Vigilante Page 5

  “Suit yourself,” Julio said, putting the phone back in the dock and finally stepping aside.

  We walked into an overfurnished apartment. It was neatly kept, but none of the pieces coordinated. Late-morning sun was streaming through the windows.

  Hitch moved to my right to check out the back hallway, looking into each bedroom. A moment later, he returned to the living room, caught my eye, and nodded. The apartment was clear. I turned my attention back to the Sanchezes.

  Then I saw it.

  Sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa was the missing ceiling fan.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The fan wires had frayed and were hanging out of the fixture. They matched the ripped-out wires I’d seen hanging from Lita Mendez’s ceiling. I looked at Hitch, who nodded. It was physical evidence corroborating Edwin Chavaria’s story. “Can I sit down?” I asked, trying to ease the tension.

  Carla nodded, anxious to get off her feet. She moved painfully on swollen ankles over to a large chair, which, I noticed, had six stout legs to support her prodigious weight. When she eased herself down, she and the chair both groaned. Julio remained vigilant, standing by the door as I settled onto the sofa across from Carla. Hitch took a spot behind me where he covered my back.

  “Tell us about your relationship with Lita Mendez,” I began.

  “I got no relationship with that rulacho. Last week she rented the apartment I used to live in. I hadda get outta that barrio ’cause Evergreen put a check on me.”

  “A check” was gang slang for a murder contract. If a rival set had put a contract out on this woman, it indicated she was a lot higher in the food chain than just some random gang chica. She might be what they called la mas chingona, one of the rare gang females who were strong enough in the set to merit the title of shot caller.

  “Did you see Lita yesterday?”

  “I know the bitch is dead,” Carla said. “If you’re over here tryin’ to put me behind that murder, you’re wastin’ your time. I got an alibi. I was with Julio, right here, all last night.”

  “She was with me,” Julio said predictably.

  “If you were here, how do you know she’s dead already? The body was only discovered a few hours ago,” Hitch said.

  “Don’t tell me they don’t got no jungle drums in your old hood,” Carla said, turning to Hitch. “Torrones invented that shit. Ten minutes after you found her it was already old news.”

  This was a very hard woman. She’d been down twice. She’d survived the gangs in Tehachapi Prison. Her sheet showed she’d had her share of write-ups for violence on the inside. She held my eyes, never looking away.

  “We know you were over there last night. We have a witness who saw you at her house in a loud argument at around eight or nine. He got your license plate. Stop playing us or you’re gonna get arrested and we’ll finish this with you in custody. I’m trying to cut you some slack here.”

  She looked at Julio, then back at me.

  “Yesterday … yeah, okay, so now I remember. Yeah, I saw her yesterday. But like you said, it was early.”

  “Tell us. Don’t leave anything out and start at the beginning.”

  “Bitch had my ceiling fan.” She nodded at the fixture on the coffee table. “I used to live in that apartment. Like I said, it’s Evergreen turf. I was only on those blocks ’cause my tia lived there. She rented five years ago before Evergreen took over the block. She was too sick to move. I was caring for her, but then she decided to go back to Mexico to be with her sister in Durango. As soon as she left, I knew I hadda get out.”

  That sounded like BS to me. If Carla was a shot caller for White Fence, living on an Evergreen block was a short step up from suicide. It seemed more likely to me that she was probably only there occasionally and the house on North Savannah was an outpost that she rented to help her White Fence drug traficantes encroach on Evergreen turf. When it got too dangerous, she ended up withdrawing.

  “Besides, I wanted to move back here once Julio got off state paper,” she continued. “Leasing agent was Vanessa Valente. She rented my aunt’s place to that puta, Lolita Mendez, but some of my belongings didn’t get moved. I was supposed to get my fan, which I bought with my own money, and a primo area rug I got from Crate and Barrel and some other stuff. Bitch wouldn’t give my property. Said it was hers now.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What happened was I drove over to get my stuff back. I asked her nice and she stands there and fuckin’ disrespects me. Calls me a fat cerdo, so we had words.”

