Chapter 28
I woke up at 6:30 AM to a profanity-laden argument coming from Cory and someone in the passenger seat that escalated into shouting. I pulled myself up on the van console that separated them and in my loudest whisper I yelled, “Shut up! Are you guys trying to blow our cover?” Then to the stranger in uniform, “Who the hell are you?”
“Lieutenant David Jensen, Special Weapons and Tactics,” he said. “You must be Duffy. Is this asshole with you?”
Cory started to respond, but I held my hand up, looked at Cory and he stopped. I replied, “This is my photographer and he has Tourette’s Syndrome. Leave him alone.”
“I don’t put up with that shit from anybody. I don’t care what he has,” Jensen said, getting worked up again.
“He can no more control his swearing than a guy with Parkinson’s Disease can keep himself from shaking.”
“I don’t want to hear excuses, just get him out of here.”
“You’re an asshole, Jensen,” I said.
“I don’t like you, Duffy. You should think about who’s gonna have your back here today.”
“You don’t have to like me, just do your job by not telling the bad guys we’re here.”
“Your guy is a liability in this situation and I don’t want him on the scene,” he said while glaring at Cory.
“Normally I’d fight you on Cory’s right to be here. But I need him to take the pictures he shot last night back to his lab and enhance those images,” I said to Jensen. Then, to Cory I said, “I really need to know what was in that guy’s hand when he walked into the garage. Call me as soon as you know.”
Cory nodded and I exited the van behind Jensen. When we got back to the SWAT truck, filled with his men, Jensen climbed into the back, turned around to me and said, “Why don’t you wait out here? You probably need a stretch after being in that van all night.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “I thought the guys who are going in might like to know the floor layout and which rooms the perps are going to be in. But you probably prefer surprises."
“Is that Jason Duffy out there?” said a voice from inside the SWAT truck.
I stepped to the door opening and said, “Who’s in there?”
“Dennis Kerrigan. My dad was on the force with your dad. I was at a couple of your backyard barbecues when I was a kid.”
“I remember you. How are you, Dennis?”
He replied, “We’ll catch up later. Now get in here and tell us about that house. I’m one of the guys going in.”
I looked at Jensen who said, “Whatever,” and sat between two of his men.
I then climbed into the truck and conducted as thorough a briefing as possible without disclosing how I came by this knowledge. I didn’t tell, and they didn’t ask.
At 7:45 AM Shamansky arrived with a warrant in hand. He took charge once he got in the truck. “Did Jason brief you on the layout?”
“We got a lot more than we expected,” said Jensen. I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or if he was talking about Cory.
Shamansky continued, “Here’s how it’s going down. We have to give them a chance to let us serve the warrant peacefully, but I think they’re going to give us trouble. That’s why you guys are here. We suspect that these men built the bomb that killed Terry Tucker, and we think it was built here. I was going to have you launch gas grenades into the upstairs windows, but I think we’ll need maximum visibility in case one of these guys goes for a stick of dynamite or some other explosive.”
“Do we know they have dynamite?” asked Kerrigan.
Shamansky shot a look at me and replied, “The owner of the house works for a construction outfit next to an excavation site. We know they use dynamite at the site, so there’s a good chance they picked up some dynamite when they stole the blasting caps that killed Tucker. The stuff might be in the house or it might be in the garage if they have any brains. The warrant covers both structures.”
Over the next fifteen minutes Shamansky laid out his plan and Jensen asked questions. At 8:07 AM Shamansky rang the front doorbell while four SWAT guys with a battering ram took up a position by the back door. A minute later he rang the bell again, holding the warrant in his left hand and his 9mm pistol behind his back in his right hand. Kerrigan and I had our backs to the exterior wall away from the front window. It was decided that I could go in because I had knowledge of the items being sought in the warrant, and time might be of the essence once we got inside to keep evidence from being destroyed.
The door opened up and I heard, “What can I do for you, mate?”
“Detective Shamansky, San Diego Police. I have a warrant,” he said.
“COPS!” screamed Devin Billingsly.
