Skies of Ash (35 page)

“Last night,” I said, “Eli Moss thought he was Tyson and I was Givens.”

“Moss?” Luke asked. “The white guy who lives across the street from the Chatmans?”

I nodded, then launched into the story about the beautiful young detective decorating her Christmas tree, then discovering that her house was on fire. She had brawled in the streets with the Burning Man, who had passed his polygraph test and had provided an unconfirmed alibi that took him out of the running for starting the fatal Chatman house fire.

“But you don’t believe that,” Colin said.

I shook my head, then shrugged.

“But why did he target you?” Luke asked.

“Because she’s investigating the Chatman case,” Pepe said.

“If Moss didn’t burn down the Chatman house and if he didn’t kill them,” I said, “why would he care what
I
did? Why me?” I touched my swollen, tender cheek. “I look like a piece of shit now. Just like you guys, but with better… everything.”

Pepe and Luke tried to laugh. Colin’s hands tightened into fists.

“Luke,” I said, “can you and Pep check on warrants we have out with Judge Keener?”

“No problem.” He and Pepe wandered back to the box of donuts.

Colin came out of his crouch to tower over me. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“It was late, and I had already—”

“Sent me away?”

“It’s not your job to take care of me.”

“Where was your husband?”

“I wouldn’t let him take care of me, either. And nowadays he’s the kind of caretaker that puts you in a playpen, scatters a few Cheerios on the cushions, and turns the TV on before he leaves. And I hate Cheerios.”

“Not funny,” he grumbled.

I nudged his calf with my foot. “I’m sorry, Colin. Next time an arsonist tries to burn down my house and beat me up, I’ll text you. Then you can watch me kick his ass in person.”

Colin tried to smile, but only one side of his mouth lifted. He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. “Can I do anything for you now?”

“You can get me something better than that swill over there.” I pointed to the goop bubbling in the coffeepot.

“Sure. Be right back.”

I watched him leave the room.

And the world righted itself.

But then my desk phone rang.

“Yo, yo, Lou Norton.” It was Gus Lebo from Vegas Homicide.

“What’s up, my friend?” I asked, smiling.

“Any other time, I would describe to you in explicit detail what is indeed up whenever I call.”

“But not today,” I said. “Cuz something or somebody has jacked up your vibe.”

“Melissa Kemper.”

“Delightful lady. Likes little dogs and other people’s husbands.”

“Well, other people ain’t gotta worry about her and their husbands no more.”

According to Gus, at 9:04
A.M
. that morning, a truck driver, Earl Littleton, had lost control of his rig (one of those trucks that advertise strip joints) and plowed into the backs and fronts of three cars. Including the late-model Jag driven by Melissa Kemper.

“Had to use the spreaders and rams to get folks out,” Gus Lebo said. “I’m sending you some pics of the scene.”

“She dead?” I whispered.

“Elvis is more alive than she is.”

Six JPEGs popped into my mailbox: Melissa Kemper on the Clark County coroner’s steel table, her glazed, green eyes fixed, her purple running shorts and Paramount Studios T-shirt dark with drying blood.

“Oh shit,” I said, feeling a quick lick of nausea in my gut.

“When you talked to her, was she helpful at all?”

“Yeah,” I said, closing the last picture. “She confirmed that my suspect is a big, fat liar and all-around jerk-wad.” After I gave him the Twitter version of my interview with Melissa Kemper, I sat back in my chair and said, “Wow. Didn’t see
this
coming.”

“If I wasn’t such a cynic,” he said, “and this wasn’t Vegas, I’d say that some type of fuckery is goin’ on. But…”

I heard the shrug in his voice. “Alas…”

“Where’s the husband?” Gus asked.

“Her ex-husband or my dead vic’s husband?”

“Dead vic’s.”

“I could say that he’s here in Los Angeles.” I regarded the whiteboard full of lies. “But I wouldn’t put five on it.”

Damn.

Melissa Kemper. Dead.

I knew the world couldn’t stay right.

THE SOUTHWEST DIVISION’S FORENSIC-TECH DEPARTMENT, LOCATED IN THE
darkest corner of the second floor, consisted of one large cubicle that sat four. Only one member of the team had clocked in today. His momma called him Neil, but we called him Bang-Bang because that’s all he did every day—go
bang-bang
on computer keyboards. Neil was a John Smith–looking white guy with nothing offensive or interesting about his appearance, especially now that he’d had the mole on his cheek removed. He was sipping a glass of water as numbers and letters scrolled across his computer screen.

