They're Watching (2010) Page 20

  "Am I under arrest?"

  Gable stopped. Grimaced. Then, carefully: "I never said that."

  "Pretty heavily implied."

  "At the crime scene, you said you were willing to go with Detectives Richards and Valentine to cooperate. You gave your full consent to go to the station with them. All we did was transfer you. We asked you to come with us. We asked if we could print you. We asked if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions."

  "So," I said, "I'm free to go?"

  "Not quite. We're allowed to hold you for--"

  "A reasonable time to question me. Right. I've been in custody now for about sixteen hours. You detain me much longer without charges, that might piss off a jury if we get there."

  "When we get there."

  "You're out of reasons to prolong my detention. I've answered all your questions. You've had time to search my house and my office, so it's not like you need to hold me to prevent me from destroying evidence. You know where to find me if you decide to take me back into custody. I'm not a flight risk. My face is on every news channel, so even if I wasn't in dire financial straits, I couldn't exactly throw on a pair of Groucho glasses and hop a flight to Rio."

  Gable had stopped pacing, his surprise giving way to irritation.

  I continued, "So please tell the DA I'm done cooperating. She needs to pull the trigger and arrest me now--or let me try to get back to my life."

  Gable crouched so his head was lower than mine. He worked his lip. "You've known. You've been planning this. The whole time." He glared at me with equal parts hatred and amusement. "That was your lawyer on the phone, was it?"

  I didn't answer.

  "Good lawyer," he said.

  "The best."

  "I need to make a phone call of my own. I'll be back to you shortly with an answer. One way or another."

  The door closed, leaving me with the throbbing in my back and my doleful reflection in the two-way mirror. To say I looked like hell would be an understatement. My face was pale and puffy, dark crescents holding up my eyes. My hair was thoroughly mussed; I'd been tugging at it anxiously. My joints ached. Leaning over, I ground the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.

  I might never go home again.

  Did California have lethal injection or the electric chair?

  How the hell did I wind up here?

  A creak to my right and Gable loomed in the doorway. Desperate, I tried to read his face. It was tight and filled with disdain.

  He turned, walking off, flinging the door open in a burst of temper. It smashed against the outside wall and wobbled back, giving off a tuning-fork vibration.

  I sat in my chair, watching that door wobble. I rose. I walked out. Gable was nowhere to be seen. The plastic tub holding my possessions had been placed on the floor outside the jamb, the throwaway cell phone right there on top, for anyone to see. I looked for my Sanyo before remembering that Sally had taken it to review the bits of recorded footage. My knees cracked as I crouched to pick up the tub. The elevators were in view at the end of the hall. My breath echoing in my skull, I walked toward them, braced for someone to seize me, condemn me--the inverse of a last-minute pardon.

  But I got there. Once the doors slid closed behind me, I leaned weakly against the elevator wall, plastic tub under my arm. The ride down to the main floor took an eternity. When the doors opened, no one was there waiting to grab me. I trudged across the lobby, through the solid front doors, and out into the dusk. A polluted breeze blew up from the street, but the air felt as fresh as spring in my lungs. I dumped the disposable cell in the trash.

  I had some trouble keeping my balance down the wide steps. I walked over to the street and sat heavily on the curb, my feet in the gutter, buses and cars blowing by. A brittle leaf fluttered against the asphalt like a dying bird. I watched it, then watched it some more.

  "Get up." There she was above me, backlit. I was surprised and also somehow not. "We've got work to do." Sally offered a hand, and after a moment I took it. I got halfway to my feet when my knees went out, and I lowered myself back onto the curb.

  "I think I need a minute," I said.

  Chapter 36

  "Two things did it," Sally told me as we barreled along the 101. "The gas station had digital security footage of you at the counter, which the clerk e-mailed right over. That alibied you for the break-in at Conner's and got a second suspect into the mix. Enough to give the DA pause."

  Valentine was still off trying to run down Elisabeta, so I rode in the front of the sedan, which made me feel vaguely human again. I dialed Ariana for the fifth time, but all her numbers remained busy. Sally had given me my Sanyo cell phone back, after declaring the recorded clips on it useless. When I'd turned it on, it had been jammed with excited condolences from virtually everyone who had the number, too many to listen to right now, given my state of mind.