Shamansky whipped his gun around his body, shoved it in Billingsly’s ribs and pushed him inside. I followed behind Kerrigan through a small entryway into the living room. I started to look for the headphones when I became aware of a huge ogre of a guy sitting at the head of a table in the adjoining dining room with a cereal bowl in front of him. Suddenly, he jumped out of his seat and dove through a bay window that overlooked the side yard and garage.
I followed Kerrigan into the dining room in time to see him roll through the glass on the lawn, then bounce to his feet and dive through the garage window. Billingsly screamed, “NO!” just before a massive explosion leveled the garage and knocked us all to the floor.
A few seconds later a battering ram knocked the back door open and SWAT poured in both doors. The cops that came in the front door ran straight up the stairs and three shots were fired immediately. The SWAT response that followed sounded like the ending to the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “Come out with your hands on your head or I’ll throw in a grenade,” we heard in a booming voice.
“They’ll destroy the evidence,” I said to Shamansky with panic in my voice.
Shamansky shook his head and Billingsly yelled, “He’s bluffing!”
After 100 rounds of ammunition smashed through the master bedroom door, Desmond Thompson was no longer taking orders from Devin Billingsly. Two minutes later Desmond tromped down the stairs in baby blue boxers and was followed by the girl I encountered yesterday morning. She was wearing the same green T-shirt and, with her hands on top of her head, she was commanding way too much attention, while Warren Bates was still on the loose.
“Did you find Bates?” I asked the guy who was bringing up and admiring the rear.
“I didn’t see him,” he replied without looking at me.
Jensen heard this and yelled, “Jackson, Anderson, Dickson, go up there and find that guy!” Dickson popped a new magazine into his weapon and followed the others up the stairs.
“We want him alive,” shouted Shamansky.
Over the next ten minutes we found the two sets of headphones in the living room and became increasingly aware of the total silence on the second floor. Finally, Jensen went up to check on his men. He came back down a couple of minutes later and told us Bates was nowhere to be seen.
“Keep a close eye on him,” Shamansky said to Kerrigan as he let go of the handcuffed Billingsly. He then turned to me and said, “Come with me.” We walked up the stairs and half-way down the hall when he called, “Shamansky and Duffy in the hall.”
“Let’s get the headphones,” I said and Shamansky nodded. The bedroom door was open and Officer Jackson was staring at the closet.
“He must have gone out the back door last night,” Jackson said.
“They came here by cab. Thompson has the only vehicle and it’s parked outside,” I said.
“Well he ain’t here,” said Jackson.
I looked at the stereo and immediately noticed that the headphones were no longer plugged in. I stepped quickly to the shelving unit that held them, along with speakers and numerous CDs, but no headphones. “Damn,” I said and dropped to the floor for a look under the bed.
“He ain’t there either,” Jackson said.
I rummaged through drawers while Shamansky checked the closet, but no sign of the headphones. We looked for about ten minutes, then moved to the guestroom where we suspected Warren Bates was staying. A check of his open suitcase containing his passport and clothing confirmed that he was here. I looked out the room’s gable window and saw the space where the garage had been. I also saw several cops and seriously doubted that Bates could have climbed down the side of the building and past the cops. In fact, there wasn’t anything to climb on even if the cops weren’t there to notice.
We tossed the room and failed to find the headphones, then continued from room to room but came up empty. When we got back downstairs I checked the serial numbers of the two sets we recovered, in case the one Chelsea had purchased was moved to the living room, but no luck. They were the same sets I had seen the previous day. After an hour and forty-five minutes of searching we gave up.
Outside, Shamansky told the crime lab guys to look for any sign of blasting caps, BBs, and a BB box. While he was helping to define the areas he wanted combed thoroughly, I walked to the border of the yellow police tape across the street. There were several neighbors on the other side of the tape checking out the cops and SWAT team. I peeked inside the SWAT truck and saw Kerrigan talking to Jensen. I decided not to interrupt and hung out by a few of the neighbors.
A little five-year-old boy holding his mother’s hand kept pointing at the house and telling his mom, “I saw Santa. Santa’s here. Is Santa coming to our house?”
Kerrigan and Jensen emerged from the truck and Jensen walked back toward the house. “Did you find what you were looking for?” asked Kerrigan.