  “Words.”

  “Yeah, I got in the bitch’s face; then she knees me and slams the door.”

  “If she wouldn’t give your fan back, then how come it’s here?”

  “That’s ’cause a Julio,” Carla said, looking fondly at her husband. “He got mellowed out in jail. Tells me to stop bangin’ with the bitch and just buy the damn thing.”

  “You bought it?” I looked over at Hitch.

  “Yeah, she bought it,” Julio said from the door. “You think we’re animals? That we’d kill over a stupid fan?”

  That’s exactly what I thought, but I didn’t say it.

  “Explain what happened next,” Hitch said.

  “I called her on the phone,” Carla went on. “Was about ten, ten thirty that same night. I’m a big woman. I’m always too hot. We ain’t got no air in this building, so I told her I needed my fan back. I had it installed over there with my own money, but she’s saying it’s attached and it goes with the apartment. I finally offered her twenty dollars. After giving me a buncha shit she says okay, if I’ll pay her twenty-five. So me and Julio drove over about eleven. I went in and bought my damn fan back while he sat in the truck and covered my back.”

  “Can you prove any of this?” I asked.

  “Julio is my witness. He was there.”

  “Besides Julio.”

  She glared at me. She was beginning to sweat despite the fact that it was February and, with the storm coming, the apartment was cold.

  “Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”

  “She ain’t takin’ no poly,” Julio said. “That shit gets rigged.”

  “Polygraphs are used to eliminate suspects, not include them,” I explained. “You’re already a suspect, so failing the test changes nothing. If you pass the poly, we start looking for Lita’s killer somewhere else. Besides that, we can’t use the results in court—good or bad. That’s why a polygraph favors an innocent suspect.”

  “She ain’t takin’ no polygraph,” Julio repeated.

  Carla was still sweating and now unbuttoned her sweater and removed it. It was then that I saw multiple scratches on both of her heavily tattooed arms.

  “How’d you get those scratches on your arms?” I asked her.

  “We have a cat.”

  “You sure you didn’t get them in your fight with Lita?”

  “The bitch kneed me in the groin, then slammed the door. She didn’t scratch me. I got this from our cat.”

  “Where is the cat?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a tom. He roams a lot. All the people in the building feed him. He’s like everybody’s cat.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know his fucking name.”

  She was starting to fidget. I looked over at Hitch, who was shaking his head. She was obviously lying.

  “Miss Kitty,” Julio contributed from his post by the door.

  “That’s a pretty crappy name for a tomcat,” Hitch said in amusement. Then he motioned me over. I stood and walked to where he was standing.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Back bedroom. Two bags fully packed. I think these two will be in Mexico if we don’t delay their trip.”

  “We’re gonna ask you to leave now,” Julio said from the door. “The interview is over.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” I said, and stepped away from Hitch to give him a better field of fire in case this got iffy.
/>
  Then my partner pulled his Glock 9 as I took my handcuffs off my belt.

  “I knew this was coming,” Julio sneered.

  “You’re under arrest. Let’s all stay cool,” I said.

  “Pendejos,” Julio muttered.

  “We’re only arresting you as material witnesses,” I explained. “Be nice and maybe you’re home by lunch. Turn and face the wall, Mr. Sanchez. Lace your fingers behind your head.”

  He turned and assumed the position while I shook him down and cuffed him. Hitch covered both of them from across the room. Then Hitch and I helped Carla to her feet and attempted to cuff her, but Hitch’s cuffs wouldn’t fit around her gargantuan wrists. I’d seen cuffs not fit a man before but never had that happen on a woman.

  “You want to give A-Fifty-Six a piece of this?” I said to my partner.

  Hitch reached into his hip pocket and squawked his radio two times.

