He fell on his side. The egg-white eyes were still open. He was breathing noisily, each rise of his chest accompanied by a wet suction sound. But he wasn't staring at her anymore. He was unconscious or semiconscious or something. In a stupor, anyway.
And he was close to her. Not lying on his stomach anymore. She could search the inside pockets of his jacket, maybe find a handcuff key.
She willed herself to squat next to him. Her heart was drumming in her ears. If he came to, she would be easily within his reach. But if he came to, she was dead no matter what, so it made no difference.
She touched the flap of his jacket, expecting him to rise at any second, as if the brush of her hand would be all the stimulus he needed. There was no reaction. She wished his eyes had closed. They unnerved her, open wide and gazing into the glow of the flashlight at the top of the stairs. She didn't like the way those round, almost pupilless whites caught the light.
With an effort, she peeled back the flap of his jacket and groped in the pocket. It was empty.
There was still the other pocket. That one was harder to reach. He had fallen on that side, the jacket bunched up under him.
She snaked her hand under the flap and felt around for the pocket. Her hand moved over his shirt, filmy with sweat. She could feel the low tremors of his heartbeat.
She couldn't find the pocket, but it had to be there. She ran her hand over the outside of the jacket, and down low near his ribs she felt the shape of a gun, holstered to his side, a handgun with a long barrel. She thought about retrieving it, using it to hold him off, but it was mashed under his body, unobtainable.
The key was still her best chance. She risked pulling at the jacket, knowing that any movement might rouse him. She dug deeper into the folded fabric and finally found a slit, a cavity. Inside amp; something small and hard and metallic.
A key, the key she needed.
It was tucked at the bottom of the pocket, inside creases and folds in a narrow space too small for her hand. She tried closing two fingers over the key and easing it out. It slipped away. A second try, a second failure.
She reached for it again and only pushed it deeper into the pocket.
"Come on," she told herself. "Concentrate. Take it slow."
Good advice, but difficult to follow when her head was spinning with waves of dizziness and she had to fight off the desperate trembling of her muscles.
She dug into the pocket again, her fingertips brushing the key, now almost beyond reach. Carefully she snagged it between her fingers.
Breath held, she drew it out. Almost there amp;
It caught on a fold of the pocket.
Tomlinson moaned. She nearly panicked and let go, but somehow she held on. She jiggled the key back and forth to work it loose.
Another moan. The eyes blinking, not yet seeing her. He was still out, but coming around.
She resisted the impulse to tear the key free, aware that she might lose her hold on it altogether. There would be no time to recover it again.
Tomlinson shook his head slowly, as if shaking off a long sleep. The slight movement straightened the jacket a little, and the key popped free.
She had it.
Clutching her treasure, she retreated to the railing. She jabbed the key at the handcuff on her left wrist. Couldn't find the keyhole. The light from the landing wasn't strong, and the keyhole was small.
"Fuck."
That wasn't her. It was him. His groggy voice, thick with phlegm. She glanced at Tomlinson, and his gaze met hers for an instant, flickering with recognition, then fading to blankness again.
She grabbed a shallow breath and narrowed her focus to the single problem of fitting the key into the keyhole.
"Fuck me amp;"
Him again. This time she didn't look back. If he was alert, she would find out soon enough.
She found the keyhole. Slowly, tentatively, in a process that seemed to consume many minutes, she rotated the key against the hole until it slipped inside.
A jerk of her wrist, and the key turned. The handcuff clicked open.
Free.
She tore her arm out of the cuff and ran up the stairs toward the open door, hoping there was a lock on it so she could lock him in
And she fell sprawling on the metal staircase.
She thought she'd tripped. Tried to rise, couldn't.
Then she understood that he'd grabbed her by the leg, and he was holding on.
She spun onto her back. There he was, at the foot of the stairs, one hand clinging to her ankle while the other probed inside his jacket for the gun.
