Stephen Cannell - Vigilante

The twenty-four-twenty-four-hour rule also postulates that something might have happened during the last twenty-four hours of the victim’s life that could be the inciting event for the murder. The argument with Carla over the ceiling fan being a perfect example.

However, I was beginning to suspect that Lita’s murder had nothing to do with that ceiling fan or Carla and Julio Sanchez. We would hold them a little longer to be sure, but I suspected that the real reason for Lita’s death might actually lie, as Nash had suggested, in the murky depths of her tangled anti-police obsession.

Hitch and I might be hunting brother cops.

I went inside and found Alexa waiting for me in the bedroom. She was lying in bed reading a crime stat report, but she was also wearing a sexy pink negligee and she looked beautiful. I needed something beautiful to end my day. I stretched out beside her and moments later we were making love.

Even though my head was spinning with this case, I could always find a way to lose myself with her. We began our lovemaking on the bed but consummated it on the floor. The way that happened was Alexa, always a playful lover, started tickling me and we ended up rolling off the side of the bed.

When we were done, I held her, feeling her warm breath against my neck.

“He’s not going to get us,” she whispered in my ear.

Later, when we were lying in bed and I could hear her breathing deepen and grow steady, I looked at the ceiling and tried to further sort out my feelings about Lita Mendez, Carla and Julio Sanchez, and Nixon Nash. Every fiber in my body suggested whatever was going on, it wasn’t going to end well. I was beginning to buy into Nash’s dire prediction for my future.

Sleep wouldn’t come, so I slipped out of bed, grabbed a robe, and went to my desk in the den. I sat there, trying to categorize and systematize.

At the top of my bothersome issues list was Edwin Chavaria. Even though his tip had produced the Sanchezes, the ceiling fan, and the rest of that fire drill, there were big parts of Chavaria’s story that wouldn’t lie down for me.

I’m not exactly a gang squad expert, but I’ve worked my share of gang cases. In my experience these guys rarely, if ever, put their business in the street. They take care of their own problems in their own ways. They don’t rat anybody out or bring in the cops.

Beyond that, Chava had actually gone on camera with Nix Nash, calling out Carla Sanchez, putting a murder beef on her. How was that going to look to his homies on First Street when it aired? Would a guy like Chava who had done serious prison time actually play the rat on national TV? What would that do to his street cred? I suppose it was possible, but I had my doubts. Unless, of course, somebody had put him up to it and made it fiscally worth his while. Then he could brag to his vato homeboys that he’d gamed the chota, getting them to chase false leads.

Muy rifo, homes.

Nash’s MO was to get cops investigating bogus leads and then, while they ran in circles, solve the case himself. That’s exactly what had happened in Atlanta, and my gut told me that’s what he was trying to do here.

All things considered, I was very unhappy with our case against the Sanchezes.

I was also worried about the smells we’d noticed when we arrived in Lita’s stuffy house. Both Hitch and I had smelled garlic, and the ME’s report said Lita had a partially digested dinner of beef enchiladas and beans in her stomach but that there was no trace of garlic in the stomach contents.

I’d been kidding Hitch about missing the boat with his guess that it was Bolognese sauce, but Hitch really is a Class A chef. Alexa and I had been up to his house many times and he’d cooked some of the best gourmet food I’ve ever tasted. He knew his stuff, and he’d said he smelled garlic, onions, and bay leaf or sage.

I went on the computer and found a few recipes for enchiladas online. Most of them contained garlic. I shut off the computer and sat there thinking. I get hung up on stuff like this. Little details that fight the pattern. How could Hitch and I have both smelled garlic if she didn’t have garlic in her stomach?

I opened my notebook and made a note to try to find out why. It might be nothing, but either way, I knew it would pester me until I found the answer.

Then I closed my crime book and sat back, planning tomorrow’s moves. I had a lot of people to talk to, including a bunch of cops who would become pissed the minute I suggested they might be suspects.

At the top of my interview list was a name that threatened my future like the swine flu.

First thing tomorrow, Hitch and I had to go talk to the Dark Queen of Internal Affairs.

The new Police Administration Building had replaced Parker Center, built in the seventies and known as the Glass House. The new PAB was a mammoth ten-story, steel and glass rectangle in downtown L.A., located right across from City Hall.

With an open atrium, a one-acre park, and an artfully designed east face to protect the offices on that side from sniper fire, it has yet to be christened with a new name, official or otherwise. I hope we’ve not become so politically correct that we just take to calling it the PAB or name it after the mayor. I’d prefer something more appropriately flamboyant like “The House of Mirrors” or “The Puzzle Palace.” Hitch jokingly wants to call it the “Porcelain Throne” because it’s where busted dirtbags get flushed into the criminal justice system.

Whatever we end up calling it, the building is a state-of-the-art police facility, six years in the making. It also houses a new computer COMSTAT center for our huge City Crime Stat Board, a 450-seat auditorium for news events, and a 200-seat first-floor cafe. It’s been advertised as an environmentally correct green building, whatever that means.

The old Glass House was like a crumbling tenement in the projects, with broken elevators and a circulating air system designed in the dark ages.

Our new space for Homicide Special was on the sixth floor. It was well designed, with big double-desk cubicles and spacious glass windows with views of City Hall. As with all new buildings, there were stringent housekeeping considerations put in place by our uber-proud city managers. No wanted posters, fliers, or taped material of any kind could be displayed on the walls. No personal paraphernalia or pictures allowed on desks, filing cabinets, or attendant work surfaces. All furniture must be kept in the areas designated for its initial use, et cetera, et cetera.

Hitch and I happened to pull into the seven-hundred-car belowground garage at exactly 8:00 A.M. He parked his Porsche Carrera just as I was locking my Acura. He looked great, as always. Purple shirt, white collar, black tie, and a charcoal gray suit with a wide pinstripe. I’m feeling more and more like the filthy Persian rug next to this guy.

We’d already talked by phone and knew that Stephanie Madrid was on the agenda for this morning. Neither of us was looking forward to that interview.

“Listen, Hitch,” I said, biting the bullet as we headed to the elevator. “I think I should take the interview with Captain Madrid alone.” He looked over, surprised. “One of the perks with Alexa being Chief of D’s is assholes like Captain Madrid don’t quite know how to deal with me.”

“Good point, but I’ve thought it over too. I can’t let you do this by yourself.” He smiled at me. “You can be on point if you want and receive the preliminary pleasuring and first round of oral stimulation, but I’ll be there to watch your back and cover the retreat.”

“They’re giving blow jobs at IAG now?” I said in mock surprise.