“Not everything,” I said and remembered that I turned my phone off before approaching the house with Shamansky. I checked my messages and got a voice-mail from Cory who conveyed that Billingsly had a pair of headphones in his hand when he walked into the garage. He had only the flashlight when he emerged a half hour later. He must have rigged a bomb to destroy the evidence and not bothered to tell Pine.
I started to explain this to Kerrigan when the five-year-old went limp in the knees as his mother tried leading him away. “I wanna see Santa! I wanna see Santa!” he cried adamantly.
“What the hell is that all about?” Kerrigan asked.
“Want to be a hero?” I motioned for him to follow me. When we got to the fire truck hosing down the smoking embers of the garage I said to Kerrigan, “Tell the fire chief you want him to put their ladder up there so you can look down the chimney.”
“Say what?” asked Kerrigan with a squint.
“Why do you think the kid thought he saw Santa?”
Kerrigan smiled and started barking orders. Ten minutes later, with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, Kerrigan called, “I got him!” When they reached the ground Kerrigan received a round of applause from the spectators, fire, and police personnel. He stuck his arm out toward me to give me credit, but I shook my head and waved him off.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jensen said, “Who said you never get a second chance to make a first impression? You’re alright, Duffy.”
“You have a hellofa team, Jensen. You’ve done a great job with them,” I said and meant it.
Shamansky broke up our little fence mending session to say, “Let’s get you downtown and wired. Nigel should be at the compound in about an hour. No time for lunch today.”
As we rode to the station house, Shamansky said, “I’m sure glad we got Bates, but I’m not exactly feeling the thrill of victory,”
“I know what you mean. Just before we found Bates I got a message from Cory. He enhanced the picture he took with the night scope of Billingsly walking into the garage last night and guess what was in his hand?”
“The headphones?” he asked with a wince. I nodded. “He must have booby-trapped them.”
“It worked,” I replied. “He took out the number one booby in Southeast San Diego. I found out last night that Theodore Pine was our best bet for rolling over on his mates. He had an IQ lower than the tree he’s named after. He also had a long criminal record and was the only one of the three with very little to do with killing Terry.”
“Damn! What about the other two?”
“Some college, passing grades, no felony convictions,” I said.
“Shit! They’ll probably lawyer up and hope Nigel can get them out of it,” he said with disgust. “By the way, where are you getting this information?”
“You don’t want to know who and you don’t want to know how,” I said with a tone of mystery in my voice.
“Now you’ve peaked my interest.”
“Let’s just say it’s a guy who can get into other people’s computers quicker and easier than I got into the house we just left.”
“Maybe he could be a resource in the future,” he said.
“He’s being watched by agencies I never even heard of, and I doubt he’ll be reachable once this case is over. He was a friend of Terry’s,” I said and Shamansky let it go.
“Have you been thinking about what you’re going to say to Choate and Chofsky?” asked Shamansky.
“I’m gonna tell Nigel we found the headphones, the blasting caps, and the BBs. I’ll also tell him that while Teddy Boy was trying to be fiercely loyal, he came down with a case of the stupids, and a couple of smart cops tricked him into giving it up.”
“Perfect. Very believable. As far as I know, the names have not been released to the press yet. Even if Choate watched the noon news or heard a radio report, he shouldn’t make the connection,” he said.
“He’s conducting an audition for a new guitarist this morning, so I doubt he’ll be seeing or hearing any news.”
“Good. I think once you tell him, you should make like it was all Chofsky’s idea, and that he might be able to cut a deal if he rolls on the mastermind.”
I replied, “Chofsky’s got a compound full of guys with automatic weapons. I was thinking of a less direct approach.”
“No! For a few seconds you’ll have them by the short hairs - squeeze and twist. Try to get them to turn on each other.”
“What if they decide that getting rid of me is the best solution?”
“Then show them the wire. Tell them 50 cops have been listening to every word, and the wrath of God will come down on their heads if they do anything to you. They’ll lawyer up at that point, but they won’t touch you,” he said with more confidence than I felt.
“What if they both just deny everything and don’t go for the bait?”
“Then we bring them in and hope we get somebody to roll. I think we’ll still have a shot. The Irishmen aren’t going to want to do time in the US where they’ll be away from family, friends, and the Orangemen. One of them might give us Choate if we work a prisoner exchange deal,” he said.
