Jacob stood up and backed away, pulling in air. He looked out the window again.
Sky and hills, for miles.
“Where’s the rest of him?”
“Excellent question.”
“This is it?”
“Show a little gratitude,” she said. “It could be a foot.”
“How’d he vomit without a stomach?”
“Another excellent question. Given the lack of spatter, I assume that the actual vomiting took place elsewhere, and that it was brought here, along with the head.”
“For decoration,” Jacob said.
“Personally, I prefer carpet,” she said. “But that’s me.”
“How’d they close the neck up?”
“Three for three, Detective Lev.”
“So I didn’t miss any tiny stitches.”
“Not that I can see. I’ll want a better look at it, of course.”
“Blood?”
“Only what you see.”
“I don’t see any,” he said.
She shook her head.
“No drips leading from the door.”
“No.”
“Nothing outside.”
She shook her head again.
“It happened somewhere else,” he said.
“I would call that a reasonable conclusion.”
He nodded. Looked again at the head. He wished it would shut its eyes and close its mouth. “How long’s he been here?”
“Hours, not days. I arrived at one-fifty a.m. A uniform handed it off to me and was quick to excuse himself.”
“Did you get his name?”
“Chris. Something with an H. Hammett.”
“Did he say who called it in?”
She shook her head. “They don’t tell me that.”
“And who else has been by since?”
“Just me.”
Jacob wasn’t a stickler for procedure, but this was rapidly going from weird to troubling.
He checked his watch: it was close to ten. Divya Das looked trim and bright-eyed. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who’d been toiling solo over a crime scene for eight hours.
He noticed that she was on the tall side, as well.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You’re Special Projects.”
“I’m whatever the Commander needs me to be,” she said.
“That’s nice of you,” he said.
“I try,” she said.
“They really want to keep this quiet, don’t they?” he said.
“Yes, Jacob. They really do.”
“Mallick said I’m here because of my background,” he said. “What’s Jewish about this?”
She said, “In here.”
The kitchen dated from the fifties. Functionless, no appliances, cheap frames for the cabinets, counters cut from the same budget wood, warped and splintering at the edges. The suggestion of water damage, but no smell of mold. To the contrary: the room felt bone-dry.
In the center of the longest counter was a burn mark.
Black shapes, etched in charcoal.
Divya Das said, “This means something to you.”
A statement, not a question.
He said, “Tzedek.”
“Meaning.”
“Meaning,” he said, “‘justice.’”
CHAPTER FIVE
Not having planned to spend his day off this way, Jacob resorted to using his cell phone to photograph the scene.
“I took my own before you arrived,” Divya Das said. “I’m happy to share if yours don’t come out.”
“Appreciate it.”
He photographed the head and the vomit and the lettering in the kitchen. The house’s isolation had made it seem larger from the outside; aside from the kitchen and the living space, there was a medium-sized bedroom, an adjoining bathroom with a composting toilet, and a small studio with a shelving unit and a crude wooden desk jutting from the wall, picture window overlooking the eastern slope.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“No, go for it.”
She went to her car and came back with what looked like two oversized vinyl bowling bags, one teenybopper pink and the other lime green, as though she’d raided wardrobe at Nickelodeon. She donned gloves, carefully placing the head inside a plastic bag, double-wrapping it, and transferring the bundle to the pink bag. She scooped the vomit into a snap-top container using a plastic spatula. Stomach juice had burned a matte amoeboid patch in the varnish. She nudged loose the few dried flecks using a smaller, thin-bladed spatula, and placed the lot of it into the green bag.
“Remind me never to have pancakes at your place,” he said.
“Your loss,” she said.
Swabbing the remaining stain with a clear liquid, she transferred the green-stained cotton into an evidence bag.
A few more swabs produced clean cotton. She collected those as well. They went into the green bowling bag.
“You don’t seem very grossed out,” Jacob said.
“I hide it well,” she said. Then she grinned. “Confession time. The vomit’s mine.”
He laughed.
“Next,” she said.
In the kitchen, she dabbed delicately at the wood-burned message. “Good to go.”
“Nothing in the rest of the house?”
“Two rooms,” she said. “Bedroom, bathroom, no furniture, no movables. I went over it thoroughly.”
He asked about the toilet and she shook her head.
“You’re positive,” he said.
“Quite,” she said. “And to be frank, it’s an experience I would prefer not to relive in the retelling.”
She hefted her hideous luggage and he walked her to the door.
“It’s been somewhat of a pleasure spending the morning with you, Detective Lev. Let’s do it again, what say?”
—
JACOB SEARCHED the surrounding hilltop.
No footprints, tire tracks, or other signs of human intrusion. Hostile soil and bleached stone and ground-hugging, drought-tolerant plants.
