Authors: Keith Domingue
“Nicole Ellis?” The taller of the two suits asked.
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Philip Miller from the Los Angeles Police Department, and this is Detective Michael Castillo.”
He held his sport jacket open to show the badge on his belt, his gun also visible on the opposite side. He closed his jacket and held out his hand. She briefly shook it as he spoke.
“I’m very sorry about your brother’s accident. Anytime there’s a DUI with fatality, we are required to do an investigation, and we just have a few questions. Is this a good time?”
Nikki studied the men a moment before answering.
“Sure. Come in.”
She opened the door and stepped aside, allowing both men into the apartment. Castillo, a darker skinned and heavy-set Latino about Nikki’s height, carried a file under his arm. The taller one, Detective Miller as he identified himself, was Irish, and had a receding hairline, the color a mixture of red and grey. He appeared to be several years older than his partner. As she turned back to face them, she caught Miller briefly checking her out.
“Can I get you something?” She asked, the tone in her voice a subtle indication she was aware of Miller’s roaming eyes.
“No, we’re fine, thank you. And we won’t keep you.” Miller replied.
“You’ll have to excuse the mess.” Nikki said, as she removed the blanket from the couch and arranged the pillows.
“Not at all. We’re sorry to bother you.” Castillo responded, as both men took a seat on the couch.
“It’s not a bother. I have some questions too.” Nikki replied, as she sat on the stuffed chair angled ninety degrees off the couch.
“Such as?” Miller inquired.
“This may sound odd.”
“There are very few things we haven’t seen in this line of duty, Ms. Ellis. Just start from the beginning, and try and remember as many details as possible.”
“Okay. Ben and I took a cab to Club Sutra.”
“Around what time?” Castillo asked.
Nikki noted that Castillo was asking the detail-specific questions and taking notes, while Miller was asking the open-ended questions and watching her reactions.
“Just after midnight.” She replied. “We met a friend of Ben’s. His name was Scott.”
“Forsyth. The driver.” Castillo clarified.
“Yes.”
“And he had been drinking heavily?”
“He had been drinking, yes.”
“I’m sorry about your loss.” Miller added.
“Thank you. I didn’t know him that well. And I was wondering…”
“Yes?” Miller prompted.
“This is the odd part.”
“Please. Continue.”
“We were getting ready to leave. And this guy…”
“Did you know him?” Castillo cut in.
“Who?”
“This guy.”
“No. Never seen him before. Anyway, he comes up to us, and he warns me not to get in the car with Scott. Said I wouldn’t survive if I did. Less than an hour later, I get the call that my brother’s been in a horrific car accident.”
“And you say you didn’t know him?” Miller asked.
“No. Never seen him before in my life. Why?”
“Just continue with the details, if you could.” Castillo prodded.
“Well, after he warned me not to get into the car, it all went crazy. Another guy came up from behind him, put him in a headlock, they went down on the floor, some girls started screaming, and the guy who warned me’s buddies came up- “
“Could you describe them?” Castillo interrupted again.
“Which ones?”
“The accomplices.”
“A white guy, a black guy, and a Latina.” She fired back, beginning to get impatient with the interruptions.
“Look, there was a scuffle, but it was over in a flash. Then they all ran out, the headlock guy chasing, and that was the last I saw of him or any of them. Now what I want to know is, was Scott in some sort of trouble? Was there someone after him? Because there was something definitely going on. And my brother is lying in the hospital as a result.”
The Detectives looked at each other.
“What?” She abruptly asked, her frustration beginning to surface.
“Do you know who he is?”
Castillo reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it, and handed it to Nikki.
It was a flyer with Alex’ profile on it.
“Is this him?” Miller asked.
Nikki stared at the photo a full ten seconds before answering.
“Yes. That’s him.”
She looked at the Detectives.
“Who is he?”
“He’s a “person of interest” in regards to a separate investigation. He was last seen at Club Sutra last night, at roughly the same time you were there. Did he say anything else to you?”
“No.”
“Did he mention his name? What he might be doing later?”
