by P. J. Tracy
Sam stared at a picture of Katy from a newsfeed. “Yes, that’s her.”
“Katy Villa. The mayor’s daughter. She was killed in a hit-and-run on San Vicente at eleven-thirty this morning. Right around the time you said you were jogging.”
Sam thought about all the flashing emergency lights he’d seen when he’d regained consciousness and felt his throat close up. He barely registered Dr. Frolich talking about a follow-up neurology consult.
“Sam? Sam?” she was saying.
“Sorry. So … are premonitions a side effect of the new drug? Because I didn’t see that on the accompanying list of horrors when I filled my prescription.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It wasn’t a premonition, Sam, and I don’t think it’s related to the drug. There are a lot of variables, and at this point I won’t rule out a pharmacological or psychological component, but my guess is you experienced a new neurological phenomenon of some kind.”
“Like an enhanced hallucination, something like that?”
“You’ve described similar episodes in the past, blackouts and brief hallucinations with colors and shapes, something like synesthesia. Seeing a word is a derivative of that. I’m going to speak with Dr. Guzman and I’d like you to see him as soon as possible.”
“But I didn’t see the accident, I’m sure of that. When I came to, I was still under the coral tree. I saw emergency lights in the distance, but I wasn’t there. I was never there, so the hallucination was kind of a massive coincidence, don’t you think?”
“You have no memory of being there.”
Just like you have no memory of getting your gun and going to the front porch. You’re mobile and functioning when you’re blacked out, which should really scare the shit out of you. You’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.
That inescapable conclusion summoned a spirit-crushing despondency that didn’t go unnoticed by Dr. Frolich.
“There are multiple explanations for this event, Sam, and I want to cover it in every way so we can find out what’s behind it.”
And fix it. That was the express implication in all discussions with medical professionals about troubling symptoms or tragic test results. His plastic surgeons had inferred the same thing, but in the end even they would have to admit defeat. And what if his brain was like his face? Something that couldn’t be repaired?
“Can you lay out one of these multiple explanations? Because right now, I’m just seeing two. Either my brain is scrambled beyond salvation or my psyche is an unmitigated disaster. Wait, I’m seeing three—I’m suddenly psychic.”
“I can’t speak to the neurological possibilities, but from a psychiatric point of view it’s quite simple. Katy noticed that you were in distress. She was empathetic and asked you if you were feeling all right. You two connected in some small way. During the time you were blacked out, you heard the sirens and either went to the scene or learned of the accident from someone else. This prompted your subconscious to craft a false memory of a hallucination to go with the tragic storyline because you liked her.”
“Why the hell would my subconscious do that?”
“Because you’re allowing it to punish you. If you had foreknowledge of her death and did nothing to stop it, that makes you culpable. You think you’ve failed before, back in Afghanistan. You’re living survivor’s guilt over and over again, and with survivor’s guilt comes fixation on death and what you should have done to stop it. Neurological aspects could be an exacerbating factor or a symptom.”
“So I’m a total wreck in all ways, but I’m not psychic? I’m looking for a new career, you know.”
“I wish there was the possibility of being psychic, but I’m afraid we all have to trudge through each day, not knowing what to expect.”
“I guess you’re absolutely right about that, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed up for a second tour.”
“Sam, in your dreams, you mention a voice.”
What did you see? What do you remember?
“Right. My subconscious is trying to torture me and apparently finding new ways all the time. I believe you mentioned internal conflict resolution.”
“In PTSD, it’s not unusual to feel like you have unfinished business. Many patients even rewrite events to serve that narrative and we don’t want you to go there. It would be a setback.”
“Setback? You mean it could get worse from here?”
She ignored his question, which he didn’t take as a positive sign. “Has anything about the voice changed?”
“No. Well, yes, kind of. I’m hearing a child now.”
“Saying something?”
Sam shook his head and looked down. “Screaming.”
