~ NINETEEN ~

After Tomic dropped her off at the Hollywood office, Josie found a message taped to her phone. One of the detectives in the Venice squad had left it to let Josie know her husband had called and needed her to be home early to babysit. The call had been taken hours earlier.

If Dolores had been there, she would have reached Josie on the radio and told her to call home, but at this time of night, communications were haphazard at best.

Jake answered the home phone after several rings. She expected him to be upset, but he calmly told her not to worry about it.

“When I didn’t hear from you, I figured you didn’t get my message. I came home early,” he said.

“Where’s your mom? Is she okay?”

“She fell . . . missed the bottom step of our stairs and twisted her knee, nothing serious.”

“That’s not good at her age,” Josie said. She was genuinely concerned about her mother-in-law but didn’t like the calm detached tone of Jake’s voice. He was being much too understanding about her not getting the message. There should have been some recriminations. This was his perfect opportunity to harp on the demands of her current job, the abandonment of her child, and the need to find a better position with regular hours. He was acting so calm and considerate that it was pissing her off.

“They’ve offered me a promotion in the admin unit. In a few weeks I should be home every night on time. We won’t need your mom’s help anymore.”

The silence on the other end of the line told her the announcement had achieved the desired effect. His condescending, selfless attitude had been intended to make her feel bad. It didn’t, but she knew her news would leave him speechless and a bit confused. She’d taken away his reason to feel superior.

“That’s great,” he said finally. “That will make our lives so much easier.”

No, that will make your life easier, she thought, but said, “You’ll have to help out for the next two weeks and after that I should be there when David gets home from school.”

She could hear the change in his attitude now. He sounded happy. She’d made him believe their lives were about to change dramatically and he would have a wife to come home to every night. None of it was completely true . . . except the job offer, that was real. But if things worked out and she had her way, there would be no transfer. She would stay in Hollywood and hopefully be the new Detective III to replace Behan. She’d have more control over her hours, but it wouldn’t be an office job.

Nevertheless, things were going to change. Nonna could go home and rest her twisted knee forever because Josie had already decided to hire a fulltime nanny/housekeeper. One way or another, in two weeks she was going to be a Detective III, and that would give her the means to pay someone to help with David and do the housework, but this time the support would come from an employee who wouldn’t try to run her life or interfere in her marriage.

She wanted to share her real intentions with her husband and have him be supportive and happy for her but knew if he didn’t believe she was changing assignments, it would push him away and back into the annoying role of resident martyr. It was selfish, but she needed time to concentrate on finding Kent’s killer and keeping her squad together.

For the next two weeks, she’d be able to work hard, go home and enjoy his company, have a peaceful family life, and prepare him for that moment when the proverbial “other shoe” would fall.

THE NEXT morning, she got David ready for school and waited until his bus drove away. Jake left early but promised to be home when the boy got back from school. She told him about her plan to hire help and he readily agreed. Even without her promotion, he said they could afford it and seemed relieved his mother wouldn’t be needed to babysit any longer. The possibility that Nonna might’ve been getting on his nerves hadn’t occurred to Josie, but she felt better knowing if she failed to find the killer and got transferred to the admin unit, she could survive being miserable at work without the added aggravation of coming home every night to the other Mrs. Corsino.

Dolores was attempting to contact her on the radio as Josie backed out of the driveway and waved at the grumpy neighbor across the street. She wanted to know Josie’s ETA at the office.

“I’m on my way. Tell Tomic to wait,” Josie answered.

“He’s already in the field with the odd couple,” Dolores said. The odd couple was her nickname for Curtis and Donny.

“What’s up?” Josie asked.

“Don’t know, but the boss is with them.” The boss was what she called Behan. Dolores had a nickname for Lieutenant Watts, too, but “puppet brain” wasn’t something she’d ever use on the radio.

“Homicide?” Josie asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Location?”

“Hollywood and Normandie.”

“Please don’t let it be Stella” was the only thought Josie had during what seemed like an endless ride into Hollywood. She got off the freeway at Western and drove east toward Rampart division.

