City of Fire, page 29
part #1 of Lena Gamble Series
“What about it?”
“I think it could have been left by a Taser. It’s possible, Lena. That would explain why he didn’t fight back.”
“When are you sending over the report?”
“Rhodes said you wanted it first thing this morning.”
She grimaced. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been tossing it back and forth all night.”
“Any chance you could slow things down and spend the day thinking it over?”
He didn’t say anything right away. She knew that if her request got back to Barrera, what was already boiling might spill over the top.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he said. “I’m not sure this can wait until Monday.”
“It probably can’t, but this case has strings attached. A lot of issues. Do what you’ve gotta do, Art. Do what you think’s right. That’s all I can ask.”
“I appreciate that. You need anything more from me right now?”
“Just McKenna’s address.”
“It’s here in the file.”
She moved to the table by the window. After jotting the address down, she thanked Madina and hung up. It was 7:15 a.m., and Madina would have to make the decision on his own. She knew that it wouldn’t be easy. While the physical evidence pointed one way, their interpretation of that evidence and common sense pointed in another. She turned to the window as she thought it over. The light raking the pool seemed unusually orange. She stepped outside and looked toward the horizon. The sun had risen over the city but lost its way in the plume of smoke. The entire basin was cast in a vivid red light that flickered and glowed all the way to the ocean.
She checked the yard, taking in the debris and damaged roof. She knew whom to call but would wait until she got in the car. Her eyes wandered back to the pool and up the porch steps. When she glanced at the chaise longue, her heart skipped a beat and everything skidded to a stop.
The cushion was wrinkled. Several towels were rolled up in a ball and tossed behind a planter on the deck. She took a step closer—the chill of her discovery prickling between her shoulder blades and working through her scalp.
Someone had been here. Slept here. Spent the night on her porch.
SHE made the turn off Fourteenth Street in Santa Monica, spotted McKenna’s house on the right, and pulled over. The driveway was empty. When she checked the front door, she looked behind the screen and saw that it was open.
Someone was home.
She unfastened her seat belt and took a quick look around. It was a modest, two-story house, probably built in the 1960s. A nondescript house with wooden siding that had been bleached out from the sun and appeared run-down. A house people would be pointing at and staring at when the identity of Jane Doe was released to the press.
It was eight-thirty and her cell phone began ringing.
She had made good time and hadn’t become fixated or overly distracted by her discovery that someone had spent the night on her porch. Instead, she made her call and arranged to have her roof tarped until the winds died down and repairs could begin. She went over her list of loose ends, hoping that most of her questions about the Holt crime scene would be answered in the next hour.
She checked the LCD, saw Novak’s name, and opened the phone.
“They ID’d Jane Doe,” he said.
Getting a read on her partner was easy. Novak was pissed off.
“The fuckers made the ID and didn’t say anything,” he shouted. “It’s our case.”
“I know,” she said, glancing at the house. “But I can’t talk right now.”
“How’d you find out? Where are you?”
“Madina called me about an hour ago and said he got the word last night. I’m parked outside the McKennas’ house.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Because I want to verify something first. I’ll be in by ten. We’ll talk then.”
“Rhodes hasn’t shown up yet, but I’m waiting for the guy.”
“It might be better to let it go, Hank. Let me talk to these people first.”
She closed her phone, clipping it to her belt as she got out of the car and walked to the front door. A radio was on, and she could hear music filtering down the hallway from the kitchen. When she knocked on the door, the music stopped.
“Who’s there?”
It had been a male voice. A boy’s voice. Someone startled by the knock on the door. Lena peered through the screen but didn’t see anyone. Just a piece of the living room and the foyer leading to the kitchen.
“I’m a detective. I’d like to talk to you.”
She heard the sound of a chair moving and watched as a fifteen-year-old boy appeared from the other side of the kitchen counter. He stared back at her and seemed hesitant to approach the door. His hair was dark brown and almost shoulder-length. He looked pale and thin and wore a black T-shirt and black jeans without socks or shoes.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Are your parents around?”
“No. They’re at the funeral home.”
“I know it’s hard, but would you mind if I came in?”
He didn’t answer. In spite of the distance, she could see his eyes rocking back and forth. She knew that he had a reason to be upset. Even devastated. But why did he look so nervous?
He turned away from her, glancing at his bare feet as he thought something over. Then he made a sudden move for the back door and bolted outside.
Lena ripped the screen door open, legging it through the house and getting a quick read of the kitchen on her way out. Nothing was on the table except for a bowl of cereal. Nothing visible seemed worth hiding.
She spotted the kid running through a hedgerow, lowered her head, and burst through the bushes to the other side. It was a small park with no one around. Sprinting forward, she could hear the boy’s labored breathing. As she closed in on him and made a grab for his T-shirt, she heard him yelp and squeal and realized that he was crying.
She tackled him to the ground, rolling him on his back and holding him down with her body. The boy’s eyes widened, reeling off her face. She sensed recognition in his eyes but didn’t understand it.
