Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries)

by Matthew Storm

  Sarah turned around and took a few steps away from me. “Okay,” Ellis said. “If you’re such an expert, what would you have done?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t go around killing people in the first place. But at least…I don’t know. The Laughing Man creates still lifes, not still deaths. Sit her up on the slide like she’s enjoying herself. Have her looking at something. Throw some props in there. Dress her up in clothes that would be a little more appropriate to what she’s doing. She’s in her pajamas, for fuck’s sake.” I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it. She’s in her pajamas. He should have done it at her house, instead. Sit her up at the kitchen table like she’s eating breakfast. Make her coffee and muffins. Get some orange juice and cereal in there because those are parts of that balanced breakfast. If he was being really creative he could put the TV on to one of those dumbass morning shows; have it repeat on a loop so Al Roker would still be doing the weather when someone came in. That would be fucking perfect.”

  Dan took me by the arm again and started dragging me away from the scene. “I’ll walk you back to your car,” he said.

  “What?” I asked. “You wanted my opinion.”

  He was practically marching me away from the body now. “You are starting to scare me,” he said under his breath.

  “Why?”

  Dan shook his head. “Now I get why Sarah talked to me about you. You’ve completely lost sight of the fact that that’s a person back there. It’s not a painting, Nevada. It’s a real life that’s gone.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “You don’t appear to know that at all,” he said. “I can’t believe I thought you were stable enough to handle this.”

  “You mean you didn’t bring my badge with you?” I asked. “You’re not going to ask me to come back and be a detective?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Aw.” I looked over my shoulder. Sarah and Ellis were watching me go like I was being taken to the principal’s office. Well, Ellis was, anyway. Sarah had a look on her face that suggested I was on my way back to the psych ward. “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe I was a little abrupt about that whole thing.”

  “Abrupt?” Dan asked. “You were downright terrifying.”

  We reached my car and Dan opened the door for me. “I think you’re overreacting,” I said.

  “I think we’re going to have a very long conversation about this later,” he said.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I love long conversations. It’s my favorite thing to do besides pull all my fingernails out.”

  “Get your ass in the car, Nevada.”

  I got in the car and Dan shut the door. I watched as he walked back to the crime scene. He was overreacting, wasn’t he? I thought it over. Of course he was. Unless…maybe he wasn’t. Was there something wrong with me? I hadn’t laughed at a crime scene like that before. Never.

  Except…I actually had. Three years ago, when I’d failed to get to the Laughing Man before he killed those two little girls. After he’d beaten me half to death. When I was on my knees after he’d walked away, looking at the blood on my hands. Watching it drip onto the floor. I’d laughed then. I’d laughed until a doctor shot me full of sedatives and knocked me out.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and started to dial Molly’s number. I hung up when it started ringing. This wasn’t something I could talk to her about. We’d been clear that she could be my friend or my therapist, but not both. I wanted her as a friend more than I wanted her as a therapist. But I was starting to think I might be falling into a hole, and I definitely wanted to talk to someone about that.

  This didn’t seem like a good time to be going back to an empty motel room and looking through files. I looked at the clock and then thought about how long it would take me to get downtown. I did have somewhere else I could go. If I hurried I’d make it in time. I started the car and started in the direction of the freeway. I’d been putting this off for too long. It was time to talk to the drunks.

  Chapter 11

  The cops had their daily A.A. meeting in a small side room at the Lutheran church downtown. I think the Lutherans probably used it for Sunday school. I’d never asked. I hadn’t been to a religious service since I’d been a child, and I was in no hurry to start back up again now.

  I reached the church just before 5:30. Jason London was on his way in and spotted me coming up the steps. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I didn’t think we were going to see you in here again anytime soon.”

  “I just really missed you guys,” I said. “You know how sentimental I get.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

  “How did it go with the drug bust?”

  “About like you’d expect,” he said. “They sold me drugs. My guys came in and arrested them. They seemed really surprised.”

  “Some people never learn.”

  “Good thing, too. I’d be out of a job.” He started to smile but it froze when he took a good look at my face. “You all right?”

  “Yeah. Rough day, I guess.”

  “I guess that explains why you’re here,” he said. “Well, you’re in the right place.”

  Inside the room was the usual rogue’s gallery of ex-drunks with guns I’d come to know and…kind of like, anyway. Love wasn’t my thing. Mike Brown, a former detective from Robbery who’d been busted down to patrolman for drinking on the job sat next to Miranda Callies. Half a dozen other cops in and out of uniform sat on folding chairs that had been arranged in a wide circle. Most had Styrofoam cups of nasty black coffee in hand. I stopped at the table near the door to pour myself half a cup of the black stuff. I only drank regular coffee at A.A. meetings, never really having cared for it. I didn’t think the group was going to bring in an espresso machine just to accommodate me.

  I took a chair in the circle and sat down while Mike Brown read from one of the laminated sheets that had the A.A. steps and traditions printed on them. It was always the same routine at the beginning of meetings, and probably had been since…I didn’t actually know. I hadn’t read a lot of the organization’s history. A.A. had gotten its start in the 1930’s but at first it had been a couple guys just sitting around talking. The printed stuff had come later. I didn’t know if it could be amended like the Constitution, or if it had been set in stone for decades.