“It could be a repressed memory or it could be a fabrication, a false narrative, as I just mentioned. At this point, I encourage you not to attach significance to these things. Real or imagined, they are part of a nightmare. Have you been able to remember anything new about that day?”
“I remember too much about the blast, but nothing that happened before it, not for several days. And nothing after it, until I was at Walter Reed. Will this ever go away, Dr. Frolich?”
“That’s what we’re working on, and you’re making some progress, Sam, don’t be discouraged. This is a long journey.” She steepled her fingers and gazed out the window. “There is some new research on the effects of high explosive blast waves on the brain. They’ve found a previously unidentified injury pattern, something they don’t see in victims of other traumatic brain injuries such as repeated concussions or car accidents. I’ll discuss it with Dr. Guzman when I set up your neuro consult.”
“And it can cause symptoms like mine?”
“The research is in the very early stages, but perhaps there are some palliative approaches they’re considering.”
“Maybe Dr. Guzman can send the researchers my MRIs and I can sign up for a trial or something.”
She shook her head. “No, Sam. This isn’t something they found with MRIs. They discovered it examining thin slices of brain tissue under a special microscope that’s a thousand times more powerful than an MRI.”
“So I’d have to be dead before they could find a way to help me.”
Apparently, the circle of irony and the absurd hadn’t been closed after all.
Chapter Seventeen
CONSEULA ORTIZ LET HERSELF INTO THE apartment and frowned. All the shades were open and that wasn’t right. Señor Gallagher always closed them before he went to work. There was also a faint scent of trash that hadn’t been taken out. Maybe he was home sick today. Or out of town again and had forgotten or hadn’t had time to close the shades or take out the trash.
She set down her cleaning caddies and took a few steps inside, then shut the door and looked around. “Señor? Señor Gallagher, you home?”
No answer.
“Señor?”
Out of town, she decided, then got to work tidying the kitchen. There really wasn’t much to do—the sinks were empty and still polished from her visit last week, the granite countertops dust-free and uncluttered. The only things in the dishwasher were two dirty wine glasses; maybe he’d had a date. Señor Gallagher had money and he was good-looking, too. He probably got a lot of dates.
Two glasses were certainly not enough to run a load, so she washed and dried them by hand, then carefully slid them into place in the rack above the center island where dozens of other wine glasses of different shapes and sizes hung. Who needed so many glasses? Especially somebody who was never home.
The kitchen trash was empty and didn’t seem to be the source of the off-smell, but she sprayed disinfectant in it for good measure. Sometimes rotting fruit or vegetables or meat juices seeped through the liner and got into the bin. Nothing a good bleach and scour wouldn’t take care of if it came to that.
Satisfied with the kitchen, she went through the apartment room by room, dusting and polishing and vacuuming. The powder room was as tidy as the rest of the apartment, except for a vial of co
caine sitting on the vanity. Maybe that’s why Americans called them powder rooms, she chuckled to herself, pleased that her English was getting good enough to make jokes.
It wasn’t the first time Señor Gallagher had forgotten to put away his drugs, but at least he never left used condoms on his bedside table, and for that she was grateful. Some people left embarrassing messes to clean, messes that made her blush or made her sick to her stomach. And she’d caught people in … situations. But they didn’t care what she saw or what she thought. She was as good as invisible, no more important than a picture hanging on the wall. Much less important than some pictures hanging in the houses she cleaned, she was sure.
But she was discreet, which was why she had a salary and a nice place to live with enough free time to take on other good-paying clients who valued her silence. No matter how loco they were, she kept her head down, didn’t touch anything that shouldn’t be touched, and did the job she was paid to do.
The guest room hadn’t ever been slept in as far as she could tell, so she left the bed made, dusted, then walked down the hall to his office. The door was open just a crack. She paused, thought about knocking, and then it hit her nose. That smell. Trash that hadn’t been taken out.
She fingered the cross around her neck, pushed open the door, and started screaming.