“Please go away,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Leave me alone.”
“What is it? Why did you run away?”
“Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. Just leave me alone.”
Lena sat up, watching the boy avert his eyes and roll back over on his stomach. He was shaking. Trembling. Unable to stop.
“What’s your name?”
He paused a moment, but said it. “John McKenna.”
“Okay, John. I need to know why you looked at me and ran away.”
He shook his head, burying it in the grass.
“I need to know why you’re so frightened.”
The boy closed his eyes. “He said you’d come.”
“Who?”
He shook his head again. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, so a man said I’d come. I’m investigating your sister’s case. I’m supposed to come. I’m here to help you and your family. Why is that so frightening?”
The boy raised his head, then glanced at her and turned away.
“He was a cop, too.”
She paused a moment. The words had a certain weight about them. A certain reach.
“You mean a cop told you not to talk to me?”
He didn’t move and didn’t say anything, his hands still trembling.
Lena decided to let the thought ride for a while and looked at the reddish sunlight glistening in his dark hair. He was thin but strong. She had seen several skateboards leaning against the back of the house on her way out. It would probably have been a better race if he had a pair of shoes on.
“I can’t say that I know how you’re feeling because I don’t,” she said quietly. “But I lost my brother, John. It was a long time ago. I loved him a lot and never really got over it. I never stopped missing him. When it happened, I kept asking myself why it had to happen. Why him? Why me?”
His shaking lessened some and he raised his head enough that she could tell he was listening.
“Your brother was murdered?” he whispered.
“Five years ago.”
He was thinking it over. She could see it on his face.
“Did they get the guy?”
“Not yet,” she said. “They haven’t figured it out.”
He turned toward her and sat up. “But it’s been five years.”
“It’s been a long time.”
She let the thought sit there, giving him a chance to chew it over.
“Let’s go back to the house,” she said.
He shot her a look but rose to his feet. Crossing the lawn, they passed through the gap in the hedgerow and stepped into the house.
“I need to know some things about your sister, John. It’s important.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s take a look at her bedroom.”
She followed the boy upstairs and down the hall to a room just past the bathroom. When they entered, Lena took a quick look around and then stopped.
“Is something wrong?” the boy asked.
She was staring at a poster tacked to the wall. It wasn’t Tim Holt’s new band. It was a photograph of the old one. She looked at her brother’s face. The sweat streaming down his cheeks. His hands on the guitar. The people rushing the stage.
She turned away, taking a moment to scan the rest of the room. She noted the stacks of CDs, the fashion magazines, a stuffed animal. Molly McKenna may have looked like a woman. But when she died, she had been a girl.
“Your sister didn’t know Tim Holt, did she?” she said.
He pulled the chair away from his sister’s desk and sat down, eyeing her bed.
“No,” he said quietly. “She was just a fan.”
“Did she tell you what she was up to?”
“It was crazy. If I’d known about it, I would’ve stopped her. I heard about it from one of her friends.”
“What did her friend say?”
“Molly thought that if Holt came home and found her in his bed, he’d do her. That’s what she wanted. She was living a fantasy life. All she could think about was him.”
“How’d she find out where he lived?”
“I don’t know. My mom works in real estate. I heard on the news that Holt just moved in.”
His voice trailed off. And Lena had confirmation now. Holt didn’t even know the victim. She played the scene back in her head. The break-in at the house had been crude because it was performed by a seventeen-year-old girl, not the killer. Lena could see McKenna removing her clothing, getting into Holt’s bed, and waiting for him to come home. It was supposed to be her big night. No matter how irrational, it was supposed to be the night she lost her virginity. When the killer entered the bedroom instead of Holt, she would have been terror-stricken. On the plus side, it would have been quick, just as Art Madina said. Just a few seconds of horror before the killer smashed her head open and everything went black.
The boy cleared his throat. “Can I ask you a question?”
Lena’s mind surfaced and she looked at him.
“What if it takes you five years to find out who murdered my sister? What if takes even longer?”
She sat down on the bed. “I need to know about that cop, John. The one who told you not to talk to me.”
His gaze fell away from her face. His hands were trembling again.
“I don’t know his name.”
“What did he say?”
The boy took a deep breath but didn’t shut down. “Would this help you find out who killed Molly?”
“It could. Of course it could.”
He thought it over, then spoke. “He told me that if I talked to you, I could end up like Molly.”
“He threatened you.”
The boy nodded. “He said lots of people would die and it would be my fault.”
“What did he look like?”
“He wasn’t wearing a uniform, if that’s what you mean.”
She leaned closer. She could barely hear him. “Then how did you know he was a cop?”
“He showed me his badge. He made me look at the gun inside his jacket.”
“But you didn’t see a name when you looked at the badge?”
“He was covering it up with his thumb. He was wearing a leather jacket. And he had a scar. It was on his ear. It was shaped like an X.”
