L a Requiem (1999) (8 page)

John said, "What are you looking for?"

The man didn't answer, just patiently turned up leaves and twigs, and lifted the ivy.

John took one step closer and the man raised a finger, the ringer saying: Don't.

John froze.

The man continued looking, his search area growing, and John never moved. He stood frozen there, wondering if maybe he should shout for help, sourly thinking that those two up in the radio car were so busy huffing and puffing that they'd never hear his cries.

The man said, "Your evidence kit."

John picked up his evidence kit and started forward.

The man raised the finger again, then pointed out a long half-moon route off the trail. "That way."

John crashed through the low brush where the man told him, ripping his pants in two places and picking up a ton of little scratches that pissed him off, but when he arrived, the man said, "Here."

A brass .22 casing was resting under an olive leaf.

John said, "Holy jumpin' Jesus." He stared at the man, who seemed to be staring back, though John couldn't tell for sure because of the dark glasses. "How'd you find this?"

"Mark it."

The man went back to the trail, this time squatting. John jammed a wire into the ground by the casing, then hurried to join him. The man pointed. "Look. Here to the side."

John looked, but saw nothing. "What?"

"Shoe." The man pointed closer. "Here."

John saw little bits and pieces of many prints, but couldn't imagine what this guy was talking about. "I don't see anything."

The man didn't say anything for a moment.

"Lean close, John. Use the sun. Let the light catch it, and you'll see the depression. A three-quarter print." His voice was infinitely patient, and John was thankful for that.

John rested with his belly in the brush alongside the trail, and looked for the longest time where the man pointed. He was just about to admit that he couldn't see a goddamned thing when he finally saw it: Three-quarters of a print, partially obscured by a runner's shoe print, and so shallow on the hard edge of the trail that it couldn't have been more than three grains of dust deep. It appeared to have been made by a casual dress shoe of some kind, like that worn by a cop, but maybe not.

John said, "The shooter?"

"It's pointing in the right direction. It's where the shooter had to be."

John glanced back toward the shell casing. "So you figured an automatic? That's why you looked over there?" An automatic would eject to the right, and would toss a .22 casing about four feet. Then John thought of something and squinted at the man. "But what if the guy had used a revolver? A revolver wouldn't leave anything behind."

"Then I wouldn't have found anything." The man cocked his head almost as if he was amused. "All the people around, and no one heard it. Can't silence a revolver, John."

John felt a blush creeping up his face again. "I know that."

The man moved along the trail, dropping into his push-up position every few feet before rising and moving on. John thought that now would be an ideal time to run for the two uniforms, but instead jammed a wire into the ground to mark the print, and followed the man to a stand of leafy scrub sumac at the edge of the little clearing just up the trail. The man circled the trees, first one way, then another, twice bending low to the ground.

"He waited here until he saw her."

John moved closer, careful to stay behind the man, and, sure enough, there were three perfect prints in the hard dirt that appeared to match the partial by the shell casing. As before, the prints were slight, and damn near invisible even after the man pointed them out, but John was getting better at this.

By the time John had taken it all in, the man was moving again. John hurried to wire the site before hustling to catch up.

They came to the chain-link fence that paralleled the road, and stopped at the gate. John guessed that the paved road would be as far as they could go, but the man stared across the road as if the slope on the other side was speaking to him. The radio car was to their left at the curve, but judging by the way the two cops were wrestling around in the back seat, they wouldn't notice an atom bomb going off behind them. Sluts.

The man looked up at the ridge. Off to their left were houses; to their right, nothing. The man's gaze went to a little stand of jacaranda trees at the edge of the road to their right, and then he was crossing and John was following.

John said, "You think he crossed there?"

The man didn't answer. Okay. He wasn't talkative. John could live with that.

The man searched the slope in front of the jacarandas and found something that made his mouth twitch.

John said, "What? C'mon?"

The man pointed to a small fan of loose dirt that had tumbled onto the shoulder of the road. "Hid behind the trees until people passed, then went through the gate."

"Cool." John Chen was liking this. Big time.

They climbed the slope, the shooter's prints now pronounced in the loose soil of the side hill. They worked their way to the ridgeline, then went over the top to a fire road. John hadn't even known that a fire road was up here.

He said, "I'll be damned."

The man followed the fire road about thirty yards before he stopped and stared at nothing again. John waited, biting the inside of his mouth rather than again asking what the man was looking at.

But finally he couldn't stand it and said, "What, for chrissake?"

"Car." The man pointed. "Parked here." Pointed again. "Coolant or oil drips here. Tire tread there."

John was already marking the spots with wire.

The man said, "Off-road tread. Long wheelbase."

"Off-road? Like a Jeep?"

"Like that."

John wrote notes as fast as he could, thinking that he'd have to call his office for the things he'd need to take a tire impression.

"He parked here because he's been here before. He knew where he was going."

"You think he knew her?"

The man looked at John Chen then, and Chen reflexively stepped back. He didn't know why.

"Looked to be about a size-ten shoe, didn't it, John?"

"Uh-huh."

"Pretty deep on the hard pack, which makes him heavier than he should be." Pretty deep. Three grains of dust. "You can use the shoe size and his weight to build a body type. An impression of the shoe print will give you the brand of shoe."

"I know." John was annoyed. Maybe John wouldn't have found any of this evidence on his own, but he wasn't an idiot.

"Take an impression of the tires. Identify the size and brand. From that, you get a list of makes."

"I know."

The man stared down at the lake now, and John wondered what could be going on behind those dark glasses.

"You one of the detectives from downtown?"

The man didn't answer.

"Well, you gotta tell me your name and badge number for the report."

