“I’m not a gracious loser,” he said. “I took everything I had on the case and walked. They’ve probably got an APB out on me even as we speak.”
“So who knocked you around?” Kelly asked.
“Huh?”
“My keen investigative skills tell me someone wasn’t playing nice on the playground.” She leaned down and plucked at his pants leg where he’d landed on his knee in Davis’s garage. A grease stain and a small three-corner tear marked the spot. Both legs were beige with dust over the expensive brown-with-blue-pinstripe fabric.
Parker’s eyes widened as if he were seeing himself for the first time. “Aww, son of a . . . I’m suing this creep Davis when I catch him. This is Canali!”
“Well, how stupid are you? Why would you wear a designer suit to a dogfight?”
“I’m a detective. When am I ever in a fight?” Parker said, more bent out of shape than the piece of tailpipe Davis had used to beat on him.
“Well, today, apparently.”
“Besides, my clothes are my disguise. No one thinks I’m a cop. I dress too well to be a cop.”
“Can you write your suits off on your taxes, then?”
“My business manager says no.”
“That sucks.” Kelly shrugged. “Everything has a trade-off. So what happened?”
“Eddie Davis caught me poking around his place. I took the opportunity to arrest him. Then he took the opportunity to try to kill me. He’s at large. Every cop in the city is looking for him now. Do you know anything interesting about him yet?”
“In the minute and a half since you asked me to vet the guy?”
“Here’s what I know so far,” Parker said. “He’s a low-end petty criminal with delusions of grandeur. Until recently, he had a low-end defense attorney by the name of Lenny Lowell.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
Parker did another quick scan, only his eyes moving. A stocky guy in a wrinkled shirt and tie stood a little too near, lighting a cigarette. Parker went over to him and flashed his ID.
“Hey, pal, take a walk,” he said.
The guy gave him attitude. “I’m having a cigarette here. Mind your own business.”
Parker got in his face. “No. That’s not how this works, ace. You mind your business over there,” he said, jabbing a finger in the direction of the courthouse.
Kelly wedged herself in front of him and tried to move him back a step. “Kevin . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the smoker. “Sorry. He started the patch last week.”
Parker turned away from her and walked down the block another fifteen yards. Kelly scurried to catch up.
“This is just a thought,” she said, “but you could maybe take the testosterone down a notch.”
Parker ignored her. “My friend who overheard my name in that conversation between Giradello and Kyle was at a fund-raiser for the DA. The prominent guest of the evening was Norman Crowne.”
Kelly’s brow furrowed as she tried to tie the pieces together. “A low-end lawyer like Lowell . . . a cheap thug like Davis . . . Those guys are less than ants in the world of someone like Norman Crowne.”
“I think Lowell and Davis were blackmailing someone,” Parker said. “I’m guessing Eddie got tired of sharing. So how does a goon like Eddie Davis, a known knee-buster, come up with someone to blackmail?”
“Sixty-two percent of relationships begin in the workplace,” she quipped. Then realization dawned. “Oh, my God. You think someone hired Davis to kill Tricia Cole.”
“And that someone couldn’t be Rob Cole,” Parker said. “Even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to be in the house when the cops came. He would have been out establishing an alibi.”
Kelly tried to digest the idea. Parker started to pace, his own thought processes racing. Black cars were lined up at the curb with drivers at the wheel, and LAPD motorcycle cops were sitting on their bikes in front and behind, at regular intervals. Livery for the big heads that would be coming out of the courthouse soon. Three limos, a couple of Town Cars, a triple-black Cadillac Escalade with black-tinted windows.
Parker took in the details almost absently, just to keep his brain focused on something innocuous so he could breathe and rein in his energy for a moment. He paced back and forth past the same three cars a couple of times, then stopped abruptly. He wasn’t even sure why, at first. Then slowly he turned back to walk past the last of the cars again.
“What is it?” Kelly asked, joining him.
On the lower right corner of the back window was a small purple circular sticker with a gold insignia and a row of black numerals. A parking sticker for a corporate lot. The scene came up in his memory: He was walking toward the black Lincoln Town Car, doing what he had been doing just now, taking in small details, filing them neatly away in his brain, but keeping his mind focused on the subject of most importance: Eddie Davis. He remembered the electric blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the black car, the license plate, the small parking sticker on the lower corner of the back window. It was no bigger than a quarter.
Parker’s breathing was shallow and quick, and he felt a strange light-headedness as he lowered his gaze to the rear plate.
CROWNE 5.
40
Parker’s first thought was a selfish one: My career is over.
“Eddie Davis is driving around in a black Lincoln Town Car,” he said quietly.
“You’re out of your mind, Kevin,” Kelly said. “There’s no way a hit man is riding around in a Crowne Enterprises vehicle.”
Parker was already dialing his cell phone. As he spoke to the person on the other end of the line, he realized he was trembling. He had to press the phone against his ear to hold it steady. He imagined he heard a clock ticking as he waited for the information he’d requested.
Kelly was shaking her head, muttering to herself, “I can’t get my brain wrapped around any of this. How does it work?”
“Crowne Enterprises has reported two black Lincoln Town Cars stolen in the past eighteen months,” Parker said, sticking his phone back in his pocket.
“So Davis stole one.”
Parker gave her a look. “Eddie Davis is walking along the street one night, decides he wants to steal a ride, and the car he rips off just happens to be a Town Car owned by Crowne Enterprises. What are the odds of that?”
Kelly frowned. “Well, if you put it that way . . .”
“You’ve been on this story since day one,” Parker said. “If you had to pick a suspect other than Rob Cole, who would it be?”
She thought about it for a moment as she took her turn to glance around for spies. “Well, there’s darling Caroline, who discovered her mother’s body. Her relationship with Rob was certainly not father-daughter. They palled around like they were schoolmates. Of course, Robbie arrested development at about seventeen, so it probably seemed normal to him.
“And then there’s Phillip, Tricia’s brother. I suppose living in the shadow of St. Tricia had to get old. She was the apple of their father’s eye, and Phillip . . . has always just sort of been there in the background.
“He had dinner with Tricia at Patina the night she was killed. A roomful of people saw them there, apparently having a serious discussion. He says she talked about divorcing Cole, that she was going to call a lawyer the following week. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else about it, so we’ve only got Phillip’s say-so.”
She paused and looked away and made a face as if she was trying to decide whether or not to share something with him.
“You might as well tell me,” Parker said. “I know there’s something more in that brain of yours. I don’t want to have to resort to torture.”