The Devil's Necktie (7 page)

13

It was like winning the lottery, Jack thought as he pulled into 1573 Franklin Street and the home of his locksmith, Bundy Lock and Key. The trip took a mere twenty-five minutes.

He'd developed a relationship with Cruz Feinberg, who had tried to talk Jack into investing in a high-tech security system for his loft, but in the end settled on installing a Primus cylinder into his Schlage front door lock. The young man was dark, quick witted and good looking. His mother was Guatemalan and his father, who'd founded the business, was Jewish.

The lock had started sticking a few months after installation, and when Jack called for a repair, he was told by whoever was on duty at the time that it would cost close to $240 for the service call and the repair. Before Jack could let loose with a series of expletives, Cruz picked up an extension line and put Jack at ease with, “Put a little WD-40 on your key, work it in and out of the lock a few times, and you'll be good to go.”

It had worked and Jack was a fan.

He had never been to Cruz's shop, and he wasn't disappointed. Every safe on the market, from a small, file-size portable to a three-ton built-in solid steel job that could protect a small fortune, was on display on the tight showroom floor. The full back wall was a thick sea of keys, every make, model, color, and size. There were four machines to cut the keys, and an older gentleman in a plaid shirt was in the process of doing just that. The sound was shrill and sparks were flying like a Fourth of July sparkler as the man made short work of cutting a key. He turned as Jack opened the front door, setting off a buzzer.

“Afternoon. Is Cruz in?” Jack asked.

“Cruz,” the man yelled and started grinding another key.

Jack could live without small talk, and so he wasn't put out by the brusque response. He spun the dial on the big safe a few times as Cruz walked in from the back room.

“Can I help you?”

“Cruz, I'm Jack Bertolino . . . ,” he shouted over the noise.

“Oh yeah, I remember, the New York cop.”

“Ex-cop,” Jack reminded him.

“Right. How are you? What can I do for you? How's the lock? Still sticking?”

“No, and I appreciated the help. I was hoping you might be able to help out again.”

At last the older man finished cutting the key.

“My father always said knowledge equals dollars,” Cruz said.

“I thought it was knowledge equals power,” Jack countered.

“Dad thought money and power were the same thing. I chose not to argue the point.”

“Smart man.”

Jack pulled out the keys from Mia's suitcase and laid them on the wooden counter.

“I found them in a suitcase and was wondering . . .”

“Why they didn't open the suitcase?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, wanting him to go on.

“They look pretty much the same, but these are P.O. box keys. I can't make copies of them if that's what you want. I could lose my license.”

“No, that's all right. I need to know if there's any way to trace the location of the post office box?”

Cruz's eyes widened with interest. “You working a case?”

“I could use some help.”

“Wish I could, but there are hundreds of locations. We've installed more than our share, but I'd need something to go on. If you could give me a general area? But even then.”

Jack flagged the Brentwood, Sherman Oaks area and Cruz promised to do a little research. It was worth a try. Jack left his card.

—

The Mustang's Bluetooth device rang, and Jack punched the Answer button as he made the left turn off Washington onto Glencoe and hit the gas.

“Jack . . .”

“Tommy, I hope you have some good news.”

But before he got an answer, Jack could see three black-and-whites and two unmarked black detective rides parked in front of his building, lights flashing. A small crowd had gathered, and another small crew was standing across the street in front of Bruffy's Tow and Police Impound.

“An arrest warrant has been issued in your name, and a Judge Yamashira approved a search of your premises.”

“I can see that. Should I keep driving?”

Tommy didn't even dignify the question with a response.

“I'm on my way to the airport. I'll be in L.A. before you're processed.”

Jack didn't know what to say. He couldn't hear himself speak over the pounding of his heart, in any case. He could see the first news van slide to a stop across the street and felt the vibration of a news helicopter flying overhead. He drove the last half block in silence.

Tommy continued. “The preliminary DNA report came in, and there were no surprises there. We were expecting to take a hit.”

“I could have used a few more days,” Jack said as he made a right turn into the building's driveway, hit the remote, and as the gates swung open, drove past two uniforms, who immediately got on the phone.

“Do not say word one, Jack. To anybody about anything. Now, is there anything else I should be aware of?”

“No, let them look. Could you please put in a call to Jeannine and Chris? I don't want them to hear this secondhand.”

“Done.”

“I'm gonna lose you, Tommy. I'm going into a dead zone.”

Jack hit the Off button and parked in his space. He had barely slid out of the car when he was met by the two patrol officers he'd passed on his way in. Bertolino locked the car with his remote key and walked into the lobby while one of the uniforms called for the elevator.

