Kill Signal, page 11
part #1 of Marko Bell Series
From the back of the apartment Maurice heard some of Luis’ disco music, harsh and jarring under the beautiful strains of Mozart, and he figured that Luis was probably trying on different outfits, ready to go out for the evening.
Now Maurice was miffed. The martini had nudged Maurice’s natural good humor into something closer to petulance. He liked Luis to attend to him, be close enough so that Maurice could settle his mind and make his plans without concerning himself with humdrum details. That was part of their pact. He didn’t like it when Luis became difficult to locate.
“Luis,” Maurice called, his voice echoing in the big apartment. There was no answer.
He got up from the soft leather sofa and walked back into the kitchen. He rinsed out his martini glass, splashed the Noilly Pratt vermouth into a shaker and added a healthy portion of gin.
He checked the freezer. Good. Luis had crushed plenty of ice. Maurice used his hands to scoop out the ice and put it into the shaker. He put the top on the shaker and gave it a good rattle, behind his right ear the way the bartenders at the piano bars did it. He poured the clear, cold liquid into the glass, becoming aware of how loud the music was that Luis had left on.
He walked back toward the bedroom to turn it down.
That was when Maurice saw him.
Luis was lying on the floor, on his stomach. Blood was covering the back of his head, matting his black hair and running down the side of his face. His right cheek was pressed against the Sisal rug, his beautiful face turned towards Maurice and the open bedroom door.
Maurice realized with horror that Luis wasn’t just bleeding – he had a deep depression in the side of his head, concave where it should have been convex. He wasn’t moving.
In another context Maurice might have guessed that Luis had gotten mouthy with some rough trade. But not here, in Maurice’s bedroom, in the early evening.
Maurice heard the closet door open just behind him. Maurice turned just in time to see a hand holding a billy club high, poised to strike. The blow was coming right for his head.
Rafe Strauss sat back in his sidewalk seat at Caldelli’s Trattoria in North Beach, sipping a Negroni and watching the girls stroll up and down Columbus Avenue. He needed to shake the angry and unsettled feeling that had dogged him for the last 24 hours.
The asshole cops, Marko and Walter, had shaken him, but Maurice was of the opinion there was nothing to worry about. That made Rafe feel better. Tonight he’d sit back, relax, and invite a beautiful girl strolling by to sit with him for dinner. See if he could get a party started.
Good old Maurice. His benefactor. When Rafe was kicked off the police force it was Maurice who found a place for him. Rafe didn’t care that they called him Dr. Dirt, that the papers sometimes referred to him as a sleazy political operative. As far as Rafe Strauss was concerned, as long as Maurice kept those checks coming, Rafe would continue to unearth the petty vanities and the vile sicknesses of the rich and powerful. If Maurice used the information to ruin a career or smear a reputation, well, that wasn’t Rafe’s concern.
He lit a cigarette, feeling better now. Music from the jukebox wafted through the open sliding windows of Caldelli’s and out onto Columbus. Young couples at sidewalk tables clinked glasses of wine and kissed. Columbus Avenue was filled with happy, bundled-up people walking to one of the dozens of Italian restaurants within a four-block radius. A foggy Friday night descending on the city.
He spotted a beautiful young woman sitting alone at a nearby table. She was reading a travel guide. Rafe stood up and asked if she was expecting anyone. She smiled and nudged the empty chair closer to him with a sandaled foot.
Two hours, two bottles of wine and much animated broken English later, he couldn’t remember whether her name was Graciella or Gabriella, but he knew she was a Brazilian exchange student and that she had been enthusiastic about accepting an impromptu dinner invitation. Now he was walking up Vallejo Street with — Gabriella, that was it, Gabriella, because he remembered her saying she had a twin brother named Gabriel, back in Sao Paolo — to his apartment at the top of the hill. They were attempting the difficult task of walking backwards uphill so that Rafe could point out to her the Transamerica Pyramid rising up in front of them. There was much laughing on Gabriella’s part, laughing and stumbling, much of it into the arms of Rafe Strauss, who at that moment was imagining Gabriella’s lithe naked body under his after a couple of lines of coke. The perfect cure for what ailed him.
