The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  It was after ten, the streets wetted down by a light rain. As she reached Beachwood Canyon and started up Gower Street past the Monastery of the Angels, the road leading to her house appeared more desolate than usual. The night, three or four shades darker.

  Lena had shown the Andolinis the six-pack that Rollins had created on his computer—the six faces generated from the image recorded by the witness on his cell phone. Working with a sketch artist, a single image emerged and was fine tuned. Remarkably, Rollins had come close to depicting the killer’s actual face. Using the nose from one image, the mouth from another, the eyes and ears from the next two—it all added up to the man who rented the garage. The man calling himself Nathan Good, who didn’t seem to exist when Lena made the call and Barrera ran his name through the system. The man no one saw or wanted to remember seeing when she canvassed the neighborhood in search of a witness. The man with the meat grinder who drove a red Hummer and lived below the water line.

  She pulled into her drive. The outside lights were off. As she lugged her briefcase through the darkness, she felt the cool rain misting her face.

  On the plus side, if there could be a plus side, the depravity of the case was out in the open now. The gruesome reality was no longer reserved for Art Madina and herself as they examined the victim at the autopsy on their own two days ago. Somehow, word of what they found had traveled down Barton Avenue to the press staging their cameras in front of the graveyard. Perhaps because of their grim location, perhaps because of the foul weather, or perhaps because SID couldn’t back their truck up the narrow drive and everyone got a good look at that makeshift operating table being carried out—an almost palpable current of fear swept through the press corps. More important to Lena, it was a Sunday and details had already risen to the brass on the sixth floor. Already reached them in their warm and comfortable homes. No one would be dropping the case because Jane Doe No. 99 had worked in the sex trade. Nor was there any threat of delay at the crime labs. SID had moved the investigation to the top of their list.

  Lena unlocked the front door, pausing a beat as she sensed something was wrong. She pushed the door open and peered into the darkness.

  The phone was ringing inside the house. Not once before bouncing over to her cell, but in succession as if she hadn’t turned call forwarding on.

  She hit the lights and crossed the living room. When she saw Denny Ramira’s name and number on the screen, she grabbed the phone before her answering machine picked up.

  “I’ve gotta call you back,” she said.

  “Call me back? We’ve gotta talk right now.”

  “Can’t do it, Denny. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  She switched off the phone before the reporter could say anything someone might hear. Although his voice sounded shaky, she couldn’t think about it right now. Her friends from Internal Affairs had figured out what she was doing with the phones. Obviously they had been inside the house.

  She noticed the cold air and turned up the heat, then unlocked the slider and legged it around the house. As she expected, the tap and wireless transmitter had been removed. But she could hear something. Footsteps on gravel fading onto soft earth. She looked ahead and caught a glimpse of two men moving quickly through the brush toward the road. Rushing up the path, she climbed the bluff and saw the two men hurrying back to the Caprice parked thirty yards down the road. The first was familiar to her, the same clean-cut man with the young face and short brown hair she had seen before. But it was the second man who shook her up. She got a good look at him as he turned to get in the car. His lean, rigid body. His short gray hair and wounded eyes.

  It was the chief’s adjutant himself. Ken Klinger.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. She didn’t have time for this.

  Sliding down the hill, she ran back to the house and shut the slider. Nothing that she could see appeared out of place, but she expected this, too. She picked up the phone, stepped into the kitchen, and pried off the faceplate with a knife. Lifting away the speaker, she spotted a small black cylinder with metal coils buried in the wires. She was familiar with the device and knew that the microphone inside could pick up anything in the room whether she was on the phone or not. A radio transmitter went with the low-tech bug and would be hidden somewhere away from the television and her audio equipment in the living room. But what worried her was Klinger. Because he worked for the chief, he knew that she would have been tied up at the crime scene all day. He would have had time to wire the rest of the house. This was obviously the bug she was meant to find—the feel-good bug that was supposed to make her feel safe after she located the device and discarded it. They could have planted anything anywhere. Internal Affairs owned the equipment and supposedly knew how to use it.

  She closed the handset and returned it to her charger, leaving the bug in place and wondering why they hadn’t turned call forwarding back on. As she thought it over, she realized that they probably turned off the service in order to test their handiwork. Once the service was off, there would have been no way to restore it without calling her cell. Lena would have seen her home number when the call came in and figured it out. Instead of taking the risk, they were probably counting on her not remembering whether she’d turned the service on this morning.

  All in all, it added up to poor planning and sloppy police work. Klinger, the man who thought of himself as an expert at crime detection but hadn’t worked a single day in his entire life as an investigator, couldn’t even wire up a house right.

  She hoped he liked good music because he was going to hear a lot of it.

  Lena switched on her receiver, moved to the computer, and logged onto WRTI’s Web site, a jazz station out of Philly. Klinger was in luck. According to the playlist, the station would be dedicating the entire night to Coleman Hawkins and his tenor sax. First up was a digital remaster of the LP, At Ease with Coleman Hawkins. One of Lena’s favorites, “Poor Butterfly,” was on the album. But as she played the cut back in her head, it occurred to her that Klinger wasn’t worthy of the music. Returning to her bookmarks, she switched over to KROQ’s Web site and checked their playlist. She smiled as she scrolled through the long list of heavy metal bands. Tonight was theme night. Twelve hours of great headbangers from the past.

