chapter thirty

Over the weekend, I called every name with a 333-1110 phone number in the country. Nothing and no one appeared tied to Dr. Lee. I also ran down every Fuentes in California listed in the computer’s search engines—to no avail. Jo came in late Sunday night. She must have found me with my head cradled on the dining room table.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” The flash from her phone-cam chased away the shadows.

“I liked it better when you woke me with a kiss.” I lifted my head with a start to see Jo holding out the picture of me, floating words and the numbers 333-1110 from the case file projected on my forehead like a derma ad.

“No problem.” She bent down and bestowed the requested kiss. “Good news. You remember that PR rep I hired?”

“Somebody your firm worked with.” I stretched the cramped neck muscles my catnap had given me.

Jo nodded. “Sasha Gilels. She phoned with the update on the Clara Vista crash footage.”

Jo had my full attention.

“Forensic analysis confirmed the footage was taken via civilian drone,” Jo said moments later, kicking off her heels and pulling a bottle of wine out of the fridge. She poured us both a glass of pale gold Viognier.

“How’d she get the footage so fast? The warrant hasn’t even been served.”

“Remember the texting BMW driver?” Jo curled up on the sofa and patted the seat next to her. “Jordan Huang is a client of Sasha’s. He was going to tell his story as soon as he was cleared from all charges anyway. Sasha arranged for him to give an exclusive interview to KTCV in exchange for the footage. You’re a hero, Eddie.”

I took the proffered seat on the couch as Jo pulled up a news clip of the now voluable BMW driver. He was standing on that stretch of PCH, arm extended as he chattered on about the crash to the riveted reporter on his right.

“It all happened so fast,” reality star Jordan Huang said. “I didn’t know that driver of the Porsche was a cop. But he saved my life, man. I was like frozen until he snapped me out of it. I would have been toast in that explosion. Wherever you are, Detective Piedmont, thanks, man.”

“The clip’s gone viral,” Jo said. “It’s already made a big dent in the number of protestors from the Ramirez shooting.”

“What about the phone anonymous used to call the crash footage into the station?”

“Ah.” Jo pressed her lips into a frown. “That was a burner. It’s dead.”

“Another ghost trail.” I drank in the clean spicy notes of the wine’s aroma. It tasted fine too. “Unless.” I leaned over and nibbled Jo’s neck. She tasted even better. “Any chance the phone number on that burner was 333-1110?”

Jo shook her head. She gave me the number. It was an 818 and I made a note to check it against’ Britney Devonshire’s phone logs.

“But you can go to your hearing tomorrow with a win in your corner.”

“And knowing it definitely wasn’t the LAPD who launched that spy drone.” I smiled. It helped to know Jo had my back, and the department wasn’t spying on me.

Jo made me promise we’d not mention work again until the morning.

We went to bed without another word and made love without speaking, the passionate tension-release of partners who know each others’ bodies well and don’t want to think, let alone talk.

That night I dreamt of an interrogation room with black walls and a ceiling that started to lower with the sound of scraping metal.

I woke to the clatter of a garbage truck rattling down the street at six o’clock the next morning.

A blanket of pale gray cloud cover was visible though the skylight overhead. I lay on my back listening to the sea gulls and mourning doves outside our bedroom window and watching the shifting skeins of cloud in the sky overhead. They seemed to form meaningful patterns, only to lose shape and dissolve in the morning breeze.

Jo lifted her head, shifting her body so that her chin rested on both slender arms crossed over my chest. I lightly stroked her hair. The pale strands smelled faintly of vanilla. She traced invisible circles on the skin of my chest with a teasing smile.

I could’ve used a replay of the night before, but Jo had to get to the office by nine, and I had to gear up for the IAC hearing. So we hauled ourselves out of bed and into the bathroom.

“Mirror,” I said, and the wall above the sink transformed. My face stared back at me from the mirror, which had been a blank wall. Lathering the shaving brush until its soft bristles were covered with a head of white foam, I started in on my jaw, and frowned. I leaned in close to the mirror. My mom’s unanswered phone call shot straight back into memory. And that prompted thoughts of my father’s birthday.

Every day I worried I’d see my father’s features pushing their way up through my skin, like some extinct monster rising up out of the black ooze of the La Brea tar pits. Somedays I thought I did, mostly when I was tired or pissed off.

As I leaned in, the light suddenly shifted. It was Jo standing behind me now, watching me shave.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I angled my head and lifted the razor for another run down the side of my jaw. “Phantoms. My mother logged two calls. I haven’t called her back. She’ll be after me to visit my father again.”

Jo leaned in close, her cool hands on my deltoids. “You look nothing like him,” she said, reading my mind. Jo ran her hand through my hair. “But you could use a trim.”

“I’ll make an appointment later.” Today it was true I saw no trace of my father on my face. The black hair, faded denim eyes, the set of the shoulders, the uncurled lips—even the scrapes—all I saw were my own familiar features staring back at me.

***

By nine fifty, wearing my favorite blue Brioni suit, I’d made my way to the fifth floor of Nokia P.D. and settled myself into one of the three little gray chairs in the corridor outside the See Cave. My interview with the Internal Affairs Committee was scheduled for ten.

I checked messages. Shin left an encouraging voicemail. Jo had texted me—“Break a leg—somebody else’s.”

