The Fallen

14

Jordan Sheehan was a tall, full-bodied, and very pretty woman. She looked like she could endorse a high-quality detergent or a tooth whitener.

She met us at the front door of her La Jolla home that afternoon and shook our hands and asked us in. She was wearing a sleeveless dress, red with big white polka dots. Around her waist was a shiny red belt. She was barefoot and her toenails were the same glistening red.

Her house was up on a hill overlooking the Pacific. It was not impressively large. The building looked somehow Castilian, a tall rectangle with wooden shutters and window planter boxes that dangled bright purple bougainvillea down the white plaster walls. Beyond the house the ocean was blue and casually vast. The garage had been converted into guest quarters. It was a miniature version of the house, nearly lost in a jungle of trumpet vine that made the air sweet. A light blue Porsche was parked in the driveway.

Inside, the house was sunny and simple. It had slate floors and honey-colored maple furniture and cabinetry and big, bright oil paintings on the walls.

“My office is distracting — all phones and files, so let’s just sit here in the living room,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

We both declined. I sat on a cushy white couch and set my briefcase on the floor.

The Squeaky Clean Madam walked barefoot to her kitchen and came back a moment later with a tray and three tall glasses.

“Do you like Arnold Palmers?” she asked with a smile. She set out decorative tile coasters, then drinks on the low table between us. “It’s sun tea, with lemonade made of lemons from my garden. Now, what can I do for you?”

“When was the last time you saw Garrett Asplundh?” I asked.

“I saw him a week before he died, out at the San Diego Yacht Club. It was a black-tie fund-raiser for the Cancer Society.”

“Did you talk?” asked McKenzie.

“Briefly. I’ve known him for years.”

“Tell us about that,” I said.

“He pulled me over for drunk driving fifteen years ago. I was in the midst of a bankruptcy filing and discovering that half of my employees had either lied to me or used fake papers to get their jobs. The IRS was crushing me. My boyfriend had made off with a lot of my money and my best girlfriend. I was twenty-five years old. So I went to the Hyatt, found myself a seat in the highest bar in the city and got myself more loaded than a girl should ever get. On my way home Garrett Asplundh pulled me over. I told him everything that was happening to me and he actually listened. He was so cute in that uniform and so seriously unhappy at all the bad luck I was having. I asked him to marry me and I really meant it, but he said I was too late and arrested me instead. A good thing. I was death on wheels that night.”

“He was a patrolman back then,” I said.

“And what were you, Detective Brownlaw, a freshman in high school?”

“Yes.”

She sipped her drink. “Anyway, as I’m sure you and everybody else in this town knows, I did a night in the drunk tank and a year in federal lockup for tax evasion. It was a vile place. It was filthy and cruel. But I studied investment strategy and got lots of exercise. Garrett visited me twice during that time. Brief visits. He was looking out for me. He liked me and I liked him. When I got out, I moved back to Iowa for a while to be with my family. I felt like I was a hundred years old but I was only twenty-seven. Got my B.A. in business from the state college. Got married and divorced. Made some money with tech investments. Actually, a lot of money, which wasn’t hard with the market going up twenty and thirty percent a year. But it wasn’t just luck and I knew I could help people do the same thing. I came back here in 2000 and hung my shingle. It said ‘Jordan Sheehan & Associates, Investments.’ I was not able to become certified as a financial adviser because of my felony convictions, but I started making good money for my people, very quickly. Word spreads when somebody can make money for someone else. I saw Garrett Asplundh around. San Diego’s a small town for being a big city. And we’d meet for coffee every few months. Just to keep in touch, you know? When I saw the news, I thought about him and I cried.”

She watched me.

“We have the video of you finding his hidden camera,” I said.

Then a small smile. “Oh, that. Garrett was trying to implicate me in some sort of pandering and prostitution conspiracy. I thought a trick like that was below him. That was the new Garrett.”

“New?” I asked.

“He changed when Samantha died. That’s what death does, isn’t it? It changes the people who are left behind. After she died, Garrett seemed to become... what’s the word? He became supercharged. He became driven. He became a... crusader. The casual, nice-looking young man was gone. He hardly ever smiled. He looked at you like he was booking you. I’ll bet if you asked him why, he’d say it was a way of doing something for his daughter. And maybe doing something for his own guilt at what happened. Anyhow, I’m not sure what the hidden camera was supposed to catch, but I couldn’t resist busting Garrett for his bad manners.”

“He’s got videos of your girls with all kinds of customers.”

She looked at me with mild irritation. “They are not my girls. What makes you believe they’re my girls?”

Three red squares slipped from Jordan Sheehan’s mouth, betraying her lie.

“I know some of them,” I said. “They talk.”

