Sin City Homicide (8 page)

15

As Alma Parr walked into the Metro PD headquarters, he glanced up at the two palm trees on either side of the entrance. An empty beer bottle had been thrown up into one of them, and he stood under the tree, looking up at the bottle. Briefly, he thought it would be amusing if he shot it down. Instead, he picked up a rock and threw it at the bottle. He missed twice before nailing it, sending it crashing to the pavement below. He picked up the large pieces and threw them in a trash bin outside the building.

The precinct was busy
—it was always busy—and he still wasn’t used to it. The new building now housed the headquarters of Robbery-Homicide. He remembered driving past the location as a beat cop when it was nothing but an empty lot.

“Captain,” one of the secretaries said as she hurried
up next to him, “I need to speak to you about that Antonsens case.”

“Who is that again?”

“The flasher we interviewed last week for the robbery of the Laundromat on Maryland.”

“Right,” he said, stopping at the soda machine and checking the change in his pocket
. “What about him?”

“He says he’s filing a lawsuit for, um
—how did he put it?—‘lighting him up.’”

He grinned. “I don’t think that’s what you mean. Lighting him up means I shot him. I didn’t shoot him. He’s claiming I kicked his ass.”

“Yeah, well, that. He says he’s suing us, and he wants you to call his lawyer.”

“If he was actually gonna sue us
, he would just do it.” He put a dollar in the machine and selected an apple juice. “He’s just threatening a suit to have me call some meth-head acting as his lawyer. Ignore it.”

“Are you sure? I think Sheriff Keele would think that we should—”

“Candace, I’m telling you, forget about it. It’ll just go away.”

“If you say so.”

“Anything else?”

“A woman named Jessica called twice
, and somebody from the Special Operations Division called about that burn victim in the car.”

“What’d they say?”

“Um, hold on… oh, here it is. Sorry, new phone. Um, they said that the car was registered to a Rudy Henti out of San Bernardino, California. They haven’t been able to find him. All the numbers and addresses they had for him were invalid. They ran his social security card for employment, and the last entry said he was deported two years ago.”

“Huh. That’s too bad. All right
. Anything else?”

“Nothing pressing. You do have about ten messages on your phone.”

“I’ll get to them,” he said, walking away down the hall.

“Alma—”

“I’ll get to them. I promise.”

Parr walked down the hall and bumped fists with one of his detectives, Parsons, then stopped briefly to speak with Javier. He asked him to grab Jay and come to his office.

Parr went into his office and sat down. Behind him was a large framed movie poster for
Scarface
, depicting Al Pacino sitting at his desk, a cigar in his mouth. A football signed by Dick Butkus rested on a shelf, and he looked at it for a second before Javier knocked and came in. He lay on the couch and put his feet up while Jay sat down in a chair and threw a file on the desk in front of him. It was marked JON STANTON: CONFIDENTIAL.

“Was it hard to get?” Parr
asked, opening the file.

“Not really,” Jay said
. “IAD in San Diego hates his guts and gave it up after a couple of phone calls and a promise to destroy it afterwards. They’re not originals, obviously.”

“Shot by his partner,” Javier said
. “Fucker was in the hospital over a month. His heart stopped twice. Tough son of a bitch.”

“Or just lucky,” Parr said, reading through the commendations and citations Stanton had received during his time on the force.

“I got a weird vibe from him,” Jay said. “It was like I was at my shrink.”

“He’s got a PhD in psychology. And since when do you see a shrink?”

“Family therapist. Marcy thought it would help with our issues.” He leaned back in the chair. “How’s Jessica? When you guys settling down?”

“I broke up with her,” Parr said, not taking his eyes off the file.

“What? I thought you guys were talking wedding bells?”

“Marriages and this job don’t mix.” He flipped through a couple pages in the file. “He doesn’t have a single brutality or excessive force complaint.”

“So what?”

“So how many cops you know don’t have a single one? Even the squeaky cleans got one or two against them. He doesn’t have any.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I think it means he’s either a pussy or smart as shit.” He closed the file. “Something’s off about him. No one gets a doctorate and works homicide for fifty grand a year. Especially when you got a wife and kids at home.”

“He got divorced,” Javier said. “The file hasn’t been updated.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“Mindi told us.”

“What the hell does she have to do with this?”

“Nothin’. She was just curious. Said she was helpin’ him out and just came down and hung out for a while.”

“Keep her the fuck away from anything sensitive. I don’t trust her.”

“She’s harmless.”

“Just do what I say.”

Jay asked, “What about Jon?”

“Fucker’s smart. He’ll see a tail. But I want eyes on him.”

“We could pull somebody from Homeland Security detail. Those guys can tail the president without being seen.”

