Old Poison (17 page)

Showered, medicated, and bandaged, I
returned to the PD station with Barbara and was given a brief
introduction to a detective named Walsom. He was medium height,
heavy set, with a considerable paunch. His gray hair and lined face
made him look ready for retirement. Either he had been around long
enough that he had lost his need to maintain a stony-faced image,
or he was more at ease because I came with Barbara on a case that
was of little interest to him. In a friendly and casual manner he
invited Barbara to sit in on the interview and offered us coffee.
After a few preliminary identification questions, he asked me to
tell him how I was acquainted with the two men in custody.

“About two months ago a man named Borson
asked me to help an environmental activist named Evelyn Lilac with
research material for a science fiction book. It was all about
Martians polluting Mars, then coming to Earth. It all sounded like
such nonsense that I am afraid I didn’t treat it as professionally
as I should have. In fact, I don’t even have a contact number or
address on Borson.”

Walsom nodded. I knew that he would
understand this because police must deal with vast numbers of
people who are half a bubble off. When Governor Ronny Reagan closed
the mental hospitals, the effective result was that the mentally
ill were dumped out on the streets. The police were left to deal
with them, but were given no resources to do so. Doing a sort of
criminal triage to sort serious cases from frivolous is now a large
part of their job. Within the police culture there is an almost
proverbial story that most young recruits hear at some point in
their training. It usually tells of a crazy who comes to the
station complaining that the Martians are sending rays into his
brain. It ends with the older cop telling his recruit, “So I told
him to wear a hat lined with tinfoil so the rays couldn’t hurt him,
and he want off happy as a lamb.” It’s not the police who must be
blamed for the callous lack of concern taught by this proverb. A
helpless shrug and a tinfoil hat are the only tools society gives
them.

Having danced gingerly around the fact that
I had not obtained proper ID on my subjects, I moved on to my next
mistake, failure to report the incident on the bike trail.

“Evelyn was in town very briefly to speak at
an environmental expo in Long Beach. Since her time was so limited,
I agreed to meet with her and talk about her book during her bike
ride. That’s where I first saw the two guys you have in custody.
When I caught up to Evelyn on the bike trail, the long-haired guy
had pulled her off her bike and was trying to load her into a
waiting speedboat. The guy with the shorter haircut was at the
steering wheel of the boat. I ran my bike into the one on shore,
knocked him down the embankment, and the two of them took off in
the speedboat.”

Here, of course, I failed to mention that
I’d had a concealed weapon in my bike bag and that I had drawn and
brandished it.

“Evelyn and I had a talk back at her motel
and she concluded, quite rightly, that I knew little about the
environmental movement. She decided she didn’t need my help and
rode off in a yellow cab.”

Walsom asked the obvious question. “Did you
report this attempted kidnap?”

“I’m sorry, no. Evelyn wouldn’t even talk
about it, much less file a complaint with police.”

“Did anyone else witness the incident on the
river?”

“No.”

Despite his years of straight-faced
practice, I could read the “no case here” look in his
expression.

“However, the whole case took on new
significance this week when the FBI asked me to come to Arizona to
identify a body. It was Professor Lilac, and she had been murdered
by someone chopping off the top of her skull like they were opening
a coconut.”

Now I had his attention. “If you happen to
find a machete in the Venezolanos’ belongings or at White’s
Boatyard, you might want to check it for a murder weapon. If you
find anything to tie them to that murder, the guy in charge of the
case is Special Agent Camas in Flagstaff.” I paused and smiled for
effect. “I’m sure the FBI would love to have the LAPD clean up its
case for them.”

He returned my smile and said, “Well, if we
do, you can be sure that won’t be the way it will hit the
papers.”

Good. That little aside placed Walsom and me
in the same camp and gave me an opening to explain my little
problem with Camas. “I’m afraid I was quite shaken by seeing
Evelyn’s body, and I never thought at the time to mention the
incident on the river.”

His poker face was betrayed by a slight
lifting of the eyebrows.

