A/N1: Ownership of Chuck. Who can add to the mystery?
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LAPD Southeast Community Police Station, Los Angeles
Alan Chen was leaning on the wall next to the one-way glass and watching his partner interrogate the kid their confidential informant had ID'ed as the hitter of the Taco King parking lot vic. As they had just moved out of the Gang and Narcotics Division, their contacts among the gangs were still useful. By the minute, it seemed more and more likely that they had gotten the guy good for the killing. Seems he and the vic had had a disagreement over a woman and the disagreement turned fatal. Luke hadn't yet closed the deal, but he was moments away from getting the confession.
As Chen watched, his phone buzzed with a text.
BLACK VAN FOUND
VACANT LOT AT VERMONT AND W GAGE
BURNED OUT, ZERO
'Shit,' he thought. 'That was going to be a good lead, if it came in. Shit. And so soon after Chuck had given it to them. Shit.'
As those thoughts were passing through his mind, there was a quick knock on the door. A uniformed officer who he didn't know handed him a note from Mauser.
'FIVE PM MEETING WITH YOUR BUDDIES IS GOOD. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WANT TO LEAVE.'
'Ok. That's good,' thought Chen. As he watched, Luke convinced the kid to confess. Tearful. Angry. Defensive. Seemingly exculpatory. These kids seemed to think that if your reason for murder was explicable, it was all ok. Like the State of California would understand and forgive you. Chen shook his head.
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Parking lot, Jim Gillman Park, Los Angeles
Chuck, Sarah and Casey were bunched together near Chuck and Casey's cars while Zonda and Bryce stood off a bit to the side, speaking to each other.
Chuck was leaning back with his butt against the hood of his car and had just told his partners that Microsoft had, not unexpectedly, increased the offer to buy Carmichael Industries. In fact, they had doubled it. Six hundred million dollars. Two hundred million apiece.
"What did you tell him?" asked Casey, referring to Chuck's old frat brother Joe Grant, who seemed to be tasked with convincing Chuck to sell his company.
"I told him that the money wasn't the thing. That we weren't for sale. That we valued our independence. Pretty much what we all talked about."
"And he said?" asked Casey.
"He said working for them would still give us all the independence we could ask for. But..."
Nodding, Sarah finished the sentence, "But he has no idea the extent of the independence we are talking about. Whole nother zip code from what anyone else he's talking to might ever have in mind."
"Exactly," said Chuck, nodding along. "Taking off to the far side of the world on a moment's notice."
"Dying in the service of our country," said Casey.
"Shit, Case," said Sarah, with a deep frown. "Not part of my plan. Well, not anymore anyway."
"Yeah, seriously. Don't go there. Jeez," said Chuck, shaking his head with a look of distaste.
"Where'd you leave it with Joe?" asked Sarah.
"He said he'd talk to the guys there and have someone get back to me," said Chuck.
"That'll be interesting," said Casey with no small amount of sarcasm. "Another geek."
"Nerd," Chuck and Sarah said together. Casey turned to hide his smile.
A Chevy Malibu pulled up to them and Booker and Chen got out with another man. He was medium height, but looked very strong and tough. Suit and undone tie, close shaved head, he had a look like you could smack him in the face with a two-by-four and not accomplish much of anything.
As he approached, Chen said, "Lt. Mauser, this is..."
Mauser said, "Which one is Carmichael?" His voice was a harsh growl. As if he'd smoked way more than his share of cigarettes.
Chuck said, "I am. You can call me Chuck." He reached out to shake the man's hand. Mauser's grip was everything Chuck expected it to be and he tried not to wince. "Good to meet you, Lieutenant."
"Heard a lot about you, Carmichael. You've done some good work," said Mauser.
"Not alone, Sir. Let me introduce my team. This is Sarah Walker," said Chuck.
As Mauser reached for her hand something happened to the lower half of his face, as if it had been split by a wide knife wound. It took Sarah a moment to realize the man was smiling at her. He said, "I understand congratulations are in order."
"Thank you," she said.
Chuck pointed Mauser to the other members of the team. "Bryce Larkin and Zondra Rizzo."
"Good to meet you," he said as he shook hands with each of them. He seemed to linger on Bryce. "Larkin, huh? You got any family up in Encino? I knew some Larkins from up that way."
"Naw," said Bryce, with the smile he used for manly men. "My family's back east."
"Heh," growled Mauser. "Too bad."
Chuck gestured to Casey and said, "Finally, Colonel Casey."
As the men shook hands, Mauser said, "What branch?"
