Vigilante

CHAPTER 26

“That was Judge Amador. He wants to see us in the cafe downstairs in fifteen minutes,” Hitch said as he hung up his desk phone. It was ten o’clock the next morning and we were in our cubicle, hard at work. “He’s over here on another matter, but has to be back at court by eleven.”

“He say why?” I asked.

“Nope, but he’s probably not selling T-shirts.”

“Superior court judges don’t call up line detectives to have coffee,” I said. “Something’s up.”

“He knows we’re working the Mendez case, because I talked to him about it yesterday. Maybe it has something to do with that. He told me it got pretty ugly at Lita’s pretrial hearing with Captain Madrid.”

“Wonderful.”

I groaned and looked down at Hannah Trumbull’s murder book that had just been sent over from the Records and Identification Division. It was spread out all over my desk. When it was delivered an hour earlier, we’d found it in a complete mess. Report pages were missing, time lines out of order, and half the crime scene and autopsy photo pages were gone. It looked like somebody had shuffled through the papers, removed material, and subsequently not returned it. Whoever did it had left the book in shambles. I’d spent the last hour trying to reassemble it into some kind of correct order and determine what was missing.

“You get a callback yet on who checked this thing out of Records?” I asked. “When I get my hands on that gremlin I’m gonna create a fresh hospital case.”

“Not yet.”

“It better not connect back to Frank Palgrave,” I groused.

“If V-TV has a mole inside this department it won’t be a friend of Palgrave’s. That’s way too obvious for Nash.” Hitch looked at his watch. “Guess we’d better go see what His Honor wants.”

We put on our jackets and headed out. On the way we caught a lot of sympathetic looks from the other detectives. They knew Captain Madrid and Nix Nash were circling our case like hungry carrion, and our coworkers had already started treating us like looming pension cases.

Hitch looked sharp this morning. I checked his threads as we stepped into the elevator. He was styling a black Armani pinstripe with a gray shirt and maroon tie. His expensive maroon crocodile loafers that matched his tie must have set him back at least a grand.

“For now, because the murder book is such a mess, I think we’re gonna have to rebuild this entire Trumbull case ourselves,” I told him as the elevator doors hissed closed. “I just got off the phone with the Payroll Department downstairs. Detective Hall retired in ’07 and promptly went on the EOW wall.” The end-of-watch wall in the lobby has the names of all deceased LAPD officers. “His current address is at Forest Lawn. Fatal car accident last year.

“Monroe got in his twenty, also pulled the pin in ’07, and moved to Eugene, Oregon. I called his wife. He’s on a deer-hunting trip on Mount Hood. She says he’s going to be out of cell contact for at least another week. I don’t want to wait a week and have Nash get that far ahead of us, so for now we gotta push on without him.”

Hitch nodded and picked some nonexistent lint off his cuff. “I think I hear an oboe playing,” he said sadly.

“A what?”

“The oboe is a mournful instrument that plays in movie soundtracks when something bad is about to happen.”

“That’s not an oboe; that’s the new leather squeaking on those kick-ass maroon crocs you’re wearing.”

We walked into the LA Reflections Cafe, which is located on the ground floor of the PAB, arriving right on time. The new restaurant was a two-hundred-seat layout with cafeteria-style service on one side and traditional dining on the other. A floor-to-ceiling expanse of glass streamed morning sunshine into the cafe and looked out onto an enclosed patio beyond.

The lower floors of the Police Administration Building were designed with a lot of interior windows that faced out into enclosed atriums. This paranoid architecture was intended to defeat the threat of sniper fire from the buildings across the street. We went through the food line, got coffee and rolls, and then found Judge Thomas Amador reading the L.A. Times sports page at a table by the window.

“Judge?” Hitch asked.

He looked up and smiled. “Hey, guys, sit down.”

Tom Amador was a big-boned guy with a husky build, a faded Marine tattoo on his forearm, and hair the color of roadside snow. Under his robes in court he usually wore jeans, a T-shirt, and frayed sneakers, which is exactly what he had on now. He looked more like the guy who comes over to detail your car than a superior court judge. Amador pushed aside the remains of his breakfast to make room for us as we slid our trays onto the table, straddled the small wood chairs, then both stuck perfect butt-first landings.

“I’m hearing for the first time this morning that you guys drew the black ace.” He turned to Hitch. “You didn’t mention that yesterday, Detective.”

“If you mean Nix Nash picked the Mendez case to fuck with, then yeah, that’s us, Your Honor,” Hitch replied.

