by Tami Hoag
“Yeah.”
“Guess he’s our guy, huh? The lawyer. The dispatcher. What they got in common is him.”
Parker didn’t say anything, but he didn’t buy it. Why would Damon wait until the end of the day to kill her? He had to know the cops would have been on the messenger services first thing. The damage would have been done before the end of the workday—if Eta had chosen to give them any information. If Damon wanted to silence her, he would have killed her before she got to work, not as she was leaving.
Maybe he could have come back to rob her, but Parker doubted that too. Why would the kid risk coming back here at all? For all he knew, the place could have been under surveillance. And he supposedly had a large amount of cash from Lenny Lowell’s safe. What would he want with the contents of the woman’s wallet?
“She’s got a family, kids,” he said.
“The only people who deserve it are usually on the other end of the knife, I’ve found,” Jimmy Chew said.
Parker stood and looked around. “Where’s Ruiz? This is her call.”
“She’s not here yet. Probably taking extra time to sharpen her claws. You’ve got a real peach there, Kev.”
“I don’t have to like them, Jimmy,” Parker said, walking away. “I just have to teach them something.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Anything for the press, Detective?” Kelly asked from behind the yellow tape.
Parker jammed his hands in his coat pockets and walked over. “It’s not my case.”
“And the detective in charge?”
“Isn’t here yet.” Parker glanced around to make sure Jimmy Chew wasn’t in earshot. “Where’s Caldrovics?”
Kelly shrugged. “Took a pass. Maybe he’s busy reporting you to the authorities.”
“He doesn’t have a mark on him, except where you kicked him,” Parker said. “And, by the way, thanks for the help.”
“He deserved that, and you’re welcome. Glad to do my civic duty by helping a policeman.”
“I tried to impress that idea on Caldrovics, but he wasn’t receptive.”
Kelly made a face. “Kids these days. It’s all me, me, me.” She barely paused for a breath. “So what have you got for me, Parker? Big scoop?”
“The vic was a dispatcher for Speed Couriers. Apparent robbery. Her purse is gone.”
Kelly scribbled in a notebook. “Does she have a name?”
“Pending notification of relatives.” Parker took a breath of damp air that smelled of garbage, and let it out again, thinking of Eta’s family, how they would take the news, how they would get along without her. He couldn’t let Ruiz deliver the bad news. He could hear her now: “So, she’s dead. Get over it.”
“Kev?” Kelly was looking at him with concern.
“Lenny Lowell was waiting for a messenger last night. The messenger came from Speed Couriers. No one has seen him since.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but Kelly didn’t need to hear every detail, and Parker still wasn’t sure about Abby Lowell and her alleged encounter with Damon.
“Ruiz and I were here this morning trying to get information,” he said. “None was forthcoming. His name is probably an alias. The address they had on file wasn’t a residence.”
“This messenger is your suspect? For both murders?”
“He’s a person of interest.”
A car roared down the alley, skidded to a halt behind Chewalski’s radio car, stopping short of the rear bumper by three inches. The driver’s door opened and Ruiz climbed out in head-to-toe skintight black leather.
“Where have you been?” Parker snapped. “Moonlighting as a dominatrix? You called me half an hour ago.”
“Well, excuse me. I don’t live in some trendy downtown loft. I live in the Valley.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Kelly muttered just loud enough for Parker to hear.
“Traffic on the 101 sucks,” Ruiz went on. “Some moron dropped a dining room table off his truck. And then—”
Parker held up a hand. “Enough. You’re here now. You don’t need to torment us any more than that.
“Ruiz, this is Andi Kelly,” he said, tipping his head toward the reporter. “She writes for the Times.”
Ruiz looked offended. “What’s she doing here?”
Kelly pumped up the attitude and gave her the Valley Girl sneer. “Reporter, crime, story. Duh.”
“Ladies, no catfights at the murder scene,” Parker said. “It’s your case, Ruiz. It’s up to you to decide what you want the press to know. Try to remember they have their uses. In this case, I want you to run everything past me first. This murder could be related to my murder last night. We need to be on the same page. Do you know who the vic is?”
“The dispatcher.”
The coroner’s investigator had arrived and was walking slowly around Eta Fitzgerald’s body, as if he couldn’t decide where to start.
“It’s your crime scene,” Parker said. “Take it. Don’t screw up, and try not to alienate more than three or four people. And remember, I’m watching you like a hawk. One wrong move and you’re a meter maid.”
Ruiz flipped him off and walked away.
“Yikes,” Kelly said. “Someone at Parker Center really hates you.”
“Honey, everybody at Parker Center really hates me.” He flipped up the collar of his coat and resettled his hat. “I’ll call you.”
He started toward the scene.
“Hey, Parker,” Kelly called before he’d gone ten feet. He looked at her over his shoulder. “Do you really live in a trendy downtown loft?”
“Good night, Andi,” he said, and kept walking.
The coroner’s investigator was going about his business of robbing the victim of the last of her dignity, cutting away her clothing to examine her body for wounds, marks, bruises, lividity.
“How long has she been dead, Stan?” Parker asked.
“Two or three hours.”
