Chapter 4 Nemesis
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was headquartered in a five-story building on Maple Avenue in Torrance. Shane and Carmen checked in at the large lobby window and waited while a sheriff's deputy behind bulletproof glass called somebody upstairs. After listening for a moment, he cleared them to go to the elevator bank.
When they got off the elevator there was an older man standing there, apparently waiting for them. He wore baggy pants with suspenders and a sweater over an old but serviceable button-down shirt. He had an ID badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck and banging against his sunken chest. He looked to be in his sixties, Central Casting's idea of somebody's Midwestern grandfather. Carmen guessed he was a civilian aid retired from some dull lifetime of work as an accountant, or whatever, and who was now finding small bits of excitement hanging around a major police station during his golden years. His name tag said his name was Richard.
"You gals Morales and McCutcheon?" he asked, having no trouble recognizing them.
"Yes," Carmen said, smiling. She didn't mind being called a "gal"; she did many senior citizen gigs and liked older people.
"Follow me," he said, and turned away without looking back. "Marybeth's expecting ya." He made it sound like Marybeth was his long-suffering wife.
He led them from the elevator lobby to a wide bullpen area where a dozen plainclothes cops were working, typing on computers or talking on their phones. The LASD building was built on the open plan, with big cubby farms, all flooded with natural sunlight from the tinted windows. Individual offices and conference rooms were clustered in the center. Their escort led them down a long aisle with a right turn, past two smaller bullpen areas. As they walked Shane and Carmen read the name tags outside the various office doors they passed. It became clear they were in the LASD Homicide Bureau, and there were signs, posters and logos of the Homicide Bureau's locally famous "Bulldog" mascot everywhere. It was widely said in the LA region that the LASD homicide cops were tougher and better than their LAPD counterparts, and that's how they acquired their mascot and nickname.
Some room tags had only room numbers, some had names of people, and some had names of departments, often in impenetrable acronyms. They turned down another aisle, entered a small bullpen area, and off the bullpen the guide showed them to an office with glass walls. The sign by its door said Lt. Marybeth Duffy, Missing Persons Unit. Richard tapped on the door twice, perfunctorily, opened the door for Shane and Carmen, then stood aside so they could enter.
Lt. Duffy was talking on the phone and gestured to them to come in and sit down until she finished her call. She was going to a department luncheon that day and was dressed in her formal uniform instead of the plainclothes she usually wore. Her stiff, starched tan shirt had epaulets showing her rank on her shoulders, a formal plastic name tag pinned to the right side of her chest, and her badge pinned to the left side next to some medals and awards. She wore a black necktie. Carmen had never met her before, but Shane had described her quite accurately as a well-built woman who was not overweight or even "stocky," but who nevertheless looked solid and formidable. She had short dark hair, and carried herself with a regal air of military command and expected deference. A warrior princess type, Carmen thought. Her gaydar wasn't as sharp as Shane's (no one's was) but Carmen got no special vibes from Lt. Duffy one way or the other. The vibe Carmen did get was this was a woman you didn't want to mess with, much like her own overly protective housemate, Terri, whose first instinct was to demolish Shane right there on their doorstep.
"Right," Lt. Duffy said into the phone. "Right ... yes, that's a good idea ... work me up some budget numbers ... yes, okay, Frank, thanks." Lt. Duffy hung up her desk phone and pulled her Smartphone from her belt and immediately started inputting something. "Give me one more ..." - she thumbed more data into the phone without looking up - "... second ... there." She finished, looked up and stood behind her desk, leaning forward to shake their hands as they stood, too. "McCutcheon. Nice to see you again," she said to Shane without any warmth. "You must be Morales. Nice to meet you." Lt. Duffy gave Carmen a firm, brief handshake, and sat back down. "Sit down. What can I do for you?"
Shane and Carmen looked at each other for a split second, and then Carmen began their pitch, as they had agreed, because Carmen was the talker as well as the charmer, insofar as that talent might become necessary.
"We want to talk to you about our friend, Alice Pieszecki. We both believe she's innocent, that she had nothing to do with Jenny's death -"
"Homicide," Lt. Duffy interrupted. "Or if you prefer, murder."
"Okay, murder," Carmen said, refusing to be bullied. "Alice didn't do it, even though she confessed to it knowing she'd go to prison. We know it's a closed case as far as the police are concerned, and that's fine, we understand that. But even so, we believe in her innocence, and we'd like to look at the case files and all the forensic stuff, with a view toward conducting our own investigation. We have a theory that Alice suddenly and maybe even spontaneously decided to confess, which made your investigation suddenly came to a stop, too, which is perfectly natural - we're not criticizing in the least, certainly not criticizing you, personally, or anyone else working on the case." Carmen looked at Lt. Duffy for some sort of reaction, but got nothing but Duffy's polite attention. "What we think is that Alice's confession derailed your investigation, sabotaged it, and that if she hadn't done that you'd have kept working and identified the real murderer sooner or later, and most likely sooner."
Lt. Duffy said nothing, and just looked at her politely.
"So that's what we'd like to do," Carmen said, trying hard not to falter.
Lt. Duffy sniffed, some sort of indeterminate facial gesture. "You're not a policewoman or a private eye, past or present."
"No," Carmen admitted.
"No training at all in any kind of police work or criminal investigation."
"None," Carmen said.
"You're a DJ."
"Yes. And I work for a travel agency, I work on cruise ships."
"Olivia Travel and Royal Duchess Lines. You're Julie on the Love Boat. I did my homework." Duffy turned her attention to Shane with a casual flip of her hand. "You're a hairdresser."
"Yes, I used to be," said Shane, damping down her impulse to give Duffy some attitude. "I don't do much anymore myself, but I'm a partner in a chain of hairdressing and beauty salons. I do some professional photography on the side, too."
"That's right, I remember now," Duffy said. "Schecter bought you a whole photo studio right before she died."
"Yes," Shane said.
"Lucky for you," Duffy sniffed. "Too bad she didn't put you in her will."
"Her estate went to her mother in Illinois," Shane said quietly, wondering why Duffy was so hostile.
"Look, I know we're not investigators or police," Carmen said, wanting to get the conversation onto safer ground. "I know we're complete amateurs. But we need to do something. We need to find the real murderer and get Alice out of prison."
Duffy ignored Carmen and turned to Shane. "What did Pyewacket say when you visited her up at Humboldt the other day?"
"Who?" Shane asked.