"Marine Corps. You?"
Mauser said, "Army. Still in the Reserves. Major."
"Military Police?" asked Casey.
"Naw. Military Intelligence. Met a lotta fellas in your line of work over the years. Always got along well," he said. "Anyway, wanted to tell you guys that we've increased the patrols around the homeless encampments. At least twice an hour a car will go by. Wasn't too sure what to tell them to watch out for, but better to have them around than not, I guess. And we told the ME's office to call me whenever the next homeless guy croaks. Might have nothing to do with what you're looking for, but even in case it doesn't we'll know about it."
"Good. Thanks," said Sarah. "We'd like a member of our team, a doctor, to double check the bodies, if you guys wouldn't mind."
"I don't mind for shit. All good to me. From what I understand now, if we piss off the ME and make him up his game, it's a win for everybody," said Mauser. "Also, the van turned up. Burned to a crisp, so that's a dry hole."
"Dammit," said Chuck. "For the next leads that show up, though, let's try to keep our teams in touch, to the extent that we can."
"Good," said Mauser. He jerked his head to the side and said, "Maybe give me Larkin as a liaison? We hear anything, he'll know right away."
Chuck glanced at Bryce, who nodded, and said, "Sounds good. You guys can exchange contact info and figure out the next steps."
"Sounds good," said Mauser, stepping up to Bryce. Looking back over his shoulder at Chuck and Sarah, he said, "Just so you know, I'm really happy to know you guys." He sounded like he was talking about a case of hemorrhoids.
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LAPD Southeast Community Police Station, Los Angeles
Chen pulled up in front of the station and let his new boss out of the car.
Bending over and looking back into the car, Mauser said, "What are you guys up to?"
"Probably go for a beer, Boss. You want to come?" asked Chen.
"No, thanks. I meant tomorrow. What are you guys doing with the Bagg investigation?"
"Well," said Booker, "with the van toast, maybe we'll start hitting the different spots that help those folks. See if the people working there noticed anything. Long shot, but we're not going to get too much else from the spies. Not that many leads at this point, I think."
"Yeah," growled Mauser. "Sorry to say, I agree. Which one you hitting first?"
Chen said, "Probably Grey... uh, Greene..."
Booker said, "Yeah, Greene. It's the one Bagg visited."
"Good idea. Get that one handled in the morning and then move on to the rest. Better you guys than me. I can't deal with these no-loads," said Mauser, shaking his head.
As he pulled away from the car, both men said, "G'night, Sir."
They drove off silently. "No-loads?" asked Booker.
"Cynicism?" said Chen.
"Maybe. I'm thinking an empathy deficit. Lot of that going around nowadays."
After a few moments contemplation, Chen said, "Yeah. That too, I guess."
Chen made a turn and Booker said, "Where...?"
"The burned van. See what we can see. Go for beer after."
"Cool," said Booker.
Only a few minutes later, they pulled up to the area with the hulk of the van. The carcass was a sitting in a vacant lot with garbage strewn here and there and weeds growing through cracks in the concrete. The chain link fence did almost nothing to separate the inside from the outside. They parked on the street in front of the broken gate, pulled on rubber gloves from a box in the glove compartment, and ducked under the police tape supposedly barring anyone from entering.
The van was a charred ruin, but, from the remains, seemed to be a match for the vehicle Chuck had found on the traffic cams. The ground under the van showed evidence of the fire, that it had been set alight there (and not, for example, towed there after the fire). Some of the scorch marks had run from water, probably from the fire department putting out the blaze. The acrid smell of burned rubber and metal was strong.
"Stinks," said Chen.
"We've smelled worse," said Booker.
"Much worse," agreed Chen.
"They wanted it found," said Booker after a few moments of staring at the remains of the vehicle.
"Yeah. Taunting us, maybe?" asked Chen.
"Dunno. Weird," said Booker, thinking.
"So soon after we put out the BOLO. Almost as if it was in reaction to that," said Chen. He looked at Booker. "Chuck said the threat is internal..."
"Naw, that's just too fucked up. Don't go there," said Chen.
"Yeah." Booker, looking around, said, "No traffic cams here. No cameras of any kind."
"Yeah. They are spies, according to Chuck. Heads up opponents. Be interesting to see the other car, though," said Chen. "The one that took the driver of the van home after the bonfire."
"Yeah. The Carmichael team said a group, so...yeah," said Booker.
Both men began to walk around the burned-out van, using flashlights to look inside in the fading light. They were disappointed. Whatever accelerant had been used to get the fire going had started the blaze on the floor. Everything up from there was burnt-out. Even the glove compartment had been opened before the fire, to make sure there was nothing there useful to be found.
