Faye Kellerman - Street Dreams

He pulled out his notebook. “Here goes: Bobby Cantrell, Mohammed Nelson, Benny Rodriguez, Tomas Marin, Mabibi Ralson, Joseph Fedek-”

“Stop.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Let me finish with the rest: Leonard Chatlin, Mike Robinson, Cristofer Anez, and Ted Bass. Now, Cantrell, Rodriguez, and Anez have been officially logged into our penal system. Tomas Marin lives out of state, but that don’t mean he can’t travel. Mabibi Ralson is dead. So that leaves Joseph Fedek, Mohammed Nelson, Leonard Chatlin, Robinson, and Bass. The good news is, there are addresses for Mohammed Nelson, Mike Robinson, and Ted Bass. The bad news? None for Chatlin and Fedek. Since a cop discharged her weapon, it’s a serious offense. Stone gave the case to me. So I gotta check out all these dudes. I’m not pleased.”

Pepe Renaldes hadn’t made the list. That made me feel a little better. I said, “What can I help you with, Justice?”

“You’re not allowed to help me. Conflict of interest.”

McGriff had scored on another double by Brian Jordan. There was action in the Arizona bull pen. I said, “What would it hurt if I made a couple of phone calls?”

“A lot if Stone found out.”

“I can be discreet.”

“In that case, you can check out everyone on the list, including our prison buddies, except for Chatlin and Fedek-especially not Fedek. I’ll take the heavy stuff. You just verify the obvious. I repeat, don’t you dare go after Fedek.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to find him.”

“Yeah, just like you wouldn’t know how to find the car.”

“You give me an awful lot of credit.”

“I give your father a lot of credit.”

My beer came. I thanked the waitress. Brill gave the server a wink and me a wry smile. “You go back on active duty tomorrow. How long do you think it’s going to take you to realistically check out the names?”

There were seven names, including the cons, but not including the dead guy. “I could probably do it in a couple of days. But I want to be careful. How about a week?”

“Sounds good. We’ll meet next Tuesday and you can give me an update.”

“What time and where?”

“Somewhere private. How about your place?”

“What time and where?” I repeated without expression.

Brill frowned. “Are you comfortable here?”

“Sure. Bellini’s opens at twelve,” I told him. “Is that good for you?”

“We’ll meet at one.”

“Done. Now can we talk about Sarah Sanders?”

“Why? Do you have anything new?”

“Since Joseph Fedek made the fingerprint list, I’m assuming the attack wasn’t random. Maybe El Paso contacted Fedek from prison and said something to him about my investigation of Sarah Sanders. Maybe Fedek got scared.”

“Cindy, how would he know where to find you? You weren’t even driving your car.”

I thought a moment. “El Paso could have seen Koby’s car when he drove away.”

“Koby?”

“Yaakov. My boyfriend.”

“You call him Koby?”

“He calls himself Koby. It’s an Israeli nickname for Yaakov.”

“He’s Israeli? ”

Here we go again. “Yes. He’s black and he’s Jewish. Hollywood’s our area, Justice. We both work there, and since we’re both night owls, we play there as well. Maybe Fedek was hanging around the streets, just waiting for our paths to cross.”

“Could be you’re right. But we can’t do a damn thing with Sarah Sanders until Fedek’s in custody. Right now, that’s the big problem.”

His food came. He rubbed his hands together. “Looks good.” Slowly, his eyes rose from his plate to my face. We regarded each other for a few moments. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”

He was pointing with his knife to his food, but the implication was obvious. I sipped my second beer. “Justice, I’m really not hungry. But I thank you for the offer.” I stood up and left thirty bucks on the table. “My treat.”

Brill smiled. “You got class.”

“We’ll talk later.” I started to walk away.

“I hear you applied to Detectives,” Brill said.

I turned around. My face got warm. “Yeah, I know it’s a little early, but I did well on the exams. I figure, what do I have to lose?”

“Yeah, I was talking to Stone about you. For what it’s worth, I told him I think you’d season well.”

“That was very nice of you.” I smiled as the heat under my cheeks spread across my face. “Really. Thanks a lot.”

“Course you’d need the right rabbi.”

“Of course.” Was Justice setting me up to be his partner? I didn’t dare dream that high. Then he winked at me. “Thanks for dinner. Lunch’ll be on me.”

“Great.”

Sharing the tab… that was good.

As predicted,it took me a week to check out the names on Brill’s fingerprint hit list. At the time a bronze Nova was gunning me down, Bobby Cantrell was in Folsom Penitentiary, and Benny Rodriguez and Cristofer Anez were in Lompoc Federal Prison. Tomas Marin had moved to Texas, where he worked construction in Houston, and Mabibi Ralson was indeed dead.

Mike Robinson was thirty-eight years old and employed with an insurance firm. He was the original owner of the Nova and traded it in for a new GM Saturn in 1996. Ted Bass worked as a film editor and had no idea how his prints were found in the Nova or even why his prints were in the police system. He lived in West Hollywood and was with his lover at a dinner party the night in question.

Mohammed Nelson developed pictures in a MotoPhoto lab in South Central. He was six-four and hostile and claimed he didn’t remember where he had been the night that someone tried to take me out-very reasonable because several days had passed since the shooting. I could have prodded him with cop attitude, but since I was on my own, I chose to be a nuisance instead. Guys will do anything to get rid of a nagging woman. He finally figured out that during the time period in question, he had been at a party where black-market pharmaceuticals had been passed freely from person to person. I was able to confirm his presence at the party.

I presented the list to Justice complete with times, dates, and alibis. He was thrilled, suggesting that we should talk about the case one more time, just to nail down all the details. There was no mention of my apartment as the meeting place. It was Bellini’s for lunch-safe, appropriate, and in the open.

Since my suspects had checked out clean, our biggest hope lay in snagging Joseph Fedek and Leonard Chatlin, both with records of misdemeanor possessions and drunk-and-disorderlies. At the time of the mug shots, Fedek had a shaved head and an eyebrow pierce. Leonard Chatlin was clean shaven and very pimply. Sarah had had pretty decent recall for something that had happened so long ago.

The problem lay in LAPD’s inability to locate Fedek and Chatlin. But because both were scumbags, and in general, scumbags didn’t learn from experience, I knew that there was a very good chance that they’d be picked up again on another offense if they still were in L.A.

I also made a call to County Jail. After being transferred from one extension to another, one department to another, I finally was able to confirm, by checking the visitors’ list, that Joseph Fedek had paid a call to his stepbrother Germando El Paso a week before my shooting. Nothing but circumstantial evidence, but it told me what I suspected. El Paso had offered me up to Fedek.

Using Justice Brill as the contact name, I put out the word with other LAPD substations and West Hollywood Sheriff. If anything comes in-even something as meager as loitering or a DUI-on Joseph “Juice” Fedek or Leonard Chatlin, please don’t let him go without contacting Detective Brill or-in an emergency-Officer Cynthia Decker. I figured I’d go round-robin, calling each division about once a week. Any more than that and I’d be considered a pest.