She could feel the rush of anger flooding her body, a hot load of wrath cut with overwhelming sadness. She wasn’t sure she could stand up right away. Wasn’t sure that she could maintain her footing. She had gone the extra mile for Rhodes, rationalizing his actions and reserving judgment until later. But now her doubts had been transformed into certainty. Rhodes had slipped into the dark. He was the ticket. He was the one.
LENA walked around the corner, entering the bureau floor and slamming into a wall of silence so dense that she could feel it in her ears. There were ten, maybe twelve RHD detectives in the room. No one looked up, but she could tell that every one of them knew she was there.
She spotted a single pair of eyes. Novak, at his desk staring back at her with empathy and concern. As she moved down the aisle, she glanced at Rhodes, but only briefly. Just long enough to measure the distance between them, not in feet, she decided, but miles.
And then someone began shouting.
“Gamble. Here. Now.”
It was Lieutenant Barrera, standing in the alcove and waving her into the captain’s office.
She dropped her briefcase on her desk, glanced at Rhodes before giving Novak a long look.
“Don’t say anything to him,” she whispered. “We need to talk.”
“I’m waiting on you, Gamble,” Barrera shouted.
She entered the alcove and stepped into the captain’s office. She heard the glass door slam behind her.
“Have a seat, Detective.”
Barrera hustled around the conference table, too upset to sit down. His face was more purple than red as he stewed over what he wanted to say. When he leaned over the table to face her dead on, she could see the vein in his neck ticking like a snare drum.
“I don’t give a shit how smart you are,” he said. “I gave you an order yesterday, and you acknowledged that I gave you that order. Now tell me what it was.”
She met his gaze. She knew that she had to take whatever Barrera wanted to give. That she had to eat it and remain silent about what she knew. Barrera would never believe her. But even worse, if Rhodes found out, he’d react. And if he was willing to murder two innocent people to cover up her brother’s murder five years back, then it followed that he would be willing to kill again to protect his growing list of secrets.
“What was the order, Gamble?”
“You wanted me to attend the press conference and recite a statement that had been written for me by someone on the sixth floor, Lieutenant.”
He gave her a hard look. He was angry, but he was true. She could tell that for a split second, he knew the order was just as bogus as she did.
“Listen, Gamble. I know things have been tough. If someone I called a friend murdered someone in my family, I’d be at my wit’s end.”
Her eyes flickered. Barrera was talking about Holt, but Rhodes had been a friend, too.
“So maybe these are special circumstances,” Barrera said. “That doesn’t change who you are or what your job is. This is an elite unit. We follow orders, right?”
She nodded but couldn’t help wondering if something else was going on. Something more than her ducking the press conference yesterday.
“When I say jump, you jump or you’re out, Gamble. All the way out. I sponsored your promotion out of Hollywood, so I’m taking this personally. You’re making me look bad. And if I give you the boot, I’ll make it my personal calling to fuck you up. We follow orders, is that understood? Every order. And we follow the evidence. When the science comes in, it’s as good as an order. It’s like it’s coming from God. We’ve got a problem, Gamble. Not two problems. Just one problem. And his fucking name is Romeo. Is that clear?”
Someone knocked on the door and opened it. Barrera’s head jerked up. When Lena turned, she saw Novak standing beside Upshaw, the analyst from the Computer Crime Section.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Novak said. “But I need Lena and I need her now.”
“What is it?” Barrera said, trying to regain his composure.
“It could be Romeo’s motive for killing Charles Burell.”
“Show me,” he said.
Upshaw entered ahead of Novak, placing a nude photograph of a model on the conference table.
“Romeo visited two porn sites the night he murdered Nikki Brant,” Upshaw said. “There’s no way to know what he did when he got there, but this model is the only one that appears on both sites.”
Candy Bellringer. Lena recognized her face instantly. Bellringer was the woman with black hair doing Burell on the couch when she’d first visited the Web site. Even more troubling, Bellringer was one of the models who lived within Romeo’s comfort zone and hadn’t called her back.
“Did you talk to her?” Barrera asked.
Lena shook her head. “We haven’t been able to reach her.”
“She’s the most popular model on Burell’s Web site,” Upshaw said. “Fifteen hundred more hits than anyone else. She caught my interest because most of her hits are coming from L.A. With every other model, the hits are spread out. And then I noticed her left foot.”
Lena’s eyes went back to the photo and she spotted the toe ring.
“It’s the toe Romeo severs from his victims,” Novak said. “The second toe on the left foot.”
NOVAK wheeled the Crown Vic down the freeway with the Christmas lights running. By the time they reached the north end of Santa Monica, Lena had brought her partner up to speed on what she’d learned from Art Madina and Molly McKenna’s brother. Novak didn’t say anything for a long time. She could see his eyes going as he chewed it over. The fear and pain that wouldn’t let go when she told him that McKenna had been an innocent teenager, a young girl who broke into the house ahead of the killer and had no relationship with Holt at all. It didn’t take much to know that he was thinking about the horror as both a detective and a father. That in the end, he was thinking about his daughter Kristin.
