Chapter 34
Chapter
The big room. The size of the room caused Heck to stop outside the threshold. The setup made him hesitate longer.
The long table pushed to the wall. Leaving a triangle of three chairs in open space. No barrier between our two and his.
My suggestions.
Milo said, “Ditch the table to make him feel vulnerable, I like it. Wonder why we don’t do it more.”
—
Once inside, Heck sat and accepted a cup of coffee but didn’t drink it. With nowhere to put it, he passed it from hand to hand, finally set it on the floor.
Milo said, “Tummy still off?”
Heck grimaced. “I’ll be okay.”
Milo said, “Don’t want you to kick it over,” retrieved the cup, and brought it back to the urn. “You change your mind, Mike, you know where it is.”
He sat back down, stretched, smiled.
Heck licked his lips. Rubbed his arm and tapped his feet and waited for Milo to speak.
He didn’t.
I said, “So how long have you known Bettina, Mike?”
Heck’s eyes shot to mine. “Like eight years. Met her right before the thing, so when I needed a lawyer I went to her.”
“The thing being the Alberts investigation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’d you and Bettina meet?”
“Tinder,” said Heck.
Milo said, “Tinder,” and scrawled in his notepad.
Heck said, “Is that relevant?”
“We never know what is and what isn’t, Mike.”
I said, “Tinder.”
Dividing his attention between us made Heck frown. “It was just for…you know. Her thing more than mine.”
“She’s a big fan of Tinder.”
“Oh yeah, she’s been sleeping around for years. Before and after getting married. She says he does the same thing but I don’t know, that’s just what she says.”
I said, “You and Bettina were sleeping together before the Alberts investigation so when you thought you needed a lawyer, you turned to her.”
“Actually,” said Heck, “she thought I needed a lawyer and volunteered.”
“You figured you were okay without a lawyer.”
“Because I knew I did nothing. But she said don’t be careless so I said okay. She wasn’t charging me anyway. I just had to take her to nice places.”
“Hotels.”
“Hotels, restaurants, we went a lot to Ojai, Santa Barbara. I’m not sure it didn’t end up costing me more than a regular lawyer.”
“You were never charged for anything she did on Alberts.”
“Not ’cause of her. I was innocent. Everyone was.”
“Everyone except Alberts.”
“Exactly. He ran a one-man show.”
“So,” I said, “Bettina and you go back a way.”
“Nothing steady, here and there.”
“Did you meet Sophie Barlow on Tinder?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Her it was the gym. She shouldn’t have been there.”
“At the gym.”
“At that gym. I’m not being a sexist, some girls can handle it but it wasn’t for her.”
“Not strong enough.”
“Not hardly,” said Heck. “She would’ve been better with machines, light weights, yoga classes.”
“This gym was…”
“Hard-core free weights. It even got to a point where I said enough.”
“Sophie went there because…”
“She read a Yelp rating or something. She looked kind of lost. Wearing these dance-type leotards that showed off her body. Very slim but no muscles.”
I said, “You got a good look at her body and decided to meet her.”
“It wasn’t that,” said Heck. “I wanted to help her.”
I kept silent.
“Okay, sure, she’s good-looking, why not? But let me go on record again: I didn’t kill her, there’d be no reason.”
I said, “What’s a good reason for killing someone?”
“I—that’s not what I’m saying, sir. There’s no good reason, never, not ever. But Sophie and I, we got along great, there were no fights, it didn’t get complicated, no nothing. We just decided to end it. Actually, she did.”
“Why?”
“She said it was just wanting to be friends,” said Heck. “I figured it was another guy. Which is fine, plenty of fish in all the seas. So I made it easy for her.”
“You made it easy for Sophie by…”
“By letting her do her thing. Talk about what she wanted. Women love that, talking it out.”
He sat up straighter. “I just thought of something. If there was another guy, you should be looking at him. Because obviously I’m innocent.”
Milo wrote.
Heck, unsure how to interpret that, stared, frowned, looked for a hint on Milo’s face. When he didn’t get one, he sighed.
I said, “You and Sophie had the talk.”
“Friendly talk,” said Heck. “Like I said, plenty of other things going on.”
His eyes shot to the right. Concealing something.
I said, “Things being…”
“Dates. Chicks.”
“From Tinder.”
Reluctant nod.
I said, “Including Bettina.”
“Her when she decides to booty-call me.” He shrugged. “What can I say, I like women and they seem to like me. And she can be pretty…you know.”
“We don’t.”
“Passionate.”
I said, “You like women and let them express their feelings.”
