by Tyler Dilts
Patrick was on the same page. Bill Denkins’s murder was a botched fake suicide. Kobe’s looked like a professional hit. People who put the gun in a right-handed man’s left hand before they pull the trigger for him aren’t the same kind of people who use .22-caliber pistols for executions and know when the trash truck is going to empty the Dumpster.
But the killings had to be related. It was far too much of a coincidence for them not to be. If we were looking at different killers, how were they connected?
“You’ve been checking the cameras?” Patrick asked.
“Yes. Every time I go home and then a few extra times a day. There are a lot more cats in my neighborhood than I realized.”
He laughed. “You watch last night yet?”
I hadn’t but he clearly had.
“You’ve got a possum in your backyard, too.”
The incident with José on the way to the Bible college seemed to have lightened the weight of the paranoia that I’d felt building for the last few days. I took a break and went downstairs and walked out through the back entrance to the station. Outside, the sun was shining bright and I felt none of the anxiety that had frozen me before. I took a good look around. Uniforms and suits. Marked and unmarked units pulling in or pulling out. Everything looked as it should. I scanned the edges of the lot and walked toward the gate on Magnolia. On the sidewalk, I paused long enough to take a quick glance in each direction, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Surveying each pedestrian and passing car, I assured myself there was no imminent risk. Turning right, I walked up to Broadway and did a clockwise loop around the block, paying close attention to spot any potential threats. It was clear all the way around.
When I made it back to the rear entrance, I felt even more foolish about the day before. Whoever had put the bomb in my car was still out there. There was no question about that. I don’t know if it was the incident that morning purging the paranoia from my psyche, or time diluting the urgency I’d felt, but it was a relief. I didn’t feel safe, and I wouldn’t until Patrick closed his case, but I felt alert and better able to function than I had in days.
At my desk I went back to my interview notes for Lucinda Denkins. I reread the list of questions to which I’d hoped I’d find answers, even if I couldn’t ask them directly.
Why didn’t she take Joe’s last name?
After the loans from her father and the bank, what was the source of the extra funds for Winter?
How close were Joe and her father?
Why did Joe think he had what it takes to be a restaurateur?
How did he take the failure?
How much debt had he incurred?
How solid was their relationship?
Who would her father drink with in his apartment?
Did she know Kobe? Harold? The other tenants? Kurt Acker?
What other debt were she and Joe carrying?
Was he a good husband?
Had he ever been unfaithful?
I could have gone on and on, but I stopped when Jen texted me. Going to be later than I thought—meeting with ADA. Probably be here until 6.
Waiting didn’t sound appealing. How about if I just go home? It didn’t seem strange to me that I meant her home. Apparently, it didn’t seem strange to her, either.
No, wait for me.
It’ll be ok. I’ll check out a fresh car and go straight there.
She didn’t answer immediately, but I watched the little ellipsis on the screen that told me she was composing a reply. It was taking her so long, I expected it to be lengthy. To list her objections and tell me why I needed to stay put and wait. When it finally came, though, it wasn’t.
Be careful, it said.
Before I could reply, another message came through.
Text me when you get there.
I told her I would, packed the notes I’d been working on into my messenger bag, and headed downstairs to the garage.
The first thing I wanted to do when I got to Jen’s house was to take a hot shower. The pain in my arm and neck had been building up all afternoon. One of the surest ways of easing my pain was adrenaline, and I’d had a minor rush when I thought we were being followed by the white Accord. When the adrenaline fades, though, the pain comes rushing back in to fill the void.
Then I remembered Jen’s low-flow showerhead. Everybody in drought-stricken Southern California was mandated to use them. My problem with them was that the anemic pressure they produced was ineffective in providing the deep heat my aching muscles needed for relief. Because I am a selfish person with no regard for the greater good, I have an illegally modified showerhead that blasts enough hot water to poach a small cow.
I needed a change of clothes, too. And my banjo. I’d been trying to spare Jen the annoyance of listening to my inept practice sessions, but I’d been lax even before I’d started staying at her place, and I could feel the difference in my left hand and wrist. Just as my physical therapist had suggested, the playing, bad as it was, did help reduce the numbness and tingling and increase the dexterity and sensation in my hand.
When I got home, I sat in the unmarked cruiser in front of my duplex and fast-forwarded through the surveillance video. Everything was clear, so I got out and went inside, locking the door behind me. While I waited for the shower to heat up, I tossed some clean clothes in my duffel bag and draped a fresh suit on its hanger over one of the chair backs in the dining room.
The water was as hot as I could make it without scalding myself. The pressure drove the heat deep into the muscles of my neck and shoulder. I stayed in until the water heater ran low and the temperature began to drop. After toweling off and going back into the bedroom to put on jeans and a T-shirt, I headed to the living room to pack up my banjo.
I thought I heard the floor creak as I passed the kitchen, but before I could turn toward the sound, an arm clenched around my neck and choked me into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER TEN
HUMMINGBIRD
The pain came first.