He crab-walked around the back end of the house, moving south and east as far as he could before the slope got too severe. He estimated the drop into the canyon at four or five hundred feet. The upper third of that was bare dirt, nothing to grab on to if you fell. You’d build up one hell of a head of steam before you hit bottom, an impenetrable pubic tangle of chaparral and scrub oak. He doubted the hardiest K-9 could manage the descent without breaking a leg. It was terrain custom-made for disposal: set a body tumbling and go to bed that night feeling easy.
He made a note to check a map of the area for other access points. The western edge of Griffith Park, perhaps. Still, he had to figure that any corpse thrown down there would be picked clean long before some unlucky hiker got lost enough to stumble across it.
Justice.
He scrambled back up to the house, the sun baking his hangover, the pain bringing the irregularities of the situation out in bold relief. It wasn’t impossible to conceive of a skeleton crew being sent to handle a murder, even an atypical one. LAPD, like every city agency, was understaffed, underfunded, overworked. Someone—Officer Chris Hammett or Divya Das; someone further up the chain—had recognized the etched characters as Hebrew, known enough to get antsy.
Jewish victim?
Muslim victim?
Jewish perp?
He imagined the brass at a hastily assembled meeting, panicked fantasies of urban ethnic war. Scrambling for ass-cover.
Get a Jewish D.
Do we have anyone like that?
Good morning, Yakov Meir ben HaRav Shmuel Zalman.
Bye-bye, protocol.
He had a solid notion of what Special Projects meant now: shut your mouth and follow orders.
If he ever cleared this one, would he be asked to don a yarmulke at the press conference?
Wrap himself in his tallis to address the media?
If. Biggest word in the English language.
Inside the house, he examined the letters burnt into the kitchen counter.
Wood-burning stamp, battery-op? Hobbyist killer? Merit badge in decapitation?
Would that kind of thing work to seal the neck? He’d have to ask Divya Das about it.
He thought about her. The accent was attractive.
Then he thought about Mai.
Then he thought: Get a life.
He stepped outside and dialed his own extension at Valley Traffic. The phone rang ten times before Marcia, the normally cheerful civilian receptionist, answered warily.
“I just finished packing up your stuff.”
Mike Mallick didn’t screw around.
“Where are you sending it?” Jacob asked.
“Chen had me leave it in his office. Come get it at your leisure. Why are you calling?”
“I was hoping to touch base with him.”
“I wouldn’t. He’s less than thrilled with you. He seems to think this is a habit of yours.”
“What is.”
“Bailing.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said.
“Hey, I don’t care. I mean, I care. You used to brighten my day, Lev.”
“You’d be the first to say so,” he said.
Marcia laughed. “Where are you headed?”
“Caught a case.”
“What kind?”
“Homicide.”
“Re-ally. I thought you were finished with that.”
“You know how it goes.”
“I don’t. Anthony’s been trying to move from Central Burglary to Van Nuys Homicide for a year and a half so he doesn’t have to commute like a maniac. No go. Total freeze. Tell me how you swung it and I’ll be your best friend.”
For a moment he considered asking if her husband was circumcised. With a name like Sangiovanni, though, it was probably a moot point. “Not my choice.”
“We didn’t bore you enough with our puny little vehicular mishaps?”
“I miss them already,” he said.
“Then I’ll expect to see you back here as soon as you’re done.”
“Your mouth to God’s ears,” he said.
He did another outdoor search, taking his time, finding nothing.
Overhead movement against the two o’clock sun caught his attention.
The bird was back, circling to Jacob’s south, descending gradually.
Do your thing. Show me what you’re after.
As if responding, it swooped. Flattened its descent, speeding diagonally.
Aiming directly at Jacob.
When it was about forty feet above the ground, it pulled up and began turning loops. Big and black and shiny—not a raptor. A raven? He squinted, unable to get a bead on it. It was moving fast and the sun was strong. Not a raven, either: the wings were too stubby, and the body oddly flat.
For nearly a minute it traced haloes far above him. He waited for it to touch down. Instead it shot off into the eastern sky, over the deep canyons. He tried to follow its trajectory. No cloud cover, nowhere to hide. Even so, it vanished.
CHAPTER SIX
The Crown Vic was parked outside his building, Subach and Schott in the front seat. Jacob nodded to them as he eased into the carport, and they met him at the door to his apartment, each man carrying a cardboard box.
“Merry Christmas,” Schott said. “Can we come in?”
They set the boxes down in the living room and—without obtaining consent or announcing their intentions—began rearranging the furniture.
“Feel free,” Jacob said. “Really, don’t hold back.”
“I do feel free,” Schott said. “It’s the defining feature of humankind.”
“That and the capacity for speech,” Subach said. He lifted Jacob’s coffee table with one paw. “Otherwise we’re no better’n a buncha animals.”
They disconnected the television and DVR, stacking the media console atop the couch, which they had shoved into the corner. That left a low bookcase, its shelves home to a collection of wooden-handled tools, oiled and polished. Wire brushes, scrapers, styluses, knives, loop-end trimmers.
