Elvis Cole
THE BUILDING and the bodies within it bothered Cole. Here was this warehouse, exactly on the spot where the lives of Larkin, the Kings, and Meesh crossed like overlapping ripples, and now someone had murdered the Kings and taken an enormous risk by placing their bodies in that location. The location was the tell. The killer left them in this particular building to send a message. What Cole didn’t yet get was who was sending the message, and who was supposed to receive it. He believed the building was the key.
Cole made good time in the lull between the morning rush and the lunchtime crunch. He dropped off the freeway at Santa Monica Boulevard, then headed west to his office. Pike and Larkin were returning to Echo Park to call Bud Flynn, but Cole didn’t think they should bring in Flynn until they knew who they could trust, and right now Cole believed they couldn’t trust anyone. He wondered whether Pitman and Blanchette knew about the bodies in the warehouse. He wondered if Pitman and Blanchette had put them there.
Donald Pitman and Clarence Blanchette had come to his home and identified themselves as special agents with the U.S. Department of Justice. Cole believed this much to be true. Credentials could be faked, but these guys had muscled LAPD, and LAPD didn’t roll for a couple of fakes. Also, Larkin, her father, and their lawyers had numerous meetings with them and other federal employees in official federal offices, and these same people had set up the Barkleys with the United States Marshal’s. Cole accepted that Pitman and Blanchette were real, but everything about their operation felt like a scam, and Cole wondered why.
Cole kept an office on the western edge of Hollywood, four flights up. He had gone in only a couple of times since he got out of the hospital, but now he climbed to his office again. He brought his notes, his maps, and the list of phone numbers and other information. Neither Pitman nor Meesh nor the hitters from Ecuador were waiting for him, which was disappointing and predictably normal. Bad guys rarely waited for you. You had to go find them.
Cole said, “Hey, blockhead. How’s it going?”
Pinocchio grinned at him from the wall. Cole had found the clock at a yard sale. It had a big Pinocchio grin and eyes that moved back and forth as it tocked. Prospective clients were usually less than impressed, but thugs, bad guys, and police officers were fascinated. Cole had stopped trying to figure out why.
Cole liked his office, liked how he felt when he was in it. He had an adjoining room for Joe Pike, though Pike’s office had never been used. Two director’s chairs faced his desk for those rare occasions when more than one client vied for his attention. Beyond the chairs, French doors opened onto a small balcony. On a clear day, he could step out onto his balcony and see all the way down Santa Monica Boulevard to the Channel Islands. On even better days, the woman who occupied the office next to his would sun herself wearing a bikini top the size of a postage stamp.
Cole opened the French doors for the air, then went to his desk. First thing he did was get to work on the building. He laid out his maps, then phoned a woman in Florida named Marla Hendricks who could-and would-track down the building’s ownership history, along with all liens, litigations, settlements, and evictions pertaining to the property. Cole had used her services for years, as did other licensed investigators around the country. She was a three-hundred-pound wheelchair-bound grandmother in Jupiter, Florida, who made her nut by subscribing to and searching online databases. She did not have access to military, medical, or law enforcement sources that were sealed by law, but she could pretty much access anything else.
When Cole finished with Marla, he studied the list of phone numbers, then called his friend at the phone company.
First thing she said was, “I was beginning to think you didn’t love me anymore.”
“You just love me ’cause I get good Dodgers tickets.”
“No, my husband loves you because you get good Dodgers tickets. I love you ’cause your tickets make him happy.”
“I think all three of us are about to feel the love.”
Cole had helped a best-selling novelist convince an Internet stalker that his time was better spent in more positive ways. The novelist had killer seats in the exclusive Dodgers Dugout Club, and shared them with Cole several times each year. Gratis.
Cole said, “I have a list of phone numbers I need to identify.”
“No problemo.”
“Before you say that, let me warn you. Most of these numbers are probably registered to disposable phones, and four of the numbers are international.”
“I might have a problem with the international numbers if they’re unlisted.”
“They’re likely in Ecuador.”
