13 Hollywood Apes Read online

  Feeling the sting from getting her knuckles rapped, Remington slid into an empty chair. The big oval table in the conference room had twelve seats arranged around it. Stills and Gosch were there, the latter taking notes. Deputy Johnny Velske represented the sheriff’s department. Baez had three aides surrounding her—two men and a woman whom Remington recognized from earlier in the morning at the Bronson Canyon police cordon.

  “I’m ADA Deborah Charles,” the female aide said. “This is Mark Sissoko, D.A. Baez’s assistant chief of staff, and Derek Singh.” She indicated the two others beside her.

  “I’m PIO for the office,” Singh said, rising half out of his seat to acknowledge meeting Remington.

  ADA Charles gestured toward the public-information officer. “We were talking with Derek about the possibility of a press conference.”

  “I understand you’ve just fielded a call from our chief suspect.” D.A. Baez managed to make the statement sound accusatory.

  “Mace Arthur, yes,” Remington said.

  “And you two are commonly in touch?”

  “He called me,” Remington said. She felt put on the defensive.

  “We were unable to triangulate the call in the short time you gave us,” Deputy Velske said.

  “We’ve had three of these animal attacks in six days,” Baez said. “It is absolutely imperative that we bring this man in.”

  “LAPD, San Bernardino, and Orange County sheriff’s departments, California Highway Patrol—we’ve got alerts out to everyone,” Deputy Velske said.

  “Did you record Mr. Arthur’s call?” Baez asked Remington.

  “No,” Remington said, feeling foolish. “I don’t know if my phone has that capability.”

  “If it’s a smartphone, it does,” Baez’s aide, Sissoko, said.

  Baez turned to Rick Stills. “Is Harry Cornell still not returning our calls?”

  “His secretary now tells me that he’s ‘in the field,’ as she describes it, arranging for his client’s surrender.”

  “Could I jump in here…?” Remington ventured. “I tried to give the gist of Mr. Arthur’s phone call when I talked to ADA Stills afterward.”

  “He was concerned about the disposition of his chimp,” Stills said.

  “That animal is dead meat,” said Sissoko, shocking everyone at the table slightly with his bluntness.

  “I would suggest, Mr. Sissoko, that the dead-meat idea might be precisely what’s holding us up,” Remington said. “If we could somehow indicate to Mr. Cornell, or if Mr. Arthur calls back, if I could assure them that the ape in question will be treated in accordance with the law, and there will be no rush to judgment, I think that will facilitate matters greatly.”

  “I’ll damned well facilitate matters with the power of a subpoena,” D.A. Baez snapped. “Harry Cornell is walking a fine line here. I could have him up on a felony obstruction-of-justice charge.”

  “We want to avoid that,” Derek Singh said quickly, alert to the political consequences of arresting an attorney.

  “Rick, you’re confident you could get an indictment on a homicide charge?” Baez asked.

  “Absolutely,” Stills said. He looked as though “confidence” might be his middle name.

  “Let’s put the public mind at rest about this, all right?” Baez said. “The media is fanning the flames.”

  Randy Gosch jumped in. “I was walking down Melrose last night, and I saw someone wearing a ‘Free Angle’ T-shirt, I swear to God.”

  “For Pete’s sake,” Derek Singh grumbled, envisioning a public-relations nightmare going forward.

  “Can we just take a step back here for a bit?” Stills said. “We have thirteen animals shot and burned up in the canyons. Then two staffers at the sanctuary where the animals lived were assaulted and killed, with all the evidence indicating an ape attack. One of the attorneys who represented the Odalon Sanctuary board of directors in business matters was also assaulted. So it seems to me the crux of the matter is the connection between the killing of the apes, on the one hand, and the attacks that followed, on the other.”

  “That seems right on the money to me,” said ADA Charles. Remington wondered if every woman alive had to go all gaga around Rick Stills.

  “Clearly, our first priority is nailing Mace Arthur,” Stills said.

  “I don’t agree,” Remington said. “First and foremost is getting Angle out of circulation, since he’s the instrument of danger.”

  Stills nodded. “They’re hand and glove.”