* * *
Nolan and Crawford stood over the body of Ryan Gallagher, laying faceup on the floor of his home office, lodged between a Herman Miller chair and a chrome and glass desk. One flat, sightless eye was fixed on the ceiling, the other obliterated by a close-range bullet. There wasn’t much blood. Small caliber, minimal gore; the slug probably hadn’t made it out of his skull. His nose was pulped and it wasn’t from the gunshot.
“He pissed off the wrong guy,” Crawford commented. “Argument, broken nose, the gun comes out and Gallagher’s dead. Someone had to have heard something. Even if he got shot with a silenced .22, that still makes some noise. So does an argument.”
“Not enough noise. He’s been dead a while and nobody called it in. If you live anywhere central in this city, you stop hearing things.” Nolan knew this from her own experience living in loud, scruffy Echo Park. Even as a cop, she’d learned to block out the voices raised in anger and the pops that might be the discharge of a weapon. More often than not, the arguments didn’t go anywhere, and the pops were either vehicular backfire or asshole kids with cherry bombs or Black Cats.
She looked around the tidy, organized office. No cameras, but not a big surprise. This was a high-dollar security building where most people owned their units. There was a gate and a guard and if you got past those obstacles, there was a twenty-four-hour desk attended by another guard. The guest log, the guards, and the lobby cameras might tell them everything they needed to know, at least if the killer had been stupid enough to run the security gauntlet as a registered guest. Highly unlikely.
On the walls, there were framed posters of bands and several photos of the deceased in a tuxedo on a red carpet somewhere, looking chummy with rockers she didn’t recognize, and old men, also in tuxedoes—the widely varied fauna omnipresent at all award ceremonies. “His phone and computer are still here. No signs of robbery, struggle, or B and E. He knew his killer.”
Crawford tipped his head and nodded. “Seems to me he knew his killer well enough that he or she had a key. The housekeeper said the deadbolt was locked when she arrived, and the only way you can engage one of those is either from inside or from the outside with a key. Gallagher sure as hell didn’t lock it, and the killer sure as hell didn’t jump out a fourteenth-floor window.”
“They could have stolen his keys.”
Crawford slipped on gloves, patted down the corpse, and withdrew a loaded BMW key chain from the pocket of his cargo shorts. “Nope.”
Nolan sighed. “If the killer came with a silenced weapon, it was premeditated.”
“Maybe a music industry beef. Not to sound cynical about the entertainment biz, but in the photos he’s wearing a tux, so he’s an exec, which means he’s probably screwed a lot of people over.”
“I wouldn’t give somebody I’d screwed over the key to my apartment.”
“Girlfriend could make sense. Sometimes guys are too dense to know they’ve screwed over their girlfriends.” Crawford gestured to the brown vial filled with powder that sat on the glass desktop. “Or maybe he just had some unpaid bills.”
“I wouldn’t give a drug dealer a key to my apartment, either.”
“Girlfriend or relative makes the most sense. The housekeeper has a key, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say she didn’t do it. We’ve got another problem, Mags. She cleaned most of the place before she got to the office and found him. She could have vacuumed up a shitload of evidence.”
“We’ve got the bag.”
“Crime Scene’s going to love that.”
“They’ve dealt with worse.”
“I know they have, but they’re going to throw an epic tantrum and so is the lab. Take my advice. Drop it off, turn, and run like hell, especially if you see Sweet Genevieve. They’ll get the job done, but they won’t ever forget it.”
“Then I’ll let you drop it off.”
“Sorry, sweet pea, but you’re on your own. Continuing education and all that. You won’t be a real detective until you piss off the lab.”
Nolan gave the body wide berth and walked to the other side of the desk where there was a thin stack of papers. It was a collection of bills, contracts, and what appeared to be gig lists with cities and dates. And at the bottom, a complaint and summons. “He was being sued.”
