Bad Intent

Chapter 33

Los Angeles (WP)

Police investigating the shocking, violent death of Roderick J. O’Leary, director of the re-election campaign for District Attorney Baron Marovich, late Sunday night in the exclusive Hancock Park section of the city, have uncovered evidence that suggests the shooting may have been a tragic accident.

Documentary filmmaker Maggie MacGowen, who fired the fatal shot, may have been startled by O’Leary, who was known to her, and mistaken him for a stalker. Police records show that during the past week MacGowen had complained that a man identified as George Schwartz had been stalking and harassing her. On several occasions she photographed Schwartz in her proximity, hoping to discourage him. After a minor collision, when Schwartz rear-ended her vehicle, MacGowen had him arrested by South Pasadena police.

Police arrest records identify Schwartz as a county worker currently on personal-necessity leave for undisclosed reasons. He was described by co-workers as a quiet man who lives alone. Schwartz was not available for comment.

According to sources, MacGowen was driving a friend to her home on Hudson Street near the Wilshire Country Club late Sunday night. A witness reported that O’Leary, who was armed, opened the door of MacGowens parked car, perhaps frightening her. MacGowen drew her own weapon and shot O’Leary, fatally wounding him. O’Leary died at the scene before paramedics arrived. No charges have been filed.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of violent attacks on celebrities by obsessed fans. It is not known when Schwartz first became interested in MacGowen, or whether they were acquainted. Through a spokesman, MacGowen said only, “It would not be appropriate at this time for me to comment.”

There was more, most of it looked to be a recap of Roddy’s career in politics, but I didn’t bother to read it. I threw the paper into the nearest trashcan. Then I went right back and retrieved it. The outline of the article had a familiar ring. For damn sure, no one from any news medium had contacted me about the shooting. And Marovich got scant mention.

A black stretch limo swept away from the curb in front of the courthouse, carrying Conklin and his defense team to a victory party at the Biltmore Hotel. It was half-past four, coming up on happy hour, I thought. I also thought I wanted to see just how happy people were going to be at the Biltmore party.

The hotel was only five blocks from the courts, straight down Grand Avenue. I walked it. It was rush hour. Traffic was so heavy I had to do a little window shopping now and then to keep from beating the limo to the hotel.

Inside the hotel, I followed a train of news people up the massive central stairs to the ballroom. My party invitation was the camera I took from my bag and an extension cord I had picked up off the floor.

In the ballroom, there were more news people than civilian guests. But then, I wondered-and not without some bitterness-how many friends would a man have when he’d been in jail as long as Conklin? And when his offspring were themselves in jail, well, who was left to help you celebrate except his Dr. Frankenstein and the news whores? Me among them.

There was a sumptuous buffet set up along one side. My always ravenous colleagues had queued up for mini soft tacos and sizzling fajitas. Thirsty after my walk, I bypassed the food and headed for the bar.

James Shabazz and Etta were there. James, carrying a fruit kabob in one hand and a soda water in the other, kept me company while I waited in line. “I’m surprised to see you here, Miss MacGowen.”

“I hate to miss a party. This looks like a good one.”

“The man has something to celebrate.”

“Indeed.” I ordered a scotch on the rocks, changed my mind and had a glass of wine. “You know Pinkie better probably than anyone here. How long do you think he can stay out of the slam this time?”

“How long?” James gazed across the room to where Conklin was holding forth in front of a rank of cameras. The innocent man had an arm around Jennifer’s slim waist. She was smiling, making a show of listening to him, but her body language betrayed her revulsion. “How long depends on how closely they watch over him. My estimate is, they’ll him clean long enough to get through his suit against the police department. After that? He’ll stay clean until his money is gone.”

“He’s friendly with you?”

“Seems to be.”

“How would you feel about setting up an interview for me?”

“For what purpose?”

“The film. I’ve taped his son and mother-in-law, about half his neighborhood, it seems. I think he deserves equal time.”

James studied me for an uncomfortable moment before he decided. He raised his soda water to me. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Baron Marovich came in without entourage. Almost by stealth, he walked up to Conklin, shook his hand, mugged with him for the cameras for less than a minute. I watched him bow his head to whisper something to Jennifer, I saw her blanch. She recovered her poise quickly when someone called her name, turned her attention again to the barrage of questions.

“Will Mr. Conklin file suit against the city? Where does he plan to live? What is the first thing he plans to do as a free man?”

The way Conklin kept eyeing Jennifer, I thought the answer to that last question was damned obvious.

With no more fuss than the waiters who moved through the crowd clearing away dirty dishes, Marovich cleared himself away through the service doors.

