The Voice Inside (Frost Easton Book 2)

by Brian Freeman

  Thirty years had passed since that moment, and yet he could still recite every detail of that scene from memory, like a photograph. His dead daughter in his arms. His dead, murdering wife on the floor.

  And on the nightstand next to the crib, a digital clock showing him the time.

  3:42 a.m.

  The strange thing was, the tears stopped when he saw Hope on the floor, and they had never come back. Every emotion drained out of him, like Hope’s blood. He couldn’t feel pain. He couldn’t feel anger. He wanted to cry for his daughter; he wanted to feel rage at his wife. Instead, he felt nothing, and nothingness was far worse than grief. From that moment forward, he’d lived his life in a kind of void, and when the void became unbearable, he’d tried to kill himself. Four times he’d tried, but each time he had failed, as if God didn’t want him.

  Day became day, month became month, year became year, melting away like spring snow.

  Twenty years passed that way.

  Twenty years of numb, interminable, empty time.

  Until the numbness finally stopped.

  It stopped nine years ago, on April 1, in a coffee shop in the Ferry Building. It was luck or fate or destiny or whatever else people believed in. He’d never been to that coffee shop before or since, but his brother, Phil, had been late to pick him up for the Giants game, so he’d ordered an iced latte from a chatty barista named Nina Flores. It was Nina’s birthday. She was a sweet kid. Hispanic. Cheerful. Fluffy pile of brown hair. So perky it was annoying. She talked and talked, about her job, about school, about her parents and siblings, about her best friend, about her birthday. She showed him childhood photos made into buttons on her T-shirt. She sang “Happy Birthday” to herself.

  Nina was an ordinary girl, but for Rudy, she was also a thunderbolt. Nina woke up the monster in him. Seeing her brought Hope back to life, like an evil ghost in Rudy’s head, and he knew that ghost had to be destroyed.

  By the time Rudy finished his coffee, everything had changed for him. He’d found his path to revenge because of that girl in the Ferry Building. He became nothing but cold, implacable anger. After twenty years of emptiness, he finally had a purpose and a plan.

  Rudy had smiled at Nina as he left, but he was already considering the next steps in his strategy. He’d paid by credit card; he wouldn’t make that mistake again. He had to be careful; he had to choose, observe, think, and anticipate, but those were his best skills. Even then, he’d known Nina would be the first, but she wouldn’t be the last. There were many others, and he knew exactly where to find them.

  Nina Flores, Rae Hart, Natasha Lubin, Hazel Dixon, Shu Chan, Melanie Valou. Dying one by one in the years that followed.

  Do you remember them, Hope?

  And he wasn’t done. Oh no.

  The time in San Quentin was only a temporary delay, caused by a detective who refused to play by the rules. Jess Salceda hadn’t beaten him; she’d cheated. Now Rudy would show her what happened to those who got in his way.

  He put his hands behind his head and waited. His senses were hyperalert, although he knew he was being impatient. Maybe it wouldn’t be today. Maybe it would be tomorrow. Or the next day. But finally, finally, he heard the sound he’d been anticipating. Footsteps. Boots on the concrete walkway, coming closer. Coming for him.

  He saw the bulky prison guard stop directly outside the bars. The guard called to him in a growly voice. “Cutter?”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “You have a visitor.”

  5

  Frost had hoped never to see Rudy Cutter again, but there he was. The guard shackled him to the metal table in the small interview room. Cutter, who was wearing jeans and a loose blue smock, studied Frost on the other side of the table the way a tiger sizes up prey. There had been a moment during the murder trial when Cutter looked back at the gallery with the same stare. Frost had never forgotten those eyes, so empty and brutal. It had taken everything in Frost’s power not to jump across the railing in the courthouse and strangle Cutter with his bare hands.

  He felt the same way now.

  “Rudy Cutter,” Frost said.

  “Hello, Inspector.” Cutter didn’t say, I was expecting you. He didn’t need to gloat. The message was clear in the way he held himself. This man knew exactly why Frost was here.

  Frost slid the evidence bag with the watch out of his pocket and put it on the table between them.

