Laugher Page 21

  “All along?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re full of shit, Santone. You’re telling me that Nora Massey, five foot four, a hundred and thirty pounds, killed Jack Slavas, five foot eight, two hundred and eleven pounds, and strung him up by his neck two feet in the air?”

  “No. The only murders she committed herself were Roscoe and his wife. All the others she had help.”

  “From whom?”

  “Grossman and his thugs from the Long Walk.”

  Marber leaned forward. “I want you to start making sense real fast.”

  “Is this being recorded?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “All right. Then let’s start from the top.”

  -------------------------------

  It began with Nathan Roscoe, the loaning officer at Angel City Bank and Trust. Roscoe, I believe, had invested in mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street. Since Roscoe used to live in New York, I assumed he had Wall Street contacts, and Detective Donovan graciously ran a much more thorough background check on Roscoe than I had thirty seconds before seeing my ugly mug on the evening news. Donovan informed me of Roscoe’s former employment at The Galley Group, a Wall Street investment firm, in the 1980’s. Roscoe was using both residential and consumer mortgages from Angel City to invest in mortgage-backed securities through this group. These mortgages included the one belonging to Jack Slavas.

  Then the housing bubble burst in the summer of 2008, the banks received government bailouts from TARP, and those securities became worthless. The paperwork proving that Angel City Bank owned the mortgages Roscoe had invested were lost. So in order to redeem the money lost in those securities, Roscoe needed to bring revenue back in, and fast.

  His logic in doing that was simple: Fuck the customer. Fuck their dignity and their hard work, their dreams of a decent living. Forge the mortgage assignments and rip the house out from under their sorry feet and sell it. Didn’t matter whether they were underwater or not. Roscoe used the bank’s mortgage servicing firm to re-create documents needed to foreclose on houses and hired a few desperate men to sign them, two of whom were brothers. A sweatshop producing the fuel to power a bulldozer right through the American dream.

  “So where does Jack Slavas come in?” asked Grayson. “How does he end up dead?”

  “I’m getting there,” I said. “One of those brothers was Silvio, the other Gael. Silvio worked for Roscoe in addition to Slavas’s kitchen at the Chuckle Hut. My best estimation, Slavas’s mortgage showed up in Silvio’s hands, or close to them, and he got wise to the whole thing. Felt something wasn’t right, and told Jack all about it.”

  “Come on, Santone,” chimed Marber. “You got no proof of that.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “But usually when a man is bound and gagged with a mouth full of blood and stuffed inside a body bag to choke to death, there’s a reason.”

  “That’s what happened to Silvio?” asked Grayson. I nodded. “By who?”

  “Grossman.” I said. “Or one of his men. I found him in Grossman’s office at the Long Walk the night after Slavas was killed.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Looking for Grossman. One of his guys, Bartholomew Leitner, was staying a few doors down from Nora Massey at the Rashi Hotel. I saw him outside the Chuckle Hut just before I found Slavas, so I was curious.”

  “Where’s the body now?”

  “I have no idea, but I’d say buried in the desert somewhere close to where I was taken when I was forced to sign that confession.”

  “You expect us to comb the whole fuckin’ Mojave?” said Grayson.

  “Or you could take my word for it. At least for now.”

  They both looked at me with a look that said, “continue.”

  “Jack Slavas was one bad weekend from losing his club. He needed a star to bring in some big bucks. That star was Denny Granger, and Jack got him.

  “What he didn’t realize was that Roscoe also knew Denny Granger, because Denny had an affair with his daughter, and beat the shit out of him in North Hollywood eight years ago.

  “Somehow Roscoe heard about this, maybe through word-of-mouth, maybe through the club’s advertising, but he did find out, and he plotted to kill both of them when he did.

  “Roscoe saw it as a win-win situation. On one hand he could stop Slavas from paying off his mortgage, saving himself from exposure. On the other hand, he gets rid of Denny Granger, satisfying his grudge.”

  “Wait a minute,” Grayson interrupted. “He killed Granger too?”

  “Not himself, but yes. Roscoe didn’t do any of his own dirty work. He could afford not to. It was all Grossman and his men.”

  “How do you know they killed Granger? Nobody’s seen him.”

  “A body was found in New York a week ago last Sunday. It was headless, unidentified. But the coroner’s report, provided by Detective Donovan, listed a scar burned on the left arm, possibly from a tattoo removal. Nora Massey told me that Denny had a tattoo removed last year. On his left arm.”

  “Takes more to ID a body than a scar,” said Marber.

  “Coroner also reported the bloodstream contained gamma hydroxybutyric acid. The same drug found in Slavas’s body. The same drug found at the home of Bartholomew Leitner after he killed himself. The same drug injected into me before I almost met an end similar to Silvio’s. I’d say that’s a tough case for coincidence.”

  “Except Granger was on the flight that landed at LAX last week. I handed you the manifest myself,” said Marber.