It was easy to find her partner. Emergency lights and traffic congestion were the obvious signs of police activity. She drove past the commotion, parked off the boulevard, and walked back across Normandie to where yellow tape blocked the sidewalk and the westbound traffic for at least a block.

What she saw shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. By all odds, Billie should have been dead years ago and her lifestyle would’ve killed most people, but she’d persisted. Josie saw her as sister to the cockroach, surviving in the shadows on other people’s scraps, exposed to diseases bred in filth and garbage that would have wiped out most of the pampered Purell-addicted population.

“OD’d,” Tomic said, as she stood over the body.

Billie was dressed in the same outfit Josie had seen the day before, but a piece of rubber tubing was tied around her left bicep and a disposable hypodermic needle stuck out of her lower arm.

“Hot load,” Behan said. He and the odd couple were watching from a few feet away.

“Definitely not Hollywood heroin,” Curtis said. “She’d have to shoot up a gallon of that stuff just to get down.”

“Last night Stella told us she and Butch got hold of some China White. Maybe Billie had a taste of that,” Tomic said, glancing at Josie.

“Paramedic was saying he’s rolled on a couple fentanyl calls . . . both DOA. He thinks this looks like it might be more of the same,” Behan said.

“Billie couldn’t afford that stuff . . . she was barely getting by feeding her habit with free methadone,” Josie said.

“Somebody gave it to her,” Curtis said.

Josie knelt beside the body. She took a closer look at the injection site. The needle was still touching Billie’s open right hand with the tip inserted in the vein. She died before she could remove it. No other fresh puncture wounds were visible. Her hand was filthy with dirt under the broken nails and caked between the fingers. Body odor mixed with the strong smell of human feces forced Josie to stand and move away.

“There aren’t any other fresh injection sites. She hasn’t had anything else for a while,” Josie said, coughing to clear her lungs.

“We’ll treat it like a homicide,” Behan said. “Let’s see what security videos or witnesses have to say.”

Josie filled Behan in about the meeting with Stella and that she had promised to take her to the morgue to see the baby’s body.

“If you can find probable cause, arrest her,” Behan said. “I can’t think why anybody would go to the trouble of intentionally killing this particular whore unless she knew something she shouldn’t, and it’s no secret everything Billie knew Stella told her.”

“I’ll take her to see Ashley,” Josie said and hesitated before saying, “She’ll be down so I could arrest her, but I’d rather not.” She knew Behan was right, but she explained how she was counting on Stella to lead them to Butch. Besides, if they kept her under surveillance, she’d have round-the-clock police protection. Behan wasn’t convinced but said he trusted Josie and agreed to her plan.

“If she gets away from you, I wouldn’t bet on the odds of her staying alive,” Behan added. “Seems like Kent and his friends are going down like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.”

Tomic and Josie got to the church parking lot about fifteen minutes early. They decided to wait in the car rather than make the trek onto the roof again. A few minutes after eleven, Tomic got impatient and climbed down into the crash pad. Stella was gone; the mother, young boy, and all their belongings were gone. Josie contacted Curtis on the radio and asked him to check the other places Tomic had given him.

It was nearly two hours later when Tomic decided to call off the search. The little Mexican hype had burrowed into one of her hiding places and both he and Josie knew they weren’t going to find her without a snitch or a lot of luck.

When they got back to the office, Josie called the coroner’s office. There was a slim possibility Stella had found the courage and the means to get downtown on her own. One of the morgue assistants remembered a woman with an accent calling very early that morning to ask about viewing a baby Jane Doe who was brought in the day Ashley died. He told her the body had been cremated, but she was welcome to come in and claim the remains.

“Mystery solved,” Tomic said, after Josie repeated the assistant’s story. “She wanted to see a body not an envelope full of crispy critter.”

“No Stella, no Butch . . . what now?” Josie asked as her partner tried to shush her. He had answered a phone call and kept waving his hand to get her to stop talking. She was imagining herself sitting at a desk in the admin unit, just steps down the hall from Captain Clark’s office. It made her stomach turn. There had to be another way to find Butch, she thought, as Tomic slammed the phone back into the cradle.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, grinning at Josie. He got up quickly and motioned for her to follow. “Let’s go, pretty lady. Our dirtbag dealer wants his fifty-dollar finder fee. Stella’s waiting at his place for a drop-off.”

