Be Mine (17 page)

The tape on monitor 12 stopped blurring.

“The hallway where your subject was a guest at the time of
check-in.”

Sydowski and Turgeon watched a clear color recording of Ray Beamon,
dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, entering the room with Molly. She was in shorts
and a T-shirt. No luggage. Several hours after that, Beamon and Molly exited.
Sydowski checked the restaurant receipt. The time fit with credit card records.

The tape raced. Miller stopped to show them returning to their room.
The tape raced again. Time blurred. Miller slowed it to show a staff member
dropping copies of newspapers at doors. A few hours later Beamon’s door opened
and Molly wearing only a loose-fitting white robe emerged. As she bent down,
her breast spilled out and she pulled the robe tight, laughing. Behind her,
bare-chested and wearing only a towel around his waist, Ray Beamon playfully
pulled Molly back into the room.

“Stop it right there,” Sydowski said.

There it was. The image of Molly bent down, the robe barely covering
her. Her attractive smile, her tousled hair, and behind her Beamon, his broad
chest with forests of hair, wearing only a towel, his hands gripping Molly’s
hips. It burned into Sydowski’s gut. He saw disgust on Turgeon’s face as he
popped a fresh Tums into his mouth and grinded on it.

“All right,” Sydowski said.

After they’d finished viewing all the tapes they seized them,
thanked Sanchez and Miller, then left.

Outside, they didn’t go to the car but went to the beach, stopping
to lean on a large rock warmed by the sun. They looked out at the ocean as the
surf rolled in and gulls cried.

“You know, I thought I knew Ray,” Turgeon said. “I thought we were
family. I got to like Molly, too.”

Sydowski’s face hid his overwhelming sadness.

“That tape of them in the doorway.” She stopped. “Why? Was this all
about jealousy? Sex?”

“We’ve seen people do worse for less.” Sydowski shook his head,
unconsciously detecting other birdsongs, terns, and whimbrels, sounding like a
requiem over the rush of the sea.

“You know they sat together at his funeral. They dropped roses on
his casket,” he said.

Looking out at the Pacific Ocean, Sydowski saw that the fog had
lifted. The unseen things that haunted him in this life were visible.

Time to talk to the district attorney. He was ready to go at Ray.

Tom slipped off his jacket
and searched
the newsroom for someone he could trust.

He sat at his desk, opened his cassette recorder, and removed the
tape of his interview with Ray Beamon. He popped the plastic tabs at the back
to ensure that he couldn’t accidentally record over it. Then he rattled through
his desk for a felt-tipped pen and wrote Ray: I’d kill him on the tape.

A shadow fell over him, distracting his attention. “What’s that?”
asked Simon Lepp, unable to see what Tom had scrawled.

“An interview with a cop. It might be useful.” Tom slipped it in his
pocket. “How’re you doing?”

“Not so well. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you
got a minute?”

“A quick one.”

“I haven’t found much going through Hooper’s old murder cases that
would point to a vendetta or threat.”

“I know, it’s not like it’s going to be obvious.”

“And I went to the Ingleside district office and talked to some guys
there. They suggested that I not only look back at any beefs during Hooper’s
time in Homicide, but look at his entire career track.”

“Like Narcotics, Vice, the Tac team.”

“Yes. That’s a lot of looking. Any suggestions?”

“Well, I’d drop Tac. They don’t really interact with people.
Narcotics would be a good start. Excuse me.” Tom spotted Acker. “Go back on
stories about drug busts when Hooper was in Narcotics. I recall a lot of sparks
during that time. Sorry, I have to go.”

As Tom went across the metro section he noticed Acker was holding a
coffee and a clipboard and looking mournful.

“You won’t believe what I’ve got,” Tom said. “We have to talk.”

Acker glanced at his watch.

“Is it something for tomorrow’s paper? Because I don’t have much
time.”

“No. I want to hold this for a bit and make it stronger. Let’s go
here.”

Tom pulled Acker into the office of a columnist who was on a
three-month leave of absence. Tom snapped his Beamon tape into his cassette. It
was cued to the quote he wanted Acker to hear.

Tom noticed Acker seemed to be grappling with some kind of personal
problem and was more interested in the full-color poster of Fiji
on the wall until the tape clicked on.

“Listen to this. ‘I sure as hell wish I knew, because if I ever
caught the guy who did it, I’d put one in his head. I’d kill him. No question.’
”

Acker stared at Tom.

“That’s Beamon. And it’s our exclusive.”

“That is dynamite, Tom. Fantastic. You’re hot on this story.”

“I want to hold it.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got a strong feeling that something’s happening on the case.
Something huge.”

“How long do you want to hold this?”

“I’ll go through it all tonight. Then I need to go to Molly to see
if she can help me with anything else.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re the only one I’ve told. Don’t tell Irene. Run interference
for me for just a bit.”

“I’ll do my best but these aren’t the best of times to be pulling
things like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll talk about it later. Good story. A partner’s revenge. Hell.”