  “Is this fingerprint business solid?” Sissoko asked. “I didn’t even know monkeys had fingerprints.”

  “Apes,” said Stills and Remington at once.

  “And, yes, the fingerprint evidence is clear-cut,” Remington said.

  “Judge Nuñoz thought so when she issued the arrest warrants,” D.A. Baez said.

  “I’ve been looking into it,” Stills said. “A public-interest lawyer named Trish Sedgewick has been helpful.”

  “Sedgewick has been reaching out to us at the downtown office,” Sissoko said.

  Stills went on: “There’s quite a body of law prosecuting defendants charged with using animals as a weapon of death. Mostly dogs, as you can imagine, but rattlesnakes, too—that’s not unheard-of. I found an instance of a bear being used and a law citation for a cougar as well—that was in Utah. Plus one case where there was a pen full of wild boars.”

  The room fell silent for a beat, those present imagining the scene.

  “What rights does the animal involved have?” Remington asked. The others looked at her quizzically. “I mean, Mr. Arthur seemed very concerned that there might not be an established legal process to be followed in regard to Angle.”

  “Well, you can tell him that the law is very clear,” said Baez. “Once an animal is found to cause the death of a human, it is destroyed.”

  “How is that finding established?” Remington asked.

  “In a court of law, Detective.” Baez’s tone was frigid. “You’re acting as though you’re an attorney for the accused.”

  “All I know is that we can speed Mace Arthur’s surrender by making him feel comfortable about what’s going to happen to Angle,” Remington said.

  “I don’t care a whit if Mr. Arthur is comfortable or not,” Baez said. “I want him confined before someone else gets killed.”

  “We all want that, Janiece,” Stills said soothingly.

  “If it doesn’t happen soon, and I mean right now, I’m going to hold every single person in this room responsible,” Baez said. Looking around the table, Remington could almost see the sphincters tighten.

  “Yes, ma’am,” ADA Deborah Charles said.

  “Deputy Velske, get on the LAPD, get on San Bernardino, get on everybody,” Baez said. “Raise a ruckus. How easy can it be to hide a chimpanzee in this town? I want mountains to move!”

  So it was cheerleading—that’s all this meeting was about, thought Remington. D.A. Baez just wanted to rally the troops. Remington was disappointed. She had been hoping for a concrete plan of action. Mace Arthur surrenders and his charge sheet reads like this, specifically, chapter and verse. Angle is taken into custody; he is sheltered at this specific place. A case in the public eye like this one could easily blow up in everyone’s face. It was important to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

  As she was leaving, D.A. Baez surprised Remington by taking her aside. “I didn’t mean to come down hard on you,” she said. “Rick tells me you’ve been really excellent here, and you’ve been on the case almost alone right from the start.”

  “Thank you,” Remington said.

  “I’m frustrated,” the district attorney said.

  “We all are, ma’am.”

  “I’ve known Pia Liebstein for years, so I take this very personally.”

  Remington didn’t know how to respond to that, so she ducked her head in a nod.

  “Plus, there’s another little case on the docket that’s got everybody’s head spinning,” Baez sai
d.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Remington said.

  “Wrap this up quickly, Detective, and I know that they’re going to need good investigators on that.”

  Ro-Co-Co. The prize that the whole world wanted.

  “I’ll do my best,” Remington said.

  Randy Gosch held up his iPad and called out to the group. “I’m following the wire on my tablet,” he announced. “Mace Arthur just surrendered.”

  The staffers and deputies were half in and half out of the room, some of them down the hall already. They erupted in cheers and conversation. Everyone wanted to know details.

  “Got ’im!” Rick Stills called out.

  “Where?” asked Derek Singh.

  “Angle?” Remington asked. “What about the chimp?”

  “It doesn’t say,” Gosch responded, reading the police wire feed on his tablet. “I think it’s a good bet they’re together.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Because Mace Arthur turned himself in at the Los Angeles Zoo,” Gosch said.

