Playing the Game (21 page)

            Carved into the bottom of the wood in large letters was the word ‘Patton’. It served as a stark, harsh reminder that although we had got Stella back, alive, more than we’d managed to do for Keeley and Jennifer, that we were still no closer to catching The Chemist.

            ‘Hey Patton, Holland!’ Agent Balfer rejoined us. ‘I’ve got something to run by you guys. Something’s puzzling me’.

            ‘What’s that?’ Charlie asked.

            ‘You said that The Chemist phoned you? Gave you a choice?’

            ‘Yeah’, I confirmed.

            ‘Well it seems to me that we’d have found her here anyway, regardless of whether you were given a choice or not’. He was right there. This had been the last step of the game; of game number three anyway.

            ‘So what can we read into that?’ I asked Balfer.

            ‘I’ve been thinking about that too’, he told us. ‘As far as I can see, there are two options. Either we’ve got lucky here, breaking the final message before The Chemist thought we would’. That was certainly a possibility; and we had Marvin to thank for that.

            ‘What’s the second option, man?’ asked Charlie. Agent Balfer’s face looked decidedly grim.

            ‘If we’ve solved number three right on schedule; if we’ve got Stella back because The Chemist wanted us to get her back, then that means that Sarah Caldwell has already got victim number four’.

55

            By the time we wrapped things up at the church, it was well past midnight. Several questions remained; chief among them, how could someone have placed Stella in that grave with no one noticing. Reverend Riley had simply said that the church would have been deserted most nights from nine or ten o’ clock. He supposed it would be easy enough for someone who was highly motivated to carry out the necessary work within a couple of hours. We speculated a timeframe that suggested that Stella was buried there just about the same time as Charlie and I had staggered back from the previous evening’s beers. It almost went without saying that the church had no CCTV or surveillance equipment installed that could have given us a better idea. ‘We have things that are of far greater need to the community than video cameras’, Riley had chastised. ‘You think my budget stretches to CCTV? Think again!’

            We had patrol officers doing a door-to-door on the houses surrounding the church, but I held out little hope; The Chemist was far too clever to have been seen wasn’t she? It didn’t seem like Sarah Caldwell was going to make any mistakes, so I had to hope that our lead with Tassiker and McCrane panned out and gave us something that eventually led us to her.

            The more we talked about Balfer’s theory that we would have found Stella anyway, the more I agreed with it; we wouldn’t have been far behind Marvin in working out the last message.

            We’d had the guys back at the station conduct searches on any young girl who might have been reported as missing, but so far we’d turned up nothing and so far, still no further communication from The Chemist. Part of her last conversation with me; the part about starting number four immediately, echoed in my ears. Caldwell had been operating with such ruthless efficiency so far I was certain that girl number four was already captured and it was only a matter of time before we found out who she was.

            Captain Williams told us to go home, get some sleep and to reconvene the following morning. Well, actually in eight hours time, it already was ‘the following morning’. As much as it pained me to admit, it seemed like a pretty good idea to me. After almost twenty four hours Charlie and I were spent, and Balfer was also looking pretty drained.

            We decided that we’d target how we were going to use the information Balfer had given us about McCrane’s relationship with Tassiker in the morning. ‘I’m going to have to sleep on that one’, Williams said. ‘That is a pretty big call to make’. I didn’t blame Williams for wanting to tread carefully. One false move and he could very well be Neil Williams: ex-captain. The political sway that Paul McCrane carried in Los Angeles was not to be underestimated. Shawn Axon was to remain in San Francisco on the trail of Tassiker, who, it had appeared, had completely vanished after his conversation with Axon earlier in the day. Williams had already cleared his impending arrest with his San Franciscan counterparts this evening, so if Axon found him, he would have no bullshit red tape to cut through to get him to Los Angeles, which was encouraging.

            As I arrived back at my apartment, I realised that the eight hours until we were meeting again was now cut down to around six when you factored in my transit time but nevertheless it was six hours of welcome respite from all that had happened.

