Suspect (14 page)

21.

An overturned big rig on the northbound 5 turned the freeway into a parking lot. Scott worked his way to an exit when they reached North Hollywood, and found a condo complex being framed in Valley Village. Feeding Maggie at construction sites had become their pattern. He watched her carefully when they left the car. Her leg dragged so slightly now, Scott wasn’t sure if she was limping or this was her natural gait, but he was relieved by the improvement.

He bought roast chicken and hot dogs for Maggie, a pork carnitas burrito for himself, and sat with her among snapping nail guns and curious construction workers. Maggie cringed when the first bang surprised her, but Scott decided her startle response was less exaggerated than at the beginning. Once she accepted a piece of hot dog, she focused on Scott and ignored the unpredictable sounds.

They ate and socialized with the construction crew for almost an hour. Scott saved the remains of his baloney stash for a treat, and gave it to her when they returned to the car. By then, her limp was gone.

Twenty minutes later, the sun was behind trees and the sky was purple when Scott parked in MaryTru Earle’s front yard. Her shades were down as always, keeping her safe from the outside world.

Scott took Maggie for a short walk to do her business, then through the gate, and along the side of Mrs. Earle’s house toward his guest house. The light was gloomy fading to dark, and Mrs. Earle’s television provided its usual sound track. Scott had made this same walk hundreds of times, and this time was no different until Maggie stopped. There was no mistaking her expression. She lowered her head, spiked her ears, and stared into the darkness. Her nostrils flickered as she sampled the air.

Scott looked from Maggie to the guest house to the surrounding shrubs and fruit trees.

“Really?”

The light above his side door had been out for months. The drapes covering the French doors were partially open as he had left them, and the kitchen lights were on. He saw Maggie’s crate, the dining table, and part of the kitchen. His guest house looked fine, and nothing appeared different. Scott had never felt unsafe in this neighborhood, but he trusted his dog, and Maggie clearly whiffed something she didn’t like. Scott wondered if a cat or a raccoon was in the bushes.

“What do you smell?”

He realized after the fact he had whispered.

Scott considered letting her off the leash, but thought better of it. He didn’t want an eighty-five-pound attack dog blindsiding a cat or a kid in the agapanthus. He gave her six feet of lead instead.

“’kay, baby, let’s see what you have.”

Maggie hoovered up ground scent as she pulled him forward. She led him directly to the side door, then to the French doors. She returned to the side door, sniffed hard at the lock, then once more rounded the guest house to the French doors, where she pawed at the glass.

Scott opened the French doors, but did not enter. He listened for a moment, heard nothing, then unclipped Maggie and spoke in a loud, clear voice.

“Police. I’m going to release this German shepherd. Speak up, or this dog will rip you open.”

No one answered.

Scott released her.

Maggie did not charge inside, so Scott knew if anyone had been in his home, they were now gone.

Instead, Maggie quickly circled the living room, cruised through the kitchen, then trotted into the bedroom and returned. She crisscrossed the living room, checked her crate and the table and the couch, and again disappeared into the bedroom. When she returned, her anxiety was gone. She wagged her tail, went into the kitchen, and Scott heard her drinking. He stepped inside, and pulled the door closed.

“My turn.”

Scott walked through the guest house. He checked the windows and doors first, and found them secure. None were broken or jimmied. His computer, printer, and papers on the table were fine, as were his TV equipment and cordless phone. Its red message light was blinking. The papers on the floor by his couch and the maps and diagrams pinned to his wall seemed undisturbed. His checkbook, his dad’s old watch, and the three hundred in cash he kept in an envelope under the clock radio beside his bed were untouched. His gun cleaning kit, two boxes of ammo, and an old .32 snub-nose were still in the LAPD gym bag stowed in his closet. His anxiety meds and pain pills were in their usual places on the bathroom counter.

Scott returned to the living room. Maggie was on the floor beside her crate. She rolled onto her side when she saw him, and lifted her hind leg. Scott smiled.

“Good girl.”

Everything appeared normal, but Scott trusted Maggie’s nose, and Maggie had smelled something. Mrs. Earle had a key, and would open the guest house for repairmen and the pest service that sprayed for ants. She always warned Scott in advance, but she might have forgotten.