The man angled the glasses back at him. "If you tell them this came from me, they'll discount it."

John Chen blinked at him. "But... what do I tell them about all this?"

"I was never here, John. What does that leave?"

"/turned the evidence?"

"If you'll play it that way."

"Yeah. Well, sure. You bet." His palms were damp with excitement. He felt his heart speed.

"Get the make of the tires and the list of cars. I'm going to call you. There won't be a problem with that, will there, John?"

"No, sir." Automatic.

The man stared at him for a time, and then said something that John Chen would recall from time to time for the rest of his life, and wonder what the man had meant, and why he had said it. "Never turn your back on love, John."

The man slipped downhill through the brush, gone almost before Chen knew he was leaving.

John Chen slowly broke into a huge white smile, and then he was running, crashing down through the brush, tripping, stumbling, rolling once, then coming to his feet as he ran past the radio car to his SID van as fast as he could, yelling for those horny fuckers to knock off the lip lock.

Suddenly, advancement seemed a lot closer.

Suddenly, the 'tang-mobile was already parked in his garage.

Coming out a second day had paid off after all.

Chapter 8

Parker Center is an eight-story white building in downtown L.A., just a few blocks from the Los Angeles Times and two dozen bars. The bars are small, and see most of the cop business after the shift changes; their reporter business is steady throughout the day. Letters on the side of Parker Center say POLICE DEPARTMENT -- CITY OF LOS ANGELES, but the letters are small, and the sign is obscured by three skinny palm trees like maybe they're embarrassed.

The lobby guard gave me a visitor pass to clip to my lapel, phoned up to Robbery-Homicide, and four minutes later the elevator doors opened. Stan Watts peered out at me like I was eye boogers.

"Hey, Stan. How's it going?"

Watts ignored me.

"Look, no reason for us to get off on the wrong foot."

He pushed the button for the fifth floor.

When we got up there, he led me to a large, brightly lit room, centered on a long rectangle of cubicles occupied by men with at least fifteen years behind a gold shield. Most were on phones, some were typing, and damned near everyone looked at home in the job. Krantz was talking with an overweight guy by the Mr. Coffee. Williams was leaning against a desk, laughing about something. You'd never think that twelve hours ago they were swatting blowflies off a dead girl.

Krantz frowned when he saw me, and yelled, "Dolan! Your boy is here."

The only woman at the table was sitting by herself at the corner desk, scribbling on a yellow legal pad. She slid the pad into her desk when Krantz called, locked the drawer, and stood. She was tall, and looked strong, the way a woman who rowed crew or worked with horses might be strong. Other women worked the room, but you could tell from how they carried themselves that they weren't detectives. She was it. Guess if I were her, I'd lock my desk, too.

Dolan glared at Krantz as if he were a walking Pap smear, and glared at me even harder.

When she came over, Krantz said, "Dolan, this is Cole. Cole, this is Samantha Dolan. You're with her."

Samantha Dolan was wearing a stylish gray pants suit with a cameo brooch and dark blond hair that was cut short without being mannish. I made her for her early forties, but she might've been younger. When Krantz said the name, I recognized her at once from the stories and interviews and dozens of times that I'd seen her on TV

I said, "Pleased to meet you, Dolan. I enjoyed your series."

Six years ago, CBS had made a television series about her based on a case in which she'd almost been killed apprehending a serial rapist. The series had lasted half a season and wasn't very good, but for a short period of time it had made her the most famous Los Angeles police officer since Joe Wambaugh. An article about her in the Times had focused on her case clearance rate, which was the highest ever by a woman, and the third highest in department history. I remembered being impressed. But then it dawned on me that I hadn't heard of her since.

Samantha Dolan's frown turned into a scowl. "You liked that TV series they made about me?"

I gave her the friendly smile. "Yeah."

"It sucked."

I can always tell when they like me.

Krantz checked his watch. "We'll brief you in the conference room so this doesn't waste anybody else's time. Think about that, Cole. Right now the murderer could be getting away because one of our detectives is thinking about you instead of following up a lead."

"You're a pip, Krantz."

"Yeah. Get him down there, Dolan. I'll be along in a minute."

Dolan led me to a small conference room where Watts and Williams were waiting, along with a tall thin detective named Bruly and a Hispanic detective named Salerno. Bruly whispered something to Salerno when we walked in, and Salerno smiled. Dolan took a seat without introducing me, or saying anything to the others. Maybe she didn't like them, either.

Williams said, "This is Elvis Cole. He represents the family. He gets to keep an eye on us in case we fuck up."

"I've already told'm about you, Williams." I thought I might win them over with clever repartee.

Salerno grinned. "You catch a lot of grief with that name?"

"What, Cole?"

Salerno laughed. You see about the repartee?

Krantz steamed in with a mug of coffee and a clipboard. "You people want to keep wasting time, or you want to knock off the bullshit?"

Salerno stopped smiling.

Krantz had some of the coffee as he read over the clipboard, then said, "Here's what we have: Karen Garcia was murdered at approximately ten A.M. Saturday morning by an unknown assailant or assailants at the Lake Hollywood Reservoir. We have recovered and impounded her car, which was located in a parking lot on Barham Boulevard. We believe the perpetrator fired one shot from a small-bore pistol at close range. Her body was discovered by two hikers the following day. We have their initial interviews in hand. We are also questioning other people known to have been at the lake on Saturday, or who live nearby, as well as people associated with the victim. Detectives from Rampart, Hollywood, West L.A., and Wilshire divisions are assisting in this effort. We have no suspects at this time." Krantz sounded like Jack Webb.