Vigilante (11 page)

The body had been beaten badly and she was already dead when she hit the floor. So why had the unsub put the two postmortem shots into her brain? Was this classic overkill signaling rage by somebody who was emotionally involved with the victim, like a jealous lover or someone Lita had had important emotional conflicts with? Had the unsub hated Lita so much that it wasn’t enough to just beat her to death? Did the killer also need to disfigure the body, blowing holes in Lita’s face?

Or was it just the opposite? Were the two shots attempting to send a false message? Were they simply staging to make it
look
like uncontrollable rage while, in reality, the unsub was coldly uninvolved? I didn’t know which theory was true yet. Generally staging is the less likely of the two because it suggests an organized, more sophisticated mind and most violent killers are disorganized, unstructured, and out of control.

I moved through the house. Everything was a mess. It was logical to assume the house was clean when Lita moved in a week earlier, but the closets were already in disarray. Clothes were strewn on the floor instead of on hangers. Even her expensive court clothes were thrown in a heap below the bar. Had she done this? Had the unsub?

I walked slowly through the house, sitting on Lita’s furniture, sampling her extensive music CD collection, trying to find answers, making notes about my feelings and observations in a spiral notebook.

Finally, I sat on the bed and looked around Lita’s darkened bedroom. She had also tacked up sheets across the windows in here. Was this because she was depressed and liked it dark or liked being in rooms without sunshine? Or were the sheets to protect her from a possible sniper’s shot? When Lita died, did she already know that somebody wanted to kill her? I wondered if her life had recently been threatened and that’s why she’d tacked up the sheets. I wondered if she’d confided this fear to anyone. I made a note to find out.

I stayed in the house for almost an hour. On my way out, I paused in the kitchen to stand once more where Lita had died. I could see her everyday dishes in an open cupboard. I crossed and took a cereal bowl down from the shelf. It hadn’t been washed completely and still had a tiny speck of old food on the side. The glasses in the cupboard were rinsed but were a little grimy. They obviously hadn’t gone through the dishwasher.

I took a few down.

I could see Lita’s lipstick still on the rim of one. Water streaks marked the sides. I smelled a glass. It had a slightly foul odor as if some of the residue of the drink it once held was still there. I checked a few more dishes and found more of the same.

I opened the dishwasher. The array of pots and pans Hitch had found were still in the racks. I picked up a saucepan, studied it. I smelled dishwashing soap. Unlike the crockery and glasses in the cupboard, the pots and pans had been run through the entire cycle.

Why were all these cooking pans run through the washer while Lita only rinsed out her regular dishware in the sink?

When you work homicides you quickly learn that people are creatures of habit. The entire house was a testimony to deferred maintenance. Lita was a sloppy housekeeper. She didn’t hang up her clothes or pick up her things. She left old pizza boxes around. When she did the dishes, she only rinsed and stacked. She would have probably done the same with the pots and pans. That was her habit, the way she lived.

So why on the night she was murdered did she change this pattern and wash those pots and pans in the dishwasher? The answer to that was pretty simple. She hadn’t. The night she died, somebody else had been here. Somebody else had run the pans through the washer.

Did the unsub wash the pans? If so, why?

As I was mulling this, I saw a flash of movement through the back window. I crouched low and looked into the backyard.

A man was in the shadows of the house, sneaking toward the locked garage.

CHAPTER

16

I’d put the lights on in Lita’s house when I first arrived and had been walking around as if I owned the place, so whoever was in the backyard had to know I was here. He probably also knew I was in here alone. However, Lita had tacked those sheets up on quite a few of her windows, so I had some cover.

I found a protected spot, knelt down, and pulled my 9mm Springfield automatic out of its custom leather holster. I tromboned the slide, kicking a fresh round into the chamber, but left the safety on. Then I kept low and moved out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.

I’d already turned the lights off in there, so I was hidden by the dark room as I carefully removed the sheet Lita had tacked up over the side window. I slid open the glass and wriggled out through the opening, falling face first onto the dirt outside, cradling my gun in one hand.

