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  “Do you know where you’re supposed to look?” he asked, turning around again.

  “Yes, the information we have is that it’s by the rose bushes in the northwest corner.”

  “Over there,” said Labecki, pointing towards a large and proud rose bush packed tightly with yellow flowers as if it were itself a bouquet just made up at a flower shop.

  “Yes, Mr. Labecki, that would be the northwest corner,” said Roberts.

  Labecki turned back and walked back to his chair. He grabbed the back of it and leaned over it towards us. He was not a happy man. He was shaking his head.

  “I’m afraid not, Captain, I cannot allow you to dig up around that rose bush. It is my pride and joy. Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to get it to the shape it’s in?”

  I wasn’t a green thumb, but I had to admit that the rose bush in question did indeed look pretty fine. Roberts played along and shook his head.

  “Years, Captain, years. Just ask Gary.”

  Labecki turned to look at Verukin who nodded solemnly as if they were discussing the possibility of having to put a beloved puppy down.

  “It’s a Golden Celebration rose and they can be quite finicky. I absolutely cannot allow you to disturb the soil beneath its feet.”

  He said it like a man who believed he had the final say in the matter. Sadly for him he didn’t.

  “As I said, Mr. Labecki, we will use kid gloves,” promised Roberts.

  Labecki was still shaking his head as if that would create a vortex of safety through which we couldn’t access the backyard and therefore his beloved rosebush.

  “No. Sorry, Captain, I’m afraid not. I have nothing to hide, but I can’t allow you to disturb my bushes. Not without a warrant, you understand. This back garden of mine has won award after award in the LA Times as well as the prestigious Green Thumb award from the California Home Horticulturists Award of Perfecting Sunshine otherwise known as CHHAPS. I’m afraid my life’s work will be ruined if that ground under Ms. Bushy is disturbed.”

  I couldn’t be sure if I had heard it right. Had he just given his rosebush a name.

  “Ms. Bushy?” I asked.

  “Yes, the Golden Celebration rosebush we’ve just been talking about,” he confirmed.

  I nodded slowly. Why not I thought, if you don’t have children or pets, perhaps you consider your garden with the same emotional fervor.

  “I was hoping it wasn’t going to come to this,” said Roberts, standing up and reaching into his inside jacket pocket. “We have that warrant you’re requesting. We’ll be digging around that rosebush now.”

  Roberts handed Labecki the warrant. He went white, like a man stepping into a shower after a cheap spray tan.

  “If you have a trowel for us to use or any other sort of implement, I’ll do my best to be careful,” said Roberts.

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  We followed Labecki down the stairs and onto the grass which looked so perfectly green and lush that I thought at first we were walking on expensive astroturf, but it wasn’t. It was the real thing. Perhaps we had Labecki to thank for the current drought.

  Just around the end of the house on the south west side was a large shed. It was secured by an electronic lock which Labecki opened after having punched in six numbers. Roberts, Beeves and I stood outside. Roberts and Beeves were putting on latex evidence gloves.

  “Do you have the evidence bag?” asked Roberts.

  Beeves nodded and patted his left outside jacket pocket. It was slightly bulged by what was most likely said evidence bag. Labecki came back out with a small plastic trowel with a rubber spade that was flexible. Verukin watched us silently with a scowl on his face.

  “I’m sure you won’t find anything here. Nobody’s been to our house since last weekend and certainly not in the backyard,” said Labecki.

  Roberts took the trowel and flexed the spade. It bent with modest force. It looked like it could dig in loose soil but not in anything much harder.

  “This will help to protect the roots of Ms. Bushy,” said Labecki.

  Roberts nodded. We followed him towards the north west corner of the garden. There was a large bed of assorted flowers with the Golden Celebration rosebush being the pride and joy of this particular corner. As we neared it we could see that the soil in front of Ms. Bushy was already well disturbed. Labecki fell to his knees by the border of the plant bed edging.

