The article had come out an hour earlier.
At the top was a picture of Carla and Maria poached off of Carla’s Instagram profile. There was also a picture of Moyer from the Las Vegas PD website. The article was short on facts because there hadn’t been much to report. Carla had been arrested on suspicion of solicitation but never officially charged. The article went heavy on wondering how much Maria had known about Carla’s arrest and if she used any undue influence to get Carla released. The article made it clear that officially a homicide detective shouldn’t have any sway with a vice investigation, and then wondered if her Lieutenant who was known to be golfing buddies with the Sergeant in charge of the vice squad could have been the one who got them to drop all the charges.
The possibility that Carla had been wrongly arrested didn’t come up at all.
Michael told Maria to go see Carla.
“We’re in the middle of a homicide investigation,” Maria said.
“I can handle this. Take an hour and go check on her.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you about this,” Maria said.
“About what?”
“About Carla’s arrest. About the article,” Maria said.
“You knew about the article?”
“The reporter approached me yesterday. Asked me questions. I told him to fuck off,” Maria said.
“Did you get Carla’s case dropped?”
“No, it was a complete bullshit arrest. But I didn’t have anything to do with it. Moyer did,” Maria said.
Michael nodded. Told her not to stress anything. Just go deal with Carla and then come back when she was done. He’d keep going over the scene.
“I’m sorry,” Maria said.
“And stop apologizing. Save that for when you actually do something wrong.”
The entire ride home, Maria steamed. She was damned if she was going to let some asshole reporter use Carla to attack her, and she was sure Clint was behind this. He had to be, didn’t he? Who else could it be? Which had to mean that Clint had killed Benny. Why else would he sick a reporter on her? That had to be it, but even raging angry, even ready to toss Clint off of the balcony of Benny’s suite, Maria doubted it. Her gut told her that Clint wasn’t the guy, but after her last case, could she really trust her gut anymore?
Maria found Carla on the living room couch. She looked like she’d been crying.
“Your mother called me to talk about the article,” Carla said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll call her and tell her she shouldn’t-” Maria said, but Carla cut her off.
“She called me, mija, and asked if it was true. Before I could even answer, she said, one thousand dollars was a lot of money, almost letting me know she wouldn’t blame me if I had, so I told her what really happened, and she told me that man was a pendejo, and he got what he deserved,” Carla said.
“So, why are you crying?”
“She called me, mija. I had to get accused of being a prostitute and used as leverage against you, in order for her to call me mija,” Carla said.
“Yeah, well, the Brady Bunch, we’re not,” Maria said.
Carla wrinkled her nose as if she didn’t understand what Maria was saying.
“You’ve never seen reruns of the Brady Bunch.”
Carla shook her head.
“My father loved that show. Used to make me watch it with him. Anyway, this whole thing, this article, all of it means that someone is afraid I’ll keep digging into a crime they don’t want dug into, but I’m not going to stop, and they’re going to pay for this,” Maria said.
“Can I just enjoy for a moment the wonderfully dysfunctional love I received from your mother today for a few minutes before you start fixing everything?” Carla said.
Back in the car, Maria’s phone rang. Millie. Shit.
“I need to know if there’s any truth to this article,” Millie said.
“Truth in what sense?”
“Is your girlfriend a prostitute?” Millie said.
“No,” Maria said.
“But she was arrested by vice?” Millie said.
“Why are you asking me these questions?” Maria said.
“Because if you had something to do with your hooker girlfriend getting off of charges, that makes you easy to impeach,” Millie said.
“Call my girlfriend a hooker again and there’s going to be charges,” Maria said.
“Are you threatening me?” Millie said.
“You’ve been all over me since you got here. I’m sorry we made out one time, and I didn’t want to see you again. Most people wouldn’t hold a grudge years later,” Maria said.
“I’m trying to do my job,” Millie said.
“How? By making life difficult for your detectives?” Maria said.
“No, by protecting the integrity of the investigation,” Millie said.
“So that’s what pushing me to arrest the wrong person is? Protecting the integrity of the investigation?” Maria said.
“You’re about two minutes away from a suspension,” Millie said.
“For what? Doing my job? You get suspended for that now?”
“I need to know if there’s any truth to these accusations,” Millie said.