I landed in a four-foot-wide path with a rusting chain-link fence that separated Lita’s house from the house next door. I gathered my feet beneath me and stood carefully, holding my gun at the ready.

I heard something clunk softly in the backyard. A muffled thump. I carefully thumbed the safety off the Springfield, then moved toward the sound. A few seconds later I approached the rear corner of the house.

Before I got there, I lay down silently on my stomach, gun out in front of me, and inched out so I could see into the backyard. I waited for my vision to adjust.

Light spilling through the kitchen window helped my eyes transition. I searched the area over by the garage where I’d last seen the figure. Then I heard some whispering off to my right and turned my head and gun silently in that direction.

“S-s-sh-h-h-h,” a man whispered. “Put it over there.”

“You want the three-fifty and the battery?” another man whispered.

“Yeah.”

I could see them now. They were crouched low at the back of the garden. Two guys in black T-shirts and jeans, setting something up. As my eyes adjusted further, I could see the faint outline of a studded equipment box. Then I knew who it was. The two cameramen I’d already met from
V-TV.
They were setting up their digital camera and a shotgun mike in a hidden position under some bushes. One of the guys reached into the studded camera case and handed the other a long lens of some kind. He affixed it to the camera housing and then attached a battery pack.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Got the infrared and battery on. Watch out for that puddle. I think a hose is leaking back here. Let’s just lay down, keep quiet, and wait.”

So we all waited. They were aiming their light-gathering telephoto lens at the house, trying to get a shot of me working the crime scene or planting evidence or whatever the hell it was Nash was hoping he’d be able to catch me doing. Since I wasn’t inside, they weren’t getting much of anything, which was beginning to drive them nuts.

“Where the fuck is he?” one whispered. “You think he left while we were setting up?”

“Damn, I just rolled in some dog shit,” the other cursed.

“Sh-h-h-h-h.”

Ten or fifteen minutes passed while they did a lot of low whispering I couldn’t make out. Finally, the taller one stood and moved past where I was hiding and up to the house to peek into the back window of the pantry.

“He there?” the cameraman whispered a bit loudly. They were losing their stealth to a mild sense of developing panic.

“No,” the tall guy said. “Can’t see anybody inside. I’ll check and see if his car’s still out front.”

The tall one moved quietly around to the far side of the house. Once he had gone down the drive, I rose to my feet and slipped out of my hiding place, hugging the shadows, and moved closer to their camera position. By the time the assistant came back, I was so close, I could actually smell the dog poop.

“His car’s still out front,” the tall guy whispered.

“I wonder where the fuck he is,” the other responded.

“Right here,” I said, and touched the barrel of the Springfield to the side of the camera operator’s head.

“Shit!” he screeched in terror, and shot up to his feet. He was off-balance and I pushed him hard. He sprawled on the grass as the assistant put his hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot! We give!” he shouted, spittle flying.

The cameraman scurried back to his feet, thought about running, but I stopped him by waving my gun in his direction.

“You two are trespassing on my crime scene,” I said.

“Huh?”

“You got Laura’s number on that thing?” I asked, pointing to a phone on the cameraman’s belt.

He nodded and handed his cell over to me. “I d-d-idn’t … I w-w-wasn’t … We were—,” he stuttered.

“Duly noted,” I said, scrolling his recent calls. I found Laura Burke’s name and hit her number.

It rang twice before a woman’s voice said, “Talk to me, Jason.”

“Are you in charge of this blanket drill?” I asked her.

“Who is this?”

“Scully. Two of your cameramen are trespassing on my crime scene. I can book them now or we can start a negotiation.”

“Stay where you are,” she said, and hung up. A minute later I saw her striding up the drive with another man. He was a barrel-chested gray-haired guy wearing a camel coat, jeans, and sneakers. They headed into the backyard and stopped a few feet from me.

