Playing the Game (24 page)

‘Did she come up at all in your research?’ I wanted to know.

‘Well she was the only relative I could find’, he told me. ‘Naturally, after your indiscretion whilst chasing her brother, I wanted the family’s side of the story. How did she feel that a member of the LAPD had run her only brother off the road? That type of thing’.

‘How did you find her?’ I pressed. Britland-Jones sat back, looking as though he was trying to remember. ‘It was a long time ago Detective, a long time ago. I’ll ask again, why do you want to know about Sarah Caldwell?’ He was being clever, the bastard. I knew he knew exactly what I needed to know, but he wasn’t giving it up for free.

‘We think that Sarah Caldwell is The Chemist’, my hand was forced. ‘And The Chemist currently has my daughter’. The statement hung in the air, as Britland-Jones processed what I had just told him; a mixed look of sympathy, surprise and delight on his face. As much as anyone would not wish to find themselves in my situation, he also sensed that revealing the identity of The Chemist could be the biggest scoop of his lifetime, outdoing even this morning’s fine publication.

‘So, Mr. Britland-Jones, now you know why we need to find her, how about giving me everything you’ve got?’ He nodded, agreeing to the question.

‘She was hard to track down’, he told me. ‘I only found her after her brother’s funeral. I followed her back from there, to a house in Wilton, near Park La Brea. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions. She looked more than a little alarmed that I had found her to be honest. I stayed on it for a few days, staked out the place. She’d come and go quite often but after three days I gave up trying to get her to talk. By that time the story was getting old anyway and old news doesn’t sell papers’. This was, as far as I was concerned, close to a breakthrough.

‘This house in Wilton?’ I demanded. ‘What was the address?’

‘I don’t know the address,’ Britland-Jones shook his head. ‘Like I said, I followed her there but it was a long time ago’. My face couldn’t conceal my disappointment, as my head dropped. ‘But I can do better than that Detective’ I looked up, hardly daring myself to hear his next words.

‘I think I can take you there’, he revealed.

64

            For Shawn Axon, fatigue had set in several hours ago. He just hoped that Tassiker would turn up for work this morning and that he wouldn’t be wasting any more of his time looking for him. Captain Williams had instructed him to stay in San Francisco for another twenty-four hours. To say that he was happy about that wouldn’t be strictly true, but he was professional enough to have sounded more than enthusiastic when he’d received his instructions.

            Williams had also told him that they thought, from what they had put together in Los Angeles, that Governor Tassiker may hold vital information pertaining to The Chemist and what Axon had uncovered thus far indicated that Tassiker may play a pivotal role in helping them re-capture Sarah Caldwell.

            Even so, after only a few hours rest in the pool car seconded to him by the SFPD which was hardly conducive to a good nights sleep, he was longing for his own bed, and willing Tassiker to show up. When he had called the secretary again yesterday, just before she left for the day, under the pretence of wanting to thank Tassiker once again for his time, she had told him that the governor had called her saying he would be away all day. She had reminded him of an important meeting he had scheduled at ten o’ clock the next morning with the parole board, and Tassiker had said he would be definitely back for that. She hadn’t, much to Axon’s relief, mentioned his second visit to the office to ‘retrieve his phone’ to the governor.

            He should have been here by now though, and Axon was beginning to think that Tassiker was trying to distance himself from the prison, worried that the LAPD were looking into his association and history with Sarah Caldwell and Paul McCrane.

            Much to his relief, at five minutes to ten, the governor made an appearance. He wouldn’t have spotted Axon staking out the prison entrance. The car was unmarked and a good distance from the main entrance and therefore inconspicuous to any onlooker.

            He watched as Tassiker drove past him and into the prison’s car park, unaware of the Los Angeles detective waiting to take him into custody. Axon covered the ground between his stakeout vehicle and Tassiker’s car quickly, and was more-or-less waiting for Tassiker when he stepped out of his car.

            Clearly taken aback, the governor dropped his briefcase and various papers he was holding, when he saw Axon appear out of the corner of his eye. ‘Detective Axon’, he said, trying to remain calm. ‘I assumed you had gone back to Los Angeles. Surely I answered all your questions yesterday’.