“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll put in the word and see if anything turns up. For now
, though, I need someone in San Diego to get out on the streets and beat the bushes a little. See if anyone knows anything about Stanton. If he’s crooked, this can’t be the first time.”

Jay shrugged. “I can go, I guess.”

“Javier, you okay with him gone for a few days?”

“Yeah, it’ll give me and Mrs. Jay Reed a chance to catch up.”

“Fuck you,” Jay said. “Like she’d fuck your wetback ass.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it, holmes. This is twelve inches of python right here.”

Parr smirked. “If your brains were as big as your cock, maybe you’d actually close some fucking cases.”

Javier shrugged and rose off the couch. “Anything else, Jefe? I got me a lunch date.”

“Don’t tell anybody about this. I want to keep it between us for now. I hear Stanton’s tight with Orson, and I don’t need him on my ass right now.”

Javier nodded. “I’ll see you guys when I see you.”

Jay rose to leave as well, and Parr said, “Hang on a sec.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember Antonsen? That flasher fuck who robbed a Laundromat then exposed himself to some kids who were there?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “What about him?”

“Said he wants to sue us.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I want you to go pay him a visit and change his mind.”

“How hard should I change his mind?”

“Really fucking hard. He’s connected to that flasher-pedophile bullshit community. He’ll get the word out that we don’t fuck around.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Jon Stanton might actually solve this fucking thing. If he does, it’s gonna make us look like monkeys. Make sure he doesn’t.”

16

Stanton walked down to the Sunday morning buffet. The food was laid out nicely, and the dishes were freshly washed. He piled eggs and watermelon onto his plate before grabbing a Diet Coke and sitting down at a table by the window.

He’d
spent the previous day doing little. Most of the Robbery-Homicide division, as well as Marty and Mindi, were off, and little work was expected from anyone there. He had met resistance at the Flamingo while trying to get a record of the crimes reported on June twelfth, and he didn’t want to pull out a badge from San Diego. He had left a message for Marty, asking him to go down there and get it.

Stanton’s cell phone buzzed. It was Mindi.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“How was your day off?”

“Sorry about that. That’s, like, my only day off the whole week
, and I didn’t want to—”

“No, I was genuinely asking. It’s all right.”

“Oh, it was good. I spent time with my mom and went shopping. She lives in Portland but gets down here every couple o’ months. What’d you do?”

“I watched the
Beatles Love
show. It was really good. Other than that, I just walked around. Went to the mall and bought a few things for my boys.”

“Aw, cute. Do you miss them?”

“I do. I haven’t been able to spend as much time with them since the divorce.” Stanton dipped some eggs in ketchup and took a bite. “So, what’s going on?”

“I was just calling to see if you wanted to go see Fredrick Steed today.”

“Not today.”

“Why not?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Yeah, and?”

“It’s the Sabbath.”

There was a pause on the other line. “You’re kidding
, right?”

“No, I don’t work on the Sabbath.”

“Wow. Never heard that in this town before. So what’re you gonna do?”

“I’m going to church.”

“What church?”

“There’s one nearby on North Hollywood. Why? Do you want to join me?”

She hesitated. “Sure.”

“I was kind of kidding. There’s no pressure.”

“No, maybe I can talk you into speaking about the case. What time?”

“Half an hour.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

Stanton hung up and finished his eggs. Perhaps he’d been wrong about Mindi. She seemed genuinely interested in solving this case and offered little of the duplicitous behavior he’d seen with people trying to rise in government careers.

Before leaving, he put his plate in a bin by the garbage and thanked the two Hispanic men who were serving. He walked once around the casino in a slow, purposeful manner. For some reason he couldn’t identify, he was fascinated with the gamblers. It was early in the morning, but they were still here. Stanton stopped at a table and stood alongside a group of them, watching their movements, their eyes, and their facial expressions. They took deep drags off cigarettes and snuffed them out prematurely, only to light more. They sipped their beers if they were losing then guzzled them if they were winning.

An older man
with a graying wisp of a beard held a lit cigarette between his fingers and another in his mouth. He forgot the one in his mouth was there and took a sip of a cocktail, dipping the cigarette into it. He didn’t notice until the dealer said something. The man swore, placed the cigarette on an ashtray, and finished the drink.

Working memory,
which is the memory a person is using at any given time, could only hold half a dozen objects. When a new object or information presents itself, such as a dangling cigarette, it pushes another object out of the working memory. The gamblers had such focus, were so completely engrossed in the games that their brains were literally not functioning normally. Their amygdala could not bring a new object into the working memory. They were more or less zombies.