  "And," Sally continued, "the computer you rented at Kinko's--a Compaq. It had a bunch of time-stamped documents implanted in various places, showing the planning of the crime, your obsession with Conner, stuff going back a year. Beyond the question of why you would leave that stuff on a rented computer, it's impossible that you created those documents."

  "Because the time stamps didn't match the dates I rented the computer?"

  "Even better." She let slip a pleased smile. "The serial number on the Compaq shows it to have shipped as part of a bulk buy on December fifteenth. Which means the computer didn't yet exist when you were supposedly generating incriminating documents on it. Looks like you outthought them on one front--they were counting on you to check your e-mail at home or at the office."

  "Me: one. Bad guys: ninety-seven."

  "Hey," she said, "it's a start."

  I resumed calling our house, Ariana's cell phone, her work. Busy or off the hook. Full mailbox. No answer.

  A blinking icon on my cell phone caught my eye. A text message. Another threatening communication? Nervously, I thumbed it onto the screen, relaxing when I saw that it was from Marcello: I FIGURE U MIGHT NEED THIS RITE ABOUT NOW. The accompanying photograph was a freeze-frame from the footage I'd recorded onto my phone. It showed the windshield reflection of the Vehicle Identification Number, blown up and clarified. Closing my eyes, I gave private thanks for Marcello's postproduction skills.

  Sally said, "What?"

  I held out the phone so she could see the image. "This is the VIN of the car from the second e-mail. Where the guy filmed through the windshield to show me the route to that Honda in the alley."

  She unclipped the radio and called in the VIN, asking the desk officer to look into it. She gave a few uh-huhs, then an "Oh, really?" When she signed off, she said, "That club girl? She had a miscarriage. So the paternity suit's a dead end. At least that paternity suit. As for the VIN, that should be easy. We'll get word back on the car soon."

  "Thank you," I said. "For taking me seriously. All of it. I know you're out on a limb."

  The tires thrummed over the freeway exit. "Let's be clear about something. I like you, Patrick. But we're not friends. Someone got murdered. He may have been an asshole, but he was killed in my jurisdiction, and that angers me. Deeply. I want to know who killed him and why--even if it's you--and there is no condition more motivating to me than curiosity. Plus, call me old-fashioned, but the thought of an innocent person behind bars makes me chafe. Justice, truth, and all that crap. So I appreciate your thanks, but you should know I didn't do any of it for you."

  We drove in silence. I looked out my window for a time before trying Ariana again. And again. The home phone was still busy--had she taken it off the hook? Between attempts my cell rang. I checked caller ID eagerly, but it was the Northridge film department. Probably not calling to offer me a raise. Frustrated, I threw my phone onto the dash. It rattled against the windshield. I took a few deep breaths, staring at my lap. At first I hadn't noticed we'd stopped moving.

  We were parked outside a familiar run-down Van Nuys apartment complex. Sally climbed out, but I just
sat there, taking in the bent security gate and the courtyard beyond. VACANCY, written on rusted metal, swaying from the gutter. A PARTMENTS FOR R ENT.

  All the signs had been there, and yet I'd read none of them.

  Sally knocked the hood impatiently, and I climbed out, regarding the building with awe. It was familiar, and yet altered in my mind, given what had transpired. The directory box, with its blank renter spot for Apartment 11. I thought about how I'd tried to call up to the apartment anyway, but the line had been out of service. How pleased I'd been with myself when I'd figured out to punch in the entry code. So pleased I hadn't lingered on the fact that I was heading to an apartment with no renter and a disconnected call-up line.

  We stopped before the locked front gate. Sally waited expectantly until I realized why. Reaching out a trembling finger, I pressed the four numbers. The gate buzzed, and Sally tugged it open, giving me an after-you wave.

  Up the stairs, down the floating hall to Beeman's apartment. That old-fashioned keyhole where I'd seen Beeman's eye peering out at me.

