the Pallbearers (2010) Read online

  "Thanks for the ride, but I've got stuff to do."

  "Pop didn't gonk himself. You know it. I know it. Anybody who knew him knows it. This is bullshit."

  "Okay," I said. "You through?" "No."

  He pocketed his keys and walked around his bike. "Gimme ten minutes to make my case, then Til book."

  "Shit," I said softly, but after taking a moment to think it over, I relented and led him to the front door.

  We went inside and I left him in the entry but kept an eye on him while I got two beers from the fridge in the kitchen. Then we walked through the house and out into the backyard. He followed me, his neck on a swivel, looking around, checking the place out.

  "You're right. Lotta pricey shit here. I love the papier-mache Mexican dolls in the living room. Where'd you buy those, Sotheby's?"

  I handed him a beer. "You're on the clock, Jack." I pointedly looked at my watch.

  "Jesus, Scully. Ease up. I haven't even removed this twist-off cap."

  "What joint?" I asked. "Where'd you cell up?"

  "Soledad. Got six years, gavel to gravel. Only did four. Two years were knocked off for good time. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Pop helped me get out. He was on my parole sheet. He's the one who got me the job at the cycle shop in Long Beach so I'd qualify for early release.

  "I have a one-month hearing coming up with my P. O. next week. Guy's a real Barney. Walt was gonna go to my parole evaluation hearing and do my character stuff. We talked the day before he supposedly blew his head off. The man was not suicidal, okay? No way he went out in his backyard and did the Dutch. He was upbeat. He told me things were getting better at Huntington House. He sounded real pleased about something. Wouldn't tell me what, but he was flying, man."

  "Ever heard of extreme mood swings?"

  Straw put down the beer and looked out at the canal.

  "This is kinda restful back here. How does a guy who lives in such a peaceful setting get such a puckered asshole?"

  "Okay, I guess that's it then." I started for the sliding-glass porch door to show him out, but Jack held his ground.

  "Hey, Scully. Answer me one thing. If you won't do it for me, then do it in Pop's memory." "What?"

  "You're a cop. You know how this is gonna come out. The burn squad will say he torched the office or whatever, then killed himself cause that closes the case so they can get it off their desk and move on. You can't really think that's what happened."

  "Apparently there was a state audit coming. Money was missing. That's what Diamond thinks."

  "I don't care what Diamond thinks. I want to know what you think."

  "I don't know what I think."

  "You're kinda close to the vest, ain't ya?" He smiled. "Or maybe you're just a pussy."

  "Yeah, maybe that's it." I took a step closer.

  He backed up and put his hands out saying, "Come on, let's try to be adults here."

  He picked up his beer, almost draining it in one shot. Then he looked at me.

  "So now we got Pop, the embezzler who sets fire to the office bungalow to burn the evidence of his crimes, then kills himself with a shotgun. What's next, child rape?"

  "Okay," I admitted reluctantly. "I agree it feels wrong."

  He nodded. "So we just say, too bad. Let the fucking cops pin this fire on him. Blow the home's insurance policy away. Whatever Arson says, that's it?"

  I couldn't answer him. I just stood there feeling impotent.

  "You're a cop, man. You could . . . y'know, raise some questions, make some trouble. I asked around at the church. Talked to some scary-looking chick. Theresa Gonzales."

  "Rodriguez."

  He nodded. "She said back then, you were a scowling, ugly presence with five or six throw backs. No chance you'd ever make it in life. Look at what you got now. I don't have to ask if Pop had anything to do with it, 'cause I knew the man. You owe him, dude. Why don't you fucking pay up?"

  He pinned me with hard gray eyes.

  "Okay," I said. "Here's why I can't do anything. The police already investigated. They didn't find evidence pointing to anything but suicide. The city medical examiner did an autopsy of the body. Same result. Coroner listed it as a probable suicide. There was a suicide note sealing the deal.

  "The body was released for burial with the classification self-inflicted gunshot--'death by his own hand.' No homicide number was assigned by the department, so there is no crime. Unless Arson finds a crime and puts a burn number on it, there's nothing to investigate.

