Kill Signal, page 12
part #1 of Marko Bell Series
He knew the brass would want this to be as clean as possible.
A rogue cop was clean. Cuddy, Dicky Byrd and Flanagan would want it all to go away very quickly. No lingering scandal. A rogue cop going off could be explained away.
Especially when there was a nice domino play set up. Flanagan to Senate, Dicky to the mayor’s office, and Cuddy gets police chief. Everyone wanted this to get wrapped up tight and fast.
“Gonna bust his ass, boss.”
Cuddy relaxed and nodded. Then he flashed his megawatt smile. “Listen, why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Caroline and Scott would love to see you again.”
Shake felt a jab in the heart, remembering when he and Abby had double-dated with Jack and Carolyn Cuddy. When Shake and Abby were still married and he and Jack were just two young inspectors on the way up. Jack was still rising. Shake’s career had stalled at an acceptable level; he’d only ever wanted to be an inspector. His marriage was, if not over, teetering on the edge of it.
“I’d decline and tell you my wife was planning on cooking up a four-course dinner in a see-through teddy, but you’d know that was a lie. I’ll be there.”
Cuddy modulated his smile at just the right pitch, Shake observed – halfway between humor and pained sympathy. “Good. We’ll grill steaks. See you about six.”
Cuddy walked him to the door and opened it.
Shake remembered that night four years ago. That moment when you have a decision to make.
You make it, and you’re not the same person anymore.
A flash:
A foggy night in the Visitacion Valley projects.
Cuddy opening the door.
Tommy Phong handcuffed to the window bars.
Shake and Cuddy looking at each other, deciding without speaking.
Partners know.
Chapter 19
Shake and Karen went through Marko Bell’s apartment carefully, checking every drawer, every cupboard and every shelf. Opening every book on his bookshelf to see if anything interesting was hidden between pages. Looking in every jar, under every rug. Checking his desktop computer’s search and browsing history.
Nothing. All clean. No indication of where he’d gone. No clue about whether he’d killed five people the night before.
Until Karen found a small Moleskine notebook in the kitchen, tucked into a groove between the dishwasher and the cabinet next to it.
She held it up for Shake to see, then started flipping pages. “Investigation notes.”
Shake came closer. “That sounds promising.”
Karen flipped toward the back of the notebook. On the last written page were several choppy phrases: “Weathersby tape...Solorzano...Mayor F back of car...La Traviata.”
They looked at each other. Shake got on the phone and called Brianna Wills, a detective who had been assigned to go through Maurice Weathersby’s office.
“You see any tapes over there? Maybe one marked Solorzano?”
“Yeah, dozens of little audiocassettes. Let me check...hmmm, no Solorzano. Oh hang on, it’s in the recorder. Yeah, here it is. Roland Solorzano.”
Shake asked her to messenger over the tape and the recorder.
When it arrived a half-hour later, Shake and Karen listened to the tape.
Frank Flanagan. Tommy Phong, Wayne Bordelay.
They listened to all of it.
The tape ended. Karen needed to raise the issue she hadn’t yet raised with Shake.
“When I talked to Marko yesterday, he made a pointed reference to La Traviata and said I should ask you about it. That you’d know all about it.”
Shake’s broad face betrayed no emotion. “No idea what he’s talking about. All I know about it is what everyone knows about it.”
Karen stared at him, waiting for him to say more, but that was all.
They left Marko’s apartment. San Francisco was foggy and brisk. Typical July weather in the city by the bay.
They sat in the car and Karen started it up. She had an idea. “I know you weren’t thrilled with me the last time I tried this, but maybe Cannon can help.”
“Cannon? No, Karen. Not him.”
“Hear me out. It might be a bad career move for us to question Mayor Frank about La Traviata. But it’s not a bad career move for Cannon.”
Shake thought about it. Then he nodded.
Karen felt a flood of relief. Shake had opened the door, just a little. She hoped they could walk through it together. She needed him.
She turned off the engine, flipped through her cell phone and found Cannon’s number.