"You're dead," he told her in his raspy, croaking voice, white eyes staring. Meg launched a kick with her tree leg, booting him in the face. The impact punched him backward. He loosened his grip on her ankle. She tried to scramble up the stairs, but he was too quick. He already had her again.
She kicked a second time, missing him. He climbed on top of her legs to pin her down, and the gun was out, blue steel, shiny in the flashlight beam.
Click of the safety's release, the muzzle swinging toward her, and there was a gunshot, blood, Tomlinson dropping the gun as he slid backward onto the floor and lay unmoving amid a spreading maroon pool.
Meg didn't understand it. She lay on her back on the staircase trying to breathe, and then a tender hand was pressed into her own.
She looked up to see her mother kneeling beside her.
"Mom?"
"I'm here, Meg," Robin said. "It's okay now."
Chapter Fifty-five
Robin tried to keep the shock out of her voice. Her daughter was alive, and that was everything that mattered.
But, God, just look at her.
Her school uniform was dirty and torn, hair frazzled, eyes wild. Blood from the shooting had sprayed her all over. She looked like she had crawled out of a grave.
"It's okay," Robin said again. She hugged her daughter.
She and Gray had found the bottling plant after a slow, watchful drive down Central. They hadn't been sure it was the right place until they'd discovered the open gate and the police car. Gray had led her deeper inside the factory, where sounds of a scuffle could be heard.
Distantly she knew she ought to be shocked at the killing that had taken place nearly before her eyes, but she couldn't find the appropriate emotion inside her. The gun was still in Tomlinson's hand. He'd been about to kill Meg. Another second, and it would have been too late.
By shooting the man, Gray had saved her daughter. That was all Robin cared about. It was all that mattered.
She stroked Meg's hair and looked into her eyes. "Stay with me now," she whispered.
"I'm not going anywhere," Meg said.
Robin knew she still hadn't seen Gray. How would she react when she recognized him? It would be another painful jolt to her system, already overloaded by stress.
But Meg could handle it. She was strong. Robin had never known just how strong until tonight.
"Let's get out of here," she said softly, "okay?"
Meg nodded. "Definitely."
Robin helped her to her feet. Together they climbed the stairs toward the glow of the flashlight that still rested on the landing. She remembered what she'd told herself as the fumes had started to overcome her: Go toward the light.
At the top of the staircase Meg raised her eyes, looking past the glow, and saw Justin Gray.
He stood there, watching the two of them with a cool, quizzical expression, the gun that had shot Tomlinson still held lightly in his right hand.
Meg drew back, making a startled, fearful noise. Robin tightened her grip to keep her from falling down the stairs.
"It's all right," she soothed, "he won't hurt us. He's with us now. He's one of the good guys."
The gun swung in their direction. Gray smiled. "You sure about that, Doc?"
Robin shook her head, irritated with him. "Justin, stop fooling around."
But the gun didn't waver, and neither did his smile. "No foolin'. Looks like I'm sit
ting in the catbird seat now, wouldn't you say?"
"Mom amp;" The word from Meg was a tremulous moan.
Robin stared at Gray, unable to process what was happening, unable to think.
"Still think you're gonna save the world?" Gray asked. "I got news for you. This old world is long past saving. And us leopards don't never change our spots."
Chapter Fifty-six
After leaving Robin Cameron's office, Wolper stopped off at his mid-Wilshire apartment to pick up the packet of items he'd prepared long ago for just this eventuality. It was hidden in the bathroom wall, behind the mirror over the sink. He had to unscrew the mirror and take it down in order to remove the bulging envelope secreted in a cutaway section of drywall. Hidden alongside the package was a.22 pistol, untraceable.
He replaced the mirror and put away his tools before leaving with the package and the gun. Brand's home in Hollywood was only a short distance away. He made it there in under five minutes, spending the drive considering various ways to approach the situation.
He expected Brand to be homeprobably taking his house apart one wall at a time in search of the planted evidence. Trouble was, the evidence hadn't been planted yet. That was what the envelope was for.
