Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) (11 page)

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You’re lying to me. When did you tell her? Better yet,
why
did you tell her?”

Bruce tried to pick up his tea cup, but his hands were jumping like spit on a griddle. Tears welled up in his eyes. “I had to tell her. I couldn’t do it alone.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “She
went
with you?”

“She kept me calm. I mean, I’m new at this murder shit. Plus, she was great with the cop when he interviewed us after.”

“So
you
didn’t go by the rules either.”

“Whoa. Wait a minute, Charlie. Don’t make it sound like I screwed up like Cal did.
I
went by the rules. I
made
it look like an accident.”

“But you weren’t supposed to tell Claire.”

“Don’t you think that’s a pretty asinine rule? There’s half a million in a bank in the Caymans in her name. She’d have figured it out whether I told her or not. As far as I’m concerned, I earned my money. And if you give me another few weeks, I’ll be dead, and I’ll have held up my end of the bargain.”

Charlie nodded slowly and smiled. “In that case, neither of us have anything to worry about.”

CHAPTER 26

I WAS UP
before dawn and out the door in twenty minutes. As much as I hated to skip my morning ritual with Sophie on her last day as our live-in daughter, I had no choice. Search warrants, especially one as hard to come by as this one, are best executed while the judge’s signature is still wet.

At 6:30, Terry and I were back on Homedale Street ringing the Bower’s doorbell. Claire, wearing a robe, opened the door. She was surprised as hell to see us and even more surprised to see eight more cops behind us.

I handed her the warrant and the search team spread out.

The usual scenario followed. Outrage, protest, threats. We’d seen it all before. The suspect-as-victim hurling F-bombs, screaming hysterically that her civil rights were being violated, and vowing that Terry and I would be out of a job before day’s end. We ignored her.

Bruce could not. He entered the room, fully dressed, smoking a cigarette. He had the good sense not to try to stop us or in any way interfere with the search. He put his arm around his wife and led her to their bedroom.

“Stay with them,” Terry said to a uniform. If there was any evidence of a crime buried in the house, our job was to make sure the Bowers didn’t have an opportunity to destroy it.

“Lomax! Biggs!” The call came less than five minutes after
we’d stormed through the door.

It was Jessica Keating. Any rookie can identify a bloody kitchen knife, but if you find a golf club, you need a forensic specialist to tell you whether it’s a murder weapon or just another nine-iron.

Jess was waiting for us in the garage. The trunk of Bruce Bower’s Prius was open, and a set of golf clubs was spread out on the concrete floor. One of her assistants sprayed luminol on the metal heads.

“Lights,” she said, and the place went dark. Well, almost dark. A blue glow emanated from one of the clubs.

“It’s not exactly a smoking gun,” she said, “but if it’s even got a smidge of Wade Yancy’s DNA, I know a prosecuting attorney who’s going to love slapping a tag on it that says Exhibit A.”

The lights went back on, and Terry bent down to get a closer look. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “It
was
a nine-iron. I will never doubt Eli again.”

“How long till you can tell us if it’s a match?” I asked Jess.

“And before you answer,” Terry said, “I just want you to know that I watched a cop show on TV last night, and they got DNA results during the commercial break.”

Jessica laughed. “In real life, I can get top-line data for you in forty-eight hours. But I’ll bet if I send Eli a mold of that club head, it’ll take him five minutes to see if it matches the dent in Wade Yancy’s skull.”

“Fantastic,” Terry said. He turned to me. “Come on, Lomax, let’s go share the good news with Claire and Bruce.”

They were waiting for us in the living room. Claire had changed from her bathrobe to her going-off-to-the-slammer outfit.

Terry had taken a vow of silence the first time we met with the Bowers, so I let him do the honors. “Claire and Bruce Bower,” he said, his voice dramatic and commanding, “you are under arrest for the murder of Wade Yancy.” He then read them their rights, slowly and with authority, relishing every word of it.

As soon as we cuffed them, Bruce protested. “Don’t arrest her. I did it. I’ll sign a confession. It was all me. Claire had nothing to do with it.”

