Vigilante

CHAPTER 40

It was nine thirty that same night and we were gathered in the public affairs conference room, just down the hall from the new four-hundred-seat auditorium, which would soon be getting a lot of use with this media-intense murder.

Deputy Chief Hawkins was seated at the head of the conference table, flanked by Jeb and Alexa. Hitch and I remained standing as we presented our theory. When we were finished, silence prevailed.

“You’re saying that this famous, internationally known TV personality is committing serial murders and then solving them to make his show more entertaining?” DC Hawkins finally asked skeptically.

“He’s not doing the actual murders himself,” I said. “Lee Bob Batiste is. And let’s not forget the ratings this is producing. Variety just reported Nash signed a new two-year deal with his syndicator for forty million dollars up front, plus fifteen percent of the back end. That’s huge. Don’t tell me money can’t be a motive for murder. Guys in this town can get washed out over a ten-dollar spoon of heroin.”

More silence.

I could feel sweat beginning to form under my ass. This was a very cold house. Only Alexa seemed neutral, but to be fair, she trusted my instincts on cases and had seen me be right too many times. Our captain, Jeb, sat Buddha-esque, impossible to read.

“It certainly straightens out that bizarre coincidence that has Lita Mendez’s murder and Hannah Trumbull’s both involving the Madrids,” Alexa said. “All Nash needed was one open murder, Hannah’s. It touched Lester. Then he kills the second victim, Lita, and plants Stephanie’s coffee cup with her DNA evidence in Lita’s driveway just like he did with that overcoat in Atlanta.”

“Detective Cole told us that everything would tie together,” I said. “And this is how he’s doing it.”

At that point, Deputy Chief Hawkins stood and walked to the door. I thought we’d lost him, but he stopped abruptly and turned to face us again.

“Okay,” he said, surprising me. “Let’s say I go for it. You still don’t have enough to write either a search or arrest warrant on Nash. That Baffin boot print certainly isn’t enough unless you can prove it belongs to Batiste, which you can’t. So how do you propose to do this?”

“We need to find Lee Bob Batiste and bust him first,” I said. “If we can get him to flip, we’ll have Nix Nash. I’ve got no proof that Lee Bob’s still in L.A., but my bet is he is. This isn’t a guy you’re gonna fly around on United Airlines. Nash probably hired somebody to drive him out here and parked him some place out of the way. If that’s the case, he’s probably still here. We need to find him and pick him up.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Hawkins challenged.

“I’m gonna try and scare the shit out of Nash. He thinks he’s way ahead of us. He’s not used to getting pushed. If he knows we’re on to him, he might do something stupid. If Nash contacts Batiste to warn him, then we try and get to Batiste before he splits.”

“You walk in there and tell Nash about all of this and he’s gonna throw you out. Then he’ll send his lawyers after you. You don’t have a shred of proof.”

“I have something else in mind,” I said. “But before we do it, we need to get a citywide phone trace set up. Then we need units parked strategically around the basin. If Nash calls to warn Batiste, we need to be ready to pounce.”

Then I explained the rest of what I had in mind.