Vigilante

CHAPTER 14

Internal Affairs leased the top four floors of the six-story Bradbury Building. We walked past several private offices rented out to other businesses on the ground level. I saw a brass plaque on one of the doors that read:

MADRID AND SLOCUM

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

DISCREET INQUIRIES

I pointed at the door as we walked by. “Lester Madrid has his office here?”

“Yeah, didn’t you know that?”

“No. I thought he was on Moorpark in the Valley.”

“You obviously haven’t been getting enough one-eighty-one complaints recently. He’s been renting here for almost two years.”

“That must be convenient for Stephanie,” I said.

Retired LAPD sergeant Lester Madrid was an ex-gunfighter from our old SIS squad who was married to Capt. Stephanie Madrid.

Les had been involved with the Special Investigation Section back when it became famous for being an assassination squad. Ten years ago SIS had an unusual operating agenda. The unit would target predicate felons, a classification the department used for criminals we determined to be irredeemable. These were violent men who were so committed to a life of crime that no amount of incarceration or psychiatric resourcing could ever make a difference.

An SIS surveillance team would wait for these guys to come out of prison, set up on them, and follow them around. The good thing about this type of felon was, it didn’t take too long for them to start piling up parole violations, often meeting up with old ex-con buddies or buying cold guns off some dirtbag street vendor.

SIS would not arrest the target for any of these transgressions. Instead, they would sit back and wait. Patience was a mighty ally in their line of work, and before long the felon and his newly formed crew of degenerate shooters would decide to take something off, a market or a bank. SIS would be waiting outside when the criminals came running out. It was then that the SIS surveillance team would attempt to initiate their arrest. These arrests tended to end in shoot-outs, and most of the time the predicate felon and his criminal buddies failed to survive the inevitable gunfight that ensued. The operative theory in the unit was a dead asshole never beat his case on a technicality.

However, the unit’s violent record drew a lot of criticism, and many L.A. Times editorials had been written. SIS was under so much scrutiny that the chief reconstituted the unit and it now had a very stringent set of guidelines.

As a human being, I had often found myself troubled by the methodology of SIS. But as a cop, I had cheered. This unit took down violent offenders. Their brand of street justice often ended with a brass verdict. The appellate court was in heaven.

Lester Madrid had been one of the team leaders on the old SIS and had been singled out for a lot of scrutiny when the heat was on. Les was one of those tall, Clint Eastwood-looking ass-kickers with a buzz cut and a mile of jaw. He never smiled. Sergeant Madrid had managed to survive the SIS IA investigations only to accidentally discharge his weapon in the locker room a few months later, putting a 9mm slug into his lower leg and blowing apart his femur. He now walked with a cane.

After the locker-room accident, Les Madrid took medical retirement and became a private investigator. That is how this legendary LAPD gunfighter ended up doing discreet inquiries. His PI practice mostly consisted of investigating reality show contestants, to make sure “The Bachelor” didn’t have an unprosecuted felony rape in his past or “The Millionaire” wasn’t bouncing checks.

I occasionally still saw Madrid at police functions with his wife, who was also a non-smiler. He’d be standing in some corner, leaning on his cane, clocking the room with eyes like stones.

Hitch and I took the elevator to the fourth floor where the Advocates Section was located. The doors opened and we walked out and stood next to the large mahogany handrail that capped a beautiful black wrought-iron balustrade, which ran around the perimeter of the six-story open promenade. From all six floors you could look up to the leaded-glass ceiling above or down through the open atrium to the marble floors of the lobby below. The Bradbury Building didn’t look like it belonged in Los Angeles. It looked like it should have been in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Hitch and I took a moment outside the Advocates Section to agree on our interview technique.

“I’ll take point,” I said. “If you think of anything, jump in.”

“Got it.” He smiled ruefully at me. “First Lita Mendez, then Nix Nash, and now Stephanie Madrid. Who’s next, Fenrir?”

“Who the hell is Fenrir?”

“Famous Norse monster known as the ‘World-Destroying Wolf.’”

God knows where he comes up with this stuff.

“Just follow my lead,” I said.

We walked inside the office, gave our names, and were informed by her terrified male adjunct that Captain Madrid kept her appointments short, with only fifteen minutes allotted to each.

Ten minutes later the adjunct led us through a door into a very small outer office with one window looking out on the Dumpsters in the alley. I certainly didn’t want to be here. I would have loved any reason to escape and attend to easier police business downstairs. Where was Lord Ding Wallace when you really needed him?

From there, we were shown into the chief advocate’s spacious office. Captain Madrid rose to meet us.

She was fifty-five, short and abrupt, with absolutely no overtly feminine qualities. Her ash-brown hair was cropped short in a kind of pageboy helmet. She wore almost no makeup, no jewelry, and had a stocky but muscular athletic frame. I’d seen her a few times working out on the track at the Police Academy field. She was a choppy, earnest runner. Pugnacious face, pushed out over hard-pumping arms and pistoning legs. She’d be chugging the oval, relentlessly eating up the miles on our new graphite track. I wondered if she and Lester ever did the nasty and, if they did, who got to be on top.