  I’d never before seen a grown man cry over a plant. But Labecki was now inconsolable. He was bowing up and down in front of the rosebush and asking questions that nobody had the answers to. Verukin was trying to console him. He leaned down and hugged Labecki around the shoulders. I stared, astonished that a man could have such feeling for a plant. But then again, his garden was a delight, even if you didn’t have a green thumb.

  Verukin got Labecki to stand up and moved them off to the side. Roberts and Beeves knelt down in front of the disturbed ground. Roberts started to dig into the soil in front of Ms. Bushy, gently and tentatively as if he were prodding a pregnant woman. He didn’t have to dig far. About six inches below the ground he found the metal of the gun. He pulled it out and inspected it. I was standing just off to the side of them and watching. The gun in question was a Beretta Cougar. Probably the one that was used in the murder of Orpen.

  Throughout this process, Beeves had been documenting the dig like a seasoned archeologist, taking photos every step of the way. He and Roberts stood back up and Beeves showed the gun to him.

  “Do you know this gun?” asked Roberts.

  Labecki shook his head with his hand to his mouth. He had dried his tears. He was now in shock.

  “I mean, it might have been Lavan Emmett’s. That’s the only sort of gun I’ve seen recently.”

  “Are we going to find your fingerprints on it?” asked Roberts.

  More slow shaking of the head, and then a hesitation.

  Roberts passed the gun to Beeves who put it into the evidence bag and held it in his hand.

  “No, maybe, I don’t know,” was the best he could come up.

  “Can you explain that?” asked Roberts.

  Verukin had his hand around Labecki’s waist.

  “Well,” said Labecki, “Beale did bring a gun like that downstairs at the after party some weeks back. I told her it wasn’t a good idea. She joked about how Lavan had kept it in a safe with her birthday as a password. She passed it around and then when it came back to me I noticed that it was loaded and I suggested that we put it back. She let me do that, and that’s what I did.”

  “Convenient,” said Beeves, sounding a bit more sarcastic like I might have been. Roberts ignored him.

  “And I assume that you know how to handle a handgun?” he asked.

  Labecki nodded.

  “Yes, but that’s only because I’ve had to use them as props in movies and television. I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “We are wondering that,” said Roberts, “and to be honest with you, it doesn’t look good. I’m going to take this back to the lab and have forensics run tests on it. I’d like you to come to the Hollywood Station tomorrow at nine am. You might want to bring a lawyer.”

  “You can’t be serious. I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent I tell you.”

  “You are hardly innocent, Mr. Labecki, be prepared to be charged with either murder or conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Roberts and Beeves started to walk past Labecki and Verukin but they stopped.

  “And one other thing, don’t leave town and don’t call anyone other than your lawyer to discuss this. We’ll know, and it won’t look good for your cause,” said Roberts.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” said Labecki to our backs as we walked back up the steps, across the patio, into the house and out onto the driveway and towards our cars. Neither one of them followed us out.

  “You didn’t fancy on bringing him in tonight?” I asked.

  Roberts shook his head.

&nbs
p; “Yeah, I know. A bit off script but still, I think we need to have this handgun tested, and see if we can find a ballistics match to the bullet taken from Orpen.”

  I nodded. It was a different approach but it didn’t make much of a difference to me. Having spent these past minutes with Labecki, I knew an easy nut to crack when I saw one.

  “And before you start asking about why we didn’t start swabbing Labecki for GSR, you should know that GSR is probably not present even if he did end up shooting the gun.”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I know that. It’s usually not viable past six hours post firing. And in any event he looks recently showered and cleaned.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “You do remember some of our training,” he said.

  I grinned at him.

  “Yeah, when I wasn’t sleeping through it.”

  “What about them calling each other to get their stories straight?” asked Beeves. “We aren’t monitoring their cell phones.”

  Roberts shrugged.

  “That’s easy to figure out after the fact.”

  “Labecki’s not gonna do it,” I said.

  “How can you be certain?” asked Beeves.

