To Die in Beverly Hills (25 page)

"Maybe you'll feel differently when you get well."

"Get well? The more I think about turning in my badge, the better I feel. Maybe I'll get a job as an insurance adjustor or a real estate salesman. I'll get paid for taking people to lunch, shooting the bull. Jobs like that provide a company car. Ever think of how much money you could save with a free car and gas? Or maybe I'll take a job as a football coach. For years my brother has begged me to start up a football program at All Saints. With a disability check, I could afford to do it."

Carr continued to stare out the window. Beyond the parking lot and across the street, a group of Chicano teenagers dressed in the L.A. street gang uniform of long-sleeved shirts buttoned to the collar and high-waisted khaki trousers strutted about in front of a mom-and-pop store.

"He knew I was in the line of fire when he pulled the trigger," Kelly said.

"I think you're right."

A short time later Carr steered out of the parking lot past the mom-and-pop store, thinking again of what Kelly had told him. The car radio crackled with a message for him to meet Detective Higgins at the Sierra Madre ranger station. He pulled to the curb and looked up the address in a Southern California street guide that he found in the glove compartment. The freeway trip west and north into the San Gabriel Mountains took him forty-five minutes.

After parking his sedan in a small clearing near a helicopter pad surrounded by four-wheeled ranger vehicles and police cars, Carr headed to the front door of the ranger station, a diminutive building nestled at the side of a mountain road across from a precipice. The view encompassed most of the suburban San Gabriel Valley. Because the altitude was slightly below the smog layer, the view of the suburbs was as hazy as a midday poison-air view from a freeway overpass.

Inside the station Carr showed his badge to a uniformed ranger sitting in front of radio equipment. The ranger pointed Carr down a hallway to a squad room filled with men wearing green jump suits, sipping coffee. The walls were covered with terrain maps. Higgins sat at a desk across the room in front of a tape player. He motioned Carr over.

Without saying anything, Higgins reached into a manila envelope and pulled out a Polaroid photograph that he tossed across the table to Carr. Carr studied it for a moment. It was a photograph of the body of a woman dressed in slacks and a blouse. Though there was no blood, the left side of her face was caved in. Her clothing was covered with dirt and mud.

"Amanda Kennedy?" Carr asked.

"Doesn't look much like her, does it?"

"I thought she was in the Women's jail."

"I just got off the phone with the jail watch commander," Higgins said. "She bailed out last night at nine P.M. The next thing that occurs happens about midnight. Some Girl Scouts are camped about a mile from here at the base of a cliff near a stream. The lady scout master just left here..." Higgins turned on the tape player.

"...so we had five pup tents and the one larger tent for the adults," a female voice said. "Since it was the last night in camp, we'd allowed the girls to stay up a little late. They were all acting out skits and just being silly. They all had a great time. Oh yes, and we roasted marshmallows. Can you imagine a Girl Scout camp without roasting marshmallows?"

"What happened after you went to bed?" Higgins said.

"We went to bed about eleven-thirty. There was the usual horseplay for a half hour or so. One of the girls had a squirt gun and they were fiddling around keeping each other awake. That's when it happened."

There was a silence on the tape. Finally, Higgins said, "I'd like you to repeat what you told the rangers. That's why I turned the tape on."

"Oh, sure," the woman said. "So we were lying there in our tents and there was this thud sound. My first thought was that the kids were playing one of their practical jokes. It's sort of a camp ritual that the kids play jokes on the scoutmasters. Last year they put a frog in the-"

"Did you leave your tent to investigate the cause of the thud sound?" Higgins interrupted.

"Oh, yes. The sound was so loud, we all rushed out of the tent. At first we didn't see anything. We looked around the campsite using our flashlights, but we didn't see a thing. While we were doing this, I walked behind our tent. I'll never forget what I saw. Never."

"What did you see?"

"A body ... though at first I wasn't sure what it was. Then as I stood there I realized it was a body. The body of a woman. I screamed. I screamed so loud I woke up the whole camp. The kids rushed out of their tents to see. One of the girls fainted and another one got sick to her stomach. We thought about administering first aid to her, but one of the adults in our group is a nurse. She said there was no need ... that the person was dead."

"Did you hear anything before you heard the thud?"

"No ... nothing ... we were just lying there in our tents waiting for the kids to pull their nightly practical jokes. The body must have been thrown off the cliff above us. Or maybe it was dropped out of an airplane. There is no other way for it to have ended up there. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen. Once I saw a horrible car accident, but this was much worse."

Higgins turned off the tape player.

Carr lit a cigarette. "How did they identify the body?"

"She had a jail property receipt on her. The rangers called the Women's jail and identified her. Then the jail phoned the burglary detective who'd booked her. He phoned me. I got here just before the coroner took the body away. There was very little bleeding. I think she was dead before she got the boost off the cliff. Don't be fooled by the fact that her head was caved in. It looked to me like it probably happened during the fall."