“They could be in Siberia, it wouldn’t matter: Foreign providers are reluctant to cooperate unless we go through official channels, which I can’t, considering I’m doing this for Dodger tickets.”
“I gotcha.”
“The disposables-well, I’m just letting you know-if the phones were cash buys, I can’t find out who owns them. That information won’t exist.”
“If you can’t ID an owner for a particular number, could you get the call records for that number?”
“It’s possible.”
“Sooner or later these phones called real phones, and those phones have names. Maybe we can come at it backwards.”
She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Cole let her think.
Finally she said, “I’ll try. It depends on the provider. Some of these little companies, well-give me the numbers. I’ll see what I can do.”
“It’s a long list. Can I fax them?”
Cole copied her fax number, sent the list, then put on a pot of coffee. When it started dripping, he returned to his desk and reread the NCIC brief on Alexander Meesh. He wanted to see if he had missed anything that would explain the accent Pike reported, or connect Meesh to Esteban Barone or someone named Carlos. He hadn’t. Only a single line connected Meesh to South America: “…fled the country and currently believed to be residing in Bogotá, Colombia .”
Cole decided the investigating agents must have developed evidence or statements that placed Meesh in Bogotá, else they would not have entered the statement into the record. Cole paged to the end of the report and noted the investigator’s name-Special Agent Daryl Willis with the Colorado State Justice Department, a state agency. The FBI had probably come in later, but Willis was the point man because murder was a state crime. A phone number was listed under Willis’s name. It was six years old, but Cole dialed it anyway.
A woman answered.
“Investigations.”
“Daryl Willis, please.”
She put him on hold for almost five minutes. Cole passed the time watching Pinocchio’s eyes until a man’s voice came on the line.
“This is Willis.”
“Sir, this is Hugh Farnham. I’m a D-2 here at Devonshire Homicide with the Los Angeles Police Department. I’m calling about a homicide you worked a few years ago, a fugitive named Alexander Meesh.”
Cole made up a badge number and rattled it off. He doubted Willis would actually copy it, but he knew it was the thing to do.
“Oh, yeah, sure. What do you need?”
Willis sounded no more interested than if Cole had asked what color car he drove.
“We pulled his brief off NCIC, and you have this alert here saying he fled to Colombia -”
“That’s right. He was tied in with a boy down there about the time of the murders. Wasn’t enough money up here for him in hijacking; he wanted to bring in drugs, so he worked out something with a-lemme think a minute-a boy named Gonzalo Lehder. Made a few trips down there working out the deal, and I guess they hit it off. When we put the indictments on him, that’s where he went.”
Cole wrote down the name. Lehder.
“Lehder was a supplier?”
“One of the fellas who popped up when the Cali and Medellín cartels fell. Little operations popped up all over down there, maybe thirty or forty of’m. Some of’m aren’t so little anymore.”
“Was Meesh hooked up with someone named Esteban Barone?”
“Sorry. I couldn’t tell you.”
“Barone is out of Ecuador.”
“All I knew was Lehder.”
Six years was a long time. Meesh probably started with Lehder, then branched out to Barone and the other cartels. One hundred twenty million dollars was a lot of investment capital.
Cole said, “All right, then. Let’s get back to Meesh. Did he have any dealings here in L.A.?”
“Can’t say that rings a bell. Sorry.”
“How about Lehder? L.A. ring a bell when you think about Lehder?”
“Farnham, listen, I haven’t paid much attention to this in, what is it, five or six years? Can I ask what this is regarding?”
“Meesh is in Los Angeles. We believe he’s involved in a multiple homicide.”
Willis didn’t say anything, so Cole watched Pinocchio’s eyes. Waiting.
Willis said, “This is Alexander Meesh you’re talking about?”
“That’s right.”
“Alexander Liman Meesh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meesh isn’t in Los Angeles, partner. Alex Meesh is dead.”
Cole stopped looking at Pinocchio and dropped his feet to the floor. He wasn’t sure what to say. A room filled with federal agents had interviewed Larkin over the course of a week, and were confident with her identification. Cole suspected they had also identified Meesh’s fingerprints in George King’s car, but Willis sounded absolutely certain, and now all traces of boredom were gone from his voice.
