Lost Dog (A Gideon and Sirius Novel Book 3) (24 page)

“That’s kind of you,” I said, “but—”

“I really do hate seeing food go to waste. And I’ve got some nice meat for that dog of yours. He’s probably starving by now.”

“He probably is,” I said. “And I know he’d be nudging me now, telling me to accept your offer. So if you really don’t mind, I’ll happily take two doggie bags to go.”

CHAPTER 33

THE GREATEST HUNTER ON EARTH

Writer Anne Tyler once wrote about humans coming home from the store with various cuts of meat, and the reaction of Fido to the appearance of this bounty: “Dogs must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth,” she wrote.

By this time I think Sirius knows I’m not the greatest hunter on earth, but that didn’t stop him from offering me plenty of tail wagging at the food I brought home. Savannah Walker had been more than generous, filling containers with chicken, brisket, baked beans, potato salad, and corn muffins.

I cut up some of the chicken and brisket, mixed it with dry food, and then Sirius went to town. Then I made my own plate, nuked it, and had my late dinner. During the drive home, my stomach had awakened to the passage of time, and I was now hungry. Those who’d brought food to Savannah Walker had been making an offering of love to her and her late husband. As much as I enjoyed eating the food, the thought of it still left something of an aftertaste in my mouth. Had Langston Walker paid the ultimate price for my meal? I already owed him a dinner; now I owed him two. It was up to me to find a way to pay him back.

Before it got any later, I decided to make a call. I was fairly certain my contact was a single parent, and that his son would have school in the morning. Over the past two years, I’d spent a lot of time with Ellis Haines, more than was good for me. He’d caused a lot of upheaval in my own life, but that was nothing compared to what he’d done to the families and loved ones of his victims, like Art Epstein and his son Joel.

When Art answered his phone, I said, “Mr. Epstein, this is Michael Gideon. I hope I’m not calling too late.”

“No, of course not, Detective,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Something has been nagging at me,” I said. “Detective Walker and I met for dinner after the last 187 Club meeting, and he arrived about half an hour late. I’m wondering what delayed him. He apologized for being late and told me that he’d had to ‘put out a fire or two.’ I know my curiosity probably sounds silly, but I’m wondering if you know what fires he had to put out.”

“I wish I knew,” he said, “but I left as soon as you finished speaking. Joel had a sitter, and I didn’t want to keep her waiting.”

“I can certainly understand that,” I said, “and I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“It was no bother. And if you’d like, I’d be glad to find out why Langston was late for your dinner. I’m friends with a few of the more active club members. They might have stayed to put away chairs and help, so they’d know.”

“I don’t want to put you out.”

“I’d like to do it,” he said.

“I’d appreciate it, then. I’m trying to tie up a few loose ends, and that’s one of them.”

“Detective Walker and the other club members helped me get through a very tough time,” he said. “When I heard about Langston’s death, I thought about what a godsend he’d been for me. I wish I’d told him that.”

“A lot of people are wishing the same thing now,” I said.

Then I gave him my cell number, and he promised to get back to me.

The ghost was elusive. It didn’t pop out at me and say, “Boo!” It was lurking in the shadows.

I wanted to believe the Spook Town Compton Crips were Langston’s ghost, but the more I looked into the Ceballos case, the less likely I thought it was.

Danny Ruiz of the South Bureau’s Criminal Gang and Homicide Division had been the lead detective. I didn’t know Ruiz, but I knew people who knew him. Reading through Walker’s notes, I could see that he’d talked to Ruiz on multiple occasions. I decided to get in on the party line and called Ruiz’s cell. After identifying myself and apologizing for not calling during office hours, I explained that I was following up on the late Detective Walker’s inquiries into the Ceballos homicide.

Ruiz didn’t hide his annoyance. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “The case is what it is. We think we made our case. The DA still wants more. Barring a confession, and I’m not holding my breath on that one, we’re stalled.”

In L.A., more than two-thirds of homicides are gang related. Even if it’s one of your own who’s been killed, the rule is you don’t talk to cops.

“I’m curious about Catalina Ceballos,” I said. “According to what I’ve read, she insisted her husband wasn’t a member of a gang, and also doubted that he dealt drugs.”

“That’s because Carlos didn’t want to tell his new bride things that might upset her,” said Ruiz. “And while it’s true he wasn’t an active gang member, he was an occasional dealer. Even Mrs. Ceballos has come to reluctantly accept that fact.”

“Mrs. Ceballos says that she has been threatened by the Crips for continuing to press for an investigation. She fears that she and her family are being targeted.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. But the gang knows we’d be all over them if they attempted any retaliation.”