He didn't think it would be overly difficult to kill Brand. The man wasn't smart. He was easily manipulated, easily distracted. He only had to turn his back for a second and bang, a bullet in the temple, fired by the untraceable gun. He would wipe off the prints, put the gun in Brand's hand, and fire it again, leaving powder marks on Brand's fingers. The second shot would go into the ceiling. The crime-scene people would say Brand's hand had slipped the first time he fired. It wasn't uncommon. People got a little nervous when they were about to kill themselves.
Suicide was what it had to look like. Cameron had been rightthe investigators would know that the fire in her office was arson. They wouldn't suspect Gray. Arson wasn't his style, and serial killers rarely varied their MO.
No, suspicion would fall on her newest patient, the emotionally disturbed Sgt. Alan Brand.
She had left with him, after all. That was how Wolper would report it to RHD. Wolper had driven Cameron and Brand back to the arcade, then left on his own because the D-chief had said he wanted him off the case. Cameron had said she would let Brand drive her to Parker Center. Only he hadn't taken her there. The two of them had gone to her office. It must have been Cameron's ideashe'd been trying to recover her memory of the attack. And she'd succeeded. She'd remembered that Brand had done it. Brand had felt there was no choice except to kill her. He'd set fire to the office and left her to choke on the fumes. Then he'd driven home and killed himself.
That was what had gone down tonight. Brand just didn't realize it yet. The victim was always the last to know.
When RHD searched Brand's carport, they would find evidence that he'd been mixed up in dirty dealings. The Valdez shooting wouldn't look so righteous anymore. That evidence would give him motive to attack Robin earlier today. He'd been afraid she would dig too deeply into his secrets and expose the dirt.
And the carjack attempt? Most likely it would be dismissed as coincidence. Even if someone guessed the truththat a couple of homeboys who ran with the Gs had been hired to jack Cameron's Saab and mess her up, hospitalize her so she couldn't continue her therapy programno one would pin it on Wolper. It would be Brand again. It was all Brand.
Brand, the mastermind. Wolper smiled.
It would work. It wasn't exactly the way he'd hoped things would work out, but as a backup plan, it was solid. He had all the angles covered.
Would have been easier if the carjacking had gone as planned, or if he'd succeeded in killing her this afternoon in her office. Would have been easier if Brand had agreed to pop Cameron in the video arcade, instead of wimping out and proving himself unreliable and therefore expendable.
What was the big deal about killing some nosy shrink, anyway? Weren't there enough shrinks in LA? Hell, Wolper would have iced her himself in Hollywood, except that having been seen leaving Parker Center with her, he would have been an obvious suspect. Would have killed her when she and Brand were in the car with him, if he'd felt he could trust Brand to play along.
That was the problem, though. He couldn't trust Brand. The man just didn't have the balls for this kind of work. And now he was going to pay for it.
Wolper parked on a side street so his car wouldn't be connected to Brand's home. With the envelope in his hand and the throwdown gun in his waistband against the small of his back, he walked the dark streets to Brand's bungalow. As he approached, he saw that the gate to the driveway was open and the carport was empty. Brand wasn't here.
He wondered about the open gate. Careless of Brand, especially in this neighborhood. It made things easier, though. He could walk right onto the property and plant the evidence, then wait for Brand to return.
There was no need to break into the house. The sign on the front lawn warned of a security system, and while many of those signs were phony, the name on Brand's was legitimate. No surprise. Cops saw a lot of craziness on the streets of this city. Off duty, either they migrated to the relative safety of the suburbs or they stayed in town and made their home a fortress.
Rather than tangle with the alarm system, Wolper decided to plant the contents of the envelope in the carport, among the paint cans and hardware supplies piled up along the side wall. He fished a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket, opened the envelope, and began removing the assorted items inside. There were two stacks of hundred-dollar bills bound with rubber bands, some crystal meth and rock cocaine, a cell phone that had disappeared from an evidence room and had since been used to call an address in Newton Area that was a known hangout of the Gs, and, most incriminating of all, a floppy disk that listed payoffs and bank account numbers. The accounts had been opened overseas by an American using forged credentials. The American was Wolper himself, but no one could ever prove it wasn't Brand.
