The conversation was not hard to imagine, Jarrett promising to get Howe back on track in return for his help smoothing over a wrinkle created by a particularly stubborn reporter. ‘You may even know her a little bit. Anyway, will you help me out, Jeff?’ The detective might have known of Jarrett’s corrupt relationship with the garrison, he might not. He certainly didn’t need to have been complicit in it. The fact that the Chief was asking him would have been reason enough to say yes.
It was hard to keep her eyes open, but she did not want to sleep. She’d been asleep too long already. She needed to know what was happening, out there, beyond these four walls. With great effort, sending red flashes along her sides, shooting through her neck and radiating hotly from her groin, she stretched for the TV remote. She clicked until she found local news.
She had to sit through an item on the Winter Olympics. Yet more disappointment for Team USA, as America’s golden couple crash out of the figure skating competition – and the medal drought continues. Then a business story about yet another audacious foreign bid to buy up a quintessentially US brand: Now even the ketchup on your burger is not American. Finally, they had what she was waiting for.
Let’s return to our main story here on KTLA News at Eleven, the arrest of a suspect in the Abigail Webb murder investigation. A twenty-eight-year-old man, named tonight as Justin Brooks, is in police custody. Brooks was perhaps fatefully caught on CCTV at the bar of the Great Hall of the People restaurant and club where Abigail was last seen on the night of her death. Earlier, KTLA correspondent Janice Rossi caught up with Mario Padilla, who’s been leading a high-profile campaign on the issue and who believes his own sister Rosario was murdered last month.
‘I welcome the arrest of Justin Brooks. My family and all our supporters will now let this investigation run its course and we look forward to the findings of the police and the courts. Thank you very much.’
‘Mario, will you be suspending your campaign?’
‘Right now, we’re going to give some time to the authorities to do their work. All we and the other families have ever wanted is to bring the killer of our loved ones to justice.’
‘But everything you’ve been saying … the demonstration outside the garrison?’
‘Like I say, I want this investigation to run its course. Let’s get to the bottom of who did these terrible crimes. If it’s proved there was no link to the garrison, I will be the first to apologize. I’ll have no problem with that at all.’
‘And the rally you were planning outside the base for next week?’
‘That’s on hold. Thanks. Thank you.’
Mario Padilla there, talking with KTLA’s Janice Rossi. Let’s get a weather update. Al, can I put away my hat and gloves any time soon? Whatcha got for us?
Madison clicked on the remote, cycled once through all the available channels, stopping at what had become the number one sitcom, a show set during the height of the Cold War about a suburban dad obsessively building and then equipping a nuclear bomb shelter in his yard, his wife and kids shrugging, sighing and generally mocking his delusions about leading the American resistance the day the Russians invade. All the comedies seemed to be like that these days: hapless American men, with absurdly grandiose dreams. She watched for a few minutes, managing a painful chuckle or two, clicked a few more times before falling into a fitful sleep, one powered by codeine and punctuated by dreams of smog and bombs and men sitting at bars, their faces always just out of view.
Maddy did not know it, but she had been asleep for more than six straight hours when the words on the TV seeped into her consciousness, like floodwater coming in under the door. At first, they simply mingled with her dreams: ‘body’ and ‘police’ and ‘midnight’ fitting effortlessly into the tales spinning at REM-speed through her brain.
But something in the repetition of them finally winched her up from the bottom of the sea and forced her awake. It felt like the dead of night though it was in fact dawn, as she heard the sunrise anchor on KTLA speaking his peculiar news dialect.
Again, details sketchy now, the picture emerging as we get it. But Los Angeles Police Department sources telling KTLA this hour that the body of a woman has been found in the Burbank area, the woman having suffered an apparent heroin overdose. She is thought to be in her early twenties, found at home in the early hours of this morning by her boyfriend, who was returning, we’re told, from a late shift. KTLA has learned that he found the woman laid out on the floor, with drugs paraphernalia nearby.