            ‘Some things have come to light since we last spoke’, Axon said grimly. ‘Specifically, governor, your previous and current history with Los Angeles District Attorney Paul McCrane’.

            ‘I told you yesterday’, Tassiker stuttered.

            ‘I know what you told me yesterday’, Axon interrupted. ‘Would you care to revise your bullshit statement?’ he produced his cuffs, about to read the governor his rights.

            As he tried to raise his arms for his arrest, Governor Tassiker felt a sudden pain in his chest and left arm and staggered back momentarily, his car taking all of his weight as he leant against it.  He felt his mouth go dry and his eyes bulged, unsure of what was happening. He collapsed in a heap, and his surroundings became hazy and unidentifiable; everything blurred into one seemingly continuous landscape and he was unable to distinguish one object from another.

            As he tried to regulate his breathing, the last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was Detective Axon pulling out his cell and making an emergency call; reporting that Sebastian Tassiker, governor of San Quentin, had just had a suspected heart attack.

65

Just as we were about to roll out to the house in Wilton, the house Britland-Jones claimed was Sarah Caldwell’s, news filtered through that puzzled us all. Senator Conrad Conway had just shot and killed an intruder at his house in Beverly Hills.

            What appeared to have been the simple premise of an opportune burglary had been somewhat complicated by the contents of the intruder’s back pocket; which had been searched by officers on the scene checking to see if the intruder had keys to Conway’s residence. The contents causing so much alarm were the business cards of two of the most prominent individuals in the city; both of who just happened to have been arrested that morning; Paul McCrane and Jameson Burr.

            Agent Balfer decided to remain at the station, trying to piece together the events of this morning and whether or not they had any bearing on our investigation. He would also take over from Charlie in questioning Jameson Burr, and from me questioning Paul McCrane. Given that he had supplied us with the covert information from San Quentin’s surveillance tapes in the first place, he was as entitled as anyone to have a crack at McCrane and Burr as anybody here. Maybe the presence of an FBI badge would have more of an effect than my fists had about an hour ago.

            The ride to Wilton took us around three quarters of an hour; the traffic heavy, even though we had the siren blaring for the best part of the journey. A couple of miles off the directions we were being given, we killed the siren just in case. We didn’t want anyone at this house to know we were coming.

            During the ride, despite being told repeatedly to shut the fuck up, Britland-Jones fired questions that I suspected were forming the basis of the story he planned to publish. He had signed documents back at the station that prohibited him, or anyone associated with the LA Times from publishing any further story relating to Sarah Caldwell, The Chemist, Paul McCrane, Jameson Burr or Sebastian Tassiker until he received express permission from Captain Williams personally. The legal department had rushed that one through for us. Not that I thought that Britland-Jones would give this story to anyone other than himself; egotistical prick, but we couldn’t afford to take that chance. The entire ride, I was imagining Katie in an underground coffin, like Stella had been; how could I not? The images of the previous night were branded in my imagination, and probably always would be.

            Britland-Jones directed us through Wilton; with a population of around four and a half thousand, it was one of Los Angeles’ smaller towns. Some of the building we drove past remained storm damaged; un-repaired from 1995’s El Nino. Levees were broken and roofs remained patchy. The majority of the town, however, a decade on from the disaster, was in sound architectural condition. Like more-or-less every town in the state, it had it’s less than habitable areas. We drove through the main hub of the town; a large shopping mall and several adjoining avenues of shops.

            ‘It’s just round this corner on the left’, Britland-Jones instructed a couple of minutes later, as we pulled onto an avenue, rows of houses on either side. ‘Fifth house along on the right, I think’.

            We pulled up along side the house that he brought to our attention and took a moment to survey it. It was semi-detached with an overgrown garden; grass was over a foot high and weeds snaked up the fence on the property’s border. It also looked suspiciously empty; no curtains, blinds or indeed anything visible from the outside.