The man groaned and strained to turn Eta Fitzgerald’s body over. Two-hundred-plus pounds of literally dead weight. When she toppled, she knocked the investigator on his ass. Her throat had been severed nearly to her spine, and when she was rolled onto her back, her head almost didn’t come with her.
Ruiz cringed and muttered, “Madre de Dios.”
She turned milk white and came backward a step. Parker put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Your first cut throat?”
Ruiz nodded.
“You getting sick, doll?”
She nodded again, and Parker turned her and pointed her away from the immediate scene. “Don’t puke on any evidence.”
This was death at its most brutal. Parker knew plenty of seasoned veterans who tossed their dinner over a slit throat or a mutilation. There was nothing shameful in that. It was a horrific thing to see. That he had hardened himself to such sights sometimes made Parker wonder what it said about him. That he had learned to take his own advice and not make it personal, he supposed. That over time he’d developed the invaluable skill to disconnect the victim as a living person from the victim’s corpse.
Even so, this one rocked him more than average. Hours ago he had heard one wisecrack after another come out of this big, vibrant woman. Now there was no voice, only an anatomy lesson on the inner workings of the human throat.
The edges of the gaping wound had peeled back like delicate layers of lace trim, revealing a lot of bright yellow adipose tissue, the connective tissue where fat is stored. It looked like fluorescent chicken fat under the harsh white light.
There wasn’t much blood on or around the wound itself. A lot of it would have gone directly down the now partially exposed trachea into her lungs, drowning her. The carotid artery would have been spraying like a geyser. If it hadn’t been washed away by the intermittent showers, the crime-scene people would find spatter maybe six to eight feet from the body. A lot of blood had pooled under her as she lay on the broken pavement exsanguinating. Her chest was stained with it where it had soaked through her c
lothes, partially obscuring the small tattoo of a flame-haloed red heart just above her left breast.
All that blood, and depending on where the killer had been standing, he might have walked away with not a drop on him.
Ruiz came back with an expression daring Parker to make a joke.
“Have you got uniforms checking these other buildings?” he asked. “Someone might have seen something.”
She nodded.
“Who called it in?”
“I don’t know.”
Parker turned to Chewalski. “Jimmy?”
“One of our fine citizens,” the officer said, nodding for them to follow him across the alley.
As they approached the loading area of a furniture store called Fiorenza, a dark, huddled figure emerged from inside a large discarded cardboard box. As the figure unfolded, he became a tall, thin black man with long, matted gray hair and layers of ragged clothes. His aroma preceded him. He smelled like he’d been in a sewer for a very long time.
“Detectives, this is Obidia Jones. Obi, Detectives Parker and Ruiz.”
“I founded that poor woman!” Jones said, pointing across the alley. “I woulda tried to recirculate her, but I couldn’t turn her over. As you can see, she’s pacidermical in size. Poor creature, I axed her and axed her not to be dead, but she be dead anyway.”
“And you called the police?” Ruiz said, dubious.
“It don’t cost nothing to call 911. I do it every once in a while. There’s a phone on the corner.”
“Did you see what happened, Mr. Jones?” Ruiz asked, her face pinched against the smell of him.
“No, ma’am, I did not. I was indisposed of at the time of the hyenious act. I believe I’m consumptionating too much fiber in my diet.”
“I didn’t need to know that,” Ruiz said.
The old man squinted at her, leaning down into her face. “I believe perhaps you might be lacking in fiber. This could account for your expression.”
He looked at Parker for a second opinion.
“If it were only that simple,” Parker said. “How did you come across the dead woman, Mr. Jones?”
“I came back to my habitat, and I seen her laying right there after that car pulled away.”
“What car?”
“Big black car.”
“And did you happen to see who was driving that car?” Parker asked.
“Not this time.”
Ruiz rubbed her forehead. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, I seen him before,” Jones said matter-of-factly. “He came by earlier.”
“Would you know this guy if you saw him again?” Parker asked.
“He look like a pit bull dog,” Jones said. “Square head, beady-eyed. Undoubtedly of white trash hermitage.”
“We’ll want you to take a look at some pictures,” Parker said.
Jones arched a thick gray eyebrow. “At your station house?”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight,” he specified. “Whilst it’s cold and wet out here?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind much,” he said. “Do you all get pizza in there?”
“Sure.”
“Can I bring my bags along with me? All my accoutrementionables are in my bags.”
“Absolutely,” Parker said. “Detective Ruiz here will bring them for you in her car.”
Jones looked at her. “There might be some fiberous foodstuffs in there for you. You’re welcome to help yourself.”
“Yeah, great,” Ruiz said, glaring at Parker. “And Detective Parker can give you a ride.”
“No,” Parker said. “Mr. Jones would prefer to be chauffeured in the official police vehicle, I’m sure. Officer Chewalski might even run the lights for you,” he said to Jones.
“That would be very classy,” Jones said. “Indeed.”
“Let’s get your bags, Obi,” Chewalski said. “We’ll put them in the detective’s trunk.”
Ruiz looked up at Parker and mouthed, “I hate you.”
Parker ignored her. “One last thing, Mr. Jones. Around the time of the murder, did you see anyone back here on a bicycle?”
