City of Echoes (3 page)

Matt glanced at the investigator from the coroner’s office and nodded. He had met Ed Gainer a year ago when a drug deal ended in a shoot-out on Main Street in Venice. The shooting had occurred on a Sunday afternoon, when both the streets and beach were wall-to-wall people. Innocent people mixed with gang trash. Gainer’s calm demeanor had rubbed off on everyone as they searched for the wounded and covered ten people who were dead.

Matt turned back to the corpse in the body bag, trying to see through the coating of blood and shattered glass. The lines of the victim’s face and nose. Zeroing in on the left hand, he began searching for a wedding band that Cabrera had already told him would not be there. The joint in the victim’s fourth finger appeared broken, as if the ring had been yanked off with force. He looked back at the gunshot wound on the inside of the victim’s left forearm, calculating the odds of pulling into a parking lot and meeting the three-piece bandit on the night the robber decided to become the world’s next killer.

“You find a weapon?” he said, still thinking it through.

Cabrera shook his head. “On the victim? No. Why?”

“What about the shell casings on the ground? They stood out. They seemed long.”

“Ten-millimeter Auto rounds. Fifteen of them.”

Another memory surfaced. Matt had been reading a brochure about a Glock 20 just a few days ago. The pistol fired 10 mm Auto cartridges and had a magazine capacity of fifteen rounds. The manufacturer had described the semiautomatic as the perfect weapon to deliver a safe and accurate finishing shot when hunting big game, the 10 mm Auto rounds providing maximum ballistic performance and maximum penetrative power. The ultimate force.

The kill after the stickup had been made with a Glock 20, a virtual cannon. One shot would have been enough. This asshole had used all fifteen.

Matt gripped the stretcher to steady himself as it sunk in, his voice barely audible. “You need to call Glendale PD, Denny. Tell them to turn around. They can take the live-in girlfriend home.”

Cabrera looked back in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t her boyfriend.”

“How could you possibly tell?”

Matt turned to the victim’s face, still trying to see through the horror and form a clear picture, still trying to look back in time.

“Because I know him,” he said finally. “We were meeting here for dinner tonight.”

“You know who this is? The guy drives a black SUV?”

Matt shook his head. “He drives a silver Escalade. This must be a loaner.”

“A loaner? How can you be sure? Look at him, Matt. How could anyone be sure?”

Matt tightened his grip on the stretcher and met his partner’s eyes. “His phone, Denny. The knockout punch. The text on his phone came from me. He’s a cop. He’s a detective from North Hollywood. We were friends. His name’s Kevin Hughes. He wore a watch and a gold wedding band. He carried a wallet and a gun. And now the asshole who did this to him has everything, including his ID and an LAPD badge.”

Cabrera switched off the flashlight. A long moment passed, and no one moved. Somehow Matt had managed to say what he needed to say.

He took a last look at his friend, buried in the darkness of that body bag. Then he turned and walked away, hoping he wouldn’t trip or fall down as he heard someone zip up the bag. He could feel a certain weight on his back again. A prickling sensation between his shoulder blades. Either everyone was staring at him, or it was the mix of juice and terror and now despair, that odd combination that felt so hideous tonight. So rotten. He wiped his eyes and brushed his fingers over his cheeks—he didn’t want to lose it in front of everyone. As he tried to pull himself together, he saw a man leaning against the fence. It was Hughes’s partner, Frankie Lane, staring at him as if the world had just stopped spinning and tumbled through a black hole. Frankie was supposed to have joined them for a couple of beers, maybe stay for dinner if he could.

Their eyes met. Matt nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly, then watched Frankie wilt onto the fence.

Welcome to Hollywood Homicide.

CHAPTER 4

It wasn’t very big, but it was beautiful: a two-story Mediterranean off West Kenneth Road in Glendale. The grounds were heavily landscaped, the gardens, stepping down the hill to a small pool and spa in the backyard, more than just lush. Over the rear wall was a picture-perfect view of both Glendale and downtown Los Angeles, a view that had become lost in the trees and forgotten by the original owner, who sold the house cheap before his bank could steal it away and foreclose.