“Detective,” he said, answering halfway through the first ring. “Will wonders never cease.”
“Hello, Cannon.”
“See, we’re off to a better start already. So Walter Roark punched his time card last night. Can’t say the world will miss him. Is it true it’s related to the Weathersby and Strauss murders? And that Marko Bell is the lead suspect?”
“No comment.”
“Alright, let me ask you something else. I’ve been trying to get in to see Vicky Talib in the medical examiner’s office to look at the Fielding evidence from 1969, but she’s shutting me down. And now she’s not even at work. You ask me, it’s because she plays for the other team and she resents my animal magnetism. Think you could help me out with her? Put in a good word?”
Thank you, Vicky, Karen thought. “I can’t help you there, either, Cannon.”
“No skin off my nose,” Cannon said, sounding miffed. “I guess I’ll go back to this story I’m writing for tomorrow’s front page. You’re in it, Yancey. It’s all about whether the SFPD is doing a good enough job screening for mental instability when hiring new cops. Just because the Police Commission rolled over doesn’t mean the Chronicle won’t continue to scrutinize your performance. Care to comment?”
Karen couldn’t let her emotions get in the way anymore. She had to be smart. And cool. “Sorry, Cannon. Write what you want.”
“So why’d you call for, Yancey? I consider myself a connoisseur of human nature, and I had you pegged as ready to play ball.”
“There is one thing. I’ve been looking into the 1969 Fielding case, too. And the 1970 murder of Baxter Fielding’s sister, too.”
“You’ve been talking to Vicky Talib, haven’t you? Dammit, you aced me out somehow, Yancey. Now I’m starting to think you worship at the altar of Sapphos, too. Which would explain your resentment of my natural machismo. This is unfair, Yancey. You and Vicky Talib, conspiring against me in some Axis of Cunnilingus. You’ve got to let me in on this. Maybe we can make a deal.”
Karen didn’t care what Cannon wrote anymore. But she needed to pretend it was a bargaining chip to get the rat’s juices flowing.
“Maybe you don’t have to write that story you’re writing.”
“I could be distracted from it, were I to receive interesting information on another story with greater potential.”
“Jean Fielding was ruled a suicide. But she didn’t kill herself.”
She heard Cannon give out an involuntary little sigh on the other side of the line. He derived an almost sensual pleasure from getting secret information.
“And there’s this. That Rebecca Fielding sleepwalking death in ’69? Frank Flanagan was the responding officer. The Baxter and Elaine Fielding murder scene six months later, he responded there too. And then Jean Fielding, same thing. That enough of a distraction for you, Cannon?”
She heard him groan. “Oh yes, Yancey. It’s been so very nice doing business with you.”
“Cannon?”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself, would you? All this stuff going on, I mean.”
“Are you aware of a specific threat to my person?”
“No. Not specific.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything, Cannon,” Karen said, knowing she was lying, just a little, but assuming Cannon knew as much as she did, if not more. “It’s more of a general threat.”
Cannon’s tone went cheery. “You don’t have to worry about me. They don’t kill journalists. At least not most of the time. Besides, maybe becoming a martyr is exactly the thing my legacy needs. Posthumous Pulitzers are better than no Pulitzers at all, you know?”
He hung up.
She clicked off, looked at Shake, and started the motor. “Let’s see if the little rat digs up any cheese.”
Chapter 20
Shake drove to Cuddy’s house, an impressive Craftsman on a leafy street in Burlingame, twenty minutes south of the city. Jack answered the door wearing his office clothes, his tie slightly loosened. He handed Shake a beer.
“Are your knees acting up again?”
They were killing him, but Shake strained to keep the pain off his face. It only hurts when I walk, was his usual line, except that wasn’t even true anymore, the pain was constant now. “It gets this way when it’s foggy.”
“So it’s never a problem in San Francisco.”
“Right.”
“How bad did you shred that thing, anyway?”
“When the ligaments popped, guys on the sideline ducked for cover, thinking someone was shooting a gun in the stands.”