“Like I said, some guy tackled him pretty quick. We didn’t exactly have a conversation.”
“Okay. Is there any other detail, anything else you could tell us about him?” Miller asked.
“No.”
“And you’re sure you’ve never seen him before?” Castillo asked again.
“Yes, I’m sure I’ve never seen him before. What exactly did he do? And why did he warn me not to get in the car? Is he a business associate of Scott’s?”
“We’re not at liberty to say.” Castillo responded.
“Why not?”
“It’s a separate investigation, Ms. Ellis.”
“Not anymore. Am I in danger? Is my brother in any danger?”
“No, you’re not in any danger. Look, we’ll keep an eye on you, and we may have to have you come in and answer some more questions. So if you’re going to head out of town, just let us know.” Miller stated, trying a more informal and disarming approach.
“Fine.”
“Great. We really do appreciate your help. And if you see him again, don’t approach him. Just give us a call. Okay?” Miller finished, handing her his card.
“No problem. Is there anything else?”
“That’s all for now. But we’ll be in touch.” Miller answered, as he got to his feet.
They moved towards the door, and Nikki followed, opening it for them.
“You will let me know when you have more information, won’t you?” She asked Miller.
“Of course.” Miller replied with a smile, a subtle attempt at flirtation that Nikki filed in the back of her mind as something she could use later if need be.
“Thank you, detective Miller.” She replied.
They turned from the apartment and she studied the men a moment as they walked away, before finally closing the door.
She turned her back towards the door and leaned against it.
She looked at Miller’s card. She would stay on him, she thought. And when they had Alex Luthecker behind bars, she wanted to meet him, she told herself. Yes, she wanted to meet the man whose eyes haunted her. She wanted to ask the son of a bitch, face to face, if he was in any way behind the accident that nearly killed her brother.
• • •
“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s a bad idea.” Castillo said to his partner, as the two officers exited the apartment.
“You saw how she looked at me.” Miller replied.
“That’s ‘cause she wants something from you pal, and it isn’t what you think.”
Miller led the way out of the glass doors that made up the entrance to the apartment complex.
“I can handle it.” Miller replied, as they approached their black unmarked Police Interceptor, parked directly in front of the building.
“Famous last words.” Castillo replied. “Look, the fugitive case isn’t our problem.” He continued. “The DUI case is. And it’s pretty much closed. We’ll report back that she saw him, like we were asked, and let Homeland Security, or whoever the fuck is running that show, take it from there.”
Miller watched as Castillo made his way to the passenger side of the vehicle.
“We’ll fill out the report on the fugitive. I don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of those guys. But we won’t close out the DUI file. Not yet.” He stated.
Castillo looked at him.
“That one’s still our jurisdiction. Just give me another day or two to work this.”
“You’re going to pay her another visit?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Yes it is.”
“Just two days. They’re never going to know. As the senior officer, it’s on me if anything happens, and I’ll just paper the thing anyway.”
“You are never gonna tap that ass, my friend.”
“Two days.”
Castillo looked at his partner a moment before answering.
“Fine. But you’re on your own. And you owe me.”
“Whatever you want.” Miller replied with a smile, as both men climbed inside the car.
RECONNASAINCE
“I
wish they’d tell us what the hell is going on.” Marcus Stern told his partner, as he sunk deeper into the plush leather lobby chair of the Coalition Towers West Building.
“We’ll be lucky if we still have a job.” Vincent Wolfe replied, never taking his eyes up from the People magazine he skimmed through while he sat waiting next to his partner.
“We could have tracked him down and brought him in. I don’t understand why Brown didn’t just lock down the whole damn city.”
Stern looked over at Wolfe, who preferred the contents of the magazine to the attempt at conversation from his partner.
“They let him walk, not us. I mean, if he was so damn dangerous, why’d they just let him go?”
“Don’t worry, I checked my contract- I’m still entitled to my bonus.” Wolfe finally answered, again without looking up from his magazine.
“That’s not the point. All I’m saying, is we had him cornered, and they told us to back off. And I just want to know why.”