Maddy tried to sit up, but the mattress had been lowered. Instead she widened her eyes and stared at the screen.
Let’s cross live to senior crime correspondent Valerie Walker. Valerie?
Standing by a line of ‘Do Not Cross’ tape, the indigo sky of dawn broken by flashing police lights, Valerie Walker proceeded to repeat everything the anchor had just said, almost word for word. But as the words sank in, Maddy heard something new.
‘Now, of course, no word on this from the LAPD yet – but the way in which this woman was found will inevitably lead to speculation that this is another victim of the so-called “heroin killer” said to be behind three unexplained deaths in the city in the last few weeks, including of course the murder of Abigail Webb, found dead just four days ago.’
Maddy felt herself do an involuntary wince, like a twitch. The casualness with which her sister had become public property still shocked her, even though she had no doubt that there were plenty, Quincy for one, who would say she had added to it.
‘There are some details which KTLA is still trying to verify but which would suggest what forensic experts call a “signature” used by the killer – a signature apparently found once again in this case. Confirmation of that as and when we get it. Scott?’
And is this something the police are telling you, Valerie?
‘Not officially, Scott. LAPD officials giving us very few details. But, and I must stress KTLA has not been able to independently verify this, some of these details are now emerging via social media. There is a Weibo account, apparently in the name of the dead woman’s boyfriend and he, incredibly, has been weibing some key facts of the case. He went onto Weibo within an hour and a half of discovering his girlfriend’s body. The weib from him, or apparently from him, reads: “This is what they did to my baby. Just like they did to that other girl.”’
Maddy could feel the first inklings of adrenalin release into her system. Valerie was still talking.
‘Now we must stress, this is not confirmed yet. We need to verify that for you here on KTLA and we’ll be doing that as the morning goes on. Some very disturbing photographs now coming to light, which we are also hoping to check. But the claim that this is the latest in a series of killings, that’s certainly what we’re picking up on social media sites and we expect the police to be facing questions on that just as soon as they call a press conference later in the morning. Scott?’
But what are police saying about the fact that this death – this murder perhaps – happened just hours after their prime suspect for the so-called heroin killings was arrested and taken into custody?
‘Police saying nothing about that, Scott. But that’s gotta be a big question as this story develops. As you know, LAPD officials were very upbeat last night, one briefing journalists that, “We’ve got our man.” And now this. It’ll be a big blow to morale at the LAPD, little doubt of that. As we’ve been reporting on KTLA, this has been a high-profile, high-priority case for the Department: from the top down, they’ve wanted this case resolved. There’s been political fallout, as you know, so stakes very high for the LAPD. But if this latest death is indeed linked to the others, and that means the heroin killer is still at large, well, that means the man currently in police custody is not who the LAPD thought he was – and it means much more besides. Scott?’
Almost noiselessly, the door opened to reveal a woman in whites wheeling in a trolley. She had a kindly face, maternal, even if she was probably no more than five years ol
der than Maddy. If she’d had to guess, Maddy would have identified the nurse as from the Philippines or perhaps Vietnam.
‘Ah, you’re awake!’
‘Have I been asleep long?’ Maddy replied, her voice thicker than she expected.
‘Quite long. Since your husband was here last night, fast asleep!’
‘He’s not my husband.’
‘I forget. No one in LA get married. Everyone wait! If I have handsome boyfriend, I get married!’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Oh.’ She seemed crestfallen. ‘Maybe he wanna be your boyfriend? Hold on, I take your temperature.’
With that, she jammed a white revolver into Maddy’s ear, or at least that’s how it felt. The thermometer made a brief popping noise before the nurse withdrew it for inspection. Once that was done, Maddy asked the nurse if she’d mind bringing over her phone, which lay on the night table charging. Madison had no memory of putting it there.