  "I'm a homicide detective, but I can't work a case unless the department assigns it a number. What about this don't you get? No homicide number--no case. Got it? I start messing with this I'll get gigged."

  "Bunch a words," Jack said.

  "You wanta get outta here, now?"

  "Sure."

  He picked up his leather jacket, slung it over his tattooed shoulder, and then walked back through the house. I heard the front door slam. The Harley growled and roared away.

  I stayed in the backyard for a long time after he left, just sitting there while I waited for Alexa to get home. She made it just before dinner and came outside to find me in my chair, looking in the direction of the ocean two city blocks away. In my mind I'd been picturing Walt out there waiting for that perfect set, searching for just the right steep. In my memory I saw him in the curl, shuffling up to the nose of his old cigar-box board in that weird Quasimodo stance of his, hair flying, riding the down rail. Why the hell had I deserted him?

  "You okay?" Alexa asked.

  "Can't go to Hawaii," I said sadly. "I've gotta stay here and work on this."

  CHAPIER 9

  Alexa must have seen it coming. She didn't argue or try to change my mind. Instead, she put her arms around me and pulled me close. I was choked up with emotion, not handling it well. She could feel my heavy breathing and maybe sensed I was closc to tears.

  So much of this was complicated in a way that I couldn't even describe. You can cut yourself some slack as a child because all children start out being selfish. But you want to believe something better of yourself as a man.

  I understood why I was so angry when I was at Huntington House. I even understood why I'd had the feelings I'd had about not wanting to go back there. But that didn't excuse the fact that I hadn't gone. Sometimes in life you have to make hard choices. There's going to be some pain along the way.

  Alexa held me for a while, then she brought us each a beer.

  "You've had two already. Might as well go all the way," she said, handing me a fresh bottle.

  "I only had one." Then I saw Jack's empty sitting on the glass-topped table. "Oh, that. That was that biker guy, Jack Straw. He ended up bringing me home on his chopper. What a fuckhead."

  "You gonna run him?" she asked me, knowing as surely as I did that he was dirty.

  "He already told me he got sentenced to a long nickel for burglary. Went to Soledad. Got out in four."

  "Figures." She sat beside me and held my hand. We sipped the beers.

  "What'd you think of Huntington House?" I finally asked.

  "Truthfully?"

  "No, I want you to lie to me."

  "I thought it looked pretty shabby."

  "They were having money problems."

  I told her what Diamond said, including the suspicion that Pop had set the office on fire to cover up records of missing funds. When I got through, she sat there thinking.

  "It sounds to me like he could have burned down that bungalow," she finally said. "I know you don't want to hear that, but it's certainly a possibility."

  "Yeah, it's gotta be looked at," I agreed, trying not to let her see my eyes, keeping my head turned away, not trusting what I might do or say.

  Then, because I wanted to change the subject and because Alexa is one of the best I ever met on cold reads, I asked, "Give me your take on the other five pallbearers."

  "Why?"

  "I'm trying to understand why Walt picked me. I had barely spoken to him in y
ears and yet, out of hundreds of kids who lived in that place, I'm one of six."

  "I've got a take on that."

  "Lets hear it, cause I'm completely lost."

  "Five of the six of you share one major and very uncommon trait." She looked at me. "This is just instinct, so treat it for what it is."

  I nodded.

  "You're kamikazes. Nonconformists who aren't worried about actions that might cause a bad result. You're also all uncompromising and stubborn." "That's it?"

  "Give me a psychologist and two weeks, I'll flesh it out for you. This is after only a few hours, not really trying." She smiled. "Of course, the biker is easy. Straw wouldn't follow a stripper upstairs after a lap dance. Complete renegade."

  "Agreed."

  "The Army corporal, Seriana Cotton, never smiled, and those eyes were always evaluating, always adding and subtracting. Her eyes are just like yours sometimes. She's armor plated. She'll take orders, but not blindly. She'd rather follow her own counsel. That's you, buddy."

  "And Vargas?"

