Free Fall Page 6

  It had taken me all of four minutes to look through Riggens's apartment. I went back into the main studio and stood in the center of the floor and felt oily and somehow unclean. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this, and it left me feeling vaguely depressed, as if this wasn't a place where someone lived, but more a place where someone died. I went to the sleeping bag and squatted. A photograph had been pushpinned to the wall. It was an older picture and showed Riggens with a plain woman about his age and three kids. A boy and two girls. The boy looked maybe fourteen and sullen. The oldest girl was maybe twelve, and the youngest girl was a lot younger. Maybe four. She was tiny compared to the others, with a cute round face and a mop of curly hair and she was holding up a single bluegill on a nylon cord. She looked confused. Riggens was smiling and so was his wife. Margaret. They were standing in front of the bait shop at Castaic Lake, maybe twenty miles north of L.A. in the Santa Susana Mountains. The picture looked worn around the edges, as if it had been handled often. Maybe it had. Maybe Riggens lived here but maybe he didn't. Maybe he brought his body here, and drank, and slept, but while the body was here he looked at the picture a lot and let his mind go somewhere else. Castaic, maybe. Where people were smiling.

  I closed the apartment as I had found it, went down the stairs, and picked up the Ventura Freeway east through the Glendale Pass and into La Cañada in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains.

  It was mid-afternoon when I got there, and knots of junior high school kids were walking along the sidewalks with books and gym bags, but no one looked very interested in going home or doing homework.

  Margaret Riggens lived in a modest ranch-style home with a poplar tree in the front yard in the flats at the base of the foothills. It was one of those stucco-and-clapboard numbers that had been built in the mid-fifties when a developer had come in with one set of house plans and an army of bulldozers and turned an orange grove into a housing tract to sell "affordable housing" to veterans come to L.A. to work in the aerospace business. The floor plan of every house on the block would be the same as every other house. The only differences would be the colors and the landscaping and the people within the houses. I guess there is affordability in sameness.

  I parked at the curb across the street as a girl maybe thirteen with limp blonde hair walked across the Riggenses' front lawn and let herself into their home without knocking. That would be the oldest daughter. A white Oldsmobile Delta 88 was parked in the drive. It needed a wash. The house looked like it needed a wash, too. The stucco was dusty and the clapboard part was peeling and needed to be scraped and painted. I crossed the street, then went up the drive to the front door and rang the bell. It would have been shorter to cut across the lawn, but there you go.

  A tired woman in a sleeveless sun shirt and baggy shorts opened the door. She was smoking a Marlboro. I said, "Hello, Ms. Riggens. Pete Simmons, Internal Affairs, LAPD." I took out my license and held it up. It would work, or it wouldn't. She would read the ID, or she wouldn't.

  Margaret Riggens said, "What'd that sonofabitch do now?" Guess she didn't bother to read it.

  I put the license away. "I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. It won't take long."

  "Ain't that what they all say." She took a final pull on the Marlboro, then flipped it into the front yard and stepped out of the door to let me in. I guess visits by guys like Pete Simmons were an inevitable and expected part of her life.

  We went through the living room into an adjoining dining area off the kitchen. The girl who had come in before me was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, watching Geraldo and reading a copy of Sassy magazine. There was a hard pack of Marlboros beside her and a green Bic lighter and a big clay ashtray that looked like she'd made it in pottery class. She was smoking. Loud music came from the back of the house, but there was a muffled quality to it as if a door was closed. The music suddenly got louder, and a boy's voice screamed, "I told you to stay out of my room, you little shit! I don't want you here!" Then the boy came out of the back hall, pulling the younger girl by the upper arm. He was maybe sixteen now, with most of his father's growth, and she was maybe six. The little girl's face was screwed up and she was crying. The boy shouted, "Mom, make her stay out of my room! I don't want her back there!"

  Margaret Riggens said, "Jesus Christ, Alan." I said, "You're holding her too tight. Let go." Alan said, "Who in the hell are you?" The little girl was staring at me. "You're hurting her," I said. "Let go."