Cuddy smiled sympathetically. “Look at it this way, Shake. If you were playing in the NFL, making millions of dollars a year, you wouldn’t be keeping the citizens of San Francisco safe.”
“Thanks, captain. I’ll think about that next time my mortgage check bounces.”
“I wish I could sympathize, but that’s what you get for buying a Spanish-style in the Marina at the top of the market. Talk about bad timing.”
Shake was about to make a joke about bad timing being the story of his life, but he passed.
There was no reason to wallow, he figured. He didn’t hate his life, no more than most people hated theirs. He enjoyed his job and was good at it, and most of his friends and acquaintances would agree that they could do worse than share a beer with Shake Wingfield. It had been fifteen years, and he had long made peace with blowing out his knee in the Rose Bowl while playing college football for UCLA.
At nights he went home to an empty house that his wife and two daughters moved out of six months before, and he wandered through the rooms, trying to convince himself he hadn’t overpaid.
“Come on in,” Jack said, putting his arm around Shake and ushering him into the foyer. “Carolyn’s excited to see you.”
Shake walked into their large, open kitchen to see Carolyn Cuddy sprinkling salt on a pair of raw ribeye steaks.
“Where’s your steak?” Shake said.
“I’ll let you two animals destroy the planet. And your cholesterol levels.” She wiped her hands on a towel and embraced him in a warm hug. “It’s been too long, Shake.”
“It sure has. Now that your husband is bureau chief, he doesn’t hang out with mere inspectors anymore.”
“His loss,” Carolyn said. “I wish you’d spend more time together. He gets a little big-headed when you’re not around to keep him in check.”
“You think I’m gonna bust the bureau chief’s balls? I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
Carolyn laughed. Shake got a look at her when she pulled back. She was a gorgeous suburban housewife, blonde and fit, who took good care of herself and looked years younger than 39. Shake looked at the two of them together. They were a damn good-looking couple. Jack Cuddy had a swimmer’s build, with broad shoulders and a slim waist, and his natural Black Irish metabolism kept him trim despite a fondness for Mendocino County microbrews and designer pizza. In the years Jack and Carolyn had been married, Shake knew, his friend had many chances to stray, all of which he turned down.
His natural pragmatism kept him faithful. Carolyn was attractive to him still, and Cuddy lacked the deep-seated regret that many married men carried with them of having made the wrong choice. Cuddy was even a little embarrassed by his domestic contentment, and among all but his closest friends he resisted telling the truth, but Shake knew. He was in love with his wife. Cuddy never talked about it, but Shake guessed their son’s condition brought them closer. Somehow Jack and Carolyn poured their unreciprocated love for their son into each other.
“Why don’t you guys go out in the backyard with your beers and leave me alone. Say hello to Scott on your way out, Shake. I think he’d like to see you.”
They walked toward the back of the house and saw a young blonde boy of about eight sitting on the floor staring at the television. Shake stiffened. His only experiences of Scott Cuddy over the years had involved awkwardness and discomfort, as his parents desperately tried to behave as if nothing was wrong. This time Jack kneeled down next to his son and spoke softly to him, more easily than Shake had remembered.
“Hey, Scottie. This is my friend, Shake. You probably remember him, huh?”
Scott turned his head slowly toward Shake. The boy was beautiful, with soft features and lovely blue eyes: Jack, with Carolyn’s coloring. The boy stared at Shake for several seconds, until there was the tiniest spark of recognition and a shy smile creeped onto his face. He turned back to his cartoon and the men continued outside.
“It’s not much, but he wouldn’t have done that six months ago,” Cuddy said when they were seated on the back patio, overlooking a wide green lawn with a stone fountain in the middle. “You take your positive signs where you can.”
“He seems better.”
Cuddy sighed and sipped his beer. “Yeah. It’s been a tough road, but he’s making good progress. We got him into a program back in Massachusetts. I don’t understand it all. Cognitive therapies that actually seem to work, I guess. Carolyn’s been back with him four separate times in the past year, for a month at a time. He responds now, at least a little. You can see something in his eyes when he looks at Carolyn and me sometimes. Maybe a need, or a love. It wasn’t there before.”
