Rage (10 page)

“Greatest
generation. How large is the property?”

“Twelve
acres, with lots of trees and rare plants she put in over the years.”

“Sounds
nice.”

“It’s
getting a little run-down,” she said. “And the house is way too big for her.
Still clearing your consults?”

“They’re
clear.”

“Good
for you.”

Before
she left, I’d asked if she wanted me to join her for part of the trip. “If it
was up to me, Alex, you could stay the whole time, but Gram’s possessive. It’s
a ritual with her— ’special time’ with each of the grandkids.”

At
thirty-nine, Allison was the youngest grandkid.

“Am I
keeping you from anything?”

“Not
a thing,” I said, wondering if that were true.

“Consults
work out okay?”

“As
good as can be expected.”

“So
what else is up, baby?”

I
deliberated telling her about Duchay’s call. “Nothing exciting. What time does
your flight arrive?”

“That’s
one of the reasons I’m calling. Gram asked me to extend my visit for another
two weeks. It’s hard to tell her no.”

“She’s
ninety-one,” I said.

“The
rooms smell like camphor and
I
feel a hundred and twenty. I’m getting
serious cabin fever, Alex. She turns in for bed at eight.”

“You
could make snow angels.”

“I
miss you,” she said.

“Miss
you, too.”

“I
was thinking maybe we can do something about it. Gram has a friend coming from
St. Louis tomorrow so she’ll be occupied for three days. The hotels in New York
are running a post–New Year’s special. Big discounts and free upgrades.”

“When
do you want me there?” I said.

“Really?”
she said.

“Really.”

“That’s
great— you’re sure?”

“Hey,”
I said. “I need special time, too.”

“Oh,
boy,” she said. “You don’t know what you’ve just done for my spirits. Is there
any way you could make it by tomorrow? I could take the train and be at the
hotel by the time you arrived.”

“Which
hotel?”

“When
I traveled with my parents we always stayed at the St. Regis. The location’s
perfect— Fifty-fifth off Fifth— and they’ve got butler service on every floor.”

“Nice
touch, if the butler’s not intrusive.”

“He
won’t be if we bunk in and never call him.”

“Which
bunk do I get?” I said. “Upper or lower?”

“I
was thinking more in terms of share-zies.”

“I’ll
bring a flashlight and we’ll play pup tent.”

“Alex,
it’s incredibly flexible of you to do this.”

“Not
in the least,” I said. “I’m acting out of pure self-interest.”

“That,”
she said, “is the best part.”

* * *

I
booked a nine a.m. flight out of LAX, scrounged at the back of my closet for
the gray tweed overcoat I never wore, found a similarly neglected pair of
gloves and scarf, packed a carry-on, and went for a run.

Beverly
Glen was seventy degrees and clear, let’s hear it for winter. Weather’s a
trivial reason for living somewhere unless you’re honest.

I set
out hoping for endorphin-laced serenity. My brain had other ideas and I
wondered about Rand. My body stayed tight and heavy as I huffed and kicked up
dust and my brain pulled a split screen: looking out for passing cars on one
side, as time flashed back on the other.

When
I returned home, I called Milo’s house. No answer. Then, I tried the Westside
substation and asked for Lieutenant Sturgis. It took awhile for Milo to come on
the line and I was still breathing hard.

“Didn’t
know you cared,” he said.

“Ha.”

“What’s
up?”

“I’m
meeting Allison in New York. Tomorrow.”

He
murdered a few bars of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” “Where you staying?”

“St.
Regis.”

“Nice.
The last time the department sent me to New Yawk was for that post-911 security
seminar, and they vouchered me at a shitty dive in the thirties. While you’re
there, get me a Knicks shirt at the NBA store.”

“No
prob.”

“I
was kidding, Alex. The
Knicks
?”

“Optimism’s
good for the soul,” I said.

“So
is logic. Am I correct in assuming that you called for some reason other than
to boast about the superiority of your accommodations over mine?”

“You brought
that up.”

“If
you were really the sensitive guy you claim to be, you would’ve lied.”

I
said, “The St. Regis has butler service.”

“I’m
weeping into my case stack. Which, currently, is low. Per an interdepartmental
memo, we are now experiencing an official drop in crime.”

“Congratulations.”

“Not
my doing. Probably karmic crystals or chanting or the moon in scorpio-squatting
or the Great Baal of Randomness . . . what’s on your mind?”

I
told him.

“That
one,” he said. “You didn’t like working it.”

“It wasn’t
fun.”

“Duchay
give any hint what he wanted?”

“He
sounded troubled.”

“He
should
be troubled. Eight years at the C.Y.A. for murdering a baby?”

“Any
professional guesses about why he didn’t show?”

“Changed
his mind, couldn’t get it together, who knows? He’s a lowlife, Alex. He was the
stupid one, right?”

“Right.”

“So
toss in a lousy attention span, or whatever label you guys are putting on it
nowadays, in addition to his being a lowlife thrill-killer who’s been
thoroughly criminalized after being locked up with gangbangers for eight years.
How old is he, now?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Lowlife
at the height of his criminal hormone overload,” he said. “I wouldn’t take any
bets on his experiencing any serious personality enhancement. I’d also not take
his calls, from now on. He’s probably more dangerous than he was eight years
ago. Why get involved?”

“Looks
like I’m not,” I said. “Though I didn’t pick up any threat or hostility over
the phone. More like— ”

“He’s
troubled, yeah, yeah. He calls you from Westwood, which isn’t that far from
your place. Semi-illiterate but he managed to find your number.”

“He’d
have no reason to resent me.”

Silence.