  “It wasn’t him. Leitner killed Denny in New York and boarded that plane under his name.”

  “Are you believing this?” Marber said to Grayson, who kept his eyes locked on me.

  “Pretty simple really,” I said. “Leitner steals Denny’s wallet, has his driver’s license, credit cards, insurance cards, wears a baseball cap with sunglasses to the airport, bears a minimal resemblance to the picture on the license and gets through without any questions. TSA’s more concerned with terrorists than identity thieves.”

  Grayson stood. He paced the room for a minute, looking like he bought it, then was flushed with skepticism. “And Nora Massey?” he asked. “She just happened to mistake him for Denny also?”

  “No. She knew. She knew from the beginning.” It hurt me to say it. “In fact, I think it’s possible that she suggested to Roscoe he kill Denny in New York, before framing him in L.A. It’s pretty difficult to find a killer who’s already dead. She had full access as well, being his manager.”

  “That’s quite the fuckin’ theory,” said Grayson. “What makes you think Nora knew about it? That she had anything to do with Nathan Roscoe?”

  “Because she was married to him. She was working with Roscoe. I saw her in his car after I followed him to Ventura County where his robo-signing sweatshop was located. What it was that re-united them after twenty years apart, I’m not sure. But they had a daughter together. Maybe that’s what it was. A daughter who was in love with Denny Granger. Who never knew her birth mother. And who contacted me to say that she witnessed every passenger who boarded the layover flight in Chicago, but Denny wasn’t one of them.

  “When that flight landed at LAX, Denny turned back into Bartholomew Leitner, who then became James Lawson when he checked in at the Rashi Hotel on Sunset, until he killed Jack Slavas and checked out again.”

  Grayson had taken off his jacket by now. Small discs of sweat had formed under his arms. The smell in the room was getting worse. “But you were keeping her from us. You helped her get away.”

  “I didn’t help her get away. Yes, I kept her from you. Because I thought talking to you would put her in danger. But she was using me. When I was hired to find Denny, it threw a rock into her gears. She lured me down to San Diego where Leitner tried to kill me. When that didn’t work, she cut me a check and hoped I’d move on. But when I found Leitner and his real identity, the game changed. Instead of getting rid of me, she decided to frame me for the ne
w murder she had planned. Roscoe’s. She was in on the money with him, no doubt about that. That’s why she betrayed him. She killed Roscoe. She wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. Then she sent Grossman’s crony to my girlfriend’s house to steal the key to my front door, and planted the gun in my kitchen. This morning, dropped off the confession I signed and here we are.”

  “And where did this come from?” asked Marber, holding the address from my notebook.

  “That came from Donovan also. He went to the guys who’ve been trying to locate Nora Massey for you. They ran a credit check and property history and that is the timeshare she owns in London. I would suggest getting in touch with INTERPOL and giving it to them.”

  Grayson turned away. Marber glanced at the camera in the corner and made a subtle gesture of moving his finger to his ear and spinning it.

  Grayson came back. “That’s one hell of a story,” he said.

  “I know. Maybe I’ll write a book about it someday.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” said Marber. “Roscoe didn’t need to kill Denny Granger. So why did he? Why not take out Slavas clean and easy? Why bring in Nora Massey and complicate things?”

  “You’ll need a medium to answer that, Detective, because I can’t talk to the dead. But I think that’s like asking ‘Why did you help that lady in the wheelchair on your way to the store? Why help a lost kid find his parents while you’re in a hurry to get home and eat a steak dinner? Why complicate things?’ It’s in good people’s nature to help each other, to go out of their own way to help each other. Evil works the same way.”

  “How do you know that?” said Grayson, and he looked me in the eye for an hour, or maybe it was just a few seconds. “I’ve seen evil, Detective. I know what it is,” my voice was shaking a bit, “I know that it hides itself inside of good people. And sometimes it takes them.”

  It was silent for a minute. Marber stared at me. Grayson paced. I thought about Nora, about the phone call she made to me at 4:30 the morning before. What was she calling about? Was she having second thoughts? Feeling guilty? Or maybe she just wanted me to think that.

  I thought about kissing her in the motel in San Diego, how it reminded me of someone.

  Grayson looked up at the camera in the corner, its tiny red light flashing, then moved his fingers across his neck and said, “We’re done.”

  Chapter 23

  My arraignment was held the next morning. The judge was Eugene Olmstead. I knew him, and when he entered the room, he greeted me with, “Good morning, counselor.” It wasn’t until a few minutes later that he realized I was also the defendant. He thought he misread the brief.

  The prosecutor was a young ADA named Jordan Brauer. I’d never heard of him, but he was accompanied by David Harp, a smarmy fellow I’d had my fair share of litigation battles with. Expecting to see a look of arrogant satisfaction from him, instead I saw a subtle sympathy, and he greeted me with a smile.

  Grayson was there also. I had no idea if he believed my story, or if he planned to follow the lead I’d given him, but he didn’t present any evidence against me. Didn’t present anything. Just watched.