  "I reached the manager by phone," Sally said. "He claims the place hasn't been rented in months. Water damage--I guess the owner's waiting to pay for mold remediation. The manager's not on site to let us in. And I can't get a warrant. It's not my case, you know. Shame." Sally put her hands on the railing, looked out across the courtyard below, humming to herself. Something classical. I watched the back of her head.

  Then I turned and kicked in the door.

  The brittle wood gave easily. Stooped, I stood in the doorway. Empty. No mattress, no dirty clothes, no big-screen TV partnered with a convenient DVD player. Just the moist reek of mold, dust motes swirling in a shaft of light, that water stain bleeding through the wall.

  It felt like entering a dream world. I paused a few steps in.

  There he'd sat, back on his heels before the TV, swaying, clutching himself.

  An actor.

  That beaten-down humility I'd identified with so strongly. A man I'd taken for vulnerable, frustrated, damaged.

  Paid to play me for a fool.

  He'd embodied my hopes and fears. He'd known how desperate I'd been to redeem him, to redeem myself. Even in light of everything else, that betrayal was blinding, humiliating.

  Sally was saying something. I blinked hard, my ears ringing, an echo chamber of my thoughts. "What?"

  "I said, we find Doug Beeman, we clear you."

  An electronic chirp issued somewhere in the apartment, and Sally's hand went to her hip. We looked at each other. Sally tilted her head toward the bathroom. We inched over, our steps silent on the worn-through carpet. The door gave silently to the pressure of her knuckles.

  The bathroom was empty, but behind the toilet bowl, to the side, visible only once we'd inched past the chipped counter, was a cell phone. It had probably fallen from a pants pocket onto the wraparound shag rug as someone sat.

  Another chirp.

  As Sally exhaled, I crouched and flipped it open. The screen saver featured a Sin City shot of Jessica Alba and the owner's name, keyed in purple: MIKEY PERALTA. Doug Beeman's real name, on the cell phone he'd claimed not to have?

  Clicking the speaker button, I hit "play."

  "Message from"--and then a prerecorded wheezy voice with a strong New York accent--"Roman LaRusso." Then, "Mikey, it's Roman. The deodorant people rang me in a panic when you missed your call time this morning. I figured you were just hungover, but then I heard you might have been in an accident? Are you all right? Can you make it to the set tomorrow? Call me. C'mon, I'm worried."

  Twenty minutes later we were at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, standing over Mikey Peralta's body, the cardiac monitor going strong, peaks and gullies to shame a tech stock. One of his eyelids was closed, smooth as ivory, the other at half mast, revealing the wine-red sclera beneath. His forehead was dented on the right side, a bloodless divot the size of a fist. The teal hospital gown stretched across the compact rise of his chest, and his arms lay limp, his hands curled unnaturally inward. Dark puffy hair, blown back from that receding hairline, framed his chalky face against the pillow.

  Brain-dead.

  The ICU nurse was talking to Sally behind me. "--filed an accident report. Hit-and-run, yeah. I guess no one saw anything, and he was pretty much gorked on arrival."

  I was still struggling to overcome my shock. As Sally had stepped in and out, taking phone calls and gathering information, I'd stared blankly at the supine body. It was impossible not to think of him as Doug Beeman.

  Stepping forward, I lifted his hand. Dead weight. Turned it over. The insides of his wrists were perfectly smooth. The razor-blade scars had been nothing more than makeup and special effects.

  I set his arm gently back in place. The smell of whiskey tinged the air around him.

  Valentine arrived, and he and Sally conferred in hushed voices. "RHD ain't gonna like him here one bit."

  "Look, we've got bigger concerns," Sally said. "Obviously they're snipping off the loose ends here, covering their tracks. Once they know Patrick's out--"

  "Come on. They're not gonna want to Jack Ruby him. That'll only make it obvious there is a frame and open up more--"

  I turned, and they went silent. "Elisabeta's next," I said. "Did you find her?"

