Murder Season

by Robert Ellis

  49

  She was cruising down the Avenue of the Ghosts, but her mind was fifteen miles up the road, so she didn’t notice those stick-figured teenagers getting loaded and waving down customers from the curb.

  She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, didn’t want to let her imagination play with the facts or get too revved up. She needed to reach Debi Watson. She needed to get the woman to talk. And she needed to do it as fast as she could.

  But she had a bad feeling about it now.

  Before leaving the park, Lena had tried calling Watson at her office and was told by her assistant that the deputy DA hadn’t come in today. When she pressed the young woman for more information, she was told that Watson hadn’t called in sick and wasn’t answering her cell or home phone. Her assistant said that she was worried about her, and had given Lena her address on Norwich Drive in West Hollywood.

  Before the dread could get a decent grip on her, Lena made a hard right and picked up speed heading for Venice Boulevard. She was still waiting on Cobb. Two blocks later, he finally picked up his cell.

  “How did you get this fucking number?” he said.

  “You’re a police officer, Cobb. You’re in the directory. Now why didn’t you tell me about what Bennett did to Wes Brown?”

  Cobb didn’t say anything for so long that Lena thought her phone had died. She checked the battery, then the signal—then he came back on.

  “The 9-mm Smith goes back to what happened eight years ago, Cobb. Bennett had your eyewitness killed. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I’m not sure what it means,” he said.

  He was trying to keep his voice down. Lena didn’t like it.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  “I’m outside Bennett’s house keeping an eye on things. He took the day off and seems agitated.”

  “If you’re not sure what it means, why are you following Bennett?”

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “I was on Higgins. He and that friend of his stopped by here about an hour ago. When they left, I got curious and decided to stay.”

  “Can you see Bennett?”

  “He’s standing in his driveway arguing with his wife. They’ve been at it for half an hour. They’re every neighborhood’s favorite couple, Gamble. They’re screamers.”

  “What are they arguing about?”

  “She knows he’s cheating on her. Apparently she’s not happy about it.”

  “Are you in your car?”

  “No,” he said. “There’s a hill across the street. Lots of trees with an elevated view of the whole property. Bennett has bucks. He lives on North Rockingham off Sunset. How’s a deputy DA make that kind of cash?”

  Lena had reached Venice Boulevard and could see San Vicente just ahead. She began weaving through traffic and using the shoulder when she got stuck. With any luck, she was ten minutes out.

  “You need to listen to me, Cobb.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “I’m gonna tell you what the gun means.”

  He went quiet again. She couldn’t tell if he was avoiding the issue or needed to shut down because of what he was doing.

  “I’m back,” he whispered. “Tell me what you think it means.”

  “You’re being set up, Cobb. You’re the way the killer gets away with this. Somehow he found out that you’re the one who tipped off Paladino and wrecked the case. When Bosco and Gant got too close, he used that gun. When Escabar found the video of Lily at the club, ballistics is gonna tell us that he used it again. You’ve got a target on your back. You’re not safe.”

  It hung there for a while, the target on Cobb’s back.

  “You might be right,” he whispered finally. “But is it Bennett or is it Higgins? I always thought Reggie got it wrong. No question that Bennett was abusing his brother on the phone, but Higgins was the politician, Gamble. Higgins needed to win that trial, not Bennett. How do we know Bennett isn’t just some mean little prick doing whatever Higgins tells him to do? How do we know it wasn’t Higgins who sent that cop over and got the kid killed?”

  She thought about Jerry Spadell again. “We don’t,” she said finally.

  “And what about the target on your back? What about the target on Vaughan?”

  She didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t be certain. She needed to get Debi Watson to talk.

  She blew through a red light and turned onto Melrose, then made another right on Norwich and started picking out street numbers. Watson’s house was halfway up the block on the left side—a two-story Mediterranean covered in ivy with palm trees nested beside the gardens and a eucalyptus shading the front yard. She pulled into the drive and parked before the garage. On any other day she would have looked at Watson’s house as something of an oasis. But today, all she picked up on was the darkness. The bad vibes.

  “Any chance you’ve seen Debi Watson today, Cobb?”

  “Bennett’s with his wife,” he said. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

  Her eyes made a second pass over the house—slower than the first. It seemed so still. So quiet.

  50

  Up the street Lena could see two men cutting a lawn. A young woman was pushing a baby carriage down the sidewalk toward the shops on Melrose.

  She turned back to Watson’s house, rang the bell, and checked the front door. No answer. Moving quickly across the front yard, she stepped into the garden and peered through the living room window. When she didn’t see anything amiss, she continued around the house until she had examined every window and door.

  Privacy was no longer an issue. If someone saw what she was doing and called 911, Lena would have welcomed the company. Still, the quickest way in was the deadbolt on the back door.

  She fished out her tension wrench and short hook and took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. The lock was so old that she could hear the pins clicking over the din of the neighborhood. Within forty-five seconds, she felt the wrench begin turning and gave the door a push.

