Free Fall (23 page)

“We stay with Thurman.”

Mark Thurman crossed the parking lot to his blue Mustang even before Eric Dees had pulled away. He tossed his cup into a big cement trash container, climbed into the Mustang, and pulled out onto Roscoe heading east. Pike and I trotted back to the Jeep and roared through the car dealership and out into traffic after him. The salesman in the blue sport coat watched us go, then made a big deal out of saying something to the saleswoman who’d come up beside him. I think he gave us the finger.

We followed Thurman up onto the 405 and climbed north through the valley past Mission Hills and the Simi Freeway interchange and the San Fernando Reservoir. I kept waiting for him to exit, and maybe head west toward his apartment, but he didn’t. We continued north into the Newhall Pass and the Santa Susana Mountains until the 405 became the Golden State, and when we came to the Antelope Valley Freeway just before Santa Clarita, Mark Thurman exited and followed it east, up through the San Gabriels. I said, “Thurman’s from Lancaster.”

Pike glanced at me.

“Mark Thurman is going home.”

The landscape became parched and barren and more vertical than not. Pockets of condominiums clung to the mountains, and fields of low-cost housing spread across creek beds, and huge billboards proclaimed
YOU COULD BE HOME NOW IF YOU LIVED HERE.
Ten years ago, only rattlesnakes and sagebrush lived here.

Thurman followed the freeway through the mountains past quarries and rock formations and drop sites for dead bodies, and then we were out of the mountains and descending into the broad flat plain of Antelope Valley. The valley up there is high desert, and the communities there grew up around top-secret military projects and government funding. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier up there. Edwards Air Force Base is
there, with its shuttle landings and Stealth fighters, and, beyond that, the Mojave Desert spreads out to the north and east, a hot dry desolate plain that is ideal for crashing top-secret government hardware. In the foothills of the San Gabriels there is water and fruit orchards, and, in the winter, there is even snow. But the valley is different In the valley, there is only scrub brush and heat and cactus, and secret things that no one is supposed to know.

Maybe six miles after we descended out of the San Gabriels, Mark Thurman left the highway and turned into a flat middle-class housing tract with stucco houses and azalea bushes and two-car garages so filled with the clutter of life that at least one of the family’s cars had to stay in the drive. We turned in after him, and Pike shook his head. “No traffic and no movement We follow him in there, he’ll make us.”

“Then let him go.”

We let Mark Thurman draw ahead and turn and disappear from sight.

We pulled to the side of the street and waited, and maybe five minutes later we started again. We made the same turn that Mark Thurman made, and then we drove slowly, crisscrossing the subdivision streets, and looking for his blue Mustang.

Two streets over, we found it, parked in the open garage of a pleasant two-story house with a neatly kept lawn and a fig tree in the front yard.

We parked in the drive behind the Mustang, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. Footsteps came toward the door, the door opened, and Mark Thurman looked out at us. I said, “Hi, Mark.”

Mark Thurman tried to shove the door shut. He was big, and strong, but he started the move too late and we had the angle.

The door crashed open, and Joe Pike went in first and I went in after him. Thurman threw a fast straight
right, but it was high over Joe Pike’s left shoulder. Pike hit Mark Thurman three times in maybe four-tenths of a second. Once in the neck and twice in the solar plexus.

Mark Thurman made a choking sound, then sat down and grabbed at his throat.

Somewhere deeper in the house a voice called, “Who is it, Mark?”

I called back. “Mark lost his voice, Jennifer. Better come out here and give him a hand.”

J
ennifer Sheridan came out of a door off the back of the entry and saw Mark Thurman on the floor. When she saw Thurman she ran to him, yelling, “What did you do to him?”

Pike said, “Hit him.”

We pulled Thurman to his feet and helped him into the living room. He tried to push away from us, but there wasn’t a lot of
umphf
in it. I said, “Take it easy. We’ve got the gun.”

Jennifer gave confused. “What gun?”

Pike showed her Mark’s revolver, then stuck it in his belt. “Is anyone else here?”

Jennifer followed us into the living room, hovering around Mark Thurman as we put him into a green Naugahyde Ez-E-Boy. “No. The house belongs to Mark’s aunt, and she’s away. That’s why we’re using it”

Pike grunted approval, then pulled the drapes so that no one could see in from the street.