“I already answered that question. How many times are you going to ask the same question over and over? Am I a perp now?” Maria said.
Millie didn’t answer. Just let the silence sit there. Maria could visualize her trying to calm down. Maria knew she was making this worse, but at the moment, she just didn’t care. She wasn’t going to let anyone talk about Carla like that.
“Maybe this isn’t the right case for you to come back to. What happened with your father, the questions the FBI are bringing up, it’s a lot of heat, and it might burn you,” Millie said.
“Two murders and the slander of my girlfriend. You’re going to have to fire me to get me off this case. Whoever the asshole is that is doing this, he’s going to pay,” Maria said.
“We have a job to do, and we have to do it dispassionately. I can’t have you running around with a grudge and an agenda, and you have to understand the heat I’m going to get over this article,” Millie said.
“I need to solve this case,” Maria said. “I can’t let it go.”
“You can have until tomorrow. I’ll take the heat for you until then. I’ll push everyone off, but if you don’t solve it by tomorrow, I’m going to have to assign the case to someone else, and I need you to understand. This can’t be personal. We’re professionals, not avenging angels. Understood?” Millie said.
“Understood,” Maria said.
Back at Jackson’s house, Maria sat in her car for a minute. She wanted to calm down. Get her focus back. The call with Millie had started out badly, but in the end, Millie had her back. Maria would need to remember that. Millie might be an asshole, but a lot of other sergeants would have already sent her home or confined her to a desk. Almost none of them would have kept her on this case. Maybe those sergeants would have been protecting their detectives, but Millie seemed to really understand that Maria couldn’t let the perp beat her.
Money, power, influence, none of it was going to keep her from doing her job.
Michael walked out and came up the walkway.
“How’d it go with Carla?” he asked.
“Better than I’d hoped for,” Maria said.
“I received a phone call from the vice cop who arrested Carla,” Michael said.
“What the fuck did he want?”
“He wants you to know he wasn’t the source for the article. He swears up and down that only him and the vice sergeant knew that Carla was your girlfriend. Says neither of them said anything to any reporters,” Michael said.
“Yeah, no one ever says anything, but somehow everyone always knows something,” Maria said.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m pissed. Obviously, but mostly now, I’m just sure Jackson is innocent,” Maria said.
“Because if he wasn’t innocent, why go after you?”
“Exactly. Someone wants us off the case so it can go to someone more amenable,” Maria said.
“But Jackson would have ended up getting off, anyway. The DA probably wouldn’t even prosecute with the evidence we have. So why kill him?”
“Someone needed a patsy, and Millie gave us until tomorrow to figure it out before she’s reassigning the case,” Maria said.
“I didn’t think we’d get that long,” Michael said.
“Me either.”
“Is that a cooling of the tension between you and Millie that I detect?” Michael said.
“She covered for me. I have to give her that much credit,” Maria said.
The words coming out of her mouth tasted like bile, and from the look on Michael’s face, he knew, and he was trying to decide if now was the time for ribbing or silence.
He chose silence. Smart guy that Michael.
“We need to get some unis to canvass the neighbors. See if anyone heard anything,” Maria said.
“Already ordered, just waiting on them to get here and get to it,” Michael said.
“What do you think about the motive for killing Jackson? Does it make sense?” Maria said.
“That reporter doesn’t come cheap. Has to be Clint, doesn’t it?” Michael said.
“It just feels wrong,” Maria said.
“What do you want to do?”
“Let’s follow the string wherever it leads,” Maria said.
“And if it leads to a bomb.”
“Then we’ll blow it up.”
“Let’s get back at it then,” Michael said.
“Give me a second. I need to make a call and then I’ll be right in,” Maria said.
As Michael went back into Jackson’s house, Maria dialed Laura Esquivel.
“Do you know this reporter, Les Hilton?”
“Unfortunately, yes, I do,” Laura said.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Any idea of why he’d publish something like that?” Maria said.
“He does hatchet jobs on the semi-regular. Usually for someone who has an ax to grind and money to burn,” Laura said.
“I’d really like to know who his source was,” Maria said.
“Trying to figure out who your enemies are?”
“More or less,” Maria said.
“And what would I get for suffering through a liquid lunch with that scumbag in order to find out this information?”
“On this one, you might be able to name your own price,” Maria said.
“I like the sound of that.”