“The men who were murdered. Absolutely. I felt so bad. I mean, here they were enjoying themselves—well, not here, but at the club—and five minutes later this terrible thing happens.”
Levin liked to talk, which was good. More importantly, he was one of those people who liked to talk to police officers, which was better. Scott had met many such people. Levin enjoyed the interaction, and he would bend over backwards to help.
“The casebook here indicates you provided two video disc recordings from the night Pahlasian and Beloit were at the club.”
“Uh-huh. That’s right.”
“Did you deliver them personally to Detective Melon?”
“No, I don’t think he was there. I left them with an officer there in the lobby. At that desk. He said that was fine.”
“Ah, okay. And this was two discs, not one.”
“That’s right. Two.”
“Two different discs, or two copies of the same disc?”
“No, no, they were different. I explained this to Detective Melon.”
“He retired, so he isn’t here. I’m trying to make sense of these files and log entries, and between me and you, I’m lost.”
Richard Levin laughed.
“Oh, hey, I totally get it. Here’s what happened. I burned one disc off the inside camera and one off the outside camera. They feed to separate hard drives, so it was easier that way.”
Scott flashed on the parking lot outside Club Red, and felt an adrenaline rush.
“A camera covers the parking lot?”
“Mm-hm. That’s right. I clipped the time from their arrival to their departure. That’s what Detective Melon said he wanted.”
Secret pieces appeared. One by one, they snapped together. A pressure in Scott released like a cracking knuckle.
Maggie sensed something, and stirred behind him. He glanced in the mirror, and saw her stand.
Scott said, “I’m embarrassed to say this, really, but it looks like we lost the outside disc.”
“No worries. That isn’t a problem.”
The man sounded so confident Scott wondered if Levin had walked them to their car, and could describe the entire evening.
“Do you recall what Pahlasian or Beloit did in the parking lot?”
“I can do better than that. I have copies. I’ll burn a replacement for you. That way nobody gets in trouble.”
Levin laughed when he said it, and the adrenaline burn grew fierce.
“That’s great, Mr. Levin. We don’t want anyone to get in trouble.”
“I can send them or drop them? That same address?”
“I’ll pick them up. Now, tonight, tomorrow morning. It’s kind of important.”
Scott drove on as they worked it out. Maggie climbed onto the console, and rode at his side until they left the freeway.
35.
At ten-oh-four the next morning, Cowly was in her cubicle. She stood, straightened her pants, and used the opportunity to check the squad room. Orso was in the LT’s office, discussing Daryl Ishi’s murder with Topping, Ian Mills, two Rampart Homicide detectives, and an IAG rat. The rat was grilling Orso about Scott’s access to the case file. They were digging for some sort of administrative violation, and Orso was pissed. Cowly had already been questioned, and expected to be questioned again.
Two-thirds of the squad cubicles were empty, which was typical with detectives out working cases. The remaining cubicles were occupied, including the cubicle next door. Her neighbor was a D-III named Harlan Meeks, but Meeks was on the phone with one of his four girlfriends, flashing his perfect false teeth and shoveling bullshit.
Cowly sat, picked up her phone, and resumed her conversation.
“Okay, keep going. Does it match or not?”
The SID criminalist, John Chen, sounded smug.
“Tell me I’m a genius. I want to hear those words drip over your luscious, beautiful lips.”
“You’ll hear the sound of a harassment charge. Knock off the crap.”
Chen turned sulky.
“I guess we were too busy flirting to pay attention in science class. Only iron and iron alloys rust, and rust, by definition, is iron oxide. Hence, all rust is the same.”
“So you can’t tell?”
“Of course I can tell. That’s why I’m a genius. I didn’t look at the rust. I looked at what’s
“Meaning, the rust on the watchband came from the fence?”
“That’s what I said.”
Cowly put down her phone and stared at the picture of her niece and nephews. Her brother was making noise about a family cruise to Alaska. It was one of those ten- or eleven-day voyages where you sail from Vancouver, follow the Canadian coast from port to port, and end up in Alaska. See glaciers, he said. Killer whales. Cowly had her fill of killers on the job.
Orso and the others were still locked in conversation. Cowly got up, and wound her way past Topping’s office to the coffeepot. She took her time, trying to eavesdrop. The faces in these meetings changed, but the talk remained the same, and Cowly found it troubling. People who should have no knowledge of such things discussed Scott James’ psychiatric and medical history with authoritative detail as they debated a warrant for his arrest. It seemed like a done deal.
The I-Man noticed her lingering at the coffee machine, and closed the door. Cowly dumped the coffee and returned to her cubicle.
The phone rang as she settled into her chair.
“Detective Cowly.”
Scott James asked her the damnedest question.
“Can I trust you?”
She straightened enough to glance next door. Meeks was still on with his girlfriend, laughing too hard at something she said. Cowly lowered her voice.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you a bad cop, Joyce? Are you part of this?”
His voice was so strained she grew scared the people in Topping’s office were right. She lowered her voice even more.
“Where are you?”
“Someone broke into my home. The next night, someone broke into my shrink’s office and stole my file. Dr. Charles Goodman. North Hollywood detectives Broder and Kurland have it. Call. So you know this is real.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Call. Whoever stole Goodman’s file is feeding the information to someone inside the department, and that someone is trying to frame me.”
Cowly checked the squad room. No one was listening or paying attention.
“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”
“I don’t like living it.”
