by J. D. Barker
He rattled all this off, then he hung up on me! I hit Redial from my call log but the line just rang and rang, a dozen times at least. I couldn’t call him back on his phone; he said the police had that. I did the only sane thing I could—I rolled over in my bed and screamed into my pillow.
I felt better after that. Nothing like a good scream to clear the head. You all should try it, maybe you could actually do what you’re paid for.
That’s when I caught the smell of breakfast wafting up from downstairs—bacon, eggs, English muffins…Ms. Neace, no doubt. It seemed odd for such a normal thing to fill my senses after Michael’s phone call.
I pushed back my sheets and down comforter, sat on the edge of my bed, and caught the naked girl staring at me from the full-length mirror in the corner of my room. Even from that distance, I spotted the bags under my eyes, the tangled mess of my brown hair. At least my boobs looked good. I gave the nips a tweak. I could always count on the girls.
I had spent the entire night dialing Michael over and over after he’d found that body. I’d texted too. Dr. Rose always insisted I get at least eight hours. I probably slept half that. No bueno…
No way I could let Dr. Rose see me like that. She’d know something was up if I planned to help Michael, and that wasn’t an option. I snatched my robe from the back of my dressing-table chair, threw it on, and fumbled with my hairbrush.
One hundred strokes, fifty per side.
Better.
Little concealer under the eyes—much better.
I glanced down at my desk at that point, and I’m not gonna lie, I stared at it a few minutes.
Dr. Bart bought me that desk when I was a kid. An antique Cutler rolltop, more than one hundred years old, in perfect condition.
“This desk belonged to a schoolteacher in Buffalo during the First World War,” he told me on the day he presented it. He’d guided me down the hallway and ushered me into my bedroom blindfolded. “Her husband left to fight in the war, and she sat here every night writing him letters, praying for his safe return. He never did come home, though. When she passed at the age of eighty-one, she left the desk to her grandson, an attorney in the city. It remained in his office until I purchased it at an auction last week. This desk has seen the birth of equal rights, the Great Depression, multiple wars, the rise and fall of nations, the deaths of Kennedy and King, and the destruction of the Twin Towers. Imagine the secrets held within that polished mahogany. This desk is a witness to history, and now it’s part of your history to own, to cherish—you will write its next chapter before passing it on to your own children one day.”
I was five.
WTF, right? Who says that to a five-year-old?
Twenty minutes later, I wrote my name across the front with yellow crayon. Dr. Rose cleaned it before Dr. Bart saw what I’d done. I never did like antiques much, anyway.
There’s a hidden compartment under the center desk drawer—that’s where I kept the sparrow feathers Dr. Bart gave me over the years. Soft and pressed tight between the pages of Wuthering Heights.
Have you ever read that book, Detective Dobbs? I doubt it. You look like a jock who probably avoided books without pictures. I bet Jessica read it, though, when she was a girl, all curled up on a bench at her window in her perfect room on a perfect street in a perfect little town.
Not all homes are perfect, Jessica. I think you have to live in toxicity to understand it. And that’s why you suck at your job.
Chapter Fourteen
Dobbs
Dobbs stood in the interview room, staring at the two red spots on the cinder-block wall, then at the larger puddle on the tile floor. “Is Sillman gonna be okay?”
“Concussion,” Wilkins said. “They took him to Good Sam. Waynick rode with him and the paramedics. Said he came around by the time they got to the hospital, swore it was the attorney who hit him, not Kepler. Said he sucker-punched him. Sillman’s expected to make a full recovery, but he’s taking it pretty hard. Said to tell you he’s sorry he dropped the ball.”
Dobbs glanced up at the camera. It had been his call to leave it off while talking to Kepler. He preferred to leave the camera off until the start of an actual interrogation; the little red light blinking to life tended to rattle a perp.