“God must have a really weird sense of humor,” she mumbled, following him to his car.

As Tomic pulled out of the parking lot, Josie radioed Curtis to tell him they’d located their subject. She asked if he could set up nearby and be ready to help in the surveillance. He immediately agreed and a couple of minutes later said he was in position waiting.

Josie saw Maddy in civilian clothes getting into an orange Volkswagen bug in the Hollywood officers’ parking lot as Tomic drove by and she asked him to stop and go back before the young woman drove away. She was end-of-watch and that gave Josie an idea.

“We’ll need somebody to get out on foot and Stella’s only seen Maddy once when she was really strung out. I don’t think she’d remember her.”

Tomic stopped the car and said, “Not a good idea, Corsino. Nobody’s okayed her working overtime with us.”

“I’ll get Behan to talk to her lieutenant. We can’t get anywhere near Stella. She’d make us in a second.”

Tomic wouldn’t look at Josie and said, “I’m not working with her.”

“Why not? She’s a good cop . . .” Josie’s voice trailed off. Sometimes it took a second for the obvious to sink into her uncomplicated brain. “Is this because of Vern?” she asked.

“I don’t want to work with her,” he said, emphatically.

“You said you believed her . . . that she saw him plant dope,” Josie said and waited a few seconds until she realized what should have been clear after years of working with this man. Maddy had broken his unwritten rule—always protect your partner. Vern needed to be caught but she shouldn’t have been the one to do it. Tomic had no problem with dirty cops going to jail but, in his world, other cops shouldn’t be the ones to make it happen.

Curtis broadcast that Stella had just purchased her heroin and was walking southbound in the alley parallel to Western. Without another word, Tomic drove up Wilcox toward Hollywood Boulevard.

“Just for the record,” Josie said, buckling her seat belt. “You’re full of shit.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Josie knew it was pointless to argue. It was more than prejudice with him; it was a creed, his code of conduct. In her opinion, Vern was dirty and needed to go down, and she didn’t care who made that happen or how. She also knew it was personal with Tomic. He would never badmouth Maddy, and no one would ever know why he preferred not to work with her. Other coppers might assume it was because she was a woman which would make him look small-minded. Similar bad behavior from older officers certainly hadn’t hurt Josie’s career.

She could insist he work with Maddy, but she would never do that to her partner . . . the irony of that decision didn’t escape her. Maddy was tough, and she would be fine. The real shame was they didn’t have the benefit of her talent now when they needed it.

Stella was walking so she hadn’t gone very far by the time they arrived in the area. Donny was on foot, too, with a radio and was able to follow her from a distance in the alley. He was the only one of the four of them who hadn’t spent any time with Stella. She might’ve seen him in the office, but the little Mexican rarely got arrested. This was one occasion Josie was grateful Donny preferred paperwork to the street.

“We’ve gone about a block . . . now she’s walking back toward Western,” Donny said. His breathing sounded labored. All those hours working at his desk, drinking coffee, hadn’t done much for his cardio. After a few minutes, he broadcast that Stella was back on Western and had settled on a bus bench in front of a check-cashing store.

Tomic parked a couple of blocks away and Josie was able to take the point from their car.

“I’ve got her, Curtis. You can pick up your partner. Sounds like he’s about to have a stroke,” Josie broadcast.

“That’s the most he’s moved in a year,” Curtis said.

“Funny,” Donny said. “Like the rest of you are in better shape.”

Nobody responded because he was right. While most uniformed cops had regular hours and spent time running or lifting weights before or after their shift, dope cops never seemed to stop working. Time spent in court, on the street, or building cases didn’t allow for a healthy lifestyle. Exercise and decent meals gave way to fast food and a few hours’ sleep.

Several buses stopped near Stella’s bench, but she didn’t move. She hadn’t checked the schedule and didn’t seem to be watching for any particular bus. Whenever a black-and-white drove by, she looked down and raised her coat collar to hide most of her face. She was still wearing the knit cap pulled down over her ears and hugged the backpack on her lap.

