No One Will Hear You

by Matt Clemens

  Murders were often described as having been committed “in cold blood;” but Amari knew that most were in the heat of rage. “In cold blood” better described her own rage, a detached but no less intense desire to remove from society the twisted individual who had stolen this young woman’s life.

  Actually, not so young—this girl was dead, wasn’t she? And you didn’t get any older than that. Years, probably many, many years, had been stolen from her. That the killer had left her remains here, under the Hollywood sign, indicated a desire for the whole world to see the result.

  Well, Amari had seen the result, all right, and she would do something about it.

  As they headed up the hill, she and Polk passed the crime-scene team, coming down. Polk gave them the plastic bag with the wire casing. Amari indicated where they found it, and filled them in on the state of the crime scene. Then she and Polk continued on up.

  Two patrol cars had pulled out. Remaining were the veteran Jackson and the rookie Kaylan, the coroner’s team, and the security guard, who leaned against the cop car.

  Skinny, with military-short dark hair and wire-framed glasses, the security guard gave off the vibe of somebody who’d taken this job hoping he’d be issued a gun someday. His nameplate read WYLER.

  Even so, the first question Amari had to ask was, “Name?”

  “Jason Wyler,” the guard said, extending his hand.

  Amari shook it, introducing herself and Polk, who (she told Wyler) would be recording their conversation.

  “Cool with me,” the guard said. “Anything to help move the investigation along.”

  “You discovered the body, Mr. Wyler?”

  Almost whispering, as if this were a secret to be shared only between professionals, he said, “Yeah, I was the one. That was me.”

  Patiently, Amari said, “Tell us about it.”

  “Well,” he said, a little too eagerly, “it was between five and five-thirty this morning—I was on my regular rounds. I have regular rounds I make.”

  Polk asked, “See any cars, coming in or out?”

  “I didn’t see nobody. And I’m always looking. That’s part of my job. I’ve been working security for three years now.”

  Amari said, “So you came up here like usual—what was different from any other time?”

  “Nothing. It’s always kind of dead up here.”

  He didn’t seem to realize what he’d said.

  Amari said, “Think, Mr. Wyler. You’re a pro. There had to be something—do you always drive down there to check the sign on your rounds? Every single trip?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then why did you this time?”

  “I guess it was the tire tracks.”

  Polk blurted, “What tire tracks?”

  Wyler pointed toward the dirt road that wound down to the sign. “Over there. Those tire tracks.”

  “Show us where exactly,” Amari said, already walking that way. Polk and Wyler trailed.

  Catching up to fall in beside Amari, Wyler said, “Right at the top of the road, Lieutenant! I thought I saw tracks in the dust. I hadn’t seen them on any of my other rounds tonight. So, of course, I got suspicious.”

  Looking at the blacktop lot, where the dirt road met the blacktop, Amari could see several tire tracks. “Did you, uh, drive through the tracks? To get down the hill, and check things out?”

  “Yeah, well, sure I did,” Wyler said, confused. “That’s where the road is.”

  Amari knew that showing this fool her temper would not help matters. So she calmly asked, “What did you find when you got down to the gate?”

  “Everything looked pretty normal,” the security guard said. “At first, anyway.”

  Polk asked, “Looked no different than usual?”

  Wyler nodded. “Same-o, same-o.”

  Amari asked, “How about the gate? Was it locked or ajar?”

  “Yeah, it was shut, it was locked—that’s why I thought everything was okay, tire tracks or no tire tracks.”

  With you on the job, Amari thought, it’s no tire tracks. …

  Polk asked, “Then why did you go have a look?”

  “Just my … you know, cop instincts. Even though everything seemed okay, I still had that feeling.”

  “That feeling?”

  “That something wasn’t right, y’know? You musta had that feeling lots of times.”

  “Oh yeah,” Polk said, with an encouraging nod.

