Circling the Runway (Jake Diamond Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  The elevator arrived and Johnson held it open with his foot.

  “Get on the Lloyd thing right away. I’m counting on you, Cutler.”

  “I won’t disappoint you, Sergeant.”

  “I’m certain you won’t, Davey,” Johnson said as he stepped into the elevator car.

  Davey Cutler watched the doors shut.

  The kid was beaming. Lit up like a Christmas tree.

  As the car descended, Johnson could think of only one thing.

  What the fuck was going on with Lieutenant Lopez?

  Lopez ran into the forensic team in the hall, moving in the opposite direction.

  Michael Gordon and Joe Beggs had been collecting crime scene evidence together for years, and for the third time in less than twenty-four hours. They worked quickly and meticulously. Wasting time was not something either Gordon or Beggs knew how to do.

  “Done back there?” Lopez asked.

  “Done,” Gordon said.

  “Get anything?”

  “Nothing to jump up and shout about, we’re going to do the front room,” Beggs answered.

  And they were gone.

  Lopez found the M.E., Steve Altman, and a young female officer with the late Roberto Sandoval.

  “Officer,” Lopez said.

  “Knapik, Lieutenant. Joanna Knapik.”

  “Officer Knapik, I need a word with Dr. Altman. See if the evidence techs can use your help out there. If not, just try staying out of their way.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Knapik said and left the room.

  “Johnson thought you had the day off,” Altman said.

  “So did I.”

  “Where is Johnson?”

  “I had to send him back to Vallejo Street. So. Tell me everything you know.”

  “Not much to tell. They found the body here,” Altman began, pointing down to the floor just inside the bedroom. Lopez noticed the bloodstains on the carpet. “We moved him to the bed to clear the doorway. One gunshot wound to the back of the head. Looks like a thirty-eight caliber, but I wouldn’t swear to it until I pull the slug out. I’m guessing eight to twelve hours ago for time of death, but again I need to run tests before I sign off on it.”

  Lopez glanced at her wristwatch. It was a few minutes before noon.

  “Could have been around midnight,” she said, almost to herself. She walked over to the bed, stared down at the body, and stood silently for almost a full minute.

  “You okay, Lieutenant?” the Medical Examiner asked.

  “A cab driver has Sandoval arriving here at midnight and the doorman still breathing,” Lopez said, ignoring his question. “Another witness notices the doorman was missing from his post shortly thereafter. So both Sandoval and the doorman could have been murdered between twelve and twelve-thirty.”

  “That’s how it appears to me,” Altman said.

  “Lieutenant.” It was Knapik calling from the hall.

  “Yes?”

  “The ambulance guys are here.”

  “Are you done with him?” Lopez asked Altman, looking down again at the body on the bed.

  “I’ve done all I can here, I’ll be doing the rest down at the morgue,” Altman answered.

  “Knapik.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “You can send them in,” Lopez called. She walked over to the north-facing window of the apartment. The panoramic view took in all of Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, the North Waterfront and Alcatraz Island. Lopez loved the city. She considered it one of the most beautiful spots on earth—even on those days when it got ugly.

  “You okay, Lopez?” Altman asked a second time.

  “Did you hear it’s going to hit eighty today?”

  “Too damn hot for March, if you ask me.”

  “Well, Doc, as Mark Twain so aptly phrased it,” Lopez said, turning from the window as the ambulance guys walked in, “Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Get in touch with me right away if you learn anything else.”

  Lopez felt the bagged envelope like it was burning a hole in her jacket pocket. She left the room and then the apartment.

  The weather was the least of her concerns.

  Officer Davey Cutler wasn’t quite sure what to do.

  Davey was excited about getting the special assignment from Sergeant Johnson, a secret one at that. After parting with the sergeant, Cutler had quickly located Ethan Lloyd’s apartment and knocked on the witness’ door. The only answer he received was from the dog inside. Now he was back down in the building lobby, wondering how long he might have to wait before Lloyd turned up and what to do in the meantime. He considered calling Johnson, but worried about appearing indecisive in the eyes of the sergeant who had put so much faith and trust in him.