She sat there for ten minutes before a car stopped about twenty feet from the bench. Stella didn’t move, staring at the older model Chevy for several seconds before the passenger window rolled down and only then did she jump up, hurry to the rear passenger door, and climb into the back seat.

Josie calmly broadcast exactly what she was seeing. There were two people in the front seat, but the windows were tinted, and she couldn’t describe them. The car drove off southbound as Donny’s voice immediately came over the radio to say they had the point. Josie and Tomic slid down in their seats not to be seen, but there was so much traffic on the busy street, she doubted that precaution was necessary.

She’d been able to copy the front license plate number and while Tomic concentrated on staying close to the surveillance, she got Dolores to run the plate. It came back in a few minutes “not in file.” The only license plates she knew that usually came back “not in file” belonged to law enforcement.

“This guy drives like a maniac,” Donny reported, and Josie could hear screeching tires in the background. He inadvertently keyed the microphone again and yelled “Watch it!” Curtis was a good driver, but tailing another car was always dangerous.

“Don’t lose him,” Josie ordered.

“Can you take the point for a few miles?” Donny asked. “We’ve had to do some crazy stuff to keep up. I’m pretty sure they didn’t make us as cops but better safe.”

They weren’t that far behind and Tomic quickly got into position to follow the Chevy and Curtis dropped back into traffic. They had taken the Hollywood Freeway to the 110 Freeway southbound. The driver seemed to slow down a little as soon as he transitioned onto the second freeway.

“Something might’ve made them hinky at first, but he’s driving better now,” Tomic said. He had relaxed and given the Chevy a lot of room.

It wasn’t until the car got off that freeway and onto the Artesia Freeway headed west that Josie realized where they might be going. That freeway ended in a few miles and became Artesia Boulevard; the road would take them through the South Bay beach cities. There was only one reason she could think of that might bring Stella and Butch here, but it seemed so implausible.

She didn’t say anything to Tomic and it was he who mentioned it first.

“You remember who lives out here, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said and keyed the microphone. She gave Curtis the address and directions to Kent’s sister Beverly’s house and told him to set up there and wait for the Chevy’s arrival. Josie wondered how the fragile, seemingly gentle woman could’ve gotten mixed up in her brother’s dirty business.

The car didn’t go directly to the house but stopped in Torrance Old Town at a coffee shop next door to an army surplus outlet. It wasn’t a big surprise that Butch was the crazy driver. He got out of the car, followed by Stella, and they both went to the front passenger door to assist Beverly. Even with help, she struggled to lift herself out of the cramped space and stood on the sidewalk for a few seconds to regain her balance before using a cane and leading the way into the coffee shop.

Josie left Tomic to watch the front of the place from his car and she walked across the street, through an alley that ran behind the stores, and entered the back door of an upholstery business directly across the street from the coffee shop. The worker in the back room was stapling the cushioned seat onto a chair frame and only stopped long enough to glance at Josie’s badge. The owner was an older woman who sat behind her desk in the front room and chatted in a one-sided conversation as Josie tried to focus on the trio across the street.

They sat at a table close to the coffee shop’s front window, so it was possible to watch them. Beverly seemed to be doing most of the talking. The little 8x30 monocular Josie had borrowed from Tomic made it easier to see their expressions and no one looked happy to be there. At one point, Stella leaned back and folded her arms, stared defiantly at the table. The blue had disappeared from Butch’s shaved head and he’d removed the studs from above his eye and lip, but Josie had no problem recognizing him. He had cleaned up but still looked like a skinny hype.

Beverly’s frustration was very apparent and eventually she stopped talking and with some difficulty got out of her chair. She slapped away Butch’s hand as he tried to help and nearly took a tumble before regaining her balance.

“Big sister is not pleased with her little wards,” Josie thought before thanking the owner who hadn’t stopped talking. She jogged back to Tomic’s car, filled him in on what she’d seen, then asked Curtis over the radio if he and Donny were set up on Beverly’s house.

Two clicks told her they were. She watched Beverly and the others get back into the car and drive in the direction of the house.

“They’re coming at you, Curtis. As soon as they get inside we’ll door knock and see if she’s got any more surprises in there. Can you and Donny cover the back?” Josie asked and got two more clicks.