  "The lawyer?" I nodded. "Rarely talks, never shows you what he's thinking. But when he does speak, he's willing to say the unpopular stuff. Vicki La whatever her name is. . ."

  "Lavicki."

  "She looks like a summer pastry in her little print dress and sensible shoes, but that's one very tough brass cupcake. She'll cut you no quarter. She will go down swinging, Shane Scully style.

  "Diamond Peterson is the only one who doesn't fit. She's a den mother. But she worked with Pop, so she probably got there on a pass."

  "You're saying, except for Diamond, they're all like me?"

  "Not exactly. But they share your trait of suspicious nonconformity. You're all walk alones who don't mind breaking the pottery."

  I thought about that for a long time.

  "Comments?" she said, looking over at me.

  "I guess I can see it," I said. "So why did he pick us?"

  "I don't know. Maybe he wanted you to do just what you're doing. Study this and wonder. Maybe, for some reason, he didn't want a bunch of organization drones carrying his coffin."

  We sat there for a while longer. Then she said, "You want me to make you something for dinner? I got the makings in there for a great casserole."

  "I looked in the fridge. Cheese and noodles isn't a great casserole."

  She slapped my arm playfully. "Stop complaining. We were going to Hawaii so I didn't go to the market. At least it's not peanut butter and jelly." Then she got up and went inside.

  I wondered if that was it. Pop knew us better than most. He'd been there when the raw material was being molded. He knew how hard our centers were. We'd all known him well and none of us thought he'd committed suicide because it wasn't in his DNA. Pop just wouldn't shotgun his head off alone in his backyard. He was a party-wave guy. As Theresa had said, he wouldn't take a sand ride.

  Did he pick me because I was such a stubborn uncompromising son of a bitch that I would never let go of this even if everything and everybody told me to? Was that the endearing quality that had earned me a place at his coffin rail?

  Had he chosen four of the other five for the same reason?

  It seemed pretty far-fetched. Pretty mystical. Anything with more than a ten percent bugga-bugga factor usually had me laughing, but I wasn't laughing tonight. Tonight I wondered if Walt was stuck in some heaven rip, backwalling beyond the break, watching and waiting for the six of us to do something.

  I wondered if we were supposed to somehow avenge his death so he could ride that big rhino out of limbo and finally make it back to shore.

  Chapter 10

  The medical examiner's office is on North Mission Road, not far from Parker Center. It's located on the top two floors of an ugly rectangular building that always reminds me of a large cement shoe box.

  I pulled into the lot at seven the next morning and looked for Ray Tsu's brown Toyota. I'd already called ahead and found out that Ray's ME section had done the police autopsy on Walter Dix.

  Ray is one of three chief coroners working under the L. A. medical examiner. He currently supervises the midnight to eight shift, which is the busy one because most murders occur after midnight. After his shift ends, Ray usually goes to breakfast. That's why I was down here so early.

  I spotted his car on the east side of the lot in a marked row of spaces reserved for the ME's staff, so I parked in visitors and went inside.

  Mission Road is not one of my favorite places, but a lot of my favorite police work gets done here. Its the morbid pall that overhangs a building devoted solely to death that always pulls me down.

  I called upstairs from reception and offered to buy Ray breakfast if he'd bring a photocopy of the Dix file with him. No crime had supposedly been committed, so I didn't think he would have a problem sharing the death report. Ray did, however, ask me why.

  "Walter Dix ran the group home where I was raised as a foster kid," I told him over the lobby phone. "We buried him yesterday and a lot of the people who also grew up there didn't believe he would kill himself. I told them I'd look at the file. Get some kind of closure for us or something," trying to low key it.

  "Where will we be dining?" Ray said in his soft, almost effeminate voice.

  "How about the Breakfast Bagel?" I suggested because it was close and cheap.

  "How about the Pacific Dining Car?"

  "Jesus, Ray. You seen the prices on the menu there?"

  "You want a cheap date, call Hairy Mary in forensics." He paused, then asked, "You want this file or not?"

  "God, you're such a whore."

  "Be right down."

