Murder Season (12 page)

His house, his money, his retirement—everything he owned except for the car went through the greed machine on Wall Street. When it came out the other side, the big shots had moved to Easy City on the money they’d stolen while Cobb was sent back to the world of zeroes. He could see himself in his later years, his body hunched over, his knees locked up with bone chips, the arthritis already in his shoulders taking siege all over him. He could see himself working the door at Walmart with a smiley face pinned to his apron, nodding and waving at every shithead who grabbed a cart.

The stupid bitch started moving.

He must have blanked out. He hadn’t seen her get into the car.

She pulled out of the lot and made a right, heading east on Culver toward the 405 Freeway. Cobb swung his Lincoln around the building, counted to five, then eased onto the street. Traffic was lighter than usual—the Crown Vic visible one block up. He changed lanes, anticipating that she would drive north to catch the Santa Monica Freeway for the return trip downtown. But as he settled into his seat, Gamble hit the entrance ramp heading south toward the 105 and picked up speed.

He spotted her one lane over as he hit the ramp and slid onto the freeway. Weaving through a long line of trucks and SUVs, she was hard to keep up with. He pushed the accelerator into the floor, launching the Lincoln forward and slipping in behind a F-150 pickup that provided good cover. When she exited onto the 105 heading east, he slowed down some and followed her onto the ramp.

The ride on the 105 didn’t last long enough for Cobb to think about what he was doing. Within minutes they were back on surface streets, breezing past the airport in Hawthorne. Cobb glanced at the warehouses and small factories, but kept his eyes on Gamble hidden behind the darkened glass in her Crown Vic.

It seemed obvious that she was in a hurry to get somewhere. And
somewhere
wasn’t anywhere near Parker Center or downtown.

She made a right turn at the corner, then another at the end of the block. Cobb began to wonder if she hadn’t spotted him. A series of three right turns was standard operating procedure for anyone who suspected that they were being followed. Cobb could remember his instructor at the Academy grilling him on it as if it were yesterday.

Three right turns with three mirror checks. If you still see the son of a bitch back there, then it’s decision time. You need to get your ass in gear.

Instant Karma.

But Gamble’s third right turn never happened. Instead, she pulled down an alley and stopped in the rear lot of a nondescript building surrounded by razor wire and a twenty-foot security fence.

Cobb cruised past the alley to the end of the block, turned back, and found a decent place to stop. Through the buildings, he could see her getting out of the car and shaking someone’s hand. The guy seemed happy to see her. And he was an odd-looking guy, way too young to have white hair—probably a dye job from one of those places on Melrose.

Cobb flipped open his glove box and reached for the Tylenol. After dry-swallowing two caplets, he grabbed his binoculars and adjusted the focus. Behind Gamble he could see a double set of extra-wide bay doors. A small sign on the wall read
SAMY, INC.,
but gave no indication of what kind of business it was.

At first glance, it looked like some sort of garage or auto repair shop. But as Cobb considered its location, the place was hard to find, didn’t offer a street entrance, and was surrounded by warehouses.

He took another look through the binoculars, steadying the image with his elbows pressed against the door. Gamble and the man with white hair were walking toward an Acura TSX parked in front of the loading dock. The car looked mint, a metallic version of gun-metal gray, but Cobb knew from the body style that the vehicle was two years old. He didn’t see any plates. When he spotted them on a black 911 Carrera parked by the entryway—the only other car he saw in the lot—he wrote down the number and pulled out his phone.

He’d seen enough to make a guess. But everything was on the table now and he needed more than a guess. He called central dispatch, identified himself to the woman who answered, and gave her the plate number. While he waited, he looked through the buildings at Lena Gamble and used the time to think things over.

He hadn’t been prepared for her. He hadn’t thought anyone would show up so soon after Jacob Gant’s death. He’d hoped to have more time to practice what he wanted to say, at least a couple more days to work on his performance. While he may have punched out one or two points, he knew in his gut that he’d blown it. That the way he’d acted meant more than what he’d actually said. That the dominoes were falling and could easily bring down his world and put him in the ground.

