by Lee Goldberg
"Did they."
Steve shook his head. "If they did, it was with a bullet."
CHAPTER FIVE
While Mark made breakfast, Steve showered and got into fresh clothes. Over pancakes and bacon, orange juice and coffee, they sketched out a game plan for the investigation.
Their first stop would be to see Stryker's attorney. Then, depending on whatever warrants the DA could get them, they would move to arrest and interrogate the three top suspects in Stryker's murder and the firebombing of his office. In the meantime, they'd go over Stryker's phone and credit-card records and see if they could trace his movements over the last few days.
Steve called his captain and the DA to brief them on the Stryker files while Mark cleared away the dishes, took a shower, and got dressed.
When Mark returned to the kitchen, Steve was just hanging up the phone. He told his father there was going to be a slight change in their itinerary. Amanda had called to say that she'd finished her autopsy report on the body found in the dumpster and that Tim Lau, the arson investigator, was on his way down to meet her with his preliminary findings.
Mark and Steve packed the stacks of files into old cardboard boxes and priority-mail cartons scrounged from the garage, put the boxes in the trunk of Steve's department-issue Crown Victoria, and slogged through the rush-hour traffic to Community General Hospital.
They walked into the morgue to find Amanda and Tim at her desk, sipping coffee and laughing together over something. They were as at ease having coffee among the corpses as they would have been in a Starbucks. Amanda seemed unusually upbeat and animated considering the early hour and the gruesome nature of her work. Mark attributed her bright demeanor to Tim's company, and judging by the scowl on Steve's face, so did his son. Steve didn't harbor any romantic inclinations towards Amanda, but he was very protective of her, as an older brother would be towards a younger sister.
"Should we have brought pastries?" Steve said.
Tim glanced at Steve, then back to Amanda. "Is he always this sour in the morning?"
"Morning, noon, and night," Amanda said, then introduced Tim to Mark.
"It's an honor to meet you, Dr. Sloan," Tim said, his back to Steve, who rolled his eyes, earning a glare from Amanda. "Your work on the Sunnyview Bomber case is textbook material in the training of arson investigators."
"Really?" Mark asked. "I didn't know that."
Tim couldn't see Steve behind him, kissing the air to illustrate his view of the investigator's comments.
"Here's my preliminary report." Amanda threw a file at Steve's head, then politely handed Mark and Tim each a copy of the file. "The first thing I can tell you is that he's not Nick Stryker."
"Then who is he?" Steve asked, picking up his file from the floor.
"He's the guy who set fire to Stryker's office." Amanda said.
"You can tell that from an autopsy?" Steve said.
"I'm amazing," she said.
"I can vouch for that," Tim said.
"Can you?" Steve said.
Amanda walked over to one of the autopsy tables, where a body was covered by a white sheet. The three men followed her. She pulled back the sheet to reveal the blackened corpse, seared down to the charred muscles.
"The victim suffered multiple traumatic injuries. Fractures, ruptured organs, and collapsed lungs," she said. "He was nearly incinerated. The nature of his burns indicates he was near the source of the explosion when it occurred."
"What explosion?" Steve said.
"The one that blew him out the window of Stryker's office and into the trash bin," Mark said, leaning over the body to examine it closely. "These are concussive-force injuries."
"Translation, please," Steve said.
Tim looked at Steve and gave him the kind of smile a person might give an old lady he was helping across the street
"The concussive wave from an explosion is like a fall from a high building," Tim said. "It has the same impact on a body as smacking into the sidewalk would have."
Mark glanced at Steve. He could tell his son was restraining the urge to slap the helpful smile right off Tim's face.
"And how do we know he wasn't tossed off the roof of the mini-mall?" Steve's voice was unnaturally even, betraying the effort he was making.
"A two-story fall wouldn't have produced such extreme trauma over his entire body," Mark said.
"How do we know he wasn't tossed off another building, scraped off the pavement, dumped in the trash bin, and then set on fire?"
"The burns tell the story, Steve," Tim said. "And it's corroborated by the fire damage in the building. Let me show you."
He walked back to Amanda's desk and picked up his leather shoulder bag from the guest chair. He reached inside, pulled out a stack of photos, and spread them across her desktop.
Mark, Steve, and Amanda joined him to look at the various wide and close-up shots of the fire scene and individual pieces of twisted metal and burned wood. To Mark's untrained eye, it was all just blackened rubble. Tim took a sleek silver pointer from his breast pocket, extended it, and used it to direct their attention to individual photos.
"Judging by the intensity of the heat on these structural elements, the second-floor office was clearly the point of origin for the fire, which was started with gasoline," Tim said. "The pattern of spalling on the walls and floors indicates where the gasoline was spread. The guy splashed it every where, as you can see, including the wall around the door."
Tim retracted his pointer. "Since we didn't find traces of any other explosives in the office, we've developed a theory as to what happened."
"Who's we?" Steve asked.
"Amanda and me," Tim said. "We spent several hours last night fleshing things out."
"I bet," Steve said, turning to Amanda. "She hasn't fleshed in a while."
"She's very good at it," Tim said, acknowledging for the first time the tension between them.
