Hollywood Rage Page 27

  It was well after midnight by the time Olivia and I met with Baxter in an interview room at the station. We’d given the former cop some time to sober up, but, as we took seats across from him, he still reeked of booze.

  “What the hell is this all about?” Baxter grumbled.

  “We can start with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer,” Olivia said.

  He snorted. “Yeah, like that’s going to stick. I wasn’t under arrest and was just trying to leave the bar when your goons stopped me. I’ll walk on everything, and we both know it.”

  Olivia shrugged. “Maybe. But if those charges don’t stick, there’s also a little matter called first degree murder.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Olivia pulled a photograph out of her satchel. “A Walther P38. Very popular in World War II with the Germans. It was also a popular item in the Metro evidence locker. You stole it, and it was used to murder Mel Peters.”

  Baxter laughed, but some of his bluster was gone. “You’re crazy.”

  “Some people might agree with you, but the fact is you admitted being in a past relationship with Mel Peters. She ended up dead, with the weapon you stole on the floor next to her. If I were you, I’d start talking.”

  Even though he was handcuffed, Baxter leaned forward and managed to use the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Don’t know anything about the gun.”

  “Really? That’s interesting, considering the captain of IA said otherwise.”

  “He’s full of shit.”

  “There’s also the matter of the civilian staff at Metro that you compromised. She admitted giving you access to the property room and the weapon.”

  What Olivia said about the civilian staff was a bluff, but it was a good one. We waited, watching as Baxter wrestled with how to handle it.

  “It was a setup,” Baxter finally said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A guy I know wanted the gun to set somebody up.”

  “Who was this guy?”

  “His name is Jimmy Rayburn, small time drug dealer. I knew him from working the streets. He gave me five bills for the gun, and I walked.”

  “And what exactly did he tell you about the setup?”

  “Nothing. I told him I didn’t want any details. I just took the money and never saw him again.”

  I took over, asking Baxter what he knew about Jimmy Rayburn. I got enough information back to take a break and have dispatch run the convicted felon through the system. I came back into the interview room and showed Olivia what I had, including an address for Rayburn in West Hollywood.

  “What else?” Olivia asked Baxter.

  “There’s nothing else.” Baxter held up his hands cuffed to a bar on the table. “So why don’t you cut me loose, and we call this even.”

  Olivia stood as I did the same. “You look like you need some rest. We’ve got free room and board here.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means we’re going to have a chat with Jimmy Rayburn, then we’ll see about whether or not to ask the DA to file murder charges against you.”

  SEVENTY

  As it turned out, Jimmy Rayburn was on parole. After making several phone calls, we eventually got ahold of his parole agent, who agreed to meet us at Rayburn’s place in West Hollywood as the sun was coming up.

  “Rayburn lives in a garage off the alley,” Amy Franklin told us when we met her on the street. The PA was about forty, African-American, and built like someone who spent all her spare time in a gym. “He’s probably in bed, sleeping off whatever he used last night.”

  “He ever test dirty?” Olivia asked her as we walked up the street.

  “All the time, but it’s not enough to get his parole revoked. It practically takes a bank robbery to get someone sent back to the joint these days.”

  “What about guns?” I asked. “We have reason to believe Rayburn recently bought a weapon that was used in a homicide.”

  Franklin stopped as we approached the alley and looked at me. “For what it’s worth, I searched his place about a month ago, but came up empty. Doesn’t mean he’s not holding now.”

  “Let’s be on alert,” Olivia said as we approached Rayburn’s living quarters.

  Olivia and I drew our weapons, as Franklin did the same.

  As we stood at the door of the garage where Rayburn was living, Franklin said, “I’m not going to bother knocking.” She tried the door, found it was locked, then stepped back and kicked it open.

  Rayburn was so startled that he fell out of bed. “What the fuck?”

  “Parole search,” Franklin said, coming over to him, realizing that he was nude and had an erection. She grabbed him by the arm. “Turn around so I don’t have to look at that nasty little thing.” She got him in handcuffs and had him sit back on his bed, then threw a blanket over his rapidly deflating member.

  “What’s this about?” Rayburn asked.

  The parolee was in his late thirties, skinny, with tattoos everywhere.

  “Guns,” Franklin said. “Where are they?”

  “Don’t have any. I’m clean.”

  “Well see about that.”

  It only took us a few minutes to toss the garage and a beat-up Ford on the street he owned, finding nothing but a small amount of marijuana. When we finished, Olivia pulled a chair over to where Rayburn was sitting, turned it around, and sat down.

  “I’m only going to ask this once,” she said. “I want to know what you did with the Walther you bought from David Baxter.”

  “The what?”

  Olivia fixed her eyes on the parolee. “I told you I was only going to ask once.” She stood and said to Franklin. “Book him.”

  “For what?” Rayburn said.

  “Accessory to murder. The weapon you bought from Baxter was used in a homicide.”

  Rayburn’s parole agent took him by the arm. “Wait,” Rayburn said.

  “I’m listening,” Olivia said.

  “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  She sat down again. “Go ahead, and make sure it’s the truth.”