            We had no hard evidence that Sarah Caldwell either lived, or had ever lived, at this address. Regardless of that fact, we were going in unannounced and weapons un-holstered. We were taking no chances whatsoever. Charlie took the rear, synchronising watches before he went; knowing that in sixty seconds we would both be in position and take down our respective entrances simultaneously. If it turned out that this was a normal house, with normal law-abiding residents then we would be full of apologies; not to mention the LAPD would have to compensate the family for the damage to the doors that we were about to inflict, but what else could we do? We were hardly going to knock on the front door and hope someone answered were we?

            Patton, Holland and even Britland-Jones, who had remained seated in the car, were so focussed on the house, and the prospect of it being the residence of Sarah Caldwell, that not one of them noticed a silver Cadillac pull around the corner and purr past them, without once looking at them.

66

            Agent Balfer didn’t think that his FBI credentials had impressed Paul McCrane one little bit. The District Attorney had remained impassive as he had inspected Balfer’s official ID, his face not giving anything away; the bruises swelling up from Patton’s earlier interrogation were there for all to see, yet McCrane knew that when push came to shove, the LAPD could simply claim he arrived in that state. If the cameras had indeed been turned off, like Patton had told him they were, they would no doubt claim some kind of bullshit technical failure by way of explaining why the cameras had not captured his alleged beating.

            ‘I don’t know anything about the money from the housing fund’, McCrane stated as Balfer picked his ID back up off the table. ‘I think you will find all the paper work for that particular fund is well in order’.

            ‘I’m not here about the housing fund’, Balfer informed him.

            ‘Ah’, the look on McCrane’s face gave way to familiarity. ‘You want to know about Sarah Caldwell then’, he stated.

            ‘What can you tell me about her?’

            ‘Well, I told Detective Patton all I know, I can’t tell you anymore. And besides, anything you think you may have on me must be circumstantial at best. Otherwise you’d be presenting it to me now wouldn’t you?’

            Balfer had to admit, McCrane was one cool customer. ‘I have one question for you Agent Balfer’, McCrane continued. ‘Is finding Sarah Caldwell more important than the front page of today’s LA Times?’ The question lingered, the duality of McCrane’s last words easily interpreted by the experienced agent. McCrane almost certainly knew more than he had revealed, but Balfer didn’t want to give in to him that easily. Besides, maybe Axon had got Tassiker by now; if they could get Tassiker’s statement, documenting what had happened at San Quentin with Sarah Caldwell that would certainly be more than circumstantial.

            Without saying a word to the District Attorney, he stood up and left the room. Although he had the authority to strike any deal he deemed necessary, he knew protocol also dictated that he run any suggestions past Williams.

            Captain Williams had been watching on the monitors, that had been miraculously restored to working order minutes after Patton and Holland had left McCrane lying on the interrogation room’s cold hard floor that morning.

            ‘I can see where this bastard is going’, Balfer told Williams. ‘He obviously knows more than he’s giving us, and wants a deal. He wants this thing with the housing fund swept under the carpet, no questions asked’.

            ‘Yeah I was watching’, Williams told him. ‘Trouble is, we might not have any other option’.

            ‘What do you mean?’ Balfer quizzed. ‘Anything from Axon yet?’

            ‘That’s the problem’, Williams shook his head. ‘Just as Axon was about to bring him in he keeled over with a suspected heart attack. They rushed him to the ER but he’s in a critical condition. There’s not a hope in hell of us questioning him. The ER have said it will be at least a day before he can talk, and that’s their most optimistic prognosis’.

            ‘It’s a day we don’t have though, isn’t it?’ Balfer was frustrated. Williams merely nodded his agreement. ‘Your call Captain’, Balfer told him. ‘You call the shots on this one. What do you want to do?’

            ‘We can’t afford to wait can we?’ Williams already knew the answer, he just wanted confirmation he was about to do the right thing.

            ‘Patton’s daughter’s best chance of survival is if we deal, that’s the bottom line’.

            ‘Make it happen, Agent Balfer’, Williams was not happy, but with Tassiker out of the picture for the foreseeable future, and nothing else forthcoming, his hands were tied.