“Noble gesture, Mr. Bower,” I said, “but that’s not what it says on the accident report. I don’t know which one of you took the chip shot that killed Yancy, but you were definitely playing as a twosome.”

Bruce started sobbing, but Claire stood ramrod stiff and silent. She’d been caught, and her transformation from anger and denial to total acceptance was immediate. She remained motionless and expressionless, waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

Two uniformed officers took her by the elbows and led her to the front door. Two more escorted Bruce. Terry and I recruited two more cops to stay behind and secure the premises, then we took up the rear of the perp walk.

“I’m calling Eli,” I said.

The sun was just coming up as we got outside. Eli wouldn’t be at work yet, but I had his cell phone. He answered on the first ring.

“Mike,” he said, “if you’re calling me at this hour there can only be one reason. You found the golf club, and you called to tell me how smart I am.”

“Eli,” I said, heading toward the car, “you already know how smart you are, but for those who don’t, there will be a front page story to that effect in tomorrow’s
LA Times
. Congratu—”

The first gunshot rang out, and I instinctively dropped the phone, reached for my gun, and hit the paving-stone walkway. A second shot followed, and I heard a cop call out, “Suspect has been hit. She’s down.”

Terry dropped right beside me, as another cop yelled, “Mine is down too. He’s bleeding bad. Calling for a bus and backup.”

The shots had come from the east. I rolled onto the lawn looking for the shooter and was blinded by the morning sun.

“Is anybody in a position to see anything?” I yelled out.

I got a chorus of negative responses, heavy on the profanity.

I got into a crouch. I doubted if any of the cops were on the shooter’s hit list, but I wasn’t quite ready to stand up and put my theory to the test. I waddled toward where Bruce was lying on the ground. He’d been hit in the stomach. Two cops were working on him, trying to compress the wound and keep him from bleeding out.

Claire was in even worse shape. She was still alive, but she’d taken a bullet to the head. I’d seen people survive head shots, but very few, and those who do recover have a long painful road that almost always ends in a life that is forever defined by their brain injury.

Four of the cops had raced up Homedale after the shooter. One by one, they returned empty-handed.

I heard sirens approaching. Terry and I stood. “Our backup is here,” I said. “At this point they’re not going to do us much good. And ambulances, which probably won’t do Claire Bower much good either.”

“On the plus side,” Terry said, “if Bruce’s wound is clean, and infection doesn’t set in, they could probably save his life. That ought to give him at least another three, four more weeks to keep on living with dying.”

PART TWO

BAD PHARMA

CHAPTER 27

THERE’S A FRIENDLY
,
and sometimes not so friendly, interdepartmental rivalry between the cops and firefighters of Los Angeles. But as Terry and I watched a pair of red rescue ambulances sweep down on the crime scene, there was no denying how much LAFD means for the safety and well being of our city. As Terry so elegantly put it, “These fuckers know their shit.”

Even before his unit rolled to a stop, one paramedic was out the door, sprinted to the two victims, and made a life-and-death call on the spot. “Load and go,” he yelled.

There was nothing they could do for Claire or Bruce on the street. Their best chance for survival was in the OR.

The road docs lifted their charges onto backboards, and with the precision and grace of a drill team, double-timed them to separate vehicles. Doors slammed, sirens screamed, and a convoy of wailing fire trucks and cop cars sped off toward Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

“If you’re going to get shot,” I said as we barreled across Montana Avenue behind the red rescue wagons, “it doesn’t hurt to live five minutes away from the best Level 1 Trauma Center in the city.”

“I think you drank too much of the Kool-Aid at last night’s Living With Dying lovefest,” Terry yelled over the din of multiple sirens. “It wouldn’t matter if those people had the Mayo
Clinic in their basement. They’re fucked.”

“Sorry for being so positive,” I snapped back. “My idiot doctor told me to keep looking on the bright side of life, then call him in five days to find out if it worked.”

“Mike, you’ll be fine. They won’t. I just hope one of them lives long enough to tell us who’s the brains and the money behind this operation.”

“It’s not Charlie Brock,” I said. “You were right last night. He’s a soldier, and five bucks says he was assigned to the mop-up operation this morning. Eliminate the Bowers before the cops put the rubber hose to them.”