Mark cleared his throat. "From what I understand, Tim, a gallon of gasoline equals twenty sticks of dynamite. But spilled gasoline doesn't explode, it ignites."
"True, Dr. Sloan," Tim said, turning to Mark and missing the glare of fury Amanda shot at Steve. "But imagine if someone dropped a match into a gasoline container."
"But that's not what happened here," Mark said.
"In a sense it is," Tim said. "The office was the container."
"Our theory is that the guy wasn't an experienced arsonist," Amanda said. "This was probably his first time torching anything. So he broke in, closed the door behind himself, and started pouring gasoline around the office. But he stopped for some reason, perhaps to read something or go through a file cabinet. After a few minutes, he finished emptying the canister, struck a match, and tried to ignite the gasoline."
Tim jumped in, like a relay runner taking the baton. "But the gasoline doesn't catch. Frustrated, he rolls up some papers like a torch, lights it, and tosses it across the room. What he doesn't realize is that all this time, gasoline fumes have been building up in the confined space."
"It was like walking into a house with a gas leak and turning on the lights," Amanda said. "Boom and adios."
Tim and Amanda smiled at each other, pleased with themselves. They had every right to be.
Mark went over the facts and saw the scenario clearly in his mind. The arsonist was blown out the window and landed, ablaze, in the trash bin in the alley below.
Steve could see it, too. They did such good work together, Steve could almost forgive Tim for hitting on Amanda so hard and her for succumbing so quickly.
He shook his head in disbelief. "I've got to hand it to you two. That's one incredible theory, but it all fits. Whoever this guy was, he's won himself a place of honor in the Moron Hall of Fame."
"The word around LAFD is that he's definitely a nominee for the Idiot Arsonist of the Year Award," Tim said, recognizing Steve's comment for the peace offering that it was.
"Sounds like he'll make a clean sweep of all the major imbecile award
s this year," Steve said, then faced Amanda. "It would be great if we could identify him so his family can accept the honors on his behalf."
"I'm working on it," she said. "But if it helps, a few years ago he took a bullet in the shoulder."
Mark looked thoughtfully at the burnt body on the autopsy table. "Have you collected any other unidentified bodies in the last week or so?"
"Nope," Amanda said.
"Then we have a problem," Mark said.
"What's that?" Steve said.
Mark sighed. "We're one body short."
"Nick Stryker was murdered?" attorney Pamela Swann asked. She was sitting behind her desk, breast-feeding her baby daughter. "When did it happen? How was he killed?"
"We were hoping you could tell us the answers to those questions." Steve said, trying hard not to look at Swann's open shirt.
Swann was in her early thirties, tall enough to be an awesome basketball player, and surprisingly frail for someone who had just given birth to an enormous baby girl.
Her office was cramped, the furniture rearranged to make room for a crib, a playpen, and a baby-changing table. Steve's seat was right next to the diaper genie, which, from the smell, he figured was overdue for emptying.
"Maybe it's the hormones raging through my system." she said. "But I'm totally confused, Detective. If you don't know how Nick was killed, what makes you think he was murdered?"
Swann didn't seem all that confused to Steve. In fact, she somehow managed to maintain her lawyerly air even with a baby suckling her breast. He wondered if she'd chosen this moment to feed her baby just to unnerve him. If so, it was working. His father, however, appeared completely at ease.
"Because you told us." Mark said amiably. "Well, you told me, actually. I was sent a box of files and this letter."
Mark passed a copy of Stryker's note across the desk to her. She leaned forward to take it, revealing even more of her bosom to Steve, who looked away quickly.
She read it carefully and set it aside, taking a deep breath before speaking again.
"I've been on maternity leave for the past two weeks," she said. "I didn't know about this."
"Then how did it get sent?" Steve asked.
"It was all prearranged, part of a simple system we worked out. It's been going on for so long that I forgot all about it," she said. "I delegated it to my assistant years ago."
"How does the arrangement work?" Mark said.
"Nick calls on the seventh of every month and leaves a message on our voice mail. Nothing special, just a simple hello is all," she said. "If he doesn't call, we're supposed to immediately send out all the files in his safe-deposit box according to whatever instructions we find there."
"That's it?" Steve said incredulously. "You weren't supposed to even try to call him to double-check? Maybe stop by his house to see if he was okay?"
"He's always called," she said.
"Why didn't you notify the police?" Mark said.
"That wasn't part of his instructions," she said.
"You could have done it out of concern for your client," Steve said.
"I show my concern by respecting my client's wishes, which, in this case, are in writing."
"But if he didn't call, you knew it had to mean he was in danger," Mark said. "Or worse."
"I didn't know anything. I wasn't here. This is the first I've heard about it," Swann gently lifted her baby away from her breast, adjusted her blouse, and draped a towel over her shoulder. "Now maybe you can answer a question for me. Where did you find Nick's body?"
"We haven't, Steve said.
"So he could still be alive." Swann held her baby to her shoulder and gently patted her back.
"Someone set fire to his office and he didn't make his call," Mark said. "It doesn't look too good."
"He could be in hiding," Swann said.
"Those files were his meal ticket. Stryker would have found a way to call you from whatever rock he was under," Steve said. "He's dead."