  Margaret Riggens said, "Hey, I don't need any help with my kids."

  I was looking at Alan and Alan was looking at me, and then he suddenly let go and bent over the little girl and screamed, "I hate you!" He stomped back down the hall and the music went soft as the door closed. The little girl didn't seem too upset by what had happened. Guess it happened so often she was used to it. Probably even a game by now. She rubbed at her arm and ran back down the hall. The music didn't change pitch, so I guess she went into her own room.

  Margaret Riggens said, "These kids," then stooped down, took a cigarette from her older daughter's pack, and turned away to sit at the dining room table.

  I said, "Maybe it'd be better if we had a little privacy."

  Margaret Riggens used a book of paper matches to light the Marlboro, and put the spent match in a little beanbag ashtray she had on the table. "Is Floyd going to get fired?" Guess the privacy didn't matter.

  "No, ma'am. This is just follow-up on a couple of things."

  "That alimony is all I have. He pays it on time. Every month."

  I took out the little pad I keep in my jacket and made a big deal out of taking that down. "That's good to hear. The Department frowns on a man if he ducks his responsibility."

  She nodded and sucked on the cigarette. Out in the living room, the oldest girl was sucking on a cigarette, too.

  I tried to look sly. "We hear enough good things like that, and it makes it easy to overlook a bad thing. Do you see?"

  She squinted at me through the smoke. "I don't understand."

  I made a little shrugging move. Conversational. "Everybody thinks we're looking to chop heads, but that's not true. We hear a guy does right by his family, we don't want to throw him out in the streets. We find out he's gotten himself into trouble, we'll try to counsel him and keep him on the payroll. Maybe suspend him for a while, maybe demote him, but keep him employed. So he can take care of his family."

  She drew so hard on the Marlboro that the coal glowed like a flare. "What kind of trouble?"

  I smiled. "That's what I want you to tell me, Ms. Riggens."

  Margaret Riggens turned toward her older daughter. "Sandi. Shut off the TV and go to your room for a little while, okay?"

  Sandi gathered up her things, then went down the same hall the other kids had used. Margaret turned back to me. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You and Floyd talk?"

  "Maybe once a week. There's always something with one of the kids."

  "He's supporting two households, Ms. Riggens. Kids need things. So do adults."

  "Jesus Christ, have you seen where he lives?"

  I spread my hands. "Has money seemed a little easier to come by?"

  "Ha."

  "Has Floyd maybe hinted around that he has something going?"

  "Absolutely not."

  I leaned forward and I lowered my voice. "If an officer crosses the line and someone aids and abets in that crossing, they can be charged. Did you know that, Ms. Riggens?"

  She drew on the cigarette and now her hands were trembling. "Are you telling me that Floyd has stepped over the line?"

  I stared at her.

  She stood up, dribbling cigarette ash. "I've had enough with that sonofabitch. I really have. I don't know anything about this. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

  "Sit down, Ms. Riggens."

  She sat. Breathing hard.

  "I'm making no accusations. I'm just curious. Floyd has a problem with the drinking. Floyd has a problem
with the excessive-force complaints. Floyd has money problems. Pretty soon problems become a way of life. You see how these things add up?"

  She crushed out the cigarette in the little beanbag ashtray and lit another. The first continued to smolder.

  "I'm not accusing Floyd, and I'm not accusing you. I'm just wondering if maybe you've heard anything, or noticed a change in Floyd's behavior, that's all."

  She nodded. Calmer, now, but with eyes that were still frightened and weak. The look in her eyes made me feel small and greasy, and I wanted to tell her it had all been a mistake and leave, but you don't learn things by leaving. Even when the staying smells bad.

  She said, "He's been out of his mind ever since that guy died. The past couple of years have been tough, but since then has been the worst. That's when he went back to the bottle."

  I nodded like I knew what she was saying.

  "He was in AA before that, and he was getting better, too. He'd come over sometimes, we'd have dinner, like that."