“I’ve heard that from other people, you know. Everyone knows one of my girls. And yet not a single one of these girls has come forward and accused me. Or charged me. Or presented evidence against me. Why don’t you just get them to file a complaint or whatever you call it, and be rid of me?”

“Because they’re breaking the law and they know it,” I said.

“Because of Chupa Junior,” said McKenzie.

“Because of those sharp lawyers you provide,” I said.

“Because they’re afraid,” said McKenzie. “And they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.”

Jordan nodded along. “Well, those are all valid reasons. But if I’m taking such good care of my alleged employees, maybe you should quit harassing me. Maybe you should go out there and do something about the crime rate in this city. There was a big Union-Tribune article about that in the paper just yesterday. The violent crime rate is up three percent.”

“Chupa Junior doesn’t take good care of people,” said McKenzie.

“I’m thirty-percent owner of a San Diego nightclub called Indigo,” said Sheehan. “Peter Avalos, which is his real name, does security work for me there occasionally. He is not a chupacabra. He is not a goatsucker. He’s honest and operates within his own moral code. He is a bouncer. And by the way, we were working at Indigo the night Garrett was killed, so you can scratch both of us off your list.”

No red squares.

“Neat moral code that allows for car theft and cockfighting,” said McKenzie. “You ever seen what those birds do to each other?”

Jordan looked at me. “We’ve all done things we regret. For instance, Vic Malic regrets throwing you from the Las Palmas. He did that. It is a known fact. Now he’s written a book about it, so other people—”

“Please, Ms. Sheehan,” I said, “spare us the condescending nonsense, will you? We know you’re running fifty or sixty girls around town in their cute little convertibles and pretty clothes. We know you charge a nice meet tax and you’ve got a bunch of spot callers to make the arrangements. Garrett had videodiscs of men buying sex from these young women. Some of these men are in positions of power. One of them is a Vice captain who gets his fun for free, and maybe that’s why Vice hasn’t shut you down. For now, that’s between you and Vice. What we’re interested in here is murder. We need to know if any of those men on Garrett’s video knew what was happening. If they ever said anything about being recorded or blackmailed or harassed. We want to know who was onto Garrett, and we think you’re in a good position to know.”

Sheehan set her drink on the table. “Detectives, I have heard nothing of the sort. I have no idea what kind of smut Garrett had in his possession. And no idea how he got it. Why should I? I’m an investor and an investment adviser.”

A few more red squares slipped from between her lips.

McKenzie shook her head and looked around the bright, pretty room. “That’s how you got all this? A tax cheat giving investment advice?”

“People change. Or are you too jaded in your line of work to understand that? I have a license to run my business and a small clientele that is prosperous and satisfied with my service. I’m honest and I work hard. I make good money. Not a fortune, but I live well and set my own hours. I rent this house, because tax cheats don’t get mortgage loans. I drive a late-model Porsche but my payments are substantial. I’m doing okay for myself. I’ve socialized with the chief of police and several high-ranking officers, Director Kaven of Ethics, most of the city council, and dozens of the business leaders of this city — from Abel Sarvonola on down. Prostitution? I don’t have time to run a prostitution ring because I’m too busy working. And I can promise you, I’ll never go back to lockup as long as I live.”

The air was suddenly bobbing with red squares. They jostled each other, corners tipping against other corners, and made interesting geometric patterns against the white polka dots of her red dress.

I opened the briefcase and arranged my laptop on the table. I booted up and retrieved the eight-second video of Jordan and Garrett. Then I pointed the screen toward Jordan and hit “play.”

Jordan watched the clip with a grin on her face. I replayed it and stopped when she’d smoothed back her hair and revealed the earring. She held the iced-tea glass close to her lips but didn’t drink. After her last line, she looked up and smiled at me.

“I should have been in pictures,” she said.

“You’ll be TV-movie material when Vice gets done with you,” said McKenzie.

“Can I please cast you as the beautiful detective?” asked Jordan. “And you, Robbie, as the intelligent, honorable man who finds out that the Squeaky Clean Madam really isn’t a madam after all?”

“I’ll talk to my agent,” I said. Then I pulled out a copy of the crime-lab photo of the inside of Garrett’s car and set it on the table beside the laptop, facing Jordan.

She leaned forward, smoothed her hair behind her ear just like she was doing on Garrett’s unhidden video. She looked at me to see if I’d caught the coincidence, smiling when she saw that I had. Her smile was inclusive and playful.

“This is the inside of Garrett’s Explorer four to seven hours after he was shot,” I said. “The dark liquid you see so much of is his blood. The pink and yellow tags were put there by the CSIs, to mark where certain pieces of evidence were located.”