  Ray was a rare piece of meat, a rail-thin Chinese American with fine black hair, which he wore long and parted in the middle, tucked behind each ear. A hairstyle that always reminded me of tie-back drapes. He spoke in such a soft voice that he'd been nicknamed Fey Ray by the homicide detectives who dealt with him.

  But Ray knew his stuff. He'd started out as a crime-scene criminalist, then went to medical school. He now supervised a staff of ten medical examiners and dieners. But Ray wasn't content to be an office jock. He was a devoted cutter who, despite his management position, still did a good bit of table work.

  We snagged a booth at the back of the original Pacific Dining Car on 6th Street, which is a great L. A. landmark restaurant, close enough to the downtown financial center to be a stockbroker hangout. The interior is done in red leather with green upholstered walls and brass fixtures. A polished oak bar dominates the Grill Room, where we were seated.

  Ray Tsu didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, but he ordered a big enough breakfast for two or three NFL linemen.

  "You planning on brown-bagging that to nibble on throughout the week?" I groused.

  "I'll get it all down, just watch."

  After our food came we got around to Walt's autopsy.

  "It was a standard do-it-yourself shooting," Ray said between bites of steak, hash browns, and eggs. He slid the file across the table to me. "Of course, unless we have video or pictures of the actual capping, we can only call it a probable. But there was nothing that indicated any unusual circumstances."

  I opened the file and thumbed through the ME's pictures of Pop. He was laid out on an autopsy table under harsh lights with half of his head missing. I'd seen plenty of similar shots over the years, but these knotted my stomach and shot a bolt of emotional guilt through me.

  "You did this one yourself?" I asked, putting the photos aside and looking at ten pages of small print and Latin medical phrases.

  "No. We usually give our newbies the slam dunks, which include most of the obvious suicides like this one."

  He reached over and spun the file around so he could read it. "This was done by Barbara Wilkes. She's only been with us for six months, but she's thorough. Does great work."

  "So I won't have to translate all this Latin, give me the top line."

  Ray looked down at the report. "Twelve-gauge shotgun blast took the back of the deceased
's head. The load hit him on the right side at the mastoid bone. The weapon was a Winchester Speed Pump Defender with an eighteen-inch barrel registered to Walter Dix. It was found on the grass just off the back porch, lying at a forty-degree angle, barrel away from the back of the chair he was on, which was tipped over with him still in it. He was holding the Winchester with his extended right hand, the barrel resting on his shoulder, head turned away. When the shotgun kicked, it threw itself over his right shoulder, onto the back lawn behind him. That would be the correct general position for what this looks like. He turned his mastoid area and the back of his head into red sauce and pasta. Blew his arithmetic all over the grass."

  I winced and Ray smiled sadly.

  "Sorry. Forgot you were his friend. He obliterated everything from his brain stem to the left side of his skull at the occipital bone. No other way to say it."

  "Okay. How about the body cavity? Any blunt-force trauma?"

  "No evidence that he was beaten before he died, if that's your question. No body contusions, bruises, or bone breaks. The blood-tox screen was normal--no drugs or alcohol. The homicide dicks have a file with his suicide note. I looked at it before I assigned Barbara to the autopsy. The standard 'Sorry, but I can't go on, my life is over' riff but full of surf lingo." He looked down at his ME report. "It was investigated by Kovacevich and Cole. It's not on here, but I think they said they were on the homicide desk over in Shootin' Newton."

  I couldn't understand why Newton Division homicide dicks would answer a call in Harbor City, which is out of their basic car area, but I didn't argue. I'd check that myself.

  "It reads as a straight suicide, Shane," Ray continued. "Guy did himself in."

  I sat thinking about this while Tsu shoveled down his entire breakfast as promised. I had no appetite, so I'd only ordered a fruit plate, but hadn't touched it.

  "You want that?" Fey Ray asked softly, pointing with his knife at my still-pristine plate of sliced grapefruit, strawberries, and oranges.

  "Help yourself," I offered.

  He pulled it over and dug in but was glancing up at me from time to time while he ate, checking me out.