The prostitutes ball

Chapter 36

Jeb said he would make arrangements for a police tow truck to take the armored car back to the new Forensic Science Center on the Cal State campus while Alexa was trying to scare up a home number for Dahlia Wilkes. Before either could dial, Hitch and I moved in on them with an alternate idea.

"We need to talk to you guys for a minute," I started.

"You can't take this truck to the police garage at Cal State," Hitch said.

"Why not?" Jeb wondered.

"Once its there a whole lot of people will know about it and this thing is gonna leak, Skipper."

"So then it leaks," Jeb said. "We re not the KGB, we don't conduct investigations in secret."

"Well, maybe this one time we should consider it," I suggested.

"And just how do we keep this quiet?" Alexa was tapping her foot as she asked this. I could tell from having known and loved her for years, it was not positive body language.

"Listen to all of it first," I said. "There's a lot you still don't know. Once you have the whole deal, then decide."

"There's more?" Alexa asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "A lot."

Hitch and I filled them in on the rest of the '81 Vulcuna case, taking them through everything we'd learned. Alexa had not been in L. A. back in '81 but Jeb remembered some of the Vulcunas' tragic story. We ran it down for them and told them about getting Brooks to sign off on a warrant so we could do the Luminol test in the master bedroom. They were both surprised to hear that it had been negative. We told them about the pressure from city government to close the case down, and how McKnight and Norris had only worked the Vulcuna massacre for nine hours before being pulled off and reassigned.

Jeb asked, "So what are you trying to tell us?"

"Thomas Vulcuna didn't kill his wife and daughter, then commit suicide," I answered. "We got that wrong in eighty-one. He was killed back here in that trash shed with the 7.65 bullet we found. The perp killed Vulcunas wife and daughter in the living room, then shot Tom out here, reloaded the Luger, carried his body upstairs, placed him on the bed, and fired a second shot into the headboard to make it look right. That's why the headboard and wall wouldn't fluoresce. But this garbage shed did."

Hitch picked up the narrative. "The passage from The Divine Comedy was marked and left open on the bedside table as a suicide note," he said. "The Luger jammed on that second shot, but there was only one missing from the clip because the gun was reloaded by the killer then shot into the headboard."

Jeb and Alexa stood looking at each other, not sure how to proceed.

"Whoever put that Brinks truck in there probably also killed Vulcuna and his family," I said. "If this hits the papers and TV tomorrow, and the shooter is still around, he'll be gone before we can put a case together. The doer or doers will be in Mexico or France, where we can't extradite on a death penalty case, which this certainly is, because there are five murders so far, maybe six if the third Brinks guard is in the back of this truck."

"It's even bigger than that," Hitch said. "Brooks and the three Sladky killings are also somehow part of Vulcunas triple and this Brinks heist. The two cases are tied together."

In my opinion he was overwriting the story there, but as I'd already learned, sometimes imagination is more important than knowledge.

"Brooks wasn't even alive when this Brinks truck was hijacked," Alexa reminded him.

"Not Brooks himself," Hitch continued. "His father, Thayer; or the guy who set up the foundation, that Century City lawyer, Stender Sheedy Sr. The reason they didn't sell this house for a quarter century is now pretty damn obvious. They didn't want a new owner re-landscaping and finding this well house and that armored truck inside with the dead guards."

"I still don't see how we keep this quiet," Jeb said.

"Hitch and I have been giving that some careful thought."

Jeb and Alexa seemed open to a better strategy, but didn't have one. At least they were listening. Our moment was at hand, so I jumped in.

"Okay, we know we can't keep this quiet indefinitely, but we may not need all that long. Let's say we can keep it under wraps for like seventy-two hours."

"There are at least fifty evidence tech workers at our new CSI science pod at Cal State," Jeb said. "There are a dozen more at the vehicle center. How's this stay quiet? Its bound to leak to the press. It always does."

"We limit the number of forensic techs to about six. We handpick people we know we can trust to stay quiet," I answered. "Then, instead of taking this truck to the new automotive garage at Cal State, we tow it to the old North Hollywood Medical Center on Riverside. That hospital is deserted and is being rented out for film and television shoots. Hitch woke up the location manager from Mosquito and that guy can rent it for us. The location fee is only fifteen hundred a day. Its got everything we need."

Hitch picked up the narrative. "We get one or two people from the ME staff who we can trust to keep a secret and get them to do their investigation of the remains in one of the old operating theaters there. Since it's just skeletons, they'll only be looking at bone and bullet issues. They'll need to do dental matches, but it's not anywhere near as complicated as a full soft tissue autopsy. It should work. Then we post a couple of patrolmen on this crime scene to protect the well house. Nobody gets in, especially the Dunbar family or their lawyers."

"And you think we can pull that off and keep this quiet?" Jeb said.

"I think it's a good idea," Alexa cut in. She was doing what I knew she would, thinking like a cop and not an administrator.

"What about ADA Wilkes?" Jeb asked.

"I think we need to keep her screened off," Hitch advised. "This old Brinks robbery touches her case and some of the same people may be involved. She won't see past the prosecutorial problems it causes. Murder defense is mostly about confusing the jury. She's gonna freak and start causing us major trouble when she finds out what we're up to."

"Doesn't matter," Alexa said. "We have to tell her anyway." Jeb nodded his head in agreement. "I'll stay here and help you with her, but if we fail to notify the DA's office on something this big, we're gonna be eating the fallout for years."

So Alexa made the call. She woke Dahlia up and told her to get to Skyline Drive immediately. She'd find out why once she got here. While we waited for her to arrive, Alexa looked at the search warrant Brooks had signed.

"You're learning," she said.

"Learn or burn," I replied.

A few minutes later, Sumner took me aside.

"That seventy-two-hour thing was brilliant, dawg."

"Thanks."

"It puts a tight clock on Act Three, and not for nothing, but we definitely needed a clock in this movie. You're showing some real producing promise. I'm telling you, when it's great, it's great. You just can't make shit like this up. This puppy is writing itself."

The problem was, he was completely serious.