            I stood in the shower for what seemed like an eternity but in reality it was only around fifteen minutes. As the hot water cascaded over my body, sending me into as relaxed a state as I’d been in some time, I went over the last twenty-four hours, questioning every move we’d made. The deaths of Ferguson, Stella’s mother and the other officers at Sutherland Boulevard were weighing heavily on my mind. Looking back, I couldn’t see how we could have done anything differently, which even so, was of little comfort. I resisted the temptation to pour myself a large glass of vodka, despite the bottle resting invitingly on the bedside table as I returned from the shower. I had a feeling that I was going to need a clear head today, and for the sake of ‘number four’, I didn’t want to compromise that.

            Although I thought I would have a tumultuous rest at best, I settled into a deep sleep almost immediately. I’m pretty sure I dreamed a couple of times that the phone was ringing, but mercifully, for those few hours at least, The Chemist refrained from calling me.

56

Today

            Paul Britland-Jones sat alone, in an all-night café, just around the corner from his apartment, and only a sixty second walk from the newsstand where he had just picked up a copy of the early edition of the LA Times. He sat, alone, in the corner sipping a cup of coffee and staring at the front page. His latest and greatest story. Admittedly, he didn’t have the usual feeling of a job well done, as he hadn’t really done much work to get the story. Usually, he felt a sense of satisfaction when one of his stories made the front page; it made the endless chasing of leads and burning the midnight oil to beat a deadline all worthwhile. Today though, he felt more a sense of foreboding, unsure of what lay ahead, unsure of the repercussions across the state that would be felt as a result of his story.

            Checking his watch, he sensed that at just after five a.m. it was a little early for the LAPD to have gotten wind of the story but he was sure they would, sooner rather than later. He had upheld his part of the agreement with Conway. There was no way that such a story would bring anything other than arrest, intense scrutiny and possible imprisonment for its two protagonists; Jameson Burr and Paul McCrane. He couldn’t quite remember the last time that one such prominent figure had been involved in a scandal of this magnitude, let alone two. That had given him his headline: ‘$200,000. Two for the price of one?’ Underneath the headline, two pictures; one of Burr, one of McCrane; both immediately recognisable. Just in case though, their names were emblazoned underneath, not quite as big a type as the headline itself, but not far off. To anyone who picked up the paper today, or indeed happened to glance at a copy as they walked by, the names were unmistakably prevalent. He was sure that Conway would be pleased and sincerely hoped that fifty grand would be coming his way as a result.

            As an added insurance that the LAPD would be fully aware of Burr and McCrane’s misdemeanours he had posted all relevant information pertaining to his story at the home address of the Commanding Officer of the LAPD’s Criminal Investigation Division, Will Harlow, at just after midnight last night. That would certainly make interesting reading over the breakfast table at the Harlow household this morning and would be more than enough to warrant the immediate arrest of Burr and McCrane. He was sure that Harlow would also want to speak to him, him having broken the story and all. He could be vague about his sources, saying that the information was delivered to him anonymously but he had to have some semblance of background relating to the story, he knew that. That would be no problem though; he could have his facts straight easily enough.

            Finishing his coffee, he thought he’d make an early appearance at the office this morning; no doubt his fellow journalists and office minions would be eager to heap their praise on him for breaking such a story; applause that he was always ready to accept with considerable aplomb. He just hoped Senator Conrad Conway was similarly gracious.

57

            Captain Williams, Agent Balfer, Charlie and I all arrived back at the LAPD within five minutes of each other. None of us looked particularly refreshed but I felt considerably less tired than I had when I had got home last night, so the sleep had definitely been warranted. The Captain had instructed the rest of the PD not to disturb us for the next hour; we needed to be thinking clearly and clarity of our way forward was now paramount.

