Drawing Fire

by Janice Cantore

  “I would have given anything that day to run down the pukes who killed them. Puff and Puff More worked that case hard.” He used Russell and Cleaver’s nicknames. Abby had been told they were both four-pack-a-day smokers. It was lung cancer that had killed Cleaver.

  “For all those reasons I need to talk to Rollins,” she said. “I know he’s been asked, but the question still burns inside me: who hated my parents enough to try to obliterate everything about them? Maybe he can force the case back to the top of the pile.”

  Woody smiled without pleasure. “Just remember, be careful what you wish for.”

  After breakfast as Abby walked to her car, Bandit in tow, she let the anger she felt about Cora Murray simmer and boil into renewed anger about her folks. Abby had settled back into the driver’s seat when her phone rang.

  It was Sergeant Page from CCAT. “We got a line on Sporty and we’re getting ready to swoop. Wanna come?”

  “You bet,” Abby said as she started the engine.

  Page gave her the address where CCAT was staging, and she pressed the gas pedal, thinking of Cora Murray and her mom and dad as her back tires squealed out of the lot.

  LUKE TURNED OFF ATHERTON into the college parking lot and drove toward the building where the cable show was shot. For a college production, the show was extremely well run, professional, and watched by a large portion of the city. Luke had found the man he apprehended for human trafficking from a tip he received after an appearance on Good Morning Long Beach, and as a result three victimized young women were back home with their families. Today he planned to talk about Nadine and hopefully generate more tips, but before he even parked his truck, the activity in the lot surprised him. The kids who put the show together were out loading one of their mobile studio/film vans.

  He got out of the truck and searched for the grad student who oversaw production. It was a minute before he saw the thin, knobby-kneed Arvli Harris, bouncing around on his tiptoes supervising.

  “Hey, Arv, what’s going on? Aren’t we shooting today?”

  “Yo, dude.” Arvli slapped his forehead. “I meant to call you. No, man, we got a tip on some breaking news and we’re gonna try and get our cameras in on it.”

  “You guys don’t usually roll that way; it must be something big.”

  “You bet.” Arvli nodded enthusiastically, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Jay’s got a girlfriend works at the coroner’s office. The governor’s aunt was murdered last night! Can you believe it? The best governor the state’s ever had and his aunt gets whacked here in our city and we got the news first.”

  “What?” Luke froze as Arvli turned away to bark instructions to his crew.

  “We got the inside on this, dude. I’ll call and reschedule you when I can,” Arvli promised as he hurried to get into a truck that was backing out.

  Luke stepped out of the way so as not to be run over by the rapidly accelerating van and pulled out his phone.

  It couldn’t be, he thought as he punched his news feed app. There was nothing. Frustrated, he hit Refresh. What were the odds two women were murdered last night? Long Beach could be wild, but generally not that wild. Still nothing came up, and he realized that Arvli could indeed have the inside track on the murder of the governor’s aunt.

  A towering figure in California politics, Lowell Rollins was the odds-on favorite to be the next US senator from California. He was especially big in Long Beach, since this was where he kept a private residence and where he’d started his political career.

  If that poor old woman was his aunt, Luke knew that the governor would be headed to Long Beach. And he also knew, even with everything else on his plate, he had to find a way to try to talk to the big man.

  He was about to hit Refresh on the news feed again when his phone buzzed with an incoming call. The extension was Bill’s narcotics line, but this was early for him to already be at his desk.

  “Luke, you’re talking to the newest member of Long Beach homicide.”

  “Hey, congratulations! Is that why you’re at work so early?”

  “Yep. Yesterday Lieutenant Jacoby gave me my two weeks’ notice and then Deputy Chief Cox called early this morning to say I could start immediately because of a big case. I’m pumped. I want to get myself up to speed right away, so I’m here cleaning out my desk in narcotics.”

  Bill’s voice vibrated with excitement as he continued. “It’s fine with me to start now; this is my dream job. I’ve been looking over files, and I saw your name on her callout last night. Fill me in; what happened?”

  “I planned to tell you about it, just didn’t expect to be talking to a new homicide detective so soon. I was looking for Nadine and saw something else instead.” Luke told him about what he’d witnessed in the early morning hours.

  “You nearly caught a murderer—a serial killer, at that. That’s the big case that got me fast-tracked.”

  “Serial killer?”

  “Yep, same MO as another murder. What’d you think of Hart?”

  Luke struggled to get his mind off of serial killer and back to Abby Hart. “Professional.” Fascinating. “Definitely on top of things.” Can’t stop thinking about her.

  “That murder case is her priority case—ours now. I’m just waiting for the LT to tell her I made the cut before I go down there.”

  “Bill, can I ask the victim’s name?”

  “Uh, official notification hasn’t been made yet. Why do you want to know?”

  “Was she Rollins’s aunt?”

  Silence. Then, “How did you know that?”

  “Long story. You think he’ll come home from the capital for this?”

  “For the murder of his aunt? Probably. He’s a politician, and he wants to be a senator. He’ll get sympathy for sure.”

  “Maybe this is my chance to talk to him. You know, God opening a door.”