Jack was seriously pissed off by the time the elevator got to his floor and he saw that the cops were already crawling all over his loft. As he crossed the threshold he noticed that the jamb hadn't been broken, and the safety lock and handle were still intact. He charged into the room.

“How the hell did you get in?” he said through clenched teeth, moving threateningly toward Gallina. The lieutenant jumped off the stool he was sitting on, prepared for battle. Tompkins ran up from behind and threw a bear hug around Jack, who was knocked off balance, but still managed to pull the detective down onto the concrete floor as he fell.

Two uniforms jumped into the fray and cuffed Jack as he pulled back a fist to slam Tompkins while his partner recited the Miranda, his voice rising in pitch with his adrenaline. Tompkins jumped up, dusted off his suit, and looked like he wanted to punch Jack in the chops while he was in restraints.

“You happy, Bertolino?” Gallina shouted. “We're trying to do this by the fucking book and you're going all rabid on us. Now calm the fuck down.”

“How did you get in?”

“The fucking door was cracked open,” Gallina said, waving the search warrant in Jack's face. “It was all by the numbers.”

“My door was locked.”

“Well, I have nine other officers who would beg to differ. Sit down while we complete the search or we can take you in
now.
Your call.”

Jack sat on the edge of his couch so that his cuffed hands wouldn't push against the back of the sofa and work against him. He did a quick visual check of the loft. All of the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen were standing open. Some of the drawers had been pulled out and were sitting haphazardly on top of the counter. A detective wearing latex gloves was examining and tagging the kitchen knives and placing them in a box for transport.

A detective popped his head out of the bathroom. “You gotta see this, Lieutenant. He's got a damn pharmacy in here.”

He could hear another pair of cops going through his office, but they were out of Jack's field of vision.

Tompkins glared at Jack as he walked past him, over to the built-in bedroom closet. He did a cursory examination of the hanging dress shirts, which he grabbed in a compressed pile and threw on Jack's bed, which had been stripped. He rifled through the shoe rack, checking the inside of each shoe, and came up empty. Then he stooped down and slid out two heavy plastic containers from the bottom shelf, which held Jack's tools. He pried off the white plastic tops and tossed them onto the bed next to the shirts. The small opaque plastic boxes contained an assortment of screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, rasps, vise grips, saws, blades, nuts, and bolts, the usual stuff.

Tompkins started inspecting the second container and got very quiet. He lifted the container, stood up straight and tall, and did a slow turn. The entire room picked up on his energy, stopped whatever they were doing, and stood watching in anticipation.

—

Arturo Delgado was enjoying himself from his eighteenth-floor vantage point as he watched the quick response his phone call to the LAPD's anonymous tip line had generated. He was the architect of the scene that was unfolding before his eyes. He stood with his eye to the telescope, watching one of the detectives pick apart the barbecue grill on Bertolino's balcony. Then he watched the detective dig his hands into the soft soil of the tomato plant—being thorough but wrong. Frustrated at not finding anything, he ripped the plant out of the pot and flung it on the metal balcony floor.

And then the detective made an exacting turn toward the inside of the loft, a hunter downwind of his prey.

“There,” Delgado whispered as he saw a flurry of movement behind the reflective sliding glass door of the loft.

—

Detective Tompkins set the plastic storage container on the prep island in the kitchen area. He carefully reached in with a latex-gloved hand and pulled out a retractable utility knife. The exposed razor blade was clearly covered in dried blood, which had also dripped onto the handle.

He held it up for the entire room to witness and then carefully placed the weapon back into the container. Another cop started snapping digital photos of the utility knife, the toolbox, and then the closet where the container had been secreted.

Jack strained against the cuffs. His back began to spasm, and he was having difficulty breathing. Every eye in the room was trained on him with the intensity of a red laser on the end of a silenced automatic pistol.

—

Delgado watched Jack Bertolino being led out of his building in handcuffs. He reveled in Bertolino's reflexive head twitch away from the pulsating strobe lights of the reporters' cameras.

But this was just the beginning. Arturo wouldn't stop until Bertolino had lost the will to live. Until the people who once loved Jack and called him a friend would shake their heads in disgust. Delgado wouldn't sleep through the night until the Bertolino name left nothing but a stench.

14

It started as a light sprinkle but quickly turned into a downpour. The homeless man tried to batten down the hatches as he tightened one edge of the blue tarp that served as his lean-to's roof. The rain pounded the waterproofed tarp like the hail balls he remembered from his youth growing up in rural Texas.

The small, sandy island in the middle of the Los Angeles River had served as his home for the past three months, and it suited his solitary nature. He'd had enough of folks to last him a lifetime.