He thought of the smug cops. Especially Marko. Every time he saw him he felt like Marko was throwing it in his face. Marko making detective. Rafe getting fired. The turns life takes. When Marko’s wife got killed it seemed like the whole city joined in the mourning. Not Rafe.
He slurred it aloud. “Fuck you, Marko.”
“What did you said?”
“Nothing. Watch your step.”
“What is wrong with my shoes?”
“Your shoes?”
“Yes, my shoes.”
“Why?”
“You say to watch them.” Gabriella was giggling madly, three gorgeous sheets to the wind.
Rafe was about to explain until he thought better of it. They were almost to his apartment. He searched his pants pockets for his keys. Gabriella threw her arms around him and attempted clumsily to jump onto his back.
“Help you with something?” Rafe spoke to the figure hidden in the shadows of his doorway.
“Who is he?” Gabriella whispered.
Rafe took a step forward and saw the familiar outline of the jaw and mouth. “Hey, what are ---“
A muffled explosion in the dark. Rafe went down and Gabriella fell on top of him, her eyes wide with terror. The man moved out of the shadows and she saw he was holding a gun. She tried to scream but another explosion stopped her before she could summon the breath.
Walter Roark shuddered awake. He had passed out on the couch, the only light the flickering blue glow of the TV. He tried to sit up but realized he had a splitting headache. He touched his eye socket through the bandages and winced from the pain.
He tried to piece his night together through his alcohol-and-narcotics haze.
After Marko had savagely punched him at the Buddha Bar, Walter had gone to the St. Francis Hospital emergency room, where they gave him some painkillers and wrapped him up. Then he went into the bureau and filed an official report. Once that was done he chased Vicodin with bourbon at a Tenderloin dive until stumbling home at closing time.
Now it was 5 a.m. He got up unsteadily, headed for the bathroom. As he shuffled in the dark, he saw a familiar figure sitting in his recliner. His first reaction was dull surprise.
“How did you get…”
The seated figure stood up. The first blow took Walter Roark’s consciousness and the second blow took his life.
BOOK TWO
Chapter 18
The police commission had cleared Shake, finding that he had acted properly in the officer-involved shooting of Kevin Atkins and was eligible to return to work.
It was behind them.
At 5 a.m. Karen and Shake had both been called by the watch commander, who told them that, by luck of the rotation, they’d caught a double homicide.
A half hour later they met in the Russian Hill condominium owned by Maurice Weathersby, where he and his lover, Luis Gonsalves, were found bludgeoned. While at the scene they received word from a patrolman that a man identified as Rafe Strauss and a woman identified as Gabriella Ortmayer were found shot on a North Beach sidewalk late the previous night.
Shake called the watch commander and told him Rafe Strauss was an employee of Maurice Weathersby, and the watch commander agreed that Shake and Karen should treat them as one case for the time being.
Not double homicide.
Quadruple homicide.
Shake covered the phone with his hand and relayed the order to Karen, who nodded.
Then Karen watched Shake’s face as he listened silently for a few seconds to whatever the watch commander was saying. Shake hung up.
“They just found Walter Roark dead in his apartment. Blunt force trauma to the head. They’ve been trying to reach Marko but can’t find him.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, mentally sorting things out.
“They could all be connected,” Karen said.
“Could be,” Shake agreed.
“And Marko is missing.”
“Maybe not. It’s only been a few hours.”
“Okay, but what if he is?”
“If he is, he’s a prime suspect for Walter, sure.”
“And maybe the others. Weathersby and Walter are both blunt force trauma.”
And Rafe is not.”
“True. But two political operatives and a homicide cop, all within a few hours of each other? Feels like there’s something there.”
“Feels like it, maybe. Doesn’t mean it is. Let’s just wait on that, okay?”
