Part 15 (2/2)
”I was sorry when I heard.”
Leeds' wife had died three years ago, almost two months exactly after Marty. When Pollard heard, she had written a short note. Leeds had never responded.
”It was good to see you, Katherine. I hope you still feel you made the right decision.”
Leeds didn't wait for her to respond. He followed Cecil and Delaney out the door like a grave digger on his way to church.
Pollard brought the donuts to Sanders' cubicle.
”Man, some things never change.”
Sanders reached for the box.
”I wish I could say the same about my a.s.s.”
They laughed and enjoyed the moment, but then Sanders frowned.
”s.h.i.+t, you heard what he said. I'm sorry, Kat, I gotta roll.”
”Listen, I didn't stop by just to bring donuts. I need some information.”
Sanders looked suspicious, then lowered her voice again.
”We should eat. Eating will distort our voices.”
”Yeah, let's eat.”
They fished out a couple of donuts.
Pollard said, ”Did you guys close the Marchenko and Parsons case?”
Sanders spoke with her mouth full.
”They're dead, man. Those guys were iced. Why you want to know about Marchenko and Parsons?”
Pollard knew Sanders would ask, and had worried over how she should answer. Sanders had been on the squad when they tracked and busted Holman. Even though Holman had earned their respect with how he went down, many of the agents had grown resentful because of the publicity he got when the Times dubbed him the Hero Bandit. Within the squad, Holman's name had been the Beach b.u.m Bandit because of his dark tan, Tommy Bahama s.h.i.+rts, and shades. Bank robbers were not heroes.
She said, ”I took a job. Raising two kids is expensive.”
Pollard didn't want to lie, but she didn't see any other way around it. And it wasn't like it was totally a lie. It was almost the truth.
Sanders finished her first donut and started a second.
”So where are you working?”
”It's a private job, banking security, that kind of thing.”
Sanders nodded. Retired agents often took jobs with security firms or the smaller banking chains.
Pollard said, ”Anyway, I was told that LAPD was still running a case. You know anything about that?”
”No. Why would they?”
”That's what I was hoping you could tell me.”
”We're not. They're not. It's a done deal.”
”You sure?”
”Run a case for what? We bagged'm. Marchenko and Parsons had no accomplices inside or outside the banks. We ran this thing, man--I mean we ran it--so we know. We found no evidence of any other party being involved either before or after the fact, so there was no reason to continue the investigation. LAPD knows that.”
Pollard thought back over her conversation with Holman.
”Were Marchenko and Parsons plugged in with the Frogtown gang?”
”Nope. Never came up.”
”Any gangs other than Frogtown?”
Sanders pinched her donut between her thumb and forefinger, and ticked off the points she wanted to make on her remaining fingers.
”We questioned Marchenko's mother, their landlord, their mailman, some dork at a video store they frequented, and the neighbors at their apartment house. These guys had no friends or a.s.sociates. They didn't tell anyone--not anyone--what they were doing, so they sure as h.e.l.l had no accomplices. And, except for a somewhat cheesy collection of gold necklaces and a two-thousand-dollar Rolex, they sat on the money. No flashy cars, no diamond rings--they lived in a dump.”
”They must have spent something. You only recovered nine hundred K.”
Nine hundred thousand was a lot of cash, but Marchenko and Parsons had hit twelve vaults. Pollard had done the math when she read the articles at Stan's. Teller drawers could yield a couple of thousand at most, but a vault could net two or three hundred thousand and sometimes more. If Marchenko and Parsons scored three hundred K from each of the twelve vaults, that was 3.6 million, which left two and half million missing. Pollard hadn't found this unusual because she had once bagged a thief who spent twenty thousand a night on strippers and lap dances, and a South Central gang who had flown to Vegas after their scores for two-hundred-thousand-dollar orgies of chartered jets, crack, and Texas Hold'em. Pollard a.s.sumed that Marchenko and Parsons had blown the missing money.
Sanders finished her donut.
”No, they didn't blow it. They hid it. That nine we got was a freak scene. Parsons made up a little bed with it. He liked to sleep on it and jerk off.”
”How much was their take?”
”Sixteen-point-two million, less the nine.”
Pollard whistled.
”Jesus Christ, that's a lot. What did they do with it?”
Sanders eyed the remaining donuts, but finally closed the box.
”We found no evidence of purchases, deposits, fund transfers, gifts--nothing; no receipts, no conspicuous consumption. We ran their phone calls for the entire year, investigating everyone they called--nothing. We worked that old lady--Marchenko's mother, man, what a nasty b.i.t.c.h she is, a Ukrainian? Leeds thought for sure she knew what was up, but you know what? At the end of the day we cleared her. She couldn't even afford to buy medicine. We don't know what they did with the money. It's probably sitting in a storage shed somewhere.”
”So you let it drop?”
”Sure. We did what we could.”
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