City of Echoes (28 page)

It was in that look, the way the lieutenant’s glazed eyes were fixed on the girl’s face, that Matt knew he wasn’t seeing her anymore. He wasn’t even in the same room.

Look at what you’ve made me do, Doctor. Look at what you’ve turned me into. A killer, a murderer, just like you
.

A memory surfaced. Something Matt remembered Nietzsche had written more than a hundred years ago, in
Beyond Good and Evil
. He had read passages from the book in his sophomore English class with Mr. Peterson. When his aunt saw the book on the kitchen table, she mentioned something about it as a possible explanation for what his father had become, and why he’d abandoned his wife and son. Now, as Matt gave Grace a long, hard look, he could remember the passage as if he had just read it with his aunt two minutes ago. It was all about fighting monsters and making sure that during the struggle the fighter didn’t become a monster himself.

If you gaze into the abyss for too long, the abyss is bound to gaze back into you.

The thought lingered. Matt looked back at Grace and could see his vision turned inward as he stood over the girl, the sweat dripping from his chin onto her soft breasts. He could see the expression on Grace’s face and guessed that he was staring into the looking glass, sifting through his memories, feeling the wrath as the abyss had its way with him.

He was putting it together, Matt thought. He was wrestling with all that had happened—the way things seemed and, in a split second, the way things really were. He was wrestling with the blowback—who he used to be and what he had become.

“You finally got your man, Grace.”

A beat went by. Then the lieutenant’s head swiveled to the left, until his zombie eyes came to rest on Matt. He spoke in a low, dangerous voice—a monster seething; a monster who would do anything to claw his way out of the hole and into the light.

“If you say one more word, Jones, I’m gonna put a bullet in your head.”

“And how would that look? How are you gonna sell any of this without admitting that you planted the box cutter in Ron Harris’s garage? How are you gonna get past the fact that there was no way Harris killed Millie Brown?”

Grace’s face swiveled back to the girl. Matt watched his eyes shut down. He looked like a dead man. A ghost with a spent soul—half here, half gone.

“You killed your partner to keep that secret, Grace. You pushed Leo off that parking garage and murdered him. It’s just like you said to Baylor’s corpse. You’ve murdered a lot of people to keep that secret. My best friend. His partner, Frankie Lane. A lot of innocent people. And what about Jamie Taladyne, the man you and Joey murdered tonight? I’ve got bad news for you, Grace. I called it in, and his alibi checked out. He was telling you the truth. He didn’t murder Faith Novakoff. He was in Mint Canyon at the time. There was never a copycat. Taladyne’s in the clear.”

“Yeah, he’s in the clear all right,” Orlando shouted. “Now shut the fuck up.”

Matt turned, expecting to block a kick. Instead, Orlando had his cell phone out and was making a call. After a few seconds he shut down the phone and flashed a worried look at Grace.

“He’s not picking up,” he said. “A night like this, and he’s not picking up. What the fuck’s his problem?”

Grace didn’t respond, still way too deep inside himself to care about a phone call. It suddenly occurred to Matt that Orlando had been trying to reach Plank. That they hadn’t been to Laura’s house, and Orlando didn’t know that his partner was dead. It made sense if they were coming from Matt’s house on the Westside. Laura’s place was east of Toluca Lake, while Baylor’s would have been on the way.

They had no idea that Plank’s story was over, his bullet-riddled body either still on the lawn or pulled into the brush by the coyotes.

Matt glanced at the .45 Orlando had stuffed behind his belt and the 9 mm Glock he was holding in his right hand. Then he turned back to Grace, whose pistol was holstered on the other side of his body. He wondered if he could make a move without being shot. He wondered if he could get to Orlando and strip the pistol out of his hand. By any measure, Orlando was a big man. All the same, Matt had a certain level of strength back and could feel the tide of adrenaline still rising.

He looked at the tools hanging from the rack over the counter. The shears were too far away. On the counter below, several sizes of plastic cable ties were stored in glass jars, along with a spool of heavy twine. When he checked beneath the worktable, he spotted what he needed on the shelf just six feet away. Beside the rows of empty clay pots, beside the bags of fertilizer and potting soil, the doctor kept his shovel.

He looked up at Grace, the lieutenant’s blank eyes still fixed on the girl. Then he began inching across the floor. Slowly. Imperceptibly.