  Valentine said, "I couldn't run her down. The Fiberestore commercial's two years old. The name on the contract says Deborah B. Vance, but the Social doesn't line up and there are no last-knowns. Actresses are a pain in the ass. They reinvent themselves every five minutes, always working under different names, moving, ducking taxes. Their credit history's a mess, so their financials look like spaghetti. I called SAG and AFTRA, but they've got no one paying union dues under that name. I could keep digging, but"--a pointed look at Sally--"this isn't our case, and you can bet RHD is already all over every move we--"

  From outside we heard, "Officer, you can't just keep piling into the patient's room--" and then a booming voice, "It's not 'Officer.' It's 'Captain.' "

  Valentine looked at Sally, mouthed, Fuck.

  The door opened, and the captain entered with his assistant. The captain's eyes, the same coffee color as his skin, swept the room. Of middling height, his bulk softened with middle age, he would have been unimpressive if not for the sense of authority emanating from him like a radioactive glow. A vein throbbed in his neck, but aside from that, his rage seemed to be restrained. "You brought the lead suspect along to investigate the death of a person of interest in his own case?" He forked two fingers at me. "For all you know, he was the hit-and-run driver."

  "That's not possible, sir."

  "No? And why is that, Detective Richards?"

  "Because I've been with him since the time of his release."

  "You picked him up downtown?" Each syllable enunciated.

  Peralta's monitor kept emitting those soothing beeps.

  "I did, Captain."

  A deep breath, nostrils flaring. "A word, Detectives." The stare hitched on me a moment, the first direct acknowledgment of my presence. "You, wait in the hall."

  We all snapped to. As I parked myself in a reception chair, Sally and Valentine followed the captain into an empty patient room, the assistant standing post outside, expressionless. The door clicked neatly, and then there was an absolute silence. No baritone thundering, no foghorn blare of displeasure, just a chilling graveyard quiet.

  My phone hummed, and, praying it was Ari, I scrambled for it. But the number on the caller ID screen was my parents'. I took a hard breath, returned the phone to my pocket. Not the best time for explanations.

  The captain exited, his assistant falling into step beside him, and they breezed by me, nearly stepping on my shoes. Valentine came out a moment later, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He paused before me but kept his gaze straight ahead. "Four boys, Davis. That's a lotta bills. The case is with RHD and only with RHD. I'm sorry, man, but I'm not gonna fall on my sword for you."

  I pointed at Mikey Peralta's room. "They killed him."
>
  "That boy's got two DUIs on record. So a car accident? Not exactly a shocker."

  "They knew that. That's why they chose him."

  "That, too, huh?" He smoothed his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. "This thing is too big for you. The cops, the conspirators, the press--everyone is watching you. If you get in a speck of trouble--and I do mean a speck--you're fucked. And we won't be able to help you. My advice is you go home, get quiet, and let this thing shake itself out."

  He kept on to the elevators. I studied the tips of my shoes, all too aware of Sally's presence behind the shut door across the way. My sole remaining ally? I almost didn't want to go in and find out.

  But I did. No one had bothered to turn on the overheads, but an X-ray light box cast a pale glow. Sally was sitting on a gurney, her broad shoulders bowed. The creases of her shirt at the stomach were dark. "I'm done," she said.

  Dread filled me. "As in fired?"

  She waved me off. "Please. I'm a broad detective and a dyke, so I can't be fired. Single mother, too. Shit, talk about job security." Her voice held no hint of levity. "But I'm off this case. As in I will need to keep my captain advised of my location at all times." She wiped her mouth. "The VIN number you gave me traced to a Hertz rental. The credit card securing the vehicle was paid by a limited-liability company called Ridgeline, Inc. The desk officer glanced into the company, said it's like a Russian nesting doll. A shell within a shell within a shell. There might've been another shell in there--I kinda lost track when my cell phone cut out."

  "Why are you handing this off to me? What am I supposed to--?"

  But she continued, undeterred. "Unless that body one room over is the biggest coincidence since Martha Stewart's stock trade, these guys are covering their tracks. They probably want you living, since a dead fall guy makes everyone cry conspiracy, which--" She flared her hands. "But clearly you're in their crosshairs, and they're waiting and watching."

  "Can I get protection?"

  "Protection? Patrick, you're the lead suspect."

  "You and Valentine are the only cops who believe me. And he's walking. There could be a leak somewhere else in the department--in RHD, even. I've got no one else who can help me. No one else I can trust. Don't hang me out."