“Hm-m-m-m,” she said, and tipped back in her swivel chair, looking at each of us in turn. “I’m curious what you’ve heard.”
“That you recently filed a criminal case against her for filing a false police report and won a restraining order against her last June.”
“That woman was eating up my advocates’ budget on frivolous complaints. Almost a third of our Hollenbeck Division hearings last year were because of her. She was wasting an important department resource. IAG has legitimate police improprieties to adjudicate.”
“I see,” I began. “So it would be fair to say that you had a healthy personal dislike for Miss Mendez?”
“Grow up, Detective,” she said, then handed me a piece of paper. “I’ve made up a sheet. A log, if you will, attesting to my whereabouts minute to minute for the last forty-eight hours. All of these meetings can be confirmed by the people I’ve listed to the right. I realize that the several loud arguments I’ve had in public with Miss Mendez over the years will certainly make me the subject of some interest in the press. I’m counting on you two detectives to use that sheet to deflect any such nonsense.”
“Excuse me, Captain, but this isn’t your interview. It’s ours,” I said. I’d run out of patience for this. “I intend to conduct it according to my guidelines.” I saw her flinch. Hitch groaned softly under his breath.
“I beg your pardon?” She seemed astonished.
“You are not running this investigation; we are. I intend to treat this the same way I would if you didn’t carry a badge. You are on my suspect sheet. I’ve got questions. I intend to get answers to those questions, in the way and order I want.”
She sat looking at me, her face a stony visage.
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” she said coldly. “But go on if you must. Ask.”
“When was the last time you saw Lolita Mendez?”
“Day before yesterday, in court. As you just noted, I had a felony case pending against her for making a false police report. We had the preliminary meetings in Judge Amador’s chambers along with attorneys to arrange for trial dates, depositions, and the like.”
“How’d that go?”
“Like all my meetings with Lita Mendez. It was contentious. She called me a bull dyke, which I’m obviously not. I called her a liar and a gangster, which she obviously is.”
I looked over at Hitch. This wasn’t going well at all.
“These personal insults were witnessed by a
“Listen, boys. Let’s get something straight right now. I’m an easy target, but I’m the wrong target. You made this stop to talk to me, which I guess was necessary. You’ve done your job, covered this base; now move the hell on. You have my time line in your hands. It clears me. I wasn’t anywhere near Hollenbeck for days before the murder. If you have any further questions, consult that list.”
“You willing to take a polygraph just so everybody feels all warm and fuzzy?” I asked. She was still riling me up.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Detective, I don’t believe police officers should be asked to take polygraph tests on less-than-solid legal grounds. If you should ever get enough actual evidence to charge me with anything, then we’ll talk about it. If you want a supporting opinion on the legality of police submitting to polygraphs, talk to your own union reps. The POA has come down very strongly against law enforcement being asked to take these things and I certainly agree. Next.”
“This sheet attests to your whereabouts,” I said, holding it up. “You got one for Lester?”
“My husband has nothing to do with this.” She leaned forward and put her muscled forearms on the desk. “You’ve got half a dozen better starting points. All those Hispanic gangs she dissed. There’s over forty criminal sets in Hollenbeck. They’re all at war over street corners. Then, after that, you can check her brother Homer’s old enemies. Some of those murderous
She held my gaze with hard eyes.
“Interview’s over, Detectives.” Captain Madrid stood, then walked to the door and opened it. Hitch and I filed out obediently, but she stopped us in the outer office.
“If you have any further questions, put them in writing and submit them to my adjunct, Joseph, here.” She pointed at the terrified detective. “Good day.”
We left her office with almost as little info as we had going in. We were quickly back in the hall, overlooking the magnificent atrium.
“That was fun,” Hitch said. “We should vacation up here.”
“Who the hell was Fenrir again?” I asked.
CHAPTER 15
When we got back to the PAB, we divided up Captain Madrid’s time line for the prior two days. She had set it up like her appointment schedule, in fifteen-minute increments. Each day started at 7:00 A.M. and ended around ten when she went to bed. Of course, the time line was mostly useless, because our preliminary time of death was around midnight. Once she and her husband were in the sack, Lester was her alibi witness, and I had no hope that he’d contradict her version of events.
“What’d you make of that crack about Lita using up a third of her advocates’ budget on frivolous complaints?” Hitch asked.
“Captain Madrid seems like she lives for her job. Maybe that rises to the level of a motive.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t end up on
We sat at our desks in Homicide Special and I started making notes on our interview with Captain Madrid.
“You wanta go talk to Judge Amador?” I asked Hitch.
“Sure. I’ll see if I can track him down. What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to keep working on the murder book.” I pointed at my computer. “According to this e-mail from Detective Becker, the neighborhood canvas turned up nothing. Not surprising considering it’s a gang block, but I’m also gonna go through all the patrol officer’s notes and see if I can spot anything she missed. Then, once it’s dark, I’m gonna go back to Lita’s house and do my Jigsaw walk.”
Hitch nodded. He was already familiar with this piece of my crime scene methodology. A Jigsaw walk was something I’d learned from one of the most fabled detectives to ever work a crime beat in Los Angeles. In his over twenty years as a homicide investigator, Jigsaw John St. John had cleared a surprising two-thirds of his murder cases. Now we’re lucky if we clear 25 percent. Admittedly, that was before all these senseless drive-bys where the shooters don’t even know their victims, but even so, Jigsaw was an LAPD legend.
John had retired and was living in Washington near Seattle. When I first got into Homicide I’d actually made a trip up there to spend some time with him, pick his brain, and learn his tricks.
One of the things he’d told me was he used to wait until everybody had cleared the crime scene and then he would return alone, usually at night when it was quiet. He’d stand in the house, clear his mind, and try to think like the victim. He’d walk around the crime scene using the same hallways as the vic, sitting in the same chairs. He’d play CDs from the victim’s music collection and do whatever he thought the vic might have done just prior to death. Basically, Jigsaw would try to become the person whose murder he was trying to solve.
Then, after he’d done that, he would go outside and try to become the killer. Jigsaw used whatever insight he’d gained from the evidence gathering and witness interviews to try to re-create what he thought the unknown subject’s mind-set might be.
Jigsaw told me that nine times out of ten it was a worthless exercise, but then the tenth time he’d hit on something he’d completely missed before and that one hit made the nine misses worth the effort.
I’d been following his routine for almost ten years, and in the cases I’d had in the interim, John’s
