The Love Killings
Page 1
PRAISE FOR ROBERT ELLIS
City of Echoes
“Ellis keeps everything in focus while building a staggering momentum.”
—Booklist starred review
“City of Echoes is a dark, gritty, one-sit read . . . Ellis’ trademark plotting is on full display here.”
—Bookreporter.com
“Only really good writers can make you feel so strongly . . . City of Echoes is another bravura effort from the talented Robert Ellis.”
—Mystery Scene Magazine
“City of Echoes is an absorbing and entertaining read from first page to last and documents novelist Robert Ellis as a master of the genre.”
—Midwest Book Review
City of Fire
“Los Angeles, under a cloud of acrid smoke . . . Robert Ellis’s City of Fire is a gripping, spooky crime novel.”
—New York Times Hot List Pick
“City of Fire is my kind of crime novel. Gritty, tight and assured. Riding with Detective Lena Gamble through the hills of Los Angeles is something I could get used to. She’s tough, smart, and most of all, she’s real.”
—Michael Connelly
The Lost Witness
“Scorching. Deliciously twisted. Nothing is what it appears to be. Ellis succeeds masterfully in both playing fair and pulling surprise after surprise in a story that feels like a runaway car plunging down a mountain road full of switchbacks.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Ellis serves up a killer crime tale with riveting characters and relentless twists.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
Murder Season
“Murder Season: a terrific sick-soul-of-LA thriller . . . Before you can say Chinatown we are immersed in a tale of mind-boggling corruption where virtually every character in the book—with the exception of Lena—has a hidden agenda. Ellis is a master plotter . . . Along the way we meet wonderful characters.”
—Connecticut Post, Hearst Media News Group
“Within the space of a few books, Ellis has demonstrated that rare ability to skillfully navigate his readers through a complex plot filled with interesting, dangerous and surprising characters.”
—Bookreporter.com
ALSO BY ROBERT ELLIS
City of Echoes
Murder Season
The Lost Witness
City of Fire
The Dead Room
Access to Power
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Robert Ellis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle.
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com Inc. or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503952744
ISBN-10: 1503952746
Cover design by Marc J. Cohen
For my friend Mark Moskowitz
CONTENTS
START READING
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
—Mark Twain
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Love Killings is an experiment for me as a writer in the sense that it’s an actual continuation of City of Echoes, Detective Matt Jones’s first murder case. A lot of loose ends were still in play at the end of that first thriller, and I enjoyed every one of them. But now six weeks of story time have passed—the chase is on—and The Love Killings is off and running. While it may not be necessary to have read City of Echoes first (and yes, several twists and turns from the first novel are openly discussed in the second), the two novels back-to-back deliver something more than I could have ever wished for or even imagined. I hope you love reading these two novels as much as I loved writing them.
Sleep loose,
Robert Ellis
CHAPTER 1
Matthew Trevor Jones wanted to kill his father . . .
He had been thinking about it every day for the past six weeks of his recovery, just as he was thinking about it now at 2:00 a.m.
Like most nights since the shooting, he had trouble getting to sleep. But tonight he had a reason more palpable than the pain echoing from his wounds or even the ghosts and demons making their late-night visit to his bed.
He was sitting outside on the back deck, keeping an eye on the wildfire climbing up the hill on the south side of Potrero Canyon Park. Firefighters were on the ground, driving the wall of flames upward, while a second crew was on top of the ridge, protecting the homes and pelting the foliage with water the City of Angels could hardly spare.
Holy water. That’s all the city had left these days.
On a clear night, Matt’s small home on the north peak provided a view that stretched from Santa Monica and Venice Beach all the way east across the basin to the tall buildings downtown. Tonight, the smoke was too thick to see through, just a mushroom cloud billowing into a sky without stars or planets or even a moon.
He looked back at the fire, still thinking about killing his father. He knew in his heart that it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do—and that the longer he waited, the greater the chance his father would hire another lowlife like the late Billy Casper to put a bullet in his head.
Although Matt had kept what he learned about his father’s intentions to himself and filed it away as “personal business,” although Matt had appeared to be cooperating with the detectives inve
stigating his case, in the end he told them nothing because he didn’t need to. The name Billy Casper turned out to be a dead end, a false identity that remained a mystery. Matt knew for a fact that his father had hired the man to kill him. And in a bad moment, a moment when Matt’s guard had shut down, Casper almost succeeded with that worn-out .38 of his.
The memory lingered for a moment before Matt pushed it away. It was still too close. Still too painful. Almost yesterday.