  Kenny Gerard was somewhat at sea also. The lobby was usually his realm, but today he was feeling totally out of place. Kenny had been pushed around the lobby all morning, by all sorts of cops and other city officials, like a piece of furniture no one knew what to do with. Kenny was trying to fade into the woodwork when he suddenly saw Davey Cutler standing beside him.

  “I wonder if you could tell me when Ethan Lloyd might be back,” Cutler said. “He’s one of your tenants.”

  “I know who he is,” Gerard answered. “I take pride in knowing who my tenants are.”

  “I’m sure you do,” said Cutler politely. “When might he be back?”

  “He should be back in a few hours. He’s always here by two or so to take the dog out.”

  “That was easy. Thanks. You’ve been a great help.”

  “It was an easy question. Do you have anything more challenging I could help you with?”

  Cutler thought about it for a moment, feeling the need to come up with something.

  “Are there other ways in and out of the building?” he finally asked.

  “Only through the parking garage,” Kenny replied. “But you would need the access code.”

  “What’s the access code?”

  “It’s a four digit number followed by the pound sign.”

  Gerard was trying the young officer’s patience.

  “I mean, what is the code?” Cutler plowed on.

  “Is it important that you know it?”

  “It could be very important,” Cutler suggested, though he really didn’t know exactly why. “And your help would be greatly appreciated and duly noted.”

  “Two two five three,” Gerard said.

  “Two two five three,” Cutler repeated, quickly jotting it down.

  “Don’t forget the pound sign.”

  EIGHT

  I opened my eyes to the noise of a clanging in my head which then became the sound of a church bell announcing the noon hour. I expected to find myself beside Quasimodo, him looking at me as if I was the Pope of Fools. Instead I was sitting on a bench across from the Hall of Justice.

  Alone.

  The last thing I could remember was watching as Lionel Katz walked away. I realized I had dozed off on the bench. I did that occasionally, particularly when I was badly hung-over and I was having trouble deciding what to do next. And, as I also did quite often when confronted with the need to choose a course of action, I asked myself: What would Jimmy Pigeon do?

  There was a time when I really thought I could make it as a movie star.

  Not because I possessed movie star charisma or matinee idol good looks, since I didn’t possess either—but because I believed I was a good actor and I thought that counted for something. However, the leap from stage to film acting was a long one, and I always fell short and landed harder every time I fell.

  And then, on a film set in Los Angeles some years ago, I met a private detective named Jimmy Pigeon.

  Jimmy was on location as a consultant, giving the lead actor pointers on ways to walk and talk like a private eye, and then tips on how to look convincing when the fictional private eye had to confront and ultimately kill off my character in the first reel.

  I very rare
ly made it past the first reel.

  Watching Pigeon fascinated me, intrigued me enough to approach Jimmy and ask him to tell me more about his work. I remember Jimmy telling me that what he did for a living was a lot easier than what I did.

  “I could never be an actor,” he said. “There are some things we are able to master, and some we can’t. It’s not a matter of intelligence. It’s more about personality.”

  If he was trying to tell me not everyone could be a private investigator, he never said it straight out and I chose to ignore the inference. And before too long, Jake Diamond the Hollywood hopeful became Jimmy Pigeon’s protégé and partner.

  It had been four years since Pigeon was murdered, but as I listened to the twelfth peel of the church bell and I sat trying to figure out my next move, I asked myself, as I did again and again: What would Jimmy advise?

  And the answer was always the same: Do Something.

  Get your ass up off the bench, Jake, and do something—even if it’s wrong.

  Steve Altman was a San Francisco medical examiner, the man in the Coroner’s Office who might help me get going. I believed Altman owed me one. I could only hope he agreed.

