Fallen Angels (30 page)

J
OSIE HEARD
the door and screen lock behind her as she stepped onto the cluttered porch and felt the night air cut through her light jacket. She should’ve been tired but felt invigorated. She’d spent three hours with a crazy old woman and ate like a pig, but she might’ve discovered what happened to Hillary’s diary. Turned out Mouse had a little pack-rat blood and most likely snatched Hillary’s diary as soon as the girl was dead. Lange had talked to Mrs. Dennis, searched the rooms and probably knew as much as Josie did. She figured the odds on Mouse’s survival were better if she found her before Milano’s lawyer did.

Unfortunately, her best bloodhound was sitting at home waiting for the geniuses at I.A. to figure out the allegations against Fricke were bogus. In the meantime, keeping Mouse alive and locating the diary would be really difficult without him and his partner. She needed Fricke, but even she wouldn’t have the guts to put him back in the field now.

When she got into her car, Josie called the Hollywood vice office and Marge answered.

“Have a bad dream?” Marge asked, as soon as she recognized Josie’s voice.

“What’re you talking about?”

“Why are you calling me at this hour? All good little captains should be safely tucked in their beds by now.”

“Actually, I never quite made it home.”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?” Now Marge sounded concerned.

“It’s okay. I’m sitting outside Hillary’s mother’s house. I stopped by to see how she was doing.”

“In the middle of the fucking night?”

“It’s a long story. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, but for now I need your people to pick up Mouse again. Make it your number one priority. I think she’s got Hillary’s diary and I’m pretty sure Lange and Milano want it as badly as I do.”

They talked a few more minutes while Josie started her car and made a one-handed U-turn heading back in the direction of the freeway. She drove under a streetlight across the road from Mrs. Dennis’s house and was saying goodbye to Marge when the front windshield cracked with a loud thud and then again. Josie stepped on the gas pedal and turned away as a shower of glass fragments sprayed her head and face. Her first thought was a brick had been thrown at the window until she saw the bullet-sized holes and swerved away from the light, angled her car toward the street, leaving the engine running and the headlights flooding the area where she thought the shots might’ve come from. She unholstered her .45 and scrambled across the seat to the passenger door, sliding out onto the ground. Her phone was nearby on the floor of the car, but she reached for the police radio.

“Commander six, officer needs help six hundred block Sierra Way, shots fired,” she said as calmly as she could, directing the approaching units to what she calculated was a safe location. It took a few seconds from the shots hitting the car to the radio call, but she felt as if everything was happening in slow motion. Her hand was shaking slightly as she slipped the radio into her jacket pocket.

Using her car for cover, she crawled toward the front bumper, trying to see something, anything that would tell her where her assailant was hiding. The street was dark except for the police car’s high beams, and it was quiet. One porch light came on, but no one came out. Gunshots weren’t an anomaly in this neighborhood. In the distance she could hear sirens. Crouching under parked car windows, she moved further down the street. The area was deserted and eerily still. “Come on, asshole, stick that pumpkin head up and give me one clean shot,” she whispered. Both her hands were on the gun and steady now—anger trumped fear.

Within thirty seconds, the street was surrounded with police cars and what seemed to be an army of shotgun-toting officers. Josie directed them and the officers with dogs to her location. The first one to reach her was that same sergeant from Rampart division who had responded to the party house the night Hillary was killed.

“We’re doing a yard-by-yard search, ma’am, but we’re pretty sure the shooter took off before we got here,” the sergeant said, brushing some glass off her shoulder with his leather glove.

“You spend a lot of time in my division,” Josie said, slowly getting up from her crouched position. “And I do appreciate that.”

“You’d better let the paramedics take a look at you,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said, noticing several officers standing around now, staring at her. She thought she must’ve gotten pretty messed up rolling out of the car and reached to straighten her hair. The sergeant clamped her wrist.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Your hair’s full of glass. Can’t you feel the glass in your skin?”

She couldn’t, but suddenly had an urge to rub her face. She stood under a dim streetlight and examined her hands. They had tiny cuts that were barely bleeding, but there wasn’t any pain. The paramedics examined her face and hands and decided it was best to take her to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai where they could more easily find and remove any tiny glass fragments and disinfect the cuts.

The sergeant took her personal items out of her car and threw them in the backseat of his black and white cruiser.

“Hop in,” he said, opening the passenger door. “I’ll get your car towed when they’re done, but first let me take you to Cedars.”

The paramedic shrugged and closed the back doors of his ambulance as Josie got into the police car.

She opened the passenger window and thanked the paramedics as the sergeant pulled away, maneuvering around several parked police cars and a couple of ambulances. “And thank you for the lift,” she said, beginning to notice a little discomfort as her neck muscles tightened from tension, and feeling considerable pain in her joints.

“No problem, Captain. You just don’t look like the type to lie on a stretcher and wait for somebody to take care of you.”

Josie nodded, but wasn’t sure she agreed. She was fighting an urge to scratch her face and thought lying on a stretcher with a shot of Demerol didn’t sound like such a terrible idea right now. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” she asked, trying to keep her mind off the painful cuts and overall ache.

“Kyle Richards. I like to stay busy, and there’s never too much going on in the middle of the night except in Hollywood.”

“Maybe you should transfer into my division, since you spend so much time hanging around.”

“Mind if I ask you a question, ma’am?”

“Probably, but go ahead.”

“What were you doing in that gang-infested neighborhood by yourself in the middle of the night?”