  She was standing in a small mudroom. The alarm hadn’t been armed, and she could hear the sound of a television cutting through the stillness. Stepping into the foyer, she noted the ceiling fan rotating slowly above the living room and a dining area that hadn’t been cleaned up from last night. There were two place settings on the table, along with two glasses of red wine that had only been partially consumed. She lifted the bottle up to the window light and saw that it was empty. When she set it down, she spotted the TV in the corner tuned to CNN and became aware of an odor. Some sort of cleaning product with a strong artificial scent.

  Grapefruit, maybe. It seemed so odd and out of place.

  She stepped back into the foyer, turned the corner, and entered the kitchen. There was a bucket filled with water on the floor. A mop leaned against the wall, and she saw a pile of rags and a bottle of Mr. Clean by the sink. When a phone started ringing, she flinched but caught herself. She spotted the cell phone on the breakfast table by Watson’s handbag but didn’t touch it. Leaning closer, she read the caller ID and realized that it was Watson’s office number. Her assistant was still worried, still trying to reach her boss.

  Lena noticed the sun beginning to set outside and took two more deep breaths as she switched on the overhead light. It wasn’t working anymore. The churning in her stomach wouldn’t go away, the bad vibes following her from room to room.

  She turned and looked on the other side of the refrigerator. There was a large cutting board on the counter and a set of hand forged chef’s knives from Japan. A photograph of Watson with a little girl riding a swing was leaning against the backsplash. On the wall beside the door, Lena found another alarm panel and realized that the door opened to the garage.

  And on the floor—when her eyes finally drifted down to the tiled floor—she saw the blood that hadn’t been entirely cleaned up. The drag marks leading into the garage.

  She took the jolt but steadied herself. Stepping around the blood, she opened the door and looked at the wh
ite Audi in the darkness. She took a whiff of the air and knew with certainty that her conversation with Debi Watson wouldn’t involve many words.

  She hit the light switch, scanning the room for a corpse. The floor was clear and she gave the car a long look. Returning to the kitchen, she opened Watson’s handbag and fished out her keys. Then she stepped over the drag marks, hit the clicker, and tried to keep cool.

  The car beeped and the trunk popped open.

  The air in the garage changed quickly, becoming sour and harsh. Lena covered her mouth and nose and hurried around the car for a look.

  And then she stopped.

  She could see Watson’s body in the small trunk. Her face. Her curly blond hair. The dried blood that had trickled out of her mouth. The two bullet wounds piercing her abdomen and chest. She was wrapped in clear plastic. Her eyes were open, her palm pressing against the plastic as if she’d still been alive when she was packed up and left in the darkness. Nothing about her death looked easy.

  Lena staggered back into the kitchen, the gruesome image still with her as she closed the door to the garage.

  She took a moment to collect herself, then another before picking up Watson’s cell phone for a look at her recent call list.

  Her last call out had been to Lena at 6:25 p.m. last night. Bennett had called her a half hour before that and the two had spoken for a couple of minutes. The next calls made to Watson’s cell phone began at 10:00 a.m. this morning from her office, and continued every hour until just a few minutes ago.

  She set the phone down and thought it through.

  The disposal of Debi Watson was still a work in progress. She was certain of this. The killer had wrapped her up and placed her in the trunk because he intended to dump her corpse somewhere else. But even more telling, the killer hadn’t finished cleaning up. The bucket of water, the fresh rags beside the bottle of Mr. Clean, the mop leaning against the wall—it seemed clear enough that he had every intention of returning. Because there were no signs of forced entry, it was a better than good guess that Watson knew her killer. That they shared dinner together last night with a bottle of wine. That the killer could come and go as he pleased because he had a set of keys. And that he would be back sometime tonight to finish up.

  Could there really be any doubt?

  She hit the stairs for a look at the master bedroom. On the chest of drawers was a photograph of Watson with Bennett. It looked like they had taken a day off and traveled south to the racetrack in Del Mar. They were sitting at a table with cocktails. Although Watson’s smile looked genuine enough, Lena couldn’t help thinking that even in this setting, Bennett appeared mean and vicious.

  She set the picture frame down and stepped into the bathroom. There were two sinks. She saw the hair dryer and makeup, then spotted a shaving kit on the counter and moved down to the far sink. Nothing stood out as she sifted through the items except that the kit seemed so needlessly full. Checking the cabinet underneath, she found a number of empty baskets. From the stains in the webbing, she could tell that the baskets once held toiletries and that Bennett was making his move and packing up.

  She could feel the tension building in her shoulders, a fresh load of adrenaline making a jagged run through her body.

  She glanced at the large bed, noted the silk sheets, then yanked open the closet doors. The racks were filled entirely with Watson’s clothing. There was no room for sharing here. When she checked the drawers, she didn’t find anything that might belong to Bennett.

  She hurried down the hall, found the guest room, and switched on the lights. As she entered, she saw two boxes of cleaned shirts on the bed and several pairs of men’s dress shoes by the chair. An open suitcase was set on the trunk by the window. She pulled the closet doors open and counted five business suits on the rack, along with one that was wrapped up and had probably come from the dry cleaners with the two boxes of shirts on the bed.

  She was overdosing on the moment now. Choking on it.