Crawford scratched at a missed patch of whiskers on his jaw. “Huh. If this guy was the one doing the suing, we’d have a slam dunk.”
Chapter Eighteen
CONSUELA ORTIZ WAS STILL WEEPING AT the dining room table, attended by a young female uniform who awkwardly stood beside her uttering occasional words of consolation in Spanish.
Nolan sat down across from her. “Ms. Ortiz, do you think you could answer some more questions?”
She blotted her eyes and nodded.
“Are you absolutely positive the door and deadbolt were locked when you arrived today?”
“Yes, absolutely positive.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you were cleaning, maybe things missing or out of place, disturbed?”
“No, ma’am. Señor Gallagher, very neat. Today it was very neat like always. Everything looked normal, except the shades weren’t down.”
“The window shades?”
“Si. He always puts them down when he leave. But he didn’t leave today…” Fresh tears started dribbling down her cheeks and she crossed herself.
“Was it unusual that he didn’t leave today?”
“I guess so, I never see him. I only met him once, when he interviewed me.”
“And he gave you a key at that time?”
“Si.”
“Could anybody have taken your key?”
She looked puzzled. “No, I have it, I use it today.”
“I mean in the past. Could somebody have taken it at some point and made a copy?”
Her puzzlement transformed to incredulity. “No, never, ma’am! My keys, all very important, my clients, they trust me with them.”
Nolan understood. Her story was one of thousands like it in the city, invisible people entrusted with keys to literal kingdoms in some cases. A big part of their jobs was keeping them safe. It wasn’t a burden she’d ever want to take on. “How long have you been cleaning for Mr. Gallagher?”
“A year, I think.”
“Have you ever encountered any of his friends or associates during that time? Maybe they showed up here while you were cleaning?”
“No ma’am, I never see anyone.”
“Was there any sign that he’d had a visitor? A guest?”
Her eyes drifted toward the kitchen and she nodded. “Wine glasses. Two, in the dishwasher.”
“Are t
hey still there?”
“No, ma’am, it wasn’t enough to run a load. I washed them by hand and put away.”
Nolan looked up at Crawford. More evidence potentially destroyed if Consuela Ortiz was as diligent as she seemed to be. “Would you show me where?”
She sniffled and rose from her chair, pointing to two sparkling glasses hanging from the ceiling-mounted lattice. Nolan felt a sting of disappointment. Any DNA they may have held was down the drain and polished away. “Thank you, Ms. Ortiz.”
She started to wring her hands in distress. “I have another job, can I go now?”
“Please write down your contact information first, then you’re free to go.”
And then came the next steps: the canvass, the interviews, the forensic disassembling of somebody’s life after death as you tried to figure out who might have wanted them dead and why. Sometimes things were obvious, sometimes they weren’t. It was a puzzle to be put together piece by piece. Nolan relished the work but hated the disappointment of finding some banal reason for a death, which was what usually happened. Ryan Gallagher had pissed somebody off and got shot because of it. Most murders ended up being sorry, prosaic events; but they mattered, every single one of them.
Chapter Nineteen
SAM HAD A DISMAL REVELATION AS he walked down Wilshire Boulevard toward Pearl Club. Life didn’t offer a predetermined depth to which you could sink before you started floating back up to the top. As long as you were still breathing, you could hit basement level and the elevator might still keep going down. You could suffer interminably and then suffer some more.
Death, on the other hand, was the definitive last stop, and in spite of everything, he was one lucky son of a bitch. Fucked up beyond any repair, all recognition, maybe—FUBAR, as they said in the military—but lucky. His men hadn’t lived to suffer or to thrive and neither had Katy. He had to remember that.
His initial instinct was to try to scour his mind of Katy because there simply wasn’t enough room for another ghost. But maybe the ghosts were what would keep him company now that he was alone. It was a disturbing thought but one that was also oddly consoling. Maybe if he made friends with the ghosts, they’d stop tormenting him.