Robert Crais - Free Fall

Poitras told me to wait in the office, then asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I told him that I did and waited in the open doorway for him to bring it. While I was waiting two Hispanic cops brought in Akeem D’Muere. His hands were cuffed, but he walked tall and defiantly, as if he were in some way larger than life, as if he were above all this and impervious to it and amused by it. Harold Bellis went to him, immediately complaining to the officers about the handcuffs. No one jumped to take them off. Stilwell went over to the uniforms, and they led D’Muere and Bellis toward the interrogation rooms. When they led D’Muere past, he saw me. I made my hand into a gun, pointed it at him, and dropped the hammer. He smiled. Amused.

Charlie Bauman came in maybe ten minutes later.

Murphy from the DA and Garvey from the chief saw him before I did, and then Charlie came to me. “You say anything yet?”

“I learned my lesson last time.”

“Okay. These guys wanna have a powwow, so lemme see what I can work out.”

He went back to them, and pretty soon they were joined by Greenberg and Haywood. When Charlie came back, he said, “They want a freebie, and I’m willing to give it to them, but it’s up to you. You run through what you know and answer their questions, but it’ll be off the record. If they decide to prosecute, they can’t use your statements against you. Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

We went back into the watch commander’s office, and I went through everything from the beginning, just as I had when I’d gone through it with Stilwell and Micelli, only this time there was more of it to tell. Everyone looked interested except the watch commander, who spent a lot of time saying things like, “I’ve known Eric Dees for ten goddamned years. He’s a fine officer,” or, “Talk is cheap, but where’s the goddamned evidence?” He said stuff like that until Murphy told him to shut up or leave the room.

I told them how Mark Thurman and I had stolen the tape from Eric Dees’s garage, and described what I had seen on the tape and how I had tried to make the deal through Poitras. Poitras confirmed it. Then I told them what had happened at the Space Age Drive-In and what had happened to the tape. Murphy said, “And the tape is destroyed?”

“Yeah. Dees burned it.”

The watch commander said, “Ha.” As if that proved something.

Murphy ignored him and looked at Garvey. He shrugged. “Might be possible to recover some of it. Won’t know until we look.” Garvey picked up the phone and punched numbers. “Where is it?”

I told him.

He repeated it into the phone.

We spent a total of three hours and fourteen minutes on it, and then Murphy said, “Why don’t you kick back for a while. We’ve got to talk with Pike, and then we’ve got to see where we stand.”

“Sure.” Mr. Kick Back. That’s me.

They let me stay in the commander’s office. They left the door open and told me to help myself to coffee or the bathroom, but not to leave the building. Charlie Bauman went with them. The squad room had sort of settled down, with most of the reporters and lawyers gone, and most of the Gangster Boys in holding cells or interrogation rooms. It was closing on midnight, and from somewhere along one of the halls I could hear Jay Leno.

Maybe forty minutes later Charlie Bauman and the others came back. The people from the DA and the mayor and the city council stopped in the hall to talk, and Charlie and Pike came over to me. Charlie looked tired. “There’s a lot of little stuff, but they’re not going to press on the Washington thing. They believe you didn’t do it.”

“What about Lancaster?”

Charlie said, “Man, Lancaster is nothing compared to this other stuff. They need to talk to Thurman, and they need him to testify, but as long as he backs up what you said, you guys can walk.”

“He will.”

“Then you’re done. Go home and get some sleep.”

Lou Poitras broke away from the group and came over and offered his hand. “Well, you’ve squeaked through another one, Hound Dog.”

I nodded. “ ’Tis better to be lucky than good.”

He looked at Joe Pike, and Pike looked back, but neither man offered a hand. “How’re you doing, Joe?”

Pike said, “Fine. Thank you. And you?”

“Good.”

They stared at each other some more, and then Lou cleared his throat and turned away. Awkward.

Joe Pike and Lou Poitras have hated each other for almost twelve years, and in all of that time, this was the first that they had spoken civilly to each other. Crime makes for strange bedfellows.

Joe and I were walking out with Charlie Bauman when Harold Bellis and Akeem D’Muere came out of the interrogation hall. I thought maybe they were leading D’Muere to booking, but then I realized that no one was leading him and that they were heading for the exit. D’Muere saw me looking at him and made his hand into a pistol and dropped the hammer. He didn’t smile. Then he and Bellis were gone. I looked at Murphy and Fallon and the big shots from the city. “How come that sonofabitch is walking out?”

Murphy said, “We can’t file.” Her jaw was knotted and her mouth was a razor’s slash.

Maybe I hadn’t heard them right. “He murdered James Edward Washington. You’ve got my statement.”

Fallon said, “We can’t use it.” He didn’t seem any happier than Murphy.

I looked at Pike. “Did I suddenly lose my grip on reality?”

Two uniforms came through with a young black kid in cuffs. The kid was smiling. Murphy watched him pass, her face set, and then she said, “That young man says that he did it.” The kid was maybe fourteen.

“He didn’t do it. I was there. I saw it. D’Muere pulled the trigger.”

“Three other young men admitted to being present and also said the kid did it. They pulled him out of a lineup.”

Pike said, “Come on, Murphy. D’Muere found a kid to play chump. The boy does juvie time and comes home a hero.”

Murphy’s hard jaw softened and she suddenly looked like a woman who wanted to go home, take off her shoes, and drink three or four glasses of some nice chardonnay. “You know it and I know it, but that young man still says he did it and three eyewitnesses say he did it, too. We can’t file against D’Muere, Elvis. That’s just the way this one’s going to work out.” She didn’t wait for me or Pike or anyone else to speak. She and Fallon left, walking heavily as if the weight of the city were on them. Greenberg followed after them.

“But he murdered James Edward Washington.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Garvey said, “Go home, Cole. You’ve done a lot, and you’ve done it well, but there’s nothing more to be done.”

The watch commander authorized the release of my car and the personal possessions that had been taken from us at the time of our original arrests. He could have ordered a staff uniform to do it, but he did it himself, and we were out of there faster because of it. I guess that was his way of showing respect.

It was seventeen minutes before two that morning when we walked out of the Seventy-seventh, got into my car, and legally drove off the police grounds and onto the city’s streets. We climbed onto the freeway, then worked our way north through the system toward Lancaster. There weren’t many cars out, and the driving was easy.

Pike’s Jeep was where he had left it, on a little circular drive outside the hospital. I parked behind it, and then we went inside to the waiting room and asked the nurses about Mark Thurman.

A nurse maybe in her early forties with a deep tan and a light network of sun lines checked his chart. “Mr. Thurman came through the surgery well.” She looked up at us, first Pike, then me. “Are you the gentlemen who brought him in?”