  A few minutes later the officers from A-56 were standing in the doorway. They turned out to be a Hollenbeck dog and cat patrol team. The man, Gately, was a redhead with a buzz cut. One of those standard wide-armed weight-lifting types, tough as hickory. His partner, George, was a medium-sized, compact woman with blond hair pulled back in a bun.

  We led Carla and Julio out of the apartment and locked the door for them. The four guys Julio had called as backup were standing in the hall.

  “Beat it,” the giant red-haired patrol officer snapped.

  “You got six seconds; then you’re all under arrest,” his partner threatened.

  After a moment, they reluctantly dispersed. We led the Sanchezes down the hall. As we passed the other apartments I could hear doors opening behind us and turned once to see half a dozen Chicanos staring daggers at our backs.

  We got Carla and Julio downstairs and into the patrol car, where we Mirandized them without incident.

  “Transport them to Hollenbeck Station for booking as material wits,” I told the uniforms.

  As the patrol car pulled away, Hitch said, “I hope that’s your good side.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “We’re being photographed.” He pointed up the block at the white Econoline van with the V-TV emblem on the side, parked at the curb. Nix Nash stood near the back of the van, mike in hand, cameras rolling. He had us framed over his shoulder as he did a stand-up right in the middle of Lorena Street.

  CHAPTER

  9

  A few years ago, the Hollenbeck Station was the worst rat hole in the department. Times had changed. The new station house was now located two blocks from the old one at 2111 East First Street. Our local politicians called the Hollenbeck Station, along with our new Police Administration Building downtown, shining testaments to the cutting-edge police work being practiced in Los Angeles. Hollenbeck Station was smaller than the new PAB but no less impressive. It was a steel-sculptured monument with curved mirrored sides and private balconies.

  The building housed 282 police officers in four thousand state-of-the-art feet of fast track, movable walls; terrazzo floors; and vinyl-upholstered offices.

  Hitch and I pulled into the high-fenced guarded parking lot and got out of the Acura. We walked inside and told the booking sergeant that we wanted the Sanchezes placed in separate holding cells in the isolation section of the jail so they couldn’t pass messages to other White Fence bangers incarcerated there.

  I got on the phone and talked to Ray Tsu at the coroner’s office. Fey Ray was our assistant coroner, who had earned his moniker because he was a wispy character who rarely spoke above a whisper. He told me Lita Mendez’s body was just coming in and that her death was big news inside the department, so she was already in the pipeline.

  “Get me a stomach content analysis and as accurate a time of death as you can. Hitch will send you the room temp for larva gestation,” I said. “We’ve got a suspect with a partial alibi, and if we come up with a solid TOD it could put this beef on her. Also, see if you can retrieve any foreign DNA off the body. Type and match the vic and check under her nails for skin traces. My suspect has scratches on her arms.”

  “Okay,” Ray replied. Then he added, “Since it’s Lita, don’t bother to ask. She’s already at the head of the line.”

  Next I checked in with Rick Laguna, who’d just arrived back from the crime scene. He said they’d collected a lot of trace evidence and sent it to the forensics lab. In the interest of time, I asked if he could help us get body warrants, so the jail technicians could take DNA samples from both Julio and Carla Sanchez. I wanted to check that against any possible DNA we retrieved from the coffee cup in the driveway or from Lita’s body. Laguna said he’d run that request over to a judge he knew in the downtown courthouse and get it signed for us.

  “Listen, Ricky, when you called the PAB to give this case over to Homicide Special, did you use your car radio?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You didn’t happen to put Lita Mendez’s name out on the air, did you?”

  “I’m not a fuckin’ ditz,” he said, sounding insulted. “I also checked that out with the primary responders in Patrol the minute Nix Nash showed up. They didn’t use her name either. Everybody knew her death was a giant red ball. I don’t know how that dirtbag Nash found out.”

  I didn’t pursue it, but patrol officers had cell phones as well as chalk. News of Lita’s death had spread quickly through the department. Either somebody on the scene had leaked it or Nix Nash had a mole inside our system.