The nurse did as she was asked, her smile now gone. Perhaps she’d wanted a chat; Maddy worried she’d offended her. But there was no time. As the nurse brusquely placed the blood pressure sleeve on her arm, Maddy read the pair of texts that greeted her. Three from Quincy, the first a terse Where are you?, the second a more concerned, I hear you’re in hospital. I’ll be there right away. The third said, Planned to come visit. Nurses said you were fast asleep and not to be disturbed. And one from Katharine: Oh darling, I heard what happened. I’m so sorry. Enrica says enough is enough. You have to stop running, come here and let us look after you. She’s made soup.
Maddy opened up Weibo where, just as KTLA had said, the early morning chatter was about the discovery of this fourth corpse in as many weeks. Much of it was marvelling at the sheer strangeness of the dead woman’s boyfriend weibing so soon after discovering her. It was another Weibo milestone, wrote the LA Times columnist who had set himself up as a sage of the medium.
Maddy scrolled past all that. Like most reporters, she hungered for facts not commentary. To her amazement, there was a huge amount of what purported to be concrete detail. It seemed the boyfriend had indeed posted pictures of the immediate scene, before the police had arrived to take charge. One picture had been repeatedly removed but, Weibo being Weibo, it would simply pop up, reposted, elsewhere. It took patience – a double dose of it, given how slow and clumsy Madison’s fingers had become – but eventually she found it.
It showed the body of the woman the man had found, the photo cropped at the neck, which at least gave a measure of anonymity if not dignity. She had been wearing a dress buttoned down the middle and either the boyfriend had opened it or he had found her this way, but the dress was undone, exposing the woman’s naked stomach and legs, bra and underwear. Madison saw instantly why the boyfriend had both photographed it and posted it.
At the centre of the image was a single red poppy that appeared to have been tucked carefully into the woman’s underwear, so that it lay at a diagonal across her private parts. It was a confusing image, at once both gentle – like a long-stemmed rose, placed on a lover’s pillow – and a violation, for it represented an intrusion into the most intimate place.
All Madison could think of were the words she had heard on the TV news. What forensic experts call a ‘signature’ used by the killer. She knew all about those. They were the distinguishing characteristic of any serial case.
The reporter was obviously referring to this photo, but what had she gone on to say? A signature apparently found once again in this case. Once again. Meaning that the reporter had reason to believe this same signature, the poppy in the underwear, had been found on the bodies of the three other women – including Abigail.
Amy Alice, Mario Padilla and Jessica had never mentioned a flower, poppy or otherwise. But why would they? The dead women they had found had been clothed. The poppy was a calling card that would have been found by the police or coroner only, once they came to undress the deceased. It would have been a secret message from the killer to his pursuers. And they had kept it secret.
Her thoughts were too fast for her still-sluggish brain, the engine was revving but the wheels were just spinning. She tried to take it stage by stage. If she was right, the police had known what she had been working so hard to prove: that they were confronting a serial killer. Why would they keep that quiet from the very start?
She wanted to say it was because they – like everyone else in this city – was terrified of the China connection and the trouble it could bring. The red poppy was all the warning they needed. Jarrett, thinking of his paymasters, would have issued his edict and the LAPD would have fallen into line.
Or perhaps it was like any one of half a dozen cases she had covered, legitimately subject to a news blackout. Sometimes the cops did that, purely as a tactic: starve the killer of the glory he was after, see what move he made. Publicity would only reward him – and spread panic through the city.
So it might not have been craven fear or corruption that explained why the police had apparently refused to see what she had seen. But it made her angry all the same. The effort, the pain, they could have spared her if they had only shared what they knew.
She went back to Weibo, now filling with word traced first to ‘rumour’ and then, from a clutch of credible journalists, to ‘LAPD sources’. They quoted police insiders confirming that, yes, there had long been a ‘dark team’ working on the assumption that they were confronting a serial killer.