“After I got back home I started thinking
about it. I dug out the case file, looked up my notes and saw that
I had the CF number of the boat. I was trying to check that out to
see if I could find anything for the FBI when I ran into the
Venezolanos again.”

Now the old pro locked down his face in a
perfect expressionless mask. I had just admitted to having a piece
of information that could have been useful in preventing or solving
a murder and had not reported it. That is the sort of thing that
makes cops have little respect for private investigators.

In my defense I said, “Evelyn flatly
rejected any and all assistance and disappeared. If I had brought
in that tale, with no victim, you guys would have processed and
filed it. How could I explain that I had this potential client who
didn’t hire me, who disappeared, and had been trying to hire me to
chase down Martians?”

That defense might have had some validity if
I had told Camas the truth once I learned of the murder. There was
no way to explain that I held out on Camas because I thought he
would ridicule me or because he was an asshole. His insular, macho,
superior attitude may be the sort of thing that makes private
investigators have little respect for many police officers, but
that wasn’t going to wash here. Walsom nodded but now maintained
his professional distance.

I continued my tale of how I ended up in the
container, but knew that any consideration or cooperation I might
have gotten from this guy had just gone out the window. With the
amount of the story I was admitting to, there was no reasonable
explanation for my use of an undercover identity, so I left that
out and also failed to mention the bit about the phony subpoenas.
As I fluffed over this part, I stole one surreptitious look at
Barbara, but her face gave away nothing. Walsom asked no questions
about my methods. He probably had guessed and didn’t really want to
know.

When I finished, Walsom sat back and
considered my statement. “Too bad you had to go through what you
did the last twenty-four hours, when a call to Agent Camas could
have put it all in his court.”

“Yes sir,” I answered contritely.

“Well, with your testimony we can probably
get the DA to go for charges related to your kidnaping, but if
their attorneys come up with any illegal actions on your part, the
perps will probably walk.”

He began picking up the paperwork on the
table and then with a dismissive air added, “Better have our
photographer get some pictures of your wounds and bruises.”

In the moment of silence that followed, I
realized he wasn’t going to chase any phantom case regarding the
FBI and a dead body in Arizona. Reason told me I was just going to
dig myself in deeper, but I couldn’t let it alone.

“What about the murder of Evelyn Lilac?”

“What about it?”

“I think these two Venezolano thugs you have
in custody killed her, and I think they are tied to Blue Morpho
Petroleum.”

I could not read his face. The stakes were
now higher and his professional demeanor more rigid. “Do you have
further evidence that you
forgot
to tell us to support that
allegation?”

“No, but there are three things in the
information I just gave you. First, the speedboat used to snatch
Evelyn was registered to Offshore Deep Driller, Inc., and the lien
holder is Blue Morpho Global Investments. BMGI is the financial arm
of Blue Morpho, and Deep Driller is probably some drilling
subsidiary. Second, the guy who was in the room at White’s boatyard
giving orders after they grabbed me was wearing a Morpho company
cap. Get these guys to ID him and you have a direct connection to
the corporation. If you can find him, I could ID him too. And
third, that container I was in was filled with supplies for my
journey and with personnel papers from Morpho’s Paso Nuevo plant.
You could check on how these Venezuelans got into the country and
who set them up to live in the old house at the boatyard. You could
search for a murder weapon and try to get these guys to cop to the
murder or implicate their boss at Morpho.”

In the silence that followed, I realized
that as my frustration boiled out, my voice volume had risen.
Walsom made no response.

I was making the mistake of telling him how
to do his business, a fatal error, yet I couldn’t stop. It was like
picking at an itchy scab until you scratch it off and bleed all
over yourself.

“If nothing else, you could start with
asking Morpho why their container was used to Shanghai someone and
why all their personnel records were being shipped out.”

Barbara had been sitting quietly in the
corner listening, her presence an unofficial courtesy. She spoke
for the first time. “I can answer part of that question. The whole
Paso Nuevo plant was shipped out. Most of the cans left over two
months ago. That ship was taking the last few cans to the new
Morpho research facility in Costa Rica.”