When we arrived at Shamansky’s desk in the stationhouse, Dad was across the room chatting with one of his buddies. He looked serious and as he approached us he said, “Sounds like you had some fireworks out there.”
“We got some of what we were looking for, but not everything.”
Shamansky said to Dad, “Your son was a big help, Jim. He did you proud. I’ll brief you in a few minutes, but first Jason needs to get wired and out to Chofsky’s place.”
“Do what you need to, Walt. Let me know when you’re ready,” Dad replied and walked back over to his friend’s desk.
“Walt?” I asked Shamansky.
“It doesn’t sound right coming from you,” he said, then picked up the phone. “Dispatch, it’s Shamansky. Are the two B&W’s ready? . . . Good, we’ll be down in ten,” he said and hung up. To me he said, “Take off your shirt.”
I did so and Shamansky expertly attached the microphone and transmitter.
“How will I know if you’re getting the transmission?” I asked.
“The guys in the truck will have your cell phone number. If they can’t hear you they’ll call and tell you the instant they lose you. Just make up an excuse to go out and talk to the cops, and they’ll strap on a new one. But trust me, I’ve used this model a hundred times. I know the range and the layout of the compound. There shouldn’t be a problem.”
I stood up and Dad walked over carrying a bag. “Your mother packed you a lunch. I figured you wouldn’t have much time.”
I could tell Shamansky was dying to display his humor, but didn’t want to piss Dad off, so he held his tongue.
At 1:18 PM I arrived at the compound in a black & white. After a minor hassle with Svetlana she escorted me to Chofsky’s office. The doors swung open and Chofsky was standing behind his desk. The thick-paned, tinted French doors behind the desk that overlooked half of the swimming pool were open. As I walked in, I could hear Ivana splashing in the pool and talking to someone I couldn’t see.
“I don’t have much time for you, Mr. Duffy. Besides the interviews with the men you helped bring into the country, I also have another business meeting taking place right now. So quickly, what can I do for you?” he asked impatiently.
“I need you to call Nigel in here.”
“He is in the meeting. This will have to wait,” he said, assuming I didn’t have the clout that Shamansky carried.
“His friends were arrested this morning and told us Nigel swapped out the headphones Terry’s wife gave him with the one containing the bomb. We need to talk right now.”
Chofsky picked up his telephone, dialed, and said, “Bring Mr. Choate to my office.” He then walked to the French doors and closed them. As he was doing so, he gave a tight-lipped smile and waved at Ivana. I felt sorry for her, knowing what she had been through and what was coming. Chofsky pressed his fingertips together and had a worried look on his face. He was about to say something when Svetlana swung the doors open and Nigel walked in.
“What’s going on?” asked Nigel.
I replied, “The police raided Desmond Thompson’s house first thing this morning. They found the headphones Chelsea gave to Terry along with two of the three pairs that were sent to Devin Billingsly in North Ireland.”
“Bollocks!” he exclaimed.
I continued, “They also found blasting caps and a box of BBs.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would they do that? They know Terry was my mate. I can’t imagine how this is possible,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.
“Well, actually we have some answers to those questions already,” I said. “Your friends Devin and Warren weren’t giving anything up. But the other guy, Teddy Boy, is quite another matter. He had every intention of keeping your secret, but he lost a battle of wits with a couple of smart cops. We know about how you swapped out the headphones at 7/Eleven.”
“Bollocks! I had nothing to do with it!”
“Before I left to come over here, Detective Shamansky called the 7/Eleven to find out if they have a surveillance system, and guess what? They got robbed three times last year so they put cameras on the parking lot to record the faces of robbers before they put on their ski masks,” I said.
“Aha! Now I know you’re lying! There aren’t any cam-” Nigel’s voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying.
I replied, “See how easy it is to give it up? This is the kind of thing that got Teddy Boy to slip up. You knew Terry would be stopping there for his usual Super Big Gulp of iced tea. They had posters all over the windows so you didn’t have to worry about being seen by him.”
“Do you believe this shite?” Nigel said to Chofsky, who remained silent.