Butch parked the Chevy in the driveway and this time Beverly allowed him to help her. They walked slowly to the front door and Josie waited until the three of them were inside and the door closed before she and Tomic approached the house.

Within seconds, she and her partner were on the porch. He rang the doorbell and knocked. Beverly opened it immediately with Butch and Stella standing behind her. Their expressions were a mix of surprise and confusion.

The two hypes turned to run until Josie shouted, “Don’t bother, we’ve got officers covering the back.”

They stopped and Butch crouched in the middle of the room and stayed in that position while Stella looked back and forth from the front door to the hallway behind her. Beverly tried to help Butch stand again; he was visibly shaken, tears running down the sides of his face.

“I’m dead . . . I’m so fucking dead,” he whispered, shaking his head but not looking at anyone.

“We’re not going to kill you,” Josie said and ordered everyone to sit on the couch while Tomic let Curtis and Donny into the house.

Beverly tried to calm Butch, but it wasn’t until Josie sat on the coffee table in front of him and ordered him to “stop acting like a baby” that he finally looked up and stopped crying.

“Why don’t you leave me alone?” he pleaded.

“Because you’re a thief and dope dealer,” Josie said and turned to Beverly. “You want to explain to me what these two misfits are doing in your home?”

“No, I don’t . . . but I will,” she said and glanced at Butch. “Brian, or Butch, I guess you call him, was very important to my brother. In his way, Clark loved him. Brian came to me and I gave him a safe place to stay.”

“Safe from what?” Tomic asked.

“One of you,” she said. “He told Stella where he was, so she had to come too. We were afraid he might find her, kill her like Billie.”

“Who might find her?” Tomic asked again, louder this time.

“How do we know you’re not like him . . . you’ll kill all of us,” Beverly said. She was frightened and the palsy in her hands grew more intense.

“If we were dirty, you’d probably be dead already,” Curtis said. “We want him caught as much as you.”

“Please tell them,” Beverly said, looking at Butch. “I trust her . . . this has to end.” She did look exhausted and much frailer than she had when Josie met her.

Butch hesitated and studied Josie’s face as if trying to find proof she wouldn’t harm him. It wasn’t until Stella whispered, “Tell her,” that Butch began to talk. He told them he and Kent faked their fight outside The Carnival. Kent’s plan was to steal ten kilos of cocaine from the Raven and blame Butch who was then supposed to disappear and stay hidden until Clark introduced him to Tomic as the snitch who would give up the dirty cop.

“He was gonna tell me a name to give you. Cop goes to jail . . . we could sell his stash and we’re rich.”

“How did he get his hands on the ten kilos? No dealer’s going to trust a guy like Kent with that much dope,” Tomic said.

“He accidentally found the stash pad.”

“Where.”

Butch shrugged and said, “Wouldn’t never tell me.”

“So what happened to this perfect plan you and the other genius put in motion?” Tomic asked.

The problem, Butch told them was that Clark had to sell some of the stolen coke to his regular customers for traveling money and the Raven found out. He killed Clark trying to make him reveal where he’d hidden the rest. Butch concluded by claiming he was hiding on the roof that night and saw Kent’s murderer.

“You recognized him,” Josie said.

Butch nodded. “It was Officer Fisher,” he said. “I seen him clear as I see you . . . no uniform, just regular clothes . . . and I heard his police radio.”

“Vern Fisher,” Tomic said. “You’re saying you saw him kill Kent.”

Butch nodded again. “I ain’t lying . . . Billie figured it out. Look what happened to her. That dude’s fucking crazy. He killed Lance trying to find me, didn’t he?” Tears welled up in his eyes and began streaming down the sides of his face again. He was clearly terrified.

“Bullshit,” Tomic said, shaking his head. He might believe an overzealous cop planted a rock in his misguided zeal to make an arrest, but selling drugs meant this was a man he really didn’t know. “Where’s the rest of the coke?”

“I have it,” Beverly said quickly. “I hid it in the garage.”

“Why?” Josie asked. She was attempting to absorb the idea that a man she thought was a good cop was just another low-life killer, and Beverly hiding ten kilos of cocaine wasn’t an act that fit her image of the straitlaced middle-aged woman. Her reality was way out of kilter.

