Kill the Messenger

I’m not going over there like some, some—”

Parker put a hand over his mouth and stopped himself before his control slipped any further. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He looked at Fuentes, willing him to say what he wanted to hear. Fuentes just looked at him with something much too close to pity in his eyes.

“You haven’t seen me,” Parker said quietly. “We haven’t spoken.”

“I can’t put them off for long.”

“I know.” Parker nodded. “Whatever you can do. I appreciate it, Captain.”

“Get out of here,” Fuentes said, sitting down behind his desk. He settled a pair of reading glasses on the high bridge of his nose, and reached for some paperwork. “I haven’t seen you. We haven’t spoken.”

Parker stepped out of Fuentes’ office, closing the door behind him. Ruiz was watching him like a hawk. Good instincts, when she wanted to get out of her own way and use them, Parker thought.

She had Eta Fitzgerald’s murder. Fitzgerald’s murder was tied to Lowell’s murder. He would stay in that way. Bradley Kyle wasn’t going to be rid of him so easily.

Ruiz got out of her chair and came to him. “You’ve got your court order,” she said quietly. “What’s going on?”

“Robbery-Homicide is taking Lowell.”

“Why?”

“Because they can.”

Parker felt like he had bees in his head. He needed a strategy, had to move fast, had to make a break happen. He only had a few hours to live, in relation to this case.

“What are you going to do?” Ruiz asked.

Before Parker could formulate an answer, Obidia Jones let out a little yelp of excitement.

“That’s him! That’s your perpetuator, right there!” he said, poking a long, gnarled finger at a photograph in the book before him.

Parker and Ruiz both went to him, Ruiz pinching her nose closed with thumb and forefinger.

“Who’ve you got there, Mr. Jones?” Parker asked.

The old man slid his finger down from the face in the photograph, revealing exactly what Jones had told them: a head like a cinder block; small, mean eyes; five o’clock shadow. Eddie Boyd Davis.

“Only he had a piece of tape across his nose,” Jones said. “Like someone maybe busted it for him.”

“Mr. Jones, you are a fine citizen,” Parker said. “I think Ms. Ruiz should kiss you full on the mouth.”

Jones looked both scandalized and hopeful.

“But that would be against regulations,” Ruiz said.

Parker looked again at the face of the man who had murdered Eta Fitzgerald in cold blood. He tapped his finger under the name, and spoke to Ruiz in a low voice.

“Dig up everything you can find on this mutt. I want to know if he has any connection to Lenny Lowell. And if Bradley Kyle comes in here, you don’t know anything, and you haven’t seen me.”

“Wishful thinking,” she muttered.

Parker’s mind was already engaged elsewhere. “You’re a doll,” he said, patting her cheek.

He went through a couple of desk drawers, took out a file, pulled some papers from a wire tray on top of his desk. He grabbed the binder that was the murder book on the Lowell case, containing reports and official notes, sketches of the scene, Polaroids—everything to do with the homicide except for his personal notes. He put it all in a plastic mail carton he kept under his desk for just this purpose, then went around to Ruiz’s desk to use her phone.

“You’re not going to have seen me walk out of here with that container,” he told Ruiz as he dialed Hollywood Division. “Right?”

“Right,” she said, but there was a hesitation first.

“It’s your case too,” Parker said. “Lowell and Fitzgerald: If they take one, they take the other. Is that what you want?”

“It’s Robbery-Homicide. They’ll do whatever they want to do. We can’t stop them.”

Parker gave her the hard stare. “You sell me out to Bradley Kyle and you’ll make an enemy you’ll wish you didn’t have.”

“Jesus, I said all right,” she said grudgingly. “Don’t threaten me.”

“What are you going to do?” he sneered. “Call Internal Affairs?”

“Fuck you, Parker. Just leave me out of it.”

She would sell him out in a heartbeat, Parker thought, remembering what Diane had predicted. She would sell him out to Kyle because Kyle could get her noticed by the right people in RHD.

“LAPD, Hollywood Division. How may I direct your call?”

Parker said nothing and hung up the phone. He reached across the desktop, grabbed his dictionary, and dropped it on Ruiz’s blotter.

“Your lesson for today,” he said. “Look up the word partner. I’ll call you later.”

He grabbed the plastic box and left the room, then the building. He had only a few hours to live. He couldn’t waste a minute.

                              31

Parker called Joel Coen from his car as he made his way to the City National Bank branch where Lenny Lowell’s safe-deposit box lived.

Coen picked up on the second ring. Still young enough to be eager.

“Joel, Kev Parker. I’ve got something for you on the Lowell B&E, but you have to jump on it ASAP, got it?”

“What is it?”

“I’ve got your getaway car. It’s sitting behind a fish market in Chinatown. Black Mini Cooper, damage to the left taillight, match on the partial plate.”

“Geez, how’d you get that so fast?”

“I’m hyperactive. Do you know what color the minivan was?”

“Silver.”

“That’s it. I couldn’t get a warrant—extenuating circumstances—but you won’t have a problem. Call the DA’s office and make sure you do not talk to Langfield. And when you get the car dusted for prints, make sure they go to Joanie at Latent. Tell her I sent you, and that she’s looking for a match with my homicide.”

“Got it.”

“And move fast, Joel. There’s a shitstorm coming. If Robbery-Homicide gets a sniff of this car, it’s gone, and so’s your case.”

“RHD? Why would they—”

“Don’t ask. The less you know, the better. Beat it over to Chinatown. I’ve got a unit sitting on the car.”

He gave Coen the address, and ended the call as the bank came into sight. Half expecting to see Bradley Kyle and his partner waiting at the door, Parker parked his car and went inside, court order in hand.

The manager checked the document for crossed t’s and dotted i’s, and escorted him to the lower level, to the location of the boxes. Lowell’s was the largest size available. They put the box on a long walnut table in a private room. Parker put on a pair of latex gloves, took a deep breath, and opened the lid.

Cool, green, cash money. Stacks of it. Stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Parker took them out and piled them on the table. Twenty-five thousand dollars. And under the money, at the bottom of the box, a small envelope containing a single photographic negative, and a bank deposit slip with numbers scribbled on the back.

“That slimy old son of a bitch,” Parker murmured. He didn’t have to know who was in the photograph to know what this was about. Blackmail.

Turning on one of his own clients. That had to be it. Lowell had put someone between a rock and a hard place and squeezed. That explained the pricey condo, the new Cadillac, the cash.