Read Online Vigilante by Stephen J. Cannell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stephen J. Cannell
Ads: Link
future. It’s why sometimes we’re depressed for no good reason we can think of, or are unreasonably happy. What’s actually causing it is a subtle knowledge of what’s coming. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad.”
“And sometimes it’s just too much sugar and too little sleep.”
He shook his head, but he seemed happy, like he was delighted to be here, excited just to be Nix Nash.
“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t think it’s dietary, or sleep related,” he kidded. “Like right now. Tell me you don’t actually feel some large sense of impending doom?”
“I don’t feel anything,” I told him.
“Just wait,” he said, grinning. “It’s coming.”
CHAPTER
10
When I got back to the Police Administration Building, I Googled the Boca Raton Rape Clinic and sure enough, there were half a dozen pictures of Nix Nash hosting last night’s fund-raiser in South Florida.
Not to be overly thorough, but I wanted to make absolutely sure he wasn’t a suspect, so I checked the airlines and found that Nash had been on a flight that left Fort Lauderdale Airport at 5:00 A.M. , landing at LAX at 7:43 this morning. I talked to a terminal manager who remembered Nash coming off the flight and being stopped for autographs. That meant either he’d been at Lita’s house to take her to breakfast as he’d said or he’d been tipped to her death by someone inside our department. I suspected it was probably the latter and was determined to root out the spy and close that leak.
The rest of the day was spent researching Lita Mendez. Of course, I’d heard a lot about her and knew something of the trouble she’d caused for the department, but for the last few years, because I’d been investigating high-profile homicides, her crusade against the Hollenbeck Station and the Internal Affairs Group had mostly escaped my scrutiny.
As I surfed old stories about her on the Net, I was surprised by how much there was. When she died Lita was just thirty-three years old. One story revealed that she had become enamored of the court system at the age of six when she watched her mother get a restraining order against Lita’s father, who had been violently assaulting them both. Her dad, an Evergreen gangster, ended his short earthly journey a year later, going tits up in an alley off First Street. Lita had been keeping herself busy since adulthood by making life impossible for the cops in and around Hollenbeck.
Among her numerous activities, she’d crashed various LAPD undercover operations, taking photos of the undercovers, posting their pictures on the Internet, putting their lives in danger, and burning these cops for this kind of work forever. Most of her civilian complaints were not for police brutality but for lesser charges like rude behavior or harassment.
She had also made her share of enemies on the street. A committed Evergreen associate, she had little use for the more than forty-five competing Hispanic sets and often turned her legal skills against enemy shot callers.
An article about her titled “Talking Truth with Lita Power,” by an L.A. Times writer named Trent Phillips, told how she was attempting to intimidate and drive rude, harassing police officers out of her neighborhood with complaints and lawsuits. Most cops thought her real motive was to compromise police activity and wrest control of Evergreen turf away from Patrol, turning the blocks back to the gangs.
She printed police corruption T-shirts with the pictures of officers she’d accused of crimes and then passed them out in community centers. It didn’t matter that most of her complaints found those cops innocent. She hung sheet banners from freeway overpasses decrying Hollenbeck police officers, identifying her favorite targets by name.
On our part, the department had charged her with two dozen misdemeanors and a few low-weight felonies, everything from driving without a license to the more serious offense of assaulting a neighbor with a
“And sometimes it’s just too much sugar and too little sleep.”
He shook his head, but he seemed happy, like he was delighted to be here, excited just to be Nix Nash.
“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t think it’s dietary, or sleep related,” he kidded. “Like right now. Tell me you don’t actually feel some large sense of impending doom?”
“I don’t feel anything,” I told him.
“Just wait,” he said, grinning. “It’s coming.”
CHAPTER
10
When I got back to the Police Administration Building, I Googled the Boca Raton Rape Clinic and sure enough, there were half a dozen pictures of Nix Nash hosting last night’s fund-raiser in South Florida.
Not to be overly thorough, but I wanted to make absolutely sure he wasn’t a suspect, so I checked the airlines and found that Nash had been on a flight that left Fort Lauderdale Airport at 5:00 A.M. , landing at LAX at 7:43 this morning. I talked to a terminal manager who remembered Nash coming off the flight and being stopped for autographs. That meant either he’d been at Lita’s house to take her to breakfast as he’d said or he’d been tipped to her death by someone inside our department. I suspected it was probably the latter and was determined to root out the spy and close that leak.
The rest of the day was spent researching Lita Mendez. Of course, I’d heard a lot about her and knew something of the trouble she’d caused for the department, but for the last few years, because I’d been investigating high-profile homicides, her crusade against the Hollenbeck Station and the Internal Affairs Group had mostly escaped my scrutiny.
As I surfed old stories about her on the Net, I was surprised by how much there was. When she died Lita was just thirty-three years old. One story revealed that she had become enamored of the court system at the age of six when she watched her mother get a restraining order against Lita’s father, who had been violently assaulting them both. Her dad, an Evergreen gangster, ended his short earthly journey a year later, going tits up in an alley off First Street. Lita had been keeping herself busy since adulthood by making life impossible for the cops in and around Hollenbeck.
Among her numerous activities, she’d crashed various LAPD undercover operations, taking photos of the undercovers, posting their pictures on the Internet, putting their lives in danger, and burning these cops for this kind of work forever. Most of her civilian complaints were not for police brutality but for lesser charges like rude behavior or harassment.
She had also made her share of enemies on the street. A committed Evergreen associate, she had little use for the more than forty-five competing Hispanic sets and often turned her legal skills against enemy shot callers.
An article about her titled “Talking Truth with Lita Power,” by an L.A. Times writer named Trent Phillips, told how she was attempting to intimidate and drive rude, harassing police officers out of her neighborhood with complaints and lawsuits. Most cops thought her real motive was to compromise police activity and wrest control of Evergreen turf away from Patrol, turning the blocks back to the gangs.
She printed police corruption T-shirts with the pictures of officers she’d accused of crimes and then passed them out in community centers. It didn’t matter that most of her complaints found those cops innocent. She hung sheet banners from freeway overpasses decrying Hollenbeck police officers, identifying her favorite targets by name.
On our part, the department had charged her with two dozen misdemeanors and a few low-weight felonies, everything from driving without a license to the more serious offense of assaulting a neighbor with a
Similar Books