“Bang-Bang, you’re here.” I switched the heavy Chatman case file to my other arm.

He rolled his eyes, pretending that he hated his nickname. “Hello.”

Just like that. Hello.

No mention of my bruised face.

No inquiry about my mental state.

Just “hello,” in a tone that had less spice than vanilla and egg whites.

I pointed at the Chatmans’ scorched laptop sitting on the desk. “I’m here about that—you were helping me cuz there were all those crazy passwords and minefields and cosmic dust and shit keeping me from getting a look-see and such.”

“Yes.” He sat down his water glass. “Fire and water damaged a few things, but it’s up for the most part. We can look at the CPU on my screen for a better view.” He pulled over an empty chair. “Where do you want to start?”

“How about his search history. Cookies and browsers and search terms, oh my.”

Neil clicked here and there in the Firefox browser. “The most recent searches.”

Fraud, sentencing, extradition, Bernie Madoff, Vandervelde Lansing, ischemia, suffocation, sarcoma, DNA paternity
.

“How recent?” I asked.

“Last one—
extradition
—on December tenth.”

“Just a few days ago. The Monday before the fire.” I tapped the pen against my lip. None of the terms related to fire deaths. Maybe “suffocation.” And “ischemia”? That came from constricting blood vessels, like suffocation. Juliet and the kids hadn’t died that way. And what the hell was up with “DNA paternity”? “Click on that one, please,” I asked Neil.

A fussily designed Web page loaded on the screen. The DNA Doctors. A pretty woman peered into a microscope. A dad smiled with a girl—guess he
was
the father. A toll-free number and a page of FAQs.

Why would Chatman visit this site?

I wrote down the DNA Doctor’s contact information. “Let’s look at e-mail,” I instructed Neil. “The Gmail in-box here would show any e-mails he’s sent from his phone, right?”

“Yes, it would.”

Chatman’s in-box appeared on Neil’s screen. His last e-mail string, created just yesterday, had been between him and Adeline St. Lawrence, Juliet’s best friend.

Hey, Addy. Just checking in on you to see if you’re okay. I know this is rough—we have to stick together no matter what, for Juliet’s sake. We have to preserve her memory and protect her honor throughout everything that’s about to happen. People are asking a lot of questions and I just want to talk to you about that. Hang in there. CC.

Six minutes later, Adeline had responded.

HOW DARE YOU EMAIL ME!!! YOU DID THIS TO HER! YOU TOLD HER THAT YOU WOULD GET HER BACK! IT TOOK YOU NINE YEARS BUT I GUESS YOU KEPT YOUR PROMISE. HER HONOR??? YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS ASHAMED! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO MOVE PAST HER MISTAKE! YOU ARE SELFISH AND HATEFUL AND AFTER THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FRIES YOU, I HOPE YOU BURN IN HELL FOREVER!! FUCK YOU!!!

Neil’s face twitched and reddened. “She’s a little angry.”

“They’re not friends,” I said.

Hours after his e-mail to St. Lawrence, Chatman had e-mailed Randall and Maris Weatherbee, Juliet’s parents.

Hi, Mother and Dad. Thank you for coming to see me today. Please understand that my lawyer has told me not to talk about all that’s happening, not even with you, and that breaks my heart. You are the only family I have and I feel so alone now. I know you have so many questions. They will be answered soon. I am not avoiding you and I don’t understand why you are accusing me of that. My phone was misplaced in all of the madness, and the landline at the house is down, of course. I have not hurt anyone, like you are accusing me of doing, and I would never harm my wife and children. The investigation at my job has
NOTHING
to do with
ANYTHING
. Please don’t let strangers influence you. I am constantly being bombarded by the police and I haven’t had time to grieve. I pray for your love and patience.

“Do me a favor?” I asked Neil. “Give this a good scouring. Pull instant messages, e-mails, financial transactions, folder names, log-ins—everything. Basically, kill a tree.”

“Found you.” Colin held a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf coffee cup in one hand and a file folder in the other.

I took the cup. “We’re looking through Chatman’s laptop. First, though…” I caught him up on my call from Vegas and Melissa Kemper’s demise.

He gaped at me.

I said, “Yep,” then pointed at the folder in his hand. “What you got?”