  “So, I started by using the spotlight….” Wyler pointed down at his car with its door-mounted spot similar to those on patrol cars. “I swept the scene, starting down at the D, then moving toward the H. That … that’s when I saw the woman’s feet sticking out. By the O.”

  Wyler appeared nervous now. He’d turned a sick shade of white.

  Amari said, “You’re doing fine, Mr. Wyler.”

  “You know, just ‘cause I’m a pro, that doesn’t mean I’m not human. I don’t mind telling you, I about pissed myself right then and there. All these years on the job, and I never was around a real live dead body before.”

  “Did you check the control box?”

  “With the spotlight, yeah, but it was locked.”

  She nodded. “What did you do next?”

  “Called 911.”

  “You unlocked the gate?”

  “Yeah, when the first squad car got here. They wanted to make sure she was dead.”

  “So, the gate was locked, when you got there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And right now, all the electronics are working, the camera and the motion detectors?”

  Wyler nodded vigorously. “I even called in to the security center after I called 911. They said everything was working fine and they didn’t see anything.”

  Polk was shaking his head. “Smart mother. Hacked the system somehow.”

  Amari asked, “And the control box was definitely locked?”

  “Oh yeah,” Wyler said, nodding vigorously. “It was locked. Definitely locked. I didn’t—”

  Wyler was cut off by the approach of a tech from the crime scene. Marty Rue—mid-forties, dark hair, black glasses—approached Amari. They had worked on several cases together over the years.

  “Morning, Anna,” he said.

  “Marty, any jewels among those squashed acorns?”

  “Footprints around the body are a mess, as you promised. You folks got the USC marching band working your crime scenes for you now?”

  If Wyler understood he was part of that insult, it didn’t register. He had the happy look of an amateur suddenly accepted by a group of professionals.

  “Marty,” she said, “what about those roses?”

  “I’ll know more when I get them back to the lab, but I bet you’d like a look at that card.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You’re gonna love this.” He held out a cellophane bag.

  Amari took it and read the card within: With Love, Don Juan.

  She heaved a long sigh and passed the bag to Polk.

  Polk read it and said, “I mean, I know these sick killers leave a signature—but an actual signature?”

  “He’s got an ego,” she said. “We’re gonna see more of him.”

  Polk frowned. “Lieutenant, could this be the same killer as West Hollywood? I realize that was a male victim, but they both were stabbed, they’re both dead, they’re both naked. Maybe killed after sex?”

  “That’s good thinking, LeRon. Really is. But the signatures are different … including this very specific signature of roses and a hand-signed note. Eyeballing it, I’d say different weapons. For this to be the same killer, particularly if your scenario were to hold, we’d have something very unusual—a bisexual serial killer.”

  She asked Wyler, “Do you have a key for the control box?”

  “Yeah,” he said, unconsciously jingling the ring attached to his belt. “Why?”

  She asked Rue, “You lifted footprints from in front of the control box yet?”

  “
Nope.”

  “Well, do that, then let’s have a look at that box. My guess is our killer got into it somehow. He had to defeat the camera and the motion detector.”

  Rue nodded, and was gone.

  Amari said, “All right, Mr. Wyler, spell out a typical night for me.”

  Wyler smiled at the thought of helping his fellow pros. “I come on at eleven. I’m here by eleven thirty, then pretty much every hour and a half or so after that. Usually, around one, two-thirty, four, five-thirty, then one last pass on my way back to the barn at seven.”

  “Earlier, you told us you were here between five and five-thirty.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Maybe twenty after or so. I was a little early, but not much.”

  “You noticed the tire tracks on your five-thirty trip,” Amari said. “Is it possible you missed them earlier?”

  Wyler considered that. “No, I don’t think so, really don’t. Tracks in the dust on the blacktop? That’s something I look for every time I’m up top. I would have seen ‘em if they were here before that.”

  “That means the killer was here between four and five-thirty.”

  “Had to be,” Wyler said, nodding.

  To Polk, Amari said, “Which tells us she was dead before that—bled out, cleaned up, ready for display. Killer drove her here in his car.”