  “Because I think he’s starting to realize what he’s been drawn into. He might have been willing to help his biological daughter buy some bottles of juice with a stolen credit card, if he did indeed know the credit card was stolen, but he’s not gonna go along with helping to cover up a murder.”

  “But she could be holding this secret over his head,” said Beeves.

  “What secret? That he fathered a child out of wedlock when he was twenty, over thirty years ago?”

  Beeves nodded.

  “Man, I think the world moved on while you got stuck in the nineteen fifties,” I said, grinning at him. “Labecki’s career has long crested and I don’t think he gives a shit anymore. He’s made more movies than a two dollar hooker on skid row has had clients. There’s nothing that she can do to him. And honestly, would you give a shit about a guy way past his prime who had an indiscretion over three decades ago?”

  Beeves shook his head.

  “Yeah, probably not.”

  I nodded.

  “We’re gonna crack these coconuts wide open tomorrow, Beeves,” I said. “Watch and learn, pal, watch and learn.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Furious and Spurious

  AFTER I’d finished up with Roberts and Beeves I headed up to Serrania Park. I had about a half hour of daylight by the time I got up there. From the Serrania Ridge Trail about two thirds of the way up on the north end, you can head down a steeper stepped trail to get into the valley where the expensive homes of Woodland Hill nestle in close to the hill. In this valley the city has kindly put up a six foot fence with angled barbed wire along the perimeter. Just behind this you have access to the expensive homes with their backyards that snuggle up against the hill.

  The homes of course have their own gates and fences. I trundled down these steps smoking on a cigarette not coming across anyone down in the valley but there were plenty up on the ridge trail. I walked up towards the Labecki home and about fifty yards from it, nicely secluded by some bushes, the city’s fence had been cut up like a zipper from the ground to about three feet. Ample room for someone to slip through.

  I did just that and walked up to the Labecki home. The back of the Labecki home had another simple chain link fence that was also about six feet high but not topped with barbed wire. In front of the fence, in the Labecki yard were tall bushes reaching about eight feet as they did in the front of the house. Like the city’s fence, this fence had also been cut open and as I peered through it I could see that the bushes had been trimmed at their base so that a person could easily slip through the fence, then the bushes to plant a gun. If that was what they fancied.

  That was all I needed to see. It confirmed my assumption that Labecki was likely not the killer of Orpen. But then again, I never fancied him for it. As I had walked up that steep stepped hill back up to the ridge trail I had a pretty good idea of the story I figured explained the murders. But those who were involved had put effort into hiding their tracks. That made it more difficult to prove, but the ace up my sleeve was the loose tongue of Labecki. And I was pretty sure I could loosen it.

  I had made sure to get down to the Hollywood Station by eight thirty with my game face on. Roberts and Beeves were there too. Roberts reminded me that he was gonna interview Penman, that Beeves would take Gudaitis and I’d be saddled with Labecki. What he didn’t realize, is that Labecki held the keys to the kingdom and I was going to take them from him.

  I also learned that ballistics came back a match for the Beretta Cougar we’d dug up out of Labecki’s backyard yesterday. They’d also found fingerprints around the gun’s grip. There were other partials on the gun but nothing that could be immediately identified. I was pretty sure we were going to find that those fingerprints were Labecki’s. He was going to be printed when he came in and charged with conspiracy to murder. In fact they were all going to be. Labecki, Penman and Gudaitis. Penman was facing an additional charge of murder in the first degree for the Ancher homicide.

  We pretty much had Penman for that one. The mug of chocolate came back with her prints on it and with evidence of the drugs used to overdose her. We had Smelter’s confession that Penman was making Ancher hot chocolate before she left. That was a slam dunk. Now we just had to see if Gudaitis and/or Labecki wanted to go down with the sinking ship or save themselves.