Cole said, “We have a confirmed identification from the Department of Justice.”
“What are they basing that on? They got a fingerprint match? They got the DNA?”
Cole didn’t know what they had, but if Meesh was Meesh, then Meesh was Meesh.
“Yes on both counts.”
“Then those boys don’t know a lab test from a hemorrhoid. Alexander Meesh is dead.”
Willis had moved from bored to interested to angry, as if he was taking it personally.
Cole said, “Why do you say he’s dead?”
Willis hesitated, almost as if he was deciding whether to answer, so Cole pressed him.
“I have a multiple homicide here, Mr. Willis. I’ve been told to find Alex Meesh, and now you’re telling me the DOJ is wrong. How can you be sure?”
Willis made a grunt, then cleared his throat.
“The Colombians and the DEA were after Lehder in a big way. That’s how we knew Meesh went down. The Colombian National Police called the DEA, and the DEA called me. Meesh had been down there about eight months by then, setting up a drug deal between Lehder and some Venezuelans, only Lehder turned on him. Killed him.”
“If Meesh is dead, why haven’t you closed the warrant for his arrest?”
“The DEA. We knew Meesh was down there through under-cover agents in Lehder’s operation. If we tagged the file with a note about Meesh’s death, or named Lehder as a known associate, those agents would be compromised. Also, you can’t confirm a death without a death certificate, and we’re not likely to get one.”
“Why is that?”
“Lehder found out Meesh was lying to him about how much dope the Venezuelans were going to sell. Meesh was lying about it so he could steal the difference for himself. Lehder found out, he played like he didn’t know and sent Meesh up to Venezuela to pick up the dope along with three or four of his boys. Only Lehder’s boys shot Meesh to death in the jungle. It’s a big jungle. His remains were never recovered and aren’t likely to be.”
“Then how can you be sure he’s dead? Maybe he escaped or survived. Maybe he bought off Lehder’s men.”
“DEA and Colombian UC agents were present when Lehder’s boys got back. They brought Meesh’s head so Lehder could see. Left the body, but brought back the head. Both agents were standing there with Lehder when these boys pulled the head out of a bag. Lehder says, Good work, fellas, and that was that.”
Cole didn’t know what to say. But then Willis went on.
“At the time, we all believed Lehder really had sent Meesh up there to bring back the dope. We expected Meesh to come tooling back with a couple hundred kilos of raw cocaine, so the DEA and the Colombians planned to arrest them. They didn’t care about Meesh, but they wanted Lehder. I wanted Meesh for the murders up here, so they let me tag along. I was with’m in that room, Detective, I saw the head. Without the drugs present, the Colombians waved off the bust. They didn’t even wanna try busting the fucker for killin’ Meesh, so I hadda sit there and drink tea for another hour, makin’ like nothing was wrong. I still don’t know what Lehder’s boys did with the head, but I saw it. I recognized him. It was Meesh. So whoever you got there in L.A., he’s not Alexander Meesh.”
Cole felt hollow, with a faraway buzz in his head like he had gone too long without eating.
“Can I ask one more question, Mr. Willis?”
“Kinda takes your breath away, don’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your question?”
“Did Meesh have a speech impediment or maybe speak with an accent?”
Willis laughed.
“Why would he have a damned accent?”
“Thanks, Mr. Willis. I appreciate your time.”
Cole put his feet up, leaned back, and stared at the Pinocchio clock. The only sound in his office was the tocking of its eyes.
The call to Willis should have been simple. Cole went into it hoping to learn something about Meesh’s connection to Barone, and Barone’s connections to Los Angeles, and maybe even whether or not Meesh spoke with an accent-but not this.
Is this the man you saw, Ms. Barkley?
Yes. Who is he?
His name is Alexander Meesh.
Cole stared at the Pinocchio clock, then a small ceramic figurine of Jiminy Cricket a client had given him. Let your conscience be your guide. Everyone needed a Jiminy.
He flipped through the NCIC brief, which did not contain fingerprints or photographs or DNA markers. Why would you need those things if you believed what you were told?