  “Risky,” Polk said.

  “But if the killer knew he had ninety minutes and had cased the area, he could minimize the risk.”

  From the control box, Rue gave them a wave.

  “All right,” Amari said. “Which key is it?”

  Wyler took the ring off his belt and handed it to her by the box key.

  As they walked back down the path to the box, Polk said, “Killer opened it, did whatever he did, then locked it up again.”

  “Yeah,” Amari said, “and we want to see what he did.”

  Polk put a hand on her forearm and stopped her. “What if he booby-trapped the frickin’ thing?”

  She thought about that.

  “Why lock it back up,” Polk insisted, “if it’s not booby-trapped?”

  “To slow us down?”

  “Right. And what would slow us down more than it blowing up in our damn faces?”

  “Shit,” she said.

  Polk was right.

  They conferred with Marty Rue and, in the end, did the smart thing.

  Called the bomb squad.

  Chapter Nine

  The network president wore his dark hair clipped close, his lightweight gray suit no more expensive than Harrow’s first car. He was smiling, but the gray-green eyes were cold stones in the well-tanned, conventionally handsome face.

  Dennis Byrnes said, “Let’s get right to it, shall we, J.C.? With the ratings Crime Seen’s enjoyed, you are right to expect certain rewards. Including a raise.”

  Seated opposite the network president, Harrow said, “I’ve had another offer.”

  Byrnes raised a hand. “I’m sure you have, J.C. You were bound to. Assembling your forensics team, taking them on the road, that was smart showmanship. Plus you got lucky, and some great television happened. The kind that will be written about and studied for years. So I don’t play down your contribution.”

  “Dennis …”

  “Now, J.C., I’m being straight up with you. But despite all this success, you know what kind of economy we’re facing, and your road trip was extremely expensive. So I don’t want you to be offended if the increase seems unduly modest, and—”

  “I said, I’ve had another offer.”

  “J.C., don’t be ridiculous. You know your contract includes an iron-clad non-compete clause.”

  “Not quite iron-clad, Dennis.”

  “… Explain.”

  “The non-compete clause applies only to other offers in broadcasting.”

  “Actually, J.C., it’s more than just broadcasting—you do know it includes cable.”

  “All of television, sure.”

  “And radio, and really anything in media. Throughout the universe, if I remember the language.”

  “It’s not a job on Mars, Dennis, that I promise you.”

  “Where then?”

  “Iowa.”

  Byrnes frowned, as if Harrow had said Mars. “That’s where you used to work.”

  “Right. In law enforcement.”

  Byrnes had a flummoxed look. “Well, J.C., regional, local broadcasting, that’s covered by non-compete, too.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Who’s made you an offer, anyway?”

  “You don’t know them.”

  “And it’s not television?”

  Harrow gave him a single head shake.

  “How much is the offer, then?”

  “Twenty-seven five.”

  Byrnes erupted in something that was vaguely a laugh. “You’re making seventy-five thousand per show, J.C. And I’m about to offer you one hundred.”

  “Not talking about weekly salary.”

  “What … what are you talking about?”

  “The offer is per year.”

  Byrnes frowned in incredulity. “Twenty-seven thousand five-hundred a year?”

  “Plus certain perks. Three weeks’ paid vacation. Medical and dental.”

  “That doesn’t sound like work. That sounds like welfare. What the hell kind of job pays twenty-seven thousand a year?”

  “Twenty-seven-thousand five. Police chief of Walcott, Iowa.”

  “There’s no such place!” Byrnes grinned in desperation. “You’re punking me, right? Is that brat Ashton Kutcher in the hall?”

  “No, but he’s from Iowa, too. He’d know Walcott’s a real place. If I stay five years, I climb to thirty-three thousand and change.”

  Byrnes was a man trying to awaken from a bad dream. “Small-town police chief. You want to trade it all for small-town police chief. Who the hell quits a hit show without something better already lined up?”

