The Gumshoe Diaries (16 page)

I let the two constables walk past me on
their way out and waited for the prize to come my way. The large
Turk who Whitey mistook for an Arab passed by me next. He is an
interesting sort, someone worth exploring sometime. Finally Whitey
approached. Timing was everything and I waited until he was about
to pass before I swiveled off my barstool and into his path.

“
Whoa
, excuse me, coming through
Mac
,” Whitey said with a smile as he gently pushed me aside
and passed on by. He looked back over his shoulder without slowing
down. His expression was delightful. It was somewhere between
recognition and confusion. I hope he remembers this when his time
comes.

--

Beverly Arms Apartment Homes,
Westwood…Monday, Feb 23, 2009…7:00pm

--

I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed cop talk at
the local boozer. Back in the day we would meet up after shifts at
a dive called Nate’s over on Pico and Figueroa, close to the
Convention Center and not too far from my current flat on Grand. Of
course I didn’t live there then; Rhonda (Judy’s Ronnie) and I had a
little one bedroom bungalow in
the
burbs
, close
enough to walk to UCLA. Me and the boys (it was pretty much a boys
club in those days) used to deal with whatever rattled us with
booze and bravado. We’d decompress by comparing busts, grousing
about dickhead supervisors, crooked politicos, and broads. You
know; guy stuff. Hmmm, maybe that is another reason I currently
live alone in the bowels of Los Angeles? But I digress.

This afternoon’s meet and greet turned out to
be a stroll down memory lane. Reminiscing up with Iggie reminded me
of what I wasn’t missing since leaving the force. However, meeting
his rookie gold shield, Becca, was a pleasant bonus. She appeared
to be as smart as she was attractive. I made a mental note of that
in case I ever got over Judy Looney. I watched her watch us while
we traded stories and noticed how she kept a wary and subtle eye on
Hassan whenever she thought he wasn’t looking her way. That was a
rookie mistake as he knew exactly what she was doing and I knew
that he knew. Silently I hoped that she didn’t make his
‘to
do’
list.

The highlight though was watching Hassan as
he listened to Iggie go on and on about their investigation right
in front of the very guy they were looking for,
classic!
To
be fair I should mention that he did at least ask who Hassan was,
but accepted too quickly Hassan’s explanation about us being old
friends and how he was on the job as well, from out of State of
course. Iggie didn’t even ask which State for Christ’s sake, what a
maroon
. The party broke up when I told Iggie that I had
reached my tab paying limit. He gulped down his Budweiser and
reached over and finished Becca’s as well. Sure it was rude, but in
his defense she was just sipping at it anyway. Hassan stood as she
got up to follow Iggie out, shaming me into awkwardly doing the
same. She seemed surprised and pleased at the same time. That was
another mental note for yours truly. Chalk one up for Miss Manners
I guess. After the coppers had cleared the building Hassan and I
traded head nods ourselves and went our separate ways as well.
Strange, even as I watched him disappear up the street I felt like
I was being watched. The old eyes in the back of the head trick,
again,
classic!

It took longer than usual to beat it over to
Judy’s place because of all the blah-blah Monday traffic. I should
have sprung for one more round and avoided this headache. So, a
twenty minute trip turned into an hour. I prepped myself for a
nickel lecture when I saw Ronnie’s car at the curb. My ex was gonna
be wicked pissed when I walked in. It was one thing having a crush
on her significant other; it was a whole other thing risking her
life in support of one of my
so called cases
as she referred
to how I made my living. I knocked on the door with a medium gusto
and waited for the hammer to fall, it didn’t take long.

“
What the hell were you thinking
Whitey,”
Ronnie screamed as she opened the front door!

“Rhonda, I can explain everything,” I
stammered as I looked over her shoulder for Judy.

“RONNIE! It’s RONNIE now
knucklehead!
”

“Sorry, you’re right, you’re right, you’re
absolutely right, I don’t know why I keep messing that up,” I
apologized quickly still scanning the room for Judy.

“Jesus Whitey, you’re a piece of work,” Judy
said as she came to my rescue.

“Let him in sweetie, he and I need to talk
things over,” she continued gently pushing Ronnie aside and opening
the door for me to enter.