  "But then the guy died?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Well, everyone's still thinking about Rodney King and this black guy dies when they're trying to arrest him and then the family files a lawsuit and it was awful. Floyd started drinking worse than ever. He was angry all the time, and he'd blow up over the tiniest thing. They told me it was a stress reaction."

  "About how long ago was that?"

  She gestured with the cigarette. "What was it? Three or four months?"

  I nodded. "Did Floyd feel responsible?"

  She laughed. "Floyd doesn't feel responsible for hitting the bowl in the morning. I thought he was worried about the suit, but then the suit went away and I thought he'd relax. You know those suits cost a fortune. But he still stayed drunk all the time. Eric would call and check on him to make sure he was holding it together. Things like that. Eric was a godsend." Eric Dees.

  I nodded.

  "Floyd hasn't been acting right since then. If he's gotten himself mixed up in something, I'll bet that's why. I'll bet it's all part of the stress reaction."

  "Maybe so."

  "That should qualify for disability, shouldn't it?"

  There were about ten million questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn't ask them without tipping her that I wasn't from LAPD. I patted her hand and tried to look reassuring. "That'll be fine, Ms. Riggens. You've been a big help, and that will be in the record."

  "Why don't you people make him go back to AA? When he was in AA he was doing a lot better."

  "Let's just keep this our little secret, all right, Ms. Riggens? That way it looks better for you all the way around."

  She crushed out the cigarette into the over-full ashtray and pushed ashes out onto the table. "Look, I don't know what Floyd's mixed up with, and I don't want to know. I'm not aiding and abetting anything. I got enough to worry about."

  "Sure. Thank you for your time."

  I got up and went to the door. Margaret Riggens stayed at the table and lit another Marlboro and drew the smoke deep off the match and stared out through the windows into her shabby backyard. You could hear the kids screaming over the loud bass throbbing of the music and I imagined that it went on without end, and that her living hell wasn't a whole lot different from Floyd's.

  Out in the living room there was an upright Yamaha piano that looked like it hadn't been played in a long time. A schoolbag was sitting on one end of it, and half a dozen wilting yellow roses were floating in a glass jar on the other end. Between the two was a framed picture of Floyd and Margaret Riggens standing together at his police academy graduation. They were fifteen years younger, and they were smiling. It was a photograph very much like the one that Jennifer Sheridan had, only Jennifer and Mark still looked like the people in their picture, and Floyd and Margaret didn't.

  I guess romance isn't for everyone.

  CHAPTER 9

  When I pulled away from the house that Floyd Riggens once shared with his wife and children, the sun was low in the west and the ridgeline along the Verdugo Mountains was touched with orange and pink. I worked my way across the valley, letting the rush hour traffic push me along, and enjoyed the darkening sky. I wondered if Margaret Riggens found much in the mountains or the sky to enjoy, but perhaps those things were too far away for her to see. When you're hurting, you tend to fix your eyes closer to home.

  I cut across the northern edge of Burbank and Pacoima, and then dropped down Coldwater to a little place I know called Mazzarino's that makes the very best pizza in Los Angeles. I got a vegetarian with a side of anchovies to go and, when I pulled into my carport fifteen minutes later, the pizza was still warm.

  I opened a Falstaff and put out the pizza for me and the anchovies for the cat, only the cat wasn't around. I called him, and waited, but he still didn't come. Off doing cat things, no doubt.

  I ate the pizza and I drank the beer and I tried watching the TV, but I kept thinking about Margaret Riggens and that maybe I had come at all of this from the wrong direction. You think crime, and then you think money, but maybe that wasn't it. Maybe Mark Thurman had gotten himself involved in another type of crime. And maybe it wasn't Mark alone. Maybe it was Mark and Floyd. Maybe it was the entire REACT team. For all I knew, it was the full and complete population of the state of California, and I was the only guy left out of the loop. Me and Jennifer Sheridan. I was still thinking about that when I fell asleep.

  At ten oh-six the next morning I called this cop I know who works in North Hollywood. A voice answered the phone with, "Detectives."

  "Is that you, Griggs?" It was this other cop I know, Charlie Griggs.

  "Who's this?"

  "Guess."