            The taskforce set up by Captain Williams had been working overnight, with more volunteers having come in last night to investigate Sarah Caldwell. They had nothing more for us, which was a blow but not an un-entirely unexpected one.  We’d heard nothing more from The Chemist either, my uninterrupted sleep had told me that much. On the way in I’d telephoned the hospital to find out how Stella was. She was stable, which was good news. It seemed that we had gotten to her in time, although how she would react to the devastating news that her mother had been killed in yesterday’s explosion was anyone’s guess. Although I’d been planning to break the news to her myself, Captain Williams had other ideas. ‘You’re needed here Patton’, he told me, and he was right once again. I hadn’t forgotten that finding Caldwell was our primary concern and I just hoped that when Stella learned of yesterday’s events, she was strong enough to pull through.

            Sitting around the table in the incident room, we pulled together what we had so far, eager to draw up a strategy that we could implement; at least until The Chemist contacted us again. It seemed that the only avenue we had was McCrane and Tassiker.

            Balfer, over the next twenty minutes, briefed us on what his sources at Quantico had uncovered. He’d had the original surveillance tapes couriered to him overnight. ‘You guys must have a far bigger budget than us down here!’ Charlie joked, trying to inject his usual humour into the situation. Nevertheless, I sensed he too was impressed so far with Balfer’s contribution to the case.

            We brought the images up on of one of the screens in the room and watched in silence as we saw Paul McCrane enter San Quentin then leave with another individual from a different exit. There was no denying it was McCrane; we all agreed on that and it was clear enough to me that we could justify questioning him on it. As for whether or not he was with Sarah Caldwell, that was a different matter. Even though we had a photo from Barnes, it was hard to tell if it was her or not. All we could say was that the person leaving with McCrane was definitely female.

            Half way through our briefing, Axon contacted us from San Francisco; he’d got nothing new either. He’d spent all night trying to locate Tassiker with no success and figured he’d wait to see whether or not he showed up for work today which seemed like his best chance of finding him. I had to say, Axon’s dedication right off the bat to helping us hadn’t gone unnoticed.

            ‘So, have we got enough to bring in McCrane then?’ I put the question out there but it was directed solely at Captain Williams. It would be his decision. From the look on his face, it seemed that he’d been pondering this question most of the night.

            ‘I’m not sure, you know’, he said shaking his head. ‘All we’ve really got is him leaving San Quentin with an unidentified female. We could do with something else to link him to Sarah Caldwell specifically’.

            ‘We need to bring him in’, I countered. I too had been thinking how I’d respond if Williams had decided not to bring him in for questioning. ‘He’s our only lead at the moment. It’s not as if we’ve got anyone else, apart from Tassiker, even remotely linked with Caldwell’. Williams was quiet for a moment, seemingly playing out the consequences silently.

            ‘Fuck it’, he concluded. ‘Let’s do it. Bring in Barnes first. Get him on record with what he told us yesterday. Then we bring in McCrane. Hopefully in the meantime, Axon will have found Tassiker and can corroborate some of what Quantico has sent us’. Now that was more like it.

            ‘We’ll get Barnes now’, I jumped up. I doubted whether even he would have started drinking this early.

            Just as we were about to go and get him, we were interrupted by an officer whose name I didn’t know. ‘Captain, I think there’s something you should know’, he said, virtually ignoring everyone else in the room.

            ‘And what’s that?’ growled Williams, clearly annoyed that his express instructions not to be disturbed had been violated.

            ‘Something’s just happened you really need to know about’, the officer continued. ‘Will Harlow has just arrested Paul McCrane’. A stunned silence washed over the room. Finally, Captain Williams managed to speak.

            ‘And why would Harlow have done that?’ he asked.

            ‘You’ve not seen this morning’s Times?’ responded the officer. He hadn’t and quite clearly, no-one else in the room had either. We had been far too preoccupied with what we were caught up in, and rightly so. The officer took our silence as confirmation that we hadn’t and tossed the copy that I’d only just noticed he was holding, onto the table, face up.

            Upon reading the headline, we all looked at each other, not knowing what to make of it, with the exception of the Captain, who stood up straight away and stormed out, presumably to find Harlow for a fuller explanation. The remaining three of us poured over the story, trying to grasp why McCrane had been arrested.