Vigilante

CHAPTER 24

At eight thirty the next morning, Hitch and I sat across the table from Carla and Julio Sanchez and their young attorney, Alfredo Zelaya, in an I-room at the Hollenbeck Station. Zelaya should have been clocking high-dollar hours as a GUESS model. He had a swarthy complexion, wavy black hair, and two perfect rows of sparkling teeth. He was tricked out in a black suit, crisp white shirt, and maroon tie.

Carla squatted uncomfortably on a metal chair, overhanging the seat dangerously on both sides while complaining. “We didn’t do nothing and still we hadda spend two days in this fuckin’ shit hole.”

“You and your husband were being held as material witnesses,” I said. “In our opinion, you’ve also chosen to insert yourselves into Lita Mendez’s murder investigation by making false statements. If we can prove collusion or obstruction of justice, we’re gonna file it.”

“Is this going to take much longer?” Zelaya said, sounding way too tired and bored for such a snazzy-looking guy. “We don’t need to hear any more threats. I was told you were going to cut my clients loose, so let’s sign the forms and get out of here.”

Hitch slid the release forms across the table. As Zelaya was reading, Hitch turned to Carla and said, “We know you have some kind of deal with Nix Nash and V-TV.”

“Prove it!” Julio injected angrily.

“Was there anything else?” Zelaya had finished scanning the document. “Or can we please sign these and go?”

“You’re released,” I said.

All the way back to the PAB, Hitch and I were both still burning over our time-wasting runaround with the Sanchezes. We’d been set up and then stuffed like amateurs.

It was around ten thirty when we took the elevator up to Homicide Special. I dialed the Atlanta PD to get contact numbers for the two detectives who had worked the Piedmont Park murders. I’d seen half the shows and remembered one of the detectives was named Caleb Cole. I couldn’t remember his partner’s name.

The sergeant I spoke with in Atlanta PD’s Human Resources Department gave me Cole’s phone number and current address. He’d retired and was now living in Mission Viejo, near San Diego. The sergeant said that Cole’s partner was named Ronald Baron, but that after he’d resigned, he dropped off the radar and Atlanta PD didn’t have any current information on him. They were holding his pension checks.

Hitch and I called Caleb Cole on the speakerphone. He answered on the first ring. A bad connection full of static filled the line, sounding like bacon frying. After we identified ourselves and gave him a quick rundown on what was happening and why we wanted to talk to him and his partner, Cole told us in his slow southern drawl that he’d also lost track of Ron Baron. Apparently, after leaving Atlanta, Ron had started drinking and the last Cole had heard, he’d gone to Mississippi to work construction. Caleb Cole came west and was now aboard his cousin’s lobster boat, which was at that moment a mile off the San Diego jetty, explaining the poor phone reception.

“If you’re fixin’ to work a case Nash is lookin’ at, then my best advice for you boys is get helmets and flack vests,” Cole said. “You’re gonna end up looking as confused as Kmart Republicans. Me and Ronnie was running a high temperature in the press on account a two of the girls who got killed in Piedmont Park came from good Atlanta families and they kept up the political pressure. Our bosses wanted it solved fast and that’s what happened. But when it was done with, I’m not at all certain we booked the right doer.”

“I thought that schizophrenic bum Nash found sleeping in the park confessed,” Hitch said.

“Yeah, but we’re talking about a totally gassed crystal meth freak who didn’t even have a regular name, just Fuzzy. Guy made Nick Nolte’s mug shot look like the statue of David. He’d been scraping corrosion off of old car batteries and mixing it with crystal to amp up his fixes. When we booked him, Fuzzy was so confused he was breathing outta his ass.”

“You saying he didn’t do it?” Hitch asked.

“He said he did, but it’s hard to put much faith in a guy with a pet spider named Louis he kept in a matchbox. This guy who prayed three times a day to a pile of rocks he’d stacked up behind the park toilet.” Cole heaved a sigh. “Listen, all the captain cared about was that Fuzzy was wearing an overcoat with four of the six dead girls’ DNA on it. Our department was being blasted for not getting anywhere, so when Nash finds this guy and Fuzzy cops to all six killings, everybody was so happy the case was off the board, we had him booked and cooked by sundown.”

“Listen, Caleb, if you had something to tell us about Nash-a heads-up of some kind-what would it be?” I asked.

“Don’t take nothing for granted, ’cause everything means something.”

“Explain.”

“Everything that happens on that damn TV show has a purpose. A reason. It’s uncanny, but in the end, it will all somehow tie together. You won’t think it’s going to, but it will.”

Then the signal started breaking up.

“I’m losing you,” he said. “We’re out at sea heading south and the cell pods down here near Mexico are like nonexistent. I’m coming to L.A. next weekend. Gimme your number and we can get together if you still want.”

Hitch and I traded him our cell numbers just before the line went dead.

After he was gone, I looked across the desk. My partner had one Spanish loafer propped up on his lower drawer, the pleated knee of his expensive gray slacks peeking just above the desktop. His brow was furrowed and he was blowing reflectively through steepled fingertips. His thinker’s pose.

“What?” I asked. “You got something? Let’s hear it.”

“It’s stupid, okay? A long shot.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Okay,” he said, putting his foot down and sitting up straighter. “We know now that the argument over the fan, the Sanchez arrest, and Janice Santiago’s cell video were all part of a big setup to make us look like douche bags.”

“Yeah.”

“And Nash choosing the Hannah Trumbull case on the air, also staged, right?”

I nodded again.

“And Caleb just said watch out because everything on that show has a purpose and it will eventually all tie together.”

“Where’s this going?”

“I’m just thinking, how’s it possible that Hannah Trumbull’s murder in ’06 has anything to do with Lita’s murder two nights ago? How’s that ever gonna tie together?”

“I don’t think it does.”

“I’m thinking we’re already in the blender, maybe we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get out. Suppose Caleb’s right and the Hannah Trumbull case is gonna somehow affect Lita’s murder. Maybe we should just go ahead and fully engage with this guy.”

“You mean, put in for Hannah’s cold case, get it assigned over to us?”

“That was my notion,” Hitch said. “I’m not saying it’s real smart; it’s just an idea. You asked what I was thinking.”

I thought about it for almost a minute.

“I’ll give you this much,” I finally said. “Nash will never see it coming.”