“No, sir. All them bicycle boys was long gone before that.”
“What about a small, boxy black car?”
“No, sir. Big car. Long and black as the grim reaper himself.”
“Thank you.”
“You are such an asshole,” Ruiz said as they walked back toward the scene.
“Consider it your penance,” Parker said.
“For being late?”
“For being you.”
27
The apartment was quiet and dark, the only illumination a white glow that came and went like a searchlight as rain-swollen clouds scudded across the moon. Jace prowled the small space, a caged animal too aware that enemies might be moving ever closer.
Tyler had watched him closely after he’d come upstairs, his eyes somber, his mouth uncharacteristically silent. He had asked no questions about the new cuts and bruises. Jace thought maybe he should have told his brother something, but he hadn’t volunteered the information, and Tyler hadn’t asked, opting instead for accusatory stares. The tension in the apartment had felt like static electricity building and building until their hair should have been standing on end. At ten, Tyler had gone off to bed without a word.
Jace tried to shrug off the feelings of guilt. He would never do anything to put his brother in harm’s way. That was the most important thing. Tyler’s fears and feelings had to come second to that. He practiced those lines in his head for when he would wake up his little brother to tell him he was leaving.
He packed quickly. A change of clothes and not much more stuffed into a backpack. He still didn’t have a plan, but he knew what he knew: He couldn’t stay here. Something would come to him, it always did. He’d been raised to think on the fly. He needed not to think of himself as prey being chased down by dogs. He needed to think from a position of strength.
He had what the killer wanted, and if it was worth killing for, then it had to be worth something to someone else too. Abby Lowell was the key to that answer. He didn’t believe she didn’t know what was going on; otherwise, why toss her apartment, why the warning on the mirror? Next You Die. It had to be meant to scare her into some action. What good would it be to threaten her if she didn’t know what was going on?
He would have to lure her out somehow. Get her to meet him on neutral ground, somewhere with plenty of escape routes, somewhere he could see trouble coming. He would tell her he had the negatives, ask her what they meant to her. Ask her what they were worth to her.
Jace wondered what she’d told the police. She’d mentioned a particular detective. What was his name? Parker. He wondered if that was the guy in the hat behind the Speed office. And he wondered what Parker knew, what he had put together, what Eta had told him.
He still didn’t want to believe Eta had betrayed him. He wanted to contact her, talk to her. He wanted to be reassured.
“You’re leaving.”
Tyler stood in the doorway to the bedroom, wearing his Spider- Man pajamas, his blond hair sticking up in all directions.
“You’re leaving and you weren’t even going to tell me.”
“That’s not true,” Jace said. “I wouldn’t leave without telling you.”
“You told me you wouldn’t leave at all.”
“I said I would always come back,” Jace corrected him. “I will.”
Tyler was shaking his head, his eyes filling. “You’re in trouble. You weren’t gonna tell me that either, but I know.”
“What do you know?”
“You treat me like a baby, like I’m stupid and can’t figure anything out for myself. Like . . . like—”
“What do you know?” Jace said again.
“You’re leaving. You could take me with you, but you’re not going to, and I don’t get to say anything about it because you don’t think I should ever know what’s going on!”
“We could too go,” Tyler argued. “We could go someplace nobody knows us, just like when Mom died.”
“It’s not that simple,” Jace said.
“’Cause you’re gonna go to jail?”
“What?” Jace dropped down on the futon. Tyler stood directly in front of him, his face tight with anger, a red flush mottling his pale skin.
“Don’t lie,” he said. “Don’t pretend you didn’t say it. I heard you say it.”
Jace didn’t bother to ask his brother if he’d been listening in on his conversation with Madame Chen. Obviously, he had, and Jace knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. Tyler was notorious for turning up in places he shouldn’t have been, and knowing things he shouldn’t have known.
“I’m not going to jail,” Jace said. “I said that to Madame Chen to scare her. She wants me to go to the cops or talk to a lawyer. I don’t want to do that, and I have to make sure she doesn’t do it for me.”
“So CFS doesn’t come and get me and put me in foster care.”
“That’s right, pal.” Jace put his hands on his little brother’s small shoulders. “I won’t risk you. I would never risk you. Do you understand that?”
Tears glistened in Tyler’s eyes as he nodded soberly.
“We look out for each other, right?”
“Then you should let me help you, but you won’t.”
Jace shook his head. “It’s complicated. I need to figure out what’s really going on.”
“Then you should let me help you,” Tyler insisted again. “I’m way smarter than you are.”
Jace laughed wearily and mussed his brother’s hair. “If this was about geometry or science, I’d come straight to you, Ty. But it’s not. This is a whole lot more serious.”
“Some man got killed,” Tyler said quietly.
“Yes.”
“What if you get killed too?”
“I won’t let that happen,” Jace said, knowing it was an empty promise. Tyler knew it too. Even so, Jace said, “I’ll always come back.”
One tear and then another skittered down his brother’s face. The expression in his eyes was far older than he was. A deep, deep sadness, made all the more poignant by the weary resignation of past experience. In that moment Jace thought Tyler’s soul must be a hundred years old or more, and that he had lived through one disappointment after the next.