Karen nodded, but she caught Shake’s unmistakable meaning. They had clashed on the Atkins shooting. Shake was infuriated when Karen made a deal with Danny Cannon. Shake saved her ass on Harrison Street, and then her deal with Cannon blew up in her face.
Shake was saying: Rein your shit in, partner.
They did what they could at Weathersby’s apartment, then drove to the Strauss crime scene in North Beach.
Karen decided not to mention her meeting with Marko at City Hall the previous day. Not yet. If she did, she’d have to explain to Shake what she had been doing the previous two days with the Fielding case and how she felt there might be some hidden connection between the cold cases and the La Traviata massacre, centering around Donna Bell. She’d have to ask Shake about Marko’s cryptic comment while they were talking about La Traviata: Your partner should know all about that.
She’d have to ask him what he knew that he wasn’t telling her.
She needed time to sort it out all in her head. So she decided not to tell Shake just yet, especially because it wasn’t relevant to the cases they were working on right now.
By the time they got back to the homicide bureau at 9 a.m., the ballistics report had come in: The gun used in the Strauss-Ortmayer shootings was a police department issue Sig-Sauer.
Shake made a call to inquire whether Marko had been located.
No, he was told: Police had entered his apartment and found it empty. He hadn’t returned multiple calls.
Karen and Shake looked at each other again. No words passed. They didn’t have to. The continuing mystery of Marko’s whereabouts, the connections between the victims, and the use of a cop piece in the Strauss-Ortmayer killings, made it unnecessary to say the obvious:
Marko was now a person of interest in all five killings.
Jack Cuddy walked over to their corner of the bureau and slapped a file on the desk.
Shake picked it up. “What’s this, boss?”
“The memo Walter wrote late last night and left on my desk. Right after getting treated at the hospital for a fractured orbital bone.”
Shake looked up. “Who cracked Walter?”
“His partner. We’ve already got a bartender who witnessed Marko assaulting Walter last night. I’m going to put out an APB. I don’t have to tell you two how big this is. I’m counting on you. And Shake, stop by my office before you leave.”
Cuddy walked away and Shake opened the file. He took out a piece of paper and turned it sideways on the desk between him and Karen so they could both read it.
“Three nights ago, I accompanied Detective Marko Bell to Devil’s Slide in Half Moon Bay, to the site of the fatal auto accident involving Roland Solorzano. Based on the fact that Solorzano made some irresponsible, self-serving and completely baseless statements to Maurice Weathersby the night before his death accusing public officials of corruption and complicity in murder, Detective Bell became irrationally convinced that Solorzano had been targeted and murdered, despite all available evidence pointing to accidental death. I became concerned that Detective Bell was exhibiting poor judgement and erratic behavior, but decided in the short-term that the best way to dissuade Detective Bell from his irrational theories was to conduct some basic investigation of the parties involved. In the course of that investigation, I learned that Maurice Weathersby and Rafe Strauss had previously run a small prostitution business. This evening at the Buddha Bar in Chinatown, I informed Inspector Bell of information I had discovered regarding his deceased wife. I told him that she had spent time trading sex for money in the employ of Maurice Weathersby and Rafe Strauss. Inspector Bell flew into a rage and physically assaulted me. He also threatened to kill me, Weathersby and Strauss. It is my strong conviction that Detective Bell has serious psychological issues related to the grief stemming from his wife’s death, which clouds his judgement and presents a hazard to the homicide bureau.”
Shake sat back in his seat and spoke first. “Thoughts?”
“Carefully written. No mention of what public officials Marko was supposedly accusing, or what he was accusing them of. And the escort service? Seems far-fetched.”
“Not far-fetched,” Shake said. “It was pretty common knowledge. A little side gig when Maurice first got to town, before he went legit.”
“Still doesn’t explain how Walter found out Donna Bell worked for him.”
“Maybe not. But something made Marko break Walter’s face at the Buddha Bar.”