“I’ll be right back.”

Mrs. Earle answered the door wearing a sweatshirt, shorts, and fluffy pink slippers. The roar of the television was behind her.

“Hey, Mrs. Earle. Did you let anyone in the guest house today?”

She glanced past Scott as if she expected to see the guest house in ruins.

“I didn’t let anyone in. You know I always tell you.”

“I know, but Maggie smelled something that kinda upset her. I thought maybe you let the plumber or pest people in.”

She looked past him again.

“Are you having a problem with that toilet again?”

“No, ma’am. That was just an example.”

“Well, I didn’t let anyone in. I hope you weren’t robbed.”

“It’s just the way Maggie acted. The windows and doors look okay, so I thought you might have opened the door. She smelled something new. She doesn’t like new smells.”

Mrs. Earle frowned past him again.

“I hope she didn’t smell a rat. You might have a rat in there. I hear them in these trees at night, eating all my fruit. Those nasty things can chew right through a wall.”

Scott glanced at the guest house.

Mrs. Earle said, “If you hear it or see poop, you let me know. I’ll have the pest people come out.”

Scott wondered if she was right, but wasn’t convinced.

“I will. Thanks, Mrs. Earle.”

“Don’t let her pee-pee on the grass. These girl dogs kill a lawn faster than gasoline.”

“Yes, ma’am. I know.”

Scott went back to the guest house. He locked the French doors, and drew the curtains. Maggie was on her side in front of her crate, halfway to dreamland.

“She thinks we have rats.”

Maggie’s tail thumped the floor. Thump.

Scott went to his phone, and found a message from Joyce Cowly.

“Scott, Joyce Cowly. I pulled the DVDs. No rush. You can come see them anytime, just call first to make sure one of us is here.”

Scott put down the phone.

“Thanks, Cowly.”

Scott grabbed a Corona from the fridge, drank some, then took off his uniform. He showered, and pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. He finished the first beer, grabbed a second, and brought it to the pictures on his wall.

He touched Stephanie.

“Still here.”

Scott took his beer to the couch. Maggie pushed herself up, gimped over as if she was a hundred years old, and lay on her side by his feet. Her body shuddered when she sighed.

Scott eased onto the floor beside her. He sat with his legs straight out because crossing them hurt. He rested his hand on her side. Maggie’s tail thumped the floor. Thump thump thump.

Scott said, “Man, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”

Thump thump.

“Maybe a doctor can help you. They shot me up with cortisone. It hurt, but it works.”

Thump thump thump.

File folders, diagrams, and the mass of newspaper clippings he compiled on the shootings spread from the couch to the wall in neat little stacks. Scott sipped more beer, and decided he looked like a nut case trying to prove aliens worked for the CIA, raving about lost memories, recovered memories, imagined memories, and memories that may not even exist—a flash of white hair, forchrissake—as if some miraculous miracle memory only HE could provide would solve the case and bring Stephanie Anders back to life. And now he even had the best detectives at Robbery-Homicide buying into it, as if he could provide the missing piece to their puzzle.

Scott ran his fingers through Maggie’s fur.

Thump thump.

“Maybe it’s time to move on. What do you think?”

Thump.

“That’s what I thought.”

He stared at the stacks with their corners all squared off and neat, and their neatness began to bother him. Scott wasn’t neat. His car, his apartment, and his life were a mess. If rats were in his apartment, they had made an effort to make his papers appear undisturbed, and overdid it. If someone had the tools in Marshall Ishi’s burglary kit, they wouldn’t need Mrs. Earle to get inside without breaking a window.

Scott got his Maglite from the bedroom, and went out. Maggie followed him, sniffing at the French doors as he shined his light on the lock.

“You’re in the way. Move.”

The lock was weathered and scratched, but Scott found no new scratches on the keyhole or faceplate to indicate the lock had been picked.

He checked the side door next. The French doors had a single lock, but the side door had a knob lock and a deadbolt. Scott knelt close with the light. No fresh cuts showed on either lock, but he noticed a black smudge on the deadbolt’s faceplate. It might have been dirt or grease, but it gave a metallic shimmer when he adjusted the light.

