Flat Spin

Some days you’re the kitten, some days you’re the lawnmower.

I turned off the kitchen lights and ate what was left of my pizza in the dark.

NINETEEN

The sun was not quite up and neither was I when Czarnek called me the next morning to let me know that Detective Ostrow from Rancho Bonita PD had called, told him that my apartment had been bombed, and wanted to compare notes. Like Ostrow, Czarnek could barely contain his glee. Most of the killings he investigated, he said, were pathetically ordinary. Gang-related drive-bys, jealous control freaks strangling their girlfriends, scorned wives stabbing their cheating husbands with kitchen knives or ru

“It’s like eating cheeseburgers every day for lunch,” he said. “Then one day, presto, it’s empanadas with fresh pico de gallo.”

Food analogies aside, Czarnek said he couldn’t divulge what progress he’d made in the case since we’d spoken last, given the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, then proceeded to do just that. He was too pumped not to.

According to Czarnek, the late Ge

The particularly brutal ma

“The same .40-caliber pistol was used in both homicides,” Czarnek said. “All we have to do is find the weapon and it’s two for the price of one.”

“Here’s a crazy thought: what if Carlisle hired Micah Echevarria to kill Bondarenko? After all, the kid blew away his own father. How hard could it be to shoot a total stranger in the head, saw off his hands and set him on fire?”

Czarnek knew I was yanking his chain.

“We’re not barking up that tree right at present,” he said.

“So, you’re saying the kid’s not a suspect?”

“Sometimes, when you try something on it fits, sometimes it doesn’t,” Czarnek said.

“I’ll let him know he’s out of the ru

“Who?”

“Miles Zambelli. Carlisle’s personal assistant.”

“The assistant. Yeah, we took a look at him, too. We got multiple wits that put him at some conference in London the night Echevarria got hit. Guy’s got a solid alibi and no rap sheet. Not so much as a parking ticket.”

The same, Czarnek said, was true of Janet Echevarria’s second husband, Henry Ramos. Why Ramos had paid Bondarenko a visit shortly before his death remained unknown. Detectives were pla

I told Czarnek what Micah Echevarria had said about his father pla

“If I had a dime for every sobbing widow convinced her husband didn’t shoot himself and got whacked,” Czarnek said, “I’d be living the good life up in Tahoe. I’m sure the local cops checked it out.”

“You don’t mind me double-checking? The guy served in my old unit.”

“You wa

“I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

“Do that. Just do me a favor, Logan, OK?”

“Anything for you, Detective.”

“Try to stay out of trouble? Please? My day’s already exhausting enough as it is.”

He said he’d let me know if anything broke in the case. I said I’d try not to hold my breath given the glacial pace at which he and the LAPD seemed to undertake murder investigations.

“You’re a barrel of laughs, Logan. By the way, there’s a rumor going around you won’t be flying the friendly skies for awhile.”

“You heard about that one, huh?”

“Violating the Vice President’s airspace and freaking out his security detail? Everybody’s heard about that one. It’s all over the news. Good thing I didn’t vote for the guy. I might be pissed at you, too. Nothing personal, Logan, but you do tend to piss off your fair share of people. I mean, when that detective from Rancho Bonita called me and asked who I thought might’ve bombed your apartment, I didn’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the begi

“You’re fucking nuts,” Czarnek said.

“When you’ve got it,” I said, “flaunt it.”

There was a telephone listing without an address for an “R. and E. Emerson” in Glendale, Arizona. I called. The woman who answered started to say hello but fumbled the phone, which clattered to the floor with a jarring clang. She picked it up and tried again.

“ ’Lo?”

“Emma Emerson?”

“Who’s this?” Her words were slurred, like someone who’d been abruptly awakened from sleep after getting hammered the night before. It wasn’t yet seven in the morning Arizona time.

I apologized for waking her up. I told her I’d served with her husband, and that I’d only recently heard about his death. I was calling, I said, to express my condolences.

“ ’Scuse me one second,” she said. More clanging and clattering as she dropped the phone again. Her footsteps grew distant. I could hear coughing, a deep, tubercular hack. Then a labored groan. Then a toilet flushing. A few seconds later, she was back.

“Phone’s not cordless,” she said. “That way, they can’t listen in.”

“Who’s they, Mrs. Emerson?”

“I can’t talk about it over the phone.”

“But you just said they can’t listen in.”

“I know what I said!” She popped open a can of something and took a long gulp. “My Robbie was with Alpha. Were you with Alpha?”

I balked. Any decent operator knows what to do when people start sniffing around for confirmation of his work on the dark side. He lies. He falls back on plausible, well-rehearsed cover stories — the ordinary desk job, the unremarkable home life. He bobs and weaves, redirecting the conversation: Alpha? Never heard of it. Man, that was some kind of gully washer we had last night, wasn’t it? This pasta salad is delicious. What did you put in it? You look great. Have you lost weight? But how do you obfuscate when the person asking the questions was clearly privy, by whatever degree, to the same shadow world in which you once operated? The answer is, you don’t.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I was with Alpha.”

Emma Emerson gulped down more of whatever it was she was drinking. “Cops said it was suicide, but I know it wasn’t. They just said that cuz they’re all scared to death.”