“Looks bad, but from what I can tell Walter had a face you’d want to punch once in a while.”
“Then Marko disappears.”
“Pretty tough to explain away. So, what, Marko finds out his wife made some extra college money by moonlighting in Maurice’s escort service and decides to kill the messenger, Walter, plus Maurice and Rafe?”
Shake shrugged. “Guy caught a bad hand with his wife’s murder. He sees Walter’s little revelation as a desecration of her memory. Marko seemed like he was wound pretty tight anyway. Intense. Maybe just a little dark. I can see it.”
Karen stayed silent.
“What, you got some other theory? It all points to Marko.”
She couldn’t keep it from him anymore.
“One thing I have to tell you, Shake.”
Karen told him about Telegraph Hill.
She told him about the call she got tipping her off to Cannon’s potential ethical lapse, and how in her shame and fear she latched onto that as a possible salvation that led her to start looking into the Fielding murders. She told him about Vicky Talib, and Jean Fielding’s suicide that probably was murder. She told him about Frank Flanagan being the responding officer at each of the Fielding scenes.
Then she told him how she tracked down Marko at City Hall, and how she was pretty sure Marko had been meeting with the mayor. And that Marko told her he was looking into La Traviata.
Shake’s face reddened at the mention of La Traviata.
“What’s your point, Karen?”
“Walter’s note said Roland was accusing important people of something. I just think there’s something there, that’s all.”
“What do you want to do next?”
“We can’t talk to Tommy Phong anymore,” Karen said. “And I don’t think it would be a good career move to question Mayor Flanagan about it.”
Karen watched Shake struggle to stay composed, his scalp brightening under his curly blonde hair and his words dripping with scorn. “You have nothing tying it to the mayor.”
They sat in awkward silence until Karen laughed. “I wouldn’t bet a dollar to your thousand that you’re wrong. I’m just checking it out. Don’t worry. My fingerprints aren’t on anything so far. It’s strictly stealth.”
“It better be,” he said, getting up. “Let’s meet at Marko’s apartment in half an hour. I’ve got to talk to Cuddy.”
Karen called Vicky Talib. who answered sounding out of breath.
“Where are you?” Karen said.
“Hiking the hills near Mendocino,” Vicky said. “I’ve been spending too much time cooped up in a basement office.”
“How long are you planning to be there?”
Vicky allowed a tone of coy flirtation to enter. “Depends what’s waiting for me when I return.”
“Does anyone know where you are?”
“No one. I had a few days off and made a spur-of-the-moment trip. What’s this about, Karen?”
Karen felt guilty suddenly. There was no other way but to be honest. “Vicky, I think you may be in danger. Everybody who looked into the Fielding murders wound up dead.”
Vicky laughed. “But that was all forty years ago. And besides, I’m not looking onto anything. I just called up a few filed from our database.”
“I know. This all sounds crazy. But there’s some other things I’ve been finding out. Stuff about La Traviata. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, Vicky. I just feel like I’ve put you in a dangerous position somehow. I’m so sorry.”
Vicky was silent for a few moments. Karen heard trees rustling and what sounded like a hawk’s call. She wanted to be hiking a trial with Vicky Talib at that moment.
“Alright, Karen. I trust you. I was going to come home tomorrow but I can stay another couple of days. But you owe me an explanation when this is all over. And dinner.”
“I would be so happy to do that. And thank you, Vicky.”
On his way out, Shake walked into Jack Cuddy’s office. Once Shake was in, Cuddy closed the door behind him.
Cuddy went first. “What do you think?”
“Doesn’t look good that he went into hiding,” Shake said. “Appears to be motive. Some evidence, not conclusive.”
“Ballistics match on the gun,” Cuddy said.
“Lots of people have that gun. Including every cop in the city.”
“Motive. The fight in Chinatown. Marko running.”
“Looks bad. No doubt.”
“So where are we on this, Shake?”
Shake felt himself walk up to a cliff.