“Community policing,” she said, giving him a look that should’ve told him she had no intention of answering that question, at least not for him. Sergeant Richards was trim with graying brown hair. He had four hash marks on his sleeve—twenty years with the department—and judging from his salty attitude, he’d been around, probably retired military. She’d be surprised if his personnel package wasn’t full of commendations.

She was always looking for competent people and this sergeant looked like a good candidate for her division.

“You feeling okay?” Sergeant Richards asked as he exited the freeway off-ramp and turned onto the surface street.

“Like a pincushion.”

“Almost there. Don’t scratch.”

“You work any off-duty jobs?”

“No, why?”

“Curiosity.”

“I’d rather spend my free time with my kid.”

He negotiated the turn into the Cedars’ parking structure near the emergency room door. He parked and helped her retrieve her belongings from the backseat.

“I can take it from here, Richards. Appreciate your help, but you’d better get back to Rampart so I don’t get nasty calls from your watch commander,” she said, gingerly shaking his hand, trying to keep her blood off him.

“No problem, he’s a pretty mellow guy. Take care, Captain,” he said, getting back into his patrol car. She watched him typing on his MDT computer keyboard as he left the lot. There was no downtime for this guy.

Josie was grateful she didn’t have a lot of personal junk in her car and only had to carry a utility bag, shotgun and her briefcase into the emergency room. She knew a couple of captains who would’ve had golf bags and substantial loot from their most recent shopping spree stashed in their trunks. The area captain at Pacific division kept a packed suitcase and fishing gear in his city car for weekend getaways with his pretty senior clerk typist.

The sliding door opened, and she saw Marge standing at the nurses’ station with her back to the door. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at Josie. It must’ve been quite a sight because Marge’s eyes widened when she turned around.

“What the fuck,” Marge said, hurrying to help Josie.

“Somebody shot at me,” Josie said.

“I was on the goddamn phone, remember. I get out there . . . morons say some sergeant took you . . . nobody knows shit . . . why the fuck didn’t you call me back?”

“Calm down, woman,” Josie said, handing her the shotgun. “Take this so I don’t look like Mad Max.”

Marge took the shotgun and utility bag, and gently removed the strap of the leather briefcase off Josie’s shoulder. “I’d say more like Edward Scissorhands. Have you seen the side of your face?”

A nurse took Jose behind a curtain where she removed her jacket, shirt and bra, and helped her into a hospital gown. With magnifying glasses, several nurses removed tiny slivers of glass that were embedded in the left side of her face and neck. Most of the glass was on the surface of her skin and brushed off, or was washed away with the soothing disinfectant. Leaning forward, Josie combed her long hair from her neck forward and watched little pieces of glass fall onto a towel one of the nurses had placed on the floor.

An hour later, she was relatively glass-free and finally able to get a glimpse of her face in the mirror over the sink in the patients’ bathroom. With her hair pulled back and her skin cleaned, she didn’t look as horrible as she’d anticipated. There were lots of tiny red spots on her cheek and she could still see remnants of glass dust in her hair, but overall she felt fine. Her skin stopped itching after the disinfectant wash and her hands were hardly scratched. Marge had gathered Josie’s belongings, and they were about to check out when Chief Bright arrived with Art Perry.

Marge groaned under her breath and whispered to Josie, “Just when you think things can’t get more fucked-up.”

“You don’t look too bad,” Bright said cheerfully, getting too close to her and staring at the side of her face. The bureau chief was in a tight t-shirt, sweatpants and running shoes, and looked as if he’d just finished his morning jog. He didn’t seem the least bit distressed about Josie’s dangerous encounter.

Perry was in a business suit and appeared ready for work although it was still only six a.m. He was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Are you okay?” Josie asked him.

He almost smiled. “That should’ve been my question to you. Are you done here?”

“We have some questions but they can wait if you’re tired and want to get home,” Bright said, talking to Josie but looking at Marge, and finally taking the utility bag from her and giving it to Perry.

“Let me grab a few hours sleep and I’ll call you,” Josie said. “I already gave my statement to the detectives. They recovered .45 casings but not a clue as to who did the shooting or why.”

“What were you doing out there?” Bright asked, as they stood in front of the sliding glass door outside the emergency room while Perry and Marge loaded Josie’s belongings onto the backseat of Marge’s car. Josie explained how she’d decided to visit Mrs. Dennis, but carefully avoided any reference to Hillary’s diary or Peter Lange. “Why would you go there alone at that time of night?”

“I was on my way home and saw her lights on,” Josie lied. She guessed that sounded lame so she added, “I remembered you told me Mrs. Dennis was bugging you and the police commission, so I thought I’d try giving her an update on the investigation and maybe she’d give us all some breathing room.” It wasn’t a great explanation, but the best Josie could conjure up after nearly getting her head blown off.

“This case is too much for you. You can’t be doing these things in the middle of the night. Did you get a look at the shooter?”

She didn’t get the connection but answered, “Never saw anyone. Might’ve been some neighborhood punk who recognized the police car,” Josie said. “It’s the most logical explanation.” She wasn’t certain that was true, but then Bright didn’t have as much information as she had, and any other explanation would’ve required filling him in on some of those facts she’d worked so hard to conceal.

“
W
ANNA TELL
me what’s going on,” Marge said when they were back on the freeway headed toward Pasadena.

“You’re taking me home so I can shower and sleep.”

“Bullshit—why aren’t you telling Bright everything?”

“Because other than you and Red, I’m not sure who I can trust anymore.”

She surmised from Marge’s silence that she didn’t entirely buy that explanation, but Josie was surprised at how little Marge’s disapproval actually mattered right now.