“I found it in Clark’s room after he was killed. It was stupid. I guess in a way I was still trying to protect him . . .”

Beverly described the shopping bag that contained the cocaine and where she’d hidden it in the garage. Going outside to retrieve it was an opportunity for Josie to be alone with Tomic and they could decide what their next move was going to be. If Vern had worked that day, he would have gone end of watch and could be anywhere by now. All they had to connect him to Superman’s murder was Butch’s word and that was worth nothing without corroboration. They might be able to prove he planted coke on suspects at some point but that was a long way from killing them.

“I say we book the cocaine and leave the three of them here. Maybe get them some protection until we can get more proof,” Josie said.

“What if Vern finds out or already knows Kent had a sister and where she lives?” Tomic asked.

“He didn’t tell you he had a sister. Did he? And he really liked and trusted you. I don’t think he ever talked about her or this part of his life.”

“You’re probably right, but if we leave them here we get Behan to arrange a protection detail. We could arrest him and Stella.”

“No, bad idea. The most we can arrest them for is under the influence. Misdemeanors just aren’t staying in jail. We can’t pin the coke on them. Beverly hid it. If Vern is our killer, as soon as they step out of jail, he’ll pounce on them. At least here, he can’t find them . . . I hope,” she said.

They went back inside the house with the cocaine. It was packed inside two large paper grocery bags doubled for extra strength. Beverly had put it in a corner of the garage on the floor in the middle of a trash pile with a few filthy rags on top. Butch couldn’t take his eyes off the bag. Josie had to believe he had searched the property for the cocaine. He’d probably noticed the rag bag but didn’t bother to look inside because obviously no one would hide drugs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars like that.

Josie explained that she was going to leave Butch and Stella in Beverly’s care. If either one or both left the house or returned to Hollywood, they would be arrested.

“Can’t you arrest that officer?” Beverly asked.

“Not without proof. Butch’s word doesn’t cut it,” Tomic said.

“I ain’t lyin’,” Butch whined.

“Nobody said you were, but it’s not enough,” Josie said.

Curtis agreed to wait at the house with Donny until Behan could arrange a security detail to guard their witnesses while Josie and Tomic booked the cocaine and talked to Behan. They needed to protect Butch and she wanted to get permission to have Internal Affairs surveillance set up on Officer Fisher.

THE RIDE back to Hollywood gave Josie an opportunity to organize her thoughts. Tomic never talked much, but tonight he was silent. She knew he was angry, not with her but with the world. A cop had killed Kent, not to protect and serve but for greed.

Her first question was how Vern had gotten hold of ten kilos of cocaine. She would check property reports, but that was a lot of coke to steal from booked seizures. Maybe he figured out a way to get it from Property division before it was destroyed in their regular burns, or had he stolen it from another dealer? If Vern was Raven, then Kent was delivering several ounces of cocaine every day to his bevy of customers. Where would Vern keep that much cocaine, she wondered. It had to be someplace obvious. Kent wasn’t smart enough to find a clever hiding place.

Vern planting drugs on other dealers was making much more sense now. He was eliminating the competition by arresting Abby’s dealers and taking over the street, forcing them to do business with him.

Josie figured Abby didn’t know the Raven’s identity yet, or Gaetano would have dealt with him the way he tried to deal with Marge for her interference in their business. Kent was her only connection to Raven and she probably bailed Butch out of jail hoping he might tell her what Kent couldn’t any longer.

Finding Vern’s stash pad might be the only way they could tie him to Kent. SID could test the drugs to determine if they came from the same batch Beverly had in her garage. Josie was certain he held the key to deciphering Kent’s book of bird names. There had to be a log and that would be another link. He’d been smart enough not to shoot either Kent or Lance McCray, instead, killing them in ways that were difficult to trace back to him.

Cops usually make terrible criminals, but Vern was clever and vicious. He had bested the Testas at least for now and managed to keep his day job in a black-and-white while dealing large quantities of cocaine. Josie glanced at Tomic’s somber face and wondered if he might be having a change of heart about never arresting one of his brothers in blue.