  Perfect.

  She found the LISTEN LIVE icon on the screen and clicked it. Then she turned up the volume, grabbed her leather jacket, and walked out onto the back porch. Moving away from the slider, she leaned against the side of the house and gazed at the pool. The lights were off, the rain breaking the water’s smooth black surface like stones falling out of the sky.

  She flipped open her cell. Ramira from The Times would have to wait. When she found the medical examiner’s home number in her address book and hit ENTER, Art Madina picked up on the first ring.

  “It’s me,” she said. “And I need a favor.”

  “What is it? And what’s that in the background? It sounds like we’ve got the same station on.”

  She smiled again. She knew Madina listened to rock and still went to the clubs on weekends. She knew that he had been a fan of her brother’s music as well.

  “I need a favor,” she repeated.

  “Tell me what I can do.”

  “I want to take another look at Jane Doe’s body.”

  “That’s easy. She’s in the cooler. Come over any time you want to.”

  “I don’t mean a quick look,” she said. “I don’t know what your schedule’s like, but I really think we need to do it as soon as possible, Art. How’s tomorrow morning sound?”

  “Hold on a second.”

  She heard him set down the phone, then shut off the music at his end. When he finally came back, his voice had changed.

  “What’s going on, Lena? Tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “We need to make sure that she’s all there.”

  A moment passed. She could still see that meat grinder on the workbench.

  “Why wouldn’t
she be all there?” he asked.

  “I can’t answer that,” she said. “It’s something we need to check.”

  “How much would be missing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Another moment passed. Longer. Heavier. Both of them thinking it over. She could feel the wall vibrating beneath her back from headbanger’s night on KROQ. She could see the lights from the Library Tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi, flickering in the rain clouds. She kept her eyes on the tower—the city’s beacon standing tall. For a moment it felt like she was riding out a storm in heavy seas, steering the bow of a disabled ship toward a lighthouse on a rocky shore.

  “Can we do it?” she asked. “Can we take another look?”

  “You bet we can. First thing in the morning.”

  “See you then,” she said.

  She closed her phone, wondering if it wasn’t too late to call Rhodes. She had held back all day, not wanting to break in on his time with his sister. Just one call in the morning, letting him know that they had found the crime scene and SID was processing the evidence. No need for him to change his plans and return.

  Deciding to wait, she scrolled through her address book searching for Bobby Rathbone’s number. She needed another favor tonight, help from an old friend, and hoped that his cell number was still good. But before she could make the call, her cell started vibrating in her hand. She checked the display and saw Denny Ramira’s name pop up. She had forgotten to call the reporter back.

  “You said five minutes,” he shouted over the phone.

  “I don’t have time for this, Denny.”

  “Five minutes,” he repeated. “It’s been more than twenty. When I called the house, all it did is fucking ring.”

  “You leave a message?”

  “No. I called your cell. I’m in trouble, Lena. Big trouble. I need your help. We need to meet and talk this out.”

  She shook her head. She needed to reach Rathbone, not waste time on a reporter worried about making his deadline. She wanted Rathbone to sweep the house tonight. She wanted to know exactly what Klinger had done.

  She lifted the phone back to her ear. “Talk about what, Denny? There’s nothing to say. We processed a crime scene. End of story. Call your friend on the sixth floor.”

  “It’s not about that. It’s about saving my fucking life. I’ve got information. We need to meet tonight.”

  His voice had reached a fever pitch. Ramira sounded frightened.

  “Information about what?”

  The reporter didn’t say anything.

  “Information about what?” she repeated.

  “That body you found in the trash.”

  22

  Lena switched on the wipers and made a left at the end of the drive. The rain had picked up and the road felt slick.

  Ramira had insisted on meeting in person and wouldn’t say anything over the phone. Wouldn’t even give her a hint. She finally agreed to see him—agreed to meet at the Blackbird—based on his word that whatever he had was worth a late-night trip downtown.

  She checked the rearview mirror, the asphalt beginning to glisten behind her. Somewhere around the bend a car was on the move. Probably Klinger and his sidekick—the dynamic duo—heading out for coffee and donuts after a busy day wiring her home and breaking the law that was no longer a real law anymore.

  She started down the hill, picking up speed and listening to the rain pound against the car. As she rolled into the next curve, she checked the mirror again and caught the headlights just rounding the bluff fifty yards back. Measuring the car’s speed, she watched the bright lights spread across the rear window as the glass fogged.

  They were in a hurry—the distance closing fast.

  It occurred to her that Klinger may have stepped up his demented surveillance efforts, deciding to keep closer tabs on her. But if he was following her, why would he be so obvious about it? Particularly on a Sunday night during a rainstorm when they were alone on the road. Why play it so close?

  Her car filled with more bright light, the glare wiping out her mirrors. They were on top of her now, a few feet back on the slippery road.