A squeezing, grasping, wrenching tightness between my temples, behind my eyes. I wanted to reach up, to touch it, but my hands wouldn’t move.
What happened? Where was I?
I was lying down in the dark. My head throbbed. I couldn’t focus.
The shower. I’d been in the shower. But I wasn’t in the shower now. Dry. Dressed. On my side, hands behind my back, hard to move.
The spinning in my head slowed and I slowly began to realize where I was. Something was covering my head. A bag or a pillowcase? My hands were bound with handcuffs. Were they mine? I tried to move my legs. Something was holding them together.
Where was I?
Breathe, I reminded myself. Just breathe.
Pay attention. Listen. Be quiet.
I heard road noise. I felt movement. I realized I was in a car. No, not a car. The space wasn’t tight enough. A truck or a van. My feet were toward the front, my head to the rear.
Was I alone? No one said anything. Maybe there was just the driver.
Think, Danny, think.
Of course I didn’t have my gun. I couldn’t reach the front pocket of my pants, so I rolled on my hip. No phone, either.
There was nothing I could do.
Keep breathing, I told myself. Listen.
The van wasn’t moving very fast. It stopped and turned, then resumed a straight course. We were on surface streets.
Where were we? I paid close attention to noises from outside, listening for something that might provide a clue to our location, but I couldn’t pinpoint anything. There was only the noise of the van, the engine, the tires on the pavement.
There were more stops and turns. I’d lost track of how many.
What was that smell? Fabric softener? It must have been a pillowcase on my head.
Did anyone know where I was? Would Jen be looking for me yet?
I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. I remembered getting out of the shower, drying myself off, and getting dressed.
Heading back to the front room.
The kitchen. There was a noise in the kitchen. An arm around my neck.
If I’d only been choked out, I wouldn’t have stayed unconscious long enough for him to bind me and wrestle me outside into the van. Did he do something else? Had I been drugged?
I felt dull and groggy and nauseous. He must have given me something.
How long had I been out? It could have been hours.
We could be anywhere by now.
Just breathe, I told myself. Don’t let the panic in.
I focused on my abdomen and started counting each exhalation. When I got to ten, I would start over at one.
If they wanted me dead, they would have killed me by now.
Inhale, exhale. One.
Maybe Patrick has seen the video.
Inhale, exhale. Two.
Was that the sound of a train?
Inhale, exhale. Three.
Jen’s going to be so fucking pissed off at me.
Inhale, exhale. Four.
I was a good cop.
Inhale, exhale. Five.
How long have we been moving?
Inhale, exhale. Six.
I’m going to throw up.
Inhale, exhale. Seven.
My head hurts.
Inhale, exhale. Eight.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
Inhale, exhale. Nine.
I’m sorry.
Inhale, exhale. Ten.
I started over.
When the van finally stopped, I heard the sound of the driver’s door slam shut and waited. A few seconds later, the side door slid open and I realized I could see some light and shadow through the pillowcase.
It was dark and quiet outside. I could hear some kind of industrial noise in the distance, a faraway metallic drone. A shadow moved into the open frame of the doorway.
“I know you’re awake,” he said.
He lifted my feet off the floor and started dragging me out. I realized in a second or two my shoulders and head would clear the floor of the van and slam down to the ground. I tried to tuck my chin. My shoulder took most of the impact, but the back of my head still bounced off the pavement. The pain throbbed in my skull. I couldn’t remember if it had stopped while we were driving.
The man pulled me a few feet farther away from the open door. From the ground, his shadow appeared huge and looming.
He kicked me once in the gut. Not as hard as he could have.
“Stay away from her,” he said. His voice was softer than I expected, younger.
“What?” I said.
He said it again. “Stay away from her.” Louder. More emphatic.
I nodded and realized he might not have been able to see it because of the pillowcase. “Okay,” I said without understanding. Stay away from who?
He kicked me again, harder, and left me gasping. When I could get enough air into my lungs, I said, “I’ll stay away.”
His shadow rocked back and forth, as if he was agitated, unsure of himself. “I’m not going to warn you again.”
“I’ll stay away,” I said.
“Next time I’ll kill you.” He paused. “But I’ll kill everybody you care about first. That’s how you’ll know I’m coming.”
“I swear,” I said, hearing the fear and desperation in my own voice. “I’ll stay away.”
His shadow shifted and I knew he was going to kick me again. He went for my head, but he lost his balance and stumbled and his foot glanced off the crown of my skull.
He grunted and reset himself for another try and I turned my face away. That time he connected solidly with the side of my head and everything went dark.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GRAVEYARD
That Nina Simone song Julia had been playing. What was it called? The French one. Shit. Did she even say? I don’t think so. Have to figure it out, add it to the playlist. She’d like that, I think.
The eggs smell so good. The butter, the cheese. I can almost taste them.
