City of Fire, page 34
part #1 of Lena Gamble Series
“Come on, Lena. Let’s talk this out. The Blackbird’s still open. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
He was less than three feet away. When his boots disappeared behind the next car, she listened to his footsteps. She counted them and waited, then rolled out the other side and peered through the window. Rhodes was ten cars away, moving toward the ramp to the second floor. He looked nervous. Jumpy. She squeezed the keys in her fist, doubling back to her car. After taking several deep breaths she couldn’t quite catch, she gritted her teeth and made a run for it.
She heard him shouting at her. His voice raw and overloaded with panic.
She inserted the key in the lock, ripped the door open, and jumped in. She saw Rhodes running toward her as she jammed the key into the ignition and lit up the engine. He was sprinting toward her. Closing fast. She grabbed the shift and hit the door locks. As Rhodes slammed against the window, she snapped the clutch and saw him leap out of the way.
She took the corner hard, tires screeching and her eyes on the rearview mirror. Rhodes was chasing her on foot. She blew past the guard shack, pulled out onto the street, and barreled through the red light. When she checked the mirror again, Rhodes was gone. Everything was gone. All she could see was smoke.
NO music. Just the hum of the engine underneath the wind. Something to hold on to as the car sliced through endless billows of white clouds and her jumbled nerves filled the seats around her. She couldn’t see the road. Only a pair of taillights floating beyond the hood. Every half mile or so the truck she was following would appear before her eyes, then vanish again—a ghostlike object crawling through the smoke toward Hollywood with a heavy load. As she finally reached the Beachwood exit and made the slow climb into the hills, she stopped checking the rearview mirror. Five minutes later, she pulled into her driveway and cut the engine. But she couldn’t relax. Couldn’t let go.
Someone had turned her outdoor lights on. The windows were dark, but the outside lights were on.
A chill rolled up her spine as she stared at her house shrouded in the gloom. She could see a tarp stretched over the roof, but wondered if it would last the night. Her bedroom shutters had broken loose from their clasps and were beating against the window frame. When she noticed the crime scene tape wrapped around the entire first floor, she got out of the car.
For several moments she watched and listened without moving.
She had buried the thought of coming home ever since seeing Martin Fellows’s collection of photographs. She had made every effort to keep busy working the case with the assurance that he’d never touched her. But as she stared at her broken house, she realized exactly what she had been hiding from herself.
Fellows had found a way to get inside. What she thought had only been a vivid nightmare was a reality. She had seen Fellows standing in her bedroom. Seen the madman through her sleep.
She turned to the street and listened for Rhodes’s car. She tried to get a grip on herself. Tried to chill.
Someone had jammed a business card into the front door. Moving out of the shadows, she grabbed the card and held it to the light. The card had been left by her old partner, Pete Sweeney, out of Hollywood. A note was written across the top. Two simple words. Call me.
She slipped the card into her pocket, brushing her hand over her gun because she needed to know that it was there. Easing her way into the backyard, her eyes swept across the pool and up the steps to the chaise longue. It was empty—the towels still hidden behind the planter. Martin Fellows was not here. She didn’t expect to find him here, yet she needed to be sure.
She walked around the house, checking the windows and doors. Everything appeared secure. Returning to the front steps, she slashed the crime scene tape with her key and opened the door.
A fly was knocking against the ceiling. For a split second she thought about that hole in her bedroom window screen that needed to be replaced.
She turned on the lights in the kitchen. When she looked at the trash, she saw a roll of discarded paper towels soiled with fingerprint powder. Sweeney had obviously been inside, along with SID, and they took the unusual step of cleaning up. She entered her bedroom, checked the closets and bath, then moved upstairs for a quick look at the second bedroom. No one was here. Just that fly following her through the house.
She took a deep breath, her nerves slowing down as she returned to the kitchen. She understood why her home was a crime scene. Martin Fellows had been here. What she didn’t get was why no one had said anything. She grabbed the phone and punched in Sweeney’s cell. He must have been waiting for the call because it was after midnight and he picked up on the first ring.
“You okay, Lena?”
“I’m good.”
“You don’t sound so good.”
She shook it off. “Who gave you the order?”
“Your boss, Barrera. He called us after the SIS guys were found in West Hollywood. He said he needed a favor. Me and Banks volunteered.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“He told us not to. You already had enough on your plate.”
“Why did you tape around the house?”
“Barrera ordered us not to call, but I thought it sounded like bullshit. I wanted you to know we were there. I wanted everybody to know we were there. Who’s gonna break into a crime scene?”
His voice trailed off. Sweeney was worried about her. She could hear it.
“You sure you’re good?” he repeated.
She realized that she was pacing. Grabbing a stool, she forced herself to sit down.
“Did you find anything, Pete?”
“A lot of smudged prints that are probably yours. But I think I know how he got in. A window lock on the second floor was broken. We didn’t have time to hit Home Depot, so I nailed it to the frame. I’d be happy to stop by and fix it anytime you say.”
She heard the sound of road noise in the background. Sweeney was in his car.