  “I sold the gun to a guy at a gun show, who said he was a collector. Don’t know his name.”

  “Nice try, but you can’t sell a gun in this state without registering it, even at a show.”

  “It was a private arrangement. The guy knew a guy who heard I had the gun. He said he wanted it bad, so we met at the show, then went out to the street. I got it out of the trunk of my car, and he paid a grand for it.”

  “Describe this guy.”

  “He was kind of old, gray hair, cut short. Don’t remember nothing else about him.”

  Olivia rose. “Not good enough.”

  “Hold on, there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “I saw the guy’s car when he drove away. I remember it ‘cause he had one of those personal plates.”

  “Go on.”

  “It said...” Rayburn paused, his gaze moving off for a moment. “It was something like...DOOPC, or something like that. Not sure, exactly.”

  “DOOPC,” Olivia said, shaking her head. She exhaled and looked at Franklin. “Give us a minute.”

  We went back into the alley, where Olivia called dispatch and had them run the plate. After listening to the response, she said, “Try some other combinations. It might be that a letter or two is off.”

  While she waited, Olivia told me. “The plate’s not coming back as a match to anyone living around here.”

  “Maybe Rayburn’s just making things up to cover himself.”

  “Maybe...” She held up a finger, then said into the phone. “Go ahead.” She listened to the response from dispatch, then said, “Are you sure?”

  When she ended the call, Olivia said to me, “It looks like our first thought was the right one, after all.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Turns out Rayburn was a letter off on the plate.
There’s one in the system with the letters DOCPC.”

  I still wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Does that mean something?”

  “It means the guy who bought the gun had a PhD and was a police chief at one time. He was so proud of it, he even put it on his license plate.

  “You’re kidding.”

  Olivia smiled. “Let’s go arrest Reginald Dunbar.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  After Jimmy Rayburn positively identified a photograph of Reginald Dunbar as the man who bought the murder weapon from him, we arrested our former police chief that afternoon. He was booked into Men’s Central Jail after he refused to waive his rights and talk to us. Despite having a high-profile suspect in custody with a motive for committing the crime, things didn’t feel right as Olivia and I drove back to the station.

  “Why would Dunbar leave the weapon he used to murder Mel Peters at the crime scene?” Olivia asked as we turned onto Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood.

  I gave her the only answer that seemed plausible. “Maybe he panicked, thought someone might have heard the gunshot, and left in a hurry.”

  “Maybe.” Olivia’s gaze came over to me as she stopped for a red light. “But Dunbar spent over thirty years in law enforcement. He doesn’t seem like the type to panic.”

  “The gun wasn’t currently registered and he bought it off the street. He had to think it would never be traced back to him.”

  Olivia didn’t respond, as the light changed and we moved forward.

  “You’re not convinced,” I said.

  She glanced at me again. “Are you?”

  I shook my head as we pulled into the station parking lot. “Too many loose ends.”

  She parked our car. “Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll pick things up tomorrow.

  I took my boss’s words to heart. I went straight home and collapsed into bed, since I’d been up all night. I woke up a little after six that evening when my friends knocked on my bedroom door.

  “We gotta leave in an hour,” Natalie said, bursting into my room with Mo.

  I sat up in bed. “Leave? For where?”

  “Boris and Jessica’s engagement party is tonight.”

  I groaned and fell back against my pillow. “God help me.”

  “God helps those who get out of bed and put on their ball gowns,” Mo said. “Get up. It’s gonna take you at least a half hour to get dressed.”

  After brushing my teeth, doing what I could with my hair, and putting on some makeup, I went downstairs. I saw that my friends had already dressed.

  The movie Cinderella came to mind as I took a moment to admire their gowns. Despite the gaudy, over-the-top dresses, they both looked elegant, like something out of central casting for a royal ball. Then I saw the mass of yellow material on the sofa that was my gown.

  Natalie brought the dress over to me. “Nana had it taken in several sizes. It’s gonna fit you like a glove.”

  I went into one of the downstairs bedrooms with them and slipped into the gown. I then waddled over to a full-length mirror in the corner of the room and screamed. “I look like a woman who’s turning into a giant duck. It’s still way too baggy, and...” I turned to my friends. “I look ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous is a good word,” Natalie said, trying to be encouraging. “It means outstanding.”

  “It ain’t that bad,” Mo said, rubbing her chin. “I think it will look better when you’re out in public.”

  “In public? I can’t go out looking like this.”

  Despite my protests, I did go out. My friends had made arrangements for Otto to rent a limo, and he drove us to Ravenswood, Nana’s former estate, where Boris now resided.

  “We heard you arrested your former police chief,” Mo said, as we drove up into the Hollywood Hills.

  “I knew that dirty wanker was good for it,” Natalie said. “He killed Mel so she couldn’t testify against him.”

  “Maybe,” I said, fussing with the ruffles on my silly dress.

  Mo fluffed up her own dress. “Don’t tell me you think that nut bag Lazarus did it.”

  I exhaled. “I’m not sure what to think, but there are some loose ends we need to work on.”

  Mo looked at Natalie. “Loose ends. We got more loose ends in Hollywood than a plastic surgeon who specializes in butt lifts.”

