Murder Season

by Robert Ellis

  “You said the circumstances were the same.”

  “The approach the detective took, the mistakes he made, remind me of Cobb. The family was wealthy, the kid adopted, and so the guy decided right off that the motive had to be greed. The kid begged to take a polygraph, but the detective refused. He thought his read was better than the science. Just like Cobb, he looked at the kid and knew.”

  Lena realized that Vaughan was talking about the Marty Tankleff case. Although it hadn’t been in the news for a year or two, the case was too horrific to forget. Tankleff’s mother had been found on the bathroom floor, stabbed to death and nearly decapitated. His father had been severely beaten and stabbed multiple times as well. After hanging on for a month in a coma, the man died and the murder count climbed to two. Lena imagined that the brutality of the crime affected the detective’s judgment. After seeing the crime scene photographs of Lily Hight skewered to the floor, she had thought the same thing of Cobb. Both detectives jumped early. Both detectives locked in on their suspects without bothering to interview anyone who might have given them a deeper perspective and widened their view.

  Vaughan looked her over. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You know the case.”

  “I read about it,” she said. “Marty Tankleff was a minor. The motive didn’t make any sense because he wouldn’t have seen the money for eight years.”

  “Then you get where I’m going. The detective missed more than he saw. The entire prosecution team built their case on the way they wanted it to be. When they were confronted with the facts, overwhelming evidence that pointed to the real killer, they refused to acknowledge their mistakes. Everyone knows who murdered the Tankleffs, except for the people who should. And that’s why the killer is still free.”

  “When I worked homicide in Hollywood, my partner used to call it ‘tunnel vision.’”

  Vaughan thought about it, his eyes still on her. “Your partner called it right. But this could be more than that and you know it, Lena. This is Los Angeles. We’re dealing with different people. Different circumstances with a lot more at stake. And I don’t care what they say or how loud they say it. I don’t care how hot the fire gets. If Gant was innocent, I want the world to know that he was innocent. If Hight killed his own daughter, I want to make sure the asshole pays for it.”

  Lena moved her head into the shadows so that Vaughan couldn’t see the expression on her face. He’d made the turn. They were on the same page.

  22

  Lena switched on the lamp and pulled a stool up to the counter. She had just found the nude photos of Lily Hight that had been pulled from Gant’s computer in the back of Cobb’s murder book. There were three—each one more disturbing than the next. Lena had stumbled upon them while searching through the binder for the interviews Cobb conducted with Gant before Buddy Paladino had been hired. The transcripts weren’t in the book, but should have been. And she’d missed the photos on her first pass because they were mixed together with hundreds of shots taken by an SID photographer on the day Gant’s house was searched.

  Cobb’s murder book had been slapped together. His work reeked of carelessness.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled, then looked at the sixteen-year-old girl lying on her bed. The girl seemed to have left her innocence on the chair with her clothes. Lena caught the seductive smile on her face. The smoky eyes and tangled hair. The dark-red lipstick. The girl laid out in a woman’s body that was fully formed, and undoubtedly, fully functional.

  Unlike the crime scene photos, these images were never presented at trial. Somehow over the past year, they had never been leaked. As Lena considered what she was seeing, what they implied ran counter to everything she had ever heard about the victim. And as disturbing as they may have been, she was surprised that Paladino hadn’t seen their value to his defense. Images of the teenager stripped of all innocence would have lent credibility to Gant’s claim that he was having a relationship with the girl and not stalking her.

  But there was something more here. Something about the photographs that she couldn’t quite put into words.

  Tim Hight murdered Jacob Gant. But his reasons for committing the homicide seemed so much more important than the crime itself. Was it as simple as an act of revenge? Or was it an attempt to mask some horrible truth that Gant had discovered? Was Hight trying to keep something buried that had almost leaked out?

  Lena took a last look at the girl lying on the bed. The glint in her eyes. The heat that went with her long legs and curvy body. The seductive smile that now seemed so haunting.

  But she was thinking about that piece of paper again. The one she kept that listed the reasons why she wanted to be a cop. Barrera was wrong on this. Digging into the past wasn’t a step back. It was a move forward. It was the only move worth making.

  She closed the binder and pushed it away. It was well after midnight and the house was still hot, still hovering at over 80 degrees. She could hear the air conditioner straining outside the window.

  Stepping around the counter into the kitchen, she opened the freezer and let the cool mist brush against her face. The cloud of moist air didn’t last very long. Only ten or twenty seconds, when what she really needed was an hour or two. When the frost finally vanished, she reached inside for the bottle of SKYY vodka and poured a drink.

  She took a first sip, feeling the ice-cold liquid hit her stomach and glow. Peeling off her shoes, she opened the slider and walked outside to the pool. The moon was just beginning to climb above the horizon. She could see it directly behind the tall buildings downtown. Shafts of warm yellow light were spilling down the streets all the way to the ocean. Rolling up her jeans, she sat down and slipped her feet into the cool water. She took another sip of vodka, hoping that her view of the city raked in moonlight might overtake her memory of the photographs she had just seen. And then another sip, hoping that the drink might freeze up her mind and bring on a few hours of dreamless sleep.