I continued, “Mr. Pine has a big problem with spending the rest of his life in a California prison. As an accomplice, he could get as much time as everybody else. But, since he told us Warren stole the blasting caps and Billingsly built the bomb, he really didn’t have much of a role in the killing. The DA agreed to a prisoner exchange with Northern Ireland. The details still have to be worked out, but the bottom line is that Pine agreed to five years near his family, friends, and fellow Orangemen versus life where he’ll never see a familiar face again. Pine has been to prison before. He knows what it would be like at a facility with no friends. He took the deal.”
Nigel asked, “Then why are you here instead of the cops?”
“The cops are here,” said Chofsky.
Nigel looked at me and I said, “Because I don’t believe this was your idea. I think Mr. Chofsky laid out Terry’s plan for a protracted legal battle that would have shut down your cash flow for the next three years, and you asked him what you could do to get the deal done. I think Terry put you in a position where he wanted to punish you for your excessive spending and felt a legal battle would get him more money in the long run and get you back under his thumb in the short run. You didn’t think it was fair and Chofsky suggested something that would solve all of your problems.”
“You’re out of line Mr. Duffy. That is preposterous,” Chofsky said with his chest puffed out and his thumbs looped under his lapels.
“Then why did you place an ad for the new CD in a trade publication the day before Terry was killed?” I asked. When he couldn’t come up with a response I turned to Nigel and said, “The DA always comes down hardest on the mastermind. If you tell the police that Chofsky took advantage of you while you were in a vulnerable spot, you could get a deal like Teddy Pine. Probably a few more years, but with good behavior you’ll only have to do one-third of your minimum sentence. If you keep denying everything while everybody else cuts deals, you’re screwed.”
Chofsky boomed, “Get a lawyer and keep your mouth shut!”
Immediately after he shouted all hell broke loose. A hail of gunfire seemed to come from everywhere. I instinctively dove to the carpet, looked up through the French doors, and saw several paratroopers with automatic weapons floating quickly toward the inside of the compound. Chofsky bolted through the French doors toward the swimming pool. He got about three steps onto the decking when a bullet struck him in the forehead. I rolled onto my side as I heard the sound of Ivana getting out of the pool.
Chofsky’s guards were returning fire and drawing the attention of the paratroopers. I ran out the French doors and dove behind one of several large brick planter boxes that ringed the pool area. When I peeked over the edge of the box I was horrified to see who Ivana had been talking to. It was Jeannine. At first my brain had trouble processing what I was seeing. Why would Jeannine be in Chofsky’s backyard? Then it hit me. She had come with Michael to his audition, and her presence must mean he was asked to join the band.
Jeannine was in a squatting position with her hands over her ears, and her eyes closed. I ran to her, bent down, pulled one of her hands away from her ear and as calmly as possible said, “Jeannine, it’s Jason. Come with me.”
Her eyes opened wide and focused on me, “Let’s go!” I shouted over the gunfire. I laced her fingers in mine and pulled her to a standing position then started to run. She kept pace all the way through the French doors. I brought her around the desk and guided her down to the floor alongside Nigel. “Wait here!” I shouted.
I pivoted and ran back to the deck where Ivana was down on all fours calling to her father in Russian. Keeping my head down, I ran to her. “He’s gone, Ivana.”
“No!” she screamed. I put my arm around her waist and carried her on my hip back through the French doors to where Jeannine and Nigel were hunkered down behind the desk.
“Nigel, where’s the rest of the band?” I asked, while breathing heavily. He pointed toward the door. “Show me!”
He led us out the office doors and into the hallway. I asked Ivana, “Is there a safe room in the house?”
She looked confused, “What?”
“Do you have a safe room in case you’re attacked?”
As we reached the huge dining room where the band was set up, she said, “The bomb shelter.”
Upon entering the dining room Ian and Jack were asking what was going on while Michael ran to Jeannine, threw his arms around her and said to her, “Thank God you’re alright. I was going out of my mind.” She sobbed loudly into his shoulder.
“Listen up!” I screamed above the cacophony of everyone talking at once. When I had their attention I said, “Ivana is going to take us to a safe room.”
“Bomb shelter,” she corrected me.
