Kill the Messenger

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.”

“What kind of torture?” she asked, with a sultry look.

“The bad kind.”

She sighed and said, “Okay. I heard a whisper once, back at the start of this mess, that Tricia had accused Phillip of skimming off one of the charities.”

“Who told you?”

“It was a cousin of a woman whose husband’s sister’s uncle-in-law’s housekeeper’s daughter used to work at the Crowne Trust office. One of those deals. I dug on that story like a badger, but I never could substantiate it. Phillip has an alibi for the time of the murder, but if he hired it out . . .”

“He could have paid Davis with a Town Car,” Parker speculated. “Then had to account for the missing fleet car and claimed it must have been stolen.”

“But you’re forgetting something here, Kev,” Andi said.

“Which is what?”

“Rob Cole did it. He was there, in the house, passed-out drunk, when Tricia’s body was discovered. He has no alibi. He’s well-known for having an ugly temper. If Tricia wanted rid of him, then he would certainly have motive to want to be rid of her.”

The first limo in line started its engine and rolled slowly forward, one of the motorcycle cops positioned in front of it, lights flashing.

“They must be coming out,” Kelly said.

She started back toward the courthouse at a fast walk, which quickly broke into a trot. Parker went after her, his kneecap throbbing as he started to jog.

The media area was buzzing with a swarm of activity and excitement. Light stands moving, cables dragging, directions being shouted in English, Spanish, and Japanese.

Cole ironically had a big cult following in Japan, despite the fact that footage of a drunken Rob Cole cursing people of different ethnic persuasions—including the Japanese—while being escorted from a West Hollywood club aired regularly on news programs the world over.

Andi darted between and around people, her size an asset until she reached the last few impenetrable rows—the on-air talent for the networks and the local news stations. Parker followed her, holding up his ID and speaking in a serious, authoritative LAPD voice, telling people to step aside. He found Kelly because her head suddenly popped up between a pair of broad-shouldered men, then disappeared again. She was hopping up and down, trying to get a view of the courthouse main entrance.

She turned to Parker. “Bend over.”

“What?”

“Bend over! I want to get up on your shoulders.”

“What if I don’t want you there?”

“Stop being such a baby, Parker. Hurry up.”

He hoisted her up just before the doors opened and the first of the procession emerged: Norman Crowne and his entourage of attorneys and assistants and bodyguards.

Crowne had appeared regularly at the courthouse during the myriad pretrial hearings. Even while the voir dire was ongoing, and no one from his party was allowed into the courtroom, Norman Crowne had come to the courthouse as a show of support for his beloved daughter.

Parker had seen him in television interviews—a dignified, quiet man whose grief was almost palpable. It was a wrenching experience to watch him as he answered questions and spoke about Tricia. None of the emotion was forced or staged or disingenuous. It was raw, and he was clearly a very private man, uncomfortable trying to keep a too-small cloak of pride pulled over the worst of wounds.

It simply wasn’t possible to imagine him having any connection to someone like Eddie Davis or needing to pay blackmail to a sleaze like Lenny Lowell.

On his arm: the granddaughter, Caroline, in a prim little suit with a jacket tailored to minimize the roundness of her figure. Parker knew enough about human psychology to know the idea of Caroline falling for her stepfather was not as far-fetched as it may have seemed on its face.

Caroline’s biological father, by all accounts an abusive bastard, had bowed out of her life early on, leaving her with a void where a parent should have been, and a screwed-up idea of what made a good relationship. Then during Caroline’s adolescence, when girls are struggling with hormones and budding ideas of their own sexuality, Rob Cole had come riding in to save poor Tricia from her loneliness.

He had looked past the mousiness, the awkwardly shy personality, straight to the billions of dollars behind her. But he had been a convincing Prince Charming, and everyone had loved him for it. Life was a fairy tale.

It wasn’t hard to imagine that Caroline had bought into that fairy tale herself, or that she had developed a serious crush on her stepdaddy. He had been, after all, a heartthrob at the time.

Psychologists claim girls are always in competition with their mothers for the attentions of dear old Dad. And when dear old dad turned out to be a weak, narcissistic, amoral, borderline personality, there was a recipe for trouble.

A couple of steps behind Caroline and her grandfather walked Norman Crowne’s son, Phillip. The runt of the litter. Where the old man was considered slight of build, the son had more of a scrawny quality, thin and pale with thin, pale hair.

He was a VP of Crowne Enterprises, in charge of counting paper clips, or something to that effect. Norman was still the man in command, the man with his name in the papers. Perhaps that was why Phillip was so pale—he had spent his entire life standing in his father’s shadow.

Tricia Crowne’s brother had expressed more anger than pure grief at his sister’s murder. He was the one who spoke of revenge more than justice. The idea that Tricia had been murdered morally offended him. The idea that Rob Cole had killed her offended him even more. Seeing Cole for what he was, Phillip Crowne had never warmed up to Cole as Tricia’s husband. He loathed Cole the defendant.

It was difficult to imagine any of the Crownes even knowing of a person like Eddie Davis.

Parker watched the pack of them descend the steps. Two uniformed sheriff’s deputies preceded them to the waiting car.

Mr. Crowne has no comment at this time.

My grandfather is very tired.