  After the recitation of the steps and traditions, Paul Wilkins, who had been the training officer of at least three people in the room, opened up by asking if anyone had anything they wanted to get off their chest. He looked pointedly at me as he did so. I didn’t say anything. One of the patrol officers spoke up instead and spent a few minutes talking about her marriage. When she was done we went in a circle, taking turns to speak. Nobody had anything earth-shattering or life-changing they needed to talk about. For some people, meetings probably had much the same function of going to a therapist or a priest would. You could talk about whatever you wanted to and nobody in the room was going to break your confidence. It also had the advantage of being free, and there was no priest to assign you a penance if he didn’t like what you had to say.

  When the circle got to me I said, “My name’s Nevada. I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Nevada,” everyone said in unison.

  “I’m not sure why I’m even here today,” I said. “I guess it’s that I’ve been to two crime scenes this week and looked at two bodies, and now everybody thinks I’m crazy.”

  Miranda nearly gasped. “You got your badge back?” Everyone turned to stare at her. Interrupting someone while they were speaking was strictly taboo. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I’m not back with the department. I guess I’m a consultant, or something like that. The thing is…” I took a second to think. “I’m not reacting to it. Or I’m reacting wrong, I guess. I was out looking at a woman with her face sliced half off and I started trying to taunt whoever was responsible for it. Shouldn’t I be…I don’t know. Sad? I mean, not falling apart, obviously. I’d h
ave made a pretty shitty cop if I got weepy every time I saw a dead body. But I’m not a cop now. I see these dead people and I just don’t give a shit about them. It’s not any different than looking at cat litter.” I thought about that for a moment. “I think I might be broken,” I said. “Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say today. Thanks.”

  The meeting continued until everyone had had a turn to speak, and then Paul brought things to a close with the Serenity Prayer and a reminder that anything said in this room was supposed to stay in this room. My coffee had gotten cold; I’d forgotten to drink it. As people shook each other’s hands and started drifting out, Miranda Callies came over and sat down next to me. “It’s good to see you here,” she said.

  “I just really missed sitting in a circle,” I said.

  “No, you didn’t.” She smiled. “Did you call Howard Lanford?”

  “No,” I said. “I got busy with this damn copycat thing. I’ll try him tomorrow. It’s not time-sensitive. I mean, unless he dies of old age before I reach him. I’d feel pretty stupid about it then.”

  Paul stepped over to us. “It’s good to see you, Nevada,” he said. “How long has it been?”

  “Two weeks,” I told him. “But you’d think I died, the way you people react.”

  He took a seat next to Miranda. “When someone disappears from this circle it’s not hard to imagine they’ve gone back out again.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. The group had had its share of relapses. Every now and then somebody would stop coming in for a while, and then they’d be back to start their A.A. medallion collection all over again. I was coming up on four months sober. There was no way in hell that was going to happen to me.

  “You said two crime scenes?” Paul asked. “Is this the copycat, or does Homicide bring you in on everything these days?”

  “It’s the copycat,” I said. “I started laughing when I saw the body. Dan’s mad at me. And Sarah Winters is probably afraid of me by now.”

  “Sarah understands that you and she approach things from very different places,” Paul said. “Very few people have had your…well, why don’t we say your experiences give you a unique perspective?”

  I stared at him. “Sarah talks to you about this?”

  “She does,” he nodded. “She thinks the world of you, and she likes to consider you a friend.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Nevada. I don’t repeat anything you, or anybody else, says in this room. Sarah’s been like a daughter to me, though. When she needs to talk, I listen to her.”

  “She’s such a Girl Scout,” I said.

  “Are you saying she’s not your friend?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not saying that. I don’t know why she’s working homicides, though. She’s good at it, but she’d probably have been a better kindergarten teacher.”

  “I can’t say that never occurred to me,” Paul nodded.

  Mike Brown came over and shook my hand as he headed out, as did another of the patrol cops. “Did you ever meet Brad Ellis?” I asked Paul.

  “Once or twice,” he said. “I’ve heard he’s a good detective.”

  “He’s a preening douchebag,” Miranda said.

  “I’ve also heard that,” Paul admitted. “I’m sure I didn’t hear it in here, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Sarah can hold her own. Anyway, I didn’t really come in here to talk about the case. It’s just…I don’t know why I’m like this.”

  “Depression?” Jason asked from where he’d been saying goodbye to another cop. “They make pills for that.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be the person to talk to me about pills,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t mean the stuff I was on. You know doctors actually prescribe medicine for people. Half the department is on something or other.”

  “Nevada,” Paul said. “Why did you start drinking?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I scowled at him. “Fine. I drank so I could sleep at night. And later I drank because it was the only way I could get through the day. Because I hated the person I was and the booze made me forget about that person. It’s not rocket science.”

  “No, it’s not. I think you know what we call it.”

  “We call it self-medication,” I said. “I’ve read the book, Paul.”

