White Sister (41 page)

I saw a blue LVPD minivan pull up and park a few feet away. Two crusty old guys in rumpled suits with gray hair and cop stares got out. Vegas Homicide had arrived. I watched as they talked to the lead deputy on the scene. The Highway Patrol had called for Condor lights, and while I was watching the new arrivals, a generator started up and blue-white halogen spilled out from the top of a Condor crane, illuminating the gruesome scene.

After quickly surveying the scene, one of the Homicide dicks grabbed a patrol officer and headed to the car where Sgt. Wayne sat. The other homicide cop collected a deputy and came over t
o t
alk to me. He opened the door and sat in the back as the deputy got in front. Standard protocol. The deputy was there to witness my preliminary field interview and watched in silence through the wire mesh that separated us from the front seat. My homicide guy was in his late fifties with silver brushed-back hair and a sun
-
ravaged complexion. He had a long face and eyes that had seen too much to be surprised by anything, but I could tell this quadruple killing had captured his interest.

"I'm Lieutenant Barry Bush," he said. "My partner over there with your friend is Steve Goodstein. The Highway Patrol tells me you guys are both cops from L
. A
."

"Yeah, I'm LAPD. The guy with your partner says he's an L
. A
. County sheriff, but you should check that out 'cause all I got is his word on that."

"I used to work L
. A
. Homicide," Lt. Bush said, sounding relaxed and friendly. "When I remarried, I retired out here. But I'm not a casino guy and I got bored, so I re-upped and caught on with LV Metro."

He was filling time with chit-chat while he took out his mini
-
recorder, found a fresh tape, inserted it, and turned on the unit. Then he said, "Okay, I'm gonna skip the Miranda for now. I'm not arresting you. Let's call this a voluntary statement. Fair enough?"

"Sure," I said.

"Gimme the background particulars, starting with your full name."

I gave him my name and rank and told him I worked out of Homicide Special at Parker Center.

"Who's your C
. O
.? Back when I was in L
. A
. there was no Homicide Special. The top murder teams were all part of the Major Crimes Unit."

I knew Bush was just filling the car with B
. S
. to get a loose feeling going. He wanted to set up a friendly atmosphere so I wouldn't guard my responses. I've pulled the same routine on hundreds of guys. It told me that even though I was a cop, he still didn't trust me.

"My C
. O
. is Captain Jeb Calloway," I answered.

"Little muscle-bound character who looks like he could break stones with his hands?"

"That's him."

"Wasn't he with SWAT or CRASH, one of those high-octane, kick-ass units?"

"This is good kitsch, Loo, but I'm onto it. Can't we just get this over with? I'm having a really bad night."

He studied me and finally nodded. "Okay, then how do two L
. A
. cops end up in the middle of my desert with all these dead black people?"

"It's a long story."

"That's why I carry two-hour tapes," he drawled.

I started at the beginning and told him the incredible tale of my last week, ending with the chartered flight full of hip-hop music people to the Mandalay Bay Casino, including the garage kidnapping, the shooting of Elijah Mustafa, and our subsequent trip into the desert to be murdered by the president of Lethal Force, Inc. and his estranged wife.

When I was finished, he sat there and looked at me with skeptical, unblinking eyes. "All that story needs is a main title and some end credits," he said.

I nodded.

Then he spoke into the recorder for the record. "This preliminary declaration was given voluntarily in the presence of Highway Patrol Officer Duane Lewis and Lieutenant Barry Bush. The tape has not been shut off or edited and has been running for twenty continuous minutes. It is eleven-seventeen p
. M
. on July sixteenth, a Tuesday night." Everything exactly by the book.

Sgt. Wayne and I were transported to the police station in separate cars. I met Lt. Bush's captain, who said he was formerly with Chicago PD. I found out that most of the cops on Vegas Homicide were transplants from other departments. Finally, after our statements had been signed and witnessed, Sgt. Wayne and I were allowed to speak to each other again. We got some vending machine coffee and sat in the empty lunchroom.

"After high school, I joined the Compton PD," he said. "Compton had a corrupt department with bad city government. Lotta cash payoffs. About ten city councilmen and our chief eventually got indicted. When the new mayor decided to close down Compton
PD, the job got contracted out to the L
. A
. Sheriff's Department. I switched badges and stayed on."

Even though he'd been instructed by his gang intel commander to say nothing about his two years undercover, he took pity on me and finally conceded that on the night David Slade was killed, he'd been left behind at the Maluga estate by Stacy. She told him to go down to Lou's Malibu Colony house to work security for a party Lou was having. He told me he couldn't help me with Slade's murder. In fact, he was Lou's alibi for the time of the homicide. I hadn't figured Lou for an innocent bystander, but there it was.

"Something heavy was going down with Stacy that night," he said. "She was all riled up, screaming at people. But she only took KZ with her. He was her main guy when it came to street actions. They knew each other from back in the day. When they got home later that night, KZ was spooked, but he wouldn't tell me what happened. By then, he was scared to death of Stacy. She was willing to do anything. I think she's a sociopath." He then looked at me. "I know that doesn't help clear your wife," he said. "But that's what went down."

So I still didn't have enough. It was the way my luck had been running all week.

At about two a
. M
. the Las Vegas cops cut us loose with a reminder not to leave Las Vegas without checking in first.

We drove over to the Las Vegas Sunrise Hospital where Rosey, Sally, and my LAPD posse were waiting. When I got there, I found out Lionel Wright had survived two hours of emergency surgery and was in recovery. His condition was listed as guarded. The press hadn't found out he was there yet because the hospital had admitted him under the name on his driver's license, Orlee Lemon. Stacy came out of surgery at five a
. M
. She'd lost so much blood she'd had a cardiac arrest on the table and was now in critical condition.