“You headed home?”
“Only in my dreams, Lena. We’re working tonight. Someone spotted a body in Griffith Park and we can’t find it. We can’t even find the fuckin’ road. Guess we’ll keep looking till we do.”
His easy manner felt something like reaching an oasis. She thanked him and switched off the phone. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, she hoped Novak got home all right and wondered if she should call. But her briefcase and the evidence box were still in her car. And that sound of the shutters banging against the house had become unnerving. She set the phone down and walked into the bedroom.
The shutters were authentic. She had never used them because they were on the other side of the window screens. Getting to them wasn’t easy and she had never had any interest in blocking the view. As she stepped around the bed, she could see the wind drawing the heavy wooden panels open, then slamming them shut again. She switched on the table lamp, released the lock, and raised the window. Glancing at the hole in the screen, she pried the frame out, awkwardly fished it through the window, and leaned it against the wall. Then she reached outside into the darkness, digging her fingers into the slats as the shutters rushed toward her.
For a split second, she knew something was wrong but couldn’t place it. Something flashed in the darkness. Something shiny in the wood.
She pulled the shutter against the window frame, holding it in place as she reached for the table lamp. When her eyes drilled through the hole and locked on the metallic object burrowed inside the wood, she lost her grip and watched the shutter sway into the darkness, then swing back through time.
Her body shut down, her ticket on the night train punched.
The hole in the screen matched the location of the hole in the wooden shutter. She had looked at that screen for five years and never replaced it. Now she could hear something in the wind. Something that sounded a lot like her brother’s voice, and he was weeping.
She managed to get to her feet, noting the wobble in her knees. After grabbing a steak knife from the kitchen, she pulled the shutters in and watched them rattle as she threw the latch. Smoke was venting through the slats and tumbling into the room. The smell of fire eating away at her broken house that really was a crime scene now.
She started cutting. Slicing. Shaving the wood away from the hole and ignoring the voices in the wind. The only thing that mattered right now was the knife in her hand digging deeper. And then she wedged the tip of the blade inside the hole and gave the handle a nudge. When the small piece of metal popped out, she palmed it and held it under the light.
It was a slug. A slug from a .38. And from the weathered look of the wood shavings on the floor, she guessed the slug was about five years old.
SHE couldn’t risk making the call. Couldn’t trust anyone with a piece of evidence that might force the department to admit it had made another major mistake. The slug in her pocket was too small. Too easy to get rid of. And the headlines would be too big. The department was on the right track now and couldn’t afford to be embarrassed. Their claim that a rock musician had murdered his partner, then years later turned the same gun on himself, had been made public. No one on the sixth floor would want to admit that the real murderer had been working at RHD and was one of their own. Instead, the evidence would turn up missing. And for exactly the same reasons every piece of evidence in the Black Dahlia case went missing some sixty years ago. Not just the physical evidence. Every interview. Every wire recording.
The department was an institution. Its reputation was more important than a single life.
Lena needed a break. A fistful of luck that wouldn’t require another white-knuckle trip down the freeway to the lab. And she found it when she pulled into the lot behind the Hollywood station and spotted an SID truck idling by the back door.
She skidded to a stop and jumped out. No one was inside the cab, but a discarded cigarette was burning on the pavement. In spite of the smoke from the fires, someone needed even more. The kind with nicotine in it.
Her eyes slid across the lot, then stopped on two cars parked beside the line of cruisers. She had seen the black Mercedes SUV and yellow Corvette before and knew they belonged to a pair of experienced detectives. From the amount of ash on the hoods, she guessed that they had been here for a while.
Something was going on. Something important enough to keep everyone busy at 1:00 a.m.
She moved to the rear of the SID truck, rolling the door up and climbing onto the bed. Then she rushed down the aisle and ripped open the first locker. Her eyes burned and it was difficult to see in the dim light. But she skimmed through the contents quickly, closing the door and moving on to the second locker.
Lena wasn’t anxious anymore. She was two or three miles down the road, rifling through the tools of the trade with machinelike precision. She had reached a new place. Ground zero fifteen minutes after her life went radioactive. Nothing mattered anymore, yet everything mattered. Everything she saw or touched seemed to glow.
“That you, Lena?”
She recognized the voice and froze. When she turned, she saw Lamar Newton standing on the pavement with a camera slung over his shoulder. She caught the suspicion in his eyes, the look of disappointment. She didn’t care.
“What are you guys doing here?” she said.
“They’ve closed the freeways down. Something’s going on at Griffith Park, a possible dead body, so we’re gonna hang here for a while.”
His eyes moved to the open locker behind her, then bounced back.
“They can’t find it in the smoke,” she said.
He nodded slowly, acknowledging the ash falling from the sky. “The flames jumped over the one-oh-one about an hour ago. The north side of the city’s burning from Malibu all the way east to Rim of the World road. Probably take a week or two to put out. In the meantime we’ve all gotta find a way to breathe. Why don’t you come inside? It’s no good out here.”