“Just in case you’re interested, Grace. That’s Anna Marie Genet. She’s not dead, and she’s not dying. Baylor drugged her.”

Grace clenched his teeth. When he spoke, his voice was just above a whisper and still dangerous.

“Joey?”

“Yeah.”

“I want you to tie his wrists to the leg of that table.”

Orlando walked over to the counter and picked out the jar with the longest cable ties.

“Don’t use the ties,” Grace said. “They’ll leave a residue. Use the twine.”

Joey reached for the twine, then spotted the gardening shears and grabbed them, too. Matt looked at the shovel, just five feet away but now completely out of reach. Grace had drawn his pistol and was pointing it at him as he moved down the aisle and stopped at his feet. Then Orlando knelt down, grabbed Matt’s wrists with his mitt-sized hands, and started lashing them to the leg of the worktable.

Matt pushed him away, but all Orlando did was laugh at him, pull his hands back into position, and continue wrapping his wrists in twine. Matt turned to Grace.

“What are you trying to pull, Grace? Cabrera’s on his way. McKensie’s with him.”

Grace knelt down and went through Matt’s pockets. Tossing his keys and wallet aside, he scooped up his cigarettes and lighter. What struck Matt most was the change in Grace’s composure. He still had that wooden look and feel of a zombie. The glint in his eye was still dark and twisted. But the tremors were gone, and he had stopped sweating. When he lit the cigarette, his hand was rock steady. So was the hand holding the pistol.

“Did you hear me, Grace?” Matt repeated. “Cabrera and McKensie are on their way.”

“Stop fighting it, Jones. There’s no way out of this for you. Hughes’s wife? I assume that’s who we found tied up in the sunroom—she’s not gonna make it either. If Cabrera and McKensie wanna die, that’s okay with me, too. Dying’s easier when you’re not alone.”

Orlando tightened the knot, pinching Matt’s arm.

“What about ligature marks, Grace?”

The lieutenant took a hit on the smoke and exhaled. “There aren’t gonna be any ligature marks. I’m burning the place down tonight.”

Orlando traded looks with Grace, then tied his last knot and cut the twine with the shears. After tossing the shears on the counter, he gave Matt another brutal kick in the ribs.

“See you on the other side, Jones. Nice working with you.”

Matt tried to pull himself together. Grace had just given Orlando another knowing look and nod, sending Joey out of the greenhouse and upstairs. From the smirk on Grace’s face, Matt guessed that it had something to do with the gas jets he’d seen feeding the fireplace in the den and probably a stove in the kitchen. He thought about Grace’s plan and followed it through. His way out that would never work.

“You know what, Grace?” he said. “You can blame Baylor for everything you’ve done, but it’s a farce. You made the decisions. You crossed the line on your own. I think that you like killing, and that’s why you can’t stop. Look at you. It’s not what you’ve become. It’s who you are. It’s who Baylor was. Kindred spirits, rotten to the core.”

Grace looked in his direction, but Matt couldn’t tell if he was seeing him. “It’s the only way,” he whispered. “The only way, Jones.”

“What about Baylor? Even if he burns, they’ll figure out that he was shot in the autopsy. SID will find the bullet. They’ll match it to your gun.”

“Depends on how hot the fire burns. Don’t worry about it, Jones. I’ll file a report. You keep forgetting that you murdered Taladyne tonight, and that it’s your word against mine. You executed the guy for killing Hughes and Lane. You were wounded in a firefight with your supervising officer and two LAPD detectives. You were on the run. Me and Joey found you here, and I took a shot but hit Baylor by accident. It’s a shame, a real blow to the department and the investigation. Dr. Baylor was a good man, a man with a heart of gold, and an expert witness. I’ll always remember him that way. I’ll always think of him as someone I considered to be a true friend.”

Matt shook his head, then rolled onto his side to get a better look at Grace. “If Baylor was everything you’re gonna say he was, why did he help me?”

That sneer was back, Grace’s voice barely audible. “Because you had a gun, Jones. You forced him.”

“And what about Laura?”

“She was in it because she thought you got the guy who killed her husband. You were wounded. She drove you over here and held the gun on Baylor while he operated on you. He wanted to live. He had no choice.”

