CHAPTER 8
He awoke to the sound of his cell phone's alarm chirping at him. 6:45. He sat up and noticed the coffee maker. He got up and filled the carafe with water to start brewing some coffee. Sitting at the foot of the bed, he flicked on the TV to catch the local news. All he was able to find was celebrity news and traffic advisories. After running up and down the channels, he flipped the TV off. Grabbing one of the cups provided by the hotel he poured himself a cup of coffee to drink as he got dressed for the day. He'd just finished his coffee when he cell phone rang. Reaching across the bed he picked up, "Yeah,Goren."
"Good morning Bobby, you alone?" Alex asked.
"What?" With a disgusted snort he added, "Yeah, the call girls left about ten minutes ago."
"Well, how am to know? You take off and go look for Sarah. You and she might have hooked up again. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch ..."
"Stop it, Alex. How? How did you know? Did Andy cave?"
"No, Andy didn't cave. I knew as soon as we found out we were coming out to L.A. you'd be going. But I didn't think you'd go out to see her our first night in town. But when I saw you come back and get the keys from Andy, I knew knew where you'd be going. You forget, I'm a pretty good detective, and I do know you pretty well, Bobby Goren. Are you ready to eat?"
"Yeah, I was just on my way downstairs. I'll meet you by the restaurant in a few minutes."
Breakfast turned out to be a quick start to the day. They had barely placed their breakfast order when LAPD officers Jack Hawkins and Steve Jenkins arrived to take the two NYPD officers back to central division headquarters. The two accepted coffee and waited until they'd eaten. The kitchen wasn't busy and they got their food quickly.
Bobby took a last gulp of coffee as he stood and grabbed the check. He walked up to the cashier as Detectives Hawkins and Jenkins followed. This left Alex and Andy alone to say a quick goodbye to each other.
"Tony DaSilva was released last night. As of now we don't have a suspect in the Laura Nelson's death. But he is no longer considered a person of interest."
Bobby turned to look at Hawkins, "Is that suppose to come as a surprise to me? I saw the interview you did. It didn't seem like you really believed he was a suspect then, even though you kept up the interrogation. Whose bright idea was it?"
"You're right, we didn't think he'd done it. It was Jarvis and Caldwell, they were pushing DaSilva as the primary suspect. I'm sure they wanted to get a quick arrest to ally any suspicion or fear that her death was at the hands of the "Cross Country' killer. The media's going crazy with the similarities between the M.O.'s."
Hawkins looked at his partner, who merely nodded, "We're going to be upfront with you. We're not getting this at all. This whole task force dog and pony show and the Feds wanting to work the 'Cross Country' killer angle together - when do the Feds ever want to work something together with local cops? Why were you two, NYPD officers flown out here to help with it?"
"Nothing about this fits any scenario we can think of." Jenkins added and then asked, "We were watching you and your partner yesterday, and we can tell you're not buying any of this either. Have either of you figured out what the game is? What the Feds are doing here?"
Bobby shook his head, "Eames and I haven't really talked about it too much, but we know things are not what they seem. We weren't summoned here for the Nelson case or even the "Cross Country Killer" angle, but something else. What that's going to be, I'm haven't been able to figure out find out today, but guess is as good as mine." Alex joined them and the four cops left to make the fifteen minute drive to the Central Division offices.
Skipping over yet another cup of coffee or a muffin, Goren grabbed an apple from one of the baskets in the conference room and turned back to survey the conference room and it's occupants. The four federal investigators sat at one end of the table, all peering closely at the contents of a single open file folder. Bobby wondered if it had anything to do with the case they were purportedly her to work on.
The four LAPD officers were over on the other side of the room, hanging out and joking around about one of Hollywood's elite celebrities that was arrested last night on yet another drug charge. The consensus was the guy would get probation again and then do another high profile rehab stint. Once rehabbed and released he'd get out and find his once flagging career, suddenly hot again. Ironically, it gave celebrities a second chance once they'd been in trouble with the law. In the real world, those second chances didn't happen for most people who'd run up against it.
Alex walked over to join Bobby while they all waited for Jarvis and Caldwell to show up. "So, what did Jenkins have to say to you this morning? Do they have any more idea what's going on than we do?"
"Nope." Goren leaned back against the table and stretched his legs out in front of him. Taking a bite from the apple, he asked, "What do you think of those two, Jenkins and Hawkins?"