“Do you know if gang members threatened Detective Walker?”

Ruiz offered a disdainful laugh. “Cockroaches run from light, and so do gangbangers.”

It was the reaction I expected, but it was still disappointing. Gangs operated on their own turf and generally didn’t stray. The idea that a gang would ambush a retired cop on a rugged trail far from their haunts was far-fetched.

I had a few follow-up questions for Ruiz, then thanked him for his cooperation. He clicked off without saying good-bye.

For the moment I decided to put aside the Ceballos case; that made Walker’s 187 Club folder noticeably thinner. There were still four other cases to look at, though. Maybe Langston Walker’s ghost would still surface.

I read through the paperwork, paying particular attention to the police reports in the 187 folder. Why had Walker picked those five cases? From what I could determine, there were some 150 members of the 187 Club. In any given month, roughly a third of the membership showed up to the monthly meeting.

Walker could have had 150 cases in his folder, but he only had five. I cross-indexed the cases with the club members associated with them; all were loved ones of the victims. It was unclear if there was something about these particular cases that Walker didn’t like. Maybe the loved ones, like Catalina Ceballos, had asked him to look into the homicides. I would have to contact them to find out if that was so.

There didn’t seem to be any common denominator in any of the cases. All of them had ostensibly been solved, although three of them were “cleared others.” I wondered if Walker had earmarked those cases because of that designation. The victims were black, Hispanic, and white. The murders had taken place in Carson, Hawthorne, Central L.A., Southeast L.A. (the outskirts of Compton), and Fairfax. Two of the victims had been shot, one had been stabbed, one had died of blunt-force trauma, and one had been hit by a car. Gang violence was suspected in two deaths; the other three involved a drug deal gone wrong, a bicyclist hit while riding, and the murder of a transgender female caught in a love triangle.

Write-ups in the
Los Angeles Times
detailed the deaths. Every year the paper puts out what it calls “The Homicide Report,” providing a story for every victim. I thought about the old chestnut:
What is black and white and read all over?
In these cases it might be more accurate to say they were red all over.

Earlier in the day I’d looked at a map marked by five different
X
s, but unfortunately these cases didn’t correspond to the locations on the map. The only potential map match was Andrea Rhodes, who’d been killed on her bicycle by a hit-and-run driver in central L.A. I remembered Walker’s handwritten reference to a “comfortable street,” and wondered if that could have any relevance to her death. The car that hit Rhodes had been registered to Donald Warren of Culver City. According to Warren, he didn’t remember driving that night, but Warren was no stranger to blackouts. Over the years he’d had three DUI convictions and was an admitted alcoholic. Even cirrhosis of the liver hadn’t stopped him from drinking, and apparently driving. It was that disease that killed him four months after his arrest. The case had never gone to court; Warren’s timely death had spared taxpayers that expense. Because of that, the case was a “cleared other.”

Sirius had been patiently waiting for me to finish working for hours. Dogs are great about overlooking the shortcomings of their humans. I had kept him waiting for his dinner, and then had kept him waiting for his walk.

“Go get me the leash,” I told him.

Sirius ran off to get his leash. Our use of the leash is infrequent, but for the sake of appearances, Sirius is willing to walk around with it in his mouth. Some people are scared to see a dog off-leash, and aren’t assured that Sirius is a trained police dog. When that occurs, Sirius hands me his drool-laden leash and happily lets me buckle him up.

My partner deserved a long walk, and I gave him one. We took the roundabout way to the local park, and Sirius caught up on the day’s news. I thought about Angie and tried to keep my blood from boiling. In a day or two she’d be coming home to us. I hoped her stay wouldn’t be permanent. It wasn’t only a selfish wish; it was a wish for the safe return of Heather Moreland.

On the bell lap to our house, familiar headlights came sweeping our way and caught us in their beams. Seth was returning home in his Jaguar, which had the personalized license plate SHAMAN.

He rolled down his window. Sirius ran over, braced his front legs in the open window slot above the driver’s door, and managed to give Seth a kiss. It was a neat trick considering that he still had his leash in his mouth.

“Working late?” I asked.

“Weekend retreat,” he said. “What about you?”

“Long day,” I said.

“Up for a nightcap?”

“What took you so long to ask?”

CHAPTER 34

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

He called himself
Kurios
, which was the ancient Greek word for “master” or “lord.” He was Curious Kurios. She still resisted calling him “Lord,” but he was bending her to his will. Unfortunately, the two of them would not have as much time together as he had hoped. Kurios couldn’t take any chances, and as unlikely as it was that he’d be found out, it was best to be safe.