This camera hadn’t recorded anything, but others had. In the security office, he watched Kepler and his attorney hustle through the building, go down the service elevator, and walk out into the parking garage. The camera lost them there but picked Kepler back up when he exited the structure in an old Ford, the attorney riding shotgun. The tags were bogus, but they had an APB out on the car. Rush hour in LA started at five, gridlock lasted until ten. Traffic cams might pick up the bogus plate, but if Kepler had half a brain, he’d ditch the car, maybe swap it for another or maybe go on foot.
“Get his picture out to all the bus stations, train, TSA over at LAX. We can’t let him out of the city,” Dobbs said.
“Already done,” Wilkins replied. “I also put it out to the taxi services, Uber, and Lyft. They got a pic of the attorney too.”
“He’s armed. Do we go to the press? Get his picture out in the public?”
Wilkins bit his lower lip. “He escaped from LAPD headquarters. You don’t want to put that out there unless someone up the totem pole signs off.”
Dobbs’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket and glanced at the display—Dantzler. He walked to the far corner of the room and answered. “Yeah?”
“Hey, I’m at Kepler’s truck over at Nadler Distribution. Do you have a second to talk?”
“What’d you find?”
“Well, for starters, Kepler’s an audiobook fan. He’s got about a dozen of them in here, CDs checked out from his local library. Not exactly the kind of thing I’d expect. It’s all highbrow stuff—nonfiction philosophy texts, sociology, ideology, and two books by a guy named Lawrence Levine. The book currently on deck is called The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud. Good book, but personally I prefer Jung over Freud.”
“I’m more of a Jack Reacher fan myself,” Dobbs said.
“No popcorn fiction for this guy. He’s burning the miles educating himself.”
“Why doesn’t a guy like this finish college? He’s got Mommy and Daddy footing the bill. Why drop out to drive a truck?”
“Did you pull his transcripts? Maybe there’s something there,” Dantzler suggested.
“I’ll get to that. Does the truck have a transponder?”
Dantzler said, “A Trux Data. They recently switched from CarrierWeb. I’ve got my guys downloading the data. Kepler’s boss said the box records thirty days. He’s dropping the rest on a thumb drive from some central server. Said he can go back to the day Kepler started, about two years ago. For what it’s worth, his boss said Kepler never gave him any trouble. Showed up on time. Delivered on time. Everything by the book. The ideal employee. We’re getting the security-camera footage too. I don’t expect to find much there. Sounds like he pulled in at midnight, unloaded, and left around three in the morning, just like he told you.”
“What else did you find in the truck?”
“Couple changes of clothes. Toothbrush, shaving kit. Our guy’s neat. You could eat off the floor. No garbage. Ashtrays look like they’ve never been used. He’s got one of those extended cabs with a small bed in the back—he actually makes the bed. Sheets are tight and white, reminds me of my army days. I was beginning to think we wouldn’t find anything worthwhile, but then we pulled the mattress out and got a good look at it. Found a small slit in the back corner, just big enough to get stuff in and out.”
Dobbs pressed the phone closer to his ear. “Tell me you found something.”
“We found a ziplock bag full of bird feathers.”
Dobbs frowned. “Feathers?”
“Sparrow feathers. About two dozen of them.”
“Why would he have sparrow feathers?”
Dantzler said, “I suppose it’s not weird to collect bird feathers. It is weird to hid
e them inside your mattress, so we plugged the bird-feathers thing into NCIC and got a hit. An FBI flag. When we hang up, you need to give them a call. I’ll text you the information along with a few pictures. You’ll have the rest of my file inside an hour.”
“What about a personal vehicle? Between his apartment and work, have you seen any evidence of some kind of car or truck? Nobody lives in LA without a vehicle.”
“I asked, and nobody here has seen him with a car. He walks in and walks out. His apartment is less than a mile away. It’s possible he doesn’t have one. Did you check the DMV?”
Dobbs said, “Nothing registered in his name. Either name.”