“I’m happy for you, Jack.”
“Thanks. He’s a good kid. I want to get to know him.”
Cuddy looked out over his back fence at the hills behind his house. It had been a warm day on the peninsula. The air still carried a slight haze, though the afternoon had cooled and there was the hint of a refreshing breeze that was ruffling the Eucalyptus trees ringing the backyard.
Cuddy turned to Shake, putting behind him whatever he had been thinking.
“Dicky Byrd’s all over my ass. He walks into my office this morning. I guess he had just read the papers and figured out he had a problem on his hands. He didn’t want any fuckups. We’ve got Marko dead to rights, ballistics and motive, blah blah blah. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was saying. The election’s right around the corner and Byrd and Flanagan have enough to worry about without a deranged cop on the loose.”
Shake nodded at Cuddy’s take on the politics, which matched what he told Karen. The message from the top brass was clear: Put Marko away, fast. Cuddy was passing it on without comment, which meant he endorsed it.
That was no problem for Shake. All he wanted was marching orders.
Carolyn brought out the steaks, and Shake took care of the grill while Cuddy went inside to help with Scott. At one point Shake, looking for another beer, poked his head in the open screen door and saw Cuddy sitting on the floor next to his son. They were watching a cartoon as Cuddy kept up an amused running commentary on the exploits of SpongeBob SquarePants, and every few seconds he’d hold a fork in front of Scott until the boy, quiet and watchful, opened his mouth. Carolyn watched them anxiously from a large granite-topped island in the middle of the kitchen. When she caught a glimpse of Shake outside, she smiled.
The strained domesticity nailed Shake somewhere in his chest. He hadn’t seen Katy and Jennifer in almost three months, since he flew down to Los Angeles to visit them for a couple of days, staying in a hotel near Abby’s parents’ house and picking them up each morning, Disneyland one day, lunch and shopping in Santa Monica the next. In the evenings he’d drop them off and come inside for a few minutes, settling down on the couch with a drink while the girls played a board game on the floor and Abby made herself busy in another part of the house. Abby’s parents, Carlo and Violetta, were as nice as they could be, and Abby was gracious and did her best to make things comfortable, and the whole weekend was a disaster, a lie. He hadn’t a clue how to repair his marriage and was afraid of even trying, terrified that he would run headlong into the reality that he was the only one who thought it could still be repaired.
Manning the grill, fresh beer in hand, Shake rubbed his knees, the slight chill of the gathering night bringing the familiar ache. Cuddy came outside holding a fresh beer of his own.
“I love the smell of burning animal flesh in the evening. It smells like victory.”
“Not when I’m grilling. Then it tastes like charcoal.”
Cuddy leaned in and got a look at the steaks. “You’re too modest, pal. Those look delicious. And just about ready. Caroline’s almost done with the potato salad and garlic bread.”
“Potato salad and garlic bread? Good thing I’ve decided to let myself go. Like any self-respecting failed athlete.”
Cuddy laughed and patted Shake on the back as he sat down. “You ever get down for the Bruins games anymore?”
“Not since then.”
He didn’t have to explain himself.
Pasadena, 1993. With two minutes to play and UCLA beating Michigan by three touchdowns, a mammoth offensive lineman slammed into the sides of Shake’s legs while he was making his Rose Bowl-record seventeenth tackle of the afternoon. Lying on the field, the ligaments in both knees suddenly feeling like overcooked spaghetti and a lackluster rendition of the Michigan fight song ringing in his ears, Shake found himself unable to stop laughing as the doctors patted and poked and the paramedics lashed him to the stretcher. Two plays later, the game and the season ended, and Shake went from being a first-round NFL draft pick to spending the next eight months immobile.
Now all that was left of Shake Wingfield the athlete were the broad shoulders, the linebacker’s frame, and a rolling, tipping gait that made him recognizable from the distance of a city block. He joked that the essential question of his existence was whether he was a has-been or a never-was.