Stanton walked outside and felt the sunshine on his face
. The balminess from the pavement wafted up and warmed him. He saw Mindi sitting in a Jeep Wrangler, waiting for him. As he approached, she leaned over and opened the door.

“I like the
Jeep,” he said.

“Thanks. It’s my baby. I’ve had it since college.”

Stanton went to strap in and found there wasn’t a seatbelt. “Not the safest car.”

“No, but that’s not why people get
Jeeps.” She pulled out of the Mirage and onto Las Vegas Boulevard. “Never been to a Mormon church before.”

“Almost the same as anywhere else. There’s one session at the very end where we split up and the men go into one class and the women into another, but I’m sure everyone will be really friendly. You have nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You’re clicking the nails on your thumb and pointer finger. I can hear it from here.”

She stopped. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

They drove in silence for a few minutes
then flipped the radio to a classic rock station. Elton John was playing, and when the song ended, the DJ discussed his bowel movement that morning.

“Sorry,” she said, changing the station.

“It’s fine. It was kind of funny.”

“Can I ask you something personal, Jon?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you come out here? It seems like this is the last place someone like you would want to be.”

“Someone like me?”

“That came out wrong. But you know what I mean. This place… even the cops…”

“I know. But I had a feeling I should come out here. A prompting.”

“Prompting? From what? Like, angels?”

“Something like that.”

“No, don’t brush me off. I’m serious.”

“My religion believes that the Holy Ghost can guide us if we’re faithful and live a good life.”

“So, you think the Holy Ghost brought you out to Vegas?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”

“I mean, in this day and age, you really believe in all that stuff about a deity and his crucified son and all that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s so illogical
, though. There’s no evidence for it. The followers are usually crazy. How do you justify it? Where’s the proof?”

Stanton looked out the window as
Mindi drove up a ramp onto the freeway. “I was investigating a case once, like, fifteen years ago. I’d only been on the force a couple of years and was basically doing DUIs and traffic tickets like everybody else. I’d gotten some reports of a drunk driver hitting a lamppost and taking off, so I went down there. I got a call from someone at the precinct, letting me know they’d stopped the guy three miles from where I was, and they were transporting him back for interrogation and booking.

“So, I spoke to a couple of witnesses and got statements and headed back to the precinct. We had this interrogation room that was really more like a closet that we’d taken over
’cause we ran out of room. You had to go through two doors to go into it. They told me where he was, to go interview him, and to ask for his consent to take his blood. I went through the first door… and I stopped. I just completely stopped and couldn’t move. It felt cold, and there was this gnawing in my gut. It felt tight, like I’d eaten something bad and was about to vomit. And this feeling just came over me about this guy. I’d never met him, never talked to him, but I had this feeling about him.

“I went in
, and he seemed like a normal guy. Had an Eastern European accent. He consented to the blood draw, so I took his statement and sent in a phlebotomist and didn’t think about him again. About a month later, I found out from one of the other detectives that he’d been arrested on a warrant out of Los Angeles that was issued by proxy for the International Criminal Court. He had been a soldier during the Bosnian War, stationed at a camp in Foca, where his job, his literal job, was to rape young girls and women every day. He was extradited and convicted. The court found that he was responsible for at least four hundred rapes and over a dozen murders.

“What I felt was evil. Real evil. Not DUIs and pot possession and all the other things we deal with every day. You can feel evil from another room
. It’s an entity. If there is such a thing as absolute evil, then there is absolute good, too. I feel it in church, in temple, or when I read scripture. I refuse to believe that the universe is so unjust that there can be evil like that without there being a corresponding good.”

“Wow. I thought you’d say something totally different.”

“Like what?”

“Like you were raised Mormon, so you’re just Mormon
, too.”

They got off the freeway
a block from the church. The brown-brick building had a spire, and the parking lot was full. Mindi parked in a space across the street, and they walked inside. It was well lit, with a painting of Jesus Christ in the foyer. They took their seats in the large auditorium where the sacrament meeting was held. This meeting was the Mormon equivalent of mass. Stanton glanced at Mindi, who was wide-eyed.

As the first speaker delivered a sermon about following the Ten Commandments, Stanton leaned over to
Mindi and whispered, “You didn’t grow up going to church, did you?”

“My parents were rabid atheists, so no. They thought religion was for weak people who couldn’t deal with death.”

“Do I seem weak to you?”

She grinned. “No, you don’t.”

When the service was over, they got back into the Jeep. They rode in silence for a few moments before Mindi said, “Okay, so that wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be.”

“Glad you enjoyed it.” There was a message on his phone, which he’d left in the
Jeep. It was Marty asking him to call right away. “Marty just called and said he has an emergency.”

“You want me to call him?”

“No, I got it… huh? It went straight to voicemail.”