The Lost Witness (25 page)

“What is it?” she asked.

“He left something behind,” Orth said. “It’s not as good as a fingerprint. It’s not something that we can key into a database and pull out his name and address. But
it’s almost as good. That sheet of linoleum underneath the operating table?”

“You lifted a shoe print.”

Orth grinned with pride. “About three-thirty this morning,” he said. “It was invisible, but we found it. It’s amazing what florescent powder and a black light can do. I
called and they said that you were here, so I came down. The placement on the linoleum couldn’t be reached once the plywood was clamped to the saw horses. I figure he left the print when he
was setting up and didn’t have his booties on.”

“You got the entire print or just a piece?”

“Take a look. A copy’s in that envelope. We lifted the whole thing, but it gets better. He was wearing Bruno Maglis just like O.J.: a size ten Magdy boot. It’s a lace-up dress
shoe with a rubber sole. List price: four hundred eight-four dollars and ninety-five cents.”

She pulled the photograph out of the envelope and gazed at the shoe print. Everything crystal clear.

“He has money,” she said.

“He’s got more than that. Look. He’s got a small Phillips head screw embedded in his right heel. Maybe he stepped on it in the garage. Maybe not. Either way, you get the
deal.”

She found the screw in the photograph. “The shoe puts him away forever.”

“Like I said, Lena, it’s not a fingerprint. But in court—”

“It’ll work just as well.”

Her cell phone started vibrating. When she checked the screen, she knew that she had to take the call. It was Klinger, dialing in from Chief Logan’s office.

“He wants to see you,” Klinger said. “I told him that you’d be here in fifteen minutes. That was ten minutes ago, so you’ll be late.”

The chief’s adjutant didn’t give her a chance to respond. Before she could say anything, he hung up on her again.

D
istrict Attorney Jimmy J. Higgins hustled out
of the chief’s office and rolled down the hall toward the elevator.
As he passed Lena, he kept his eyes fixed on some invisible object ten feet ahead, scratched the back of his overly groomed silver hair, and muttered the word
bitch
under his breath.

Lena didn’t stop or turn or even question whether or not she’d actually heard it. She kept walking until she reached the door at the end of the hall.

Klinger looked up as she entered. He was seated at his desk, installing software in a new laptop computer. The carton and packing materials were on the floor. Checking his watch, he smiled and
pointed at Chief Logan’s office.

“You’re late,” he said.

Lena ignored him and tapped on the door. Bracing herself for the main event, she took a deep breath and walked in.

“Close the door behind you,” the chief said.

She followed the chief’s instructions. When she turned, she noticed Lieutenant Barrera leaning against the windowsill and caught the imperceptible shake of his head. He was here, and he
was her ally. But he was also trying to warn her. Keep cool. Trouble ahead.

Chief Logan cleared his throat. “Did you see the DA on his way out?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He called me a bitch.”

A beat went by She had been matter-of-fact in her delivery Then the chief shrugged from behind his oversized desk.

“The man’s pissed,” he said. “A lot of people are. Welcome to the real world, Gamble. Now take a seat.”

He was studying her, measuring her with those dark eyes of his. As she moved toward the chair, she noticed an M21 sniper rifle mounted behind glass and hanging on the near wall beside his medals
from the Vietnam War. Several black-and-white photographs were on display as well, one that included the chief sitting beside a .50 caliber Browning machine gun in the jungle. She remembered
reading something about the chief’s war record in
The Times
after his interview with the police commission. He had been one of the first to use a .50 caliber weapon in a sniping role,
and had recorded the second farthest confirmed kill during the war. She couldn’t remember the distance, but thought that it was over two thousand meters.

“Why do you think the DA’s pissed, Gamble?”

She turned back to the chief, considering his question. She wanted to say that Jimmy J. Higgins was pissed off because he had become a pig, but didn’t. She wanted to say that the district
attorney had let the high-profile job go to his head. That he would do or say anything for a political campaign contribution or a decent headline. That he loved having a limo and a driver and
hanging out with celebrities. That he campaigned on ending the dangerous practice of keeping score on wins and losses like so many other cities had, but never followed up on his promise to see
justice through no matter how it turned out.