The last man, who had called this little island home, had died in his sleep. Jerry wasn't sure how. He had been walking by with his shopping cart when he noticed the commotion. When all the emergency trucks left, he moved in. He'd needed a few weeks of scavenging to furnish the plot, but it was well worth the effort, he thought.

His small fire was extinguished as the torrent of water blew the tarp's overhang into the small pit and the can of Sterno where he prepared his food. Jerry went with the flow and wrapped a blanket tighter around his stiff body and watched God's miracle. The amber security lamps that ran along the concrete river channel provided the only illumination. The reflected light seemed to dance as the river grew from a trickle to a rapidly moving force of nature.

The rhythmic sound of the rain and a pint of Thunderbird lulled Jerry to sleep. For how long, he had no idea. But when he woke, the black night was turning into a dark gray sunrise as the rain continued to pour down.

After he got his bearings and rinsed the sleep from his eyes with rainwater, he assessed his situation. The island had seriously eroded during the night, and that could create some problems. Jerry couldn't swim. He'd heard stories of people being stranded like this and ending up drowned, but he hadn't paid them any mind until now.

A man still had to eat, and as he was reaching for a can of tuna, packed in oil the way he liked it, he saw something protruding out of the sand about fifteen yards to his left between two scrub bushes and the fast-moving current. A thick object meticulously wrapped in a plastic drop cloth and bound with duct tape. Someone had taken care, and the package looked to be the size of the leg of lamb his great-aunt used to make after Easter Sunday mass.

Jerry, exposed to the rain, ran the few yards, his feet sinking into the wet sand, and grabbed up the heavy, fat package. He was drenched before he stooped into the precarious safety of his lean-to shelter. He sat on a small wooden stool he had picked up from the remnants of a garage sale, and went to work on the package with the pocketknife that had been his friend going on twenty years.

He made one long slash down the side, but when he pulled back the plastic, he instantly dropped the parcel. He fought to keep a wave of vomit down that was threatening to erupt. Jerry sprang up from the stool, ripping the tarp off its tether, and stood with the rain pouring down his head and face.

He didn't want to look again but couldn't stop himself. The open flap of the plastic drop cloth revealed what was once a man's thigh. The desiccated flesh was covered in gang tattoos. The exposed bone, cut clean, was the color of ivory.

15

He clearly had nothing to smile about, but Bertolino couldn't fight the urge. In his experience, the only men who could sleep in holding cells were guilty as sin.

Jack had busted one cop who was making trips down to Washington, D.C., every two weeks with six or seven keys of coke. He was making eight grand a month in cash on top of his salary as a police officer, a healthy living. Jack busted the cop's ass doing a wiretap that overlapped another case. Although the cop was caught with the drugs in his car, he claimed his innocence. The dirty cop was in the holding tank for a grand total of twenty minutes before Jack was called down to check out the scumbag. The man was snoring like a chain saw.

In Jack's case, sleep deprivation and the rhythmic pounding of the storm did the trick. Jack got a good five hours before he woke up with a splitting headache. He reached for the Excedrin bottle and then remembered the nightmare that had overtaken his life.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was
I SUCK BIG DICKS
and a phone number scratched into the smudged beige wall of his jail cell. For a man who had spent twenty-five years of his life working for the NYPD, the injustice of being isolated in this cage was almost more than he could comprehend.

The only thing Jack was sure of was that someone kept setting him up.

Someone had alerted the police to the fact that he had spent more time than reported up on Vista Haven, and now someone had planted evidence, and alerted the cops that the bogus murder weapon was hidden in his loft. Jack would have to find out who was taking such an active interest in his life.

The list of possibilities was extensive. If you were active on the job, you made enemies, on both sides of the thin blue line.

He knew that whoever had picked the lock on his front door was good. The lock was high tech and would have been difficult for anyone but a professional to breach. He wanted the techs to check it for fresh scratch marks.

But if they were professionals, why would they leave the door open other than to expedite the search? The bust would have been more powerful if the door had been locked up tight.

Plus, the door was exposed to the entire loft building across the way, so someone might have witnessed the break-in. He made a mental note to have Tommy check with the HOA at his building. Security cameras that might have picked something up had recently been installed in the parking structure and the lobby. Jack had been too scattered to mention it during his arrest and processing.

Jack's body was screaming for a strong cup of coffee to kick-start his brain, but he dismissed that thought. He wasn't going to be catered to. He'd have to wait for the breakfast tray like any other inmate. Then he'd be able to experience, firsthand, what his tax dollars were paying for.

