Stephen J. Cannell - The Prostitutes Ball

The Prostitutes' Ball

Stephen J. Cannell

*

It's A Few Days Before Christmas When Detective Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, respond to a call in the Hollywood Hills. The crime Scene is the pristine backyard swimming pool of a once-immaculate mansion on Skyline Drive, the site of an infamous murder decades prior, in which a family was killed in cold blood on Christmas Eve. In the ensuing years, the house has been shuttered and left exactly as it stood on that terrible night.

Shane and Alexa arrive to discover the aftermath of a lavish party. The revelers have fled, leaving three dead bodies, all shot with the same gun. One is acclaimed film producer Scott Berman. The others, a pair of gorgeous women in their early twenties.

Scully is assigned to the case along with his new partner, Sumner Hitchens. Hitch has a reputation in the department as a self-promoter; he sold the story rights to one of his cases to a film production company and he has the millions to show for it. Scully and Hitch begin to investigate, and the case looks to be open-and-shut: The two young women were hired prostitutes, and there's a security video of an angry husband firing on all three. A simple case of revenge.

But there's a catch: The detectives discover a single spent bullet casing that doesn't match the rest.

From that single bullet emerges a story that spans thirty years a tale of love, murder, suicide, and one of the biggest financial frauds in L . A . history. It's a story fit for the screen and Hitch is determined to get it there, no matter But someone has gone to great lengths to cover up the crime, and as Scully and Hitch get closer to the answer, they find themselves in a killer's crosshairs. The case could be the makings of a blockbuster Hollywood film---but only if Scully gets out alive.

Chapter

This is a story about a story.

Its also a story which, despite all my efforts to the contrary, seemed destined to become a major motion picture.

It began a few days before Christmas, but it s not a Christmas story. Its about lost generations and emotional desertion, and about a Los Angeles family with way too much money. So I guess at its heart, it s a story about greed, corruption, and loss.

With those themes, what better place to start than at an office Christmas party? But before we begin, just a few preliminary remarks.

I'm a homicide detective, and as such, I'm carefully schooled in the three concepts mentioned above. I work at an elite LAPD detective division known as Homicide Special. Our unit was reconstituted after the O . J . Simpson case, another L . A . story of greed, corruption, and loss.

After losing that high-profile media trial, it occurred to our command floor managers that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have homicide detectives carrying blood evidence vials around a crime scene where they could later be accused of planting it.

As a result, Homicide Special was completely reorganized and staffed with our most seasoned detectives. I'm lucky to be assigned there. It's a great gig.

My name is Shane Scully, and for this story I will be your host narrator. It's going to be a fast ride through L . A . with a lot of reckless driving. Look out for abrupt lane changes, freeway shootings, and dangerous hairpin turns. As a police officer, I'm required to advise you to fasten your seat belts.

All set? Then let's go.... Cue the opening theme music. Fade slowly up from black, and we'll begin at:

Chapter

The chiefs Christmas celebration was being held at the Magic Castle, an old baroque mansion in the foothills just above Hollywood Boulevard. It was a private club that normally catered to L . A .'s large population of magicians, but was also available to rent out for special occasions such as this one.

Half a dozen professional sleight-of-hand performers were ripping up twenty-dollar bills or cutting apart ugly neckties then magically restoring them before a crowd of half-lit captains and deputy chiefs who'd seen their share of deception and were squinting through alcohol filters, trying to bust these tricksters.

The party was for the chief's command staff and their spouses. More than a few of the braided hats were getting seriously hammered at the open bar, sometimes exposing their dark, competitive nature s o r revealing dangerous political aspirations. The music was about peace on earth, goodwill toward men, but most of the people in this room had seen too much street crime to believe it.

Our chief, Tony Filosiani, mingled happily, wearing a blue double - breasted pinstripe over his lunchbox-shaped frame. On his shiny bald head was a Santa hat. He moved through the room, grinning and slapping backs, the ridiculous red hat bobbing along, identifying his position like a hazard warning.

It was hard not to wonder what would happen once this half-lit badge-heavy crowd hit the street and ran into the poor stiffs in our Traffic Division.

As usual, my beautiful wife, Alexa, was the center of attention, her looks both a blessing and a curse. Gleaming black hair, reefwater blue eyes, and high fashion-model cheekbones made Alexa attractive in a way that drew people to her but also made it impossible for a few of the old boy cops in this room to accept her as a division commander. Some of the wives stared enviously, while others wondered openly about her.

I was only here as Alexa's husband and was haunting the corners of the room, trying for invisibility. I look like a middleweight club fighter with a nose broken too many times and short black hair that never quite lies down, so people stay out of my way.

On that December night, Alexa was riding on a political wave of congratulatory remarks. The day before, it had been announced that she was being promoted to captain and would finally be able to drop the word "acting" from her title of Detective Division commander.

For two years she'd been running the Detective Division that supervised three hundred plainclothes cops. In L . A . only captains can head police divisions, but she took over the job as a lieutenant and the "acting" adverb had been haunting her authority like an asterisk. With her appointment to captain came full-fledged membership in the department's double bar club.

I watched as a few of the more aggressive career assassins mingled and schmoozed, wearing big, deceptive grins. They cruised the party like ocean predators, their dangerous personalities barely visible, only the hiss of their dorsals giving them away.

"You ready yet?" I asked Alexa, trying for the third time to get us out of there. I'm a line officer, a Detective III. I don't mix well at these things. Because I was uncomfortable, I wasn't drinking alcohol, so I wouldn't inadvertently insult somebody who could later decide to wreck my career.

"In a minute," Alexa said, turning toward a florid-faced commander named Medavoy, who ran the Special Operations Support Division. I knew he had actively opposed Alexa's appointment to captain, but you'd never know it as he congratulated her, gave her a big, expansive hug, and told her she was the absolute best. The putz.

I wandered off to find a backwater as the music changed and the annoying strains of the Chipmunks singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" began to claw relentlessly at my brain.

"Shane?"

I turned to find Sally Quinn, my partner from Homicide Special.

"Sally! What re you doing here?" I was surprised to see her because this was a command-floor-only party. Short, with a bob hairstyle and freckles, she looked as uncomfortable as I did.

"Cal invited me as kind of a going-away thing," she said, referring to both Jeb Calloway, our captain at Homicide Special, and the bombshell she'd laid on me without warning that afternoon.