  Beeves and I had a Jackson on whether Gudaitis or Labecki would give the others up. This was one of the easiest bets I’d made in my life. Beeves was about to be schooled in the fine art of interrogation. But in fairness, I had the easier target. Gudaitis, if our intel was correct, was in love with Penman. I’d seen the power of love, it can make people do crazy things and the bonds can be stronger than iron shackles.

  Labecki didn’t have such bonds with Penman. I wasn’t even that sure he felt guilty. I mean the guy made a mistake thirty-some years ago and had reconnected with his child. Thing is, by all accounts, she’d been given a great opportunity and brought up by loving parents. Probably more than he could have offered her as a pimply faced twenty year old.

  Uniforms had been sent to pick up both Gudaitis and Penman. There was a risk of flight for both of them. Gudaitis had the means and Penman had the motive to fly. The problem with Roberts’ gamble was that if Labecki had told Penman that he was being brought in today, she’d probably be long gone. It wasn’t a gamble I would’ve taken, but Roberts had his reasons. Luckily, both Penman and Gudaitis had been taken into custody without problems.

  We were waiting it out upstairs in the members lounge just waiting and chewing the shit.

  “You sure you don’t want to change your mind?” I asked Roberts.

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because Labecki is gonna fold like the sucker at a high stakes poker table.”

  “You sure about that?” asked Roberts.

  “I’ve got a Jackson on it with Beeves,” I said, looking at Beeves.

  “And I’m not feeling as confident as I originally was,” said Beeves.

  “I’ll let you in on the action,” I said. “You put up a Jackson and I’ll put up a Benji. If Penman breaks first I’ll give you the Benji otherwise I get the Jackson. That’s better than two to one odds.”

  “For twenty bucks, just to have you shut up about it, it’ll be worth it. You’ve got a deal.”

  “How come I don’t get the same deal?” asked Beeves.

  I looked at him and thought about the situation. Would Penman or Gudaitis break first? I figured the odds were similar. I didn’t think either of them would roll on each other before I got Labecki rolling like a puppy for a tasty treat. In fact, if I thought about it, I figured that Penman might confess before Gudaitis broke. With that in mind, Roberts had the greater chance. But I was no vegas bookie, but I figured if Roberts deserved the odds I’d gi
ven him, then Beeves did too.

  “Sure thing, I’ll put up a Benji to your Jackson.”

  Beeves nodded.

  “That’s more like it.”

  I shrugged.

  “Still not gonna make a difference. Don’t go spending money you haven’t earned yet,” I said.

  Beeves grinned at me.

  “I’d like to see those Benjis you’re promising,” said Roberts, grinning because he knew I didn’t carry more than a hundred bucks usually.

  “I’m good for it,” I said. “Just won a grand on the El Toro versus The Fist fight from a couple of days ago.”

  “Is that right?” asked Beeves. “So you were betting on the underdog?”

  “I always am,” I said.

  “So steak dinner on you tonight after we close up this case?” asked Roberts.

  “If I’m getting a bonus for this gig from the LAPD then I’ll consider it,” I said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Roberts.

  I was doing alright, but I was hardly flush. I hadn’t sold a painting in a few months. And the cash I had earned from the last sale was getting eaten like last year’s clothing at a moth buffet. Dawson at the gallery assured me it wasn’t because of the new pricing. He was scheduling a new show of my work next month. That usually moved some pieces but I was loathe to count my chickens before they hatched. So a fifty buck a plate steak dinner for three was not on my mind.

  A uniformed officer came up from downstairs. He told us that the three of them had been put in different interrogation rooms just like we’d asked.

  “The clock is ticking,” said Roberts as we walked on down to be with those we were going to interrogate. I had a smile on my face. Beeves and Roberts, not so much.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Three in a Row

  THERE were four interrogation rooms at the Hollywood Station. And two observation rooms. I liked to call them observation decks, but this wasn’t really a cruise. Though looking at Labecki as he sat in the room with his lawyer, I felt as relaxed as if I was on the open seas drinking a margarita. But let’s not count our chickens before they start squawking.