Vigilante

CHAPTER 20

What followed was a well-produced biography of Lita Mendez, starting with how she grew up on the mean streets of Boyle Heights and ending with her crusade against the LAPD. It included a filmed dispute between Lita and Capt. Stephanie Madrid shot by local TV news cameras outside the IA building. Captain Madrid was demanding that Lita and her pack of neighborhood demonstrators disperse. In the film, Lita was wearing a T-shirt with the picture of a particular police officer screen-printed on the front and a statement accusing him of shooting an unarmed gangster on the back.

The bio included an interview, obviously taken only hours ago, because it was conducted from inside Corcoran State Prison. Nash was in the visitors’ center with Lita’s brother, Homer Mendez. Homer was a stocky, muscular man about twenty-eight years old who had Evergreen ink all over him. He called the police murderous chota.

“I knew those cop bastards would eventually kill my big sis,” he said sadly.

“LAPD Detective Shane Scully has been assigned to the Lita Mendez murder case and this is a very troubling choice,” Nash said, narrating this piece of the film package over a stolen shot of me taken yesterday morning as I was walking toward the media control area a block from Lita’s house.

The next shot showed Nix outside Lita’s house, posthomicide. The police cars were gone, but there was yellow crime scene tape strung everywhere. “Why would this particular homicide detective be assigned to this particular case?” he asked with a troubled look.

A picture of Alexa now appeared on the screen. It was a publicity photo taken a few months ago when she’d made captain. She was in her dress blues but looked a little severe in the shot with her braided hat set low, shadowing her gorgeous eyes. Her hair was pulled back; captain’s bars glittered on her shoulders. She was still beautiful, but off this pose you definitely wouldn’t mess with her. Since this particular photo was never published, I wondered how Nash had gotten his hands on it.

“This woman is LAPD Captain Alexa Scully, and she is Detective Scully’s wife,” Nash intoned solemnly. Then the film package ended and the shot switched back to Nix in the conference room. “Get this,” he said. “Because here’s where the big questions begin. Alexa Scully is also the Chief of Detectives for the entire LAPD.”

I was getting angry, but there was nothing I could do to stop this. The shot widened to show the full conference room and the other V-TV cast members.

“Coincidence or conspiracy?” Nix intoned. Then he turned to his panel of experts. “First, let’s talk to Frank Palgrave, who used to work the homicide desk in L.A.’s Metro Division.”

“Camera One, tighten on Palgrave,” Drew Burke said. “Camera Two, stay with Nix. Hold sizes; we’re intercutting.”

“Frank, how are homicide detectives assigned to cases in Homicide Special?” Nash asked. The camera shots cut back and forth as they talked.

“They’re on a standard rotation, just like at the individual divisions.”

“Interesting. So Scully and his partner, Sumner Hitchens, would be given this case as part of a normal rotation.”

“Yes.”

“So let me get this straight,” Nix said, his brow furrowed theatrically. “Along comes this red-hot grounder where a vocal police critic has been murdered, and the Hollenbeck detectives call up Homicide Special and give it over to them. Then lo and behold, who happens to just pop up as the lead investigator, but the very husband of the Chief of D’s. That sound right?” Nash asked the panel.

“I think it’s preposterous,” Judge Web Russell said. “It’s much more likely that, because of the high-profile animosity between Miss Mendez and law enforcement, the LAPD was trying to contain the situation and Detective Scully was chosen by his wife to operate as an agent of the department.”

“Wow,” Nix said. “Are you suggesting the cops are trying to bury this case?” He paused for effect, then said, “And then there’s this.”

Drew cued up a film package that showed Edwin Chavaria being introduced by Nix Nash on tape. That was followed by a shot of Chavaria exiting the V-TV van to come over and talk to me.

I realized that I’d been duped when Chavaria stopped at the side of the van and refused to go farther. He’d led me to a preset camera position so the encounter could be recorded by a hidden microphone and HD camera filming through a smoked-glass window from inside the production van.

The stolen interview of course included me telling Chavaria that I wasn’t a very nice guy and considered myself to be a shithead. The word was bleeped, but you could read my lips. It also included me saying if Chavaria didn’t cooperate, I would bust and jail him on anything I could find, including old traffic warrants. The interview between us had been edited and tightened. It included Chava’s description of the argument between Lita and Carla over the ceiling fan.

After that came the arrest of Carla and Julio Sanchez. The shot featured Nash standing on the street corner as Hitch and I watched the squad car pull out with the Sanchezes in custody.

Then we were back in the conference room. The shot was close on Nix Nash. “So when you break it down, here’s what the cops basically have against Carla and Julio Sanchez. No time-of-death evidence locking either of them to the murder. All the police have to support their flimsy arrest is a statement about a front-porch argument over a ceiling fan from this gangbanger, Edwin Chavaria, who my producer just found out has an extensive criminal record and was a sworn enemy of Carla’s husband, Julio Sanchez. Questionable testimony at best. But that’s not the worst of it. There’s also this.…”

Drew said, “Roll film package two.”

Even though the control truck was kept chilly, beads of sweat began to form on my forehead.

Now Nash was interviewing a tough-looking, middle-aged, heavily tattooed Hispanic woman whom he identified as Janice Santiago.

“I was across the street,” Santiago said. “It was late. I was walking my dog and I saw a blue Sidewinder truck pull up at Lita’s house and then, because Lita gets a lot of threats, I just … well, I shot it on my cell phone.”

“This was the night of the murder?” Nash asked.

“Yes, around eleven P.M.”

“Camera Four, you’re up and staying wide,” Drew said.

The shot took us back to the conference room. Nash held up the iPhone. “Here’s the cell that Janice Santiago shot her video on,” he said. “And here’s what she shot.”

“Roll it,” Drew said, and the cell-phone footage played on a large screen in the conference room so that all of Nix’s “experts” could see it and participate.

The cell video was time-stamped 10:48 P.M. On the screen Carla Sanchez walked up to Lita’s front porch and rang the bell. Lita opened the door; Carla dug out her wallet, pulled out some money, and handed it over. Then Lita handed Carla the ceiling fan, which Carla carried back to the truck. She got in the Sidewinder and Julio drove them both away.

“Camera One, move in tight on Nix,” Drew said.

“So, there’s your corroborating witness, including a cell video proving Carla Sanchez’s story that she bought the ceiling fan just as she said she had. Yet, strangely, this innocent woman and her husband are still in jail. Why couldn’t the cops find Janice Santiago? She lives just down the street in Lita’s neighborhood. It only took me half an hour to locate her. What’s going on here, Marcia?”

“Somebody’s not doing their job,” Marcia Breen said in close-up. “Or worse still, maybe somebody wants the Sanchezes in jail so they can charge Carla and Julio with this crime. If the Sanchezes are found guilty of Lita’s murder, it could cover over what’s really going on, couldn’t it?”

“And what do you suppose that is?” Nix asked innocently. “Let’s see.… Hey, maybe it’s this.”

And we were again on the same shot of Lita Mendez inside her living room.

She was looking into the camera just as before. “My name is Lolita Mendez,” she said again. “I live in Boyle Heights, a suburb of L.A., and members of the Los Angeles Police Department are trying to kill me.”

The shot switched back to Nash in close-up. “We’ll be right back,” he said solemnly as they went to commercial.