  A while back I had helped Altman with a problem he had involving his daughter. He never mentioned who recommended me. I only knew it wasn’t Lieutenant Lopez or Sergeant Johnson. I would be at the bottom of their lists of problem solvers, somewhere far below tarot cards and coin tosses.

  Altman’s daughter, Sara, a twenty-one-year-old senior at San Francisco State, had a new boyfriend who Altman had some doubts about.

  “Just a gut feeling,” Altman had told me. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on, something not right with the guy. I worry about my daughter, she’s gullible.”

  Not much to go on, maybe more about an over-protective father than anything else, but I decided to try to find out what I could about the boyfriend.

  Bob Harper.

  Jimmy always said if you wanted to learn about a person, the best course was to watch. So I watched Harper, for almost a week. It was a lot like watching episodes of Seinfeld. Nothing happened. And in most of the episodes, Sara Altman made guest appearances. And from what I could tell, Sara thought Bob Harper was the cat’s meow.

  Then one evening, Vinnie Strings begged me to take him along on the surveillance and I couldn’t say no because he was way down in the dumps over losing a huge bunch of money on an NFL playoff game and I was afraid to leave him alone as much as I knew that bringing Strings along on a stakeout was like wearing a sign around my neck saying peek-a-boo.

  And, because Murphy’s Law was sometimes made to be broken, taking Vinnie along paid off.

  “I know him,” Strings announced as we watched Harper come out of Sara Altman’s apartment with Sara hanging on his arm.

  Small world, I thought, though I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.

  “I don’t know the doll,” Vinnie added, “but I wouldn’t want to be her father.”

  Vinnie knew of Harper from his Los Angeles days, where Bob had built up a reputation for quick, medium-take con games.

  “He specializes in scamming unsuspecting college girls for a quick and easy grand or two,” Strings said. “Gullible college girls. Then Bob stops sending flowers.”

  Perfect.

  I took my findings to Steve Altman later that evening.

  “What should I do?” he asked.

  “Tell her.”

  “She won’t buy it. She’ll think it’s just me, that I never believe any guy is good enough for my little girl.”

  I wondered where she might have got that notion.

  “I have an idea that might work,” I told Altman.

  The following evening, I enlisted the assistance of Sonny “The Chin” Badalamenti, Joe Vongoli’s son-in-law.

  Sonny and I followed Harper to Sara’s apartment and waited nearly two hours before they came out. Sonny moved to them very quickly and confronted Harper in front of the girl.

  “I know you’ve been messing with my wife,” Sonny said, getting right into Bob’s face, “and that you tried to take her for three thousand dollars. Don’t say a word or I’ll smack you.”

  Bob began to speak and Sonny decked him with a right uppercut. Harper sat on the ground and buttoned his lip.

  “I’m giving you a chance to get lost, because I don’t want to embarrass my wife. If you ever get near her again, I’ll kill you,” Sonny said, and then he turned to Sara. “Watch your ass, sweetheart.”

  Sonny walked off and Sara Altman looked down at Harper and yelled, “You bastard.”

  “I don’t know what that maniac is talking about.”

  “Is that why you asked me for fifteen hundred dollars to put down on a beach house rental at Stinson Beach,” Sara screamed, kicking him in the leg. “If you’re not out of my sight in one minute I will call the police myself.”

  Harper dragged himself to his feet and quickly took off up the street.

  Sonny came up beside me where I had watched the final episode from across the avenue.

  “How did I do?” he asked.

  “Worthy of an Emmy,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sonny said, and disappeared into the night.

  I called Steve Altman and told him to stop worrying.

  He told me he owed me one.

  I was hoping he would remember he’d said it.

  I stood up from the bench, pulled out my cell phone, and tried reaching Altman through the Coroner’s Office. I found myself trapped in a loop of automated telephone instructions that had me pushing buttons like a lab rat. Since I knew from experience where it was all headed, I cheated and pressed zero. I was rewarded for my cleverness with two words. No and no. Is Dr. Altman in? No. Do you know when he might be back? No. So much for the benefits of a live voice on the other end of the line.

