in, looked at me without saying a word and went into the kitchen, where somebody had taken it upon himself to open up my new bag of coffee and put the percolator into heavy rotation.
This went on for at least two hours. At first I didn’t know any of them because they were North Hollywood detectives. But then the command decision was made to shift the investigation-LAPD’s part of it-to Robbery-Homicide Division. When the RHD dicks started showing up it started getting like old-home week. I knew many of them and had even worked side by side with some. It wasn’t until Kiz Rider showed up from the chief’s office that anybody thought to take the cuffs off my wrists. She angrily demanded that I be released from the bindings and when nobody made a move to do it, she did it herself.
“You okay, Harry?”
“I think I am now.”
“Your face is red and kind of puffy. You want me to call paramedics?”
“They already checked me out. Minor burns from getting too close to the wrong end of a shotgun.”
“How do you want to do this? You know the score. You want to get a lawyer or can we talk?”
“I’ll talk to you, Kiz. I’ll tell you the whole story. Otherwise, I’ll take the lawyer.”
“I’m not in RHD anymore, Harry. You know that.”
“You should be and you know that.”
“But I’m not.”
“Well, that’s the deal, Kiz. Take it or leave it. I’ve got a good lawyer.”
She thought about it for a few moments.
“All right, wait here for a minute and I’ll be right back.”
She went out the front door to consult with the powers that be about my offer. While she was gone and I was waiting I saw Special Agent John Peoples come in and crouch next to Milton’s body. He then looked over at me and held my eyes. If he was trying to send me a message I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. But he knew I held something of his in the balance. His future.
Rider came back inside and over to me.
“This is the deal. It’s turning into a major gang bang. We’ve got FBI all over this. The guy on the floor is apparently from a terrorism squad and that trumps all. They’re not going to let you and me waltz off into the sunset.”
“Okay, this is what I’ll do. I’ll talk to you and one agent. I want it to be Roy Lindell. Wake him up and bring him in and I’ll lay it all out for everybody. It’s got to be you and Roy or I lawyer up and everybody can figure it out for themselves.”
She nodded and turned and went back out. I noticed that Peoples was no longer in the hallway but I hadn’t seen him leave.
This time Rider was gone for a half hour. But when she came back she strode in with a command presence. I knew before she told me that the deal had been made. The case was hers, at least on the LAPD side of the ledger.
“Okay, we’re going to go down the hill to North Hollywood Division. We’ll use a room there and they’ll tape it for us. Lindell is on his way there. This way everybody’s happy and everybody’s got a piece.”
That was always the way. You had to walk the gauntlet of departmental and intra-agency politics just to get the job done. I was glad I no longer had a part of it.
“You can stand up now, Harry,” Rider said. “I’ll drive.”
I stood up.
“I want to go out on the deck first. I want to look down there.”
She let me go. I walked across the deck and looked down over the railing. Below, large crime scene lights had been erected. The slope was like an anthill with crime scene techs working all over the place. Crews from the medical examiner’s office were huddled over the bodies. Above it all the helicopters moved in a loud, multilevel choreography. I knew that whatever relationships I’d previously had with my neighbors were surely gone now.
“Know what, Kiz?”
“What, Harry?”
“I think it’s time to sell this place.”
“Yeah, good luck with that, Harry.”
She took me by the arm and pulled me away from the railing.
41
The North Hollywood station was the newest in the city. It was built post-earthquake and Rodney King riots. On the outside it was a brick fortress designed to withstand both tectonic and social upheavals. On the inside it was state-of-the-art electronics and comfort. I was sat