“The
plan was to meet him away from my place,” I said.

“That’s
a start.”

“I’m
not minimizing what he did, Milo. He, himself, admitted hitting Kristal. But I
always felt Troy Turner was the primary force behind the murder and Rand got
caught up in the situation.”

“Put
him in another situation and he’ll get caught up again.”

“I
suppose.”

“Hey,”
he said. “You called
me,
not another shrink. Meaning you were looking
for hard truth, not empathy and understanding.”

“I
don’t know what I was looking for.”

“You
craved sage detective advice and Uncle Milo’s instinctual protective stance.
Now that the former has been dispensed, I’ll do my best to provide the latter
while you’re gallivanting up Fifth Avenue with a lovely lady on your arm.”

“That’s
okay— ”

“Here’s
the plan,” he said. “Though it falls well outside of my job description, I will
drive by your house at least once a day, twice if I can swing it, pick up your
paper and your mail, be on the lookout for shady characters lurking around the
premises.”

“Gallivanting,”
I said.

“You
do know how to gallivant? Put one foot in front of the
other . . . and just blow.”

* * *

At
one p.m. he called back. “When were you planning to leave for New York?”

“Tomorrow
morning. Why?”

“A
body showed up last night in Bel Air, dumped in some bushes near the 405 North
on-ramp. White male, young, six-two, two hundred, shot in the head, no wallet
or I.D. But wadded down in the little front pocket of his jeans was a piece of
paper. Greasy and frayed, like it had been pawed a lot. The writing, however,
was still legible and guess what it was: your phone number.”

I
met Milo in his office on the second floor of the
Westside substation. It’s a windowless cell, formerly a utility closet, set
away from the collaborative buzz of the big detective’s room. There’s barely
room for a two-drawer desk, a file cabinet, a pair of folding chairs, and a
senile computer. The station’s a no-smoking zone but sometimes Milo puffs
panatelas, and the walls have yellowed and the air smells like a dozen old men.

He’s
six-three, and when he pays attention to his diet, two-sixty. Hunched at the
undersized desk, he’s a cartoon.

It’s
a setup unbefitting a lieutenant, but he’s not the typical lieutenant, and he
claims it’s fine with him. Maybe he means it, maybe having a second office
helps— an Indian restaurant a few blocks away where the owners treat him like
royalty.

The
leap from Detective III to brass had resulted from leverage he’d never sought:
ugly secrets unearthed about the former police chief.

The
deal was that he’d get a lieutenant’s salary, avoid the executive obligations
that normally went with the job, and be allowed to work cases. As long as he
functioned solo and stayed out of everyone’s hair.

That
chief was gone and the new one seemed intent on shaking things up. But so far
Milo’s situation had escaped scrutiny. If the current regime was as
results-oriented as it claimed, maybe his solve rate would afford him some
grace.

Or
maybe not. A gay cop was no longer the official impossibility it had been when
he’d joined the force, but he’d broken ground during colder times and would
never fit in.

* * *

His
door was open and he was reading a preliminary investigation report. His black
hair needed a trim, cowlicks reigning, the white sideburns he called his skunk
stripes bushing and trailing a half inch below his earlobes.

A
spruce-green sport coat hung from the back of his chair and puddled onto the
floor. His short-sleeved white shirt looked defeated, his skinny yellow tie
could’ve passed for a mustard stain. Gray cords and tan desert boots topped off
the ensemble. The unshielded ceiling bulb was vaguely pink and graced his acne-pitted
cheeks with a phony sunburn.

He
hooked a thumb at the spare chair and I unfolded it and sat. He handed me the
prelim and some crime scene photos.

The
report was the usual detached affair, recorded on the scene by Detective I S.
J. Binchy. Sean was a former bass player in a ska band turned born-again
Christian, a compliant kid who Milo sometimes enlisted for grunt work.

Nice
kid, decent speller. The only new thing I learned was that a freeway cleanup
crew had found the body at four-fourteen a.m.

The first
photo was a frontal of the corpse, lying on its back, face up, as the coroner’s
photographer
click-clicked
from above.

Night-bleached
face, hard to make out details. A close-up shot showed the gaping mouth and
half-closed eyes I’d seen so many times before. Hollowness behind the irises.
The right cheek was slightly convex, but it wasn’t the distortion you’d see
with a small-caliber bullet dancing around in the head.

A
pair of lateral views revealed a dark, star-shaped entry wound, surrounded by a
black halo of powder, just in front of the left ear, and a ragged exit, much
larger and slightly higher on the right temple, that showcased bone and
red-meat muscle and the oatmeal of brain matter.

I
said, “Through-and-through shot.”

“Coroner
thinks contact shot, or just short of contact, full metal jacket, no larger
than a thirty-eight, no supplementary load.”

His
voice was remote. Keeping his distance from this victim.

The
next photo was a close-up. “What about these cheek abrasions?”

“He
was found lying on his face, maybe he got dragged a bit during the dump. No
defense wounds or tissue under his nails or any other signs of struggle. No
major blood at the scene, so he was shot somewhere else.”

“He’s
big,” I said. “So if there was no struggle, he was probably taken by surprise.”

“I’d
ask if you recognize him, but we just got word from AFIS. The prints confirm
it’s Duchay.”

I
reviewed the pictures, tried to look past damage and death. Rand Duchay’s
boyhood facial structure had been transformed by puberty into something longer
and harder. His hair was darker than I remembered but that could’ve been the
lighting. In life, he’d been a slow kid, with slack features. Death hadn’t
changed that, but death has a way of blunting everyone around the edges. Would
I have recognized him if we’d passed on the street?