Chen said, "VIN number missing from the dash." Both men knew that the vehicle identification number was stamped on any vehicle in multiple places and in a manner that wouldn't be easily removed.
"Yeah," said Booker. "From the driver's side too." He was looking at the door jam on that side. "Want to bet they removed it from the engine block too?"
"No bet," said Chen as he opened the hood of the van. Turning back to Booker with a wrinkled frown, shaking his head, Chen said, "Yup. Looks like an industrial grinder took it off."
"Hard to catch, is what Chuck said," said Booker.
"Yeah, it is. One more place to try." Chen walked to the back left-hand side of the van and popped open the flap for the gas cap. "Ok, then."
"What you got?"
"Gas cap is intact. Didn't burn," said Chen.
"Ok," said Booker.
Looking at his friend, Chen said, "How do you screw in a gas cap?"
Booker mimed twisting a gas cap, with four fingers gripping the circular edge, and the thumb along the raised ridge in the middle. He grinned. "The ridge. A thumb print."
"Maybe," said Chen. "Hope so." He took an evidence baggie from his pocket and opened it. He also took a folding knife from his back pocket and flipped it open, to cut the little plastic tether which connected the cap to the gas pipe. Using a clean handkerchief, he unscrewed the cap and dropped it into the bag. "I'll take it to forensics in the morning. See if they can pull anything up."
"Plan. You got anything else here?"
"No, you?" asked Chen.
"Nope. Ready for the Gin Mill," said Booker.
"You're just ready to hit on Brandy some more," he said with a chuckle, putting the gas cap in his pocket.
"Dude, she likes me. I'm making progress," said Booker plaintively, as they walked away from the van.
"So's the next ice age," laughed Chen.
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Ace Hotel, Rooftop Bar, Los Angeles
Zondra sat at a small table, her back to the crowd (which made her very uncomfortable) and watched the sunset fading into night. She sipped her tequila and glanced at her watch. She didn't want this meeting to drag. Unlike most of her clandestine meetings, in this case she was the one whose identity was the one to protect. And, in this case, she was banking on the anonymity of a crowd.
Five minutes before he was due, Frank Deppard arrived. He was a thin man in his mid-thirties, he'd buzzed his brown hair very short to account for his balding scalp. He was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt, and a light sports jacket.
Showing decent tradecraft, he went to the bar and ordered a bottle of beer first. After a quick walk around, to get the lay of the land, he approached Zondra with a wide smile and said, "Hi. You look lonely. Is this seat taken?"
She nodded her head at the seat, with a smile for anyone who might be watching, and said, "Just for the record, 'you look lonely' will never ever work for a real pick-up line."
"Noted," he said. "But I've been married for 14 years. It's never going to happen in real life. For my pseudo-spy life it'll probably do."
"Fourteen years? Good for you," said Zondra.
"You married?" he asked, with a glance at her left hand.
"Nope, and not on the market at the moment. My work keeps me pretty busy," she said.
"Understood. I know how it goes. Well, not for a woman, of course, but at least for me," he said with a small smile.
"That's it," she said with a bit of a smile herself, tapping her finger on the edge of her glass.
"What's it?" he asked.
"That you would recognize the fact that a woman might look at it differently. That's it. It's why we selected you."
"Um, ok, I guess," he said. "Selected? I'm still not sure about what conversation we're having, Ms. Rizzo."
"I know. Here's the deal. You know I'm a VP at Castle Studios. You also know that we've been in the papers recently about the whole sexual harassment thing..."
"Yeah. Did Mattock deliberately smash Weinberg's balls? Totally off the record," he asked with a grin.
Zondra looked down at her glass and her grin grew to encompass her whole face. Looking back up at him, she said, her eyes sparkling with humor, "No comment."
"Seriously?" he asked.
"Serious - fucking – ly," said Zondra, nodding and taking a sip of her tequila.
Deppard leaned back and laughed long and hard, endearing him to Zondra just a touch more. "Goddamn," he said.
"Anyway," she continued, "we were in the papers. The Board of Directors, back east, has told us to stop it. Avoid the publicity surrounding the whole thing. But, and here's the fun part, they didn't tell us to stop. Just to avoid the publicity. That's where you come in, Mr. Deppard. Ms. Mattock and I have read the work you've done, including the coverage of what Castle Studios is up to. It impressed us. We feel we could work with you going forward. Knowing, of course, that we can't appear in the stories."
