The Fallen

McKenzie met me at ten for our interview with Vinson. I drove to La Jolla and found a place to park. We headed down the sidewalk toward Vinson’s hotel. I could smell the ocean in the warming March breeze and hear the sharp cries of the gulls wheeling through the perfect blue sky.

“How was your date with Harris?” I asked.

“Fast. I drove us in his car to the range in Oceanside. Taught him how to handle Death and Destruction. Then dinner, drinks, dessert.”

“Death and Destruction” is McKenzie’s nickname for her sidearm, which is a Glock nine-millimeter. Under the old chief, we were told what weapons to carry, but now we have greater latitude. The Glock is a workhorse that rarely jams or misfires, though it is on the large side of “concealable.”

“He’s an okay guy, Robbie.”

“Good.”

“It’s like I’ve known him a long time. Did you feel that way when you first started seeing Gina, like you’d known her forever?”

“No, she seemed totally alien to me.”

“He asked me to spend the weekend with him and some friends out in Jackson, Wyoming. He charters a jet to get there, and his house, you can ski from the porch right to the lift. Leave Friday noon and be back Monday night.”

I thought of my stationary Mammoth Mountain skiing adventure. “That would be nice, McKenzie. Have a ball.”

“You need me, Robbie, I’m on that plane in five minutes and landing at Brown Field less than two hours later. I told him that could happen, and he’s down with it. He knows what my priorities are.”

“You’re a good partner, McKenzie. I’ll be fine.”

“The big money makes me feel strange,” she said. “The Enzo trees me because I’m a car chick, but all the other stuff makes me wonder. And the way they live — way busier than I’m used to. To Hollis and his friends, a weekend is a time to fly somewhere special and play. For me it’s laundry and the cat. I get my car washed on Saturdays, you know — I don’t go buy a new one.”

When we walked into the beautiful lobby of the Valencia Hotel, I thought of Ron Mincher and Allison, and Mincher’s comment that his soul was rotting. It couldn’t have started in a nicer setting. There was an enormous vase in the entryway, overflowing with big tropical blooms and flowers. The floors were the shiniest gray marble I’d ever seen. The registration desk was small and neat and staffed by a neatly groomed man about my age and a pretty woman a notch older.

In person, dressed in tennis whites and inviting us into his ocean-view suite, Trey Vinson looked less pathetic than when he was fornicating with working girls on video. He still had an air of entitlement, the look of a man who believed he deserved everything around him. He wore his shiny wedding ring.

Vinson offered us something from a fruit basket, but we both said no. He took a red apple and reclined on a cream-colored chair. The apple popped when he bit in.

I told him that we were investigating the murder of Garrett Asplundh and had discovered Asplundh’s notes. We found some of them intriguing.

I read to him:

“City cooked the books. Now up to Vinson. Diminished to negative. If he holds we’re alive, if he folds we’re not.”

“Well,” he said. “He got straight to the center of it, I’ll say that.”

“Center of what?” asked McKenzie.

“Being up to me. The city’s bond rating. I’m the one who brings the information back to New York so Jance Purdew can formulate its ratings. I assess the municipality, talk to its accountants and legal teams, review its books, investments, holdings, assets, et cetera. My recommendation is heavily weighted.”

Pop went his apple.

“So did San Diego cook its books?” I asked.

“A case could be made that it did,” said Vinson. “It goes back almost ten years. A city’s bond rating is based on the things I just mentioned. The city government must keep its books with accuracy and transparency. Disclosure is everything. Back then the city failed to disclose that its pension fund was one billion dollars underfunded. ‘Underfunded’ means that they had taken pension dollars owed to employees and used them to balance the city budget to get a high rating. I said one billion dollars, Detectives — not one million, not one hundred million or six hundred million. There were piles of errors and omissions in city financial reports. ‘Egregious’ is the word often used to describe those errors and omissions, and it’s a good one. Well, that same pension fund is still underfunded by a billion dollars but now everyone knows it. And the city is bleeding red ink every day. Your PD needs new cars and new officers. The fire-rescue department needs hundreds of millions of dollars, unless you want another disaster like you had three years ago. The new library is on hold. But San Diego is trying to keep its rating up. I told them I could only be so optimistic on their behalf. I told them they were probably looking at a rating diminishment from ‘stable’ to ‘negative.’ I had no choice.”