  Griggs hung up. Some sense of humor, huh?

  I called back and Griggs answered again. I said, "Okay, I'll give you a hint. I'm known as the King of Rockin' Detectives, but I wasn't born in Tupelo, Mississippi."

  "I knew it was you. I just wanted to see if you'd call back. Heh-heh-heh." That's the way Griggs laughs. Heh-heh-heh.

  "Lemme speak to Lou."

  "What's the magic word?"

  "C'mon, Charlie."

  "What do you say, wiseass? You wanna speak to Lou, tell me what you say? Heh-heh-heh." This guy's an adult.

  "I'm going to get you, Griggs."

  "Heh-heh-heh." Griggs was killing himself.

  "I'm going to give your address to Joe."

  The laughing stopped and Griggs put me on hold. Maybe forty seconds later Lou Poitras picked up. "I don't pay these guys to goose around with you."

  "Griggs hasn't done a full day's work in fifteen years."

  "We don't pay him to work. We keep'm around because he's such a scream. Sort of like you." Another comedian.

  I said, "Four months ago, a guy died during a REACT arrest down in South Central. You know anyone I can talk to about it?"

  "Hold on." Poitras put me on hold again and left me there for maybe eight minutes. When he came back he said, "Suspect's name was Charles Lewis Washington."

  "Okay." I wrote it down.

  "There's a guy working Hollywood named Andy Malone used to be a partner of mine. He's a uniform supervisor on the day shift. He just came out of the Seventy-seventh. You wanna go down there now?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll call him and set it up."

  "Thanks, Lou."

  "You got that twelve bucks you owe me?"

  I made a staticky noise and pretended we had been cut off. Works every time.

  Forty minutes later I parked in a diagonal parking place outside the glass front door of the Hollywood Police Division, and went past three black women who were standing on the sidewalk into a trapezoidal public room with a high ceiling and a white tile floor. There was a pay phone on the wall up by the front glass and padded chairs around the perimeter of the wall for your waiting comfort. The walls were aqua, the glass was bulletproof. A Formica counter cut off the back third of the room, and three uniformed officers sat on stools behind the counter. Two women and a man. One of the women and
the man were talking on telephones, and the other woman was writing in a small black notebook. A Hispanic man and woman sat in the chairs under the pay phone. The Hispanic man sat with his elbows on his thighs and rocked steadily. He looked worried. The Hispanic woman rubbed his back as he rocked and spoke softly. She looked worried, too.

  I went past them to the officer writing in the little black notebook and said, "Elvis Cole to see Sergeant Malone."

  "He expecting you?"

  "Yes."

  "Have a seat."

  She left the counter and went back through a door into the bowels of the station house. There was another door on the customer side of the counter. It was heavy and dense and if no one buzzed you through it'd probably take a rocket launcher to get past it. I sat opposite the door and waited. In a couple of minutes the female officer reappeared behind the counter and said, "He's finishing up a couple of things. He'll be with you in a minute."

  "Sure."

  I waited some more.

  A well-dressed black woman came in and asked the people behind the counter if Officer Hobbs was in. The same officer who had gone to see Malone said something into a phone, and a couple of minutes later a tall muscular black officer came through the heavy door. He smiled when he saw the woman and she smiled when she saw him. He offered his hand and she took it and they went out through the glass door to hold hands in the privacy of the sidewalk. Love at the station house. Two Pakistani men came in past the lovers. One of them was maybe in his fifties and the other was maybe in his forties. The older one looked nervous and the younger one wore a loud pink shirt and leather sandals. The younger one went to the counter and said, "We would like to speak with the chief of police." He said it so loud the Hispanic man stopped rocking. The two desk officers glanced at each other and smiled. The desk officer on the phone kept talking like it was nothing. Guess you work the desk at Hollywood, nothing surprises you. The male desk officer leaned back on his stool and looked through the doorway behind the counter and yelled, "We got a citizen out here wants to see the chief." A uniformed lieutenant with silver hair came out and stared at the Pakistanis, then frowned at the desk officer. "Knock off the shit and take care of these people."