“Let’s go,” I said and pointed Ivana’s shoulders at the door. She started walking down the hall when we heard a loud crash in the front of the house. “Faster!” I exclaimed in an excited whisper. She ran and we kept pace all the way into the library. She pressed a hidden button under the lip of one of the shelves and a panel next to the bookshelves retracted, revealing a metal door with no handle and a box the size of a fire alarm unit with a green display screen. Ivana put her thumb on the illuminated scanner and the door opened instantly. As soon as we entered, she thumbed another scanner and the door closed.
“The panel on the outside is closing now. We should be safe,” she said.
“What’s this?” asked Nigel.
We walked over to a desk that held two television monitors. Ivana opened up a laptop computer and turned it on. She then hit a couple of keys and the monitors came on. One showed the area in front of the bomb shelter and the other was an interior camera showing the front door, which was wide open.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Ian.
I replied, “It looks like the Russian Mafia sent a skydiving hit squad into the compound.”
“They killed my Daddy,” Ivana whimpered and started to cry.
“How many are out there?” Ian asked.
“There must be at least a hundred of them,” she replied. Actually, I think it was closer to twenty, but I had no problem letting Ivana think it took a small army to kill her father.
The bomb shelter looked comfortable. It held two single beds, a stocked kitchen, bathroom, radio, TV, DVD, and a shortwave radio. “Do you know how to work the shortwave radio?” I asked Ivana. She nodded and wiped tears. “See if you can reach the police.”
When I said this, Nigel reached into his pocket and came out with a small pistol that he pointed at Ivana and said, “Put the radio down, Ivana.”
“What are you doing Nigel?” asked Jack.
Nigel replied, “Ask Jason, he has all the bloody answers today.”
Everyone looked at me and I said, “Nigel and his hooligan buddies killed Terry.”
“Why?” asked Ian.
“You know why,” answered Nigel. “Terry was going to sit back and let us go bankrupt while he worked out our deal with Cerise. You called me right after Koflanovich called you. You didn’t like it either.”
“There’s a lot of things I don’t like but I don’t go around killing people,” Ian stated.
Nigel replied, “No, you just go get fucked up and pretend that everything’s fine. Well I couldn’t do that. We’re on the brink of being one of the biggest bands in the world. I wasn’t going to sit back and see my personal life go down the crapper while Terry lived off of his rich wife. We’re hot, but in this business you cool off fast if nobody hears from you for a few months, never mind a few years.”
Jack said, “We could have talked to him. It was probably just a bluff to get the record company to cut us a better deal. Did you even ask him about it?”
“I talked to him, but he wouldn’t listen. I think he was jealous that the ladies were into my songs and not his. He wasn’t going to let it go three years, but he had no problem tying everything up for at least a year,” Nigel said.
I interjected, “It wasn’t just the money for you Nigel. Terry wasn’t thinking about Ian when he put that clause in the new contract proposals about getting rid of a band member. He wanted to get rid of you.”
“Is that true?” asked Ian.
Nigel replied, “You guys have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. We weren’t really that big until our second CD. What made us huge was all the women who loved my songs, not Terry’s songs, my songs. But do you think he would recognize that and treat me with the respect I deserved? Not a chance. He was going to run things his way, and if we didn’t like it, too bloody bad. So I stood up to him and he told me that if I thought I was such hot shite maybe I should get my own band together. Bloody ingrate deserved what he got!” Nigel had worked himself into a lather and had a crazy look in his eyes.
“What happens now, Nigel?” asked Jack.
Nigel looked around the room. His eyes settled on the TV showing the front door. Everyone looked at the monitor to see what caught his eye. It showed four men in sky-blue jumpsuits, carrying automatic rifles. “What are they looking for? I thought you said Koflanovich was dead,” said Ian.
I responded, “He faked them out with a look-alike once before. I’m sure they were told to make certain it doesn’t happen again.”
Nigel said, “I hate to be a party pooper but it’s time for everyone except Ivana to go greet our guests.”
Ian said, “You’re daft if you think I’m going out there,” and he lunged toward Nigel. Nigel pulled the trigger and whizzed a bullet a few inches to the right of Ian’s left ear. “I’m fucking deaf,” he screamed.
“You’re gonna be fucking dead if you don’t go out that door right now