He pulled from the larger case file those check copies for Peggy Tanner, Sol Hirsch, and another client named Bill Levy. He placed the checks next to each other, endorsement side up. “Look at the signatures.”

I looked. “Wait. That.” I pointed to the
l
in Sol. “That looks like those.” I pointed to the two
l
s in Bill. “And the
y
in Peggy,” I said, “looks like the
y
in Levy.”

“Uh-huh.” He sat at an empty workstation, then logged in to public records. “Okay, there are 513 Peggy Tanners in the database, with 110 in California, five in LA, and one in San Fernando Valley.”

“Let’s try the Peggy in the valley.” I pointed to Neil’s desk phone. “May we?”

Neil’s eyes glittered—he was in on the action. “Please.”

A woman answered, and she sounded as old as the creaking branches of a hundred-year-old oak tree.

I identified myself as an LAPD detective. “May I ask you a few questions?”

She confirmed that she was Peggy Tanner, that she had an account with Vandervelde, Lansing & Gray, and that, yes, Christopher Chatman was her broker.

“Have you asked Mr. Chatman about your account recently?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “but he sends me statements every quarter.”

“When was the last statement you received?”

“October, I believe.”

“Any check come with that?”

“Afraid not. The economy is just terrible right now.”

“Has your experience with the firm been satisfactory?”

“He can be hard to reach sometimes, but overall yes. He’s a lovely man. Just hope he makes me some money soon,” she said with a chuckle.

Sol Hirsch sounded older than Peggy Tanner—the oak tree’s pappy. Almost deaf, he shouted the similar responses—Chatman was a nice man, he sent quarterly statements, was hard to reach, no return on investment—gosh darn that Obama.

Just last week, Bill Levy had been placed in hospice and was unable to communicate. Another stroke. His son, Bill Junior, had seen no recent checks in the mail from Christopher Chatman or the commodities firm.

“They’re all seniors,” Neil noted. “And no one’s been paid out yet.”

I tapped the checks. “But those say Tanner got just over ten thousand dollars, and Hirsch got almost eight grand just months ago. Let’s add up all three check amounts.”

Neil blinked and scribbled on his pad: $26,901.37.

I narrowed my eyes. “I remember seeing deposit slips from Pacific Western… Oh.” The bank boxes stolen from the storage unit—that’s where I’d seen deposit slips.

“Still,” Colin said, “I think you’re right. He stole their money. Twice. The initial investment he took from them, and then the money he made in the market and kept for himself. Money his clients are still waiting for.”

“Hence, the SEC investigation,” I said, nodding.

“
Extradition, fraud, sentencing
,” Neil said. “Those were his last search terms, remember?”

Colin squinted at me. “That’s great for the feds, but what about us? How does this prove he had something to do with the fire?”

I swallowed my smile and gathered the file. “Can’t say. But I’m gonna have to force Mr. Chatman to get off the ride.”

THE POLITE BIRD IN ME THOUGHT OF CALLING CHRISTOPHER CHATMAN AND
requesting time to speak with him again. The rude-bitch cop in me, the one who hated liars, cheaters, and murderers, said, “Screw that. Catch his ass off guard.”

“Door number two,” Colin hollered from his desk, two fingers in the air.

I grabbed my bag and the case file. “Two it is.” I paused, then said, “We’ll have to be very careful with him.”

“He poisonous or something?” Colin kidded.

“No. He’s… he’s too…
something.
” I shrugged. “Just don’t wander off the path with him, okay? We’ll find ourselves in Oz with the Cheshire Cat and the Jolly Green Giant.”

Colin waved a hand. “Stop bein’ a girl. We’ve handled worse.”

In this city, there were always villains to chase. And some villains were more perverted and obvious than the others. But those bad guys, the obvious ones, didn’t scare me.

The quiet ones, the secret sorcerers, the ones who whisked you away to no-man’s-land and beyond doing twisted shit to minds and bodies and souls en route. And you, the cop with the commendations and the impressive clearance rate and the stainless-steel reputation, if you were lucky enough to find your way back from no-man’s-land and beyond, you were not whole and not good for anything, especially anything requiring a gun, and so you became the cautionary tale, the “Did you hear what happened to…?” in the department.

I had been a cop for thirteen years—that cop would not be me. I would not be the captured or the conquered.

Not over my dead body.