  When Hitch and I had most of the details of the investigation in the works we went to the new station’s coffee room. It was magnificent. There were fifteen different machines, all built into a vending wall like a row of slot machines at a Vegas casino. Hitch and I put in our money and punched buttons for coffee.

  Our paper cups dropped down and began filling automatically. We both leaned in to study the markings. The break room used a standard vending cup. The decoration was two red lines just below the rim. There was no brown floral ring around the top like the one we’d found by Lita’s driveway.

  “Cops didn’t kill Lita Mendez,” I said defensively.

  “Of course not,” Hitch agreed, but we’d both checked the cups out anyway.

  We sat at a table to plan the rest of the day.

  “Flip you for coroner’s duty,” Hitch said.

  Most cops don’t like watching the cut, and Hitch and I were no exception. Not so much because it was a gruesome procedure, because after a while you get used to that. It was more because it was a time-consuming drag.

  “Call it,” I said as I pulled a quarter out and flipped it into the air.

  “Tails,” Hitch said as the coin hit my palm.

  We both leaned in and looked at George Washington’s silver profile.

  “Two outta three?” Hitch suggested.

  “Be sure and wear a smock so you don’t get any of that nasty saw splatter on your gorgeous herringbone.” I grinned.

  Ricky Laguna agreed to give Hitch a ride to pick up his Porsche, which was ready, so we split up.

  A few minutes later, I left the new Hollenbeck building and walked to the parking lot to get my car. I planned to head back to the PAB and start doing background research on Lita Mendez. I needed to see who was currently in her life and identify her known associates so we’d have a list of people to start questioning. It wasn’t exactly a trip to the movies, but it was better than going to the chop shop to watch the opening.

  Once I was outside, I saw the V-TV van parked at the curb across the street. Nix Nash was doing another stand-up, this time with the new Hollenbeck station behind him. He had definitely settled on our case.

  His producer, Laura Burke, was watching over the shot, supervising her cameramen. When she spotted me, she leaned forward and whispered something to Nash. He stopped his rant and turned. Then he glanced at Laura and drew a finger across his throat, signaling her to stop filming. He handed his mike to an assistant and walked across the street, stopping at the chain link.
>
  I walked the twenty yards or so to the edge of the lot to meet him. We stood two feet apart on opposite sides of the galvanized fence.

  “I saw you arrested them,” he said.

  I didn’t have anything to say to this guy, so I just stood there.

  “Stuck for a response?” He grinned. “Here’s one that might work. How ’bout, ‘Thanks, Nix, I appreciate all the great help’?”

  “You knew Lita, didn’t you?” I said, and watched him carefully for a reaction.

  He favored me with a small sad smile. “Of course I knew her. She was doing important work, keeping you guys honest. Back when I still practiced law in this town, she often helped out on cases I was doing.” The smile died. “I’m going to miss her. But more than that, I’m going to catch her killer.”

  “I’d advise you not to interfere. That is obstructing justice. You start an unauthorized vigilante investigation, you’ll think City Hall fell on you.”

  “So I’m supposed to leave the investigation of my friend up to the very people I think might be responsible for her death?”

  “The police didn’t kill Ms. Mendez,” I said softly. “You’re the one who gave me the Carla Sanchez lead.”

  “In a homicide investigation I’m sure you’ve discovered some things aren’t quite as obvious as they appear on the surface.”

  I let that pass, then said, “I pull up at nine fifteen A.M., you’re already up the street interviewing Edwin Chavaria. That’s excellent response time, even for you. Wanta set my mind at ease about that?”

  “If that’s some sort of accusation that I might have something to do with this, then yes, let me put your mind at rest. I was in Florida yesterday hosting a fund-raiser at the Boca Raton Rape Clinic. You can Google it and check me out. The pictures online are great. I took an early flight and landed at eight this morning. Are three thousand miles enough of an alibi for Nix Nash, Detective?”

  He was back to the third person and being damn snotty about it.