He considered the best hiding place. His gaze settled on a small tool cabinet with see-through plastic drawers. The bottom drawer was nearly empty. It would serve. He began placing the items inside, one at a time, pushing them toward the back to make them less visible. The plant shouldn't be too obvious, or Brand might
"Police, put your hands up!"
The shout came from outside the carport. Squatting by the tool cabinet, Wolper turned as a flashlight snapped on, shining in his face.
"Hey, it's okay, I'm a cop, I'm a cop." He raised his hands, aware of the white latex gloves, shiny in the light, screaming of guilt.
"Put your hands up," the voice repeated. A young voice, tense and strained.
"They're up." Wolper kept his own voice cool. "I'm Lieutenant Wolper, Newton Area. Do I know you?"
The flashlight bobbed closer. Behind the beam a pale young face came into view. The cop's nameplate read BAKER.
"No, sir, you don't. You know him, Metz?"
His partner, Metz, took a moment to respond. "There's a Wolper at Newton station."
"He's me," Wolper said, rising slowly to his feet, careful to make no threatening moves. Both of the Hollywood cops had their guns drawn. "Or I'm him. However you say it."
"You got your ID on you?"
"Vest pocket."
"Take it out, real easy."
Wolper produced his ID case and flipped it open.
"Okay, Lieutenant." Baker nodded, but he hadn't lowered his weapon. "May I ask what exactly you're doing here?"
It was the obvious question, and Wolper was ready for it.
"I found Sergeant Brand's gate ajar. Came in to see if anything was wrong. Found the bottom drawer of this tool cabinet hanging open. I thought there might have been a four-five-nine. Pulled on some gloves so I wouldn't contaminate the scene. I found some materials that amp; well, they require an explanation."
He expected to be asked what he had found. But Baker surprised him. "Why did you come here in the first place?"
"Social call."
"
At nearly eleven p.m.?"
"I'm a night owl." The guns still hadn't lowered, and Wolper began to be concerned. "Can I ask why you're here? Somebody call in a hot prowl?"
"No, sir. We were dispatched to Sergeant Brand's residence after his vehicle was involved in a crash."
This didn't make sensea routine car crash wouldn't necessitate a visit to the victim's residence by a patrol unitbut Wolper didn't pursue it. There was another question of greater interest.
"A crash?" He gave a good imitation of concern. "How bad?"
"There was one fatality."
"Is it Brand?" Wolper asked, hoping the answer was yes.
"That hasn't been confirmed."
"Jesus." Wolper lowered his head for a moment. When he looked up, the guns were still fixed on him. "You know, you can holster your weapons, Officers. We're on the same team."
The cop named Metz spoke. "What were you doing by that tool chest?"
"I told you, I was looking for signs of a burglary. What I found was something else."
The bait had been offered a second time. Still they didn't take it.
"So you were looking in the drawer?" Metz asked.
"Right."
"That's funny, sir," Baker said. "See, we saw you from the driveway. We watched you for a minute or two before we called out. And it looked to us like you were putting stuff in the drawer."
"Did it?"
"Yes, sir. It did."
Wolper thought about how to play this. He decided to call on a little cop solidarity.
"All right, guys, let me level with you. I found some incriminating items in the drawer. I took them out to look them over, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be the one who found them. I'm not sure it's the kind of stuff that ought to be found. So I opted to put it back and walk away. I don't want to blow the whistle on a brother officer."
Now they would have to ask him to detail what he'd found.
They didn't. "What's the envelope for?" Metz asked.
He had seen the empty manila envelope, which Wolper had left on the floor.
"The items were in there," Wolper said. Instantly he regretted it.
In Dark Places Page 29