Jordan set her drink down, leaned back, and fixed me with a very cool stare. “Is this necessary?”

“Yes,” I said. “See this arrow here? The perspective is foreshortened, but it indicates the space between the driver’s seat and the console. Well, you can’t see the yellow tag, but it was put there to mark where they found this.”

Next to the Explorer picture, I set a digital photo of the crescent-moon earring with the sapphire in the curve and the misshapen backing.

I watched her closely. She looked from the picture to the screen of the laptop, then back to the picture.

“That’s funny,” she said.

“I missed the joke,” I said.

“No, no,” she said quietly. “I meant no disrespect to Garrett. What I meant was, I lost that earring — or one just like it — at a party in San Diego back in January. I didn’t notice until I got home that night.”

“Convenient,” said McKenzie.

“You can buy those at Macy’s for a hundred ninety-nine a pair. I did. The box said ‘Made in China.’ Mine couldn’t have been the only pair sold in Southern California.”

“How was the party?” I asked.

“Very nice,” said Jordan. “I was honored as one of Fifty San Diegans to Watch, by a local magazine. Because I got ditched by my best friend and boyfriend years ago, then thrown in prison, then went on to run a successful company, I’m newsworthy. Everyone is impressed by success, aren’t they? I don’t really want to be kept an eye on, but we celebrated at the Hotel del Coronado. Did you know that The Wizard of Oz was written there?”

“Everybody in San Diego knows that,” said McKenzie. “Have you ever been in Garrett’s Explorer?”

“Yes. Late February he gave me a ride back from the Cancer Society party.”

“Why?”

“He wanted to talk. Our twice-a-year get-together, like I said earlier.”

“What did you talk about?” asked McKenzie.

“Garrett said he was happy with the Ethics Authority work. Said it was less pressure than being a cop. He had apparently helped a young woman avoid a life of prostitution and was pleased about that.”

“She told us you sent her on a call,” I said.

“No, Robbie. I did not. I told Garrett the same thing.”

“Then one of your spot callers sent her,” said McKenzie.

She sighed and looked out to the lazy gray Pacific. “You’re such nice people, but I’m really getting tired of you. Maybe I’ve helped you enough? Terrific, then.”

She stood and looked at the pictures again. “Wait here. I can offer you something that might help.”

She left the room in a swirl of red and white polka dots. Her bare heels made a thunking sound on the slate. A moment later she was back with a small tan jewelry box. She handed it to me and I opened it. I looked down at the neat little crescent moon and the sapphire reclining in the curve. It was smaller and prettier than it had looked in the crime lab or on Garrett’s video.

“The backing is different than the one you found,” she said. “Look.”

I pried the little insert out of the box and tipped it over. Sure enough, the backing to Jordan’s earring was an ornate octagon with rolled edges. And the one in the picture was a circle.

“Dum da dum-dum,” she sang. “See you later, guys. And thanks for everything. I hope you catch whoever did this to Garrett. I hope he spends a year in federal lockup. Then I hope you give him a shot like an old poodle and smile down on him while his lights go out.”

Ninth District City Councilman Anthony Rood met with us in his City Hall office. He was a dapper young man, dressed in an expensive and well-tailored navy suit. His shoes and belt were black and magnificently polished. He used both of his hands to shake one of ours.

“I’m happy to meet you, Detectives,” he said. “I scarcely knew Garrett Asplundh but I’ll tell you what I know.”

He stood behind his desk, smiling. There were plaques and awards and pictures of children on the wall in back of him.

“You might want to close that door,” said McKenzie.

“Oh? Sure.”

Rood returned and sat. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell us what you know about the Squeaky Cleans,” I said.

“Squeaky Cleans?” he asked. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

The red squares of the lie spilled from his mouth. Sometimes the squares bounce and lilt in the air, like balloons. Sometimes they line up side by side like boxes on a shelf and don’t move unless I touch them. Rood’s stood at attention.

“Sure you’re sure,” said McKenzie. “Jordan Sheehan’s girls.”

Rood’s face turned red. Not as red as the squares in front of him but still a full, vivid red.

“Mr. Rood,” said McKenzie, “I’ve never seen a man blush so deeply. It’s really kind of handsome on you. But don’t tell me you haven’t been with some of the Squeaky Clean Madam’s girls, because we’ve got video of you in action. Yeah, that’s right. It isn’t pretty.”

We let him stew. His expression went from shame to fear to petulance to resolve. The red squares diminished and were gone.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“Wrong words,” said McKenzie.

I took a folded piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to Rood. He opened it and the red flooded back into his face. He refolded the picture and flicked it back at me.

“So we need some answers,” I said.