Carr shook his head. "Did the property receipt have a-"

"The time stamp shows that she bailed out last night at nine-fifteen." Higgins stood up and stretched.

Carr took a deep drag on his cigarette, flicked an ash. "What do you think?"

"I think she knew a secret."

"Me too." Carr picked up the telephone and dialed the Women's jail. He learned that Amanda Kennedy's bond had been posted by a bail bondsman named Cecil DeMille. Carr wrote down the bondsman's address as the jail clerk read it off the bail release form. Higgins looked over his shoulder as he wrote.

"He's a receiver of stolen property," Higgins said after he'd hung up. "Burglars who want out on bail trade diamonds and furs for his signature on a bail bond. He never touches the swag himself ... has it delivered to a hotel room and one of his stooges picks it up and fences it. He's been arrested a couple of times, but he hires good lawyers. They postpone the case until witnesses disappear or the case winds up with a friendly judge."

"Let's pay him a visit." The two men got up and left, quickly making the trip back down the San Gabriel Mountains.

****

THIRTEEN

THE WEST Los Angeles neighborhood was a jumble of stucco apartment houses that needed painting, small commercial buildings and car lots. The streets were congested with both parked cars and moving traffic. Everyone was coming or going, heading to or from the nearby freeway. Down the street was an empty lot that Carr knew was once a movie studio.

Higgins parked the unmarked police sedan at the curb in front of a tiny office building with a large sign on the roof that resembled a movie marquee. It read:

Bail Bonds-24 hours

directed by

Cecil DeMille

A cast of thousands to serve you 24 hours per day.

"We'll have to play it by ear," Higgins said as they got out of the car and approached the door of the building. Inside, a young blonde woman wearing a knit dress sat at a reception desk in front of an inner-office door, talking on the phone. "May I help you?" she asked, setting the receiver down.

Higgins flashed his badge. "Is Cecil DeMille in?"

"No," she said as she pressed a doorbell-style button attached to the side of her desk. "He's gone for the day. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Higgins glared at the woman while she sat fidgeting nervously. Suddenly he stepped past her to the inner office and opened the door.

"Just what may I ask are you doing?" she said angrily, standing up.

Carr followed Higgins into the inner office, where a fortyish, overweight man with a Fu Manchu moustache sat behind a desk. His ebony hair was full at the collar and he wore a golf shirt that accentuated his fatty pectoral muscles. Higgins showed the man his badge as the blonde woman rushed in behind them.

"I couldn't stop them," she said apologetically. "They just walked right in."

Without expression, Cecil DeMille folded his arms across his chest and stared at the two cops for a moment. "Close the door and leave us alone," he said. The secretary backed out of the office closing the door behind her.

"I just want to hear what is so important that you would walk right into someone's office," DeMille said. "After I hear it, I'll decide whether or not I throw both of you out the way you came in. And just so we get things straight right off the bat, I want you to know that I'm a law school graduate. I know I have the legal right to throw you fuckers out of here right now. You're not dealing with some dumb ex-con that's sweating getting his parole violated."

"We want to know who bailed out Amanda Kennedy," Higgins said.

"Who the hell is Amanda Kennedy?"

"Your name is on her bail release form," Higgins said. "She was released from the Women's jail last night around nine."

"I bail out lots of people every night. The name doesn't ring a bell."

"She was murdered shortly after she was released," Higgins continued. "Does that ring a bell?"

"What happens to people after I get them out of jail is something I have no control over." He picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it a few times.

The men looked at each other without speaking while Cecil DeMille continued to click his pen.

"We just received a tip from an informant that you were involved in the woman's murder," Higgins said. "We stopped by to see if you could clear the matter up for us."

DeMille set the pen on the desk. "Bullshit."

"I'll ask you again," Higgins said. "Who retained you to post bail for Amanda Kennedy?"

"Like I said, I post bail for a lot of people every night. I have no recollection of the name you asked me about."

"Would you mind checking your records?" Higgins said. "I'm sure you have records..."

"I'm tied up with some other things today. Why don't you check back with me sometime next week?" DeMille flashed a mock smile.

"Since you're a lawyer, I guess you're familiar with the term probable cause?" Higgins said, his tone becoming slightly impatient.

"Of course."

"Then you'll understand that since you were the last person to see Amanda Kennedy alive, that I have probable cause to arrest you for her murder."

DeMille stood up and pointed to the door, his flabby chest jiggling. "Get out of my office," he said angrily. "No one threatens me in my office. I mean it. Get the fuck out of here."

Higgins reached under his coat and unfastened a pair of handcuffs from his belt. "You'll be going with us, fat boy. You're under arrest for murder. Put your hands on top of your head," he said, moving toward him.

"You people are gonna regret this. I'm gonna sue for false arrest." He backed away. "This is an illegal arrest. I have a right to resist."