Matt couldn’t see any of this because it was 3:00 a.m. and he was still sitting in his car. He’d been parked across the street for the better part of an hour, sipping coffee and chewing nicotine gum while trying to decide how to go about the impossible task of walking up to that house and ringing the doorbell.

Matt had never made a next-of-kin notification before, yet he had a feeling that this one wouldn’t require many words. He was wearing the news on his face. On his person. One look and Hughes’s wife, Laura, would know.

During the course of the night, any doubt as to the identity of the murder victim had been lifted. By 10:00 p.m. the manager from the GM dealership had been located at a bar in Eagle Rock. By 10:30 they had the name of the customer who had been given the black SUV as a loaner while his Escalade was being serviced. An hour later a tech from SID called from the lab to say he had brought the cell phone back to life.

Matt glanced at his watch. Seconds had ticked by, not minutes, and it was still 3:00 a.m.

He took another sip of coffee and looked back at the house. Except for a small table lamp burning in the foyer by the front door, every window in the place was dark, peaceful, and at rest.

Hughes had been more than a friend to him. More, even, than a mentor. After their tour of duty in Afghanistan, it had been Hughes who convinced Matt to write off his troubles by leaving the East Coast and moving to Los Angeles. It had been Hughes who took him under his wing and brought him into the department. Matt’s aunt had died six months before he enlisted. He could remember Hughes telling him that there was no longer a good reason to live in New Jersey. It was time to begin what he called
the forgetting process
. LA was a city of distraction that ran 24/7. Any bad dreams he might still be carrying from his childhood, any losses, any monkeys still clinging to his back would be wiped out by the bright sunlight and what they’d just been through overseas.

Matt got out of the car, his jaw muscles twitching. He took a step toward the house and then another, struggling to dampen his mind. He could hear a small pack of coyotes yipping and howling further up the hill as he reached the walkway. The kitelike sound of the wind blowing through the palm trees in the dark sky above. As he climbed the front steps, he took a quick glimpse through the window and saw a note on the table by the lamp. The note had been left for Hughes by his wife, and seeing it felt like a flock of blackbirds had just flown through his soul.

He turned away, staring at the illuminated doorbell for a long time. Then he finally pressed the button and listened to the chimes invading the serenity of the house. A lamp on the second floor switched on, its light spilling onto the front lawn. Looking through the window again, he waited to see Laura walk down the staircase. When several minutes passed and nothing happened, he rang the bell again and moved closer to the window so that she would be able to see his face from the landing.

More time passed, nervous beats in the center of his chest followed by quick breaths. The hallway on the second floor remained dark. Matt thought it over. It was the dead of night. She wasn’t going to answer the door.

He pulled out his phone, found Hughes’s home number, and hit Call. Laura picked up on the first ring and sounded frightened.

“There’s someone at the front door,” she said. “There’s someone trying to get into the house.”

Matt paused a moment. What came next was inevitable.

“It’s not a burglar,” he said. “It’s me, Laura. I just rang your doorbell.”

“What are you doing here? Where’s Kevin? Why isn’t he answering his cell phone?”

Inevitable.

“Come downstairs and open the door, Laura. We need to talk.”

Inevitable.

He could hear the change. The sudden short gasp. The quick flash of dread.

“Oh, God. Oh my God.”

He slipped the phone into his pocket and took a step back. He tried to keep cool, but he could hear her shrieking through the door as she raced downstairs and fumbled with the locks. When the door finally opened, their eyes met, but only briefly before she pulled him inside and buried her head in his chest. Her cries came from a place where nothing was left. Deep and dark and all the way through. She kept repeating words that were difficult to understand. Eventually, Matt realized that she was begging him to say that Kevin wasn’t really dead. That the man she loved could be brought back.

He led her into the kitchen. After hitting the light switch with his elbow, he guided her over to the breakfast table and eased her into a chair. When she looked up at him, she seemed so helpless, so wounded, that he couldn’t hold the gaze.

“What happened, Matt? Tell me. You were meeting for dinner. Your new job. It was supposed to be a celebration.”

“You want a drink? A cup of coffee?”

She shook her head and wiped her cheeks, her soft voice breaking up. “Tell me what happened to Kevin. Tell me what happened.”