My father and the rest of us consider the judge’s ruling this morning to be a triumph for justice.

They weren’t all in the limo before the crowd’s attention swung back to the courthouse. The Crownes and their opinions and emotions were instantly old news. Rob Cole and his cadre had emerged.

Cole’s attorney: Martin Gorman, a big guy with red hair and a kind of Popeye-like expression. He towered over his client, keeping a hand on Cole’s shoulder as if to guide or protect him.

Gorman’s second chair, Janet Brown, was short, pudgy, with mouselike looks. A certain eerie resemblance to the victim. And, as such, a strategic member of Gorman’s team. If a woman like Janet Brown could believe in Rob Cole, defend him against charges that he had brutally murdered his wife, could he really be a bad man?

For the right price, Janet Brown would have posed as advocate to Caligula.

And then there was Rob Cole himself. A handsome grin with a whole lot of nothing behind it.

Cole was the kind of guy Parker took one look at and thought: What an asshole. Diane wasn’t the only person who saw it. Parker recognized it instantly. He just didn’t quite let on to Diane, because he found her animosity for the man both entertaining and intriguing. But Parker knew the animal. He had been Rob Cole once, only younger and much better-looking.

The difference was, a cute thirty-something jerk could still get a pass for arrogance. There was time for him to evolve into something better. A fifty-something jerk had passed the expiration date for change. Rob Cole would still be wearing fifties bowling shirts when he was seventy-five, and bragging to everyone at the rest home that that was his trademark and his public still loved it. The biggest recurring role of his career: starring as Rob Cole.

Cole played that part every day of his life. Every day was a three-act opera, and he was Camille. He had put on his good-man-wrongly-accused persona for the media. Noble and stoic. The tight-lipped, serious expression, head held high. The salt-and-pepper hair cut military-short. The wraparound ultra-black shades, cool but understated.

Most people didn’t want to search for a deeper level when they looked at the Rob Coles of the world. The facade was a showstopper, and that was as far as they went. The blessing and the curse of being a pretty face. The look was all people wanted to believe in, and because they didn’t really care if there was anything behind it, the face began to believe there wasn’t anything there to care about either. Good thing Rob had the face, or he wouldn’t have anything.

Gorman had dressed him for the potential jury in an impeccably cut conservative charcoal suit, charcoal shirt, and striped tie. A strong but understated look, showing respect for the court and the gravity of the charges against him. No one would see the bowling shirts and the trim-fitting jeans until the verdict was old news. And hopefully not even then.

A lot of powerful people wanted Rob Cole’s next look to be prison chambray. Only, Parker had a bad feeling that although Rob Cole might be an asshole, the one thing he wasn’t—no matter how many people wanted it—was guilty.

Parker’s phone rang as Cole and his group passed him. Andi was up on his shoulders, twisting around, trying to turn him with her knees like he was an Indian elephant. He shifted positions and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Parker.”

“Parker, it’s me, Ruiz. Where are you? At a riot?”

“Something like that,” Parker shouted, pressing his other ear closed with one finger. “What do you want? Besides my head on a platter.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“Yeah. I think Dr. Mengele said that too.”

“Your bike messenger called.”

“What?”

“I said, your bike—”

“No, I heard you. How do you know it was him?”

“He said his name was J. C. Damon.”

“And?”

“He said to be at Pershing Square at five twenty-five.”

“Hang on.”

Parker reached up and swatted at Kelly. “Ride’s over!”

She swung a leg around and slid down his back, patted his ass, and trotted over to her photographer. Parker walked away from the crowd.

“J. C. Damon called you and told you to tell me to be at Pershing Square at five twenty-five,” he repeated. “You think I’m a fucking idiot, Ruiz? You think you pulled the big one on me and I fell for it, so I must be stupid?”

“It’s not a setup.”

“Right. And you’re a virgin. Got anything else to sell me?”

“Look, fuck you, Parker,” she said. “Maybe I felt guilty for two seconds and thought I’d do something decent. The guy called and asked for you, said he got your name from Abby Lowell. If you don’t want it, go blow yourself. I’ll call RHD.”

“And you didn’t tell any of this to Bradley Kyle already?”

“You know what? Fine,” she said, disgusted. “You’re not going to believe anything I tell you. Do what you want.”

She hung up on him.

Parker slipped the phone back into his pocket and stood there, watching the last of the black cars drive away. The television news- people had already run back to their spots with the courthouse in the background to do their bits for the five o’clock news.

He would be a fool to trust Ruiz. Robbery-Homicide had taken the case. She had personally handed over whatever scraps he had left behind. She’d given them Davis’s address. She was an IA rat. Nothing she said could be believed. Bradley Kyle had probably been standing right there when she’d called.

Andi broke away from the media pack and walked across the grass to him. “Well, that’s all the fun I can have here,” she said. “Let’s go someplace romantic and you can tell me how one of the most beloved philanthropists in LA is hooked up with a homicidal maniac.”

“I’ve got to take a rain check.”

“Again with the rejection!” she said, rolling her eyes. “Where are you going? Are you seeing another reporter?”

“I’m going to Pershing Square.”

“What’s at Pershing Square besides dope dealers?”

“A circus,” Parker said, starting toward his car. “You should bring a photographer. I think there might even be clowns.”