They hung up, and a moment later, his phone buzzed with a series of text messages from Dantzler. He used his thumb and forefinger to expand one of the images of the feathers in a bag. Fucking weird. Then he dialed the FBI special agent who’d put out the alert on NCIC—a Jessica Gimble—got voice mail, and left a message.
He needed coffee.
Chapter Fifteen
Written Statement,
Megan Fitzgerald
What was your mother like, Jessica? I bet she was a nice lady who spent half the day in a kitchen that always smelled of freshly baked cookies and the other half with her arms around you, telling you how much she loved you. Even Dobbs probably had a father who liked to toss a football around with him occasionally. Maybe helped him rebuild a ’65 Mustang so he could roll into high school at sixteen all king-of-the-hill-like.
My home life wasn’t quite like that.
Our home life wasn’t like that.
Although I was too young to remember when the Fitzgeralds adopted me, they were never shy about reminding me. Me or Michael. There was no mom or dad in our house. Not really even a mother or father. Such things, such terms, were deceptive, and when you’re raised by not one but two doctors, those falsities don’t fly. They insisted we call them Dr. Bart and Dr. Rose. The term mother never left my lips unless it was part of a compound word not quite as charming but perfectly appropriate for both my adoptive parents.
“Megan, dear, you’re not eating.”
Dr. Rose knew how to get under my skin. I looked up to find her watching me from across the table, her head tilted slightly to the side.
Even on Sunday mornings, she dressed to the nines in clothing no doubt purchased at Mint Julep, her favorite boutique in town. Usually she wore a cream-colored two-piece suit with a white blouse beneath, buttoned to her neck. A silver brooch to match the silver hair she pulled into a tight bun, the kind of bun that gave me a headache just looking at it. She spent hours applying her makeup, finishing moments before coming downstairs.
The day her adopted son was accused of murder was no different.
I looked back down at my plate.
Ms. Neace had loaded me up with bacon, eggs, and a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar. I managed to take a few bites, but mostly I just shuffled the food around with my fork. “Not hungry, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Sorry, Dr. Rose. I’m not particularly hungry this good morning, kind madam.”
Her gray eyes narrowed and she gave me that look, the one that made her hawklike nose appear a little longer. The look that dramatically positioned shadows from the room around her solemn face just so. “Perhaps it’s time we put an end to the late-night phone calls,” she said. “Such distractions lead to lack of rest, and lack of rest will rob one of one’s appetite.”
Dr. Rose had insisted Ms. Neace set a place for Dr. Bart—plate, utensils, glassware—as if he were going to join us. I might still be an undergrad, but even I understand this is unhealthy, creepy behavior. Dr. Bart was in a drawer somewhere, a cold metal drawer, probably with a hole in his head and his brain in a bin, removed to get a better look at the aneurysm that had killed him without warning. In a few days, he would be buried, gone forever, yet Dr. Rose persisted in these games. Last night, I saw her carry two glasses of water up to their bedroom.
I plucked the grapefruit from my plate and set it on Dr. Bart’s. He always did love his grapefruit.
Dr. Rose watched me quietly.
My cell phone vibrated on the chair beside me. Cell phones were not permitted at the dining table. I glanced down at the display—I didn’t recognize the number.
“Is that your brother?”
“Telemarketer, I guess.” I expected her to scold me, but she didn’t.
“But that was your brother last night?”
It was my turn to fall silent.
When Michael dropped out of school and ran off (had it been six years already?), he didn’t tell our parents where he was going—didn’t so much as leave a note. He had this nasty fight with Dr. Bart, and the following morning he was gone. Nearly a month passed before he even contacted me—from Wyoming that time, the first of many places. Over the years, I’d boxed up some of the stuff he’d left and mailed it to him whenever he did anything even mildly permanent, like paying two months of rent in advance. First just clothing, then more obscure items; I was hoping they might remind him of home, maybe guilt him into some kind of return. I sent track trophies, drawings we did as kids, old Halloween costumes, whatever I could find. Whatever I could ship. No way he’d talk to Dr. Rose. He certainly wasn’t going to talk to Dr. Bart. But he talked to me.
