Chapter 34
STILWELL HAD JUST gotten to his Bronco in the long-term lot when Ballard called.
“I heard you almost blew our surveillance today,” she said.
“I heard that I was going to be kept informed of his movements,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s on me. Are we burned?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t seem cagey after our encounter with Laffont in the restroom. I think we’re good. Just make sure he doesn’t run into those guys again. Once is a coincidence. Two and we’re burned.”
“Lesson learned. We’ll do better. Did you get anything good from him?” Ballard asked.
“Not much. He knew about Laffont and Masser moving into Bird Park. He thinks they’re gay and want to buy ABC.”
“Perfect.”
“Where are they now?”
“The state office building downtown. They think he might be applying for a job.”
“He already did that. He told me he was going for an interview.”
Stilwell turned the key, hoping he wouldn’t need another jump. The Bronco’s engine rumbled to life. He saw blue smoke in the rearview mirror.
“What was that?” Ballard asked.
“My car,” Stilwell said. “It could use a new muffler.”
“Well, we’ll let you know where Middleton goes next.”
“That would be good.”
Stilwell disconnected and dropped the transmission into drive.
His first stop was the hospital in Torrance and Ilsa Ramirez’s still-guarded room in the third-floor critical-care unit.
She was awake and sitting up in bed at a forty-five-degree angle.
Her eyes filled with tears when she saw Stilwell enter.
He immediately grabbed her hand. She looked very small in the big hospital bed surrounded by various monitors and machines.
“Don’t do that, Ilsa,” he said. “I know this is tough. But stay strong. You’re going to be all right.”
She nodded. Stilwell saw that her neck was heavily wrapped in bandages.
There were dark circles under her eyes and an oxygen tube under her nose.
She reached for a digital tablet that was on the bed next to her hip, activated the screen, then unsnapped a stylus from its side and wrote something. She held the tablet up for him to read.
I’m sorry.
Stilwell shook his head.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “It was a planned ambush. You didn’t have a chance.”
She nodded.
“They told you that, right?” Stilwell said. “Simon and Trestle?”
Stilwell looked at the room’s door. He had told the deputy that he could take a break if he needed to, but he wasn’t sure he had left. He turned back to Ramirez.
“What exactly did you tell them, Ilsa?” he said in a low voice. “They came back out to the island to search for a sniper’s nest.”
She wrote on the screen.
The shooter was behind us in woods.
He yell, Quigley, and open fire.
The message froze Stilwell for a few seconds.
“You’re sure he yelled Quigley’s name?” he asked.
She used the stylus to underline Quigley on the screen.
Stilwell suddenly realized why Ernie Simon had used a burner to call him and tell him to stand down. Ramirez erased the screen, wrote something new, and held the tablet up.
Suspects
Stilwell took it as a question and shook his head.
“I’m not part of the investigation—officially,” he said. “But as far as I know, no suspect has been identified.”
Ramirez nodded.
“But I’ll tell you what, Ilsa,” Stilwell said. “Either they find who did this or I will. I promise you that.”
Ramirez patted her chest with a hand and the tears welled up again as she scribbled on the tablet. She held it up forcefully to Stilwell with two hands.
I’m IOD EOW
Stilwell knew what she meant. She would be rolled out of the department on an injury-on-duty pension. Her days as a cop were likely over. End of watch.
“Don’t be thinking that,” he said. “Not yet. Concentrate on your recovery and let the job stuff come later. You turned into a good cop, Ilsa. High marks all around from me. And remember, it wasn’t like that at first. But you worked hard.
I saw it. I know it. And I know you’ll work hard on getting better. ”
Ramirez nodded but turned her head away from him, which sent a spasm of pain through her face. He reached down and squeezed her hand again. It was time to go.
“I’ll be back to visit, Ilsa,” he said. “You hold fast.”
Stilwell wondered why he had used a phrase from his days in the navy.
He remembered the card and took it out of his pocket.
“Almost forgot,” he said, handing it to her. “Mercy said to give you this.”