“That’s why I wanted to see you as soon as possible.” The judge looked at his watch. “I’m running a little late. I have some motions to hear in half an hour, so let’s skip the small talk and just get to it.”

“Yes, sir,” Hitch said

Judge Amador pushed an iPhone with a set of earbuds plugged into it across the table at us.

“You guys can share the earbuds. I don’t want to play this through the phone speakers in a crowded restaurant. It’s cued up. You’ll see it’s a little sensitive.” Hitch scooted his chair closer to mine and we each inserted a bud. I positioned the iPhone between us so we could both see the screen and hit Play.

We were looking at a video being taken through the side window of a car parked in an underground garage. The shot finally settled on a department-issue blue sedan as it chirped in behind a red Chevy Caprice, blocking it just as the Caprice was reversing out of its stall. Stephanie Madrid got out of the blue sedan and slammed the door as Lita Mendez threw open the Chevy’s door and angrily stormed up to confront her. From the wall markings on the garage I recognized it as the parking structure located directly behind the municipal courthouse. Both women were dressed in conservative court attire.

“I’ve had enough of your bullshit!” Lita screamed. It was just barely audible from the distance. Then she got right in Captain Madrid’s face. “Move your fucking car!” Lita yelled.

“You little whore,” Captain Madrid responded, her face purple with rage. “All that shit you pulled in there. How many lies do you think you can get away with?”

“Get out of my way,” Lita said, stepping forward, moving directly into Stephanie Madrid’s space. “I want to leave. You’re blocking me.”

Without warning, Captain Madrid pushed Lita back to create some space between them. Lita was now against the trunk of her car.

“It’s not just me,” Madrid snarled. “There are others. You’ve been warned. Continue on this path at your own peril.”

Then Stephanie Madrid turned and started back to her car, but Lita stepped forward and swung her large purse, hitting Stephanie between the shoulder blades. Captain Madrid pivoted smartly and threw a wicked overhand right. It was the kind of punch every recruit was taught at the academy-straight from the shoulder. It landed in the middle of Lita’s forehead. The smaller Hispanic woman went down as if her legs had been yanked out from under her. Hitch and I watched in amazement as the captain now knelt down over Lita and hissed something inaudible at her.

Then Captain Madrid stood and walked to her department-issue sedan, her face a mask of rage. She slammed the door and pulled out. A minute later, Lita Mendez stood up, got into her Caprice, and pulled away as well.

When it was over I looked at the judge, who had been watching us carefully.

“How did we ever solve these damn things before cell phones?” he said dryly.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

“Court clerk. She was eating a late lunch in her car after a pretrial conference in Judge Lambert’s chambers. She brought it to me this morning because she knew the Madrid-Mendez case was in my court.”

Hitch and I sat looking at him, not sure of what to say.

“Of course, that video only strikes to motive and possibly to premeditation if a murder charge is ever filed,” Amador said. “But as it is, I need to caution you that while provocative, this doesn’t prove Captain Madrid killed Lita Mendez. Just that they argued and she hit Lita after being attacked.”

“Yes,” I said. “We understand.”

“You need to handle this very delicately,” he went on. “It certainly needs to be addressed, but if this falls into the wrong hands, careers could be destroyed.”

“By ‘the wrong hands,’ do you mean V-TV?” Hitch asked.

“I mean anybody. Certainly Captain Madrid has a lot to explain. Here’s a quick legal take on that video from a judge’s point of view: Madrid initiated the dispute and then pushed Mendez. I’m sure Captain Madrid will argue that’s because she was being crowded by an out-of-control woman and the push was an attempt to create separation. But viewed differently, it could also be called assault. Lita swinging her purse is a clear case of battery. So when Captain Madrid swung back, she can claim she was defending herself. But like most of these things, it’s not clear-cut. Captain Madrid, as a sworn badge carrier, was certainly out-of-bounds. There is no excuse for what she did, but those two have an ugly, contentious history. They’ve been warring for years.”

“Can we keep the cell phone for a few hours until we can get this video transferred?” Hitch asked.

“Go ahead, but get it back to me as soon as you can.”

“This court clerk,” I said. “Will she stay tight?”

“Her name is Kathy Putnam. She used to be my clerk a few years ago. She understands how sensitive this is.”

“Thanks, Your Honor.”

He stood, gathered up his things, said, “Good luck.”

We sat there in brooding silence, neither of us speaking for a good minute.

“I think I can hear that oboe now,” I finally said.