He took a swig of beer, the bottle somehow managing to hold its chill. It was the first day of December, still over ninety degrees in the middle of the night, with an endless forecast of blue skies, oppressive heat, and solemn warnings by TV weather people about something they were now calling photochemical smog: a lethal combination of sunlight and exhaust rising from the freeways that smelled like spent jet fuel and didn’t do much for anybody’s lungs. There was a time, just five years ago, when Matt could actually detect four seasons in Los Angeles. They were subtle, but they were there. Now there was only one season. Wildfire season—mixed with the Santa Ana winds smacking him in the face with dust and sand and saturating his clothing with the smell of burned-down houses and lost dreams.
Paradise redux.
Matt took another swig from the bottle and laughed. It would take more than an endless summer and block after block of dead lawns to sour his mood.
He loved this city. He loved everything about it. LA was the only place he had ever lived where he could feel an actual pulse. He didn’t understand where it came from. All he knew was that when he woke up every morning, he could sense its presence. In his chest, his being, in everything he touched, heard, or looked at.
And that’s why when he killed his father, when he shot the man dead, he couldn’t afford to get caught. His plan, his method, every detail would have to be thought out. Every move, perfectly planned.
Dear old Dad, the King of Wall Street.
A man who lived for appearances’ sake, and couldn’t afford to let his secret out. His truth. A man who abandoned his young wife and son and knew that if anyone found out now, his reputation would be tainted forever. M. Trevor Jones—chairman, president, and CEO of PSF Bank of New York, one of the five largest banks in the United States.
Matt’s cell phone started vibrating. Digging it out of his pocket, he knew that at this hour the caller could be only one of two people. As he read his new supervisor’s name on the face, Lt. Howard McKensie from Hollywood Homicide, his heart quickened.
Matt had been cleared for active duty just two days ago by his doctors at USC Medical Center and by an LAPD psychiatrist working out of the Behavioral Science Section in Chinatown.
Matt touched the icon and took the call. “What’s going on, Lieutenant? How can I help?”
McKensie cleared his throat, his voice rough and ready. “Why aren’t you sleeping, Jones? It’s two in the fucking morning and you’re not sleeping. This is what worries me about you.”
Matt glanced back at the wildfire. “Everybody’s up, Lieutenant. The canyon’s on fire.”
“Your place gonna burn?”
“Doesn’t look like it, unless the wind changes.”
“Good,” McKensie said. “Then I need to see you in my office ASAP.”
Matt stood up. “You’ve got something for me already? A new case?”
“Yeah, Jones. It looks like you’ve caught a new case.”
Something was wrong with McKensie’s voice. The gravel was there and so was the punch, but Matt could hear something else going on underneath. Something deep and without form.
“Why aren’t we meeting at the crime scene, Lieutenant?”
“I’ll explain everything when you get here. And you need to hurry. You need to get here as soon as you can.”
Matt leaned against the deck rail, still gazing at the fire. “Who’s dead?” he asked in a quieter voice.
“It’s not who’s dead that we’re worried about right now. It’s who we’re looking for, Jones.”
Matt didn’t need to ask the question, but did. “Then who is it, Lieutenant? Who are we looking for?”
A moment passed, the clouds of smoke reaching the blank ceiling and rippling across the entire sky until the heavens vanished. Ash began falling through the air like hot snow.
“It’s Baylor,” McKensie said finally. “The doctor’s killing again.”
CHAPTER 2
Matt climbed into the car, fired up the V-6, and switched on the air conditioner. Wondering if he’d ever see his house again, he pulled out of the carport into the smoke and falling ash and snaked his way through a set of narrow streets at an even speed. Once he reached the west end of Sunset Boulevard and the smoke began to thin, he powered through the six-speed manual transmission and let the car go.
It was late. Almost three in the morning. Yet as Matt worked the curves and steep hills and kept an eye on his rearview mirror, as he ran through one red light after the next, he realized that his mind was tack sharp.
He was thinking about the concern he’d sensed in McKensie’s voice and wondering if it was limited to Dr. Baylor’s resurrection as a killer in progress. The crimes Baylor had committed, the innocence of his victims and the harshness of their deaths, his utter lack of humanity, and now his return—all of it would have colored anyone’s voice with worry.
But somehow this was different. If Dr. Baylor had murdered another coed anywhere near Los Angeles, Matt would be on his way to a crime scene. Instead, McKensie wanted to meet in his office as soon as possible no matter what the hour.
Instead of action, his lieutenant wanted to talk.