But the truth was that she knew why Higgins had called her a bitch the moment it slipped out of his sloppy mouth. The DA was taking heat from both the press and his political rivals for backing
down on a young TV actor who crashed his Land Rover and killed his teenage friend sitting in the passenger seat. The actor’s blood alcohol level was four times over the legal limit. An ample
supply of cocaine had been found in his system as well. Detectives working the case wanted to charge the actor with gross vehicular manslaughter, which carried a prison sentence of ten years.
Instead, the kid went to
rehab.
This was the second incident in as many months where a celebrity had been responsible for the death of an innocent person while driving drunk. The second time
in two months that Jimmy J. Higgins had looked the other way because he had so many celebrity friends.

She could have said a lot of things. But when the chief repeated the question and asked her why Higgins was so pissed off, she said, “Because Dean Tremell made a contribution to his
campaign and this is strike three.”

The chief’s compact body tightened up. She had struck a nerve and could see his wheels turning. Her answer had been the obvious one. Dean Tremell was using his political muscle in an
attempt to protect his rotten son. And the DA was in a jam.

“When does Stan Rhodes get back?” the chief asked finally.

“Tomorrow.”

“Did either one of you bother to find out exactly who Dean Tremell is?”

“His son’s name came up on Saturday afternoon,” she said. “Yesterday the crime scene was located. Today that’s been confirmed.”

“I understand that you’ve been busy. But that’s no excuse for fucking up.”

Lena glanced at Barrera standing by the window. Then the chief leaned over his desk.

“Stop looking at your supervisor, Detective. He can’t help you now.”

She turned back, the chief glaring at her. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s better,” he said. “You fucked up. You didn’t do your homework, so now I have to do it for you. Anders Dahl Pharmaceuticals employs thousands of people in
this city. There are more full-time employees working at Anders Dahl than any two movie studios combined. The company is an important part of our city’s economy. You’re right, Dean
Tremell is one of the district attorney’s biggest contributors. If you had bothered to check, you would have learned that he’s also made contributions to every member of the city
council. It’s business, Gamble. And he’s a player. A mover and a shaker. Do you understand what I’m saying? The man counts.”

She didn’t respond. She tried to let the words sink in, but couldn’t. Even the concept felt dirty.

“You got a problem, Gamble?”

“I thought everybody counted,” she said.

“Stop feeding me your bullshit. The man deserves your respect. I deserve your respect.”

The chief finally took his eyes off her and leaned back in his chair. She could see where the conversation was headed. It was in her best interest to keep quiet—in her best interest to
take the blows and walk out in one piece. And she probably would have followed her own advice if her eyes hadn’t come to rest on the chief’s telephone. The intercom light was on.
Klinger was listening. The high-octane pervert who installed the camera in her bathroom and just bought a new laptop computer was listening to her take the chief’s verbal beating.

“This isn’t about Dean Tremell,” she said. “This is about his son. He was the last person seen with the victim before she was murdered.”

“You haven’t been listening,” the chief said. “You’re not hearing me.”

“Justin Tremell lied about being there. He’s more than a person of interest.”

“What are you trying to do? Fuck me up so that I can be like you? I don’t want to be like you, Gamble. You should have checked with me before you barged in on them Saturday. And you
should have had more than the word of a part-time prostitute working at a whorehouse off the one-oh-five fucking freeway. This isn’t a drunk-driver case. This is a homicide investigation.
What if you got it wrong? What if your asshole friend over at
The Times
printed your fuck-up in his newspaper? You could have ruined Justin Tremell’s life. And the story would have
followed him around forever. Zero plus zero equals zero, Gamble. And this is the Los Angeles Police Department. We work with evidence here. Not hopes and dreams. Empirical evidence. Quantifiable
evidence. You don’t walk in on people like this half-cocked and try to wing it. You’re not ready for prime time. You’re a fucking disgrace.”