  “Whoa. Cart, horse. Let me review the official file. I’m in homicide now and I’m sure I’ll be able to go through the old, unsolved stuff. With luck, I’ll be able to answer your questions and you won’t have to bother the big man.”

  “I appreciate that, but you know I want to look him in the eye.”

  “At least wait until things calm down a bit. He doesn’t even know yet. Like I said—cart, horse. Be patient.”

  Luke said he’d try to wait before he did anything, but it was a halfhearted promise. He wanted to ask Governor Rollins about an unsolved homicide case, and he didn’t think he’d find the answer he wanted in the file. He needed to be face-to-face with the man and hear the answers for himself.

  Luke left the college for the hospital to see how Leslie was doing. The breaking news story about the murder of the governor’s aunt was on all the hospital televisions. Leslie even had it on in her room, and he had to chuckle when he saw Arvli and the crew jockeying for position in front of the police station.

  “Hey, boss.” Leslie smiled when she saw him and pointed at the screen. “Am I right in extrapolating that the killer was the guy we saw last night?”

  “Sure looks like it.”

  “I’m so sorry I slowed you down. You would have caught him.”

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. Detective Hart is smart and good at what she does; she’ll catch him.”

  “I just feel bad. And weak.”

  Luke shook his head. “Don’t. You’re a big help to me and I’ll miss you while you recuperate. Stuff happens. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How long will you be here?”

  “They’re letting me go today, but I think I’ll have a lot of PT to get through before I’m back 100 percent. They put three screws in my ankle.”

  “Well, you concentrate on getting better. Your job will be waiting for you when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks, Luke. Thanks.”

  Back home, Luke pulled up a story about the homicide on the computer. He read what was probably an official PD press release that gave only bare facts. After a few minutes he set the fresh homicide
story aside and turned toward the large whiteboard he kept in his office filled with the salient facts about the twenty-seven-year-old unsolved murder of his uncle and namesake Luke Goddard. He’d been eight years old when his uncle was killed and back then barely understood what had happened.

  Now thirty-five, after six years in the Army and several more as a seasoned private investigator, he understood all too well the evil that a person could do.

  Uncle Luke’s murder was another incident that fell into the hard blessing column in Luke’s life. Before that day, his mother had been a free spirit, a hippie. She never married Luke’s dad and floated from man to man, in and out of relationships, not all of them healthy. Vaguely he remembered a procession of fake “uncles.” His real uncle Luke had been a devout Christian, involved with a large church. So when he was murdered and the helpful, loving people from his church circled around the family, Grace found a place she wanted to be grounded to. She accepted Christ and began attending the church, and that was where she met James Murphy, the man Luke now called Dad. Sure, Luke would rather have his uncle, but he was eternally grateful for the change in his mom and for James.

  By the time he’d earned his PI license, his family was resigned to the fact that they’d probably never know who killed Uncle Luke and why. So Luke started his own file, talking unofficially and on the down low to everyone who knew his uncle, the people his uncle worked for, and anyone else who could give him background. The official investigation had concluded that his uncle’s employers were the targets, not his uncle, and Luke concurred. Trouble was, even as he built a file on them, he uncovered no hints about who was responsible for three deaths.

  Lowell Rollins was a central figure, but Luke had never had the opportunity to speak to him. Rollins had been the other half of the team who employed his uncle at the time of his death. But the politician’s career trajectory had taken him out of Luke’s reach. Twice when the governor was in the city campaigning, Luke had tried to connect but always got stonewalled by the governor’s campaign manager, Gavin Kent. “The governor is a busy man, and he doesn’t live in the past” was the standard rebuff.

  What a coincidence that he’d come so close to a murder with connections to the governor. The other odd coincidence today was Officer Robert Woods. Luke knew from the police report that Woods and his former partner were the ones to pull his uncle from the fire. They were on his talk-to list. In his sporadic attempts to work the cold case, Luke had concentrated on avenues he thought the investigators had missed—friends, neighbors, critics of the restaurant, etc. He’d never spoken to Woods or Asa Foster. He’d missed a big opportunity today because he was worried about Leslie. All he could do was pray he’d get another shot.

  With a sigh, Luke put his uncle’s file away and turned back to his current workload. Since that YouTube video of him had gone viral, he and his mother had fielded calls from all over the country and listened to many a tearful parent. His heart broke with all the pictures he’d received—young girls smiling, innocent, and nowhere to be found. Especially heartbreaking for Luke, because he understood the pain, were the cold cases, the cases that left family members with no closure. He wished with all his heart he could answer every plea and bring home every missing girl.

  But he couldn’t.

  He had to concentrate on the local issues, and Nadine Hoover was his most pressing at the moment.

  He’d called Glynnis Hoover to give her an update on Nadine just before he’d left for the college. The conversation had been difficult. The woman was worried sick about her daughter, and he had no new news to give her. Before he’d started walking the west side, he’d spent an hour with a juvenile detective brainstorming about where Nadine might be. It had been a helpful session, but he understood that in situations where kids Nadine’s age left home with no indication of foul play, there wasn’t a lot the police could do. They didn’t have the manpower to chase every kid who ran away from home. Nadine had sent her mother a text message saying she had money, she was fine, but she just wasn’t coming home.