Jennifer Sheridan touched Mark Thurman’s face with her fingertips. His face was already starting to puff. “I’d better get some ice.”

He tried to push her away. “Goddamn it, why’d you tell them?”

She stepped back. “I didn’t.”

I said, “I’m a detective, Mark. I did a little detective work and found you.” I told him about watching Akeem D’Muere’s, and about picking up Dees and following him to Tommy’s.

Thurman tried to act like it was no big deal. “So what? That doesn’t prove anything.” He looked at Jennifer. “Jesus Christ, Jen, this guy is a wanted fugitive.”

She said, “No, Mark. He wants to help us. He got into trouble trying to help.”

Mark yelled, “Don’t tell this guy anything.” Panicked. “He’s just making guesses. He doesn’t know anything.” He tried to push up from the chair, but Joe Pike shoved him down.

I said, “I know that the Premier Pawn Shop is owned by Akeem D’Muere. I know that eleven weeks before Charles Lewis Washington died, D’Muere hired a security contractor called Atlas Security to install a hidden surveillance camera at the Premier.” When I said it, his face dropped maybe a quarter of an inch. He tried not to show it, but there it was. “The camera was there when you guys pulled the sting. It would’ve recorded what happened.” I felt like Perry Mason, laying out my summation for the court. Did that make Jennifer Delia Street? Was Pike Paul Drake? “Akeem D’Muere has a tape of what happened that night, and because he has the tape he has you.”

Jennifer moved behind him and put her hand on his back. “It’s killing him.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jennifer, be quiet.” He was looking scared.

Jennifer said, “That’s why it went so bad for us. They made him swear to keep quiet and he did, but he just isn’t like that.”

Mark said, “Eric’s taking care of it. Don’t admit anything. What if he’s wired?”

Jennifer Sheridan pulled at him, trying to make him see, trying to make him come to his senses. “He’s not wired and Eric’s getting you into trouble.” She turned from him and looked at me. “He thinks he’s protecting them. He wasn’t part of all that. He’s not like the others.”

“Nothing happened, goddamn it.” Thurman pointed at me. “I’m telling you that nothing happened.”

“Damn it, Mark,” she shouted. “Stop protecting them.
Stop lying for them.”

I said, “Leave him.”

They looked at me as if I’d fired a shot into the floor.

I said, “He doesn’t love you, Jennifer. He’s willing to take you down with him, just because he isn’t strong enough to stand up to the guys he works with.”

Mark Thurman boiled up out of the chair like an angry bull and hit me with his shoulder, driving me back across the living room. Jennifer Sheridan shrieked and yelled, “Mark,” but then Pike was next to her, wrapping her in his arms.

I stayed high on Thurman’s shoulders and let him carry me across the room and into the wall. He was angry and scared and probably not thinking too well, but he was also large and strong. We hit the wall and he backed away to throw a punch, and when he did I spun left and kicked him on the right side of his face and then I slipped to the side, and kicked him behind the left knee. He went down. I could’ve kicked him on the outside of his knee and broken the ligaments, but I didn’t want to do that. I said, “Don’t be stupid, Mark. You’re not helping you and you’re not helping Jennifer.”

He shoved his way up and this time he sort of crabbed in sideways, like he wanted to box. He feinted
with his left and threw a straight right and when he did, I pushed it past and snapped a side kick to his head that made him stumble back and drop his hands. I kicked him twice more, and punched him hard once in the solar plexus, and he went down. I’d hit him hard enough to keep him there.

I squatted beside him and said, “You’re going to listen to this.”

He shook his head. Like a five-year-old. His nose was swelling and there was a smear of blood along his lower lip.

I said, “Eric Dees and Akeem D’Muere conspired to set me up for this dope bust. In the course of that action, Akeem D’Muere murdered James Edward Washington. That makes Dees a co-conspirator to murder.”

Thurman was breathing hard. Sucking deep breaths and letting them out.

“You tried to keep all of this from Jennifer, but Jennifer hired me, and you finally brought her in. You told Jennifer about Charles Lewis Washington and Akeem D’Muere, and that means you’ve implicated her. You’re a cop. You know what that means.”