Matt gritted his teeth, made a right onto Wilcox, and pulled into the lot behind the station. As he climbed out of the car, he didn’t see his partner’s SUV. This seemed odd because Cabrera lived twenty minutes closer to the station than he did. Shrugging it off, Matt hustled toward the building and entered through the back door. Once he reached the squad room, he stepped over to the wall of glass and peered into his supervisor’s office.
McKensie wasn’t alone. A man in a dark-gray suit was with him. They were standing over the lieutenant’s desk, examining a series of photographs. Matt’s eyes flicked back to the stranger. No doubt about it, the man in the gray suit was a Fed.
Matt crossed the squad room floor, walking down the hall and catching McKensie’s forced smile as he entered the office.
“Thanks for getting here so quickly, Jones. I want you to meet someone from the Department of Justice. Matt Jones, this is Ken Doyle, the assistant US attorney directing the prosecution of Dr. Baylor, if he’s captured alive.”
Matt held Doyle’s gaze as they shook hands, then let his eyes drift down to the eight-by-ten photographs spread across the desk. They were crime-scene photographs of the three coeds who had been murdered in Los Angeles and Kim Bachman, Baylor’s fourth victim killed in New Orleans just six weeks ago. They were laid out in four rows and included pictures taken at the coroner’s office before the autopsies. Matt noted the girls’ swollen faces from their wounds, the cuts from ear to lips and lips to ear, taking on the shape of a hideous smile. A grotesque death mask. What Baylor himself called the “Glasgow smile” or the “Chelsea grin” when he had shown Matt photographs of other victims in one of his medical books.
While it had only been a month and a half in real time, it seemed so long ago. That time when everyone thought Baylor, a highly regarded plastic surgeon, was part of the investigation. That time when everyone thought the doctor was a professional witness trying to help.
Matt turned to McKensie. “Where’s my partner?” he said. “Where’s Denny?”
McKensie pointed to the chairs in front of his desk. “We’ll talk about that later, Jones. Take a seat.”
The federal prosecutor started toward the second chair, and Matt sized him up. Doyle was a lean man, forty-five to fifty years old, and just over six feet tall. He had clear brown eyes, a pleasant, even inquisitive way about him, his hair a mix of brown and gray and neatly combed
over a chiseled face. But just like McKensie, Doyle had something preying on his mind. Something he was straining to keep hidden from view.
Matt dug his nicotine gum out of his pocket, pushed a piece through the foil, and placed it against his cheek. As the drug began to enter his bloodstream, he sat down with the others and asked the same question he’d asked McKensie over the phone.
“What makes this one different, Lieutenant? Who’s the girl? Who’s dead?”
Doyle and McKensie glanced at each other. Then the prosecutor slipped on a pair of eyeglasses, turned to Matt, and spoke in a quiet but steady voice.
“Dr. Baylor’s interests have changed over the past six weeks, Detective. You might say his methods have evolved. We believe that there are two possible reasons, the first being that he’s trying to throw us off and avoid detection by changing gears.”
“And the second?” Matt asked.
Doyle kept his eyes on him. “That his insanity is mutating at a ferocious pace.”
Matt had predicted it a few days before he was shot. The doctor’s behavior was shark-like and required a rising body count. If he wanted to remain hidden, his methodology would have to change.
“Who’s the victim? Who’s the girl?” Matt repeated, feeling even more anxious now.
Doyle reached for a blue three-ring binder in his briefcase, set it before Matt on the desk, and leafed through the pages until he found a crime-scene photograph.
“It’s not a girl, Jones. It’s a family. An entire family. Jim and Tammy Stratton, their two daughters, Jennifer and Kaylee, fourteen and seventeen years old, and their son, Jim Jr., who was thirteen. They were well off. They lived in the suburbs outside Philadelphia, a town called Radnor on the Main Line.”
Matt could feel his chest tighten, his pulse quicken, the hot load of adrenaline bursting through his veins as he leaned over the photograph for a closer look.
Could he handle it? Was he ready?
The image had been shot with a wide-angle lens and included the entire crime scene. It was a large open space, the image too dark and vast to offer much detail. Matt could see the husband propped against the wall with his two daughters on either side—all three stripped of their clothing and holding hands. On the floor before them, Tammy Stratton’s nude body had been left on her back with her legs spread open and her naked son draped on top of her. It seemed clear that the killer had placed the boy on top of his mother after their deaths and with purpose. Even in a wide shot like this one, Matt could see that their genitals were touching.