I gulped my drink, gave James’s arm a squeeze, and slipped out the same way.

I caught up with Marovich waiting for the freight elevator in a back hallway. When he saw me, he laughed in a sad, resigned sort of way. The hair was still perfect, but he looked exhausted, pale eyes nearly transparent, deep dark circles below them.

“You,” he said. “Everywhere I look-you.”

“I hoped we could talk.”

“I need a drink,” he sighed. “What do you say?”

“Fine, as long as it’s in a public place and we drink out of the same bottle.”

Like Jennifer, he blanched. “I had nothing to do with doping Guido Patrini. I know you’ll have some difficulty believing me at this point, but I had nothing to do with the Kelsey situation.”

“Situation?” I asked.

“Drinks first,” he said.

We went down to the elegant lobby bar.

While the waiter waited, Marovich asked me, “Do you like champagne?”

“For celebrations.”

“Then, it’s champagne.”

I said, “You can’t expect me to celebrate what just happened in court.”

“No,” he said. “This is my very own party.”

We had icy Dom Perignon in crystal flutes, and tiny canapes. The background music was vintage Ray Charles. The setting was perfect for an auspicious occasion. And clearly, this was an occasion. I just didn’t know what it was about. Marovich watched the bubbles rise in his glass and then he tipped its rim to mine.

“What are we celebrating?” I asked.

“The end.”

“But it isn’t over. Lawsuit, book deal, movie rights-it’s just beginning.”

“Not for me.” He pulled a folded sheet from his inside pocket and handed it to me. “My office issued this statement at five o’clock this afternoon.”

My watch said ten after.

The single sheet was heavy bond, the district attorney’s letterhead. Over Marovich’s signature, I read, “I have worked for the city and county of Los Angeles for the last eighteen years, fortunate all that time to be able to perform work that I love.

So it is with some sadness, but no regret, that I announce my decision to withdraw from the race for district attorney.

“I do not have the heart to wage the brutal, personal, negative campaign that it would be necessary to wage to prevail over my opponent. I have closed my campaign offices and ordered my staff to immediately cease all campaign activities.

“At this time, it is my intention to retire from public office to spend more time with my family. I wish Godspeed to my opponent.”

No mention of the untimely demise of Roddy O’Leary in the announcement. I asked, “Why?”

“You just read why.”

I handed back his bombshell. “I also read today that I’ve been pursued by a deranged stalker, so don’t push any more fiction on me. What happened? You have a talk with Jesus?”

“I had a meeting all right. But it wasn’t with Jesus.” He flicked the caviar garnish off a canape before he ate it. “Campaign staff pow-wow. I can’t win. It’s as simple as that.”

“You still have five weeks to pull off a miracle.”

“I’m out of the miracle business.” Marovich finished off his glass in a long swallow, moved forward in a chummy posture. “I had nothing to do with what happened last night, Maggie. I fired Roddy yesterday.”

I said, “Uh huh,” as in, liar.

“I did. Hardest scene I ever went through. ‘Everything I’ve done for you,’ he says. ‘Conklin will pull up the polls,’ he says, `get the momentum going again.’ Couldn’t take it anymore. I fired his ass.”

“About time,” I said, and refilled Marovich’s glass for him.

“Had to do it.” A black, sardonic laugh. “He was going to be indicted, anyway. I knew you wouldn’t leave him alone until you had him up for murder. I cut my losses.”

“Better hope you did it in time. Why are you talking to me, anyway? Aren’t you afraid how I might use what you say?”

Suddenly he looked old rather than exhausted, his star luster fading. When he spoke, there was sad resignation in his voice.

“No one’s listening, Miss MacGowen,” he said. “I’m history as of five o’clock. I’ll get a few gasps over the news, but by tomorrow, after the follow-up, in-depth a.m. edition bullshit, I’ll become invisible. No one will care about anything I did. By day after tomorrow, ninety percent of the people who wept for Conklin on the news tonight won’t even recognize his name. You know how it works.”

“Three people are dead.”

Eyes evasive, he said, “Roddy ran amok.”

“He’s dead, so he’s taking the whole rap?” I felt sick.

“Police have found evidence linking him to two killings, Hanna Rhodes and Jerry Kelsey.”

“We a know about the immutability of evidence, though, don’t we?” I meant to be sarcastic, but there was a catch in my throat that made it sound bitter, injured. “For a long time, I tried to figure out why, in the middle of the political fight of your life, you would resurrect an old case that was such a potential bomb. Finally, it came to me.”

“Drink up,” he said.