Laura was dressed for a gunfight. She was wearing a three-quarter-length black leather coat belted tight on her pipe cleaner build. Her skintight jeans and knee-high boots made her look dangerous. With her rat’s nest of curly red hair stuffed under a ball cap and her no-nonsense scowl, she had about as much sex appeal as a nine-dollar hammer.

“This kinda sucks, Jason,” she snapped at her cameraman.

“Children, children, no fighting,” I said. “We’ve got bigger problems to deal with.”

“Are you gonna arrest them?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet. I might. Make me an offer.”

We faced off for a moment. Then she turned to her companion. “Lenny, gimme your cell. I left mine in the van.”

The man handed over his cell phone and she hit a preset number. She turned away from me and had a quick, whispered conversation. I was still facing her crew, with my gun out, but it was now pointed at the ground. It didn’t look like I’d have to shoot anyone, so I holstered my weapon. Finally, Laura turned back and handed Lenny’s cell to me.

“Mr. Nash wants to talk to you.”

I took the phone. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to do something I rarely do, Shane. But I like the way you handle yourself, the way you think, so I’m going to make a big exception.”

“We’ve had two conversations. You haven’t a clue how I think.”

“I do my research. I talk to people. You rate out. That’s why I want to propose something.”

I wanted to give this guy enough line before I set my hook, so I said, “I’m listening.”

“I want us to come to an accommodation. Enter into an arrangement. How does that sound?”

“Illegal.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“Pick another city. Go to Nevada and fuck with the Vegas cops.”

“I’m not leaving L.A. I’m committed to Lita Mendez’s case.”

I said nothing, waited him out.

“We need to talk this out,” he continued. “I don’t want you as an enemy. I could use an ally on this. I think we have a shared interest. I want to find justice for Lita, who, I might add, cared desperately about justice. I think, from what I’ve been told, you share that trait.”

Again, I remained silent.

“You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you say something?”

“I haven’t heard anything yet I want to respond to.”

“Okay, look. I can understand your hesitancy, but we’re about to tape the first L.A. show. It will air next Tuesday, ten
P.M.
, coast-to-coast. It kind of sets up the whole deal here. Background on Lita and her activities against the LAPD, how your department harassed her. Of course we’re going to look at other L.A. situations as well, but obviously, the Mendez murder is going to be my centerpiece case. I can’t leave the studio right now because we’re shootin’ live for tape in two hours, but I’d like to extend an invitation for you to attend the taping. How’s that sound?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To find some common ground. This doesn’t have to be Atlanta. Why don’t you invest an hour and see if we can come to terms? Gee, the worst thing that happens is we go our separate ways. But in success, maybe you and your partner don’t have to become tragic secondary targets of my show.”

“Where’s the studio?”

“We rented a warehouse park on Pico near Century City. Follow Laura; she’ll lead you here.”

CHAPTER

17

The studio was in a new commercial park on Pico near Century City. Two concrete tilt-up warehouses faced each other across a hundred-car parking lot bordered by a nine-foot cement wall.

As we pulled through the guarded gate, I was surprised to see twenty
V-TV
vehicles parked there. Ten were TV vans, half of those rigged with satellite dishes. Parked along one wall was a fleet of white station wagons and sedans, all with
V-TV’
s fancy blue logo on the doors. I knew this was a big-budget national TV show, but somehow, in my mind, I’d been diminishing it, hoping to find some run-down rinky-dink operation with only one vehicle and half a dozen employees.

Once we were in the parking lot, I could see at least thirty crew walking back and forth between the two warehouses. One of the massive elephant doors was open and I glimpsed sets inside. Beside the door was a large sign that read: STAGE ONE. A huge sixteen-wheel TV remote truck like the ones I’d seen at televised football games was parked next to this stage with its generator running. Rubberized cables snaked out of the side and ran into the warehouse.

Laura’s van was just parking in front of me, so I pulled into a slot next to it. She was quickly out of the truck and stuck her head in my lowered passenger window. “Wait here,” she said, and was gone.