He was about to leave, when he saw Ramirez start to write on the screen again. She held it up to him.
Wait
He nodded.
“I can stay.”
She considered the screen for a while before writing. She held the tablet up.
Trust you?
“Of course,” Stilwell said.
She wrote again.
Me and Alton
Stilwell stared for a long moment at the screen.
“You mean…” he asked.
She nodded and held her hand to her chest. Over her heart.
Stilwell was surprised by the revelation.
Quigley and Ramirez generally worked the same days, sometimes the same shift, but they were always in separate ATV units and patrolling different zones.
They backed each other up on calls, though, and that’s where a relationship likely started.
It was the way a million cop romances had begun before and would again.
Ramirez lived in town in subsidized housing, and Quigley supposedly stayed most nights in the substation dorm, so they could easily have gotten together off-site and off duty, but Stilwell was surprised that they had been able to hide their relationship from him, their supervisor, and apparently everybody else.
They’d had to hide it, because it was against department regulations, not to mention that Quigley was married.
A cascade of thoughts and images went through Stilwell’s mind, beginning with how empty Quigley’s locker was and ending with how his widow had shed no tears at his funeral.
“How long?” he asked.
Ramirez wrote on the screen without hesitation.
New, 5 weeks
That meant their romance had started pretty quickly after Quigley transferred out to Catalina.
“Did his wife know?” Stilwell asked.
Nobody knew
He was already in a divorce
It would have been bad for him
“You’re sure no one knew?”
Nobody
“Did you tell this to Simon and Trestle?”
No, only trust you
Stilwell nodded. In a messed-up way it was a compliment.
It also put him in a bind. This information was important, and Simon and Trestle should have it.
But passing it along could come back on Stilwell because this relationship had gone on under his nose.
And if it turned out that it had played a part in the ambush, the consequences for him could multiply exponentially.
Stilwell thought about all this as he tried to come up with the next question. Ramirez’s shorthand had carried a lot of new information that came out of left field.
“You said he was already getting a divorce?” he finally asked.
Ramirez wrote.
Since when he transferred
Another secret kept from Stilwell. He was beginning to feel like one of the idiot supervisors he’d had over the course of his history in the department, people oblivious to what was going on around them. It was depressing to think he was like them, but he tried to stay in the moment with Ramirez.
“Did Quigley ever mention who his divorce lawyer was?” he asked.
Ramirez nodded and wrote.
Benny Martinez
Stilwell knew Benito Martinez. He was a former Long Beach cop who’d quit to go to law school and was now a divorce attorney.
Remembering his brethren in blue, Martinez offered his services to law enforcement officers at a discount.
His business cards were pinned to bulletin boards in every police station and substation in the county.
It kept him so busy he didn’t need to pay for billboards on the 405 freeway like so many of the other law lizards in town did.
Stilwell also knew him because Martinez had been his own attorney when he’d gone through a divorce a year before he came to the island.
“Did Quigley ever tell you why they were getting divorced?” he asked.
Ramirez wrote.
He said she cheated
Stilwell nodded but didn’t take that as the truth.
The percentages said that in most divorces based on adultery, the husband was the unfaithful one.
And what else would Quigley say to a new girlfriend when asked about the reason for his pending divorce?
I’m a cheater? No; he would throw the shade on his soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Did he say anything else about it?” he asked.
Ramirez shook her head, and once again Stilwell saw that the simple movement of her neck caused her pain.
“Okay, Ilsa, I’m going to go now and let you get some rest,” he said. “But I’ll be back, I promise. Meantime, you take care. Stay strong.”
Ramirez held her hand to her chest again. It was less painful than nodding.
Back in the Bronco, Stilwell closed his eyes when he turned the key in the ignition.
He heard the engine start to grind, then finally spark to life.
He opened his eyes, pinned the accelerator to the floor, and red-lined the tach.
He looked up and saw the cloud of exhaust smoke in his rearview mirror.
The old horse was ready to go. He had intended to make the home of the Widow Quigley his next stop, but the new information from Ramirez changed things.
He headed for downtown Long Beach instead.