"They seem like a couple of sharp guys. The interview with DaSilva was good even though he lawyer-ed up before they could get a confession."
"You think DaSilva did it?"
"No, but you could have gotten the guy to confess whether he did it or not." Eames jokingly punched her partner on the shoulder and walked over get a bottle of water as Goren rolled his eyes and shook his head as she walked away. Knowing that Goren had watched her, she turned around and waggled the bottled water, silently asking Goren if he wanted one. He nodded affirmatively just as the door to the conference room opened and Jarvis and Caldwell came in.
"If everyone could grab a chair, we have an update for you all." said Jarvis. "I'm sure you've all heard by now that Vince DaSilva has been released. And as of now, we no longer feel he is a person of interest in the death of Laura Nelson."
Pausing to see what effect this news had on everyone he wasn't surprised to see resigned acknowledgement in everyone's eyes. "LAPD has decided to reassign John Sampson and Jane Denham as primary detectives on the Nelson case." seeing the surprised looks exchanged by Hawkins and Jenkins, he quickly added, "Jack, Steve hold on."
Caldwell spoke up and said, "That's right detectives. As for my team, we're pulling you out completely and we'll continue working on the 'Cross Country' slayings from our downtown office. Why don't you guys pack up and head back now." Now there were confused looks all around as the FBI team left the conference room.
Chief of detectives Jarvis spoke up again, "Sampson, Denham, come with me. We're going to work out of my office. I'm staying very involved in this one so, the three of us will be the primary team in this investigation at the request of the police commissioner and the mayor. Even though it doesn't appear to be the work of the 'Cross Country' killer it's still a high profile case, given the DaSilva connection and Monogram Pictures. So, let's go. All the files have already been taken to my office upstairs."
Caldwell remained quiet as Sampson, Denham and Jarvis left the room. That left the detective teams of Hawkins and Jenkins, and Goren and Eames pondering their place in this.
"well, okay. I'm sure you're all wondering what this is all about. Especially you, Goren, since you called me out on it yesterday. This is what it's all about… this woman right here…" Caldwell opened the folder in front of him and withdrew two undercover photo arrays of six shots of one woman and passed one along to each team of detectives. She had long dark brown hair, and a petite frame. "Any one have any ideas of who she may be?" A pause and shaking of heads greeted his question. "Goren?"
"Nope, doesn't look familiar to me. Why do you think I would recognize her?"
"We have reason to believe this woman has undergone extensive reconstructive surgery to hide her identity. We have very good reason to believe this woman is Nicole Wallace."
"Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Count me out! I'm done with that one." Bobby was shaking his head 'no' and waving the notion away.
"Me too." Alex said as she looked at the photos more closely.
"Who's Nicole Wallace?" Hawkins and Jenkins asked in unison.
"Here's her file. It consists of information from Australian law enforcement agencies and several files from the NYPD's Major Case Squad. Goren and Eames were the primary detectives for all the major case investigations."
"This woman," Caldwell waved the photo of Nicole as he spoke, "she first came to our attention about a year ago in Phoenix. While we don't have a pre-op picture of her in Arizona to compare with this picture, we have information from a source within the clinic, that this woman used a New York driver's license issued in the name of Nicole Haynes. It didn't take much for us to find out that before her marriage Nicole Haynes last name had been Wallace. She married and had been divorced by a man by the name of…"
"Gavin Haynes." Eames and Goren both said his name.
"Right, Gavin Haynes. That led to information about Nicole Wallace's trial and her acquittal on murder charges. Which in turn led us to check out all her dealings with the NYPD and her supposed involvement in several other unresolved cases and her incarceration in Thailand at JatuJak Prison."
"Now she's going by the name of Veronica Daniels. What originally brought her to our attention was she began seeing a man in Phoenix that we had under investigation for possible gun and drug smuggling. We believe that she somehow compromised his standing within the group he was working with. Three months ago, he disappears and Veronica Daniels surfaces in Los Angeles. A month and a half ago the skeleton of our subject was found in the Arizona desert."
"It is because of your past dealings with Nicole Wallace that had us to bring you out to Los Angeles. Your Chief of Detectives and DA's office worked with us, knowing that neither of you were likely to volunteer to become involved in another case dealing with Nicole Wallace."
"That's for sure." Eames broke in sarcastically.