"Is this a job offer?" he asked, confused.
"No. We want to feed you information behind the scenes and help you write about it. We decided that a spotlight on this behavior would deter some of these predators," she said.
"And maybe encourage prosecutors to grow a pair of balls?" asked Deppard.
"Maybe," she said. "But, Castle has to stay behind the curtain. Any rumor of our involvement and this relationship ends and we disappear."
"Understood. What kind of information do you have in mind?" he asked.
"We can get some women to talk to you off-the-record, including the woman who was raped by Weinberg. The one Ben Mattock talked to him about," said Zondra.
"Off-the-record? I'm sorry, Ms. Rizzo, but that's not going to work. I can't write a story accusing someone of rape on the basis of a single anonymous source," he said, taking a swig of his beer and shaking his head.
"But she's telling the truth," said Zondra.
"Oh, I believe it, but I still need more," he said.
"What if I can convince her to go on the record?" asked Zondra.
"Better, but something this explosive should have at least a couple of sources, to be honest. It would be irresponsible to publish on the basis of a single source with no verification," he said.
"Listen, Mr. Deppard, there aren't going to be witnesses. That's obvious," Zondra said, beginning to get angry.
"Of course not," he said. "That's what makes this type of reporting so difficult. It degenerates into 'he-said-she-said' pretty damn fast. Even if you can independently prove the sex act, like a rape exam or something, the issue of consent becomes the core of the defense. And a man as rich and powerful as Weinberg would have the best defense in the world."
"If you're afraid, maybe we picked the wrong reporter to talk to," said Zondra.
"Maybe." Deppard shrugged a shoulder. "Could you find another reporter who would jump at the chance to try to take down Weinberg? Sure. Of course. But, in my opinion, he or she would be reckless to go to press with only this behind the story. And reckless gets you sued. We are taught from the beginning to get more back-up than this. Even if I were foolish or sloppy enough to write something up, there's zero chance my editor would let it go to press. The Herald Examiner, together with the Times, is one of the most respected papers in town. There's a reason for that. Our standards are high. My standards are high. I like to think I have a pretty decent rep and the fact that you called me supports that notion. I'm not trying to be difficult, Ms. Rizzo. I am definitely interested in working with you. You were clear about the parameters of the relationship from your side. I need you to understand it from my side too. In my field, if I publish something as flimsy as 'sources say a powerful Hollywood exec is a rapist' I won't be able to get a job at the tabloids let alone keep my current job. I need sources on the record. I need proof, text conversations, emails, internal memos, something."
"Ok. I'm trying to understand. I'm not getting you witnesses to rape. I'll be lucky if I can get the victims to go on the record. They are justifiably concerned for their careers. What CAN I get you that you will deem sufficient to publish?" She held up her hand and said, "I don't mean that to imply criticism of your decision. I did that before and I apologize. It's a legit question, though."
"Ok," he said, "a fact is a fact is a fact. If one of the women files a police report alleging rape, that's a confirmable fact. If a prosecutor brings charges, it's news. If one of his victims sues him for sexual assault, the lawsuit is a fact I can report. But I have to be very, very careful if a woman is just giving her rendition of an experience. You know what we are taught? If you mother says she loves you, check it out."
"What am I expected to do with that, Mr. Deppard?" asked Zondra, with some exasperation.
"Truth be told, I don't know. What you are suggesting is a bit outside my … hell, any decent journalist's, experience. Give me some time to think about it. Let me talk to my editor, without disclosing my source...potential source. When we get closer to publishing, I will probably ask your permission to explain the arrangement to him, but at this point it's hypothetical. In the meantime, let me cogitate on what we'd need to get close to publishing against Weinberg."
"Ok, Mr. Deppard. You talk to your people and let me know what you need."
She extended her almost empty glass of tequila and clicked with his beer bottle.
Although the sun was setting on the day, it promised a new day tomorrow.
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A/N2: Frank Deppard and his reactions to Zondra's offer. Yeah. My son is a newspaper editor. I had long conversations with him about that scene using Harvey Weinstein as the template and I subsequently asked him to read this scene for verisimilitude. This was not out of thin air. The expression, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out," is attributed to the City News Bureau. Coincidentally, as I write this chapter, a Los Angeles jury found Weinstein guilty of rape and sexual assault stemming from an incident in 2013 (adding to a prior conviction in New York State).
A/N3: Happy holidays to all my friends who celebrate any of the various solstice holidays at this time of year. All the best to you and your families.
A/N4: Again, no gunfire. Casey must be going nuts. Are you?