“Well,” said Heck, “I’d like to think it’s more than that.”
Milo said, “A regular Romeo.”
“You’re joking, sir, but basically that’s true.
I’m romantic to the core. Never touched a woman when she didn’t want to be touched, no means no, okay?
And what turns me on is turning them on, okay?
So I sure wouldn’t kill anyone. That’s crazy.
And obviously, I didn’t because that whole DNA thing was obviously bogus and obviously someone was out to shaft me. ”
I said, “But initially you kept your alibi to yourself.”
“She said keep your mouth shut, this is an opportunity. Jail scared the hell out of me but…what can I say? It was stupid.”
Milo said, “Stupid and illegal.”
“Listen…yeah, okay, I screwed up. Big-time. I admit it. But now I’m being honest about it and I’m still the one spent time in that hellhole while she slept in her big bed in Beverly Hills.”
I said, “Jail was tough.”
“Oh man, what do you think?” said Heck. “They put me in a cell by myself but I’m still surrounded by gangbangers.
One’s in the cell across from me, laughing while he’s jerking off and telling me it’ll be me in there with him tonight.
I mean, c’mon, man. It was hell. So yeah, I screwed up by listening to her but I more than paid my dues. ”
I said, “Let’s talk about Martha Matthias.”
“Who’s that?”
“The detective who interviewed you on Alberts.”
“Her? The old lady? Why?”
“Because she was murdered.”
Heck jerked forward in his chair. “You think I had—oh, that’s insane. Why would I have anything to do with that? Why the eff? C’mon, man. I met her twice.”
“Tell us about that.”
“Nothing to tell,” said Heck. “Nothing.”
I said, “If it was nothing, why twice?”
Heck sat back. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not, Mike?”
“Not my idea, theirs.”
“Theirs—”
“The government.”
I said, “You informed on Alberts.”
Heck rubbed his brow and shook his head. “I can’t.”
Milo said, “Mike, that investigation’s long over and the prosecutor’s long dead.”
“Dead? Oh no, now you’re going to try—”
“Calm down, Mike. Natural causes.”
Heck exhaled. “Okay…well, I still can’t say anything. But I’m not going to deny, okay?”
“Deny what?”
He looked at me. “What he just said. Okay? That work for you?”
Milo said, “You served as an informant and gave Detective Matthias your findings.”
“There were no findings, that was the thing,” said Heck. “The first time we met was away from that place.”
“What place?”
“Where they worked, downtown, looked like a warehouse they stuck desks in.”
“Where did you and Detective Matthias meet?”
“Some restaurant—a Denny’s, I think. In Culver City? Yeah, Culver City.”
“How did that come about?”
“He—the asshole in charge—had told me to look for papers, notice whatever I could and I’d be safe from prosecution.
I knew I’d done nothing but he came on strong and the whole thing freaked me out so I did it.
So I met with her—the old lady—at Denny’s and told her there was nothing.
She pushed back, said there had to be something.
No nonsense, like one of those teachers who give you a hard time?
But I was being honest so I held my ground and she got up, paid the tab, and left. ”
“The second time was…”
“In her office. To finish off.”
“Finish off what?”
“Whatever they had going. That was the deal. People would get ordered to come in, no choice where or when, just show up. They’d talk to her or some other cop and whatever got said would be written down.
For some kind of report, I guess. But it was all total bullshit because no one had anything to say because no one knew anything.
Except Darren. That was his thing. Keep everyone separated so no one learns anything from anyone. ”
The same technique Kevin Van Osler had used with his investigators. Devious minds finding common ground.
Milo said, “Divide and conquer.”
Heck said, “Exactly. So there was nothing anyone could’ve known. The whole deal—the scam—was the payment part. Everything else was legit. The cases, the legal work. Which is what I told her.”
“Detective Matthias.”
He shook his head. “I try to convince her, she gives me this look like she knows I’m lying.
Not talking, just staring me down. Didn’t bother me ’cause I knew I wasn’t.
I said feel free to check. She must’ve ’cause the next time I went in it was to sign off.
Obviously it had to go that way because I was telling the truth. Which I’m obviously doing now.”
We said nothing. He began fidgeting. “Okay? Can we sign off?”
I said, “Why’d Van Osler choose you as an informant?”
“He said because of my job,” said Heck. “Managing the office, writing out checks, I was in a position. But the checks I wrote out were for the staff and expenses, not payment to the clients. Darren kept that deal for himself, said he was changing lives, wanted to hand over the money in person and watch their faces.”
“That never happened.”