Wolfe went back to ignoring his partner, and flipped a page.
At seventy-five stories above ground, Coalition Towers West was the tallest building in California. An intimidating black structure with white trim and no signage, it was located right in the heart of the business district of downtown Los Angeles. Built in 1999, it originally housed several investment banking firms and insurance companies, but after the credit implosion of 2008 several tenants walked away in default, allowing Coalition Properties to step in and purchase the building at a market corrected discount of 400 million dollars. It had several unique features that made it attractive to the firm. It already had a high capacity power grid, with back up generators that could theoretically supply enough wattage to power the entire city for a month. Being in an active seismic region, it was built to withstand an earthquake of 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale. And local building codes required it to have one of the few active rooftop heliports in the area. It made for a perfect west coast base of operations, and although several firms had returned to the lower floors, the top twenty were now occupied by The Coalition.
Marcus kicked Vincent’s foot to get his attention as he spotted an attractive but sterile looking woman approaching them from across the enormous marble-floored expanse of the building’s ground floor lobby. Wolfe looked up from his magazine and saw her immediately, noting to himself that she was in her thirties, wore a black Armani skirt suit, and had a Coalition Properties security badge pinned to the lapel of her suit jacket.
“Mr. Wolfe? Mr. Stern?” She asked when she finally stood across from them.
“Yes. That would be us.” Stern replied.
“This way.” She stated before wheeling about and walking towards the elevator banks that made up the central pillars of the lobby.
Wolfe and Stern looked at one another a moment before getting to their feet and following her. She led them to the elevator banks, eight doors that faced across each other in sets of four, with numbered markers above each set indicating the range of floors each elevator car had access to. She swiped an access card that opened the doors that led exclusively to Coalition Properties, floors fifty-six to seventy-five. After several seconds a pleasant chime rang as the elevator doors opened. The woman stepped into the car, waited for Wolfe and Stern to follow her inside before swiping the card in front of a sensor again, simultaneously pushing the button for the seventy-third floor. The doors shut, and the car quickly began its ascent, the three of them standing respectfully equidistant from one another.
“So, how long have you been working here?” Stern asked the woman, trying to make conversation.
She didn’t move.
They waited in a slightly more awkward silence for a moment longer before the elevator glided to a stop, the doors quietly opening onto the seventy-third floor. She exited the elevator without a word or a glance back, and after a moment, both men took their cue and followed.
The seventy third-floor lobby was small and unmarked, with polished grey marble floors and walls painted a pristine white. There was no Coalition signage visible, signage not necessary as nothing was being sold here. A small security desk was neatly partitioned off in the left corner, and a set of opaque glass double doors sat next to the desk and directly across from the elevator.
Stern and Wolfe watched as their escort nodded to the armed guard behind the security desk, and the man picked up a phone receiver, hit a speed dial button.
“Have a good day, gentlemen.” The woman in Armani said to them, before turning around and getting back in the elevator. Stern watched her as she turned around towards the front of the elevator, facing them, hands carefully clasped behind her back. He locked his eyes on hers, trying to get her to look at him. She continued to stare straight ahead, never making eye contact, until the elevator doors silently shut her from view.
Stern looked at his partner.
“Friendly around here, aren’t they?”
“Just pay attention.”
“They’re ready for you. You can go in now.” The guard behind the desk interrupted.
Wolfe went first as both men pushed through the glass double doors. They were immediately hit with a cacophonic wall of multiple conversations. They stopped and looked over what appeared to be a five thousand square foot Wall Street-style boiler room crowded with men and technology, with carbon copy analysts donning ties and rolled up sleeves seated uniformly equidistance from one another along a half dozen long rows of HD color computer screens. Several other analyst-looking types, some wearing jackets to go along with their ties, stood in small clusters on the perimeter of the tech-men grid-work, locked in discussion with one another, occasionally breaking free to look over the shoulder of a tech bound analyst seated at an information feed, carefully listening to explanations of exactly what it is that they were looking at.