"This isn't just another run of the mill smuggling operation. We've been able to trace shipments of these guns to al-Qaeda sympathizers, so you can see the national security implications. We need to find out, who this woman is, and if she is a part of the smuggling op or has any information about the smuggling ring. As I said, we're fairly certain that she is Nicole Wallace. If she is, we think we have enough leverage to turn her. If she's not Nicole, we need to find out who she is. And find a way to get her help."
"Good luck with that. If she is Nicole, the only one she's out to save is herself. She'll never, never give it up. You won't turn her. You won't break her." Goren said as he stood. "Nicole is only out for herself. She's not political or ideological. She may have had something to do with the death of your smuggler, but she's not part of any smuggling ring."
"Sit down, Detective. You won't be allowed to leave the building, so you might as well."
"Are you telling he, you're holding us here until we agree to do this?"
"Well, at least until you hear me out. But yeah, that's basically the situation, so please sit down Detective. I think that once you hear me out, you won't be so anxious to walk out that door." Caldwell stood his ground blocking the door.
Goren swung around and looked at the other detectives. The two LAPD detectives just sat there. Eames sighed and just said, "Bobby, come on, sit down."
"Eames. Come on. You're not buying into …"
"Bobby, I don't know what I'm buying into yet or not, but ….." Eames said it in that tone she got when she really wanted to get his attention. He plopped back into his chair as Caldwell continued.
"As I said, she, I'm going to refer to her as Nicole, turned up here in L.A. three months ago. So far, she's spent thousands of dollars that were most likely raided from our smuggler's stash outfitting herself in the latest designer clothes, frequenting the same clubs the L.A. power brokers do and ingratiating herself with them. Recently she's taken up with Phillip DaSilva, and as you may remember from yesterday's briefing, he's the President and CEO of Monogram Pictures."
That got the attention of all four detectives. But for very different reasons. The Los Angeles Detectives were sensitive to the Hollywood community and DaSilva was one of the few to have maintained a presence in the fickle world of Hollywood for decades. Plus, there was the little fact that the two detectives had just interrogated his younger son in the death of his girlfriend. Goren and Eames knew of Monogram because that was the studio that was turning Sarah's book, "And Justice For All" into a movie.
"Working backwards we've been able to come up with what we believe is a fairly accurate chronology of Nicole's life, thanks mostly to the work of Goren and Eames and the Australian authorities. We learned about her time in a JatuJak district prison in Thailand and her boyfriend, Bernard Fremont. We have her history from Australia and England. And her multiple run-ins with you two. You two came up with a remarkable profile. And more than enough solid evidence that should have sent her to prison for a very long time. How that jury could have come back with a not guilty verdict does make me question my faith in the jury system. You should have had her in a slam dunk."
"We thought so." Alex interjected.
"So we thought what two better people to tell us whether or not Veronica Daniels and Nicole Wallace are the same person."
Detective Jenkins spoke up, "If she is Nicole Wallace, then she would know Eames and Goren by sight and avoid them making it impossible to make the ID."
"Not necessarily. From her past interactions with Detectives Eames and Goren, especially Detective Goren she might feel compelled to 'toy' with the detectives, to see if they could discover who she is. We weren't sure how we were going to pull off a face to face. At least until last night."
Turning to change his focus, he looked straight at Goren and asked, "Detective, during the time of your dealings with Nicole Wallace, did she ever have occasion to meet or get to know Sarah Stevens?"
"Sarah? No, no they never met. How do you know about Sarah? Did you have me followed last night?"
Not bothering to answer, Caldwell continued, "in the last several weeks both Sarah Stevens and Veronica Daniels have become quite friendly. They've lunched together several times and have had dinners with the DaSilva family at their home. Also, several times at Ms Stevens home, as recently as last weekend. It does seem like more than a coincidence that Nicole would start hanging out with your ex-girlfriend. You say they never met, but would Nicole have been aware of Sarah Stevens and her connection to you?"
Goren and Eames looked at each other. Nicole had done her share of research into the lives of the two detectives. She knew about Eame's father's trouble with the city and the restituition he'd had to pay, her mother's stroke, Eame's surrogacy on behalf of her brother and his wife. She knew about Goren's family issues; his parent's divorce, his mother's illness, his estrangement from his father and brother. Surely she had known about Sarah, even though Nicole had never mentioned that in any of their interviews although she had mentioned everything else. It hadn't been necessary. She only played the cards she needed to. She would have kept several in reserve.