  A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.

  I didn’t relish the idea of calling Altman on his cell phone, fearing he might have his hands tied up examining a corpse. But I had decided on a course of action and didn’t want to have to come up with Plan B. I had to do something, even if it was wrong. I was about to hit the END button after four rings when Altman answered.

  “Jake Diamond. Long time,” he said.

  The fact that he knew who had called and still picked up was mildly encouraging.

  “Steve, how are you?” I said, lamely. “How is your family? How’s your daughter, Sara?”

  Okay, I’ll admit it, the shameless reminder.

  “Everyone is fine, Jake, and you?”

  “Good, Steve,” I said, and then I cut to the chase. “I could use a favor.”

  “Can it wait several hours? I’m just finishing up at a murder scene and releasing the body to the ambulance,” he said. “Roberto Sandoval. I need to do an autopsy as soon as possible and then get back to one I was working on when this call came in. I can give you a ring when I get done. It should be around three, maybe four this afternoon.”

  It would have to do.

  “Sure, Steve, as soon as you have a minute. Thanks.”

  “Later,” Altman said, and he was off the line.

  Killing time for three or four hours was no difficult task for me. I was good at it. And there were some handy options. Some of them involved food. My whiskey headache was dissolving into serious hunger pangs.

  I could cross back to the Hall of Justice and listen to a couple of hours of Hank Strode’s worldview. I could grab a hotdog from the corner vendor, return to the bench, and see if the squirrel and pigeon returned for another round. I could head over to Molinari’s for calamari, where Angelo Verdi could talk for hours without taking a breather, then walk the squid up to the office for a lecture from Darlene about the horrors of fried foods.

  But none of these mildly promising time wasters was in the cards. With three or four hours on my hands, there was no way I could avoid Tony Carlucci any longer.

  The good news, if there was any, was that I wou
ld find Tony at a place where I could get something to eat.

  Mama Carlucci was true to form.

  She piled a large bowl sky high with enough baked ziti and sausages to satisfy Pavarotti. I was expected to clean my plate. Tony Carlucci would not talk business, or sports for that matter, while you were still eating. I managed to finish the dish, keeping everyone happy for the moment.

  A waiter who could have been a hundred and twenty years old cleared my plate and a minute later Tony appeared. He walked up to my table with two porcelain demitasse cups in one hand, a small silver pot of espresso in his other hand, and a bottle of Anisette tucked under his arm.

  I was tempted to ask him for a match.

  I was certain I wasn’t Tony Carlucci’s personal choice to get his cousin Guido’s son Benny out of the jam he’d put himself in. Tony and I didn’t exactly like each other. To put it politely, we were mutually ambivalent. Carlucci was no fool. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer either. The sharpest knife in the Carlucci drawer was Tony’s older brother John. “Johnny Boy” Carlucci called the plays from the side-lines and Tony executed them.

  In John’s case, the sidelines was a cell in San Quentin, where he was expected to reside for a very long time.

  John had warmer feelings for me than Tony did, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

  Frank Slater was a former mob lawyer who I finally identified as Jimmy Pigeon’s murderer. He was also the man whose testimony put John Carlucci behind bars. Once I found Slater, I handed him to Tony Carlucci. Since that time, John Carlucci has continued giving me much more credit than I deserve.

  So I knew I had been chosen by John, and the knowledge made it a little easier to sit at the table with Tony. If Tony called the shots, the man would be an impossibly scary Italian.

  “So,” Tony said. It was his way of initiating a meaningful conversation.

  “Thanks for lunch,” I said. It was my way of trying to avoid one.

  “Benny didn’t do it,” Tony said as he poured espresso and anisette.

  “I got that, Tony,” I said.

  “The guy’s fingers were burned off. You think we teach our kids weird shit like that?”