The detectives’ squad room was wide-open space, the perimeter outlined by filing cabinets and shelving units containing hundreds of blue case notebooks. Taped onto the walls were an assignment board, a preprinted poster of procedure rules, lots of Gary Larson pig cartoons, and a dozen street maps of the division’s territory, one of them overlaid with a dartboard outline. The different details-GTA, CAPS, SEX, JUVENILE, BURGLARY-were demarcated by placards hanging from the ceiling. Narcotics and Vice sat upstairs. Homicide took up the back area, cordoned off from the others by a filing cabinet barrier. Like other LAPD units, the detectives’ desks in Devonshire were set up in a capital I configuration. After pouring coffee for everyone, Decker took a seat at the crosshatch. He opened his notebook.
“We’ll start with the basics. Random or not random. Pros. Cons. Marge, you go first.”
She pushed wilted dishwater hair from her tired eyes. “Could be random carjacking, the drop point being the back alley. Why else would Sparks’s car be there? If he had come to Tracadero’s willingly, I think he would have used the parking valets in the front.”
“Maybe he was cheap.” Martinez chewed on his mustache. “Or maybe he didn’t trust the valet to drive his wheels.”
“How about a gang robbery thing?” Webster said. “Tracadero’s attracts rich blood. Not a bad place to hang out if you want to hit someone with cash.”
Martinez said, “He had cash on him, Tom.”
“Maybe something scared off the muggers,” Webster retorted. “Maybe Sparks fought back, they killed him and left.”
“Awful lot of damage for panic-stricken muggers,” Marge said.
“Maybe Sparks made the muggers mad.”
Decker said, “Either way, carjacking or robbery has to be at least a two-person attack.”
“The shooting and stabbing,” Marge said. “Unusual that one perp would use two methods.”
The detectives agreed.
“I had an interesting conversation with one of New Chris’s nurses, maybe a half hour ago.” Decker downed coffee. “Seems that Sparks had a reputation for being a good Samaritan with auto accidents.” He told the group Nurse Tara’s theories.
Marge said, “That supports a carjacking over a restaurant robbery.”
“Weird.” Oliver pulled out a comb and ran it through thick, black hair. “He can’t break out of his doctor mold even when riding home in his own car.”
“I know several lawyers who do that kind of stuff,” Gaynor stated. “Use scanners. But it isn’t for altruistic purposes.”
Webster drawled, “I once arrested a sucker that did that-chased calls from ambulance scanners. Stopped at the accident sites and pretended he was a doctor. Eventually, we did arrest him. But let me tell you, he did a right fine job of patching people.”
“A hero’s complex,” Marge stated. “What some people won’t do to be the star of the show.”
“You’d think Sparks would get enough of that in the operating room.” Oliver pocketed his comb.
Gaynor said, “I guess it’s hard for some people to come down to planet earth.”
“If I were a big shot like Sparks, I wouldn’t be anxious to come down to earth,” Oliver said. “It’s nice getting all that reverence. Having people bow down to you.”
“Like his secretary,” Marge said. “She thought he was God.”
“Exactly.” Oliver turned to Decker. “What about his kids? How’d they view their old man?”
Decker thought a moment. “The younger ones seemed very upset. The others weren’t overly emotional about the death. Probably they were all in shock.”
“It’s hard for kids to live with God as a father,” Oliver said. “No one made a Freudian slip about Dad.”
Decker flipped through his notes. “Two of the brothers-Lucas and Paul-talked about Dad being intimidating…bossy…emasculating-”
“They used that word?” Marge asked.
“Uh…no, they said Dad emasculated his son-in-law.”
“Veddy interesting,” Oliver said, rubbing his hands together.
Decker said, “I think they rebelled against him in their own ways. Two of his children have money problems, another was a former drug addict, another became a Catholic priest instead of a minister of Sparks’s Fundamentalist Church, the older sister married a Jew-”
Marge broke in, “How did that come up?”
“It came up,” Decker said.
“Did she convert?” Marge asked.
“No, she didn’t. She still belongs to her father’s church. And so do her children. Nonetheless, she still married a man who refused to convert to her faith. She’s unhappy about it now. But way back when, when she originally married the man, you have to think she was telling her Fundamentalist Christian daddy to go screw himself.”
“Sounds like they all got their digs in,” Martinez said.
Oliver said, “Makes me feel better.”
“What about the wife?”
“Dolores Sparks,” Decker said. “Didn’t talk to her much. Upon hearing the news, she immediately started denying he was dead.”
“Did she ask how?”
“Uh, she did ask if it was a car accident. When I told her no, it was a homicide, she immediately went into denial. He can’t be dead. That kind of thing.”
Marge said, “So it’s okay if he dies from a car accident but not from a homicide?”
Decker paused. “Never thought of her reaction like that, but…I guess murder was too hard for her to digest. Her son gave her a sleeping pill, so she was out when I interviewed the kids. I’ll take another crack at her tomorrow.” He sat back in his seat. “So is this random or not?”
Shrugs all around.
Decker said, “Okay. Let’s assume that Sparks was carjacked or lured to the spot by someone he knew. Give me a list of suspects.”
Marge scanned her notes. “Decameron pissed off Sparks. That’s a given, right?”
The team nodded.
“They walked out to the parking lot together. Now Decameron said he smoothed things over. But what if he didn’t. Maybe Sparks threatened to fire him. Then one thing led to another-”
“Then Sparks would have been offed in the hospital parking lot,” Martinez said.
Marge continued. “So listen to this. Maybe Decameron offered to make amends by taking Sparks out to Tracadero’s. The ride started out okay, but something went awry and Decameron went for the jugular.”
“More like the heart,” Webster said. “That was a nasty chest wound. Your scenario precludes premeditation.”
“So it wasn’t premeditated,” she said.
“I’ve never seen Decameron,” Decker said. “Does he look like the kind of guy who could take Sparks down?”
“Loo, the scene was full of blood spatter,” Oliver said. “Knife wounds, gunshot wounds. You should see how Decameron dresses. He’s a fop. He’d never do something that sloppy.”
“So he hired out,” Marge suggested.
“Then that negates the fight as the precipitating event to the murder,” Decker said. “If Decameron hired out, it had to be premeditated.”
Webster said, “Maybe Decameron picked a fight on purpose, did something he knew would piss his boss off. Then lured him to the spot where a waiting gang jumped him.” He paused. “I’m not saying it happened like that. I’m just following through the scenario that y’all are talking about.”
“What do you think, Farrell?” Decker asked.
Gaynor said, “Dr. Azor Sparks had an alter ego-leather boy Ace Sparks. Maybe bikers did him in.”
“Bikers?” Martinez asked.
Decker filled them in on the card with the Harley logo-Sparks’s weekend entertainment.
“I like bikers as the bad guys,” Marge said.
“But why would they do that?” Decker said.