Mark Thurman looked at her.

“She’s become an accessory after the fact to murder. She can be charged, and she can be tried. Do you see that? Do you see what you’ve done to her?”

Jennifer Sheridan frowned. “Mark?”

I said, “Who are you going to protect, boy? Eric Dees, or Jennifer?”

Mark Thurman raised his hands as if he were about to say something, but the something didn’t come and he lowered them. He looked from me to Jennifer Sheridan, and then back to me. He said, “It was Floyd.”

You’d know it was Floyd. It’d have to be.

“I’m not even sure what happened. Floyd was hitting him, and then Pinkworth was hitting him, and
he just died.” Jennifer Sheridan knelt down beside him and put her hand on his arm.

I said, “You told yourselves it was an accident. Everybody’s thinking Rodney King, and you decide to cover up.”

He nodded. “Only a couple of days later, here comes the tape. Just like Rodney. Only this time the bad guys had the tape, and not the good guys. Akeem had the tape.”

There was quiet in the small house.

Jennifer Sheridan said, “He went along because he didn’t know what else to do. You can see that, can’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“He didn’t do it for himself. Don’t you see that?”

I looked at Pike and Pike looked at me.

Mark Thurman said, “What are you going to do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He said, “It was just an accident.” I looked at him and he wasn’t a cop anymore. He was a big handsome kid who looked confused and scared, and more than a little bit lost. He said, “I dream about it every night, and I just don’t know. It got out of hand, and we didn’t know what to do. Even Floyd was surprised. Floyd didn’t expect to kill him. It just happened.” He tried to think of another way to say it. His mouth opened and closed a couple of more times. His brow knotted. Then he just shook his head.

“So you decided to protect each other.”

“You think I’m proud of this? You think I don’t see that poor guy? Jesus God, I don’t know what to do.” He was shaking his head. Jennifer Sheridan looked like she wanted to hold him and take care of him and make it all better even though she knew it was wrong. Maybe that’s what love is.

I said, “How many copies of the tape are there?”

“We got one. I don’t know how many D’Muere has. Maybe a million.”

“Who has the copy you saw?”

“Eric.” Jennifer Sheridan put out her hand and Mark Thurman took it. Jennifer smiled, and Mark Thurman smiled back at her. They looked relieved, as if by finally sharing this the weight was becoming bearable. Mark said, “I know where he hides it.”

I took a deep breath and then I let it out. I felt tired and my back hurt where the muscles lace over the shoulder blades. Tension, I guess. Stress.

Jennifer Sheridan said, “Will you help him?”

I looked at Jennifer Sheridan looking at me and I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I want to see the tape.”

J
ennifer Sheridan helped Mark Thurman to the couch and sat next to him. He could’ve made it on his own this time, but he let her help.

I said, “Has everyone on the REACT team seen the tape?”

“Yeah.”

“Has anyone else?”

He shook his head. “Not on our side. Who would we show it to?”

Pike went to the window and looked out the curtain. He said, “Eric would have a plan. Akeem pops up with the tape, says do what I want or I burn you, Eric isn’t going to just roll over.”

Thurman nodded. “Eric said we should play along until we could find something to make Akeem back off.”

“Like what?”

“We started running intelligence on him and doing twenty-four-hour surveillance. We even went out and bought these video cameras. We figured if we got him doing a capital offense on tape, we could trade him. You burn us, we burn you, like that.”

Pike moved to the other side of the window and looked out the curtain from that side. “Dorks.”

Thurman gave him hard. “Hey, what would you do?”

Pike didn’t bother to look at him. “I wouldn’t be where you are. I wouldn’t’ve killed Charles Lewis Washington, and then lied about it. I would’ve done the right thing.”

Jennifer Sheridan frowned. “You don’t need to be so harsh.”

I said, “A man died, Jennifer. It doesn’t get much harsher than that.”

She put her hand on Mark Thurman’s thigh.

I said, “Okay. So you were looking for something to press Akeem. Did you get anything?”

“Not yet.”

“So the five of you went along with him, committing crimes.”

“That’s right.” Thurman made a tiny nod, the kind where your head barely moves, and he wouldn’t look at me.

“And Eric figured you guys would keep on like that until you found something to use against Akeem?”