  17

  They were in a celebratory mood. Stills, Remington, and Gosch convened for drinks at Whitey’s, a steak place with a venerable tradition dating all the way back to the 1930s, which qualified as ancient history in Los Angeles. Located atop a promontory overlooking the eastern border of Griffith Park, the low-slung, white-clapboard-and-red-shutters restaurant was a favorite of Gene Remington’s. As the sky went dark, the sparkling lights of two interstates flowed through the passes below, a pair of shining rivers merging into one.

  “As long as you’re not stuck on one of them, freeways can be almost pretty,” Randy Gosch remarked, gazing down at the steady stream of cars.

  “I’m here for the duration, at least until the traffic clears up.” Rick Stills was on his third Manhattan, his blue eyes bright with happiness. “Layla can drive me home.”

  Gosch and Remington exchanged a covert look. It was no secret around the office that Stills had been camping out lately, staying over some nights at the sheriff’s barracks in a back wing of the Malibu Civic Center complex.

  Gosch had the inside story, and willingly shared it with Layla. Stills’s girlfriend, ADA Sheila Hightower, had been assigned to the D.A.’s Ro-Co-Co team. This led to professional friction between them. According to Gosch, Hightower hadn’t exactly thrown Stills out of the Marina del Rey condo that the two lovers formerly shared. But she considered him somewhat of a fallen star, and thus unworthy of her attentions.

  She might come to regret cutting Stills loose, thought Remington, watching the man across the table from her. The Odalon case would never equal Ro-Co-Co for media buzz, but it was a close second, and it had more interesting legal implications. Chompanzee versus Ro-Co-Co was like the tortoise and the hare, with the dark horse (to mix metaphors) the eventual winner. Stills had attracted hordes of media microphones earlier in the day. Everybody wanted sound bites on the latest developments in the case. The cameras loved him.

  Even though the L.A. County D.A.’s office had been blindsided by the particulars of the event, the surrender of Mace Arthur and Angle at the Los Angeles Zoo went off fairly smoothly. Accompanied by Harry Cornell, Arthur and the chimp approached the front gate. Zoo personnel contacted the police. An L.A. County sheriff’s deputy named Robbie Van Pelt beat out his LAPD colleagues and was first on the scene.

  Right behind Van Pelt were satellite trucks from KCBS and KNBC. Eventually, every local channel and every news organization was represented in the media cluster gathered outside the zoo. A news helicopter showed up, an essential ingredient for every major story in Los Angeles, with News Chopper 7 hovering above the scene.

  Remington and Stills had driven over to the Griffith Park zoo in the U-boat, Remington using her bubble-light array this time, threading her way back on the Ventura Freeway through the same traffic clog she had just pushed through. As they were leaving the office, Stills had looked back over his shoulder at Randy Gosch.

  “Want to come?” Stills had asked. Gosch jumped at the chance.

  Harry Cornell refused to allow Mace Arthur to be interviewed by Remington or anyone else with a badge. Arthur enjoyed his brief moment in front of the cameras, though. “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats animals” was one of his pronouncements. The shaggy-haired Arthur looked handsome in handcuffs. He had by now been safely transported to Metro, where he awaited arraignment and a bail hearing.

  “Do you think he’ll get bonded out?” Remington asked Stills.

  Stills sipped his Manhattan. “I don’t really know,” he said. It was the first time Remington could recall Rick Stills ever admitting ignorance about anything. “If you could tell me who the arraignment judge is, maybe then I could tell you if Mace Arthur makes bail.”

  A woman made her way through the bar to their table. “Hi there!” ADA Deborah Charles said. “I heard you guys were up here. May I join you?”

  They shoved over to make room, Charles moving smoothly to claim the place next to Stills. “So, congratulations,” she said to him.

  “That might be premature,” Stills said. “And, besides, I think you’re congratulating the wrong person here.”

  “That’s okay,” Gosch joked. “I’m used to being out of the limelight.”

  “No, really,” Debbie Charles said, reaching over and placing her hand atop Remington’s for a moment. “The whole Malibu office ought to be commended for bringing this home. It’s usually such a sleepy place, you know, who would have thought you’d snag a prize like this?”