Matt chewed it over. Grace thought that he had figured a way to talk himself out of the maze. A way to survive an official review in spite of the flaws.

“It won’t work,” Matt said.

“But it has to.”

“Don’t you understand, Grace? Are you that far gone? Taladyne has been cleared. It’s not a secret between you and me. Everybody knows. The Sheriff’s Department cleared him over an hour ago. There’s no one left to blame except Baylor. There’s no reason to keep killing, Grace. You’ll never get away with it. No one will believe you. It’ll never work.”

“But it has to work,” he whispered. “And you have to die to make it work.”

Grace noticed Baylor’s closet in the hall, stepped on his cigarette, and walked out of the greenhouse. As he rifled through the shelves, Matt pulled his wrists against the leg of the table and tried sawing through the twine.

“It’s not over, Grace. Have you even thought about the girl in the body bag? She’s still alive.”

The lieutenant ripped open a carton that looked like it contained a dozen bottles of isopropyl alcohol. “Yes, she is, Jones. She’s still alive. I’ll have to come up with a way to change that.” He pulled out a bottle and vanished down the hall. “She can’t be found here, she can’t be allowed to talk—or, like you said, everyone will know. It’s no worry, really. No worry at all. I’ve always loved nighttime drives through the desert. Everything cools down and you’re far enough away from the city that the sky turns into a sea of stars.”

Grace was talking more to himself now, chattering away in circles. He came back into view, tossing the empty bottle onto the floor and grabbing two more. Matt could smell the alcohol in the air and guessed that he was dousing the carpet on the stairs.

He thought about Laura. If Grace and Orlando had seen her, then the sunroom really was at the base of the stairs. He kept trying to saw through the twine, but the edge of the leg was too smooth and dull. He looked around, the dread closing in on him. The shovel was out of reach. His eyes flicked into the hall as Grace dropped the empty bottles and grabbed two more, the smell of isopropyl alcohol heavier now. Matt gave the twine another try, then lowered his gaze and noticed that the screws securing the table to the tiled floor appeared rusty. After checking the hallway, he took a deep breath, reared back on his knees, and plowed his shoulder into the leg. It didn’t budge. The stainless steel table was locked down and too heavy. He tried again, this time thinking about Laura burning in the fire. Nothing happened, nothing moved—nothing would ever move. He could see Grace coming back for the rest of the alcohol. He could hear Orlando starting down the stairs. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he couldn’t see through the burn.

CHAPTER 50

The power shut down, the entire house went dark.

Matt could hear Orlando rushing down the stairs and shouting at Grace.

“We really need to get out of here,” he was saying. “Now, Grace. Now. I counted three fireplaces and the stove. The whole fucking place is gonna blow.”

“Grab the girl, Joey. I’m right behind you.”

Matt tried not to panic, wiping his eyes against his arm and letting them adjust to the darkness. The lights glimmering off the lake, along with a small patch of moonlight, were providing enough illumination that he could make out the shape of the table, Baylor’s corpse, and the French doors at the other end of the room.

Orlando hurried into the greenhouse, stepping over the doctor’s body and racing down to the girl. After giving Genet a good look, he picked up the body bag and tossed the girl over his shoulder. Matt turned back as Grace struck the lighter, took a deep pull on a cigarette, then tossed the butt onto the floor. As the alcohol ignited there was a whooshing sound, and the hallway bloomed in an eerie blue light. Then Grace ran into the greenhouse, down the aisle, and behind Orlando outside onto the terrace.

Matt checked the fire, his mind reeling in chaos—thoughts of Laura all mixed up with the sounds and images of gas jets hissing away until the house exploded into a fireball in the dark sky. He tried sawing through the twine—short, frantic strokes, the kind made in futility and desperation. Strand after strand of heavy twine rubbing against the leg of a table that had no real edge.

He turned and watched Grace and Orlando fleeing across the lawn and around a row of bushes into the side yard. They were getting away with it. They were getting away.

And then he heard the first gunshot.

He ripped at the twine—yanked at it—his eyes locked on the view through the open French doors. One gunshot after the next—deep, loud blasts—and muzzles flashing in the darkness. He could see Grace and Orlando hiding behind the wall as they returned fire. Cabrera and McKensie had found the death house on Toluca Lake Avenue, and from the number of gunshots and the sweet, thunderous sounds of rifles, they had brought help.