Megan used to cook scrambled eggs. When I made detective and didn’t have to work on the weekends. Scrambled eggs on sourdough toast. Why did I give her so much shit about liking Coldplay? I put “’Til Kingdom Come” on the funeral list for her. That was her favorite song. And “Fix You.” I watched that documentary about the chorus of senior citizens who sang popular songs. Old people singing the Ramones. Ha. She would have loved it. Then that one old guy with the oxygen tube in his nose sang “Fix You” and I wept because she died thinking I couldn’t stand her favorite songs.
We danced to “If I Should Fall Behind” at our wedding. That song was the anchor. So much Springsteen. Crazy Janey. The ragamuffin gunner. Wild Billy. Mary and the Magic Rat. The dogs on Main Street. That stranger passing through who put up a sign.
Jesus. I was almost the chicken man. Still could be.
Still could be.
“Forever Young.”
Buckley’s “Hallelujah” because it wasn’t everybody’s ringtone yet. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” by Bruddah Iz—same reason. Are they still on there? Cut them.
“Tears in Heaven.” The antidepressants took a long time to start working.
“Spirit in the Sky” or “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” Which is funnier?
“Night Comes On.”
“The Weight.”
“The Boy in the Bubble.”
That Deb Talan song you like so much. For sure that one.
The cast is still on my arm from the last surgery when you come to visit. I get up to answer the door without closing the file and you see it on my laptop. You’re early, partner, I say. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is still playing.
What’s this? you ask.
Bob Dylan.
Not the song. This. You point to the screen.
A playlist.
Songs For My Funeral?
Yeah.
What the fuck?
Something to do, I say, embarrassed, trying to play it off. No big deal. Just killing time.
Suicidal ideation. The therapist kept asking me about it. Have you wished you were dead or wished you could go to sleep and not wake up? Have you actually had any thoughts of killing yourself? Have you been thinking about how you might kill yourself? Have you had these thoughts and had some intention of acting on them? Have you started to work out or worked out the details of how to kill yourself and do you have any intention of carrying out this plan? Have you done anything, started to do anything, or prepared to do anything to end your life?
No?
You say, You’re still seeing the therapist, right?
Twice a week, I say. But I think, If you don’t count last week. Or this week.
You’re really worried. You’re trying not to let it show. You aren’t doing a very good job.
It’s just a list of songs, I say.
I don’t think it is.
I’m not thinking about killing myself.
What are you thinking about?
Dying.
You don’t say anything. How long has it been then? Three years? Almost four?
You saw me through Megan’s death. You stopped the bleeding, saved my hand, saved my life.
Now you look so sad.
Do you smell eggs?
“Hold On.” The old one, Tom Waits. Not Alabama Shakes. That one is good but it’s a different song. The wrong song. Not born yet. Maybe Neko Case, though. “Hold On, Hold On.”
You keep asking me questions like the therapist.
I lied to her. I tell you the truth.
You listen. You understand.
No, I say, I’m not okay. I pause for a long time, then say, But I will be.
Because you believe it, I start to believe it, too.
This is a lot of songs, you say.
Haven’t you ever been to an Irish funeral?
You’re Irish all of a sudden?
My grandfather was Irish.
I thought it was your great-grandfather.
/> Same thing.
No, it’s not.
Did you read the whole list?
I didn’t get past the part where you included every song Springsteen ever wrote.
Look at the end there.
You know we’re just going to get a bagpiper and play “Wind Beneath My Wings,” right?
But then you do look. When you gave me the CD, I asked which song was your favorite. They’re all my favorites, you said. I know, I said, but which one? “Ashes on Your Eyes.”
It’s the last song on the list.
I’ll make some eggs, I think, but I don’t because there isn’t any sourdough.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NE ME QUITTE PAS
William Denkins’s entire case file was spread out before me on the dining-room table. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was late. I’d been working alone for hours. Everything was there. All the reports, the crime-scene photos, the personal records, the warrant requests, the witness statements, the yellow pads filled with notes. The stacks of pages—more than a hundred of them by that point in the investigation—were arranged in staggered piles that covered every inch of the surface. My eyes moved from one pile to the next and back again.
Then I saw it. Once it clicked, it seemed so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it sooner. I began riffling through the pages, pulling one here and one there, rearranging them. Everything fell into place. Of course, of course. I felt the adrenaline as one piece of the puzzle after another fit together.
The answers were there. And I could see them as clearly as I’d ever seen anything before.
I knew.
I knew.
“Danny?”
My eyes opened and I was staring up at a fluorescent-light fixture recessed in the ceiling.
“Danny?” she said.
Someone was holding my hand.
“Jen?” I said, turning my head to look into her face.
“No,” she said. “It’s me.”
I looked at her. There was concern in her green eyes and she looked tired. Her brown hair was pulled back, but a few strands hung down along the side of her face. Somehow I knew she’d been there a long time. We’d been there a long time. She squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers too. I knew her. There was a connection I could feel deep in my abdomen. She had a name. I knew it. I wanted to say it. But it hung just out of reach.