  “It’s not in those same words,” he said, “but the fact is, the reasons you drank didn’t just go away when you put the bottle down. We don’t just magically become different people overnight. We just become people who don’t drink anymore.”

  “I don’t know if that’s better or worse,” I said. “At least when I was drinking it didn’t bother me.”

  “You also didn’t have the chance to make any changes,” Miranda said. “I didn’t know you then, but I heard you were pretty much living in a cave waiting to die.”

  “It wasn’t a cave,” I protested. “I hadn’t vacuumed in a while, sure, but there wasn’t that much mold on my carpet.”

  “It was a metaphor, Nevada. Sort of.”

  “I know.” My phone buzzed and I looked at the caller ID. Dan Evans was checking in. I could ignore him for a while, but he’d never stop calling until I talked to him. “I should go,” I said. “I’ve got a couple things I need to do.” I looked around at the three of them. “Thanks for being here.”

  “That’s what we do, Nevada,” Paul said. “And you’re here for us, too.”

  “Well, good luck to you guys, then.” Anyone who called me when they were having a crisis was going to have it rough. I wasn’t good at that kind of thing. Unless they were calling because they needed me to shoot someone. That much I could handle.

  Chapter 12

  I called Dan back as I was walking out to my car. “Shut the fuck up,” I said when he answered. “I don’t want to hear any more of your shit. I went to a meeting and you’re not my fucking therapist.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said. “I was actually going to apologize for being short with you earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Anything else you want to get off your chest, Nevada? I’ve got time if you want to yell at me some more. It’s not like I have a fucking job to do or anything.”

  “No.”

  “Well, take your time and think about it. Maybe you want to tell me I’m a fucking asshole because I care about you?”

  “No.”

  “No? Wait, I’ve got it. How about that I’m totally out of line for being worried when you act like a crazy person and start shouting at nobody at a crime scene. In sight of fucking television cameras, for god’s sake?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “No, you didn’t, Nevada. You didn’t say that. You never say that.”

  I sighed. None of the fights I picked with Dan ever went the way I planned for them to. “I’m sorry, Dan. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that just now. I’m frustrated with myself and I took it out on you.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. “Wow,” he said. “That was good. Did you rehearse that apology?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see it on television? Read it in a book?”

  “Give me a break, Dan.”

  He chuckled. “I was kidding, Nevada. Mostly. You aren’t exactly known for your apologies.”

  “I like to think that’s because I’m right so often.”

  “It’s not. Anyway, forget it. You have any thoughts on the copycat? CSI is going over the scene with a fine-toothed comb but I don’t think we’re going to get much.”

  I unlocked my Mustang and got inside. “You were right before.”

  “How?”

  “This one was different enough from the first to be interesting. The body wasn’t dumped and the facial wounds were done better, even though they obviously weren’t the Laughing Man’s work.”

  “You don’t think we’ve got two of these lunatics out there?”

  “Two copycat
s? No. Just one. I think the killer is learning.”

  “Learning how?” Dan asked.

  I needed to come up with a way to explain this that wasn’t going to make me sound like a psychopath. “He’s learning that the Laughing Man’s signature isn’t the way he mutilates the face. That’s part of it, of course, but the real signature is the art. Sarah knew that even before she called me out there for the first body. She already knew it was a copycat. She just wanted me to confirm it. The killer didn’t understand that. Now he’s starting to get it.”

  Dan thought that over. “Weird,” he said.

  “Yeah. I’m not sure why he didn’t get that in the first place, but I guess it’s not the first thing that catches your eye. You see the faces he carves and not the scene he’s set up. Forest for the trees, I guess. But even if he’d posed the body better it wouldn’t have fooled me. It’s a hard thing to do right.”

  “The art?”

  “Yeah. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like a forgery. Even if it’s done really well, an expert is always going to spot it.”

  “And you’re the expert,” Dan said.

  “Unfortunately. But the copycat, whoever he is, is so amateur at this you’re not going to need me. If you get any more bodies before Sarah catches him I’ll come look at the crime scenes. I’ll help any way I can, but I don’t think I’m going to have much to give you. Sarah can call me if she needs any advice. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. It’s not like I ever sleep that well.”

  “I’ll tell her. Thank you, Nevada.”

  “I’m all about being helpful,” I said.

  “And I’m glad you went to a meeting.”

  “You know something?” I asked. “I think I am, too.”

  I drove out to a strip mall I knew in Mission Valley to pick up take-out Chinese food, a carton of pot stickers and another of their house chow mein. Back at my motel I sat down in front of my laptop to eat and screw around on the Internet. There were funny cat videos to watch, and as much as I’d never have admitted it to anyone, I liked funny cat videos. I also spent a good half hour watching some PBS show where a guy visited bed and breakfast hotels in New England and talked about why he liked each one. I had no idea why I found that appealing. Maybe it was the idea of getting away from San Diego, but I certainly wasn’t going to New England anytime soon. If I was going to get on a plane and disappear, it would be to somewhere tropical. And isolated. Somewhere nobody could find me.