Swann started rocking gently in her seat. Steve wasn't sure if it was to comfort herself or the baby.
"Do you know what case he was working on?" Mark asked her.
She shook her head. "I haven't talked to him in months. But he sent a box of chocolates to me last week in the maternity ward."
"Did you know what was in Stryker's files?" Steve said.
Swann offered him a tight smile. "Do you really expect me to answer that?
Steve shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."
CHAPTER SIX
There was a list of things District Attorney Neil Burnside was determined to avoid in the few short months before the people of Los Angeles went to the polls and, he hoped, elected him mayor in a landslide over his opponents—the current chief of police, a city councilwoman, and the incumbent mayor.
Most of the things on his list he could control. He wouldn't drive drunk, he wouldn't cheat on his wife, he wouldn't take any bribes, and he wouldn't murder anybody.
But there were a few items that were a question of fate. He didn't want a scandal within his office. He didn't want any celebrities to murder anyone. And he didn't want anything to do with Dr. Mark Sloan.
Publicly, Burnside was on record many times declaring his respect for Dr. Sloan and his appreciation of the man's invaluable contributions to law enforcement. His true opinion of the doctor, however, was far different
He conceded that Dr. Sloan was a brilliant detective who had been responsible for the apprehension and conviction of many killers over the years. But every one of the doctor's successes was nonetheless an embarrassment to Burnside's office and the LAPD. If a white-haired old doctor could solve more murders than professional homicide investigators, what did that make them?
Inept.
His opinion of Mark Sloan was unaffected by the fact that the homicides the doctor solved jacked up the DA's conviction rate. The glory went to Sloan, even if the doctor avoided the limelight and always gave credit for his accomplishments to the detectives and prosecutors. The damning, though unspoken, subtext was still there: The LAPD and the DA's office aren't as bright as some elderly, amateur sleuth.
Dr. Sloan probably didn't intend to send that message, though Burnside couldn't be entirely sure, especially now, at the onset of what was certain to be a hotly contested mayoral campaign.
Burnside wondered if perhaps the doctor's avuncular personality was actually a disarming ruse to disguise the cunning political gamesman he really was.
He'd underestimated Dr. Sloan many times before. Doing so again now could have disastrous consequences.
All of which made the box on Burnside's desk as dangerous as it was tantalizing.
Burnside stared at it. So did his campaign manager, Rhea Dickens, and his most trusted prosecutor, Owen Penmore, the man he was grooming to take his place.
Burnside spoke first. "A string of major arrests and convictions between now and election day would make me look like a confident, aggressive, and successful prosecutor."
"Who owes it all to the work of a blackmailer. How's that going to look?" Penmore folded his arms across his broad chest. He came from a wealthy family and had a St. Bart tan and a double-breasted, tailored suit that were beyond the means of any other civil servant at his pay grade.
"Stryker is dead and may never be found." Dickens paced in front of the desk, casting a glance at the box each time she passed it. "Forget about him."
"He obtained this evidence questionably at best and illegally at worst, Penmore said. "He defrauded his clients and blackmailed the targets of his investigations. His character, or lack of it, taints every document, photograph, wiretap, and video in that box."
Dickens rejected his concerns with a dismissive wave of her impeccably manicured hand. "He's not a factor anymore."
"He will be when they find his corpse," Penmore said.
"Who says they have to?" Dickens cast a conspiratorial glance at Burnside, who pretended, for Penmore's benefit, not to notice.
"Eit
her way, Stryker isn't going to be available to be impeached on the stand," Burnside said. "So who is to say exactly how he obtained this evidence or what he was doing with it?"
"The high-powered lawyers all his victims are going to be hiring after we arrest them," Penmore said. "They will make him the story."
"A tiny, two-paragraph news brief on the back page of Section B, while the coverage of their clients' crimes will be splashed all over the front page of the Los Angeles Times and will be the lead item on every local newscast, especially after we leak some of the wiretaps and video evidence to the press," Dickens said. "Nobody is going to care where it came from. They'll be too busy being shocked by the sound bites and the video clips. Whatever noise they have to make about Stryker can't possibly compete with that."
She leaned across the desk to face Burnside. "Think of all the media attention these cases will bring you without costing the campaign a dime."
Burnside had thought about it. He also liked the idea of ending his tenure as district attorney with a string of headline-grabbing convictions that would overshadow his past missteps.
He motioned to the box. "We may only have to introduce a fraction of this stuff in court, Owen. What are these files, really? It's no different than someone phoning in a tip or reporting a crime. We can use what Stryker has gathered as a starting point and obtain the evidence we need for conviction on our own."
"That's true," Penmore said. "We can cherry-pick the best stuff from his files and corroborate the rest ourselves."
Dickens looked at Penmore. "If you've got a video of a politician taking bribes, in the court of public opinion nobody is going to care where it came from or how it was obtained."
"That's not where I try cases." Penmore said.
"It's where I do, sweetie," Dickens said, wagging her finger at him. "These files are a godsend for our campaign."
"Stryker may actually have accomplished something worthwhile with his miserable life," Penmore said. "Shame he had to die to do it."