I loved this woman.

If things went according to the best case scenario, I’d be officially reinstated. If the hearing went the other way, I’d be fired with no pension and no prospects to look forward to but a law suit and my own recriminations.

The IAC wasn’t a jury. That’s why they were interviewing me under compulsion with a union rep instead of a criminal attorney. So, if they ruled against me, they could hold me personally liable and fire me on the Q.T., sparing the department a court trial and any further embarrassment.

But I had a play too. I planned to inform the IAC that Claire Kidder, the OIS civilian board member who’d pressed for this further investigation, and I had shared a drunken hook-up five years ago. Kidder should have recused herself from the OIS hearing in the first place due to conflict of interest. She hadn’t. Now if the IAC canned me, I’d have grounds for a lawsuit of my own.

The door to the See Cave opened. Geared up for battle, I leapt to my feet. But before I could enter, Jay Espinoza, my union representative, scurried out in a breathless rush. The creases in his lined face seemed even deeper since our last meeting.

He was practically vibrating with energy.

“Should I make my statement on Claire Kidder right at the start?” I said. “Or hold it for the end?”

“No need,” Espinoza said, a broad grin splitting his tired face. “Hearing’s over, detective. I submitted your statement ahead of time and made them see that Ms. Kidder’s actions tainted the whole proceeding. It’s not court, but fruit of the poisoned tree still applies.”

I stared at him as the implications of his words sank in. “So I’m reinstated?”

“With caveats.” Espinoza’s grin faded a little. He rattled off the four deployment periods I’d be fined and the periodic blood or breathalyzer tests I could look forward to in my future. “The bad news is,” he continued, “they may move you out of Robbery-Homicide.”

I felt that sinking feeling in the pit of my gut.

“But trust me,” Espinoza said. “They don’t want a counter-lawsuit. That will only give fuel to agitators. I’m guessing you’ll stay put.”

“So I can work cases?”

He nodded.

It was irony on steroids. The same drunken hook-up that had gotten me into trouble with OIS boardmember Claire Kidder had been my ticket out of trouble with the IAC. Things could definitely be worse. I shook Espinoza’s hand and thanked him.

Deputy Chief Garber was exiting the room now, the same metallic twang of a computerized voice intoning his name as the door sensor read his barcode. Overly tanned and lean, he looked like the human equivalent of beef jerky. He walked past without a glance in my direction. IAC Detectives Andy Tarr and Mary Redhawk flanked him like book ends. Tall, fit, and blond Tarr resembled an actor playing a cop. Redhawk wore oversized glasses with thick black frames that matched her too-black-for-nature hair. The hair was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her neck.

When she saw me, Redhawk paused and peeled off from Garber. She gestured to Tarr to continue, but asked me to wait a minute. “It’s not official, Mr. Espinoza,” she said to the union rep, “or I’d ask you to stay too.”

“You want me to stay?” Espinoza shot me a worried look as if to say “Did you sleep with this one too?”

“It’s okay,” I said.

He shuffled off with a worried backward glance.

I entered the See Cave after Redhawk and took a seat in another uncomfortable little chair facing the big table. The lights were hard and bright against the black walls, and there was the stale tang of sweat and disinfectant in the air.

Detective Redhawk half stood, half leaned on the long table opposite. She waited until the door closed, then turned her gaze on me. “Nice play, detective,” she said. “Waiting until after the OIS ruling to raise the conflict of interest.”

“That wasn’t how it went down.”

“Can I ask you something off the record?” she said.

“You can ask.” We both knew “off the record” didn’t apply to IAC.

“I worked with your father on a couple cases back in the day. Before I moved to C.L.A. He used to put away a drugstore worth of Oxycontin before breakfast. That was before he took to green ice and heroin.”

I stared hard at her, realizing she was older than I’d guessed if she’d worked with my father. Nano-surgery probably—it was getting harder and harder to gauge a woman’s age these days. Was she one of those police officers out to get me because I was the son of a dirty cop? Or had he rubbed a little dirt on her too?

“I’m half Black Irish and half Navaho,” she said, leaning back on the desk. “Six out of ten of my family members are drunks, and three out of the remaining four probably would be if we started drinking. You can carry the genes for alcoholism, but if you manage to push away the bottle, you won’t trigger the disease. Have you had your genome checked?”

“Let me save you some time,” I said, standing. “I don’t do drugs and I don’t need a DNA scan to know I’m not my father.”

She squinted a little at me. “Family history is a predictor of future problems. Everybody has something.”

“Thanks for the advice.” I took a step towards the door.

“Do you have nightmares yet?” Her words hit my back.

Everybody’s worried how I sleep these days. I paused at the door and looked back, saying nothing, but she knew.

Nodding, Redhawk took off her thick lenses and rubbed her eyes. She looked older without the glasses, the pouches under the eyes more pronounced. “Your father was a different man before the drugs got him,” she said. “He helped me out of a jam once. I can’t pay him back, but maybe I can help his son. You’re still young. It’s not too late to think about a career change.”

“Are you saying the department will find a way to fire my ass?”

“I’m saying maybe you should quit. Before you turn into one of those cops who’s already dead but just hasn’t laid down yet.”

“Consider your debt paid,” I said. “But I have a job to do.”