  “This is better, Dennis. Better for me. Look, I know we’re a success. I know we’ve done a good job. But surely this can’t be that big a surprise.”

  “Really?”

  “Dennis, when I took this gig, I told you it wasn’t about the money.”

  “You also wouldn’t have called it a ‘gig’! J.C., you’re a show-biz guy now, like it or not. You really think it will be so goddamn easy going back?”

  Harrow shrugged. “Whether there’s a life back there for me, after what I lost, I don’t honestly know … but I need to find out.”

  Byrnes’s eyebrows lifted. “Find out after doing a third season for us. I know you took satisfaction, during season one, helping bring all those bad guys to justice.”

  “I know we did some good….”

  “You did a lot of good, J.C. We did a lot of good. You can contribute more here than being a Podunk lawman, no offense. You want to go back to Iowa? Why not spend another year here first, socking big dough away for your golden years—you’re no spring chicken, after all … particularly for a TV star.”

  That actually made Harrow smile.

  “J.C., give me one more year, and I’ll have time to properly replace you for season four … unless you change your mind and want to stay on.”

  Harrow shook his head. “Dennis, it’s not just me—my Killer TV team is ready to get back to their lives, too.”

  “Unacceptable,” Byrnes said, with what a stranger might have mistaken for a smile.

  Harrow knew better. “Pardon?”

  “The network holds an option on all your contracts for next season. We intend to pick up those options.”

  “Suppose we went public with our unhappiness,” Harrow said. “Suppose I went on strike.”

  “I don’t think you will, J.C.”

  “And why not, Dennis?”

  “Because you owe me.”

  And Harrow did.

  When Harrow had gone off script, on live TV, pledging Crime Seen resources to track down his family’s killers, Byrnes could have fired him. Could
have sued him, and hung him out to dry.

  Instead, Byrnes had backed his play.

  Ellen and David Harrow’s murders would have almost certainly gone unavenged without Dennis Byrnes.

  “… Okay, Dennis. You’re right. I do owe you.”

  Byrnes did not allow anything gloating to come in his smile.

  “I owe you and I’ll stay, for one more season … but my people? They’re free to go.”

  The executive shrugged elaborately. “I will exercise my right to try to convince them with pay raises, J.C., but they will not be held to the options in their contracts. I promise you that.”

  “Okay.”

  Harrow’s phone vibrated—caller ID: CARMEN.

  Harrow didn’t leave his seat—there was nothing Carmen Garcia might call about that Byrnes couldn’t hear.

  Without preamble, Carmen said, “She won’t let me in.”

  “She who?”

  “Byrnes’s secretary.”

  “Kate,” the secretary said loud enough to carry over the phone. “My name is Kate.” The last part Harrow and Byrnes both heard through the door.

  Pushing a button, Byrnes said, “Kate, what is going on out there?”

  The answer came by way of the door flying open and Carmen Garcia bursting in, dark hair bouncing off her shoulders, open laptop computer in her arms, the unhappy blonde secretary in her wake.

  Carmen was holding up the computer as she strode straight to Harrow. “You need to see this. Now.”

  “We’re in the middle of a meeting here,” Byrnes protested irritably.

  “This is more important,” Carmen said, fearless in the face of the network president. “You might explain to your secretary that news has a shelf life.”

  While Byrnes and Kate looked on in offended surprise, Carmen set the computer on the executive’s desk but facing Harrow, who quickly found himself watching a video stream. Though the image was surprisingly high quality, it seemed to be nothing more than amateur porn.

  And the absurdity of that made Harrow wonder if Carmen had lost her mind. News? What made homegrown smut news?

  On-screen, a long-haired blonde lay stomach-down on a bed, obviously having rear-entry sex, face turned toward camera, her lover almost entirely off camera, his back to the viewer, but not blocking the blonde much from this angle, as she writhed, her moans of pleasure loud and long, distorted through the computer’s small speakers.