At ten the following morning a search helicopter found KZ wandering lost in the desert. He'd been hit in the arm but the wound was minor and required no stitches. He refused to talk to police and demanded an attorney.

Under the circumstances, his arrest seemed like a hollow victory.

Chapter
61.

I GOT BACK to Los Angeles on Thursday morning and wen
t s
traight to the UCLA hospital to continue the vigil with Chooch. Nothing changed over the weekend, and by Monday Luther wanted us all to meet.

"I'm not saying that things can't change," he said. "But usually, within three or four days, we see some reflex, some movement
something. I've tried to wean her off the life support system, but the minute I do, she stops breathing."

We were in the ICU waiting room. Chooch and I tried to absorb what he was saying.

"She's not coming back?" I finally asked.

"I told you at the beginning, that these things are impossible to fully predict. Right now this looks pretty grim. I think you and Chooch need to start evaluating options."

"I'm not unplugging her," I said defiantly.

"In that case, you need to find some kind of extended care facility. I hear this one's pretty good." He took out a pad and pen and wrote down a name. Then he handed it to me.

"Bright Horizons?" I was incredulous. "Who are they kidding?"

"Most extended care facilities have names like that. Bright Horizons, Eternal Hope, Happy Endings."

I folded the paper and looked over at Chooch. His face was drained of color. We left Luther and went down to the cafeteria where we sat with mugs of coffee on the table between us, but we couldn't drink them on sour stomachs.

"What do we do, Dad?" he asked.

"I don't know. I can't let her go. I just can't. I'll put her in one of those hospices and I'll keep her alive and I'll ..."

Then the tears started coming and Chooch put his arm around me. In moments, his own tears were mixed with mine.

I tried several times to reach Alexa's brother, Buddy. He and I had never gotten along and I dreaded making the call. But I couldn't reach him. His office said he was on a vacation trip up the Amazon River and would call when he returned at the end of the month.

The following week, I sat with Alexa's attorney, a pretty, pale
-
skinned woman with bird-like movements and honey-brown hair. I'd never met her before. Her name was Lydia Cunningham and her law firm was on the twenty-fifth floor of a Century City high-rise. We sat in a book-lined conference room and she studied Alexa's last will and testament while I looked out the windows at the glass towers all around us, wondering if I would be able to get through this meeting full of questions about what to do with Alexa's jewelry, her stock portfolio, her faltering life.

"It's right here," Lydia said, thumbing through the thick document. "I thought I remembered putting that in. We drew this up six years ago."

Six years ago, Alexa and I hadn't met yet. It seemed like a lifetime.

"Her heroic measures codicil states that if for any reason she becomes vegetative, she doesn't want life support or any other heroic means of prolonging a hopeless existence."

"But what if in a little while she . . . ?" I couldn't finish. I just turned to look out the window again. Could they force this on me? I wondered. "I was going to move her to an extended care facility," I said looking back at Lydia. "I mean, she could wake up. Miracles happen." I was desperate.

"That's right, and none of us knows what the future will bring. But you don't want this to turn into a Terri Schiavo situation. Alexa's wishes are clearly stated here. I'm bound as her attorney to turn this over to her doctors and the insurance company."

"And we can't keep her alive?" I pleaded.

"Is she really alive?" Lydia said. She kept her voice soft, but even so, the words tore holes in me. "Shane, you could fight this in court, but it will cost you a fortune and you'll lose. Her wishes are clearly stated here and eventually will prevail."

I heard back from Buddy. He listened while I explained Alexa's desperate condition. He sounded sad, but said he had just received a huge promotion and was now heading regional sales. He wouldn't be able to come to L
. A
. until things changed for Alexa one way or the other, which was a polite way of saying he'd come to her funeral. He managed to weigh in on the heroic measures debate before hanging up. He didn't think we should keep her on life support. I, on the other hand, didn't think he should stay in Philadelphia. We ended up the conversation, not feeling very good about each other.

I moved Alexa to Bright Horizons and started looking for an attorney to fight the provision in her will. The facility was in Santa Monica and it was expensive, almost two hundred fifty dollars a day, which, because of her heroic measures codicil was not going to be covered by insurance. I'd have to write the checks myself. But if I had to sell the house in Venice to support this, I'd do it. At least for as long as I could afford it. After the house was gone, I'd figure out something else.

Bright Horizons was an old one-story building on Lincoln Boulevard, five blocks from the ocean. It was clean, but it wasn't bright and there were no horizons. The place had a death-row vibe, a no
-
man's-land where its residents hovered between disparate states of existence.

Alexa's room was small, with one window that looked out onto a small, empty patio. I bought a flowering fig tree and donated it to the courtyard. I had it placed right outside her window, so she would have something to look at. I knew it was silly because she was in a coma, but it didn't matter because it made me feel better.

The room was equipped with portable life support machines, which were very small, considering the huge task they were being expected to perform. They sat atop tables or were attached to the rolling bed where Alexa lay. She looked small and thin under the sheets, her black hair growing in tangles out of a shrinking death mask.

I would brush her hair and then sit for hours looking at her, trying to see the woman she had once been. But Alexa had already begun to transform. The most beautiful person I'd ever known was lost somewhere, wandering vacantly inside her own head. I would hold her hand, feel her mechanically induced pulse, and wonder, despite all this equipment keeping her alive: Was she even in there? Or was I clinging to a fantasy while I ignored her own stated wishes? Was this to be my final act of love
to keep her trapped inside a dead vessel, so that I could nourish some faint selfish hope of my own?