  She started to pull the plastic away from the suit. Slowly at first, then ripping at it with her fingers when she saw the pinstripes. Her face flushed with heat, her eyes reeling back and forth across the fabric until they zeroed in on the left lapel and found the mark.

  51

  Cobb’s mind was beginning to skip through time again.

  He’d spent the last hour gazing at the sunset and daydreaming about a ribeye steak, a glass of Cutty Sark, and a night under the sheets with Betty Kim. After wasting the day watching Bennett fool around in his garage, Cobb thought he deserved a reward of significant proportions. If it came down to a single choice, he would have saved the food and whisky for later, and picked door number three. Betty Kim. But it was a Friday night; he knew his life was on the line, and he saw no reason why he didn’t deserve all three.

  He dug the bottle of Tylenol out of his pocket and gave it a shake, but only one caplet fell out. Grimacing at the empty bottle, he popped the pill and knocked it back with what was left of his bottled water. His back hurt. He’d spent most of the day hiding in the brush overlooking Bennett’s McMansion with his elbows pinned to the ground.

  He raised the field glasses up to his eyes, found Bennett in his four-car garage, and adjusted the focus.

  The man was still washing his fucking car—a gray BMW with tinted glass. He’d been at it for hours. It didn’t make sense to Cobb—taking a day off from work and devoting it to a car. Especially on a day when his wife took off with the kids. A day when everything inside the man should have been ripped and scratched.

  His cell phone started vibrating.

  Cobb looked at it on the ground, saw Gamble’s name on the touch screen and smiled at the thought of her. He liked the idea of knowing her and working with her. He liked the idea that his first impression of her had been the wrong one. He liked the fact that the movie inside his head had stopped playing ever since he realized who she really was. That he wasn’t alone anymore. That the dead bodies he could see piling up when he closed his eyes had stopped staring at him and stopped taunting him.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  “Bennett’s,” he whispered.

  “Is he still agitated?”

  Cobb sensed something different in her voice and took another look through his field glasses. Bennett had popped open the trunk and was removing the carpet.

  “You could call it that,” he said. “His wife took off with the kids. They had suitcases.”

  “And what’s he doing about it?”

  “Washing his fucking car.”

  She didn’t say anything after that. Just a long stretch of silence.

  “You need to get out of there,” she said finally. “You need to make sure he doesn’t see you.”

  Cobb raised the field glasses again, but couldn’t locate Bennett. The door between the house and garage was open now.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “It’s Bennett, Cobb. He’s the killer. He’s the one.”

  “What happened?”

  “You need to get out of there. I’m with detectives from the Sheriff’s Department. Bennett murdered Debi Watson last night.”

  She gave him Watson’s address in West Hollywood and told him that Vaughan was on his way as well. He could hear the worry in her voice.

  “You need to hurry, Cobb. It’s not safe. You’ll see what I mean when you get here.”

  He slipped the phone into his pocket, his mind skipping through those beats again. He tried to shake himself clear, but it didn’t work. He could see Debi Watson’s face the way he had seen it when they prepped for the trial. But as he tried to focus on the image, it began to shift and change until he found himself staring at Lily Hight laid out on the floor of her bedroom.

  The place where his nightmare began.

  He could remember how his chest locked up when he first walked into the room and saw her there. He could remember the feelings he felt. The sounds of her mother and father weeping that carried through the house from downstairs.
He remembered sitting with Lily while he waited for the coroner to arrive. He remembered that he didn’t want her to be alone. That he had stroked her soft blond hair.

  Cobb raised the field glasses for one last look. The door between the house and garage remained open. Bennett was still inside. Pushing himself off the ground, he grabbed hold of the tree and climbed to his feet.

  And then he heard the shots. There were three of them. They seemed loud.

  He looked at Bennett’s house, reaching around to scratch the itch below his shoulder blades. Bennett hadn’t been drawn outside by the sound, and Cobb wasn’t sure what was happening. He could feel his knees giving out, his body collapsing onto the ground. After a moment, he began to notice the blood leaking out of his chest and flowing into the dusty earth. He lifted his head out of the dirt, struggling to get his bearings. The sky was spinning, the stars leaving trails as they flew through the heavens. He sensed movement behind him and to his right. As he turned his head, a shoe came out of nowhere and crushed his face.

  And then it was over. No more movies playing in his head. No more channels. No more money worries. No more bills.

  He’d made it. He could see Betty Kim reaching out for him and pulling him into her arms. He was living the life he’d always dreamed about, the one that always seemed so far away. He was living on Easy Street now.

  52

  His eyes fucking opened and his body jerked its way up and out of the nosedive. He could feel himself pulling out of the death stall. He batted his eyes and looked around, grunting like an animal. He tried to think, tried to figure out what had just happened and what if anything came next.

  He was alone.

  Bennett’s house was dark.

  He’d been left for dead.

  Cobb reached for his gun in panic. It was still there, holstered to his belt. He looked for his cell phone, but it was gone. He looked again, but it was still gone. Turning his body into the streetlight, he gazed at his chest. He had heard three shots, but saw only two exit wounds. He needed help. The closest emergency room was at UCLA in Westwood. But he didn’t want Bennett to find him. He’d have to make sure the doctors talked to Gamble.