  For some reason she couldn’t explain, her thoughts turned to that pack of cigarettes Rhodes kept in his car. She had been thinking about them off and on for most of the day, but managed to beat back the urge and keep going.

  She blew through the stop sign at Scenic Avenue, accelerating all the way down the hill to Franklin. Ignoring the freeway, she hit the overpass and raced down the street until she reached Gower Gulch. When the headlights kept up with her and actually followed her into the strip mall, her jittery nerves hit overtime. She found a place to park in front of the Rite Aid and got out. Hurrying through the rain, her eyes swept across the lot searching for the Caprice in the milieu of cars. But as she reached the sidewalk beneath the overhang, she couldn’t find it.

  Instead, she watched a black Audi pull into an empty space across the lot in front of Denny’s restaurant. Two men got out in the rain. They glanced at her, a beat longer than maybe they should have, then turned away and headed into the diner.

  Lena stood there until the door closed. Ironically, she knew who they were. Everybody did. Jack Dobbs and Phil Ragetti had been partners—two cops from the old school who were forced into early retirement after beating the life out of a murder suspect. Both detectives had advanced to the Robbery-Homicide Division before getting the boot and leaving the department in disgrace. Lena wondered how they had managed to escape jail time and keep their pensions. From where she stood, they looked more like a pair of middle-aged bruisers with chips on their shoulders. Ragetti lived in a house overlooking the reservoir in Hollywood Hills, a mile up the road from Lena. She had heard rumors that he lost everything in the wildfires last spring and had decided to rebuild.

  She walked into the pharmacy and bought a pack of cigarettes. Stepping outside, she tore through the cellophane and lit one. Lena had never been a regular smoker. Half a pack eight months ago when things got really tough with her last case. She drew the smoke into her lungs and blew it out into the cold night air.

  But her eyes were locked on that black Audi. Dobbs and Ragetti had burned down three years before she ever got near RHD. Yet the look they had given her was the same one she gave them. Recognition. They had read her as a cop the moment they saw her. The moment they got out of the car. It went with the job—something you learned on the beat wearing a uniform. Us and them.

  She took another pull on the cigarette.

  Seeing the two ex-cops felt like a bad omen capping off a rough day. A sign of what things could be like for her if she fucked up. Hitting a diner in Hollywood on a Sunday night. Landing hard after a long fall.

  She took a last drag on the smoke, flicking it into the torrent of rain and watching the fire go out as she climbed into her car. Pulling out of the lot, she turned up Sunset heading for the freeway ramp to downtown.

  The drive took twenty minutes. When she entered the café and didn’t see Ramira, she ordered a cup of the House Blend and found an empty table with a view of the door. Before leaving the house she had managed to reach Bobby Rathbone, who agreed to meet her at midnight. She had an hour to kill, and wanted to spend it reviewing her day and what it actually yielded.

  She lifted the top away from the cup and held her face over the steam. As she took a short sip and felt the hot brew warm her stomach, she opened her notebook on the table and pulled out her pen.

  Jane Doe, aka Jennifer McBride, had been abducted and murdered by the same man.

  She knew this now and had the evidence to support it. A man calling himself Nathan Good. She knew what he looked like, had a rough idea of his age and build, and unless he ditched it, knew the make and model of his car. The condition of the woman’s body matched the horror found in the garage he rented on Barton Avenue. SID would probably confirm the match within the next twenty-four hours.

  But she also knew that Nathan Good was profoundly twisted.
And everything that she had seen today indicated that Art Madina was right to conclude that he had a medical background. Everything she saw pointed to a depraved individual. A motherfucker with brains.

  She checked the door. When she still didn’t see Ramira, she turned back to her pad and skimmed through the notes she had made last night after meeting Justin Tremell and his father.

  People with money pay other people to do the heavy lifting. There was no doubt in her mind that for everything Nathan Good had done, he was a paid player.

  This was about Justin Tremell. The rich bad boy trying to right the wrongs of his past. The kid who got married, had a son, and didn’t want his father or anyone else to find out that he was still a piece of shit and doing a young prostitute. The kid under fire with the unusually steady hands who claimed that he didn’t know Jennifer McBride. That the witnesses who saw him with her were mistaken because he spent the entire night with his wife and son at home.

  She thought about those steady hands. Nathan Good’s depravity cut against the way Justin Tremell handled himself during their interview. She thought about both of them for a long time. Tremell and Good were approximately the same age. Paying Good whatever he asked for wouldn’t have been an issue in his life.

  But this was also about the woman who cast spells. The woman calling herself Jennifer McBride, who met Tremell, knew exactly who he was, and probably figured that she could make some real money. Maybe enough to get out of bed. And the fifty grand in her checking account wouldn’t accomplish that goal. It wouldn’t come close.

  As Lena tossed it over, she realized that no matter how much progress she was beginning to make, her questions still outweighed her answers. And no matter how much time she’d given it, she still didn’t understand how Joseph Fontaine fit in. The Beverly Hills doctor had known McBride was dead before they even told him about the murder. When asked about his relationship with the young prostitute, he hid behind his assistant, lied, and threatened to call his attorney.