She shook her head. “Can’t do it, Lamar. I’m in a hurry.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”
“Luminol,” she said. “Mixed.”
His eyes widened a little as he chewed it over. Luminol was a chemical used to detect faint traces of blood evidence.
“You’re working a crime scene on your own?”
“I’m in a hurry, Lamar.”
He sized her up from head to toe, then lowered his voice. “What you’re doing is wrong. You look like a fucking zombie and I won’t help you. But if I was looking for luminol, I’d probably try that one over there.”
He pointed at the locker in the corner. She turned and ripped the door open. When she saw the spray bottle wrapped in a rag, she grabbed it.
“It doesn’t last long,” he said. “You’ll need a camera.”
“I’m all set,” she said, leaping off the truck and racing to her car.
SHE WAS ALONE, her hands trembling. She wondered if she could take it. Whether or not she could deal with a new truth shimmering above the surface.
Lena powered up her digital video camera, flipped through the menu until she reached the LOW LIGHT settings and toggled the GAIN all the way up. Moving the tripod to the center of the room, she framed the shot to include the shutter, carpet, bed, and side table. Although she’d replaced the art on the walls and moved the chest, everything else in the shot remained exactly the way it had been when her brother was alive.
She watched her finger press RECORD and waited until the icon on the screen stopped blinking. Then she watched herself grab the bottle of luminol and step around her bed. She knew that she had to be careful. Knew that luminol could detect trace blood evidence but was used as a last resort.
She pointed the nozzle at the hole in the shutter and gave it a pump. Taking a step back, she covered the lower wall and carpet. She could feel her heart fluttering as she sprayed down the table and headboard.
Nothing mattered anymore, yet everything did. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her and turned away.
She gave the bottle a shake, eyeballing every surface. Squeezing the handle one last time, she watched the mist drift through the smoky air and cling to the foot of her bed. Then she closed the bedroom door and switched off the lights.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She could hear the Devil Winds pushing against the house. The shutters rattling as if someone were trying to break in. A ringing in her ears that seemed in tune with the howl of the wind.
And then time swung back again. The view of views smacking her in the face. Her eyes were locked on the luminol and it was working. Splotches of bluish green light were beginning to rise out of the black. She heard herself sigh as she moved closer and stared at it—a prickling sensation eating up her skin.
It hadn’t been a stray bullet accidently fired through the screen into the shutter. David had been shot here.
She could see the murder going down as if she had been in the room. She could see remnants of her brother’s blood splashed on the floor and against the wall below the window. When the blood spatter began to glow on the headboard, the image poked at her soul and she struggled to catch her breath.
He had been murdered in bed. In the same bed she’d slept in for the past five years.
The thought had a certain corrosive feel about it. An aftertaste that burned the throat and would never go away.
She leaned against the chest, wiping her eyes and lowering herself to the floor. She could see herself finding his body that night. Running toward the car and searching out his face. The jolt she took as she made the ID and the horror punched through her gut.
Her brother’s body had been dumped there. Thrown out on a Hollywood street like a bag of trash. Rhodes had shown no remorse. No respect. He picked Vista Del Mar because that’s where the junkies hung out. Beside that abandoned chapel with all those spent needles on the ground.
Moments passed, memories rushing at her with a clarity that appeared surreal. Her father’s face. David telling a joke one night as they tried to get to sleep in the car. When the thought stream suddenly dried up, she bolted to her feet.
The glow from the luminol had brightened, the definition more vivid now. She could see the blood spatter on the headboard and floor. But bluish green spots were beginning to appear on her comforter. A comforter that was less than one season old. Her body shivered as she watched the spots sharpen and grow. She reached out with her right hand. When she ran her finger through the spatter, she realized that it was semen. And it was still wet.
Her heart skipped a beat, her mind racing. Then she heard the bedroom door opening behind her back.
She froze, her mind flooding with adrenaline. Someone had turned the lights out in the living room and kitchen. The house was dark. But she knew that he was here. She could hear him breathing. She could feel the electricity skimming across her scalp and shooting through her hair.
She turned and saw the outline of his nude body in the gloom. His buffed head and ultrawide shoulders.
Martin Fellows was running toward her. In a full sprint and leaping through the air.
She reached for her gun as he crashed into her, but felt his hand already drawing it from the holster. She felt his overwhelming strength seize her body and toss her across the room. When he knocked over the camera, she made a run for it but couldn’t get past the door. His hands were wrapped around her jacket—pulling her toward him, then pushing so hard, she flew into the living room and bounced off the floor.
Lena scrambled onto her back. He was on top of her now, ripping her blouse open and pulling away her bra. She could feel his hands squeezing her breasts. See the red-hot coals smoldering in his eyes.
She tried to scream but he covered her mouth. She could smell cocoa butter wafting from his sweaty skin.
She dug her teeth into his finger as if chewing through steak. She could taste the lump of human meat in her mouth, his blood streaming down her chin. He pulled his hand away but didn’t make any sound. Instead, he watched her spit it out, then grabbed her hair and knocked her head against the floor.
