“I’m testifying on that Quadry Barnes case anyway, so I’ve got a reason to be here. I’ll go get a sandwich and sit out there, keep an eye on ’em. You wait in the Porsche. I’ll call you on your cell and keep you posted.”
So that’s what we did. Hitch went through the food line and took a seat at a small patio table. I went back to the car. He called once to tell me Stephanie and Lester were still seated at a table by the Biddy Mason wall, talking in low voices.
Ten minutes later Hitch called me again.
“You’ll never guess what I just noticed,” he said.
“What?”
“They’re both drinking from paper coffee cups with that same brown flower decoration like the one we found near Lita’s driveway.”
“Where’d those cups come from? We checked the cafeteria.”
“I don’t know, but I’d hate to end up filling out one-eighty-seven complaints on these two.”
“Just hang in there. Watch those cups. Don’t let them out of your sight.”
“Duh…,” he said, and hung up.
Five minutes later my phone rang again.
“They’re bussing their table now. Haven’t made me yet. Oops … spoke too soon.”
I heard Stephanie Madrid’s voice coming over my cell speaker. “Have you started following me around now, Detective?”
“No, ma’am,” Hitch said. “Just here doing my third depo on that damn Quadry Barnes deal.”
Then a minute later I heard his cell phone being picked up and he was back.
“They’ve left,” he said. “Come on. There’s a crime kit in my trunk. Take what we need. I’ll go protect the evidence.”
I took two pairs of latex gloves and some evidence bags out of his crime kit and made it to the patio area in about ten seconds. Hitch had already located the cups in a trash can and was keeping other people from dumping their lunch clutter on top. I put on one set of gloves and handed a second pair to Hitch. Then I stuck my hand in the barrel, pulled the cups out one at a time, and passed them to Hitch. Both were identical to the one we found at Lita’s house.
“We need evidence bags,” Hitch said.
“Got ’em.” I pulled them out of my coat pocket and he dropped the cups inside. “Let’s go talk to Food Services.”
We found the Hispanic guy who supplied the cafeteria and the coffee rooms on all six floors of the Bradbury and showed him the cups inside our clear plastic evidence bags.
“These aren’t in the main cafeteria,” Hitch said. “You know where they came from?”
“The exotic blends machine up on four,” he said.
“Exotic blends?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’ve got a machine up there for the senior staff in the Advocates Section-captains, commanders, and lieutenants. It’s got all kinds of blends, Brazilian, Caramel Mocha. You know, expensive stuff.”
We thanked him and hurried back to the car.
“This ain’t gonna end up good,” Hitch said.
“I know.” Then, because we were heading to the forensic lab at Cal State where our electronics surveillance unit was located, I had Hitch drop me at the PAB so I could pick up my car and follow him there.
CHAPTER 37
The LAPD has had a major face-lift in the past few years. Besides the PAB downtown and the Hollenbeck Station, the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center at Cal State Los Angeles is fully operational. It’s a five-story brick and terrazzo building with inward-leaning sides, which makes it look like a long, rectangular pyramid with the top third cut off. The LAPD shares the 209,000-square-foot space with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a fact that causes a little elbowing in waiting lines but on balance is a big improvement over our old space.
The Forensic Science Center has specially equipped areas for ballistics and firearms identification as well as forensic biology. The old DNA facility had space for about eight people, but with the ever-increasing demand for biological evidence, by the time we moved, there were almost forty CSIs camping out in the hallways. It was an overcrowded hive of squashed-together scientists, all buzzing angrily, about to sting. Over here everyone had wide smiles and they served you coffee.
Hitch and I handed over the two cups and gave instructions to run them for a match against the cup we found in Lita’s driveway. We asked for our results ASAP.
I went to the ERT area to check on our footprints. I found a young guy named Adam Rush who pulled the results up on his computer.
“Lotta Blackhawk! Warrior, light assault, lace-ups,” he told me. “They’re real popular in Patrol, so we’re starting by checking those against the cops who were on the scene.” He clicked to another shot.
“And here’s Waldo,” he said, pulling up another footprint. “This guy doesn’t fit the others. Sole pattern is from a rubber Baffin outdoor boot. Size thirteen. It doesn’t lace up, so no cop would be wearing it. You can see it’s got a triangle-shaped nick in the left heel and some pronounced tread scuffs. Also, the dust we recovered on the footprint has traces of ammonium polyphosphate, which is a chemical used to put out fires. Not sure what that means yet.” He printed me out a copy of the boot print and I left, feeling like it was progress. A tiny bit of physical evidence.
I called Alexa and gave her a heads-up on what was going on, ending our conversation by asking her to call Forensic Biology and put a little command staff oomph behind our request.
Hitch was still filling out the paperwork for our DNA, so I used the time to visit the Electronic Surveillance Department. I got one of the lab techs to go out in the parking lot with me and wand the Acura for bugs. I was pretty sure I’d picked up something at the marina, and I had. There was a little satellite voice transmitter with a GPS function buried inside the Acura’s rearview mirror. I had to make a decision as to whether to leave it there or to have the bug removed. If I took it out, it would alert Nash that I had found it and that might change his behavior. In the game of chess I was playing, knowledge was power, so I left it where it was.
When Hitch came downstairs I showed him the Baffin boot print and told him about the bug in the Acura. He was buoyed by the size 13 rubber boot and agreed it was a good idea to leave the bug where it was. If we rode in the Acura, we’d have to keep our discussions off the case.
“This is our unsub,” Hitch said, still looking at the boot print in his hand. “He went to Lita’s house to kill her. He knew it was going to get messy, so the guy wore rubber boots.”
I agreed. We caravanned back to the PAB and closed out the day making phone calls.
I drove home at six and went out to the backyard to watch the moonlight on the water. Alexa wasn’t home yet and I was feeling lonely and a little afraid for my future.
I hadn’t spoken to Chooch in at least a week, so I dialed his cell. He was in midterms at USC and didn’t sound like he had much time to talk, but he did let one gem slip.
“Listen, Dad, next semester I’m thinking about taking Introduction to Police Science,” he said unexpectedly.
“You’re a finance major. What’s a finance major need with police science?”
“You and Mom are cops. I just want to understand what you do. How can that hurt?”
“It just seems like it’s not something you’ll need, is all.”
“Todd McNear, my left-side tackle on the scout team, took it last semester and he says it’s really interesting and kind of easy. Never hurts to pile up a few easy credits to pump up the GPA.”
My alarms were ringing. Chooch has a 3.5 average while playing Division I football at USC. DI ball’s a huge time commitment, and even so, he’d been an academic All-American for three years straight. His GPA was fine. I wasn’t keen on the idea of him taking police science. I didn’t know where it might lead.
“Listen, Dad, I gotta get back to this review sheet. Call me on Sunday.”
“Right. Love you.”