"Yeah," Bobby admitted. "She… it's possible. I'm sure you know that too. Nicole wasn't in New York when Michael DeVry went on his killing spree, but it made several of the tabloids at the time. It wouldn't have taken much for her to find out about Sarah or our relationship. Nicole never said anything about it, never played on that. She could have been saving it for another go-round."
"Detective, other than last night when was the last time you had any contact of any kind with Sarah Stevens?"
Looking down at the tabletop and his folded hands, tightly clasped to keep him from slamming them into the table and turning his rage on Caldwell for the invasions of privacy - his and Sarah's. Drawing a deep breath, Bobby said, "You did have me followed. Well, I haven't seen, spoken to, or corresponded with Sarah in over a year. Last night was the first time either of has had any contact with the other."
"Yes, I did have you followed, but really whether or not I had you followed is redundant since Ms. Stevens has been under surveillance for the last month. And now that you have an invitation to attend the movie premiere and after-party tonight we have our first chance to verify our suspicions about Veronica/Nicole."
"You have Sarah's house bugged, too? Is… is she suspected of some kind of involvement in this?"
"Let's just say until we determine otherwise, she is a person of interest."
Bobby stood and shouted "A person of interest? Looking at the information you've dug up about Nicole, based mostly on work that my partner and I done, you've also looked into the background of Sarah and know without doubt that she is not a 'person of interest' in this."
"Detective, everyone who comes into contact with Veronica or Nicole or whichever name you want to refer to her as, is a person of interest until we, the United States Government determine otherwise."
Caldwell wasn't enjoying this but he knew it was necessary to get Goren on his team. Taking a minute to let things calm down a little, he quietly continued, "We need you to accept Ms. Stevens invitation to attend the premiere for you and your partner. Detective Eames we'd like you to accompany Detective Goren, but without your husband. You could explain his absence to Ms Stevens to a business meeting he needed to attend. Ms. Stevens was going to furnish you with three tickets to the event, so hopefully getting one more shouldn't be too difficult, because we'd like both detectives Hawkins and Jenkins to attend as well."
"I'm not going to involve or use Sarah to …"
"Unfortunately, she's already involved Detective. If there's any way to keep her from getting more involved with what's going on, it's going to be by removing Veronica/Nicole from the equation. You can help uninvolve her, though."
"I'm going to need you to call Ms. Stevens and see about getting those tickets. So, I suggest the rest of us take a few minutes to grab a cigarette or some coffee while Detective Goren figures out how to handle the call to Ms. Stevens."
Detectives Hawkins and Jenkins got up and excused themselves from the room. Caldwell looked from Goren to Eames and said, "Make him see it's the only way."
After Caldwell left the conference room, Eames looked at Bobby and just shook her head. "I don't know what to say here. I can six things going on here and a dozen ways each scenario could conceivably blow up in the Feds faces."
"And in more than one of them, Sarah winds up getting hurt. If this is," Bobby reached out to pick up the photos Caldwell had handed them, "Nicole, regardless of whether she's involved or knows what's going on with the arms smuggling, she could still be looking to get back at me, by hurting Sarah or by using Sarah to draw me out.
Bobby had gotten up and was pacing back and forth. "What's it gonna take to be rid of Nicole for good?"
"Bobby I don't know. But, maybe doing this for the Feds, is the only way. Especially if Veronica Daniels is Nicole. Because if she is, I think you're right, that eventually she'll go after Sarah."
"Alex," Bobby hardly ever referred to her as 'Alex' so she knew that what was coming out next, was going to be a personal admission from him. "Last night, um, last night was … I don't think I can see her again, last night was not good. And… I can't use her like this. And when she finds out…"
"I know. I do, I know. I really don't think there's any other way. If we do this, we can do what we can to keep Sarah out of it as much as possible. If it goes the other way, she may not be so lucky."
"How… how do I explain it to her? She has to know the truth. I can't lie to her. And Caldwell isn't going to want me telling her what's going on." Shaking his head, he muttered, "a person of interest."
"We'll find a way. Bobby. We will. I can call her and set this up, but you're going to have to see her. We can't leave Sarah hanging like this. There is an outside chance that she could be in serious danger and if something happens and we could have done something…."
"I know… I know. But... I'll call her. I'll call her. I'll do it."
"You should call her now though, before the others come back. Um… I'll go outside and keep the others out."