  And that’s when she heard a car pulling into her driveway, the sound of tires eating up gravel. She wasn’t too concerned about it until she got up and looked around the house.

  The car was rolling forward with its headlights off. A white Lincoln.

  She climbed up the steps onto the porch, watching the car coast to a quiet stop in the shadows. A man got out, and after spending several moments staring at her house, walked over to her car. Lena could tell that he was trying to avoid the outdoor lights. But when he leaned toward the driver’s side window to peer inside, light reflecting off the glass struck his face and she got a good look.

  It was Cobb.

  She pulled herself together, moving into the living room and locking the slider. After switching off the kitchen lights, she killed the lamp by the couch and hurried through the darkness to the bedroom window. She could see Cobb walking toward the back of the house. Even worse, he had a flashlight in his hand and no longer seemed concerned about hiding in the shadows.

  There was fear and anger charging through her body, but there was confusion, too. What could he possibly be thinking?

  She rushed through the living room into the kitchen and looked outside. Cobb was by the pool with his flashlight and had found her drink. When he noticed the wet footprints she’d left, he panned the light across the concrete and up the steps to the porch.

  He knew that she was home. And now he realized that she knew he was here.

  Lena filled her lungs with air, her eyes riveted to his hardened face. He was standing perfectly still. He was thinking something over like a guy who still had a full bag of personal issues—like a rabid animal that walks toward you instead of running back into the woods.

  Cobb started up the steps. As he shined his flashlight into the living room, Lena spotted her .45 on the counter and removed it from the holster. She pressed her back to the wall and inched her way to the corner. She could see Cobb peering through the slider. He looked extraordinarily pale—like a ghost with a goatee and two black holes for eyes
. She could hear him fidgeting with the lock and trying to force open the door.

  Lena had seen enough and inched the slide back on her .45. If Cobb got into the house, she had no reason to hesitate.

  Minutes passed, her heart pounding in her chest.

  But then he backed off.

  She saw the kitchen bloom with light, then darken as he finally stepped off the porch. Returning to the window, she watched Cobb begin to circle the house with his flashlight. She followed his course from room to room. He moved slowly and often stopped to examine the windows on the second floor. When he reached the front door, he gave it a long look but eventually got back into his car.

  Lena yanked open the slider and ran down the steps. She could hear tires digging up gravel again. Clearing the corner, she saw the white Lincoln back out onto the street. When Cobb finally switched on his headlights, Lena kept her eyes on them and followed the car’s path through the curves until it vanished at the bottom of the hill.

  And then her body shuddered. She noticed the sweat covering her face. The electricity in the air. She thought about what Barrera had said to her just a few hours ago. Thought about the words he’d used as she tried to catch her breath.

  Tomorrow needed to be better than today. Even if it had to begin at Tim Hight’s house.

  23

  She woke up with the sun in her eyes—on the couch and still in her clothes. When she noticed her .45 laying out on the coffee table, the memory of last night came back to her and she sat up.

  Cobb.

  He was more than a nuisance now. He had become a problem, one that seemed to be evolving. And she wasn’t sure how to handle it. She didn’t think a phone call to Barrera would stop the man. Based on what she’d seen of Cobb so far, a reprimand that came from the department or even his own supervisor would only feed his irrational behavior and light the man up.

  Lighting Cobb up didn’t seem like the way to go.

  Deciding that the best move was no move, at least for now, Lena pushed the thought aside and headed to the kitchen. She needed to check in with Martin Orth at the crime lab before driving over to Hight’s house, but it was too early to make the call.

  Lena brewed her coffee by the cup with filter paper and the best beans she could afford. Setting the tea kettle on the burner, she switched the flame to low and left the room to shower and change. When she returned, she made toast and soft-boiled eggs and ate standing over the sink.

  The meal revived her, but it was still too early to call Orth. Digging through her briefcase, she found the weekly planner she and Harry had discovered in Gant’s room and removed it from the evidence bag. She sat down at the table by the windows, sipping coffee and leafing through the small book. By all appearances, Gant’s planner was more of a journal than anything else. And it was short—something he had started after the trial, but stopped two weeks before his own death.

  It looked like Gant had been trying to piece together the last ten days of Lily’s life without much luck. Lena could see the problem immediately. Not many people would have been willing to talk to him or to help someone that they thought had committed a murder and walked away free and clear. According to one entry, Lily’s best friend had agreed to meet him but had been followed by her father. After several attempts to reestablish contact, Gant received a phone call from someone identifying themselves as a cop and stopped trying.

  Lena didn’t recognize the girl’s name from either Cobb’s murder book or the trial. Julia Hackford. It seemed curious that she hadn’t heard the name before and she wrote it down, then returned to Gant’s journal.