Jacob transferred them, two by two, to his bureau. Schott bent to admire them.
“Nice. You a woodworker?”
“My mother’s,” Jacob said.
“She’s a woodworker?”
“Was. A sculptor,” Jacob said.
“Talented family,” Schott said.
Subach appeared, carrying the denuded bookcase. “Where do you want this?”
“Where it was,” Jacob said.
“What’s your second choice?”
Jacob waved vaguely in the direction of his closet.
While Schott returned to the car for another box, Subach pried open a flat-packed pressboard desk. He settled down cross-legged in the living room and began laying the pieces out, rotating the diagrammed instructions this way and that, shaking his head.
“Fuckin Swedes, man,” he said.
Jacob went to the kitchen to make coffee.
An hour later, they were done.
A swivel chair. A brand-new computer, a blue pleather three-ring binder leaning against it. A compact digital camera and a smartphone. A compact multifunction printer, tucked against the wall, on the floor. A wireless router and a humming battery pack.
“Welcome to your new office,” Schott said.
“Mission Control,” Subach said, “J. Lev Division. Hope it works for you.”
“I was thinking I could use a new look,” Jacob said.
“Sorry about the TV,” Subach said.
“It’s better,” Schott said. “No distractions.”
Subach indicated the router. “Secure satellite. The phone, too.”
“You won’t be needing your old cell,” Schott said.
“What about personal calls?” Jacob asked.
“We’ll reroute them to the new one,” Schott said.
“All the numbers you’ll need are preprogrammed,” Subach said.
“Does that include pizza?” Jacob asked.
Schott handed him an unsealed envelope. Jacob took out a credit card, pure white plastic, orange Discover logo, embossed with his name.
“Operational expenses,” Subach said.
“Does that include pizza?”
The men did not reply.
“Seriously,” Jacob said. “What the fuck is this?”
“Commander Mallick thought you’d be better off working from home,” Schott said.
“How thoughtful.”
Subach made a pained face. “May I remind you, Detective, you let us in of your own free will.”
Jacob examined the sat phone. It was a brand he had never heard of. “Should I assume you’ll be listening?”
“We won’t tell you what to assume,” Schott said.
Subach pulled out the desk’s keyboard tray, pushed a button. The computer screen glowed darkly. There was a chime, and the desktop popped up, tiny icons displayed in a tight grid: everything from NCIC to police departments in major cities to missing persons databases to ballistics registers.
“Fast, comprehensive, broad reach, no passwords, no permission slips,” Schott said.
“You’ll like it,” Subach said. “It’s fun.”
“I bet,” Jacob said. He looked at the binder.
“Your murder book,” Subach said.
“Some things are best kept old school,” Schott said.
“Any questions?” Subach asked.
“Yeah,” Jacob said. He held up the credit card. “What’s the limit?”
“You won’t hit it,” Subach said.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Jacob said. “I eat a lot of pizza.”
“Anything else?” Schott asked.
“About thirty thousand,” Jacob said.
Subach smiled. “That’s good. Questions are good.”
—
AFTER THEY’D GONE, Jacob stood there for a moment, wondering if a drink would make it harder or easier for him to accept his new reality.
For most of his adult life, he’d been a high-functioning alcoholic, although sometimes functioning was the operative word, and sometimes it was high. Since his transfer to Traffic, he hadn’t been drinking as much—he hadn’t needed to—and it bothered him that he’d blacked out last night.
Now that he was back in Homicide, he supposed he was entitled.
Stop, wagon-driver! I want to get off.
He brewed fresh coffee and got the spare bottle of bourbon from beneath the sink and added an unhealthy slug.
Each sip blunted his headache fractionally, and he began to think of Mai.
It was raining weirdos.
He killed the drink and killed its twin and had a seat at his new desk.
Opening up the browser, he plugged in a query. The computer was indeed responsive.
Commander Michael Mallick had a handsome wife and two handsome daughters.
He was an alumnus of Pepperdine University, class of ’72.
The final standings of several amateur golf tournaments suggested that he ought to consider taking up tennis.
File photos had him talking to reporters, announcing the arrest of a local terrorist cell plotting to bomb the office of a state congressman.
So maybe Jacob was after a Jewish terrorist, after all.
The idea embarrassed him. His people. Collective responsibility.
How long did you have to be on your own before they ceased to be your people?
Anyhow, how would Mallick know who the bad guy was?
And if he did know, why hadn’t he told Jacob?
Questions are good.
But for a cop, answers were better, and Jacob had the unsettling thought that Mallick preferred to have him spinning his wheels.
A sensitive matter.
Protecting someone?
Maybe the whole thing really was revenge from Mendoza. Make Jacob look dumb, lower his clearance rate, keep him subservient.
The Golem of Hollywood Page 4