Ramsey rolled a chair over, turning to Lena as he sat down. “SID has already made a preliminary review of the security tapes from the club,” he said. “Unfortunately, the fire escape is a blind spot. Hight could have been waiting out there all night and never been picked up on camera.”
Lena thought about the way the building was configured-what the cop with the clipboard had called ass backward. “The fire escape is on the far side of the building,” she said. “Out of the way and facing north.”
“Exactly. No one can see it from either the street or the parking lot.”
She looked back at the photograph of Hight in his car. “What about this shape on the passenger seat?”
“They’re working on it,” Ramsey said. “But don’t get your hopes up. At this point, they think it’s a flashlight.”
Lena settled back in her chair. Something about the way Bennett and Watson and even Higgins were looking at the photograph bothered her. She wasn’t a mind reader, but she began to get the feeling that they were trying to appear interested. That it required an effort and that they couldn’t quite get there. Bennett’s eyes were emerald green, his body short and stocky. He was old enough have grown up at a time when “supersize me” sounded like free food instead of garbage, but young enough to have two kids in daycare and worries about what he and his wife might do with his career sinking to the bottom of the pool. Watson looked as if she shared the same unnatural lack of concern. She was about Lena’s age, with blond hair and a sleek body hidden beneath her business suit. Every time Lena had ever seen Watson, she was dressed conservatively. Only rumors stood in her wake: rumors of a boob job last year while on vacation, and rumors that she and Bennett were having an affair-one reason among many why they’d lost the Jacob Gant trial and a murderer had walked free.
As Lena’s eyes moved to Higgins all puffed up in his pinstripe suit-his weak, pudgy face and a haircut that looked over processed and more like a do-it suddenly occurred to her what was going on.
All three of them were running away. Greg Vaughan would be left behind to sit on the hot seat. Higgins had picked his rival in the office to handle the case because he knew that it would destroy whoever sat in the chair.
No one prosecuting the father of a murdered girl would ever have a political future in Los Angeles.
Higgins had picked Vaughan, not to save the office, but to save himself and possibly even his proteges: Steven Bennett and Debi Watson. Vaughan’s face would be attached to the prosecution of Tim Hight, a father who sought justice for his only child, rather than the prosecutors who had blown the trial, or the district attorney who claimed to have overseen them.
The move was ice-cold and vicious. As Lena looked Higgins over, she wondered if he hadn’t worked out the details with his political consultants last night. It had seemed more than odd to her that he hadn’t shown up at the crime scene. Especially when one of the victims was someone he called a friend.
She turned away and caught the deputy chief scrutinizing her. His face remained completely expressionless, yet it felt as if he knew what she had been thinking. He pushed a second copy of the photograph her way and cleared his throat.
“Here’s what we need to make happen, Detective. You and Mr. Vaughan are now partners. You need to work together to build a case against Tim Hight. You need to do it quickly and with as little noise as possible. Hight’s arrest must occur without incident. I’m sure that the district attorney hasn’t had a chance to think about what a deal might look like. There’s Bosco’s murder to consider, which complicates everything for everyone. Your case must be strong enough that Hight and his attorney are willing to listen-the deal from the DA good enough that they just might be willing to avoid a trial. Admittedly, we’re talking about a best-case scenario. Hight will have public opinion on his side. More than likely, he’ll choose to roll the dice in front of a jury. People will say that if we had done our jobs, if we hadn’t been asleep at the wheel, if we hadn’t fucked everything up, none of this would have ever happened. So the odds would be in his favor. Chances are, he’d win. That being said, the key words here are speed and building the case against him quickly. That’s really the only option we have left. The longer this goes on-the longer Hight’s in the news-the deeper the wounds will be for all concerned. Is that clear? Does everyone here understand exactly what’s at stake?”
Vaughan didn’t move or say anything.
The district attorney ignored his silence and turned to Ramsey. “I’ve been talking to some people,” he said. “They think that if we work quickly, everyone will forget about what happened in six months.”
A moment passed. Then another, as Ramsey measured the DA with complete dissatisfaction showing on his face.
“Six months?” Ramsey said finally. “We’re talking about restoring the public’s trust, Higgins. The people you spoke with should have told you the truth. Nobody’s gonna forget this one. By the time they do, you’ll be dead.”
His words hung there. The room darkened as the sun slipped behind a cloud.
Higgins took the hit and blinked. “I need to speak with the chief,” he said.
Ramsey shook his head. “He’s out of town on business.”
“But I have a problem. I need to talk to him.”
“It’s not gonna happen.”
“Then I need to speak with you privately.”
“That’s not gonna happen either, Jimmy. What’s your problem?”
Higgins remained quiet, checking the door, then glancing from face to face until he came to Lena and Barrera. He was tossing something over in his head and rubbing his polished fingernails across his chin. His eyes appeared dull and watery. Several moments passed before he seemed to come to a decision. Then he reached down for his briefcase and pulled out a copy of The Los Angeles Times. As the paper splashed onto the conference table in front of the deputy chief, Lena read the headline:
Double Murder At Club 3 AM:
Jacob Gant and Johnny Bosco Dead
Head shots of the victims were included above the fold, along with shots of Lily Hight and her father. But Higgins was pointing at another photograph in a box to the right of the lead story. It was the same picture Lena had seen hanging on the wall beside Johnny Bosco’s desk. A shot of Higgins and Bosco together.
Higgins met the deputy chief’s eyes, his voice low and shaky. “Bosco’s life needs to be cleaned up. The drugs that were found at his place. They need to go away.”
Ramsey actually smiled as he took it in. Lena had never seen him like this before. The smile matched his hardened face and shaved head. There was a vicious underside to it-a slow, dark curl-like he was holding a knife to Higgins’s throat and ready to make the cut.
“This is a no-win situation for all of us,” he said. “Everybody’s gonna lose something this time around.”
Higgins grimaced and looked frightened. “The drugs are a real problem. They’re a negative we can’t beat.”
Ramsey leaned over the table, still working that tainted smile. “You mean, a negative you can’t beat, Jimmy. When are you gonna stop talking to your asshole consultants? When are you gonna realize that what we’re facing isn’t about you?”
9
The meeting ended quickly with Higgins chasing the deputy chief down the hall and pressing the man for a private moment that Lena knew he’d never get. Bennett and Watson had stayed behind to talk to Vaughan. Lena could see them through the plate-glass window as she hung up the phone from an empty desk in the staff room. She wanted to verify that everyone was ready while Barrera checked on the progress of the warrants. She had also placed a call to SID and received preliminary confirmation that a 9-mm weapon had been used to murder Jacob Gant. Because the slugs had fragmented as they broke through his skull and entered the wall, no exact determination could be made until the medical examiner removed the additional slugs from each victim’s body. With any luck, they were lodged in soft tissue and remained in decent shape. The autopsies would occur simultaneously and were scheduled for early this evening.