“Sit,” she commanded.

“Thank you, Captain. I’m Detective Shane Scull-”

“I know who you are,” she interrupted. “You too, Detective Hitchens. Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely, settling into the second guest chair.

“So you two got the Lita Mendez kill.”

Not homicide, not murder. Kill.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I understand you’ve made an arrest already. That’s good.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hitch said. We sounded like terrified Catholic schoolboys who’d just been dragged in front of the Mother Superior.

“I was expecting you to come by,” she said. “It was no secret that I had my share of problems with Miss Mendez.”

“Yes, ma’am. That fact has sort of bubbled to the surface,” I said.

“It’s what?”

“It has come to our attention,” I corrected.

“Hm-m-m-m,” she said, and tipped back in her swivel chair, looking at each of us in turn. “I’m curious what you’ve heard.”

“That you recently filed a criminal case against her for filing a false police report and won a restraining order against her last June.”

“That woman was eating up my advocates’ budget on frivolous complaints. Almost a third of our Hollenbeck Division hearings last year were because of her. She was wasting an important department resource. IAG has legitimate police improprieties to adjudicate.”

“I see,” I began. “So it would be fair to say that you had a healthy personal dislike for Miss Mendez?”

“Grow up, Detective,” she said, then handed me a piece of paper. “I’ve made up a sheet. A log, if you will, attesting to my whereabouts minute to minute for the last forty-eight hours. All of these meetings can be confirmed by the people I’ve listed to the right. I realize that the several loud arguments I’ve had in public with Miss Mendez over the years will certainly make me the subject of some interest in the press. I’m counting on you two detectives to use that sheet to deflect any such nonsense.”

“Excuse me, Captain, but this isn’t your interview. It’s ours,” I said. I’d run out of patience for this. “I intend to conduct it according to my guidelines.” I saw her flinch. Hitch groaned softly under his breath.

“I beg your pardon?” She seemed astonished.

“You are not running this investigation; we are. I intend to treat this the same way I would if you didn’t carry a badge. You are on my suspect sheet. I’ve got questions. I intend to get answers to those questions, in the way and order I want.”

She sat looking at me, her face a stony visage.

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” she said coldly. “But go on if you must. Ask.”

“When was the last time you saw Lolita Mendez?”

“Day before yesterday, in court. As you just noted, I had a felony case pending against her for making a false police report. We had the preliminary meetings in Judge Amador’s chambers along with attorneys to arrange for trial dates, depositions, and the like.”

“How’d that go?”

“Like all my meetings with Lita Mendez. It was contentious. She called me a bull dyke, which I’m obviously not. I called her a liar and a gangster, which she obviously is.”

I looked over at Hitch. This wasn’t going well at all.

“These personal insults were witnessed by a judge?” Hitch asked, slightly appalled.

“Listen, boys. Let’s get something straight right now. I’m an easy target, but I’m the wrong target. You made this stop to talk to me, which I guess was necessary. You’ve done your job, covered this base; now move the hell on. You have my time line in your hands. It clears me. I wasn’t anywhere near Hollenbeck for days before the murder. If you have any further questions, consult that list.”

“You willing to take a polygraph just so everybody feels all warm and fuzzy?” I asked. She was still riling me up.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Detective, I don’t believe police officers should be asked to take polygraph tests on less-than-solid legal grounds. If you should ever get enough actual evidence to charge me with anything, then we’ll talk about it. If you want a supporting opinion on the legality of police submitting to polygraphs, talk to your own union reps. The POA has come down very strongly against law enforcement being asked to take these things and I certainly agree. Next.”

“This sheet attests to your whereabouts,” I said, holding it up. “You got one for Lester?”

“My husband has nothing to do with this.” She leaned forward and put her muscled forearms on the desk. “You’ve got half a dozen better starting points. All those Hispanic gangs she dissed. There’s over forty criminal sets in Hollenbeck. They’re all at war over street corners. Then, after that, you can check her brother Homer’s old enemies. Some of those murderous vatos might want her dead, and of course there’s Carla and Julio Sanchez, who you’ve already arrested. Concentrate on all that.”

She held my gaze with hard eyes.

“Interview’s over, Detectives.” Captain Madrid stood, then walked to the door and opened it. Hitch and I filed out obediently, but she stopped us in the outer office.

“If you have any further questions, put them in writing and submit them to my adjunct, Joseph, here.” She pointed at the terrified detective. “Good day.”

We left her office with almost as little info as we had going in. We were quickly back in the hall, overlooking the magnificent atrium.

“That was fun,” Hitch said. “We should vacation up here.”

“Who the hell was Fenrir again?” I asked.