Rood nodded, placed his elbows on his desk, and squared himself in his chair. “I... am acquainted with some of the young women called Squeaky Clean girls. I’ve met Jordan Sheehan socially and know of no connection between her and the girls. The women have never told me of a connection between them and Jordan. It appears that the label ‘Squeaky Clean Madam’ may be of the police department’s making. I have certainly never, ever paid money for sex — from alleged Squeaky Clean girls or anyone else.”

“You tipped Carrie Ann Martier two hundred dollars on a video that I saw,” I said. “Do you usually tip your lovers? Do you offer them apartments in return for sex?”

Rood’s face looked painfully red. “If she was a working girl, then I was fooled. I was lied to and manipulated. Not only by her but—” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“How did you meet Carrie Ann Martier?” I asked.

He looked at the ceiling. He looked at his hands. He looked into the space between McKenzie and me but he didn’t look at us.

“Jordan Sheehan asked me if I’d be interested in meeting a friend who had expressed an interest in me. That evening after work, Carrie and I met at a bar in Del Mar. There was no offer of prostitution, no implication, no money. Carrie’s a party girl, not a hooker.”

“What’s that going to matter to your wife?” I asked.

“Very little.”

“It matters to us a lot,” said McKenzie.

“What do you want from me? I only met Garrett Asplundh once. He seemed very intense and professional. I don’t know anything about his life or his death — except what I’ve read in the papers. His daughter, the swimming pool, everything.”

I waited for another rush of red squares but there was none.

Rood looked from me to McKenzie, then back to me again. He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. He bowed his head. “I had no idea that Carrie was a professional. I’m devastated.”

Out came the symbols of the councilman’s dishonesty, red squares marching in formation through the air toward me.

“I swear upon the graves of my children I didn’t know.”

The red battalion came at me. If the squares had had substance and weight, I’d have been knocked off my chair.

“Did you know that Garrett had you on video?” I asked.

“My God, of course not.”

“Did you know that Stiles had been caught?”

“Steve? No, I had no idea.”

The red flood kept pouring out. Rood’s panicked gaze went back and forth between McKenzie and me again.

“What do you want from me? I’ve never been blackmailed before. I’m not sure of the protocol.”

McKenzie smiled and shook her head. “You’re funny, Councilman.” She took out her notepad, flipped it open and clicked her pen three times. “Let’s start with Tuesday evening, March eighth.”

“I was at an exploratory fund-raiser aboard the Midway. I’m interested in running for a seat in the state assembly.”

“I hope you win it and move to Sacramento,” said McKenzie. “Maybe the Gubernator can keep you out of trouble.”

“What did Jordan want in return?” I asked. “She introduced you to a wonderful woman who was very interested in you, even though you’re married. All you had to do was tip her when it was over. So what did Jordan want from you?”

“What do you mean?”

“He means, she did you a favor,” said McKenzie.

“No,” said Rood. “I have no idea what you mean.”

The red squares were dribbling out again.

“Think hard,” I said. “Jordan needed something. She was interested in something. Something you could arrange for her. You’ll think of it.”

I sat and stared at him. McKenzie looked up from her pad and waited. “Robbie, let’s just go downtown, get him his lawyer, and do this the old-fashioned way. This is too time-consuming.”

“Shit, no,” said Rood.

“What did she want, Anthony?”

He looked into deep space again. “I... really...”

“You really have no choice but to talk to us,” said McKenzie. “It’s either now or downtown with the bright lights on you and the newspaper guys dying to know what’s going on.”

“Oh, shit, no.”

“She’s right,” I said.

“Jordan told me that she’s very interested in... well, in helping the city she loves.”

It took a moment for me to get it. “She wants an appointment.”

“It seems so.”

“To what?” I asked.

“The Budget Oversight Committee.”

“Abel Sarvonola’s financial watchdogs,” I said.

Rood nodded. “The way the Oversight Committee is formed is that the mayor gets two picks. And each councilmanic district gets one. If I make the assembly and Steven fills my spot in the Ninth District... well, Jordan was hoping I’d influence Steven on her behalf.”

McKenzie laughed. “That’s a good one. A convicted tax cheat and madam on the Budget Oversight Committee. Making sure the city’s budget is balanced and fair.”

Rood was staring at his desk now. “I never saw what Jordan Sheehan could bring to the party myself.”

“You know exactly what she can bring to a party,” I said.

“With Carrie, I... avoided my problems. I admit it. My marriage was a wreck long before I met Jordan Sheehan, if that makes you feel any better.”

“What did Stiles say about Garrett’s murder?” I asked.

Rood looked up at me. “Steve was with me that night too, on the Midway, so you don’t have to badger him. But what he said was that Garrett was bad for business and he got what he had coming.”