  “This came from you, I assume,” Frost said.

  Cutter didn’t say anything for a long time. He leaned forward to study the watch. The contrast of the expensive, sparkling jewelry with the drab, oppressive surroundings of the prison room was striking. Even under a dusty fluorescent bulb, the diamonds and rubies shined.

  “It’s beautiful,” Cutter said finally. “The Swiss are very talented. How much do you think a watch like that is worth? Ten thousand dollars? More?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, it’s so unusual you’d think it would be one of a kind,” Cutter said. He paused, and his eyes narrowed. “But we both know it’s not.”

  “I’m not sure what you think you’re doing, Cutter,” Frost said.

  The man gave him a look of surprise, as if the truth was obvious. “I’m getting out of prison. And you’re going to help me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because no matter what you think I did, you can’t live with a lie,” Cutter said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  Frost picked up the evidence bag and twisted it between his fingers. “You’re clever. It’s a clever game, but it won’t work.”

  “No?”

  “No. A judge will never let you out over this. A duplicate watch isn’t enough evidence to free you. It doesn’t prove a thing.”

  “Except it’s not an exact duplicate, is it?” Cutter asked.

  Frost shrugged. “The inscription on the back won’t help you. I already talked to Camille Valou. She said Melanie’s watch had no inscription. This watch didn’t belong to her daughter.”

  “She’s lying,” Cutter said.

  “And just how do you expect to prove that? It’s your word against hers. Who do you think a judge is likely to believe? A convicted serial killer or a mother whose child was murdered?”

  “I don’t have to convince a judge,” Cutter replied calmly. “I just have to convince you. The fact is, I already have. You’re sitting here. You came to talk to me. That means you know the truth. You know the watch in your pocket belonged to Melanie Valou. You know that your colleague, Jess Salceda, planted a fake watch in my house in order to frame me. You know that I’m in prison because of a lie.”

  Frost shook his head. “Is that what this is about? You think you can take Jess down? You want to put a cloud over her career and make everyone think she’s a corrupt cop?”

  “She is corrupt.”

  “And like I said, you’ll never prove it. You want me to take this watch to a judge? Fine. I’ll do it. Nothing will come of it. There’ll be a hearing, and Camille will testify that the watch I found didn’t belong to Melanie, and Jess will testify that she found Melanie’s real watch in your ceiling. The judge will throw out your motion, and you’ll be right where you are now. It’s a waste of time. You see, you’re forgetting one thing, Cutter. Even if anyone secretly believes that this is Melanie’s watch, they’ll still know you’re guilty.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  “Because the only way you could have found Melanie’s real watch is if you’d had it hidden all along.”

  Cutter actually smiled. Frost had never seen him smile before. Cutter leaned across the table and whispered, “That’s a good point, Inspector. Except I never had that watch.”

  Frost hesitated. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t challenge the authenticity of the watch that Jess found at my trial,” Cutter said, “because I assumed that Jess had found Melanie’s real watch and planted it. Not that I had any way to prove that at the time. But I kne
w I didn’t have it.”

  “Then who did?” Frost asked.

  “That’s a good question. I thought about that for a long time as I sat here in prison. I always thought the whole thing was strange. Melanie Valou was wearing her watch in the video footage from the ATM. So where on earth did Jess find it? I had no explanation. Not until very recently.”

  “What happened?” Frost asked.

  “I was listening to a Giants game on the radio this spring,” Cutter said. “They did an interview with one of the starting pitchers. Hector Veracruz. He mentioned a little incident from a few years ago. When I heard it, I knew exactly what had happened to Melanie’s watch. It was sort of like a bunch of alarm clocks going off at the same time. Know what I mean?”

  Frost got the joke, which was like a sick boast that Cutter had been behind the whole overnight game.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Hector got mugged,” Cutter told him. “It was a week after their last World Series victory. Some kid pulled a gun on him and took his cash and his last series ring, too. That was five years ago. November five years ago. Does that ring a bell with you, Inspector?”

  It did. Frost understood the timing. Melanie Valou had disappeared five years ago. In November.

  “Go on,” Frost said.