If everything had gone as planned the night before, he would have had more time to play with her. Mindful of cameras, he had parked half a mile from the house, but as soon as he exited his car, that damn dog had known he was there. The closer he’d gotten, the more the dog had barked. And when he’d neared the fence, the dog had gone crazy. Other dogs would have bolted down those chunks of meat he’d tossed over the fence, but not her. She’d wanted to bite
him
into chunks of meat. That fucking dog had almost managed to vault over the fence. Even when he’d gotten a stranglehold on her, she’d thrashed and fought and kept resisting.

He’d planned to kill the dog on the same night he took his slave. He’d brought along pepper spray that was supposed to be so toxic as to drive off grizzly bears, along with his twenty-million-volt stun gun. He planned to disable the dog, then inject it with enough ketamine to put her to sleep permanently. Both bitches were supposed to have gotten the ketamine, but he’d only had the opportunity to dose one of them.

The loose end of the dog bothered him. His slave’s absence should have gone unnoticed for days, but the dog had gotten the cop involved. It was a good thing he’d noticed the tracker the bitch had tried hiding in her nightie. After all his planning, that one slipup had almost done him in. That’s why he couldn’t be too cautious. And that’s why he would need to dispatch her much sooner than he’d planned. Get rid of the evidence, just like he’d gotten rid of the tracker.

Kurios wished he could have seen the cop’s expression at the end of that wild-goose chase. He wondered if the cop could appreciate the thought behind where he’d taken him. It was unlikely, of course. The cop was cunning in his own way, but he was still a troglodyte. While the cop thought he was being so smart, Kurios had managed to turn the tables on him. He’d planted a much better tracker in the cop’s car. It was the cop who’d taken him to Angie, even though he didn’t know it.

At the moment, the tracker told him the cop was home. No doubt he was sleeping.

Kurios wasn’t ready to sleep. Not yet. Tonight he had a few special prizes in store.

The entrance to the bomb shelter was hidden by a large garden shed in his backyard. The shelter had been built in 1962 at the height of the Cold War. The builder had spared no expense trying to escape the imminent nuclear fallout. The shelter went deeper underground than most. And the bunker had been built with ample insulation.

While it wouldn’t have deterred radiation, it was perfect for silencing screams. Kurios had done all sorts of tests before getting his slave. Aboveground no one could hear what was going on down there.

Down there.
He liked the sound of that. And he liked going down there to his own Eva Braun. It was a great dungeon for fucking. Kurios had known it would be. For the longest time he’d had to imagine how it would be. But now he knew.

Kurios unlocked the entrance to the fallout shelter, lowered the ladder, and began his descent down. Normally he liked to observe her through his closed-circuit television system, but not tonight. There was much to do.

He decided to announce himself before she was able to see him. Now what was that line? Oh, yes. It was a song his slut mother used to sing.

“Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors,” he said, speaking the words more than singing them.

The acoustics in the bunker were exceptional. You could hear a pin drop. And the sound quality of screams really couldn’t be improved upon.

Kurios put on a mask. He hadn’t yet decided whether or not to let her look upon his face before she died. It wasn’t just that he was being cautious. The masks he wore allowed him a sense of freedom. He could be whatever monster he chose.

Tonight he was Frankenstein.

The slave tried to hide her fright, but he could read it on her, smell it on her. She stunk up the room. She smelled of waste, and his unwashed spilled seed.

“I brought you a present,” Kurios said.

And then he showed her what he was holding in his hand. At first she didn’t understand. He moved closer to her cage and tossed her what looked like a swatch of fabric. She bent down to look at it, and then realized what she was seeing.

Her expression of horror and revulsion made Kurios hard.

“No,” she whispered.

“Tomorrow I’ll bring you her heart,” he said.

“No!” she cried. Tears streamed down her face. “Don’t hurt her,” she begged. “She’s already had too much pain in her life.”

“I won’t hurt her,” said Kurios. “I can’t hurt her. She’s already dead.”

He watched as his slave’s face began to melt. That’s what it looked like. It was almost as if he’d put a match to wax.

He showed her the other thing he was holding. “I used this to take her ear.”

In the gloom of the room, the razor-edge of the box cutter stood out. He lowered the box cutter to the cement floor, and then kicked it inside her cage.

“A word of advice,” said Kurios. “Don’t cut your wrists horizontally. That’s an amateur mistake. You want to make multiple vertical cuts. That will do the job.”