There were at least ten doctors and nurses waiting for us in the parking lot as soon as we rolled into UCLA Med. The paramedics had done what they could on the ride over—calling in vitals, administering oxygen, containing the bleeding, and in Claire’s case, putting the paddles to her chest to restart her heart.

There was one thing they couldn’t do. A young paramedic jumped out of the lead truck and ran toward us. He clasped his hands together and held them in the air. “Bracelets,” he yelled.

The Bowers were still in handcuffs.

“Do you mind unlocking the hardware?” he said. “I promise they won’t get away.”

I tossed him the key. The Bowers were uncuffed, transferred to gurneys, and just like on TV, the entire medical team raced down the corridor of the ER and wheeled them into a trauma bay.

That’s as far as Terry and I could go. A surgeon in scrubs asked us for a top-line, and we gave it to her, including the ugly reality of Bruce’s Stage IV lung cancer.

“Not my department,” she said. “I’m just here to save his life. After that, God and the LAPD can sort it out.”

“Doc,” Terry said, blocking her path. “They’re both murder suspects. How soon can we question them?”

“Her? A week, a month, but more likely, never. Him? Maybe tomorrow, but only if you get out of my way and let me do my job.”

Terry got out of her way.

“Leave your number with security,” she said, hurrying off to save a murderer. “They’ll call you when he’s
compos mentis
.”

“Bummer,” Terry said as we headed toward the lobby.

“I know,” I said. “Whatever they did, they didn’t deserve to be mowed down like that.”

“I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about our investigation. Which one of us is going to break the news to the mayor that we had two suspects in custody, but we let them get—”

My phone rang. “Hold that complaint, Biggs.” I took the call.

“Who loves you?” the female voice on the other end said.

“Officer Mulvey,” I said. “What can I do for you on this beautiful October morning.”

“Can you run right over? There’s a woman at the station who needs the kind of warmth and comforting that you do so well.”

Eileen Mulvey is happily married, but she never gets tired of flirting. “Sorry, Mulvey,” I said. “I’m in an extremely depressing setting at the moment, and my warmth and comforting skills have been depleted. You’ll have to satisfy your own needs.”

“Not me, dumbass,” Mulvey said. “There’s an emotionally distraught woman here, and she insists that you and Biggs are the only ones who can help her.”

“Oh. Did you get her name?”

“Multiple times,” Mulvey said. “It’s Janice Bernstein.”

“Janice… she’s Cal Bernstein’s wife.”

“Yes, she mentioned that several times as well.”

“Do you have any idea what she wants?”

“She said she knows why her husband killed Dr. Kraus, and she’d like to share her little secret with you.”

CHAPTER 28

WHEN JOANIE DIED
after a long debilitating illness, I was prepared for the crushing grief that came with her loss. What blindsided me was the blessed relief that swept over me once her two-year, agonizing battle with ovarian cancer was over. The constant drain on our physical, emotional, and financial resources had finally come to an end.

I knew in my heart—and the letters Joanie left behind for me affirmed it—I would pick up the pieces. I would heal. My life would go on.

There was no such reprieve for Janice Bernstein. She had been braced for her husband’s death, but learning that Cal had murdered a much-admired and respected doctor had thrown her into a deeper downward spiral.

I didn’t think it was possible, but she looked even more haggard than when we met her two days ago. She was waiting for us on a bench near Mulvey’s desk, and she stood up as soon as she saw me and Terry walk through the door.

Her eyes were red, and she spoke haltingly. “Can we talk in private?” she asked.

We took her to a quiet interview room, got her a cup of hot tea, and asked how we could help.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “Especially you, Detective Biggs. I hated you for even suggesting that my husband would
kill a man for money, but now I think you could be right.”

Terry and I sat there solemnly. She didn’t need tough cop questions or soothing words of comfort. She needed someone to listen.

“Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a man who said his name was Mr. Welcome. He had a Caribbean accent, and when he told me he was with a bank in the Cayman Islands, and they had a half a million dollars in my name, I immediately thought it was a hoax, and I hung up.