  “I had someone on the outside do some research for me. Guess where Hector got mugged? It was near a skateboard park under 101. I bet that rings a bell, too. It’s only a few blocks from the ATM where Melanie Valou took out cash. Do you see where I’m going with this, Inspector?”

  “You think Melanie got mugged,” Frost said. “The mugger took her watch.”

  “Right.”

  “Before she met you,” Frost said.

  “Before she met whoever killed her,” Cutter replied.

  “That’s quite a story. Do you expect me to believe it?”

  Cutter shrugged. “You already do believe it, Inspector. I can see it in your face. You know it won’t be hard to confirm everything I’ve told you.”

  “The mugger. Do you know who he is?”

  “His name was Lamar Rhodes.”

  “Was?” Frost asked.

  “He broke his neck in a skateboarding accident six months after Melanie was killed. Police found a gun and a lot of cash in his pocket. Hector pegged him as the kid who heisted his series ring.”

  Frost took out the evidence bag from his pocket again. “If Rhodes is dead, how did this watch get in my hands? Where has it been for five years?”

  “That took a while to figure out. Remember, I still thought that Jess planted the real watch. I assumed she must have found Lamar Rhodes and taken the watch from him. Or maybe he fenced it and she tracked it down on the street. Either way, I was simply trying to prove what Jess had done. I had someone digging into Lamar’s background, talking to people who knew him, trying to figure out what had happened to the watch. One of the people was Lamar’s sister, Yolanda. She sprang quite a surprise on us.”

  “How so?”

  “She was wearing the watch,” Cutter said.

  Frost didn’t say anything, but he was thunderstruck.

  “Yeah, it surprised me, too,” Cutter said. “That’s when I realized there must have been two watches. A mother-and-daughter set. And Camille Valou gave her own watch to Jess to plant in my ceiling. They figured it was safe because they assumed I had Melanie’s watch and couldn’t produce it without incriminating myself. Instead, a teenager in the Mission District had it the whole time. She thought the jewels were plastic. Imagine this kid walking around with a few thousand dollars on her wrist and not even knowing it.

  “Yolanda Rhodes,” Frost murmured.

  “That’s right. Go talk to her. She’ll tell you all about it. And just in case you think I paid her off to feed you a crap story, there’s proof, too. She’s got a picture of herself and Lamar from five years ago where she’s wearing the watch.”

  Frost wanted to believe that Cutter had concocted an elaborate lie, but he didn’t think so. The story was crazy, but it had the ring of crazy, simple truth. He knew who’d really been lying all along. Camille Valou. And Jess.

  He stared at the watch and shook his head.

  “Why me, Cutter? Why the game?”

  “I could have had my attorney talk to the district attorney, but do you think anyone would listen to him? I don’t think so. They’d cover it up to protect their own. But a cop on the inside? A cop with a personal stake? If you’re the messenger, they have to take it seriously.”

  “Why were you so sure I wouldn’t destroy the watch?” Frost asked. “I thought about it.”

  “Because I hear you’re a Boy Scout,” Cutter said. “Don’t worry, we got an affidavit from Yolanda, along with photos. Even if you’d gotten rid of the watch, it wouldn’t have made a difference. But I didn’t think you would. The word is, you’re a cop who does what you have to do.”

  Cutter was right. Frost knew what he had to do.

  He was going to make bad things happen. He was going to confirm Cutter’s story. He was going to destroy Jess. He was going to set his sister’s killer free.

  6

  Frost sat in total darkness in the window seat of his Russian Hill house, where he’d spent the last two hours. He nursed a pale ale, but the beer had grown warm as he held the bottle. Outside, rain slapped like gunfire against the glass. Thanks to the fog and the storm, the hillside and the city below him were mostly invisible.

  The house smelled of reheated Peruvian saltado, which his brother, Duane, had delivered to his refrigerator sometime during the day. Everything Duane prepared was delicious, but Frost didn’t have much of an appetite. He’d given up after a couple of bites, and Shack had eaten more of the dish than Frost had.

