Sin City Homicide

15

As Alma Parr walked into the Metro PD headquarters, he glanced up at the two palm trees on either side of the entrance. An empty beer bottle had been thrown up into one of them, and he stood under the tree, looking up at the bottle. Briefly, he thought it would be amusing if he shot it down. Instead, he picked up a rock and threw it at the bottle. He missed twice before nailing it, sending it crashing to the pavement below. He picked up the large pieces and threw them in a trash bin outside the building.

The precinct was busy-it was always busy-and he still wasn’t used to it. The new building now housed the headquarters of Robbery-Homicide. He remembered driving past the location as a beat cop when it was nothing but an empty lot.

“Captain,” one of the secretaries said as she hurried up next to him, “I need to speak to you about that Antonsens case.”

“Who is that again?”

“The flasher we interviewed last week for the robbery of the Laundromat on Maryland.”

“Right,” he said, stopping at the soda machine and checking the change in his pocket. “What about him?”

“He says he’s filing a lawsuit for, um-how did he put it? — ‘lighting him up.’”

He grinned. “I don’t think that’s what you mean. Lighting him up means I shot him. I didn’t shoot him. He’s claiming I kicked his ass.”

“Yeah, well, that. He says he’s suing us, and he wants you to call his lawyer.”

“If he was actually gonna sue us, he would just do it.” He put a dollar in the machine and selected an apple juice. “He’s just threatening a suit to have me call some meth-head acting as his lawyer. Ignore it.”

“Are you sure? I think Sheriff Keele would think that we should-”

“Candace, I’m telling you, forget about it. It’ll just go away.”

“If you say so.”

“Anything else?”

“A woman named Jessica called twice, and somebody from the Special Operations Division called about that burn victim in the car.”

“What’d they say?”

“Um, hold on… oh, here it is. Sorry, new phone. Um, they said that the car was registered to a Rudy Henti out of San Bernardino, California. They haven’t been able to find him. All the numbers and addresses they had for him were invalid. They ran his social security card for employment, and the last entry said he was deported two years ago.”

“Huh. That’s too bad. All right. Anything else?”

“Nothing pressing. You do have about ten messages on your phone.”

“I’ll get to them,” he said, walking away down the hall.

“Alma-”

“I’ll get to them. I promise.”

Parr walked down the hall and bumped fists with one of his detectives, Parsons, then stopped briefly to speak with Javier. He asked him to grab Jay and come to his office.

Parr went into his office and sat down. Behind him was a large framed movie poster for Scarface, depicting Al Pacino sitting at his desk, a cigar in his mouth. A football signed by Dick Butkus rested on a shelf, and he looked at it for a second before Javier knocked and came in. He lay on the couch and put his feet up while Jay sat down in a chair and threw a file on the desk in front of him. It was marked JON STANTON: CONFIDENTIAL.

“Was it hard to get?” Parr asked, opening the file.

“Not really,” Jay said. “IAD in San Diego hates his guts and gave it up after a couple of phone calls and a promise to destroy it afterwards. They’re not originals, obviously.”

“Shot by his partner,” Javier said. “Fucker was in the hospital over a month. His heart stopped twice. Tough son of a bitch.”

“Or just lucky,” Parr said, reading through the commendations and citations Stanton had received during his time on the force.

“I got a weird vibe from him,” Jay said. “It was like I was at my shrink.”

“He’s got a PhD in psychology. And since when do you see a shrink?”

“Family therapist. Marcy thought it would help with our issues.” He leaned back in the chair. “How’s Jessica? When you guys settling down?”

“I broke up with her,” Parr said, not taking his eyes off the file.

“What? I thought you guys were talking wedding bells?”

“Marriages and this job don’t mix.” He flipped through a couple pages in the file. “He doesn’t have a single brutality or excessive force complaint.”

“So what?”

“So how many cops you know don’t have a single one? Even the squeaky cleans got one or two against them. He doesn’t have any.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I think it means he’s either a pussy or smart as shit.” He closed the file. “Something’s off about him. No one gets a doctorate and works homicide for fifty grand a year. Especially when you got a wife and kids at home.”

“He got divorced,” Javier said. “The file hasn’t been updated.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“Mindi told us.”

“What the hell does she have to do with this?”

“Nothin’. She was just curious. Said she was helpin’ him out and just came down and hung out for a while.”

“Keep her the fuck away from anything sensitive. I don’t trust her.”

“She’s harmless.”

“Just do what I say.”

Jay asked, “What about Jon?”

“Fucker’s smart. He’ll see a tail. But I want eyes on him.”

“We could pull somebody from Homeland Security detail. Those guys can tail the president without being seen.”

“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll put in the word and see if anything turns up. For now, though, I need someone in San Diego to get out on the streets and beat the bushes a little. See if anyone knows anything about Stanton. If he’s crooked, this can’t be the first time.”

Jay shrugged. “I can go, I guess.”

“Javier, you okay with him gone for a few days?”

“Yeah, it’ll give me and Mrs. Jay Reed a chance to catch up.”

“Fuck you,” Jay said. “Like she’d fuck your wetback ass.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it, holmes. This is twelve inches of python right here.”

Parr smirked. “If your brains were as big as your cock, maybe you’d actually close some fucking cases.”

Javier shrugged and rose off the couch. “Anything else, Jefe? I got me a lunch date.”

“Don’t tell anybody about this. I want to keep it between us for now. I hear Stanton’s tight with Orson, and I don’t need him on my ass right now.”

Javier nodded. “I’ll see you guys when I see you.”

Jay rose to leave as well, and Parr said, “Hang on a sec.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember Antonsen? That flasher fuck who robbed a Laundromat then exposed himself to some kids who were there?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “What about him?”

“Said he wants to sue us.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I want you to go pay him a visit and change his mind.”

“How hard should I change his mind?”

“Really fucking hard. He’s connected to that flasher-pedophile bullshit community. He’ll get the word out that we don’t fuck around.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Jon Stanton might actually solve this fucking thing. If he does, it’s gonna make us look like monkeys. Make sure he doesn’t.”