Vigilante

CHAPTER 36

While I was at sea learning about broken windows and social corruption, Hitch had spent the day doing scut work on our two cases, trying to set up interviews with Lita Mendez’s balky neighbors and putting together a victimology profile on Hannah Trumbull. It had left him in a prickly mood.

One of the most important parts of a homicide investigation is establishing victimology. Neighbors and friends often know things about a victim that can be surprisingly helpful. I once worked a case where a neighbor told me the vic couldn’t wear cotton because it gave her a skin rash. The dead woman’s body was found in a motel lying on cotton sheets. But the neighbor had explained that when the victim traveled she always took silk sheets in her luggage to remake hotel beds. That information led us to realize the killer had obviously not known the woman well and was unaware of her allergy. He was trying to make it look like a suicide and had purchased new sheets to get rid of his semen stains. We were able to trace the sheets to a nearby Walmart, and a credit card led us to the killer. You never know where a case-breaking lead might come from.

The problem with Hannah’s victimology was the murder was more than four years old and over time memories for detail fade.

The problem with Lita’s death was nobody on her block wanted to talk to us. Hitch was visibly frustrated by the time I dropped into my chair at Homicide Special a little past 2:00 P.M. and propped my feet up on a wastebasket.

“That was an interesting day,” I said.

“Can’t have been as much fun as having forty neighbors bitch you out.”

“Palgrave thinks Nash is good people. Marcia told me to watch my back and Nix threatened me.”

“Just another rollicking good day with the animals,” Hitch replied.

“There was a moment there down belowdecks in the captain’s cabin when Nix started acting like a fifty-one-fifty,” I said, referring to the police code for a head case.

Hitch looked surprised. “You think he’s nuts?”

“I’m not sure.” I recounted Nix’s rant on William Bligh and how he saw the HMS Bounty as a metaphor for his career.

“At the end we had a real Jack Nicholson moment,” I concluded.

Hitch sat back and pondered it. Then he said, “So that’s all you took away? That a guy who we already know is an egomaniac also has delusions of grandeur?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Already knew that,” Hitch said, and picked up the phone sheet he was working his way through.

“Well, maybe there’s one other thing,” I said.

He glanced back up.

“It’s more of an impression than anything else. I was trying to goad him with the Lee Bob Batiste bust and he said something that came off strange.”

“Yeah?”

“He said Bobby was illiterate and semi-educated.”

“He probably was.”

“He didn’t say ‘Lee Bob’; he said ‘Bobby,’ like he was friends with him.”

“Now you are grasping. You can’t believe Nash intentionally blew that bust.”

“I didn’t say that. It just hit me funny.”

My phone rang and I picked it up. “Detective Scully,” I said.

“Shane, it’s Sue Shepherd. I’m sitting in the patio behind the Bradbury Building. You wanted to know when Captain Madrid or her husband was eating here. Well, they’re on the patio right now, having a late lunch.”

I checked my watch. Two thirty-five.

“Thanks, Sue.”

I disconnected and got to my feet. “Grab your coat. Let’s go.”

“What is it?”

“Fill you in on the way.”

We made it to the underground garage in two minutes and took Hitch’s car because I wasn’t sure the Acura hadn’t been bugged. On the six-block drive to the Bradbury Building I filled Hitch in.

“Since we can’t get a body warrant, I asked an investigating officer I know at the Bradbury to keep an eye on the cafeteria. She just called. Lester and Stephanie are on the patio having a late lunch.

“Wanta do a Dumpster dive?”

“Got a better plan?”

“As long as you do it, I think the idea smokes.”

We pulled in behind the building and moved carefully toward the patio dining area.

“Listen, I guess I should mention that Lester showed up outside my house this morning and tried to warn me off his wife’s investigation.”

“All we need now is Internet posts of us with strippers,” Hitch said.

“I think we should treat Lester with extreme care. If we blunder in there and start clocking these two, it could get nasty.”

“I’m testifying on that Quadry Barnes case anyway, so I’ve got a reason to be here. I’ll go get a sandwich and sit out there, keep an eye on ’em. You wait in the Porsche. I’ll call you on your cell and keep you posted.”

So that’s what we did. Hitch went through the food line and took a seat at a small patio table. I went back to the car. He called once to tell me Stephanie and Lester were still seated at a table by the Biddy Mason wall, talking in low voices.

Ten minutes later Hitch called me again.

“You’ll never guess what I just noticed,” he said.

“What?”

“They’re both drinking from paper coffee cups with that same brown flower decoration like the one we found near Lita’s driveway.”

“Where’d those cups come from? We checked the cafeteria.”

“I don’t know, but I’d hate to end up filling out one-eighty-seven complaints on these two.”

“Just hang in there. Watch those cups. Don’t let them out of your sight.”

“Duh…,” he said, and hung up.

Five minutes later my phone rang again.

“They’re bussing their table now. Haven’t made me yet. Oops … spoke too soon.”

I heard Stephanie Madrid’s voice coming over my cell speaker. “Have you started following me around now, Detective?”

“No, ma’am,” Hitch said. “Just here doing my third depo on that damn Quadry Barnes deal.”

Then a minute later I heard his cell phone being picked up and he was back.

“They’ve left,” he said. “Come on. There’s a crime kit in my trunk. Take what we need. I’ll go protect the evidence.”

I took two pairs of latex gloves and some evidence bags out of his crime kit and made it to the patio area in about ten seconds. Hitch had already located the cups in a trash can and was keeping other people from dumping their lunch clutter on top. I put on one set of gloves and handed a second pair to Hitch. Then I stuck my hand in the barrel, pulled the cups out one at a time, and passed them to Hitch. Both were identical to the one we found at Lita’s house.

“We need evidence bags,” Hitch said.

“Got ’em.” I pulled them out of my coat pocket and he dropped the cups inside. “Let’s go talk to Food Services.”

We found the Hispanic guy who supplied the cafeteria and the coffee rooms on all six floors of the Bradbury and showed him the cups inside our clear plastic evidence bags.

“These aren’t in the main cafeteria,” Hitch said. “You know where they came from?”

“The exotic blends machine up on four,” he said.

“Exotic blends?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’ve got a machine up there for the senior staff in the Advocates Section-captains, commanders, and lieutenants. It’s got all kinds of blends, Brazilian, Caramel Mocha. You know, expensive stuff.”

We thanked him and hurried back to the car.

“This ain’t gonna end up good,” Hitch said.

“I know.” Then, because we were heading to the forensic lab at Cal State where our electronics surveillance unit was located, I had Hitch drop me at the PAB so I could pick up my car and follow him there.