  Now Shack slept on Frost’s knee, his legs splayed as if he didn’t have a bone in his little body. The black-and-white cat was as tiny as a kitten, but he was full grown. They’d been roommates for two years. The ornate, old-fashioned house didn’t belong to Frost, and he’d never felt at home here, but living in this place was a requirement for staying with Shack. The cat’s original owner was an old woman who had been murdered in the upstairs master bedroom, and Frost and Shack had adopted each other when he investigated the case. What Frost hadn’t realized was that the woman’s will included a provision requiring anyone who adopted Shack to stay in the house for the rest of the cat’s life at a rental price of one dollar per year.

  So Frost had given up his apartment near the baseball stadium, and now he lived with Shack in one of the most exclusive addresses in the city. The only furniture he’d brought with him was his old tweed sofa, which he kept in the living room and doubled as his bed.

  It was nearly midnight. It had been a long day and evening. From San Quentin, he’d returned to police headquarters to look up the Mission District muggings, and he’d confirmed the details Cutter had given him about Lamar Rhodes. An hour later, he’d found Lamar’s sister, Yolanda, who identified the watch. She’d had it on her wrist for five years, and she had the photos to prove it. It was all true.

  He needed to think about what came next, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. Instead, he thought about his sister.

  Katie, with the blond hair that made you think of a summer day. Katie, four years younger than Frost, although strangers had sometimes thought they were twins. They’d been as different as a brother and sister could be, but they’d also been best friends. Frost was an introvert, content to sit in silence and read history books. He’d never had a serious attachment to a woman in his life; his relationship with Shack was more of a commitment than he’d made to anyone else. Katie was the opposite. She’d lived for people. Strangers became friends. Boys fell at her feet.

  Katie, with handwriting so bad she couldn’t read it herself.

  Katie, who could play Schubert on the piano like Horowitz and follow it up with “The Vatican Rag.”

  Katie, who should have been thirty-one years old now, but who had died in the back seat of her M
alibu at the hands of Rudy Cutter.

  Thinking of it, thinking of finding her body, thinking of the blood, made Frost squeeze his eyes shut with pain. Six years in between hadn’t softened his grief. The memory burned like a fire that made it impossible to breathe.

  He got up from the window seat, dislodging Shack. The cat blinked blearily, but then climbed up his shoulder and hung on for the ride as Frost went upstairs. He made his way into the master bedroom—across the white carpet, which still bore the faded bloodstain where Shack’s original owner had died—and into the huge walk-in closet that stored almost everything Frost owned.

  His “Katie box” was on the top shelf at the back. He slid it into his arms and sat down cross-legged in the closet with the box in front of him. He put aside the lid, which Shack hopped down to explore. Inside the box was everything he had from his relationship with his sister. Silly things. Theater programs. Paper fortunes from the cookies at Chinese restaurants. Photographs from a family camping trip to Yosemite when he, Katie, and Duane were all young. Postcards and letters. Frost had only crossed the California border twice in his life, but Katie had traveled a lot. She’d gone to Europe twice, to Hawaii, to Mexico, and to Alaska. He grabbed a postcard she’d mailed from Barcelona and tried to read it, but as usual, her handwriting was all but indecipherable. Even so, seeing her writing helped him hear her voice in his head.

  He thought about the last time he’d heard that voice, two hours before she disappeared from the restaurant where she worked.

  Haight Pizza, she’d answered the phone, unmistakably Katie.

  Really? he’d said. How can anyone hate pizza?

  Really? How many times can one brother make the same joke?

  I’ll let you know. How late are you delivering tonight?

  Ten. Want me to bring you a pie when I go?

  Definitely. Sausage and pineapple.

  Got it. Sausage, absolutely no pineapple.

  But she never showed up.

  At eight forty-five, Katie had left for a delivery run in her Malibu. An hour later, a man named Todd Clary had called to complain that he’d never received his pizza. The pizza place tried to reach her, but Katie wasn’t answering her phone. They’d called Frost, and Frost had called Duane, his parents, and Katie’s friends. No one had seen her. He’d driven to Haight Pizza and traced out the route between the restaurant and Todd Clary’s house, in case Katie’s unreliable Malibu had died somewhere along the way. There was no sign of her anywhere.