The dispatcher came back on the line. Cobb’s eyes stayed on Gamble.

“Samuel Trevor Beck,” the dispatcher said. “White male. Thirty-three years old. Lives in Manhattan Beach.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Clean for the last ten years,” the dispatcher said.

“And before that?”

“Grand theft auto. Two counts.”

“That’s what I figured. Thanks.”

Cobb slipped his phone into his pocket, giving Gamble a last look before driving off. He’d blown the interview with her. He couldn’t change that. Still, he hoped this wasn’t a new scene in the movie that kept playing in his head. A scene toward the end where he felt cornered and would be forced to rip her heart out of her chest.

18

Lena entered the Blackbird Café,
ordering a large cup of the house blend and a toasted bagel with lox and cream cheese. Stepping around the bookcases, she passed a newly acquired photograph by Minor White and found a table on the far side of the room. It was late afternoon and the café was particularly quiet right now. If it had been an ordinary day, she would have called it soothing and spent a few minutes looking at the art on the walls and absorbing the atmosphere. Only a handful of people were here—two sat alone reading while the others sipped their drinks and gazed out the rear windows at the city. The view was magnificent: the sun passing through bands of carbon monoxide to the west, the tall buildings throbbing in a brilliant red light. If it had been any other day, she would have seen it and probably noticed the music in the background as well—soft and subdued and something she hadn’t listened to in a long time—Keith Jarrett playing part one from
The Köln Concert
.

The Blackbird had always been her oasis, the place she came to when she needed safe harbor.

But nothing about today was ordinary. And nothing of what the café usually provided could prevent her from thinking about Dan Cobb or how he might have blown the Lily Hight murder case. Ever since leaving the Pacific Station, she had been plagued by the possibility that she and Vaughan were caught up in a catastrophe.

The sense of doom was so pervasive that her memory of buying the TSX from Beck seemed like a blur. She remembered him saying something about picking up another car tonight from someone who worked at NBC. That he would drop off the TSX on his way to the studio in Burbank.

But that was about all that cut through her growing feelings of dread.

Worse still, on the drive into town she had switched on the radio and listened to Vaughan’s press conference. According to a reporter from KNX, Bennett and Watson were no-shows, along with their fearless leader, Jimmy J. Higgins. True to their word, Vaughan stood at the podium alone. And just as predicted, the fall guy with the stellar reputation got knocked down with the first two questions.

Are you going to arrest Tim Hight for shooting Jacob Gant? And how could you prosecute a hero—a father who sought justice for his daughter’s murder because your office completely failed?

Vaughan did the best he could. He tried to remind everyone that two murders were committed at Club 3 AM last night, not one. That Gant was dead, but so was Johnny Bosco. That any decisions would be made after they completed their investigation. That he didn’t want to jump to conclusions, and his office was trying to keep an open mind.

But nothing he said seemed to make any difference, and Lena thought that she could hear several reporters snickering in the background as he paused to take another question.

Their voices had become shrill, even moblike, the moment stained with cynicism and open contempt. Before Vaughan could recover, someone shouted a follow-up,
If Fred Goldman had put a bullet in O. J. Simpson’s head after the killer stabbed his son to death, would you have prosecuted him? Would you have put Fred Goldman in jail?

Lena didn’t wait for Vaughan’s response, switching off the radio and trying to clear her mind by concentrating on the road ahead. It was a safe bet that Higgins, Bennett, and Watson were more than pleased with the way things were going as they listened to the press conference from wherever they were hiding. While nothing could change the fact that their reputations had been tainted to the core, within a single day the press had found a new face and a new target. And for everyone following the story, a new memory had been born.