  The disappearance and the message were so out of character for Nadine, Luke felt it sounded like someone else had sent it. He’d tried to ping the GPS in the phone, but Nadine had turned it off almost immediately after she sent the text.

  As uneasy as everything about the situation made him, he still held out hope that the girl would suddenly appear at home—broke, dirty, but none the worse for wear. He and Leslie had been walking the west side because of Destination X and because there were cheap hotels down there. A lot of runaways turned up in the area. Destination X in particular seemed to be a magnet for the lost and searching. When a kid Luke had taught in his martial arts class thought he’d seen her at a twenty-four-hour truck stop on PCH, two blocks from Destination X, Luke hoped to find her. He didn’t have the heart to tell Glynnis that where Nadine had been seen was a cesspool of drugs and vice. As it was, he’d told her he was still hopeful and he’d be going out again that night to look. They’d ended the call with him praying over her sobs.

  As Luke printed out more flyers, he prayed some more for Nadine, that God would keep her safe and bring her home to a mother and brother who loved her.

  ABBY MET with Sergeant Page a block south of the Willow Street Blue Line station. Commuters still streamed toward the station, but this time of the morning marked the tail end of the exodus. Abby glanced at her watch. The next northbound train was due in ten minutes and its departure would lessen the crowd even more.

  She pulled up opposite and adjacent to Page’s plain car in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. “Sporty taking a trip?”

  “One of my snitches told me Sporty sold him a watch, said he wanted to get out of town.” Page held up a gold watch in a plastic evidence bag. “I looked at the list; this is partial loss from the first murder.”

  Abby felt anticipation snapping like the crack of a whip. “Good obs. You think he’s headed for this station?”

  “He’s spooked, from what my snitch said, probably because he knows someone saw him hop out a window. We worked our way up from downtown; he couldn’t have gotten any further on foot. Sheriff is in the loop; they’re watching the platforms and the trains.”

  Abby bit her lip at this information. The Blue Line was the LA County Sheriff’s jurisdiction. She had nothing against them; she just wanted everything concerning her serial murder case to stay as local as possible, considering the governor’s connection.

  Sergeant Page continued. “Your homicide just hit big with the media, so if he is your guy, I imagine Sporty wants to be anywhere but here.”

  “What media?”

  “Don’t you have your radio on? KNX just broadcast info about the murder and are standing by for a reaction from the governor.”

  Abby’s pulse quickened. “How could they know already?” Before the words were out of her mouth, she knew. Murphy. Heat rose as anger at the audacity of the man spread through her veins like hot oil. Page brought her focus back to the task at hand: catch Lil’ Sporty first and then deal with the PI.

  “Davis has a bench warrant in the system, so it’s no problem hooking him up and taking him to the station for that. I’ve got Nelson keeping an eye on the north end. Freeman is on the east. I’ll hang here.” He pointed with his radio. “Why don’t you eyeball the west side? Sporty has to pop his head out of hiding if he’s getting on. We’re on channel six.”

  Abby struggled to get back in the right frame of mind. “I’m glad I wore my running shoes,” she said as she switched her handheld radio to channel six. Her gaze rested on Bandit. He was curled up on the passenger seat, sound asleep. She gave him a pat and focused her thoughts on the little burglar.

  She left the lot and turned west, driving a block to Twenty-Seventh Street and turning right. This was the back side of the stop and a likely direction for someone to head if they decided to try the next stop up the line on Wardlow.

  Abby had a feeling Davis would come this way. She felt it in her bones as s
he pulled to the curb and turned off the engine, eyes roaming, watching everyone within her line of sight, searching for a tell that would give the man way.

  Then she saw him.

  A diminutive figure appeared from around the corner of a building, walking rapidly her way, hunched over from the weight of a large backpack. Abby tensed. Lil’ Sporty Davis—there was no doubt about it. She undid her seat belt and turned the car off, then grabbed her handheld radio. She pulled the door handle but didn’t push it all the way open. Davis looked behind him and then crossed the street almost directly in front of her car.

  Abby held her breath. He turned her way, and panic flashed across his face like neon.

  She rocketed out of the car. “Police! Davis, I just want to talk to you.”

  He jumped and fled right.

  “I’ve got him, Twenty-Seventh east of Pacific heading east!” Abby breathed into her handheld as she raced after him.

  He hit the first fence he came to and was up and over in a second. Abby followed, scaling the fence with ease and hoping the backpack would slow the little man down.

  Train bells and the hum of an approaching engine factored into the chase. Abby’s adrenaline surged.

  She lunged for her suspect, but he cut right toward the tracks, accelerating fast. As she stumbled to adjust her own gait, Murphy’s words came back to her: “I’ve never seen a girl who could move that fast. . . .”

  The thought of showing up the sexist PI gave her a rush of energy, and she redoubled her effort to reach Sporty as he neared the tracks. Abby could hear the rumble of the Blue Line.

  Her heart pounded as fear replaced the prey drive when she realized where Lil’ Sporty was going. He’s going to try to cross the tracks before the train hits the platform. The train would be slowing for the stop but could never stop on a dime to avoid someone on the tracks.