Lena tried not to show any emotion. Tried to find her game face. She remembered what Ramira had said to her less than a week ago when the reporter followed her into the Blackbird Café.
You’re in a rough business, he said. And you need friends. Everybody knows that you’re on the outs with the chief and his band of self-righteous boy scouts. It’s all about your
last case. You were right and he was wrong and everything went down in public. I know that you didn’t mean to embarrass him, but you did. The bottom line is that no matter how much he’d
like to, he can’t transfer you to the Valley and he can’t fire your ass to oblivion. His hands are tied, and he can’t get rid of you. But I’ll bet he thinks about it.
I’d bet the city he spends a lot of time thinking about it. And that’s why you need friends. You’re in a rough business, Lena. Shit happens . . .

The chief banged his fist on the desk. “Are you still with us, Gamble? Or are you dreaming about the way things could have been?”

“I’m still here.”

She tried to pull herself together. Her voice was breaking up, her cadence shaky. Like all of sudden she was a boot just out of the academy. As she thought it over, she couldn’t believe
how easy it had been for the chief to peel the years away and knock her down. And she could still imagine Klinger at his desk, reveling in her jagged fall. She remembered Barrera’s initial
call on Thursday afternoon. She remembered him saying that Chief Logan had specifically asked for her to investigate the case. Now she knew why. And now she understood why they had wired her house
for video and sound. Another reason more insidious than just keeping tabs on her. Ramira had been right. They were trying to distract her. Trying to break her. They were hoping that she would fuck
up. They wanted her to quit and run away.

And if she didn’t?

Then what Ramira had been inferring might be more right than she had first thought possible. She was caught in a dangerous business. Shit happens.

Her gaze returned to the photographs on the wall. The chief in Vietnam with his machine gun. She was thinking about statistics now, feeling the beads of sweat begin to percolate on her forehead.
A cop goes down in the line of duty every two days in this country. If a cop wanted to get rid of another cop and ran out of options—the possibility, the horror—all of it was there. If
they couldn’t push her out, then they might be looking for the opportunity to take her—

She couldn’t face it. Couldn’t think it.

The chief cleared his throat again, his sniper eyes sharp as glass. “I’ve lost my confidence in you,” he said. “I’m sorry, Gamble. Things just don’t seem to
be going right. Lieutenant Barrera gave me an update while we waited for you. There seem to be a number of loose ends. Have you located the victim’s car?”

“It’s a black Toyota Matrix,” she said.

He reached for a pen, then glanced at a list jotted down on his legal pad. “Lieutenant Barrera told me what kind of car it is. I asked you if you located it.”

“Not yet.”

“Then it was probably stolen on the night of the murder?”

“If it’s on the road and the plates haven’t been changed, we’ll find it. The bulletin went out as soon as we heard back from the DMV.”

“What about the part-time prostitute you interviewed? Did you run a background check?”

A moment went by as she thought it over. The chief was doing everything he possibly could to make things difficult for her. Keying in on the minutia. Standing in her way.

“Which is it, Gamble? The girl pointed her dirty finger at Justin Tremell. For all you know she hates rich people. Did you run a background check or didn’t you?”

“Not yet, sir.”

The chief glanced back at his legal pad as if he knew the answers before he asked the questions. “What about the lost witness?”

“He’s still lost,” she said.

“Is that a crack?”

“No, sir. It’s a statement of fact. The witness is still missing.”

Somehow her voice had returned. Her cadence, steady as a west wind. Everything fueled by an intense anger burning in her gut.

“The department released the witness’s photograph to the press on Saturday,” the chief said. “I understand that he’s hit several ATMs and stolen money from the
victim’s account. What else are you doing to find him?”

“If we locate the victim’s car, we think we’ll find the witness. He has the keys and everything else that was in her purse.”

“Is that it?”

“No, sir. We’re working with the bank as well.”

“What can they do that we can’t?”

“Monitor hundreds of ATMs.”

“You mean you didn’t close the account, Detective?”

She hesitated a moment. The chief should have known better. She was surprised that he didn’t.