Three Shirt Deal

Chapter 41.

WEstopped for an early dinner at the bistro garden in the Valley. We didn't have reservations, but I scored a good table because it was five o'clock and the after-work crowd hadn't arrived. The Bistro was Alexa's favorite Valley eatery. It's a spacious, high-ceilinged restaurant that sits on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Van Noord Avenue. The interior dining area was showcased by tall wood-framed, garden windows. The walls were faced with white trellises, lush with greenery. A rich oak bar dominated the entire east end of the room. Alexa was still grinning over her Mission Road caper when the bottle of Pouilly Fuisse I ordered arrived at our table. "All these years I used to criticize your methodology. How boring. I'm surprised you didn't throw a shoe at me. That was a total rush!" As the waiter uncorked the wine, I said, "We can't just ignore department rules, some of which I might add, you helped to institute." "I don't want to argue about this," she said gently. "We're going to have a nice dinner. The chef here is gonna do your special whitefish thing you love with the lemon butter and capers. We're gonna kill this twenty-five-dollaf bottle of French grape, and it's all gonna work out." "We're gonna end up being arrested for obstructing justice," I said grimly, trying to slow her down. "Jane Sasso is going to unload her full quiver at us." "Okay, not to be argumentative, but you've got to stop thinking like a cop and start thinking a little more outside the lines." Alexa was reciting directly from my playbook but I knew she had no idea what the hell she was getting into. "Officially, we are no longer on this case," she continued. "So technically, if you stop to analyze it, anything we do is gonna be off limits as far as Jane, or Tony, or the other blocked hats on six are concerned. We're without portfolio, so how are we going to do this thing if we don't bend a few rules and take a few liberties?" Just then my cell phone rang and while Alexa swirled wine in her goblet, watching it cling to the sides of her glass, I got a report back from Walt Finn in the Records Division. He'd run Tito Morales and Mike Church, aka Miguel Iglesia, through the system and had unsealed some of Church's juvenile records to get what I asked. When he finished giving me the info, I thanked him and looked at Alexa. "You'll never believe who represented Mike Church when he got busted for gang violence as a teenager." She took a sip of the chardonnay, smiled at me, and waited. "Tito Morales. It was a simple assault. Morales took the case right after he graduated from Southwestern Law School and passed the bar, just before he joined the prosecutor's office. "How'd you get that? Church's juvie record is supposed to be sealed." "I had it unsealed," I said. "According to court records, Church's father is the one who hired Tito Morales to represent his son. Tito pled it down to a misdemeanor assault with no time served. Naturally, that makes you wonder how Juan Iglesia knew Tito Morales in the first place. I just found out it was part of the report Walt just gave me." She leaned forward, anxious to hear the rest. "I had my friend in records also check on Tito Morales. He pulled up the Bar Association paperwork Morales filed after law school. His place of birth was Pueblo Viejo, Mexico. His parents immigrated here with him when he was a year old. Tito got his citizenship in eighty-one under the Reagan Amnesty. Juan Iglesia's immigration and naturalization papers say he was also born in Pueblo Viejo. The Iglesia and Morales families go all the way back to that same little hill town in Mexico. That's the connection we've been looking for between Church and Morales. Of course, we can't exactly use it because the information was illegally acquired." "A fact not directly in evidence," she said smiling. "Besides, isn't that more or less part of the public record?" I think technically she was right. But it was a stark glimpse of what it must have been like for her dealing with me for all these years. "Let's look at the stuff you downloaded from the M. E.'s computer," I said to change the subject. She opened the folder and handed me the coroner's reports on Juan Iglesia and Ron Torgason. As I read, I saw that several identical phrases appeared in both autopsy files. "Pinpoint fracture" was one, "subdural hematoma," another. Both injuries were to the temporal lobe of the brain, which was behind the ear. "These both look like the same injury," I told her. "Yeah," she agreed. I picked up the autopsy photos she downloaded and squinted at them. The poor quality black-and-white printout was hard to read. "These are terrible," I said. "Why didn't you use the color printer?" "Outta color ink. It could have been fun to go upstairs and borrow the actual skulls themselves, but you said only three or four minutes and I was out of time." I closed the folder and looked across the table at her. She had a sort of deadpan grin playing at the corner of her mouth. "Okay, look, babe. I don't want this to screw us up. I want us to find some coordination here. I know this all feels very liberating to you. I know it doesn't bother you now, but it bothers me." "Alright, but since we've already been ordered off this, how do you suggest we proceed then?" "I don't know." "How 'bout this? Let's take turns," she suggested. "You pick a move, then I will. Like a game of Monopoly. I just bought North Mission Road, a City utility, which turned out pretty good. So now it's your turn. What do you want to do?" "Sit on you 'til you settle down," I said. "Sorry, that card's not in the deck." A waiter hovered with his pad, so we ordered dinner. After he left Alexa looked at me, her eyes sparkling in the evening sunlight that was now streaming through the large windows. I felt a surge of sexual energy. "Your choice. Go ahead," she said again. "Tomorrow let's go over to UCLA, show all these photographs and autopsy reports to Luther," I said. "See if he thinks both blunt force traumas could have been caused by the same murder weapon." It was a good move and we certainly needed the info, but Alexa was frowning. "You're no fun at all," she teased.