  Assistant district attorneys, Remington knew, operated with a whole different set of values. Their perspective certainly wasn’t about justice; it wasn’t even really about the law. It was about “plums” and “dogs”—good cases and bad, high-profile trials that could make an attorney’s reputation, as opposed to run-of-the-mill, go-through-the-motions plea bargains that wouldn’t even warrant a mention in the Times justice blog.

  As true as this judgment was, the ADA’s view of the world usually wasn’t mentioned so candidly. Remington saw Stills grimace at his colleague’s all-too-frank assessment of the Odalon case. ADA Charles didn’t notice. She continued chatting up Stills, ignoring both Gosch and Remington. With a practiced wave of her hand, she motioned over a waiter and ordered a dirty martini.

  Remington’s phone buzzed. The ringtone indicated that her dad was calling.

  “You watching the news?” Gene Remington asked.

  “Which channel?”

  “Seven. They have promos about the surrender.”

  “KABC is doing a piece,” she informed Stills. Gosch slid out of his seat to tell the barkeep to switch channels on the flat-screen that hung on the wall near their booth.

  “Where are you?” Gene asked.

  “Whitey’s.”

  “I’ll come over,” he said. He hung up before she could tell him that, no, she didn’t really want her father crashing a work celebration.

  It didn’t matter whether the bartender switched the channel on the TV or not. Every station had coverage of the surrender in the chompanzee case. Stills duly secured his TV sound bite.

  “D.A. Baez and I will energetically pursue justice for the victims,” he told the news microphones solemnly, careful to give a shout-out to his boss. “We’re just happy that our sheriff’s deputies were able to take the suspect into custody. The people of Los Angeles can sleep a little safer tonight.”

  Everyone in the booth at Whitey’s cheered after Stills’s appearance on TV. Several people in the bar noticed him, too, and drinks were sent over in waves. Suddenly Patricia Sedgewick, the Jus Animalium public-interest lawyer, was standing next to their table.

  “Do you have room for one more?” she asked. She didn’t wait for an answer, but plunked herself down next to Remington. Stills, on to his fourth cocktail and clearly feeling every one, made the introductions. The evening was turning into the Rick Stills admiration society. Everyone at the table, Remington r
ealized, was enamored of him—including, most especially, Stills himself. Maybe she needed to take a number and stand in line.

  Sedgewick changed seats to move closer to Stills. The two of them and ADA Charles set to chattering. The three lawyers formed a mini-cabal right there in Whitey’s corner booth. Remington felt shut out.

  Two things nagged at her. One was the ease of Mace Arthur’s surrender. If the guy was really guilty of these horrific crimes—using Angle to target his former keepers and a sanctuary lawyer—wouldn’t he be more reluctant to turn himself in? He would more likely be on his way to Venezuela or some other place that didn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. Unless—and this was a real possibility—Arthur wanted to use the trial as a soapbox to air his views on animal rights.

  Earlier that afternoon, Remington had pulled up with Stills and Gosch just as Mace Arthur was being loaded into the police wagon for his ride downtown to Metro. As she climbed out of the U-boat, Arthur fixed her with a strange, serene, almost triumphant expression. It was the oddest thing. Remington had seen plenty of perp walks in her day, but she had never encountered a look like that before. Arthur had struck her as a man with an ace in the hole.

  The second thing that bothered her was Angle. Zoo personnel had taken charge of the fugitive ape after a brief conference with sheriff’s authorities and Rick Stills. Remington’s fantasy of a clean, airy cage for Angle, complete with access to the outdoors, turned out not to be too far from the truth. The zoo had a whole isolation building at the back of its grounds, closed to the public and well staffed by veterinarians. Its Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains exhibit was home to a large colony and was well regarded as an ape habitat, praised by the famed primatologist Jane Goodall and other experts in the field.

  So the chimp was placed, and placed well. While Stills was holding court with the press, Remington questioned zoo officials closely. There had been no incidents during the handover. Angle had behaved “like a perfect gentleman,” said Carly Gediman, head vet for the great-ape team at the zoo. He was resting comfortably in secure housing, she said, far from the prying eyes of the public. They had administered a mild sedative.