That surprised me. “Costa Rica, not
Venezuela?”

She nodded. “Yes. The ship will dock in
Venezuela eventually, but that can you were in stops in Limon,
Costa Rica.”

The casual, friendly tone that Walsom had
used at the beginning of this session was replaced with cold,
professional reproach. “Thank you for your statement, Ms. Hunter.
In regard to that Arizona murder case, I would advise that you
contact the proper jurisdiction and report
all
the
information you have.”

* * * * *

As Barbara drove me back to the dock I
slumped down in the passenger seat in a silent blue funk. She was
enough of a friend not to chastise me, but her silence spoke
volumes.

Fortunately for me, the rental car had been
ignored in the convergence of jurisdictions. Neither the CHP,
Customs, nor LAPD had thought to tow the thing or even take the
keys out of the ignition. I thanked Barbara, reclaimed the car, and
retrieved the Walther I had left in the trunk.

Unfortunately, the oversight of my rental
car was extended to the container and the ship. The ship’s captain
had the container loaded and the ship under power and out through
Angeles Gate to the open sea. Whatever information was in that
container, it was on its way to the new plant in Costa Rica.

Like a mauled kitten, I slunk away. I drove
my damaged reputation and wounded pride toward Sam’s house in San
Pedro.

In Sam’s guest room I enjoyed the best
night’s sleep I’d had in a week, then gave myself the next morning
off. I slept in late and had a leisurely breakfast with Sam. Always
clear-sighted and pragmatic, Sam guided me through a post mortem of
both my errors and the flaws inherent in the police and FBI
systems. His suggestion was that I write a well-worded report to
Camas and send it by email to minimize my exposure and maximize the
information I could provide.

I spent two hours composing the report,
aided by Sam’s expertise on cover-your-ass writing. Once done and
polished, I made a copy for my files and hit send.

For the afternoon, I drove into Bluff Beach,
picked up my cleaning and a deli picnic, and returned to Sam’s. We
loaded the picnic and some wine onto his boat, motored slowly to
one of the oil islands in the harbor and put down an anchor. While
I fished and sunned, he played with his underwater robot, taking
digital pictures of the pollution on the harbor floor. The pictures
he got guaranteed the fish I caught would be gently released. No
way would I want to eat anything that swam in that water.

For dinner we motored over to the Bluff
Beach dock and tied up, then treated ourselves to a wonderful fish
dinner at the Ocean Way Grill. I reassured myself that their fish
had all been caught somewhere that was safe from pollution, and
shut my mind to the nagging suspicion that there was no such place
on the planet.

After dinner we returned to Sam’s house and
sat up until the wee hours of the morning. We sipped brandy while
Sam told stories of the Cold War and the Drug War, some wonderful,
some horrifying. If we had known what was going on at the LAPD
station across town, we could not have had such a pleasant and
relaxing evening.

I was awakened the next morning at 10:37 by
the angry, no, furious voice of Agent Camas, leaving a message on
Sam’s answering machine.

“Hunter, God-damn you, pick up the fucking
phone!”

I stared at the machine a moment like it was
part of a bad dream. How did he find me at Sam’s? Then the fog
lifted and I remembered that Sam had rigged my phone to forward
calls to his house.

Sam was standing in the doorway holding a
cup of coffee. He smiled and said, “Sounds a wee tad upset, doesn’t
he?”

“Yes, he does.”

He stood staring at the wall a moment, and I
knew his computer-like brain was going through all the variables.
“Shit, I thought that was a damn good report. Wonder what bee got
in his skivvies. Don’t think you want to talk with him while he’s
this hot. He’d probably toss you in a federal cell on so many
charges it would take you a year just to sort out a defense. Think
I’ll pay a quick trip to your apartment and remove the
call-forwarding program. The way it’s rigged, I don’t think he
would even detect it, but just to be sure–”