Emma Highgate of the D.A.’s office
clicked her expensive pen over and over as Sydowski first rolled the police
surveillance videotape of the mourners who’d attended Cliff Hooper’s funeral.

The techs had highlighted footage of Ray Beamon, enlarging frames
showing his scraped knuckles. Then Sydowski played the security tape seized
under warrant from the Moonlight Vista Hotel in Half Moon Bay.

When it ended, Highgate listened carefully to Sydowski’s summary of
the investigation. She jotted notes on her yellow legal pad, then regarded the
officers at the meeting. Along with Sydowski and Turgeon were Bill Kennedy,
deputy chief of investigations, Captain Michelle Stroh, and Lieutenant Leo
Gonzales.

“Short answer,” Highgate told them, “you don’t have enough to take
this case to a grand jury.”

“The tapes are strong, they’ve got impact,” Stroh said.

“Maybe if you wanted to prove infidelity.” Highgate shook her head.
“You’ve got two consenting adults having a romantic fling in Half Moon Bay.
It’s not enough.”

“Wilson dated Hooper. Cheated on him with his partner,” Kennedy
said. “Beamon betrayed Hooper and Hooper found out on the day he was murdered.
That’s a powerful motive.”

“I agree. It’s a morality thing. But you can’t indict him on that
alone. The rest is all circumstantial.”

“What about Beamon’s contradictions?” Gonzales said.

“What about them?”

“Beamon says he stayed home, worked on his car, and scraped his
knuckles. We can prove he lied. Put him at Hooper’s building with scraped
knuckles. His injury is consistent with the autopsy,” Stroh said.

“Circumstantial. No one witnessed Beamon strike Hooper.”

“We got witnesses who saw him exit Hooper’s building the night of
the murder,” Gonzales said.

“You have no physical evidence to put him
in
the unit. He
could have called on Hooper, rung the bell. Left. He could’ve dropped by.
Naturally he would have been seen by witnesses,” Highgate said. “He’s a friend.
It’s natural he’d be seen.”

“What about those scraped knuckles?” Gonzales said. “Weak. Beamon’s
account of that night can be expected to be shaky.”

“We can put him there and prove him lying about it.”

Highgate underlined some points in her file.

“Guys.” She flipped through the report. “You’ve got witnesses saying
he was wearing a black T-shirt and witnesses saying it was a white T-shirt. A
defense team would feast on that. I could just hear it, ‘It’s black, it’s
white, it’s black, it’s white. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, clearly it is
not black and white.’ ”

“But we’ve got a license number of his Barracuda, a unique car we
can put at the scene the night of the murder.”

“But Ray was Hooper’s partner. Again it’s not unusual for him to be
there. Heck, he and Molly Wilson would have plenty of trace evidence there.
You’ve left plenty of opportunity for the defense to raise a lot of reasonable
doubt.” She flipped through her pages. “So far, your physical evidence is all
but nonexistent. No match to a suspect on the bullets, no fingerprints, no DNA.
Not much. No blood, hair, fibers.”

Highgate began flipping through some of the scene photos, reports.

“What about the blood message on the wall? The placement of Hooper’s
gun and police ID? Did you exhaust all other avenues?”

“Writing analysis gave us nothing on the blood. We chased down all
the other aspects,” Gonzales said.

“And?”

“We think Beamon, being an expert on homicide scenes, threw that
stuff down as a distraction.”

“In other words, nothing. All right,” Highgate said. “There are
reports alleging Hooper had made enemies with criminals who may have had
motive. You got OCC and Management Control watching you. Has all of that been
ruled out?”

“Cliff wasn’t dirty.”

“And you can prove this beyond any doubt?”

Turgeon stared at her, holding her words.

“Look,” Highgate said, “I have to play devil’s advocate here. You
need a linchpin to hold it all together solidly. It’s just not there yet.”

Hating every moment of it, Sydowski slid a Tums in his mouth.
Thinking back on the night Turgeon came to the hospital to tell him, Sydowski
feared the sick feeling that bubbled in his gut would never leave him. This
case took them into hell. In all his years on the job, he never thought he’d
face something like this. Hooper and Beamon were like his younger brothers, or
his sons. Now it was his job, his sworn duty, to build the case to prove one
had murdered the other.

Sydowski swallowed the remains of his tablet. His gold crowns
glinted as he gritted his teeth. He knew what awaited him, for he had been
performing some mental sleight of hand to make the inevitable disappear. To
avoid the unavoidable. But his fear had materialized. It was sitting there
before him, a psychological Hydra, ready to do battle.

“Emma,” Sydowski said. “I know what we have to do.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve got to challenge Ray with what we know.”

“You think you can get him to confess?”

Kennedy shook his head.

“You’re new to the D.A.’s office,” Kennedy said. “Walt’s got the
highest clearance rate of any homicide investigator in California.”