“Thanks doll,” I muttered as I past the both
of them into the apartment and took a seat in one of the Lazy-boy
recliners near the fireplace. Judy sat in the chair opposite me and
Ronnie perched herself on the arm of the chair (poor chair).

“So who was the gorilla you were talking to
at the bar? And where have you been anyway? We’ve been waiting here
for you for hours,” asked Judy in rapid succession.

“He was boozing with his mates honey, it’s an
old story,
isn’t it Whitey
,” Ronnie asked sarcastically?

“Spare me
Rhonda
,” I
quipped, enjoying her annoyance with the intentional name game. I
grinned when Judy stifled her response by raising her hand.

“Just ignore him sweetie,” she said letting
her hand rest on Ronnie’s.

“Look, that big fella with the Egyptian tan
is probably the one who’s been tailing you lately. Oh yeah, he’s
also the guy who crushed the lab rat that was crushing on you,” I
explained.

“How do you know that,” Ronnie asked while
Judy sat and pondered the data.

“Because he told me so Ronnie, because he
told me so.”

“Really,” asked Judy?

“I’m afraid so doll, he’s the real deal.”

“Fine, let’s just call the cops and be done
with him then,” blurted Ronnie quickly.

I rolled my eyes at my ex and stifled a
snappy come back to her blathering. There wasn’t time to go over
every detail with Judy right now, especially with Ronnie in the
room. I decided to cut to the chase and see if we couldn’t sound
this out together. My instincts were screaming that there was
little time before Celaya cold-cased Sally’s murder. Once a case
chills it takes an immoveable force of nature to resurrect it from
the slush pile.

“The thread test, what did you call it, a
SEM? What exactly were the results? Who else’s DNA did you find on
those blue threads besides mine?”

“Her Uncle,” she answered.

“Honey, Jai was not her Uncle, I told you
that,” I said correcting her.

“I know he wasn’t. The DNA belongs to Lu,”
she replied.

“
What?”

“The DNA is Lu’s, no doubt about it,” Judy
replied.

My head was beginning to pound like it always
does when I am frustrated. I leaned back in the recliner and I
tried to think. Unfortunately since I drank my lunch all I could
think about right now was food. My stomach growled to remind me or
reprimand me, probably both. Maybe I could get Ronnie to
‘
mscra’
(I just love pig Latin) and make me a sandwich? I
caught her stare and felt tiny daggers pepper my face. No, probably
not. Ignoring my stomach I went back to brainstorming with
Judy.

“I don’t get it? Lu wasn’t at the murder
scene? He didn’t even know Mei Lai was in town? And he didn’t know
me as a patrol officer so I don’t think he ever saw me in uniform
either?”

“Cool your jets Whitey. Lu’s DNA isn’t
important as far as I know. There’s something else. What do you
know about
nano technology
,” she asked?”

“Absolutely nothing, is it a Pokémon game or
something,” I replied rubbing my eye?

“No, but actually, I’m slightly impressed
that you even know what Pokémon is,” she replied.

“Yeah, so what about this
nano nano
stuff?”

“There was something I missed the first time
I examined those threads.”

“What? Someone else’s DNA?”

“It was something much larger than molecules,
something I mistook for debris.”

“Okay, what then,” I asked, studying Judy’s
expression of acute fascination.

“I mean, finding something like this is like
picking fly poop out of pepper!”

“Judy! What the hell?”

“Sorry, I still can’t believe I overlooked
it. So, what I found was a super-super tiny microprocessor, about
20 times smaller than the head of a pin.”

“You mean like a computer chip?”

“Sort of, actually it’s a memory chip with
God knows what recorded on it.”

BINGO!
Finally she strummed a chord I
could hear. I literally heard the wheels turning in my brain. The
implications were obvious as were the consequences if I followed
them to their inevitable end. The answers would likely prove
damaging to the wrong people and fatal to yours truly and friends.
Theories started forming in my head as my brain processed all the
bits of data I had crammed into it over the past week. The theories
began to set like freshly poured cement and my instincts were
coiled like a spring ready to bust loose. Thank God common sense
intervened. All of this had to be thought through carefully. The
stakes were too high, literally life or death. Suddenly I
remembered that Judy and Ronnie were waiting for a response.