As Jack sat on the hard jail bench, he had a gut feeling that he should discover the source of the cocaine found in the raid in Ontario. Cutting into the Mexican cartel's turf was a risky business. The Sinaloa cartel operating out of Baja was in a pitched battle with Los Zetas for control of Mexico's Gulf Coast and the Tijuana smuggling routes into the border city of San Diego. Twenty-eight men had recently been gunned down along Highway 15. The dead bodies of the Zetas had been dressed like military commandos, and they'd been armed to the teeth.

To throw your hat into that ring sounded like Colombian hubris to Jack. The only name that floated to the surface was an old nemesis, Arturo Delgado. But Delgado had been in the wind for a long time. It might just have been some cocky independent contractor. He'd have to get Ortega on it—if his arrest didn't stick.

Could Mia have been killed to set up Jack, or had he unwittingly stepped into her plot and become embroiled out of convenience? An opportunistic crime. That was the question gnawing at his gut.

Alvarez, after all, had the motive to go after both Mia and Jack. Mia had set him up, and Jack had knocked him down. But Bertolino wasn't sure after five years behind bars that Alvarez alone still had enough juice to pull it off. Jack needed to see the picture of the man who had visited Alvarez on two separate occasions, using a false identity. Maybe some puppet master was orchestrating the entire affair. The police had confiscated Jack's cell phone, so even if Kenny had forwarded the picture it was a moot point until he got out. Or make that if he got out.

His scalp started tingling, and Jack ran his fingers roughly through his hair as he relived being led out of the loft building in handcuffs, past neighbors, past print and television reporters who were peppering him with questions, lights, and cameras.

He was more worried about his son than himself. It's not as if the boy needed any more pressure. Boy, Jack thought . . . he was a man. Jack remembered his own first year of college. Away from the neighborhood and his family, he'd felt like a fish out of water and didn't last long. He dropped out in his second semester and floated for a few months before he enrolled in the police academy. He hoped Chris would have better luck.

Jack needed to get back out on the street ASAP, but he knew the wheels of justice never moved fast enough when you were on the wrong side of the steel bars.

Tommy Aronsohn's flight had been delayed because of the storm, and after circling the airport for three hours, he'd been forced to land in San Francisco. Tommy had rented a car and was probably blasting down I-5, pedal to the metal. He should be arriving in the Los Angeles area sometime in the afternoon.

The only message Tommy had been able to pass along to Jack was, “Zip it.”

—

“You've gotta be kidding me. This is bullshit. The blood work came back positive,” a red-faced Lieutenant Gallina said with a mixture of outrage and defensiveness.

Gallina was standing in front of a long, burnished table in the conference room at the district attorney's offices. Tommy Aronsohn was sitting at the far end next to Leslie Sager, the deputy district attorney, who occupied the power seat at the head of the table. Jack was seated on a bench outside the room but could be seen through a glass window.

Jack enjoyed watching his friend work. He didn't think it was an accident that the security blinds had been left open.

Aronsohn was in his midforties, with a ruddy complexion, broad shoulders, and short curly brown hair. He had expressive eyes and an easy youthful smile that could turn dark on a defendant's lie. And when they did, you didn't want to be sitting on his witness stand. His slight New York accent was accompanied by a full-blown New York attitude. But this was the DDA's show, and Tommy, ever the gentleman, deferred to Leslie Sager.

“But it wasn't the murder weapon,” Leslie said firmly. She was in her early thirties, with shoulder-length blond hair. Her wide-set hazel-brown eyes drilled the lieutenant, and her manicured nails tapped the tabletop to accentuate her point.

“When did
you
become a CSI?” Gallina fired back.

“Watch your tone with me,” she said with enough attitude to make the detective pause. “Molloy said that a four-inch blade was used to make the deep, clean cuts to the victim's neck. The woman was almost decapitated, for chrissakes. Plus, there was a nick on the victim's sternum unique to the murder weapon, caused by an anomaly on the blade. The utility knife found in Bertolino's loft had a razor blade with a quarter-inch throw. Molloy said you'd be hard pressed to cut a chicken wing with it.”

“So he tossed the four-inch blade,” Gallina said, grabbing for straws.

Aronsohn couldn't hold back any longer.

“All technicalities aside, Lieutenant, you didn't have any questions at all about a decorated ex-NYPD inspector storing the alleged murder weapon in his toolbox? A toolbox that was clearly marked blades and small tools. For what? So he wouldn't forget where he put it? Sentimental value? In case he ever needed it again? Does it make any sense at all that he would have walked away from the damning evidence and left his door unlocked for the police to . . . what?”