Matt spotted a box of tissues on the counter by the sink. As he reached for it, he noticed a pregnancy test kit on the windowsill and thought he might lose it.

“I don’t know, Laura,” he said. “We think he was shot during a holdup.”

She cocked her head, as if she didn’t understand. “For money?”

Her voice was so faint. Matt nodded and sat down beside her, watching her struggle to put it together.

“But Kevin never carried a lot of cash,” she said.

“Is there anyone I can call? Anyone who could come over and be with you?”

“He never carried a lot of cash,” she repeated quietly.

Her dirty blond hair was tangled from sleep, her deep blue eyes wet as rain. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cotton pajama bottoms with images of flowers and rainbows and pots of gold. Matt thought about that test kit on the windowsill and wondered if she was pregnant. He wished he hadn’t seen it.

“Do you know who did it?” she managed.

“We think so,” he said in a gentle voice. “But he’s never shot anyone before.”

“Someone saw him?”

Matt shook his head. “It’s early. We’re still working on it.”

Laura closed her eyes and started weeping again. After several moments she began to speak as if she were alone in the room.

“I was so worried about him . . . so worried . . . while he was away . . . I waited and worried . . . I watched the news every night and had nightmares that he wasn’t gonna come home . . . that I’d never see him again . . . when I woke up, I felt guilty for having them, but I couldn’t make them stop.” She opened her eyes, still looking inward. “And then he comes home . . . Kevin comes back to me, and it happens here . . . it happens here . . . for his money . . . his cash . . .”

Her voice died off. Matt didn’t say anything. He couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t get past the image of his friend buried in the dark hole of that body bag. He couldn’t turn off the memory or wrestle it to the ground. The blood. The shattered glass. A bag of human flesh with no form.

He felt his cell phone in his pocket. He wasn’t sure how long it had been vibrating. After a while he pulled it out, glanced at the name on the display without really seeing it, but took the call.

“What is it?” he said quietly.

“What’s wrong with your voice, Jones?”

It was his supervisor, Lieutenant Bob Grace. Matt sat up and tried to pull himself together, but together still seemed a long way off tonight.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he said. “I didn’t know it was you.”

Grace hesitated for a moment. “Where are you?”

“At the house with his wife.”

“Why is it taking so long?”

Matt walked over to the sink and gazed out the window at the gardens and pool. “What is it? Why did you call me?”

“You need to wrap it up, Matt. You need to come back in as soon as you can.”

He turned to check on Laura. She was still inside herself and didn’t appear to notice that he was even on the phone. Her lips were quivering. She was talking to herself again, only this time in utter silence. He thought she might need a doctor.

Matt turned back to the window and lowered his voice. “Did something happen, Lieutenant?”

“We’ll talk about it when you get here. I’m waiting with Cabrera in my office. Do your best for her, but get back here as soon as you can.”

Matt started to say something, then stopped when he heard the phone click and realized that Grace had hung up.

CHAPTER 5

He’d left her in ruin . . . but with the promise that he would come back as soon as he could. He had been straight with her—in all likelihood he wouldn’t return for a while. He could remember her giving him the nod, like she’d heard him. She had found his eyes and met them like she understood. Still, he had felt uneasy about leaving her alone because he wasn’t sure. In the end he’d called her neighbor, a woman Laura told him she liked and was becoming a friend.

Matt made the turn onto Pacific Avenue, gunning it down the hill toward the 134 Freeway. He spotted a cop hiding in the lot at the Jack in the Box, so he slowed down until he passed the next traffic light, then clicked through the six-speed manual transmission and rocketed up the ramp. The transition to the Golden State Freeway was just ahead. At 4:00 a.m. traffic would be light and he could circle Griffith Park and reach the Hollywood station in less than fifteen minutes. He was driving a metallic gray Honda coupe. The car was fast but light, and at ninety miles an hour he could feel the wind beating against the windshield and trying to crash through.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, settling into the seat and wondering why Cabrera and Grace were waiting for him. Over the five hours that Matt had remained at the crime scene, no one had come forward. Not even the parking attendant could shed any light on what had happened. It was a cold night, the old man had told them. He went inside the restaurant for a cup of coffee and was away from his booth for ten to fifteen minutes.