  I pleaded not guilty, and assumed to act as my own attorney. Prosecution gave notice of their intent to present the case before a Grand Jury and, given the serious degree of my charges, I was remanded without bail. However, given my previous thirteen years of service to the court, I was allowed a private cell and meal deliveries until my preliminary hearing. As I was escorted out, I passed Grayson. He looked at me and held folded between two fingers the sheet from my notebook, and nodded.

  I was transferred to the Men’s Central Jail on Bauchet Street and shown to my cell. Small. One bunk. The door was locked behind me and I was left with nothing but hope and wonder.

  There isn’t much to tell about this part. I was fed three meals a day and let out for bathroom breaks. The place was loud. I overheard numerous shouting matches between inmates. Officers telling them to pipe down. Complaints about treatment. The first night, a fight broke out in the hallway of my block. I didn’t see it, but I heard the crack of an inmate’s knees when he fell to the floor after a whack by an officer’s nightstick, followed by a boot to the gut by another.

  On the second day, I was on the bed reading some old issue of People magazine that a previous inmate had left there. An officer came to the door at an unexpected hour and told me to get up. I had a visitor.

  He took me to the visiting room and pointed to the station where my visitor was waiting. I walked over and sat down, put the phone to my ear. Through those two glass panes reinforced with chicken wire, Charlotte was staring at me.

  ---------------------------

  The light sparked a glistening from the bottom rims of her eyes, but she was trying to look strong. Professional. I wondered if she was here as a friend and supporter, or a paralegal recruiting a client. That was settled, though, with the first thing that came out of her mouth.

  “I know you didn’t do it.”

  Those were probably the sweetest words I’d ever heard her say. I was facing charges of a double homicide, a possible life sentence in federal prison, but my biggest fear was not having Charlotte on my side.

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling enraged that I couldn’t come up with anything more at that moment.

  She set her phone down and picked up her briefcase. She reached in and held up a representation agreement form. “As soon as Pete heard, he offered his help. Pro bono. If you’ll take it.”

  “That’s very generous of him.”

  “Will you take it?”

  “A pre-lim hearing is set for next week. I’ll be representing myself. But please tell him I said thank you for the offer.”

  The form went back in the briefcase. “He said you’d probably say that, but the offer stands.” She set the briefcase down.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and she didn’t look back at me right away. When she did, she subtly wiped a finger along her eye. It smeared her mascara a bit, but not enough to ruin her beautiful face.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Marshall. You’re innocent. Right?”

  I nodded. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” She looked away again. Another wipe. This time it brought the mascara to a point like an Egyptian princess. “Marshall...Listen. About everything that’s happened the last few days, I...maybe just...I was upset and frustrated. And I had no idea what was going on with you, I--I should’ve listened to you and...maybe I was...a little too hasty--”

  “—Charlotte,” I said. “Don’t. Don’t.”

  Her eyes seemed as surprised as mine were. Here she was, possibly willing to take me back, to give me yet another chance and reverse all my heartache, while I’m behind glass on murder charges, and I throw that chance away before it can take its first breath.

  “I love you, Charlotte. More than any old cliché about it can describe. That’s why I have to let you go.”

  “What?”

  I felt a wet tickle on my left cheek that ran down into my mouth. It was the first time I’d ever cried in front of her. First time I’d cried in a long time. Because I knew what I had to tell her. What I had never told her, or anybody in over twenty years.

  “I’ve been married before.”

  “I know. You eloped after law school. Didn’t work out.”

  “I was married before that too.”

  She rested her arms on the counter, looking closer, not angry. Interested.

  “In Ohio. We each turned eighteen on the same day, and a week after that we got married. After high school we moved into an apartment together. I was starting at Kent State the next fall. I wanted to be a museum curator. But she got pregnant, and had our son during my second semester. Little Benjamin. I had to drop out and, instead of going to work, I joined the Marines. I thought I was doing what was best for us, and for Benjy.

  “But she didn’t feel that way. Didn’t even come out for my boot camp graduation. I kept trying
to convince her that I made the right decision. Military benefits last a lifetime. I wanted to take care of her, make her proud and make our son proud.”

  The words poured out so naturally, like I had told the story a thousand times. It was strange, but I had told it a thousand times, to myself.

  “We relocated to a base in Virginia, where I was stationed and being trained as a translator. She started changing. She was distant and angry all the time. I couldn’t understand what she was doing, or why. She would wash all the dishes and then throw them against the wall. In the morning, she might be sweet and understanding, but by noon we’d be fighting. She would shout obscenities that would’ve made my drill sergeants cringe. All in front of Benjy too.

  “I didn’t know what to do. We were just a couple of kids in way over our heads. Finally, I kicked her out. Told her my parents would be coming out to take Benjy back to Ohio with them. I gave her one more night to stay, and it was the biggest mistake of my life. I fell asleep on the couch...”