“Crisis of conscience,” Gallina offered impotently. “Some people want to get caught.”

Tommy looked incredulous. “And how did you know to look for the planted weapon in Inspector Bertolino's loft?”

“It was a tip.”

“What?”

“A tip.” The word barely made it past his lips.

“Anonymous?”

Gallina could only nod.

The deputy district attorney instantly picked up Tommy's train of thought. “Can you trace the tipster?”

“The call came from a clean phone into our anonymous tip line. That, with the DNA from the rape kit, was enough for a warrant approved by DDA Becker and Judge Adison. And please let's not forget, Bertolino lied about having sex with the victim.”

“He did not lie. He refused to answer the question,” Tommy said, restraining himself and letting Leslie continue her assault.

“So, what do you think now?” she demanded.

“It could have been a setup. Jury's still out,” Gallina said.

“It stinks and you know it.”

Leslie Sager let that hang in the air. Then she dropped the bomb.

“Try this on for size, Lieutenant. This came across my desk this morning. If you hadn't been so busy patting yourself on the back, you might have seen it.”

The DDA opened a manila envelope and pulled out a nine-by-twelve photo of a ghoulish severed thigh. “This body part was found on an island in the middle of the L.A. River.” She pushed the photo across the table to Lieutenant Gallina.

The severed, tattooed thigh had been photographed on a stainless steel examination table under a harsh light.

“A homeless man had the joy of discovering this and almost drowned because of it. When the local cops pulled him out of the drink, the man was hysterical. He'd run off the island and almost got swept away during the storm.” She glanced down at the photo. “It's a human thigh. Gang markings. Clean cut. Same depth of blade as at Vista Haven. There's a nick on the femur identical to the one left on our female victim.” Her lips pinched together hard as she delivered the final blow to Gallina's “case.”

“Molloy's crew did a preliminary dating that put the body part in the ground before Bertolino moved to Los Angeles.”

There was an extended silence in the room. Gallina glanced over his shoulder through the glass window at an unshaven Bertolino, sitting expectantly on the bench in the hallway. Gallina, resigned, broke the silence.

“Who's gonna handle the press?”

“That would be you, Lieutenant. You're going out in front of the cameras with hat in hand. It's an ongoing investigation. We'll get to the bottom of it. You're sure Mr. Bertolino understands the gravity of the crime and that he had to be eliminated from the process because he was the last person to see the victim alive . . . et cetera.” Her voice remained icy as she listed the other consequences.

“Apologies to Mr. Bertolino and his family for any inconvenience that might have occurred because of the overzealous press coverage. Plus, if he sues, Gallina, you can stand before the city council and explain why they shouldn't pay him damages because of your rush to judgment.”

Gallina didn't have anything to say, and the DDA finally let him off the hook.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Please send in Mr. Bertolino on your way out.”

Gallina stood frozen, assimilating all the new information before he accepted his fate. He nodded to the lawyers, then turned on his heel and left the room.

The lieutenant was now back to square one and not happy about it. He stopped next to Jack. “Ninety percent of the time it would have been you. You probably don't want to hear it, but I'm kind of glad it's not. Gives us all a bad name. But let us do our job, huh?”

Gallina tilted his head toward the conference room. “They're ready for you now.”

That was the apology.

Jack stood, stretched his back a few cricks, and then entered the conference room. Tommy was smiling and the district attorney stood up to greet him.

“Jack, I'm Deputy District Attorney Leslie Sager, and I want to personally apologize for the terrible mistakes made.” She extended her hand, and Tommy witnessed her demeanor and tone subtly change.

Jack walked the length of the conference table and took the proffered handshake. Her grip was firm.

“Accepted.”

Tommy took over. “Now, first, Jack, I want to make it clear that you are free to go.”

Tommy turned to Leslie and continued.

“Jack Bertolino is not litigious by nature. I, on the other hand—quoting your lead detective—well, my jury is still out. I'm sure you vetted me as I you on my erratic flight to the West Coast, so we're both up to speed as to our bona fides. But I just want you to understand the man you're dealing with.

“Whenever I found myself under the gun running the New York DA's office, really struggling with a complex issue, life and death, right or wrong, I'd ask myself a simple question: What would Jack Bertolino do?”

He paused to gauge the effect his words were having, and Leslie looked impressed.

“Now, whoever set Jack up for this horrible fall—we've got some serious issues that don't disappear when Jack walks out these doors. That party has a shitstorm coming. And I would hope that your office would help facilitate Jack in clearing his good name, and doing everything in your power to help him take these killers down.”

Jack was feeling better than he had all morning as Tommy finished with:

“It's your call.”