Lena reached for her briefcase. As she set it on the chair beside her, the fear that Dan Cobb botched the case and arrested the wrong man blew back through her like an ice-cold wind. She noticed her fingers quivering again, and struggled to steady them and to push away the thought. The panic.

How much worse would it be if the press found out what she and Vaughan were actually thinking?

She took a sip of coffee, then another as she pulled out Cobb’s murder book and laid it on the table. The three-ring binder Cobb should have been working with for more than a year appeared almost new. Although she had checked before leaving the Westside, she took a second look at the table of contents just to make sure he’d given her the right one. Lily Hight’s name had been written in blue ink at the top, with Cobb and his partner listed below the date of the murder. Lena didn’t recognize the name of Cobb’s partner, nor did she remember seeing any detective but Cobb testify when she watched the trial on TV.

The murder book was divided into twenty-six sections. Often an investigation required two or more binders—the first containing the chronological record, various forensic reports and photographs, while the additional books were filled entirely with field interview cards and witness statements. The book Cobb had compiled only required one binder. Lena paged through the reports, picking out his initials: DC. It seemed clear that Cobb didn’t delegate much of the workload to his partner, and that he had put the book together himself.

She paused a moment to see who was seated around her in the café. Satisfied that no one could view the binder’s contents, she flipped forward until she reached the crime scene photographs. The way Lily had been left by her killer. She didn’t spend too much time on any one image. Just enough to get a feel for what Cobb and his partner had walked into.

None of the crime scene photographs had been made public. Only the jury would have had the opportunity to view them as they were presented as evidence at trial.

But as Lena skimmed through the series, she began to feel the weight of the crime pulling her in. The rape and murder of Lily Hight had been far more brutal than she imagined, the details recorded by the camera far more violent.

She could see the girl sprawled out on the carpet by her bed, her left hand clutching the head and shaft of the screwdriver that had been drilled through her chest from behind. But it was her right arm that made the photo all the more difficult to look at. Lily had died trying to reach the handle pressing against her left shoulder blade. From the amount of blood that had wicked through her T-shirt and blouse and pooled on the carpet, the girl had spent a lot of time trying to reach that handle.

Lena took a moment to collect herself, then turned back to the photo. The girl’s boots and jeans had been tossed in a pile in front of the night table. Her panties had been pushed aside and hiked up to her hips. When Lena noticed the unnatural position of her right foot, she flipped ahead to the coroner’s report.

Lily Hight’s right ankle had been broken during the struggle. And it was a severe break, a complete break. Lena read the entire report, surprised, if not concerned, by how much detail she had missed watching the trial on television from her desk at work. It was almost as if the TV provided some sort of safe distance, some way of filtering out or smoothing over facts that she would have considered essential to the case.

This was particularly true of the evidence supporting the charge that Gant had raped the teenager. The rips and tears and bleeding from her genitals. Gant’s semen collected from her thighs and stomach, her panties and vagina. The bruising on her cheeks and jaw and around her neck. The pinpoint hemorrhages in the whites of her eyes.

There could be no doubt that what Cobb and his partner had walked into was a vision of absolute darkness—a crime brutal enough to stun any detective, even a man like Cobb. As Lena thought it over, it seemed more than plausible that Cobb’s judgment could have been compromised by the horror. That any hope of working a mistake-free investigation could have been in jeopardy the moment he entered Lily’s bedroom and saw her body skewered to the floor.

The thought lingered as Lena noticed that it was dark outside and checked her watch. The autopsies of Bosco and Gant were due to begin in an hour. Paging to the front of the murder book, she found the chronological record and started reading as quickly as she could.

*   *   *

According to the official record as compiled by Cobb, Lily Hight’s body had been found at 10:00 p.m. by her parents after returning home from dinner on a Friday night. By eleven, a pair of first responders had confirmed the death as a homicide, and Cobb and his partner were on their way. Even though more than an hour had passed, both parents remained hysterical when the detectives arrived. Cobb suspected that both had been drinking heavily that night and made the immediate decision to call for help.