  “Speakin’ of that,” Natalie said, looking at me, “Mo and me think Nana’s ‘bout to slip back into her eighty-year-old birthday suit.”

  “Her surgery’s goin’ south faster than a car chase on the 405,” Mo agreed.

  “Maybe she got that tune-up from her doctor she told us about,” I said.

  As it turned out, Nana did get her tune-up, but it didn’t turn out as she’d hoped. She and Howie arrived at Ravenswood just after we did. I did a double take when she stepped out of her car.

  Natalie couldn’t help but offer her opinion when she saw Nana’s latest surgery. “She looks like somebody stuck a corkscrew in her back and cranked it real hard.”

  “I think her skin could pop open at any moment and all her organs fall out,” Mo said.

  When Nana and Howie came over to us, I had to admit they were right. To make matters worse, Nana’s face seemed paralyzed, like she had a smile frozen on her face.

  Despite her condition, I tried to be polite and complimented her on her ball gown, which looked like something out of Victorian England.

  “It’s really stunning,” I lied. “Like something a queen might wear.”

  “You look like hell,” Nana said, eyeballing me. “Why didn’t you have a refitting for that dress?”

  I sighed. “I was busy.”

  “Quack...quack,” Howie said, smiling at me. “You look like Daisy Duck. Maybe you should keep it and wear it on Halloween.”

  “Maybe you should go stick your head in an oven and light a match.”

  Okay, I didn’t say it. Instead, I had a thought about running away. I decided against it, thinking the paparazzi might spot me and take a picture. I’d then end up on the cover of a magazine in a supermarket checkout line with a headline that read Giant Duck-Woman Spotted in Hollywood.

  “I know what you’re all thinking,” Nana said after my friends mentioned her frozen smile. She tapped the skin under her chin with the back of her hand. “Just so you know, Dr. Theodore gave me a full-body Botox. It should begin to loosen its grip in a few days, and I’ll look normal again.”

  Natalie displayed her usual lack of tact. “You got a hell of a long way to go.”

  Mo added, “You look like you’ve been stuck in a freezer and your face froze.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Nana told them. “I look fine.” She looked at me. “Don’t I?”

  “I’m sure your condition is only temporary,” I said. Like maybe for the rest of your life.

  “Where’s that guy you’re dating—the one whose junk I saw at dinner with Tex’s goggles?”

  “He’s having dinner with his father tonight.”

  Nana shook her head, giving me what I thought was a disapproving look. I couldn’t be sure because of her frozen smile. “He dumped your skinny ass after seeing you naked, didn’t he?” When I couldn’t think of how to respond, she said, “Never mind. I get the picture, and it isn’t pretty.”

  After some more small talk at my expense, we began walking toward the gathering. Nana then gave me my marching, or maybe I should say waddling, orders. “You need to be sure you stay with Wilhelmina all night. If Boris marries someone within a year after his brother’s death, the will stipulates that I get a bigger slice of the inheritance. I don’t want anything going wrong that would make Jessica change her mind about marrying him.”

  “Why me?” I protested.

  “Because you’re a cop and you’re supposed to know how to handle people.”

  I stopped waddling, my gaze moving over the guests on the estate’s sprawling lawn. “Handling people is one thing, but dealing with monsters is something else.”

  I wasn’t kidding. B
oris’s family looked like a bunch of corpses wearing ball gowns and tuxedos.

  Natalie came over to us and said to me, “You ever done the zombies waltz?” She then began walking around stiff-legged and holding her arms out like someone from The Walking Dead.

  What she’d said and done wasn’t lost on Wilhelmina, who was nearby and came stomping over to us. Boris’s mother was a large woman, with big features that seemed permanently pinched in anger, like she’d also gotten a Dr. Theodore Botox injection. She was wearing a flowing black ball gown. Come to think of it, all of Boris’s relatives were dressed in black. They looked like something out of an old black and white movie. Zombie World?

  “We won’t be putting up with any of your nasty comments tonight,” Wilhelmina said to Natalie, in a heavy eastern European accent. “For once, try and be courteous to us.”

  “Courteous?” Natalie said. “You wouldn’t know courteous if one of your family members crawled out of a grave wearin’ a flippin’ tuxedo and bowed down to you.”

  “You got some nerve, telling us how to behave,” Mo chimed in, folding her arms across her chest. “You need to mind your own business tonight or there’s gonna be trouble.”

  Nana tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and was again struck by her frozen smile. “Take her away. Now,” she said.

  I released a breath and walked over to Boris’s mother. “It’s a lovely evening. Let’s take a stroll while we wait for Boris and Jessica to arrive.”

  Wilhelmina shot death stares at my friends. “I do be needing me a drink.”

  As we walked over to a bar set up by the pool, I realized that Boris’s mother smelled of alcohol. Then I realized she was drunk. I had to grab ahold of her arm to keep her from falling.

  After getting a drink, Wilhelmina asked me, “What are you knowing about this woman who is wanting to marry my son?”

  I searched for something positive to say. “Jessica and I went to school together. She’s...she’s...ah, very driven.”