“
Really?
I think I know exactly what
is on that chip. And if I’m right we have a problem, a really big
problem.” Judy stared at me suddenly frightened. Ronnie sprang to
her feet and stood over me.

“
What did you do Whitey,”
she
demanded?

“I did my job Ronnie, that’s all. But you
remember what usually happens to curious cats don’t you?” She sat
back down uncharacteristically silent.

****

(“cause there’s a man down there, might be your man,
I don’t know…”)…Allman Brothers Band…1972

Chapter Twenty-two

UCLA, Molecular Sciences Building…Monday,
Feb 23, 2009…6:30pm

The familiar yellow barrier tape that
identifies every crime scene still blocked most of the first floor
hall as well as the entrance to room 1187 which housed the SEM Lab.
Detective Rebecca Tran was squatting next to a chalk outline where
the body of Ernie Namura had been found. She was staring intensely
at something just under the foot of the soda pop machine. Suddenly,
her partner, Bob “Iggie” Ingram burst through the double doors and
out of the lab. Subtlety was not the man’s long suit, a factoid
requiring little or no clairvoyance. Rebecca had been assigned to
Iggie
(what kind of a nickname is that anyways)
for all of
48 hours and she already knew more about the lout than she cared
to. She shuddered to think that there were still 88 days left until
the end of her 90 day probationary period. She decided to leave
that in God’s hands. Like many second generation children of
Vietnamese immigrants she had been raised staunchly in the Catholic
faith. And while she had her own views of faith and religion, she
respectfully honored her family by following their wishes with
regard to her spirituality. Besides, if prayer works like the
Parish Priests promise every Sunday at St. Finbar in Burbank then
the lieutenant would take pity on her when her time is up and
assign her to a real mentor, like Josh Stanford maybe, that would
be sweet!

Detective First Grade, Joshua Job Stanford
(how Old Testament), now there was a rock solid cop for you! While
names rarely define a man, Josh lived up to his namesakes, the
strength of Joshua and the patience of Job. Twenty-five years on
the force with half a dozen commendations and an arrest record that
rivaled Elliot
freaking
Ness! The man was a station-house
legend. Another perk was she needn’t worry about getting hit on as
the legend was well known as a choirboy as well. He and wifey had a
Ward and June Cleaver
marriage, string of pearls and all.
There were only a couple of personal vices of the non-smelly kind
to deal with, unlike Iggie, the stinker! Other than his severe
sweet tooth
(a real dyed in the wool Snickers-a-holic)
and a
peculiar addiction to a regular poker game with yours truly,
Richard “Whitey” Roode and my circle of ne’er-do-wells, Detective
Stanford was, dare I say it, perfect. In my defense though, young
Rebecca and I had only just met, and I sensed that her first
impression was sort of positive. I think that I convinced her that
I was less of a Neanderthal than ole Iggie. Of course I was still
an uncouth ex-cop and a
haole
to boot! What the hell, the
less she saw of either of us the better off she’d be! Yeppers, as
soon as Becca made her 90 days,
bammo
, she’d hit
up Celaya for a new partner. Who knows, maybe hit the jackpot and
draw Detective Stanford, it could happen.

Iggie stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw
her. The young lady was a looker that was for sure, and seeing her
in that position beside the bloody chalk outline reminded him of
another time in his life, one that he kept deeply buried for sanity
sake. Most of those memories weren’t that healthy anyway. But the
sight of her squatting like a peasant at a cooking fire brought a
smile to his face. The memory she triggered was a pleasant one, and
that would be all he had to say about that. He cleared his throat
to announce himself, trying not to startle her. He didn’t, Becca
she was entranced as she studied the crime scene and wrestled with
her probationary purgatory.

“
Detective Tran,”
he said in a tone
louder than he intended, his voice echoing down the long empty
hall. She didn’t respond.

“
BECCA!”

That got her attention and she stood but did
not turn to face her partner. Iggie sensed the wheels turning in
her brain and he waited patiently, uncharacteristically, for a
reply. She stood silent a moment longer then spun 180 degrees to
answer her partner.