But that was not the main focus of online interest. More attention was devoted to the other pictures taken by the bereaved boyfriend. There was enough there to draw out every wannabe forensic scientist with an internet connection. One showed a hypodermic needle and various drug-related bits of kit which, the armchair analysts decreed, appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry. It was turning into the LAPD’s worst nightmare: a crowdsourced homicide investigation.
Madison skimmed over most of it, her first priority to discover the identity of the victim. Thanks to the boyfriend’s stance of full disclosure, that was not difficult. Within a few clicks, Maddy was looking at a picture of her. Blonde and twentysomething. Next to Abigail, Eveline and Rosario, she could have been a cousin – or a sister.
Then she went back through the Weibo feed, to look again at one message from an amateur expert that had barely registered first time around. She wondered if she had read it wrong. But there it was. She clicked on the profile of the sender: he was not a nut.
The nurse had stopped her ministrations, removing the blood pressure cuff. Maddy attempted a smile. ‘Sorry about this,’ she said, indicating her phone. ‘Just some family members I need to tell. You know, that I’m here.’
‘Oh, you no worry. Everyone busy in LA. No one have time to talk.’
‘Can you tell me something? Where are the painkillers coming into me?’
The nurse pointed at the cannula on the top of Maddy’s right hand, while she packed away her testing equipment. ‘It working, yes? It help you sleep?’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Maddy said. ‘I might try to sleep now.’
‘You no want breakfast?’
Maddy shook her head. ‘Just some sleep.’
Once the nurse was gone, Maddy stayed put with her eyes closed. Give it ten seconds, she thought, in case the woman comes back. Maddy counted up to eight but could wait no longer. She reached immediately for the tube and then took an educated guess, based largely on watching Charlie Hughes’s medical show, on how to remove it. Once it was disconnected, the machine at her bedside sent out an electronic cry of pain but she had only to press the ‘cancel’ button to halt it. Next came the saline, entering her via her left arm: same process. Finally, and most painfully, the catheter. She prepared herself by putting the corner of a pillow in her mouth: she would bite down hard rather than let out the whelp of pain that she knew was coming. She closed her eyes, gave the tube a tug and let her teeth sink deep into the cushion.
Madison knew that she needed several hours’ rest, both to
recover and to let the codeine wash out of her system. But there was no time. In the torrent of speculation, RIP messages and half-rumours she had scrolled through on Weibo, a single line had stopped her. It meant that she had to get out of here. And it told her exactly where she needed to go.
Chapter 39
Getting out of bed had required an enormous effort of will, her legs barely answering to her command. Her limbs were impossibly heavy one moment, apparently drifting away from her the next. Somehow she got to the other side of the room, where her clothes were still in a closet. She dressed standing up, clutching hold of the door handle. Journeying to the bathroom would have demanded, and wasted, too much effort. She cursed her jeans as she pulled up the zip, so tight that she was reminded of the shocking place those boots had struck.
She emerged from her room, hobbled past the nurses’ station staring straight ahead, summoning all her will and energy to walk in a straight, purposeful line. Her prime objective was to avoid all eye contact. A voyage that felt as long and exhausting as any she had undertaken brought her to the elevator. She pressed the call button and finally allowed herself to breathe out.
‘Miss?’ A voice, female, calling out from behind. One of the nurses. ‘Oh, miss?’
Don’t turn around, she thought. Don’t turn around.
‘Miss Webb, is that you?’ The voice was getting nearer, coming towards her on the corridor.
Come on, come on. She could see the cables twitching and moving behind the glass of the elevator shaft. At last, it was there. She stepped in, her fingers finding the close button: she kept pressing it until at last the doors drew together, leaving just a parting glimpse of a nurse she had never seen before. Maddy looked away as quickly as she could, but not soon enough she feared. Chances were, the woman had seen her face. Still, she got to the ground floor where she called a cab and lurked in a locked stall in the ladies’ room until it arrived, announcing its presence by text message.
The 3rd Woman Page 30