s nothing wrong with consulting on a show, Mrs. Royce.”
“I know, I know. You worked on Blown, and it was the best five minutes of your crappy little life. I get it. Believe me, I’ve sung that song, Detective.”
“Harry.” He smiled, in spite of the abuse. “Call me Harry.” She was a piece of work, Mercedes Royce. Now he could see why that little rat Grunburg was always so paranoid about her.
She nodded. “Harry, then. And I’m Mercedes.”
“Mercedes.” He smiled. “You gotta love German engineering.”
She stared at him. “So, let’s not waste time. I’m guilty. I’m the one you’re looking for, but then, you knew that, didn’t you?”
“Not particularly.” He sat back in his chair, studying her.
“I’m more than just the guilty party, actually. I’m also the judge and jury. I convict myself and everyone around me of a thousand crimes, sins, lapses of judgment, questionable decisions, bad calls, wrong answers, moral turpitudes—”
Harry looked up from his yellow legal pad. “Can turpitude be plural?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Do I look like I went to college, Det—Harry?”
He narrowed his eyes, not really knowing how to answer.
“Anyway, I do all that before you make your coffee in the morning, Harry.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” Harry said.
Mercedes looked at him like he was absolutely insane. “Who doesn’t drink coffee? What cop doesn’t drink coffee?”
“Ulcer.” He nodded. “My gut.”
“Ah. Stress. It’s a killer.” She sighed. “I suppose next you’re going to tell me your wife doesn’t let you eat doughnuts anymore.”
“No wife,” Harry said. “Not now, anyway. Apparently I wasn’t marriage material, according to my ex.”
She shot him a withering look. “When did this confession become about you, Harry?”
“Confession? Is that what this is?”
“I told you. I put them in the car together. I left my one daughter to be destroyed by that monster—to take care of my other daughter, who that same monster had already destroyed.”
“But you’re not the monster.”
“Of course I’m not the monster.”
“The monster is the monster.”
“And are you an idiot, Harry?”
“I’m just trying to point out, Mercedes, that when you talk about that night, the person doing the attacking isn’t you, it’s Mr. White. He’s the monster.”
“This is Hollywood, Harry. Do you really think there’s ever just one monster in the room?”
“Why don’t you walk me through it, Mercedes? The last night?”
“Bentley was being her usual…charming self.”
“Would that be more or less charming than usual?”
Mercedes thought about it. “She was more charming, actually. She hated her dress, but she shut up and wore it, which isn’t like her.”
“That bad?”
“The dress? It was spectacularly ugly but very chic, and someone had to wear it. It’s an origami designer Jeff wants to do his daughter’s bat mitzvah, so one of us had to take the bullet, and Bentley got the short straw, I’m afraid.”
“How often is that? That Bentley gets the short straw?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just asking. You’re telling me she was more charming than usual on a night when another person might reasonably have been less charming than usual.”
Mercedes’s eyes were blazing. “Is my missing daughter’s charm really the most powerful weapon in your crime-solving arsenal, Harry? What happened to DNA? Trace evidence? Fingerprinting?”
“Of course. We’ll get there. Her phone records are being pulled now. Her room, you saw how quickly that was bagged and sorted. We have Tech taking apart her laptop. Detectives crawling over every inch of her school.”
“And still nothing?”
“Well, our focus has been the crime scene, until now. And look, you have to give us that. We did pretty well figuring out that gasoline was used as some kind of accelerant for the fire. Which means, of course, arson.”
She shook her head. “Who intentionally lights a seventy-five-thousand-dollar car on fire?”
“Folks have different reasons. Insurance fraud. Concealment of evidence. Homicide.”
The last word seemed to stay in the air longer than the rest, and Harry immediately regretted saying it.
“None of that means anything right now, of course. That’s why we’re starting over again with all of you.”
She nodded.
“So. Rehearsal dinner. Bentley was charming.”
“She was.”
“And she wore the dog of a dress.”
“She did.”
“Anything else?”
“She was kind to Porsche while I handled the party and Bach tried to track down Whitey’s driver.”
“And Whitey? He was…less kind.”
Mercedes raised her head. “He was despicable. I had seen it coming. He was jumpy, secretive. You never knew what his motivations were. He either seemed too in love with my daughter, or totally ambivalent.”
“And on the night in question?”
“Drunk. Completely obliterated and totally rude. By the end of the night, Harry, I wanted him gone.” It was the truth, and she had no problem saying it.
As far as Harry could tell, her problem was with what came after.
“And now he is. I got what I wanted. He’s gone and I’m left to feel guilty about that every day of my life.”
Harry put down his pen. “Why is that, Mercedes?” He didn’t reach for the button beneath the table.
He was transfixed.
When Mercedes looked at him now, her chin trembled. “Because I got what I wanted—but he took my baby girl with him. And I would have thrown him off that cliff with my own hands, if I could have kept him from doing that.”
Now the tears came. They leaked out of her eyes from behind her glasses, dripping down the front of her black suit and across her folded, manicured hands.
“There’s a difference between feeling guilty and being guilty, Mercedes.”
“Not to a mother,” she said.
The tears still ran, unchecked. She didn’t even try to wipe them. Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded handkerchief, offering it to her.
“That’s disgustingly unhygienic, Harry.”
“That’s what my ex used to say.” He smiled, and she took it all the same, blowing her nose so loudly, the table rattled between them.
Harry sighed. “Did you douse the car in gasoline and roll it off that cliff, Mercedes?”
“No. I suppose not. Not like that.”
“It’s not your fault, ma’am.”
Harry sat back in his chair and wondered, for the thousandth time, whose fault it really was.