Scott touched it with his pinky, and it came away on his skin. The substance appeared to be a silvery powder, and Scott wondered if it was graphite—a dry lubricant used to make locks open more easily. A bottle of graphite had been in Marshall Ishi’s burglary kit. Squirt in some graphite, insert a lock pick gun, and the lock would open in seconds. No key was necessary.

Scott suddenly laughed and turned off the light. Nothing had been stolen, and his place hadn’t been vandalized. Sometimes a smudge was just a smudge.

“See a burglary kit, and now you’re imagining burglars.”

Scott went back inside, locked up, and pulled the curtains. He went to Stephanie’s picture.

“I’m not moving on, and I’m not going to quit. I did not leave you behind, and I’m not leaving now.”

He sat on the floor beneath her picture, and looked over the files and documents. Maggie lay down beside him.

Melon and Stengler had gotten nowhere, but it hadn’t been from lack of effort. He now understood their effort had been enormous, but they needed the ATF to bust Shin, and Shin wasn’t arrested until they were both off the case. Shin changed everything.

Scott fingered through the clutter, and found the evidence bag containing the cheap leather watchband. Rust, Chen had said. Scott wondered again if the rust on the band had come from the roof. Not that this would prove anything even if it had.

Scott unzipped the bag. Maggie lurched to her feet when he took out the leather strap.

Scott said, “You need to pee?”

She nosed so close she almost stood in his lap. She looked at Scott, wagged her tail, and sniffed the cheap leather. The first time he opened the bag to examine the band, she had been in his face, and now she was trying to reach the strap as if she wanted to play.

She was behaving like she had at Marshall Ishi’s house.

Scott moved the band to the right, and she followed the band. He hid it behind his back, and she danced happily from foot to foot as she tried to get behind him.

Play.

Dogs do what they do to please us or save us. They don’t have anything else.

Maggie was with him the first time he took the band from the bag. They had been playing a few minutes earlier, and she had nosed at the band when he examined it. She had come so close he pushed her away, so maybe she associated the band with play. He tried thinking about it the way he imagined Maggie would think.

Scott and Maggie play.

Scott picks up the band.

The band is a toy.

Maggie wants to play with Scott and his toy.

Find the band when you smell the band, Scott and Maggie will play.

Welcome to Dogland.

Scott dropped the band back into the evidence bag. He originally thought Maggie alerted to the chemicals fumed off the crystal because she confused them with explosives. Budress had convinced him this wasn’t the case, which meant there must be another scent on the band she recognized.

Marshall and Daryl would both carry the chemical crystal scent, but Maggie had not alerted to Marshall. She had alerted inside the house, she alerted on Daryl, and now she had alerted on the watchband. Scott stared at Maggie, and slowly smiled.

“Really? I mean, REALLY?”

Thump thump thump.

The thin leather strap had been in the bag for almost nine months. Scott knew scent particles degraded over time, but it seemed logical a person’s sweat and skin oils would soak deep into a leather band.

He reached for his phone, and called Budress.

“Hey, man, it’s Scott. Hope this isn’t too late.”

“No, I’m good. What’s up?”

Scott heard TV voices in the background.

“How long can a scent last?”

“What kind of scent?”

“Human.”

“I need more than that, bro. A ground scent? An air scent? An air scent is gone with the wind. A ground scent, you get maybe twenty-four to forty-eight. Depends on the elements and environment.”

“A leather watchband in an evidence bag.”

“Shit, that’s different. One of those plastic bags?”

“Yeah.”

“Why you want to know something like this? You got a sample you want to hunt?”

“One of the detectives asked. It’s a piece of evidence from one of their cases.”

“Depends. A glass container is best because it’s nonporous and nonreactive, but those heavy-duty evidence bags are pretty good. Has the bag been sealed? If it wasn’t sealed, you get air migration and the oils break down.”

“No, it was sealed. It’s been in a box.”

“How long?”

Scott felt uneasy with all the questions, but he knew Budress was trying to help.

“They made it sound like a pretty long time. Six months? Call it six months. They were just asking in general.”