Dr. Rose said, “Will your brother be attending Dr. Bart’s funeral?”
Ms. Neace came in to refill our coffee mugs, eyed the grapefruit on Dr. Bart’s plate as she circled the table, then returned to the kitchen.
“He knows the funeral is Tuesday,” I told her. “I asked him to come.”
“He should be there,” she said. “It would be wrong for him not to attend. Dr. Bart raised him. Put a roof over his head. Offered him an education, even if he didn’t take it.”
My phone buzzed again. Same number.
“If that’s him, you should answer it.”
“It’s not him,” I told her.
Dr. Rose dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Tell him to put his differences with Dr. Bart aside long enough to attend. That would be the proper thing to do. If not for me, he should do it for you.”
The only reason Dr. Rose had her girdle in a twist was appearances. Oh, the gossip if Michael didn’t attend! What would her university colleagues say behind her back? A boy raised by two of the most prominent doctors in the country who would not speak to his mother or attend the funeral of his father?
Did you know he ran off six years ago?
He dropped out of school? I thought he’d just transferred!
I heard he’s a truck driver, of all things! Can you imagine?
On and on.
If word got out about Michael, his actions would clearly be seen as a failure on the part of Dr. Rose and Dr. Bart, and neither of them failed—not in anything. Not ever. Dr. Bart in particular had never hesitated to point that out.
“You need to tell him how disappointed you will be if he doesn’t attend,” Dr. Rose insisted.
“Are you seeing patients today?”
She smiled that Cheshire cat grin of hers. “Trying to get rid of me?”
I nodded. “I need to break into Dr. Bart’s office, and I’d prefer it if you weren’t here to stop me.”
“You think you’re funny. I see. As if this were a time for jokes.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Rose.”
Dr. Rose added creamer to her coffee, stirred, and took a delicate sip. “I prefer not to work on Sundays, but yes, I have two appointments today at my university office, at twelve and one. Later this afternoon, I’m meeting Gracie downtown. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”
Tea time and girl talk with one of Dr. Rose’s friends—I’d rather go to the gyno. “Can you drop me at the university library? I really need to study. I have an exam tomorrow in Professor Spradley’s class.”
“Dr. Spradley can be tough.”
My phone rang again. I pressed Decline.
“Are you sure that’s
not your brother?”
“Positive.”
But I was beginning to think it might be.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael
The Stow ’n’ Go warehouse complex off Alameda reminded me of a prison repurposed as a place to store the crap people never use. Signs advertised 120,000 square feet of secure storage at rates as low as $19.99 a month. The top floor of the three-story outer building was painted bright blue; the lower half was a creamy beige. Within the center courtyard stood three rows of smaller buildings. Each of the first-floor units boasted large garage doors painted the same blue as the topmost brick that opened onto strips of blacktop just wide enough for loading and unloading.
A key card was required to enter the building whether you were in a vehicle or on foot. My key card was in my wallet, which was back at my apartment or in an evidence bag with the LAPD.
From one of the four Dumpsters on the west side of the building, I fished out a flattened cardboard box that had once held a wine refrigerator. I found three smaller boxes, put them on top of each other, then picked up the whole pile. When a woman followed by a little boy of around eight years old approached the glass double doors toting a box of her own, I fell in step behind them. The woman held her key card awkwardly between two fingers. She said something to the boy, who snatched the card, ran to the reader, unlocked the door, and tugged it open.
I closed the distance, bending my knees slightly as if struggling under the weight of the boxes. “Can you hold that for me?”
I wedged my shoulder against the door, shouted a thanks, and made my way down the hallway on the right to one of the doors leading to the outer courtyard. Cameras were mounted everywhere.