“Remember the story about the peasant’s daughter who had to spin straw into gold or the king would kill her, kill her father, too?”

“What?” Off guard and wary.

“That’s what happened to you, isn’t it? You had to turn a disaster into political gold, or die.”

“You’re telling me a fairy story?”

“There are great moral lessons in those stories. That’s why we read them to our kids, you know.” I filled his glass again. “So, this peasant girl lies and cheats, trades her firstborn to get some elf to do the actual work for her and save her neck. Then, as her reward, the king marries her. The reward for the elf? She gets him killed.”

“What’s the moral? Cheaters prosper?”

“Hell no. She made her bed, she had to lie in it ever after-I’m not sure about the happily part. Every night, she had to fuck this greedy king who had held a death sentence over her.” I smiled up at Marovich then. “I think she got her punishment, don’t you? She couldn’t divorce the king. You can’t divorce this mess by resigning from the race or putting everything on Roddy’s ticket.”

Reaching for his wallet, Marovich motioned the waiter for the check. “I need to get home. My wife will be worried.”

There was a light drizzle falling on the street outside. The air had turned suddenly chilly. Marovich pulled his coat collar higher, rubbed his hands together. “The heat’s gone. We always get a little rain after the Santa Anas.”

We were walking back up Grand toward the courthouse parking garage. The sidewalk was still crowded. People caught by the sudden change in the weather covered their heads with whatever was available: briefcases, newspapers, jackets. I thought the rain felt wonderful; I was light-headed from the wine.

While we waited at a corner for the walk light, I asked Marovich, “What are your plans?”

“I don’t have any.”

The light changed and he took my arm as we started across the street, a genteel habit I thought.

“Miss MacGowen,” he said, then he started over. “Maggie, I know where your loyalties lie. I know you don’t care much for me. But you have to believe me when I say this one more time: My motives were sincere. The conviction of Charles Conklin was flawed. All I ever wanted to do in a quiet, legal way, was to get the conviction set aside, to have a rehearing. To salve my conscience.”

“Quiet for you is calling a press conference?”

“I didn’t call the press. Burgess did. Then Roddy tried to run herd over anything that came out. Like you say, spinning shit into gold.”

“I have never seen your name in any of the Conklin case files. Why was Conklin’s conviction on your conscience?”

“The snitch.” He still had his hand through my elbow. “Flint and Kelsey’s case hinged on the word of a snitch. Flint got good information from him, solid stuff he needed to put together a case.”

“So?”

“So, the snitch was a plant. Kelsey knew how the shooting went down, but he couldn’t get anyone to talk to him. He gave the snitch a few of the essential details, paid him off with a little help during his sentencing. It happened all the time in the old days.”

“Where did you come in?”

“Kelsey helped me out with the same snitch on two other cases. One of them turned out to be a bad conviction. The guy died in prison before I could fix things.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “Couple of years ago.”

“I thought we agreed, no more fiction.”

“Am I lying?” Offended.

“You’re fudging. When I used to go to confession, the priest never let me blame my friends for my sins. You’ve laid blame on everyone but yourself. Isn’t it time for you to take your own rap?”

“I quit. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not for Hanna Rhodes, or Jerry Kelsey, or Roddy O’Leary. Not for Mike, either. Save yourself, come clean.”

His sigh was not a denial. The drizzle turned into showers, eroding the perfect contours of his hair, wilting his shirt. I was thinking about the load he had been carrying, thinking what a pathetic pud he was to believe he could have pulled it off, when he gripped my arm more firmly.

“You’re tough. But I feel better talking to you. If you don’t have plans, you want to get a bite somewhere?”

“Won’t your wife be worried?”

“Yes, she’s worried.” He wiped rain from his eyes. “I called her, told her my decision to resign. She’s worried I’m going to be underfoot for a while.”

“I have to go home,” I said, shivering now, soaked through. “My family is expecting me.”

The garage ramp was slick, oil mixed with rain. I was concentrating on keeping my footing, but he was intent on me, studying me with such intensity that I grew uncomfortable. He seemed to be looking for some answer that maybe I was withholding from him.

I saw my car down an aisle to the left, almost by itself now that most workers had left for the day. Standing next to the attendant’s booth, I pulled my arm from Marovich’s grasp and, stepping away a few feet, offered him my hand.

“It’s been interesting,” I said. “Be careful on the road. No one down here remembers how to drive in the rain.”

He smiled, took my hand, held it in a warm grip, reluctant to let go. “Don’t think too badly of me. I only wanted the same thing your Mike wanted, just to get the bad guys off the street.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said. “But don’t expect a Christmas card.”