  Several pages were stained with blood, and Lena found more than one passage where Gant wrote about being attacked on the street, about his fear of going outside, and about months of bad dreams that began with his arrest. Advice that Paladino had given him during the trial was recounted here as well—thoughts that inspired Gant and seemed to give him hope.

  Lena read through the entire book in about twenty minutes, then pushed it aside and gazed out the window as she thought it over. She knew that Cobb would have called the journal bullshit. That he would have said that Gant didn’t keep up with it because his writings were nothing more than an attempt by a psychotic killer to recreate his self image as an innocent.

  If it looks like I’m innocent, I am.

  Most of the department would probably have agreed with him.

  Yet, there was a certain authenticity to Gant’s words. Like the photo of Gant found by Lily Hight’s bed, it was a shift too decisive for Lena to ignore. She only wished that there would have been some mention of meeting and working with Johnny Bosco. Her gut told her that Bosco didn’t do anything unless he was the primary beneficiary. As she glanced back at the journal, she decided that the omission could only mean that he came in late. That whatever went down between Bosco and Gant began within the last two weeks of their lives.

  She checked the time. It was almost seven. As she picked up the phone to call Orth, she was still thinking about Jacob Gant’s life since the trial. What it must have been like to walk in his shoes. How horrible it would have been to go through what he went through if he really was innocent.

  Orth picked up after three rings.

  “I was just about to call you, Lena.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then you have something.”

  Orth was an SID supervisor and had played a key role in Lena’s last case. They worked well together. Like everyone else at the lab, Orth had been caught up in the DNA evidence that went missing during Gant’s trial. But Lena regarded the scandal as guilt by association. Orth’s only involvement in the crisis was his position as a team leader. Lena had always known him to be a consummate professional and she trusted him completely.

  “We’ve got something,” he said. “The cocaine’s a match. What you found at Hight’s house mirrors what was found at Club 3 AM in every way. They are chemically identical, the cut made at exactly the same percentage. It’s high-grade stuff, better than what we’ve seen in a long time.”

  Lena started pacing. “So, either Hight was in the room or they used the same dealer. What about fingerprints on those hundred-dollar bills?”

  “No luck there,” Orth said. “But we’ve got blood, Lena. We found it in the sole of Hight’s left shoe.”

  “Enough to work with?”

  “If he was in that room, we’ll know about it. And that’s a promise.”

  It wasn’t the gun, but it was close. Maybe even enough to convince Hight that a confession was the easiest way out. If the blood from either victim wound up on his shoe, there could only be one explanation.

  “Are you gonna be in your office this afternoon?” she said.

  “I’ll be here all day. What’s up?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Another call was coming in. Lena glanced at the caller ID.

  “I’ve gotta go, Marty. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  “See you then,” he said.

  She clicked over to the next call. It was Buddy Paladino, calling on her home line at ten after seven in the morning.

  “It’s a little early, isn’t it?” she said.

  Paladino remained silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low and smooth as silk.

  “There’s a rumor floating around town, Detective Gamble. All across the city, people want to know.”

  “What’s the rumor?”

  “That you’ve reopened the Lily Hight murder case.”

  It hung there—a heavy silence enveloping his words and radiating through the house. Lena moved to the counter, grabbed a stool, and sat down. She had helped Paladino with a personal problem last year, and knew that he was in her debt. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous. It didn’t mean that she could trust him or that she was safe.

  “It’s a bad rumor, Buddy. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I think you’re trying to mislead me. I can tell by the sound of your voice.
I thought we had an understanding, Lena. That we were above all this. You scratch my back, I scratch yours—so to speak.”

  Vintage Paladino.

  “Who did you talk to?” she said.

  “A friend.”

  “Then it’s not all over town?”

  “No. Just you, me, and a friend. We’re a small network. I just wanted to see how you’d take it. By the way, I could tell that you were lying to me. You’re gonna need to work on your technique. It’s not what you say. It’s the way you say it.”

  Lena shook it off. “Maybe we could meet at your office,” she said. “Later in the day.”

  “Later in the day. I like it.”

  “Fine,” she said. “But I have a question before we meet.”

  “About what?”

  “Tim Hight.”

  He paused a beat. “I’m listening.”

  “Hight and his daughter. Was there anything there?”

  Paladino became quiet again. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its polish and become exceedingly quiet and precise.

  “I had three spotters in the courtroom, Lena. Three of the best analysts around. When I floated the idea that Hight molested his daughter, it was clear that no one on the jury wanted to hear that.”

  Lena got up and moved to the slider. The city was awash in new morning light. “Okay, so the jury didn’t want to hear it. But were you fishing, or was it more than that? Did you have something real?”

  “We’ll talk in the office,” he said. “Later in the day.”

  And then he hung up.

  24

  She drove across town to Hight’s house in the TSX, listening to the V6 under the hood and thinking about what she hoped to accomplish in the next hour. She didn’t mind doing this alone. There was a certain advantage to seeing Hight without a partner by her side, a chance that Hight might speak more freely. But as she pulled around the corner and spotted the patrol unit still on watch at the curb, she had to admit that she felt some degree of relief.